Thought this was amusing and wanted to share Don't know which thread was talking about the autopen, so putting this here
GOP Rep. Leading Biden Autopen Investigation Caught Using Digital Signature Ryan Grenoble Tue, July 15, 2025 at 4:18 PM EDT 2 min read
GOP Rep. Leading Biden Autopen Investigation Caught Using Digital Signature The lead investigator in the conspiracy-driven effort to discredit Joe Biden’s presidency — because Biden occasionally used an autopen to sign documents — uses a digital signature himself.
An NBC investigation found Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who oversees the House Oversight Committee, had staffers digitally sign legal documents on his behalf.
Ironically, the documents in question were all letters or subpoenas sent in pursuit of Comer’s investigation into Biden for seemingly engaging in the same behavior.
Sixteen letters bearing Comer’s signature were sent to Biden White House officials requesting transcribed interviews. In all 16 cases, Comer’s signature was digitally inserted, and the metadata shows an oversight committee staffer actually authored the documents.
Comer also “signed” cover letters for two subpoenas, which forced former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and former Jill Biden aide Anthony Bernal to appear before the committee.
(Dr. O’Connor sat for the committee last week but refused to answer any questions, citing doctor-client privilege and his Fifth Amendment rights.)
Comer’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.
The Oversight Committee did, however, respond to NBC reporter Ryan Nobles on X, where they didn’t dispute the report ― but did poorly photoshop the Capitol Hill correspondent into clown makeup:
Comer himself also attacked Nobles on social media, telling him, “There’s still time to delete this.”
In a longer response, a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee also told NBC that comparing Comer’s digital signature to Biden’s legally binding autopen is “absurd and misleading” and that “using digital signatures for official correspondence is common practice for both Republicans and Democrats.”
Speaking of hilarious or sad as some may see it, this is exactly what a habitual liar looks like. Someone, who for no actual reason just makes up lies......................
Fact check: Trump tells fictional story about his uncle and the Unabomber
President Donald Trump likes to boast about the brilliance of his late uncle John Trump, who spent decades as a professor of electrical engineering at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). And when speaking about all manner of subjects, the president likes to make up stories filled with dramatic but fictional details.
On Tuesday, Trump conjured an especially odd imaginary tale – that linked his uncle with the late terrorist Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber.
Trump was speaking at a Pennsylvania event about energy and innovation when he said he had to “brag just for a second” about his uncle’s intelligence. After wrongly saying his uncle was “the longest-serving professor in the history of MIT” (he was one of the longest-serving but not the very longest) and wrongly saying his uncle’s three university degrees were “in nuclear, chemical, and math” (two were in electrical engineering and one was in physics), the president claimed, “Kaczynski was one of his students.”
He went on to tell a story about having asked his uncle about what Kaczynski was like. “‘I said, ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John?’ Dr. John Trump. I said, ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said, ‘Seriously, good.’ He said, ‘He’d correct – he’d go around correcting everybody.’ But it didn’t work out too well for him.”
For two big reasons, this story could not possibly be accurate.
First, the president’s uncle died in 1985. Kaczynski was publicly revealed as the Unabomber more than a decade later, in 1996, when he was captured; before that, he had lived as a recluse in the Montana wilderness. There is no apparent reason that Donald Trump would have been asking anyone about Kaczynski in 1985 or earlier.
Second, Kaczynski attended Harvard University and the University of Michigan, not MIT. An MIT spokesperson said in a Wednesday email: “We have no enrollment record or information that Ted Kaczynski ever attended MIT.”
Harvard has long allowed some students to register for classes at nearby MIT, but media outlets and MIT itself have found no sign that Kaczynski ever did that during his time at Harvard in the late 1950s and early 1960s – much less that Kaczynski, a Harvard mathematics major, studied under Trump, the MIT professor of electrical engineering. MIT reported on its website in 1996 that Kaczynski’s high school guidance counselor said Kaczynski had been offered admission to MIT in the 1950s but had chosen Harvard instead.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president’s tale.
