Media Failures

The thing about the media is when it does its job, that's great.  But when it does its job, that's only about 1% of the time.  Sometimes it just provides meaningless fluff.  That's sad but what's worse is when it actively makes errors or promotes lies.

  

 

FOX "NEWS"?

 

They have so much to answer for.

 

That includes: Who's the secret MR. ED fan at the network.  

 

There is one, right?

 

That's the only explanation for horse-faced, 62-year-old Laura Ingraham being on the network for nearly two decades now when she should have been put out to pasture -- or dropped off at a glue factory -- over 15 years ago.  Instead, they inflict her nightly on shut-ins around the country.  

 

Must be for the laughs.

 

Like on her program tonight where she felt the most important thing to do was to castigate young American women over the results on an NBC NEWS poll.  Young women were not making marriage their number one goal -- or number two, or number three, or number four . . .

 

This distressed Laura so much she had to call in professional metrosexual Charlie Kirk.  

 

While he unsuccessfully attempted to come off manly, Laura tsk-ed tsk-ed and we had to wonder if we were the only ones laughing?

 

Others watching were aware, right, that 62-year-old Laura has never, ever married?

 

She also attacked young American women for wanting to put off having children.  

 

Viewers were aware that Laura was over 40 when she adopted, right? 

 

For years and years, the network's slogan was "Fair and balanced."  More and more, it seems to be "Hypocrites in hiding."

 

Take 'Christian' Charlie who told Laura that young women had their rankings wrong and the order of them wrong.  They should have babies right now and can work later in life.  He insisted that "young men are ordering their life correctly.  They want to first and foremost have children, get married, and then they have a nice job or to be able to travel."

 

Oh, so the right order, per Charlie, is that a man gets a woman pregnant, then they get married and then the men get "a nice job or [the ability] to be able to travel."  Such passes for 'family values' from con artists pimping Chump.

 

And Charlie never looks less manly then when he opens his mouth and multiple clutch bags fall out.

 

We caught Laura wallowing in her own hypocrisy, stewing in it, basting in her own foul juices back on Thursday, August 28th when friends started calling saying she was making a bigger ass of herself than usual.  What was she doing?

 

She was raging against California Governor  Gavin Newsome.  She bitched, moaned and whined that he wasn't being fair to Convicted Felon Donald Chump.  

Worse than that, she insisted, his mocking Chump could lead to another assassination attack!!!!!

 

!!!!

 

She had a lot of rage and anger to express . . . over a fantasy she came up with herself.

 

What struck as odd was that all month, she's ignored a very real example of how words bring about violence.

 

 

Two weeks prior to her trashing Gavin Newsome, police officer David Rose was killed during an attack on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.  He was 33 years old.

 

WIKIPEDIA:

 

On August 8, 2025, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia, attacked the CDC's Roybal Campus in Atlanta, Georgia. White attempted to enter the headquarters, but was thwarted by security. White then drove across the street to a CVS Pharmacy where he barricaded himself inside on the second floor, and fired at the campus with a rifle, striking four CDC buildings on multiple floors over 180 times, breaking about 150 windows and piercing some of the blast-resistant windows; authorities recovered more than 500 shell casings and five firearms after the shooting.^[100][101] 33-year-old David Rose, a DeKalb County Police Department officer, was fatally wounded by White as he arrived on the scene.^[102] Officers entered the pharmacy and found White dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.^[103][104]

White is believed to have been motivated by distrust in vaccines, and believed the COVID-19 vaccine had made him depressed and suicidal.^[102] He had reached out for mental health assistance for weeks before the attack.^[102] Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, blamed the attack on the anti-vaccine rhetoric of members of the Trump administration, saying that Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety".^[105][102] A union representing CDC employees called on both the CDC and the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services to denounce vaccine misinformation, and said that the attack was a result of compounding misinformation and obloquy towards science and health officials. While Kennedy Jr. had reached out to CDC staff and said "no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others", Dr. Jerome Adams, a former Surgeon General, described Kennedy Jr.'s response as "tepid" and that Kennedy Jr. must do more given his past "inflammatory rhetoric".^[106] On August 11, Kennedy Jr. toured the Roybal Campus with deputy secretary Jim O'Neill and CDC director Susan Monarez, but did not speak with the media during the visit, although he did meet privately with Rose's widow.^[100] A day later, in an interview with Scripps News, when Kennedy Jr. was asked if he had a message for CDC employees concerned about the consequences of misinformation about vaccines, he said political violence was "wrong" and claimed not enough was known about White's motives yet to draw conclusions before criticizing the government's previous vaccination efforts as "overreaching" and that the government had said "things that are not always true" in order to get people vaccinated.^[107] Trump did not respond to the shooting of the police officer.^[108][109]

