What we really were hoping for Thursday:
I can’t stand the heat. I must confess.
I wrote the anonymous New York Times op-ed piece.
It wasn’t for the shitbird that is Donald Trump. It wasn’t for the raft of felony convictions among his political support beams. It wasn’t for that red tie that droops beneath his scrotum sac. 
It wasn’t his tendency to spit his dentures out when he tries to say “The United Schtates of Amirka.” It wasn’t for his 20 months of grammatical genocide; the guy is the Hitler syntax.
No, I felt compelled pen the note after John McCain died, and Pumpkinhead sent this tweet: “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”
And apparently your tactlessness. Who includes an exclamation point in a sympathy note? That’s like a condolence card adorned with a cartoon duck. Sad.
Getting into the White House was a piece of cake; I hand-wrote on the back of a Post-It Note “Donald has the best words,” and waltzed past security.
To get into classified meetings, I needed a disguise of a “senior official.” Fortunately, Kellyanne Conway masks are a snap to make: Just picture a face smashed by another horse’s face (ever wonder why you’ve never seen a picture of them both together?).
Drop a couple of Mike Pence’s “lodestar” references to throw them off the trail (lodestar 1.noun:A star that is used to guide the course of a ship, especially Polaris.)
Nike released its controversial ad featuring Colin Kaepernick as its spokesman today, despite his insistence on exercising his First Amendment rights.
Forget who is in it. Forget what it’s selling. Simply hear the message.
The folks at Nike, in a rare Economic Darwinian showdown with Trump and conservatives, have made a startling call: to risk offending customers. High-paying customers.
But there’s something shrewdly calculated in the strategy: The shoe giant has decided that a young, largely African-American consumer base will offset the loss of Trumpanzees, who consider as treasonous bastards whoever kneels for the National Anthem (a melodically awful tune by almost every aural measure, by the way. Why not America the Beautiful?).
And there’s no reason to think Nike is off the mark. Trump has the memory of a mayfly. And check viral videos of the hayseeds burning shoes. Those aren’t inexpensive, secular books you swiped from the public library, chumps. They’re overpriced shoes — that you already overpaid for. The guy below actually brags he set fire to $1,000 worth of footwear. Hey dumb ass: I’ve got used sweat socks you can have for $50 apiece, or two for $120.
And don’t forget what Game of Thrones keeps bugling: Winter is coming. You can only walk barefoot so long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mreQsQrDF-A&t=19s
Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court seems as certain as a Trump misspelling. Beneath a hurricane of political fuckery, he has sailed a relatively gentle wave to the highest court.
With a simple straight partisan vote, the Court will veer hard right. And when Ruth Bader Ginsberg kicks the bucket (she must be part granny cyborg), the Gang of Nine will completely lack a port bow. 
That’s terrible news for Roe v. Wade, whose tombstone is already being etched. Gay marriage must feel the ground tremble. And forget getting the Conservative Christian Citizenry (the KKK for the new millennium) to bake cakes for people they don’t like.
But the CCC should be careful with its wish list.
In the 1930s, a conservative Supreme Court knocked down many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs aimed at hoisting the country out of the Depression. Statutes letting industries and unions set wages and prices, raising farm income and regulating the coal industry were declared unconstitutional, as was a New York minimum wage law. 
That helped fuel a 1936 FDR landslide that also gave Democrats 76 Senate and 334 House seats, Election Day majorities neither party has ever matched. The triumph paved the way for congressional control that Democrats didn’t relinquish until after World War II.
The same risks threaten liberal courts. Liberal decisions of the 1960s helped power Richard Nixon’s law-and-order rise to the White House in 1968. Rulings buttressing criminals’ rights, like the Miranda vs. Arizona decision requiring authorities to inform arrested people of their rights, provided potent ammunition for Nixon at a time of racial unrest and growing crime rates. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” remains a firmament of GOP strategy. 
The 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortion has been backed by strong majorities of Americans but spurred the rise of the anti-abortion movement and helped galvanize political involvement by Christian conservatives. Both remain vital factors in American politics and a driving force for the GOP.
The disconnect between the court’s ideological leanings and voters’ preferences is a simple matter of timing. Unlike social tastes, Supreme Court nominees last a lifetime. And courts are slower than Hollywood at taking public cues.
So a nod to GOP strong arming. It’s made quite a splash.
But history moves in tides, not waves. Be careful what you ask for.
One of an occasional series of odd stories that actually have AP sourcing (sorry Breitbart):
Man, are we getting repetitive.
To my colleagues in the media: Please stop saying this could be the scandal that topples the president.