What the president could have accurately said is that his uncle was an esteemed MIT professor. The MIT spokesperson said Wednesday that John Trump “remains among the longest-serving professors in our history and was a highly valued member of the MIT community throughout his tenure as a researcher, innovator, entrepreneur, teacher, and colleague.”
Some seem to claim that we on the left leaning side go around "blaming trump for everything". That's what people say when they can't honestly defend what trump says and instead try to pin the onus in our direction. When in fact he does and says stupid BS and makes up this kind of crap on a regular basis that never gets posted about. In the grand scheme of things this isn't important. It's just a reminder to those who still support him as to who he really is.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
US officials open investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith
Trump and his cronies are so willing to use government apparatus to Persecute anyone who has stood against him. That there's even some trumptards that would support this and try and justify it.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
US officials open investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith
Trump and his cronies are so willing to use government apparatus to Persecute anyone who has stood against him. That there's even some trumptards that would support this and try and justify it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Opening up this case would eventually require the stuff Smith has on Trump to be revealed... PUBLICALLY
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Trump Official Caught in Bombshell January 6 Tape Urging Cop Murder Malcolm Ferguson Thu, August 7, 2025 at 12:13 PM EDT
NPR has obtained police bodycam footage of Trump Justice Department official Jared Wise calling on January 6 rioters to kill police officers.
“You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,” Wise can be seen and heard saying on the footage. “I’m former law enforcement, you’re disgusting. You are the Nazi, you are the Gestapo, you can’t see it, cuz you’re chasing your pension.”
“Yeah! [censored] them, yeah! Kill ’em, yeah!” he later cheers as rioters push their way forward.
Wise’s incendiary statements, which he admitted to under oath in January, first made headlines in July after he was appointed senior counselor to Ed Martin, who was working to help January 6 rioters fight against “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.”
Wise defended his speech as a heat of the moment action influenced by what he saw as “police brutality” on the part of the Capitol officers.
“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” he said in court. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”
Wise worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 before moving on to the far-right propaganda machine Project Veritas, where he infiltrated teachers’ unions across the Midwest. Wise was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanor counts in 2023, including trespassing and disrupting the orderly conduct of government, for his actions on January 6. All of his charges (and the charges of hundreds of other rioters) were dropped by Trump.
Wise’s pardoning and senior appointment show that Trump truly sees no wrong in what happened on January 6, and he won’t even pretend to. Rather than display any level of accountability, he rewards and uplifts those, like Wise, who called for violence against police and against the country in his name.
It's interesting somehow in MAGA world - saying "I'm a proud Gueatamalean and and American 1st" - or whatever version of that speech you want to believe - is somehow much worse than calling for the death of law enforcement. Fact.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Hegseth reposts video on social media featuring pastors saying women shouldn't be allowed to vote The man who oversees the nation’s military has reposted a video on X, formerly Twitter, about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote and should “submit” to their husbands
ByKONSTANTIN TOROPIN Associated Press August 8, 2025, 6:16 PM
1:40 National headlines from ABC NewsCatch up on the developing stories making headlines. WASHINGTON -- The man who oversees the nation's military reposted a video about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote.
The extraordinary repost on X from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, made Thursday night, illustrates his deep and personal connection to a Christian nationalist pastor with extreme views on the role of religion and women.
In the post, Hegseth commented on an almost seven-minute-long report by CNN examining Doug Wilson, cofounder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC. The report featured a pastor from Wilson's church advocating the repeal of women’s right to vote from the Constitution, and another pastor saying that in his ideal world, people would vote as households. It also featured a female congregant saying that she submits to her husband.
“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth wrote in his post that accompanied the video.
Hegseth’s post received more than 12,000 likes and 2,000 shares on X. Some users agreed with the pastors in the video, while others expressed alarm at the defense secretary promoting Christian nationalist ideas.
Doug Pagitt, pastor and executive director of the progressive evangelical organization Vote Common Good, said the ideas in the video are views that “small fringes of Christians keep” and said it was “very disturbing” that Hegseth would amplify them.
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell told The Associated Press on Friday that Hegseth is “a proud member of a church” that is affiliated with CREC and he “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”
In May, Hegseth invited his personal pastor, Brooks Potteiger, to the Pentagon to lead the first of several Christian prayer services that Hegseth has held inside the government building during working hours. Defense Department employees and service members said they received invitations to the event in their government emails.
