Comment on Venezuela has the largest oil reserves. In the last three years its economy has collapsed (tr)

Donald Trump wishes her happy birthday at the courthouse, but Melania Trump could be reliving painful experiences during the hush money trial.

In the early morning, one can hear the birds perched on trees around the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University. Farther off, there are sounds of protest and counterprotest. But inside the camp itself—technically the second camp after the New York Police Department cleared out the first and caused even more national attention to focus on this campus lawn—the resistance is often quieter if steady: a community formed to call for ceasefire, divestment, and the end to war. This is a village built overnight.

During an interview with Newsmax's Greg Kelly, Trump demanded we terminate early voting and move to all paper ballots while continuing to push the notion that both mean the Democrats are "cheating." Trump has been a huge flaming hypocrite on this issue for ages, claiming that mail-in voting is corrupt, except of course, if he does it. It continues to astound me that Trump, like his enablers over on the Fox propaganda network, continue to give the voting machine companies more ammo for lawsuits. Here's Trump with Kelly this Thursday, complaining that Biden misread something off of a teleprompter during a speech while pretending that everything in the United States and abroad would be going perfectly now if we were unfortunate enough to still have him occupying the Oval Office, and continuing to spread the Big Lie about early voting so he can pretend he was cheated when Biden hopefully kicks his ass in November. TRUMP: You know, six months is very, a little more than six months now, which is sounds good, but that's a long time in the life of this country with this leadership because they don't know what they're doing.

A Michigan judge warned that disparaging online comments about witnesses could lead to contempt charges, highlighting concerns about witness intimidation in a high-profile case involving so-called "fake electors." District Court Judge Kristin Simmons addressed the issue on Tuesday during a hearing. She pointed out that making negative comments about witnesses on social media platforms like Facebook could be seen as an attempt to intimidate. The case centers around 16 individuals, including former Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock.

A Ukrainian soldier played the national anthem of the United States for the Russian soldiers somewhere on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, the Russians did not care to be serenaded in this fashion and responded with their AK-47s and fired an RPG in the general direction of the offensive tune.

Republicans sure have changed, huh? As if Talking Point USA's Charlie Kirk wasn't bad enough, he somehow decided to bring Curtis Yarvin, an anti-democratic blogger, on as his guest. What could go wrong? Well, I'm glad you asked that. OK, you didn't really ask that. I did. Yarvin wants to give Trump unchecked power in November. Trump's lawyer is currently arguing in the Supreme Court for presidential immunity, which is not even in the Constitution.