At the end of every week since Trump took office, the 24/7 squawkers have been trying to justify Chicken Little bullhorns. “It’s been a rough week for the president,” a newscaster invariably begins. “The walls are closing in on Trump as his friends strike immunity deals,” cawed Rachel Maddow last week. After the “N-word” scandal, CNN’s Chris Cuomo actually uttered these words: “This one is big.” So what does that make the rest of them? The alarm bells have become shrill political Muzak.
But this week really may have been his worst yet.
Not politically, or course. Asking Trumpsters to defy or define his thinking is like asking a believer to defy or describe god’s. Good luck finding logic in either.
No, this was Trump’s worst week because his worst fears materialized: He wasn’t the center of TV coverage. Even on Pravda Light, Fox News.
What wonderful misery that must have brought. The man does two things: watch cable news and eat KFC. And a bucket will only last you so long. What was he going to do? Workout in a gym? Read a book? Talk to his wife?
No, Trump’s personal hell is to turn on Fox, CNN and MSNBC and find, instead of his plump visage, an earnest homage to the man Trump mocked to gain office (a mocking that became exponentially more monstrous when juxtaposed with renewed stories of McCain’s ordeal). 
Add to that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle — and his daughter, for god’s sake — praising McCain, without exception, as American bravery incarnate. That sure must have made Trump’s bone spurs itchy, poor guy.
Then, in perhaps his last, greatest tactical maneuver, McCain planned his farewells to the letter. And none of those letters spelled T-R-U-M-P. They spelled out George Bush and Barack Obama (men who bested him in elections) to give eulogies. Even Mike Pence got an invitation to ceremonies, even though he never served a day in the military (the invertebrate’s father and son did, however). That’s like sending out birthday invitations and listing the one person not welcome to the party.
And in case he had forgotten his unpopularity among real people (common in Narcissistic Personality Disorder), Aretha Franklin passed away in what was arguably the most joyous, appreciative funeral in Detroit’s history. Stevie Wonder sang the closing song. A teary eyed Bill Clinton played one of her songs to the church through his iPhone and referred to himself as a “groupie” of hers.
Trump didn’t even need to be uninvited to that funeral. Michigan may be a red state, but Detroit is black and blue. You think Secret Service would have protected him from the D, which never needed rumors of tape of the N-word to know he uses it. Belief runs both ways. 
Russian collusion? Yawn. Campaign donations? Next. Racism and sexism? What else is new?
No, what most stings Trump is a lack of attention. How fitting that ceremonies honoring an iconic woman and esteemed political foe would relegate Trump to back page news. And it’s no coincidence Franklin and McCain found fervent, universal love through the understanding of a concept as foreign to Trump as Sanskrit.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
What a golden-egged goose Donald Trump has been to late night. In many ways, he is King Midas, imploring Dionysus for the golden touch, only to learn to be careful what you ask for.
And he has asked for a lot — to the delight of the comically-inclined left. A magic wall. Witch-hunt recognition. Media that fawns upon the mighty.
And last month, Space Force. Trump has been so excited in the sloganeering potential that he seems to get plumper and oranger each time he whips his base into rally froths, like a Jamba Juice on crack. Forget a purpose, let alone a reasoning or development plan; it’s chant-friendly. “Space Force!” is easy to remember and isn’t trademark-infringing (not to mention the fewer letters for your hats, on sale today!).
Comedians had their expected field day with the idea. And who could blame them? Trump’s tweets alone have turned a literal profit for comics: Comedy Central has the 15th most popular book on Amazon with its The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library hardbound collection of Trump’s furious, grammar-challenged missives.
Space Force is just as tantalizing. As a viral video points out, Trump speaks of a sixth branch of the military like he’s auditioning for Shatner Shakespeare in the park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dj_gEfbysI
It’s a silly idea, yes. It will surely feature all the efficiency of Trump healthcare and all the malice of Trump tax cuts. Is it a stretch to picture him wanting to turn the moon into an investment venture?
Regardless, we should enact Space Force before he gets distracted by something else shiny.
The reason? Any state-mandated scientific research should be welcomed by the left as a rarity on the level of a gay Supreme Court nominee.
Don’t believe it? Look no further than Mike Pence, who has become the ironic poster boy for Space Force. Regardless of your politics, this is indisputable: The second most-powerful man in the free world does not believe in evolution, nor that the Earth is a day older than the Bible deigns. You could nearly see the discomfort in his face as he played dutiful wingman and praised Space Force, a higher power that wasn’t evangelicalism. 
Pence has good reason to be concerned. Science, like life and spam, finds a way. If the GOP opens the Pandora’s Box of scientific research, it will find itself facing some seriously conflicted questions.