“I’d like to see the nation be a Christian nation, and I’d like to see the world be a Christian world,” Wilson said in the CNN report.
___
AP journalists Mike Pesoli in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
Maybe stopping women from voting is something they think will MAGA. Maybe they can advocate that women should be in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant during their next campaign cycle.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
A July 2025 survey found that 47% of Republican voters said they'd still support U.S. President Donald Trump even if he were officially implicated in the late Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes.
Rating:
Rating: True
Context:
The question asked of around 1,000 American voters was: "If Donald Trump was officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking activities, would this make you more likely to vote for another party, or would it not affect your vote for Donald Trump?" Forty-seven percent of Republican respondents said such a revelation would not affect their vote, though based on other polling data this appears to reflect voter loyalty more than approval of the alleged actions.
In early August 2025, a claim circulated on social media that 47% of Republican voters said they would not change their support for U.S. President Donald Trump even if he were officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes.
Trump's past association with the late sex offender has long fueled speculation, though no formal charges have linked Trump to Epstein's criminal activities. In early July 2025, the Department of Justice shared a memo stating that its review found no incriminating "client list" and no credible evidence that Epstein had blackmailed prominent people.
One TikTok post (archived) on the topic had a caption reading, "47% of Republican voters said they'd still support Trump even if he were officially implicated in Epstein's sex crimes WHAT THE F***?"
(TikTok user @nowthisimpact)
The claim also spread on social media platforms including Facebook, X, Reddit and Instagram.
In short, the claim was true: A survey conducted in late July 2025 found that 47% of Republican voters said Trump being implicated in Epstein's criminal activities would not affect their vote. While some viral posts framed this as proof of continued support, the poll specifically asked whether the allegation would influence Republicans' voting behavior — not whether respondents condoned the alleged actions.
Source of the statistics
The statistic came from a poll the Canadian market research company Leger conducted in partnership with the media companies 338Canada and Maintenant Media between July 25 and 27, 2025. It was published on July 30. The survey explored the attitudes of a representative sample of around a thousand American voters on several topics, including the potential political fallout if Trump were officially implicated in Epstein's sex trafficking activities.
One question, labeled Q10, asked:
If Donald Trump was officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking activities, would this make you more likely to vote for another party, or would it not affect your vote for Donald Trump?
Base: Republican voters (n=322)
The question was asked only of respondents who identified as Republican voters, making up a subset of the full sample. According to the poll, 47% of Republican voters said Trump being implicated would not affect their vote. Meanwhile, 27% said they'd be more likely to vote for another party and 26% were unsure or preferred not to answer.
(leger360.com)
A side note in the report added, "Among those who say they would vote for the Republican candidate in 2028, 23% report they would be more likely to vote for another party if Donald Trump were officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's activities."
The survey revealed additional insights by region, age and gender. For instance, Republicans age 18-34 were the most likely to say they would vote for another party if Trump were implicated (61%), and older Republicans (55+) were the least likely to be swayed, with 58% saying it wouldn't affect their vote. Additionally, male respondents were more likely than female respondents to say it would not affect their vote (55% vs. 38%).
Other surveys on Republican voters' views regarding Trump and the Epstein case show notable division and skepticism among party supporters. Advertisement
For instance, a mid-July 2025 Quinnipiac University poll found Republicans split on Trump's handling of the Epstein files — 40% approved, 36% disapproved and 24% remained undecided. Overall, 63% of all voters disapproved of how the Trump administration managed the Epstein case.
An Economist/YouGov poll found 45% of Republican voters approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein investigation, with 25% disapproving. Despite this division, surveys have shown that many Republican voters strongly desire transparency. According to the same poll, the vast majority of Americans (89% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans) believed that the government should release all documents it has about the Epstein case. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that among Republicans, 35% approved of Trump's handling of the case, compared to 29% who disapproved and the rest who said they weren't sure or didn't answer the question.