 

 Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Priya Sridhar and Daniela Hernandez (NBC NEWS) reported August 11th:

 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staffers are voicing frustration over Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s past vaccine comments, following Friday’s shooting at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta that left one police officer dead.

Although the motive of the suspected shooter -- Patrick White, 30, from Kennesaw, Georgia -- remains unknown, he told a neighbor that he believed the Covid vaccines had made him sick, a source told NBC News on the condition of anonymity.

[. . .]

For some employees, the shooting highlighted growing hostility toward public health officials, which they feel has been shaped by Kennedy’s long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the Covid vaccine.

In 2021, Kennedy filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration revoke the authorization of the Covid vaccines. The same year, he described the Covid shot as the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” 

For some employees, the shooting highlighted growing hostility toward public health officials, which they feel has been shaped by Kennedy’s long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, including the Covid vaccine.

In 2021, Kennedy filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration revoke the authorization of the Covid vaccines. The same year, he described the Covid shot as the "deadliest vaccine ever made."

Just last week, Kennedy terminated 22 contracts focused on developing mRNA vaccines -- the same technology used to develop Pfizer’s and Moderna's Covid shots. In an announcement on X, Kennedy claimed "mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses."

 

She's ignored that but she feels Gavin mocking Chump the way Chump mocks others was just too risky.  Or that's the latest lie she told her viewers.

 

Of course, FOX "NEWS" is not the only problem. 

 

Norah O'Donnell demonstrated this week how much damage that even a professional and trained journalist can do.  Bounced from the anchor desk on CBS EVENING NEWS, she's trying to reinvent herself and she did so this week via an interview with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.  

 

Interview?   

 

More like infomercial.  Amy's got a book to sell and she used CBS' airtime to sell her wares while Norah appeared to snooze through the remarks.  

 If there was any reason to interview the justice -- this was her first TV interview since joining the Supreme Court in 2020 -- it was to get an understanding of DOBBS and grasp what it mean for future rulings from the ethically challenged Amy.

 

DOBBS overturned ROE V WADE.  Norah pressed her on that.  Ames can't take responsibility so she yammered away including claiming, "The Supreme Court's decision in DOBBS gave that decision to the democratic process and to the states.  It didn't roll back rights.  It didn't render abortion illegal, unconstitutional or anything else and -- in effect -- many states very fully protected abortion rights -- more than under the regime of ROE since the time of the decision in DOBBS."

 

Norah tried to follow it up by pointing out that it overturned the Constitutional right to an abortion and Ames insisted, "Well, what it said" -- "it"?  she was one of the six justices who voted to strike down ROE -- "is that the Constitution had not protected the abortion right under the Due Process Clause. And it said that Roe had been an error and Casey had been an error to hold otherwise."

 

Amy's a liar and we all know it.  But we hope you read the above because Norah soon decided to take a nap during the interview.  That was right after she asked about the Court and whether it would attempt to overturn marriage equality?  

 

In 2015, OBERGEFELL V HODGES was the case that decided marriage equality. Amy replied to Norah, "You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law; sometimes in statutes. But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That's for the democratic process."

 

Norah just snoozed through it.  Worse, some idiots in the press are hailing that remark as proof that OBERFEFELL is safe.

 

No, it's not.  And the idiot justice just told you that:  "You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law; sometimes in statutes. But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That's for the democratic process."

 

Too many moderates are reading that to mean that she's saying the Court she's on now "should not be imposing its own values on the American people," which, in fact, she's not.  She's saying that the 2015 decision was a case of the Supreme Court "imposing its own values on the American people." 

 

That's what she's saying.  