The administration has shown its hostility toward science and education in its treatment of global warming, the gutting of the EPA and the paltry funding of groups from NASA to the Center for Disease Control. And now Trump is offering to marry military spending with science research?
The left should recognize the errant gift its been dealt. It’s one thing to wage war over a book. It’s another to get into space with it. Even at its bureaucratic worst, a cosmology-based government branch would pose something truly terrifying to the right: empirical science. What Republican wants to be the politician who officially tells Christian conservatives that the Earth is billions of years old, not thousands?
All aboard the U.S.S. Midas!
America has a chip addiction.
And I’m not talking about Pringles. I mean, sure, I love ’em. Who doesn’t? Some even say you can get a fever for the flavor. But it’s social snacking only. I can stop anytime I please. Get off my back about it, ok? Why’d you even bring it up? I don’t need a nap, you need a nap! 
I forgot what I was talking about… Oh yeah! I’m talking about the chips that sit on our shoulders. The ones that make for such good drama, inspire athletes, drive the determined to greatness.
It can also make you a frightening asshole.
For years, we’ve abided the assholery, even glorified it. What Hollywood entertainment does not hinge on the little guy being wronged, only to mete out home-cooked vengeance? Charles Bronson, Jackie Chan, Jason Statham and innumerable more discovered that revenge is not a dish best served cold, but with prospects for a sequel.
And now we see politics trying to similarly franchise itself. This time, by posing as a one-size-fits-all costume for the aggrieved.
It’s hard to imagine how a chip addiction occurs across every demographic of the country. But the president made it clear in political rallies this summer for his very pale fanbase: Democrats are stealing your country; Immigrants are stealing your jobs; Black athletes are stealing your flag’s dignity.
You, the Pouter-in-Chief admonishes, should be more pissed about getting screwed. At a recent rally in North Dakota, he employed the tired-but-dependable stratagem of “Pssst, people are talking about you and they think you’re stupid.”
“We got more money,” Trump said, though I’m not sure the median income in North Dakota. “We got more brains, we got better houses and apartments, we got nicer boats, we’re smarter than they are and they say they’re the elite. You’re the elite, we’re the elite. Let’s call ourselves, from now on, the super elite.”
That super-elite status has energized the super-entitled. Frat boys are hitting Pier One for protest tiki torches. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian professor who specializes in neo-psychobabble, has become a bestselling author with a singular message: Whitey needs to man up. Fox News, in particular, has found ratings gold in redefining the GOP as the Grand Old Pariahs. Tucker Carlson actually hosted a segment on the societal assault on American men. Building glass ceilings, you see, is apparently hazardous duty. You could get a nasty shard.
It’s even seeped into sports. Free agency has made the hometown athlete as quaint as a phone booth, except more rare. We prefer pulling against a team than rooting for one. Tony Kornheiser, a talking head on ESPN, insisted in a segment that the New York Yankees needed to be atop the standings, for the good of the sport. “Baseball,” he said, “needs someone to hate.” 
Maybe. Personally, I don’t see a shortage of people to resent. Starting with those Pringles critics. How I loathe them.
This week’s Factslap edition comes inspired by an amazing documentary I caught on my favorite bird (besides Larry), crows:
1. They can solve puzzles: For a study, researchers once assigned a crow a simple puzzle involving eight tasks—picking up objects, moving them, and other complex steps. The crow had never seen them in sequence before. Yet, the crow finished it easily—the first bird to ever accomplish anything like it.
2. Crows can use tools: That earlier study also revealed that crows are capable of using tools. To further test this, researchers at Oxford dropped a small bucket of crow food at the bottom of a long tube and gave a hungry crow a wire. The crow bent the wire to hook the bucket handle and retrieve it.
3. Crows have street smarts: Forget puzzles and tools—crows have real-world skills. The one here, for instance, dropped an unbreakable nut onto the road so a car would run it over. Then he was free to chomp on the edible interior.
4. Some crows can be pricks: Crows will sometimes play cruel pranks. A zookeeper once reported that one repeatedly mimicked the voice of the human who fed the nearby chickens. The chickens would get excited thinking dinner was coming, but that wasn’t the case. Chumps.
5. Crows aren’t limited to bird noises; they’re impressive mimics: Though they typically communicate with each other through squawks and knocking, ravens at the Tower of London have been heard telling tourists to “keep the path.”
6. Crows know how to have fun: Pranks and impressions aren’t the only ways crows have a good time. Videos have emerged from Russia showing crows using cup lids as sleds. Elsewhere, dogs and cats have been known to play games with crows. One time, cameras even caught a crow playing with a ball on ice.
