President Herd Mentality is going to burn this whole country down.

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

It’s Wednesday, which was once known as “hump day,” back when we had weekends.

Political Crap

I took a breather from President Mayhem yesterday because we all have to take care of our mental health however we can these days. But just because I ignored him doesn’t mean that he stopped his tornadic assault on our country.

First of all, there’s the fact that the entire West Coast is literally on fire, entire towns are being destroyed, dozens are dead and missing — baseball games that weren’t canceled during a deadly pandemic had to be rescheduled because the air is just too damn dangerous to breathe …

… and the Climate-Change-Denier-in-Chief’s response is “winter is coming.”

No, literally.

Actually, Science does know.

As it turns out, science knows quite well. For more than 100 years, it’s been speculated that burning fossil fuels (in particular coal) emits gas that can trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. By now, that effect is well documented and obviously manifested, with atmospheric carbon dioxide hitting levels never before measured and the effects of that saturation felt everywhere from increased droughts to increased severe precipitation events (since warmer air can hold more moisture) to higher temperatures to things such as dissolving shells on marine life.

Though it is obviously the case that temperatures won’t increase steadily forever, it is just as obviously the case that temperatures are increasing broadly. A good analogy for temperature fluctuations in a warming world is walking a dog in a park: The dog meanders all over to sniff things, but it’s clear where the two of you are headed over the long term. And where we are headed is a steadily warming world.

The six hottest years on record include 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

This denial from Trump — flat, baseless — may remind you of another similar claim he’s made over and over about the coronavirus pandemic. Constantly, even now, Trump asserts without justification that the virus will simply “go away.”

So, obviously what better time to appoint a climate change denier to NOAA?

President Ranger Rick also had some … interesting … thoughts on trees.

Yeah, there’s a reason why Scientific American magazine made a Presidential endorsement for the first time in 175 years of publication — and it was not for President Flatearther.

Then, our TV President had a big day on his favorite medium yesterday.

First, he called into Fox & Friends and ruined their morning:

The best part was when he threatened to continue calling in every week, ruining Monday mornings for these three stooges indefinitely, and Steve Doocy was like, “Ummm …  no?”

But then! President Filter Bubble broke out of his Fox News echo chamber last night to do a Town Hall with undecided voters on ABC  with George Stephanopoulos, which, what a big brave boy!

It did not go well for him.

The problem for President Brain Melt was that he was tag teamed by a fact-checking George Stephanopoulos and real voters, not his MAGA/Q-poisoned cult followers, and they had questions like: “Why won’t you wear a mask?” and “Where do you get off calling soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’?” and “Why do you want to take protections for pre-existing conditions away?” and “When has America ever been ‘great’ for African-Americans?”

He responded 1. “Waiters don’t like masks,” 2. “I’ve always been upfront with my hate for John McCain,” 3. “I have an imaginary health care plan that I have been hyping for four years which is going to be MUCH better than Obamacare even though it doesn’t really exist, so please ignore the fact that I am at this very moment asking the Supreme Court to take away your pre-existing protections,” and 4. “SQUIRREL!”

Most people are focusing on his Freudian slip in which he suggested the virus will go away through “herd mentality.”

I mean, aside from the inadvertently revealing comment that the virus would go away through “herd mentality,” the alarming part of this comment is the suggestion that he plans to fight this virus with herd immunity. If we rely on herd immunity to conquer this virus, around 2 million Americans will die.

But I want to focus on something that no one else seems to be talking about, but that I found profoundly revealing about the way the chickpea rattling around in that weird head works:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Next question comes Alexandra Stamen from Pittsburg, who sat out the last presidential election, I believe.

STAMEN: Unfortunately so, I did. Good evening, Mr. President.

So I’d like to ask, regarding your recent comments about our United States soldiers, referring to them as suckers.

TRUMP: Could you say that again?

STAMEN: Our United States soldiers, referring to them as suckers, and particularly the late John McCain, our prisoners of war, as losers.

TRUMP: I see. OK. OK. The fake…it was a fake statement. Go ahead.

STAMEN: And recently requesting amputee veterans from the military parade. How do you expect to win back the support of our military, their families, their friends, and military supporters?

TRUMP: It’s easy, because I never made those statements. They were never made by me.