 

And that's how journalists -- even real ones -- disappoint the American public.  They refuse to cut through the nonsense and instead rush to tie a bow around everything.

 

If we had a media we deserved, we wouldn't have Chump in the White House.  This week, in "Stop Acting Like This Is Normal" (NEW YORK TIMES), Ezra Klein offered, "I often heard people complain that Democrats lacked a message. What Democrats really lacked was power. They didn’t have the House or the Senate [. . .]"  And he's right.  But the Dems also didn't have the media.  Not even at MSNBC which is to Dems what FOX "NEWS" is to Republicans.  We could have had it and we certainly had the facts on our side.  But we were betrayed and backstabbed by Norman Solomon and Rashida Tlaib.  The most important issue in any American election is and always should be: America.

 

Sitting out the election or voting for Jill Stein or Donald Chump did not end the war on Gaza and only idiots and liars thought it would. We do not believe that Kamala Harris was 'the lesser of two evils.'  But for those fools who did, grasp that Operation Iron Wall has killed over a thousand people and displaced 4,000 more per UNRWA.  Operation Iron Wall?  Netanyahu kicked it off January 21st -- the same day Chump was sworn in for his second term. That's blood on a lot of hands -- the hands of people like Amy Goodman who used their 'left' outlets to tear down Kamala Harris and elect Donald Chump.   

We don't get the government we deserve, we get the government the media markets.

 

Truest statement of the week

Last week, in a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump took the Smithsonian’s museums to task for emphasizing “how bad slavery was.” The White House staff followed up on August 21 with a statement titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian,” flagging several objectionable exhibits, including one, weirdly, on Anthony Fauci.

Trump is in eminent company. For nearly a century, between the 1860s and the 1950s, defenders of slavery succeeded in creating a dominant narrative in the nation’s textbooks, trying to show that slavery wasn’t so bad and that the real outrage was the abbreviated period of Reconstruction.

The whitewashing of slavery began as early as 1867, with publication of a book by Edward Pollard, titled The Lost Cause. In this account, slavery was mostly a benign system that uplifted Blacks; plantation owners were typically kindly. This echoed a century of antebellum Southern propaganda. Pollard contended that the Civil War was not really about slavery; it was a war over states’ rights.

 As public education systems became more widespread in the South after the Civil War, states of the former Confederacy set standards to ensure that textbooks for public schools would portray a sympathetic view. These laws influenced Northern publishers. Meanwhile, some prominent Northern scholars embraced the Lost Cause view. The most notable of these was William Archibald Dunning of Columbia University.

 --  Robert Kuttner, "How Bad Slavery Was: Donald Trump joins a long line of apologists for America’s peculiar institution." (THE AMERICAN PROSPECT).

 

A note to our readers

 Hey --

Tuesday. 

Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, 

Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

 

And what did we come up with?

  

• Truest statement of the week
• Media: That what you fear the most could meet yo...
• Roundtable
• The WILL & GRACE Game (Jess)
• Do the country a favor, tell a dumb Bondi joke
• 2025 passings
• Video of the week
• Jim's World
• Rebecca's take on a book
• Marcia's take on a book
• Deep album cut of the week
• This edition's playlist
• Highlights

 

Peace.

 

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

 

 

Media: That what you fear the most could meet you halfway

Some live to be humiliated or maybe they can't help themselves?  It's a high for them and their drug of choice..  Think 'journalist' Glenneth Greenwald.  At the end of May, GiGi got outed and worked hard to spin it.  

 

As we've long noted over the years, Glenneth hates women.  Can't stand women.  Part of that's his college days.  By the way, some of this we've written about here before.  And we've long noted his computer flash drive that was turned over to one of us by an unknown person (left at the agency C.I.'s signed with).  We've long noted the MAGA cashmaster he did online 'hookups with' and we know his computer history.  

 

So last May, it was delicious justice, when 'manly' girl Glenneth got exposed in her halter top and skirt with her meth and meth pipe on the bed while Glenneth went to town on the feet of a man who was spitting on him and verbally humiliating him.  We are aware that he's bragged to his few friends that he now masturbates to that exposure and has a mind blowing orgasm.