All in all, the claim that 47% of Republican voters said they would still support Trump if he were implicated in the Epstein case was accurate — but it reflected voter loyalty more than approval of the alleged actions. Other polls showed Republicans were divided on Trump's handling of the case and broadly supported full disclosure of the so-called Epstein files.
Other Epstein-related rumors we've investigated include a claim that Trump once said, "I never had the privilege of going to his island" and a 2002 photo allegedly showing 22-year-old Chauntae Davies, an accuser of Epstein, giving former President Bill Clinton a shoulder massage.
Sources:
63% Of Voters Disapprove Of The Trump Administration's Handling Of The Jeffrey Epstein Files, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Nearly Half Of Voters Would Consider Joining A Third Party, Just Not One Created By Elon Musk | Quinnipiac University Poll. 16 Jul. 2025, https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3928.
As I scroll through FB I see what appears to be some crazy things posted by both the right and the left. Sometimes I fact check them because there's no way I think it could possibly be true. And quite often I'm right about that. Some of these posts just seem too bizarre to be true. This one such example. I thought it was just some far left wing BS.
Man was I surprised by what I found.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Failed New Mexico candidate gets 80 years for convictions in shootings at officials’ homes
Albuquerque, New Mexico AP —
A failed political candidate was sentenced to 80 years in federal prison Wednesday for his convictions in a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of state and local lawmakers in Albuquerque in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
A jury convicted former Republican candidate Solomon Peña earlier this year of conspiracy, weapons and other charges in the shootings in December 2022 and January 2023 on the homes of four Democratic officials, including the current state House speaker.
Prosecutors, who had sought a 90-year sentence, said Peña has shown no remorse and had hoped to cause political change by terrorizing people who held contrary views to him into being too afraid to take part in political life.
Peña’s lawyers had sought a five-year sentence, saying their client maintains that he is innocent of the charges. They have said Peña was not involved in the shootings and that prosecutors were relying on the testimony of two men who bear responsibility and accepted plea agreements in exchange for leniency.
“Today was a necessary step toward Mr. Peña’s continued fight to prove his innocence,” said Nicholas Hart, one of Peña’s attorneys. “He looks forward to the opportunity to appeal, where serious issues about the propriety of this prosecution will be addressed.”
The attacks took place as threats and acts of intimidation against election workers and public officials surged across the country after President Donald Trump and his allies called into question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors said Peña resorted to violence in the belief that a “rigged” election had robbed him of victory in his bid to serve in the state Legislature.
The shootings targeted the homes of officials including two county commissioners after their certification of the 2022 election, in which Peña lost by nearly 50 percentage points. No one was injured, but in one case bullets passed through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.
Two other men who had acknowledged helping Peña with the attacks had previously pleaded guilty to federal charges and received yearslong prison sentences.
Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling
Kim Davis, a former clerk who refused gay couples, brought the appeal.
Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision.
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.
In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.
More fundamentally, she claims the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges -- extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment's due process protections -- was "egregiously wrong."
"The mistake must be corrected," wrote Davis' attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Obergefell "legal fiction."
The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.
"If there ever was a case of exceptional importance," Staver wrote, "the first individual in the Republic's history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it."
Lower courts have dismissed Davis' claims and most legal experts consider her bid a long shot. A federal appeals court panel concluded earlier this year that the former clerk "cannot raise the First Amendment as a defense because she is being held liable for state action, which the First Amendment does not protect."
Davis, as the Rowan County Clerk in 2015, was the sole authority tasked with issuing marriage licenses on behalf of the government under state law.
"Not a single judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis's rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis's arguments do not merit further attention," said William Powell, attorney for David Ermold and David Moore, the now-married Kentucky couple that sued Davis for damages, in a statement to ABC News.
A renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent
Davis' appeal to the Supreme Court comes as conservative opponents of marriage rights for same-sex couples pursue a renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent and allow each state to set its own policy.
At the time Obergefell was decided in 2015, 35 states had statutory or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only eight states had enacted laws explicitly allowing the unions.
So far in 2025, at least nine states have either introduced legislation aimed at blocking new marriage licenses for LGBTQ people or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell at the earliest opportunity, according to the advocacy group Lambda Legal.