They said I stood over the grave of soldiers killed many years ago and I said they were suckers. I never made that. Do you know we had 26 people as of today come out to say it never happened, and many people were there.

And this is a really small thing, especially in the wake of him claiming that he has a sooper-secret health plan that he’s going to reveal any day now and that he intends to kill off somewhere between 1-2% of the American population …

BUT. The thing is, The Atlantic article did not say President Draft Dodger stood over the grave of dead soldiers and called them “suckers.” He’s conflating two very terrible stories: 1. That he didn’t want to go to the World War I ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery because “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” And then, later on that same trip, he called the 1,800  marines who gave their lives at Belleau Wood “losers.” and 2. While standing with John Kelly at the grave of Kelly’s son who died in Afghanistan, President Apathy asked Kelly, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

But I truly believe that the way President Compost Brain is able to function psychologically is to twist the truth in such a way that it is no longer accurate. The Atlantic said he stood over the graves of dead soldiers and called them “suckers” and “losers,” but what kind of monster would do that?! Certainly not him! And the thing is he didn’t do that. For all intents and purposes, he did, of course, but he has to manipulate the truth in enough of a fashion that he can not just live with the lie, he can believe it whole-heartedly. Or whole-whatever black twisted thing resides where a normal person’s heart would be.

Anyway. You’ll be surprised to learn that Fox News is calling the entire Town Hall an “ambush.”

Yes, heaven forfend the President of the United States be confronted with actual voters with their actual concerns.

But honestly, the best part of the Town Hall is that America’s Got Talent and Big Brother both beat it in the ratings. ~sad trombone~

Finally, a story is breaking that a nurse who worked at an ICE detention center in Georgia has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that multiple immigrant women were given hysterectomies without their understanding and consent. At least four lawyers have since come forward representing detained women who confirm the whistleblower’s account.

According to the complaint, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five women at the facility who received hysterectomies between October and December 2019 and said they “reacted confused when explaining why they had one done.”

“When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp,” the woman told Project South. “It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies.”

Wooten said in the complaint that one particular gynecologist, whom she called “the uterus collector,” performs the procedure. “Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out.”

I first read about this on Monday and hesitated to post about it here because honestly, it sounded like FAKE NEWS. The Right is quick to jump on every conspiracy theory that paints the Left as baby-eating pedophilic Socialistic monsters (more on that in an upcoming post) — their worst fever-dream ideas of what liberals and their motivations are — and it is poisoning our ability to talk to one another as fellow citizens. I didn’t want to fuel that by falling into the same trap, but on the other side. After all, the worst possible portrait of the Right is that they are violent fascist White Nationalists with genocidal tendencies. A story about them forcing immigrant women to endure hysterectomies falls right into that narrative, a little too easily. But as more and more reporting comes out, and more and more women come forward, it’s starting to look like this whole eugenic nightmare might just be true.

I’m sure we’ll come back to this story in the future, but for now, may it serve as one more impetus for you to make a plan to vote. 48 days until Election Day; 27 days until early voting in Texas.

Going Viral

South Park is going to take on the pandemic in an upcoming episode. That’ll show it!

Survivor is trying to figure out how to film during the pandemic. It seems like of any reality show, Survivor would be made for a pandemic. After all, they’re out in the middle of nowhere, socially distanced from the world. But it turns out they tend to film in Fiji and Fiji is not interested in hosting a bunch of germy Americans right now for some reason.

Similarly, the BBC is struggling to figure out how to film their nature docuseries in the middle of this mess.

Coronation Street has resumed filming in the U.K. after having to suspend production when a team member tested positive.

Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has begun filming again.

Live Nation is turning 100 concert venues into polling locations all over the country. Excellent.

The World Series will be played entirely at the new hideous Texas Rangers’ Arlington stadium in a quarantine bubble. This is the first time a World Series has been played in one location. The AL Division Series will be played in San Diego and Los Angeles, and the NLDS will be played in Houston and Arlington.

“Put your damn mask on!” from funny

Don’t plan on going to theaters for at least another year AFTER THE VACCINE. Ugh.

So, Disney, just release Black Widow and Soul on Disney+ and save everyone a lot of headache.

Governor Cuomo is not going to cancel Halloween in New York State, but don’t count on clubs opening anytime soon.