 

 There was the misogynist Glenneth, the trans hating Glenneth, the widow Greenwald who ignored his death bed (former sex worker) husband to start his own talk show, dressed as a woman.  

 

And paying a man to humiliate him.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 

Eddie Vedder sings that refrain from "Crazy Mary" on the album SWEET RELIEF: A BENEFIT FOR VICTORIA WILLIAMS.  

 

 "That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 And it certainly met Glenneth. 

 

A man who hates women, has spent years actively insulting them, undermining them and sidelining them, needs to dress up as one to get off?

 

It should make you think.  It should make you look for connections and shadings and possible confessions.

 

In the second half of the last century, a phenomenon emerged known as "White flight." For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the American Psychological Association in 2021:

 

As the population of people of color grows across the United States, white Americans are still prone to move when neighborhoods diversify, and their fears and stereotypical beliefs about other racial and ethnic groups may help maintain segregation, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a nationally representative survey and six additional studies, white Americans perceived a threat to their culture and way of life when presented with information about changing demographics in hypothetical white-majority neighborhoods and schools, compared with when no demographic change was projected. The projected population growth of Arab Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans evoked the strongest feelings of foreign cultural threat, followed by the projected population growth of Black Americans. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

“The more that white Americans perceived this foreign cultural threat, the more they reported wanting to move out of those communities,” said lead researcher Linda Zou, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maryland. “Racial segregation of schools and neighborhoods never ended. The country is growing more diverse, but those changing racial demographics may trigger heightened perceptions of threat among white Americans and contribute to the persistence of segregation.” 

 

White flight, in the second half of the 20th century, was one of the factors creating the growth in suburbs.  One.  And we don't say all who left the cities for the suburbs were motivated by Black people moving into city neighborhoods they were previously prevented from.  Nor do we assert that every White person took part in White flight.  Nor do we overlook the role of the press in scaring people or its historic racism.

 

But we do wonder about those who fled to the suburbs and did so to avoid living near a Black person.

 

There were a lot of racists.  There are still a lot of racists.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

At the heart of some racists is the basic humiliation that they fear the people they target with racism are actually superior to them.   

 

Take Donald Chump, for example.  He needs buck dancers to flatter him constantly and these Uncle Toms are kind-of, sort-of welcomed by him until they cross a line.  These Uncle Toms reassure his troubled manhood that Black people aren't superior to him or they wouldn't rush to kiss his ass.

 

But at the heart of it all, yes, Chump realizes he's beneath every Black person.  While he doesn't grasp is that he's really beneath all Americans regardless of their skin color, he does grasp that, for instance, US House Rep Jasmine Crockett is smarter than he is, is stronger than he is and is more of a leader than he is. 

 

When Crockett or any other Black person refuses to just grin and nod along, it's very hurtful for Chump because it reminds him that these people he thinks are beneath him are above him and that peels the scab off of the never healing wound from all the times his father told him just how worthless he is. 

 

Kelby Vera (HUFFINGTON POST) noted this week:

President Donald Trump’s plot to control American history got a sharp takedown from a top Democrat on Sunday.

Last Tuesday, the president raged about the “out of control” and “woke” Smithsonian Institution in a post on Truth Social, complaining how its museums only focused on how “horrible our Country is” and “bad Slavery was.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) scoffed at Trump’s suggestion that there was any upside to depict about slavery as he spoke to Dana Bash during a stop by CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There is no good aspect of slavery, and so Donald Trump is once again behaving like a racial arsonist,” he said, adding that it was “extraordinary that he would make such a historically ignorant statement.”

Putting his full support behind the institution, Jeffries said, “The Smithsonian should continue to hold the line and make sure that this very painful part of American history is not erased, but is understood by everyone across this country and throughout the world.”

 

Hakeem Jeffries?  Yep, he's a stronger leader and a smart leader than Chump.  And, yes, Donald, we all see it and we all know it.  Kanika Saini (INQUISITR) notes:

 

Donald Trump ignited debate on a topic that nobody expected or probably wanted to be scrutinized. But here we are, discussing the very foundation and concept of the museum. Recently, Fox News contributor Clay Travis joined the debate as he went on a bizarre rant, likening the history of slavery to plane crashes while siding with Trump’s unhinged attacks on the Smithsonian Institution.