In June, the Southern Baptist Convention -- the nation's largest Protestant Christian denomination -- overwhelmingly voted to make "overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God's design for marriage and family" a top priority.
Support for equal marriage rights softening
While a strong majority of Americans favor equal marriage rights, support appears to have softened in recent years, according to Gallup -- 60% of Americans supported same-sex marriages in 2015, rising to 70% support in 2025, but that level has plateaued since 2020.
Among Republicans, support has notably dipped over the past decade, down from 55% in 2021 to 41% this year, Gallup found.
Davis' petition argues the issue of marriage should be treated the same way the court handled the issue of abortion in its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She zeroes in on Justice Clarence Thomas' concurrence in that case, in which he explicitly called for revisiting Obergefell.
The justices "should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell," Thomas wrote at the time, referring to the landmark decisions dealing with a fundamental right to privacy, due process and equal protection rights.
"It is hard to say where things will go, but this will be a long slog considering how popular same-sex marriage is now," said Josh Blackman, a prominent conservative constitutional scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law.
Blackman predicts many members of the Supreme Court's conservative majority would want prospective challenges to Obergefell to percolate in lower courts before revisiting the debate.
The court is expected to formally consider Davis' petition this fall during a private conference when the justices discuss which cases to add to their docket. If the case is accepted, it would likely be scheduled for oral argument next spring and decided by the end of June 2026. The court could also decline the case, allowing a lower court ruling to stand and avoid entirely the request to revisit Obergefell.
"Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett seem wildly uninterested. Maybe Justice Neil Gorsuch, too," said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News legal analyst and host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions.
"There is no world in which the court takes the case as a straight gay marriage case," Isgur added. "It would have to come up as a lower court holding that Obergefell binds judges to accept some other kind of non-traditional marital arrangement."
Ruling wouldn't invalidate existing marriages
If the ruling were to be overturned at some point in the future, it would not invalidate marriages already performed, legal experts have pointed out. The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and all states to recognize legal marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed in any state -- even if there is a future change in the law.
Davis first appealed the Supreme Court in 2019 seeking to have the damages suit against her tossed out, but her petition was rejected. Conservative Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito concurred with the decision at the time.
"This petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them," Thomas wrote in a statement.
Many LGBTQ advocates say they are apprehensive about the shifting legal and political landscape around marriage rights.
There are an estimated 823,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S., including 591,000 that wed after the Supreme Court decision in June 2015, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School. Nearly one in five of those married couples is parenting a child under 18.
Since the Obergefell decision, the makeup of the Supreme Court has shifted rightward, now including three appointees of President Donald Trump and a 6-justice conservative supermajority.
Chief Justice John Roberts, among the current members of the court who dissented in Obergefell a decade ago, sharply criticized the ruling at the time as "an act of will, not legal judgment" with "no basis in the Constitution." He also warned then that it "creates serious questions about religious liberty."
Davis invoked Roberts' words in her petition to the high court, hopeful that at least four justices will vote to accept her case and hear arguments next year.
Who didn't see this coming? We warned people this was going to happen. They said that it wouldn't.
The same people when they were warned that medicaid would be on that list they said that wouldn't happen too. The same people that when warned they may even come after food assistence for the poor said that would never happen too.
Keep your lists handy. There is going to be plenty more on that list of things you said "they would never do" that they are going be doing soon.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
70%, even as a plateau, is significant. I have a hunch that SCOTUS will deny cert, but I don’t know for sure.
If it’s overturned, that would be highly unpopular among the general voter population. Could turn into a dog who finally caught the car moment for the MAGA caucus, especially in the Senate.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
I have no idea how the SCOTUS will rule but it's yet another example of how those on the far right are trying to impose their religious beliefs on the whole of society. I mean to some extent that's nothing new but the volume of it most certainly is. From states imposing laws to force schools to post the ten commandments, to one state even mandating Bible classes in their classrooms, to Texas passing laws that even so much as traveling on their roads going to other states for a legal abortion to this, they're flooding the zone with it because they believe this SCOTUS favors them mandating such things.
They used to be all for smaller government. But I guess when it applies to "the God rule" it's different.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