7. A German researcher concluded that crows can recognize themselves in the mirror: This puts the impressive birds in elite company with humans, apes, dolphins, and elephants. But their recognition skills don’t stop there…
8. They can recognize human faces: Researchers at the University of Washington spent months with the birds and, in one test, marked crows like normal. Later, they returned in cavemen masks, attempted an approach, and the crows attacked them. Without the masks, though, the crows didn’t lift a beak.
9. Crows remember their enemies: That study also showed crows remembered their enemies and acted accordingly… with Alfred Hitchcock-style horror beatdowns. It turns out that crows of a feather not only flock together, but they discuss their enemies and then attack them in coordinated dive-bomb assaults.
10. They don’t put their memories to use for just death and destruction, though: Some people have witnessed crows giving gifts to humans they respect. One such occasion saw a murder of crows leaving a little girl these trinkets every time she fed them from her garden.
Daily Mail
11. They have big brains: Studies have illuminated how crows and crows have such killer memories. For starters, these birds have big ol’ hippocampi, the part of the brain responsible for memory. And for good reason…
12. They’re pretty highly evolved: Seed-eating birds like nutcrackers historically needed to remember where they buried seeds or they didn’t eat. It’s an evolutionary trait, which helped explain why another study revealed that crows raised in captivity didn’t have as many hippocampal neurons as wild crows.
13. Some jays have human-like memories: Evidence suggested scrub jays can have episodic memories, the human trait of remembering specific events and when they occurred. These jays remembered all the food they’d hidden, where they’d hidden it, and how long it could last there without spoiling.
14. They’re as smart as apes: Though crows may be smaller in stature, they have similar, if not greater, brain power to primates. Thanks to dense collections of neurons in their forebrains, these birds can carry out some complex, ape-like thinking.
15. Crows are all about family: Mama crows don’t push their young from the nest as soon as they can fly. Grown-up crows actually stick around for awhile and help raise and protect younger birds and newborns.
16. Crows will adopt: Cornell researchers witnessed something both heartbreaking and heartwarming: after an adult crow known simply as RV died of West Nile virus, his children were orphaned. Amazingly, his neighbor and crow friend adopted and cared for the baby crows.
17. They’ll return the favor: Surprisingly, adopted baby crows expressed gratitude for their adoptive crow dad and mom. When the parents birthed new baby crows, the adopted birds, true to crows’ nature, stuck around the nest to help care for them.
18. Crows will spread the love: When it comes to adoption, crows don’t let things like a difference in species cloud their parental instincts. Once, when an orphaned fledgling blue jay showed up to a crow’s nest, researchers witnessed the mother crow feeding him.
19. Studies showed crows can live to be old geezers: The oldest crow ever found in the wild lived for 17 years. Meanwhile, a crow in New York that had been cared for and watched over by humans lived for a whopping 59 years.
20. Crows respect their elders: A 12-year study of a jackdaw community showed older birds earned more respect and power among populations. But that power came with a risk: high-ranking birds lived shorter lives, implying the jackdaw hierarchy was competitive and cutthroat.
21. Observations showed Crows respect their dead, too: Crows prodded a fallen companion with their beaks before retrieving blades of grass and laying them beside the passed-on bird; others have witnessed services in crow and raven communities.
Robert Mueller seems the kind of guy who could recite the rule book of Monopoly chapter and verse.
After all, his life is punctuated by the rules of conduct. In July 1968, he was sent to South Vietnam, where he served as a rifle platoon leader with the Marines. He was cited for valor for rescuing a wounded Marine during an attack that killed half his men. He was shot himself and returned to service the same year. He’s received the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, two commendation medals and the Gallantry Cross. In 2004, he was inducted into the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame. That hound dog has no quit in him.
So he shouldn’t take it personally if Donald Trump fires him. If anything, he should welcome it.
Certainly, no one would be surprised if Mueller got the pink slip from a boss who is already asking if he can legally forgive his own sins. A new CNN/Pew poll showed only 41% of Americans approve of how Mueller is leading the special counsel. Apparently, 5 guilty pleas and 17 indictments does not demonstrate sufficient prosecutorial proficiency for Trumpkins — as well as many Americans in a TwitFace era where days feel like weeks, weeks like decades. How long before Trump does what he does best: exploit our inner bile?
But a Mueller firing could have an unexpected upside. Several, actually. Here are a few reasons Mueller (and we) should not fret the president prematurely halting the investigation:
Mueller likely gives nary a shit about any of this. By nearly every measure, he appears meticulous to the core, and in no rush to give us the American Idol finale we’ve come to expect of our politics.
It’s a notion we’d do well to have propagated.
The Hollywood Bowles 