Last week, Trump ranted about how museums in the United States focus excessively on “how bad slavery was,” while implying that it needs to be changed from hereon. 

Trump wrote in his social media post, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

 

Slavery was awful.  And yet Black people survived it.  

 

Donald, that nagging thought in the back of your head is accurate, you never could have survived slavery.  You're just not strong enough.  

 

Last week, a highly racist conversation took place between two well known racists but Elaine's the only one we've found who bothered to note it ("MTG and Megyn Kelly: A Couple of Racists Sitting Around Talking"). The key moment of the trash Megyn Kelly broadcast was when she and the other racist took it upon themselves to debate whether or not Jasmine Crockett is Black.

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene insisted Jasmine wasn't (she is) and stated, "So she claims to be, you know, from her people.  She puts on this image that she understands the Black American struggle.  But let's face it, the girl went to private school.  She went on to, you know, I don't know what college and law school.
 

First off, "the girl" is 44-years-old.  Calling Jasmine a "girl" is no different than calling a 40-year-old Black man a "boy.''

 

Second, she did attend private schools, they were private religious schools.  Does MTG really want her constituents to know that she was insulting private religious schools? 

 

Third, she went to college in Memphis (Rhodes College) and she attended two law schools (Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law and University of Houston Law Center).

  

Fourth, shocker for MTG but Black children have been going to private schools in this country for nearly 300 years.  The first one for Black children was establishes in 1760, Virginia's Williamsburg Bray School.  

 

Fifth, Black people have been going to college in the US for nearly two hundred years.   In 1835, Ohio's Oberlin College became the first US college to admit Black students. And the first college for Black student came along two years later with the Institute for Colored Youth which became the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. 

 

Sixth, going to private school, going to college and going to law school?  Black people can and have done all of that for nearly two centuries now in this country.  In fact, let's educate MTG, Judge Macon Bolling Allen?  He was the first Black attorney (licensed attorney) in this country and that was back in 1844.  He went on to become a judge.  

 

It's only in MTG's starving brain, where facts are forbidden but conspiracies run free, that a Black person can't know "the Black experience" if they've gone to law school.

 

Megyn offered her own racism including, of Jasmine Crockette, "She's a complete fake.  She's as fake as her eyelashes.  She's as fake as her hair --"

 

We'll cut her off there but we will note that Megyn wears extensions (fake hair) and has a lot of make up on (because she's got a wonky eye and one side of her face looks caved in). 

 

Mainly though, we'll note that racist Megyn was a Blackface defender and that got her fired from NBC.

 

So Megyn, a friend of Glenneth Greenwald's, is a racist who wants to dress up as a Black person.

 

Glenneth's jealous of women and it manifests itself as sexism.  Megyn wishes she was 'authentic' and could be Black and that manifests in her as racism.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

Keep all the above in mind.   

 

David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:

 

MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk called on the NAACP to give President Donald Trump a nonexistent "Man of the Year" award for sending federal troops into Washington, D.C.

[. . .]

According to Kirk, Trump proved "you can stop Black-on-Black crime."

"In fact, President Donald Trump should be getting the Man of the Year award from the NAACP," he argued. "President Donald Trump should be awarded at the Black Entertainment Television Awards for what he is doing here. President Donald Trump should be given the Hero Medal of Freedom equivalent in the Black community."

 

Racist Charlie Kirk -- defender of Blackface.  Again, factor that in.  Factor in how he feels small and inauthentic and wishes he was Black but can't be so he turns it into racism.

 

BET Awards?  Those go to musicians, people in film and TV and athletes.  None of which, Albino Charlie, is a category for Donald Chump.  

 

There is no Man of the Year NAACP Award.  Mainly because there are no NAACP Awards.  The awards  handed out by the NAACP are The NAACP Image Awards.  Those awards?  Man of the Year is not a category and never has been.

 

Many of us often wonder how, in the 21st century, you can still have racists in the United States?

 

In the past, it was ignorance taught in schools and encouraged in the press.  

 

Now? 

 

Now it's about butt hurt White people like Megyn, Chump, Charlie and Marjorie whose jealousy of Black people manifests itself as racism.