The makers of the upcoming sci-fi thriller Synchronic, they get it. Stay home. Don’t go to movie theaters.

I’m a huge fan of restaurants. Restaurants are my favorite! But maybe we order from restaurants for a while longer, yeah? (And don’t get me fucking started on bars.)

Turns out the reason we ran out of yeast and flour and pasta there for a while had nothing to do with the yeast and flour and pasta, but with the containers the yeast and flour and pasta go in. We ran out of those.

We’re also not getting any Peeps until Easter, but that’s because the makers of Peeps recognize it’s not reasonable to put their workers’ lives at risk for Peeps.

All Other TV News

It’s Day Two of the Creative Emmys (full list here). Saturday Night Live and Last Week Tonight were two big — and totally expected — winners, and congratulations to Norman Lear who broke his own record as the oldest Emmy winner for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) with Live In Front of a Studio Audience franchise, Live In Front Of A Studio Audience: ‘All In The Family’ And ‘Good Times’.

IMDb has launched a free The Walking Dead channel.

The future of TV is animation.

Alan Dershowitz is suing CNN for $300 million, claiming that they took a statement of his during the impeachment trial out of context. But I heard what I heard.

Hey! You wanna see what has the “One Million Moms” in a tizzy today?

Bless their hearts.

George R.R. Martin’s neighbors won’t let him build a castle in his backyard. GOOD. NOW QUIT FIGHTING WITH YOUR AND DRAWING CASTLES ON YOUR NOTEBOOKS AND FINISH YOUR BOOKS, GEORGE.

Cancellations

In Development

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

  • Let’s Be Real, a political puppet special from Robert Smigel, the genius behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, is going to air after the debates on Fox on October 1.
  • Wilmore will debut on Peacock on September 18.

  • The Amber Ruffin Show will premiere on Peacock on September 25.

  • The Paramedic streams on Netflix today.

  • The Good Lord Bird will debut on Showtime on October 4.

  • Monsterland will debut on Hulu on October 2.

  • Emily in Paris will debut on Netflix on October 2.

  • Dick Johnson is Dead will stream on Netflix on October 2.

  • Sneakerheads will premiere on Netflix on September 25.

  • Impractical Jokers: Dinner Party will return on TruTV on October 15.

  • Take Us Home: Leeds United will debut on September 17.

  • The Great British Baking Show returns on Netflix on September 25.

  • The Christmas Chronicles 2 will debut on Netflix on November 25.

R.I.P.

Stevie Lee, Wrestler and star of Jackass 3D

Sei Ashina, 36-year-old Japanese actress

Alien Huang, 36-year-old Taiwanese actor, singer, and former K-popper

Oh In-hye, 36-year-old Korean actress, model, and YouTuber

Um. Wait … 

WATCH THIS

Challenger: The Final Flight: J.J. Abrams is a producer on this limited series about the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Series premiere. Netflix

Sing On!: There are plenty of singing competitions out there, but there is only one hosted by Tituss Burgess. Series premiere. Netflix

The Devil All the Time: Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland star in this dark film that wishes it were a Southern gothic but is set in Ohio? Sure. Netflix

Archer: Season 11 premiere. 9 p.m., FXX

The 55th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards: Keith Urban hosts and artists will perform at the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and the Bluebird Cafe. 7 p.m., CBS

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Sharon Stone, Shaquille O’Neal, Kylie Minogue
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Cynthia Nixon, Michael Stipe, Larry Wilmore, Sonny Emory
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Drew Barrymore
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: John David Washington, Michael McIntyre, Glass Animals
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Conan: Kiersey Clemons
  • Watch What Happens Live: Ben Mandelker, Ronnie Karam, Amy Phillips, Ira Madison III, Danny Pellegrino

 

WEDS. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC The Goldbergs
(repeat)		 The Conners
(repeat)		 Notre Dame: Our Lady of Paris
(new)
CBS The 55th Academy of Country Music Awards
(live)
CW The 100
(new)		 Coroner
(new)		 Local
FOX MasterChef
(repeat)		 News/Local
NBC America’s Got Talent
(new)		 Ellen’s Game of Games
(repeat)		 Chicago P.D.
(repeat)

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