phapster said:

Trump says US will ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants if Strait of Hormuz not open before 48-hour deadline

BBC said:

Iranian state media says that the country's military would target US-linked energy infrastructure across the Gulf region, if Iran's own fuel and energy facilities were hit.

butterknife said:

i can't fucking wait
even if when nothing changes
the catharsis will be brilliant

Ransome said:

Trump would have been a great Secretary of State. Really missed his calling.

California sheriff running for governor seizes more than a half million ballots from 2025 election

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A California sheriff running for governor has seized more than half a million ballots cast in a November special election from county election officials, saying he’s investigating a ballot count discrepancy.

County elections officials have disputed the claims by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, called Bianco’s move unprecedented and says it is designed to sow distrust in elections.

Bianco held a news conference Friday saying his office had launched the investigation after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election on redistricting.

In the special election, voters approved a measure to redraw congressional district lines to favor Democrats in the upcoming midterm election. The measure passed in the county by a margin of more than 80,000 votes.

Bianco seized ballots in Riverside County, the inland California county of 2.5 million people where he has twice been elected sheriff. He called the effort “a fact-finding mission.”

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported,” he said Friday.

Bianco is one of two prominent Republicans running for governor in a crowded June primary that includes more than half a dozen Democrats. California runs a top-two primary system that puts all candidates on the same ballot, regardless of party, and sends the two candidates who get the most voters onto the November general election.

Leading California Democrats are worried that their party has so many candidates, they risk splitting the vote and sending Bianco and Steve Hilton, another top Republican, onto the general election. That would be a stunning outcome in the heavily Democratic state.

Bianco said the investigation had “absolutely nothing to do” with his campaign for governor.

“I have a duty to investigate alleged crime in Riverside County,” he said.

The effort came as President Donald Trump has repeatedly disputed the results of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated instances of fraud. His administration recently seized ballots and other documents from an election office in Georgia. Some Republicans have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric on voting in their states.

Bonta has repeatedly sent letters to Bianco’s office over the last two months saying his staff is not qualified to conduct a recount. In one of the letters, Bonta wrote that the ballot seizure was “unacceptable” and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”

The letters said Bianco seized nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots and elections materials from the county’s elections office with a warrant in February. At issue, Bianco said, is a discrepancy a citizen group reported between the handwritten ballot intake logs and the number of votes reported to the state.

Bianco said the alleged discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes — a difference elections officials have refuted at county meetings, saying the machine count and the final count submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes. They argue the handwritten rolls, which were not relied on to check the count, were being kept by temporary elections workers who had worked long days and may have made mistakes.

Bianco said Friday that the count had started and stopped, but would now resume under the supervision of a special master appointed by a judge.

GoonGoonington said:

That's right, ladies, that one guy who peaked in high school now has a licence to grope.

phapster said:

blumkin spice

President Donald Trump says the US and Iran have held “productive conversations” and that he will hold off any military strikes against Iranian energy sites for five days, walking back his threat to strike if Tehran did not allow the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz – a waterway crucial to the global economy – by tonight.

Iran’s foreign ministry said there was “no dialogue” between Tehran and Washington, state affiliated media reported, adding Trump’s statement was “part of efforts to reduce energy prices and buy time for the implementation of his military plans.”

The fire truck was crossing the tarmac just before midnight after being given permission to check on another plane reporting an odor onboard. Before the collision, an air traffic controller can be heard on airport communications frantically telling the fire truck to stop.

Roughly 20 minutes later, the controller appears to blame himself. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier,” the controller said. “I messed up.”

Believe me, being President is rough job and no one understands it more than me. People come up to me, big guys, strong guys, they have tears in their eyes, and they say, 'Sir, how do you do it?' And I tell them, it’s not easy. It’s a swamp, a total disaster zone. Every day it’s the fake news, the witch hunts—they never stop. You want to do something great, and they just want to talk about Iran and airplane collision. It’s very draining. Very unfair.

​I look at these walls—beautiful walls, historic walls—but sometimes you just want to a break, a getaway. I’m going to Graceland. I’ve always felt a connection with Elvis. The King. They treated him very unfairly too, you know. The press, the establishment—they didn't understand the movement. He had the hair, he had the style, and the people loved him. Fake news laughed at him. Calling him names like fat. They didn't treat him right. I get it.

phapster said:

^I can't believe that's not The Onion.

have patience said:

the only acceptable use for AI is masturbation

have patience said:

the only acceptable use for AI is masturbation