 

If you pay attention, they do reveal themselves.  

 

Roundtable

 Jim: Roundtable time.  Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and you can also use common_ills@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;  Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript. 

 

Jim (Con't): So I think Stephanie Ruhle said last night on MSNBC that Chump's now been president for 218 days.  Anybody else wonder if we're going to survive it?

Isaiah: I worry about that every single day.  He is destroying our country.

Kat: We should win the mid-terms by a landslide.  But I think about the 2020 election and how he was pressuring governors to deliver him X votes after the votes had been counted. I think about that and then I wonder about his scam where he's asking for voter rolls from states right now and I wonder if that's some stunt he plans to pull to overturn elections.  I wouldn't put anything past him.  He's the closest thing to Satan on this earth.

Jim: I hadn't really thought about that.  It's something to be concerned about.

Cedric: I'll note that I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, think he's scum but even I'm surprised by how outright evil he has become.  And this is the man who led an insurrection against the government.  But I've never seen someone so hateful and so joyless and so determined to destroy the American people.  Kat's right, he's the closest thing to Satan that we have on earth. 

Trina: People like him tend to destroy themselves.  By that I mean, look at him, his skin's rotting, he's taking on water in the ankles, he's morbidly obese and can no longer walk a straight line.  He is a stroke waiting to happen.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had to step down because he became physically and mentally incapacitated.  I also wouldn't be surprise if he had a fatal stroke and passed away.  And I wouldn't shed a tear for a number of reasons but in terms of medical the main reason I wouldn't cry is that his administration has devalued and defunded preventative care.  He, as a patient, is also rejecting preventative care.  So he will have brought any health problems on himself.

Jim: Trina's a nurse.  Can anyone think of a previous president so determined to attack half of the country, half of its citizens.

Ruth: Let me grab that.  No.  I did not care for President Ronald Reagan, for instance.  And I think he did real damage on issues like the homeless and AIDS; however, I would not say that his policies were about attacking the Americans who did not vote for him.  He also did not spew hatred every time he opened his mouth.  I have had it with The Convicted Felon and members of his cabinet constantly attacking former President Joe Biden.  There is no excuse for it.  And it makes our entire country look dysfunctional on the international stage.

Jim: What's been the biggest disappointment in the last 218 days?

Wally: Republicans in Congress.  They've always claimed to have ethics.  They have none.  They vote that Big Bulls**t Bill that destroys America -- for example, destroys medical insurance for so many Americans -- and then they make it worse by going into their districts and lying about what the bill will do.  And then they have a whiney fit when their constituents refuse to go along with them and their break from reality.  That's what the second Chump term is: A break from reality.  A psychotic break. 

Dona: Grace Hall (MIAMI HERALD) cites Pew's latest poll which found his job approval rating has fallen "to 38%" and it was 47% at the start of his second term in January 2025."  It would appear that a large number of Americans are tuned into what he's doing.

Marcia: Yes, but that's not registering with Republicans in Congress -- like Wally pointed out earlier.  And they control both houses of Congress.  So it's hard not to feel as though we're screwed for the rest of this year and next.

Betty: And we've got a corrupt Supreme Court.  Don't forget that.  And let's never forgive John Roberts, Chief Justice, for bringing us to this point.  He is part of the problem.  And he will be remembered in history for presiding over the Court that the American people lost faith in.  For decades, we had seen the Supreme Court as a trusted body.  Now we see it for a collective of right-wing partisan hacks. It doesn't represent the American people and it doesn't even attempt to pretend that it does.  This is a very sad and very risky moment in American history.  And I think we're seeing how little democracy means to a number of people -- some of whom hold elected office.

C.I.: Worth noting, in April, 52% of Americans polled by Public Religion Research Institute agreed with the statement, "President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy."

Jess: That's a majority.  A majority is what Chump didn't get in the 2024 election.  He got 49% to Kamala's 47%,

Ty: It's a majority saying Chump needs his power limited because people have caught on.  Chump is a menace, a threat to democracy.  

 

Betty:  It is prayer.  That's all that's getting me through these days.  He is rejecting even the Supreme Court these days.

