Apparently, Americans only remember the things they heard over social media, like in the last 24 hours.
Like, do you remember back when Donald Trump refused to release his tax returns, and blatantly lied, claiming that he couldn’t release them because he was being audited? Nobody (including media) mentions this anymore (well, I guess other than me).
Does anyone remember the movie Idiocracy where humans became stupid? Maybe it actually happened, but we forgot.
In fact, it did. “Harmful exposure to lead [specifically in leaded gas] during childhood has affected more than 170 million US-born adults as of 2015, leading to a population-wide drop in IQ, says a new study.” Here’s the study, from researchers at Princeton University.
But the story of how this happened is not well known anymore. In fact, oil companies suppressed it even though they knew it was killing people. Indeed, the man who invented leaded gas contracted lead poisoning.
In all, it is believed that lead has been responsible for the loss of over 825 Million IQ points in the US alone. In addition, the use of lead in gasoline between 1940 and 2015 correlates strongly with the rise in crime, and once we stopped using it, a decrease in crime in the US. However, lead is still used in fuel for aviation.
Donald Trump blames crime on immigrants, but he should be blaming the oil companies who put lead in gasoline instead.
Hilarious video from Jimmy Kimmel. But probably not safe for work. In addition to Trump farting while blustering at a rally, and claims that the Democrats can control the weather (if that were true, then Mar-a-Lago would have been swept out to sea a long time ago). There is also some fishy business (named Trumpy Trout), and last but not least, all those cheesy items Trump is always hawking to his rabid followers were made in China. I guess he’s trying to get rid of the merch before he slaps a huge tariff on China. Sheesh.
How did we ever have a president who is a conman, grifter, crook, cheater, liar, shark, charlatan, gangster, scammer, faker, imposter, scoundrel, fraud, humbug, racketeer, hustler, fraudster, swindler, confidence man, scamp, defrauder, bilker, deceiver, fleecer, flimflammer, mountebank, rascal, offender, rogue, thief, shyster, hoodlum, lawbreaker, chiseler, and more. How the hell did he get anyone to believe in him, let alone vote for him? We have so many bad names and labels for Trump, you’d think they would know better.
Today is Jimmy Carter’s birthday. And not just any birthday. Carter is 100 years old! In fact he is the only president of the US to live that long. He also has the record for years lived after leaving the presidency. In a side note, he is the first president to have been born in a hospital.
His longevity is amazing, since Carter has been in hospice (end of life) care since February 2023. But he still has work to do as he is looking forward to voting for Kamala Harris.
As I’m sure all of you know, FDR’s vice president John Nance Garner described the vice presidency as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss”. Luckily, Walz has already helped the prospects of Kamala Harris by creating the meme about Trump and Vance being “weird”, which flummoxed the Republicans.
In addition, the Los Angeles Times says, “the modern history of vice presidential debates is notably lacking in both gravity and moments of true political significance. In fact, since the first match-up of presidential understudies nearly 50 years ago, precisely zero have made a shred of difference in the race for the White House.”
I still haven’t decided whether I can put up with listening to Vance, but my guess is I might tune in, but will reserve the right to turn it off at any time.
Is it apropos that the debate is going to be held in the very studio that once was the domain of Captain Kangaroo?
I’ll just say it up front: every American should watch this interview with Mark Cuban. Cuban has a lot of important things to say, about Trump (including the debate with Harris, and about Roy Cohn), why the heck Elon Musk is supporting Trump, and why lower-class white people like Trump, even though Trump has no respect for them. It is a long video, but worth every second.
I’m not a big fan of the interviewer, who likes the sound of his own voice just a little too much, but this interview works well because Cuban often takes control of it.
Some of you know that I have worked as a CEO, and it is very refreshing to hear a billionaire talk about what capitalism should really be about, rather than what capitalism has become in our country — all about “winning” by making as much money as possible, no matter who you hurt in the process. Cuban talks about how Kamala Harris knows this, and is working to make things better, for everyone.
Stranger than fiction: A Christian who thinks ALL women shouldn’t vote, wants to bring back slavery, calls himself a “Black Nazi”, and spends a lot of time watching porn. And he’s running to be the governor of North Carolina (he’s currently the Lt. Governor).
We’ve heard this before: Rudy Giuliani stumps for Trump. Yawn.
Pretty much everything that JD Vance says, is a lie, and he even admits it.
I love the Daily Show. No pets were eaten creating this blog post.
For those who don’t know Robert Reich, he served in the administrations of both Republicans (Ford), and Democrats (Carter), and as Secretary of Labor in the cabinet of Bill Clinton. He’s also a professor, author, lawyer, and a political commentator.
I don’t often use him in this humorous blog, but he just posted a video entitled “10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency”. It is hilarious, because he just can’t stop, remembering more and more things. Not only is it funny, but it points out how many people seem to have forgotten how bad Donald Trump was during his first term. Maybe on purpose.
So it will be good to remember. Or when an occasion comes up when someone you know claims that Trump was a good president, you will have plenty of ammunition to help them remember the truth.
Jordan Klepper from the Daily Show points out the amazing irony of the right’s reaction to Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris/Walz, Marjorie Taylor Greene attacking conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s racist post, and VP candidate JD Vance pointing out that we shouldn’t pay any attention to what billionaire celebrities say or do… like, say, Donald Trump. But the best part is Joe Biden making friends with a Trump supporter.
On Monday, I mused that Trump would end up being a sad joke, and that it seems to be happening now. I managed to time that right on the mark.
At the debate last night, not only did Trump tell lie after lie, but he must have run out of lies to tell, because he kept repeating the same lies over and over again. He even repeated the lie about immigrants stealing pets to eat them, after the moderators pointed out that it was not true. But Trump just had to argue with them, blurting out that he “saw it on TV”. That’s Trump’s idea of a debate?
Harris killed. Even Fox News couldn’t spin the debate for Trump. After the debate, Fox host Jesse Watters tried to claim that there were “no winners”, but acknowledged “This was rough. This was pretty intense at times.” Watters also admitted “This race just got tighter.”
The chief political analyst for Fox, Brit Hume, was more direct. “This was pretty much her night”. Hume also admitted that Trump was baited by Harris, and took the bait every time (he just can’t help himself). Trump fell back on being the complaining victim, which Hume called “the old grievances that we had long thought Trump had learned were not winners politically.”
Hume also complimented Harris, saying, “She kept her cool.” Host Bret Baier asked Hume, “You’re saying she had a good night?” to which Hume retorted, “I’m saying she certainly did.”
I wish there was some way to determine if the debate actually changed the trajectory of the presidential race. Or at least causing some Magat to rethink their tattoo.
The Harris campaign wanted to leave both microphones on all the time, and then goad Trump into saying something stupid. Not that he won’t say a bunch of stupid things anyway.
Instead, only the person speaking will have an open mic tonight. I wish they had done this instead!
Trump’s rally on Sept 8 in Wisconsin is showing Donald Trump’s increasingly stinking of desperation. And it is driving him into an apocalyptic fantasy world where it is not clear whether he can remember anything. In his speech, he forgot the name of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who was one of the people he considered for his VP. And he strangely called Elon Musk by the name of “Leon”. He also started attacking his own lawyers. Things were so crazy that his attendees started leaving early.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson has a full article about it.
I’ve long thought that Trump would end up being a sad joke, and it seems to be happening now.
