RUDY, OH RUDY!: A federal jury in Washington has ordered former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani to pay $148 million in fines and restitution for emotional suffering for falsely accusing two Georgia election workers of switching votes in the 2020 election.

  The award is nearly three times what was originally sought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, who testified that they were subject to obscene and threatening phones calls and public threats that ruined their lives. Freeman says she is unable to live in her house. She testified, “I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation.”

  Giuliani was unrepentant after the verdict, falsely claiming that he did not have the opportunity to present evidence that what he said was true. He had admitted his falsehoods before the trial and chose not to testify or present evidence that what he said was true. “I have no doubt that my comments were made and they were supportable and they are supportable today, he said. “I just did not have the opportunity to present the evidence that we offered.

  Giuliani has never offered evidence that the two women tried to fix the vote.

  Whether Freeman and Moss will ever see a dine is another question. Facing multiple lawsuits and a criminal trial in Georgia, Giuliani is near broke, or already flat broke. He owes millions in legal fees he appears unable to pay.

  Freeman and Moss won some degree of vindication. Moss said, “Our greatest wish is that no election worker or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like what we went through.”

FRIENDLY FIRE: The Israeli Defense forces say their soldiers shot and killed three hostages in Gaza that they mistakenly took for Hamas militants. This is in addition to three dead hostages they already said they found.

  The three killed by the army were men taken hostage from a kibbutz during the October 7^th Hamas attacks. “During searches and checks in the area in which the incident occurred, a suspicion arose over the identities of the deceased,” a military statement said. “Their bodies were transferred to Israeli territory for examination, after which it was confirmed that they were three Israeli hostages.”

  The IDF said today that the three men were shirtless and waving white flags. It appears that the three had escaped their captors, but at least one of the soldiers became suspicious and fired on them.

SECRETS AND LIES: A binder of highly classified documents related to Russian meddling in the 2016 election disappeared in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to reports by CNN and The NY Times.

  Disappearance of the file containing information about the FBI “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation set off national security alarms, reports say. A redacted version of the information has been made public, but officials say the raw file contained details that intelligence agencies believe could reveal secret sources and methods. 

  President Trump’s staff made several copies of the file, but how many is not publicly known, but then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is reported to have had one of them. No one has said how officials know one of the copies is missing. 

GOODBYE FRIEND: The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner announced that “Friends” actor Matthew Perry died of the “acute effects” of the anesthetic ketamine, causing him to drown in the hot tub at his home.

  The ME also said that coronary artery disease and the effects of an opioid, buprenorphine, had contributed to Perry’s death.

  The autopsy report said Perry had been on ketamine infusion therapy but that the ketamine in his system was not administered as part of his medical care.

  Perry has struggled for years with alcohol and drug addiction and swore in recent years that he was beating it and dedicating his life to helping others with the same affliction. His death is testament to how hard that is to do.

SCANDAL: There’s nothing like a good sex scandal to rock the conservative world.

  The right wing group Moms for Liberty came to prominence during the Covid pandemic, fighting school closures and mask mandates. Then the straight-laced upstanding group progressed into the sexual identity wars, becoming perceived as anti-LGBTQ campaigning to ban books that address gender and sexuality in school.

 So you know wha had to come next. A woman accused Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the state Republican Party, of sexually assaulting her in her apartment. Then it came out during the police investigation that Ziegler, his wife Bridget, a member of the Sarasota County School board and founding member of Moms for Liberty, had once had a threesome with the complainant.

  Wow, now Moms for Liberty has our attention.

  At a meeting of the Sarasota school board this week, citizens called for Bridget Ziegler to resign. “Most of our community could not care less what you do in the privacy of your own home, but your hypocrisy takes center stage,” one woman said.

  Ziegler did not resign. She’s standing up for the liberty of moms to have a threesome. 

THE SPIN RACK: The mother of a 6-year-old boy in Newport News, Virginia who took her gun to school and shot his teacher in the face has been sentenced to two years in prison for felony child neglect. Deja Taylor “abdicated most, if not all” of her responsibilities as a parent, the judge said. — Arizona’s governor on Friday ordered the state’s National Guard to the border with Mexico to help federal officials manage an influx of migrants. — A new law in Michigan, where convicted felons are allowed to vote, requires that people being released from prison will be automatically registered.

BELOW THE FOLD: A pair of gold Air Jordan sneakers worth at least $10,000 designed for movie maker Spike Lee were found among the donated clothing at the Portland rescue Mission in Oregon. 

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