 

 

Elaine: Exactly.  He announces that he's got an executive order that now will put anyone burning a flag into prison for one year.  This despite the rulings of the Supreme Court that flag burning is a form of free speech.   Or his attempts to fire Lisa Cool from the Federal Reserve Board -- a move that a Supreme Court verdict earlier this year said he did not have the power to do. 

 

Rebecca: As Ruth and Mike both noted last week, Chump needs to learn his lane. He thinks being president of the United States means he can dictate our medical rights, that he can dictate what's on TV and what's not, that he can dictate what cases attorneys take and do not take, that he can misuse the Justice Dept. to go after his political enemies, that he can dictate what colleges teach, go down the list.  He's out of control.

 

Mike: And while he does all of this, our economy is tanking and our democracy is fading.  He is the worst president this country has ever seen.  

 

Jim: Ever?

 

Mike: Ever, ever, ever. And he doesn't even have one decent appointee in his administration.  He may have the administration that he deserves but it's not one that this country deserves.

 

Jim:  Ann, Stan we need to wrap up.  What disturbs you two the most?

 

Stan: For me, it's the media coverage.  Too much of the media fails to address what is going on and fails to call it out.  You can't both sides Hitler without embracing and backing Hitler.  That's the reality.  You're supposed to be on the side of democracy.  Someone attacks democracy, they've become the enemy and the press needs to grasp that.

 

Ann: And he's certainly attacked the press.  The thing that bothers me is even his attempts to take over business -- to dictate to business -- even this doesn't result in a flurry of press outrage.  The editorial board of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, for example, did come out against that.  But talk to people you know and you'll learn that much of the press has still not even reported on it, let alone weighed in against it.  

 

Jim: And that's going to have to be the last word.  This is a rush transcript.  Ava and C.I. took notes for this transcript.

 

 

 

 

 

ann stan 

The WILL & GRACE Game (Jess)

So far, Jim's played "The WILL & GRACE GAME (Jim),"   Dona played "" and Ty played "The WILL & GRACE game (Ty)."  Marcia kicked it off with "Sitcom with the most name guest stars: Will & Grace (and I can name 133)."  After Marcia played it others followed -- see Stan's ''HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1 ," Rebecca's  "have you tried to list all the guest stars on 'will & grace'?" and Kat's "Prayers for Ann Wilson and my try at the WILL & GRACE game."  Now it's Jess' turn.

 

 

1 David Foley

2 Veronica Cartwright

3 Beau Bridges

4  Brian Jordan Alvarez

5 Demi Moore

6 Cher

7 Eileen Brennan 

8 Nicole Sullivan

9 Emily Rutherfurd

10 Andrea Martin

11 Matt Damon

12 Rosie O'Donnell

13 Britney Spears

14 Janet Jackson

15 Will Arnett

16 Jennifer Lopez

17 George Takei

18 Kevin Bacon

19 Parker Posey

20 Tim Curry

21 John Cleese

22 Alec Baldwin

23 Andy Garcia

24 Joel McHale

25  Macaulay Culkin

26 Wanda Sykes

27 Candice Bergen

28 Joan Collins

29 Bernadette Peters

30 Suzanne Pleshette

31  Samira Wiley

32 Debbie Reynolds

33 Alan Arkin

34 Geena Davis

35 Sara Rue

36  Mary McCormack

37 Ed Burns

38 Eric Stoltz

39 Harry Connick Jr.

40  Woody Harrelson

41 David Schwimmer

42 Chelsea Handler

43 Sharon Stone

44 Molly Shannon

45  Natasha Lyonne

46 Jeremy Piven

47  Billie Lourd

48 Wendi Jo Sperber

49 Glenn Close

50 Blythe Danner

51 Sydney Pollack

52 Steven Weber

53  John Slattery

54 Jon Tenney

55 Cheyenne Jackson

56 Taye Diggs

57 Gregory Harrison

58 Patrick Dempsey

59 Michael Douglas

60 Tracey Ullman

61 Edie Falco

62  Chloe Sevigny

63 Sharon Osborne

64 Lily Tomlin

65 Buck Henry

66 Madonna

67 Barry Manilow

68 Elton John

69 Clark Gregg

70 Ben Platt

71 Max Greenfield

72 Al Roker

73 Matt Lauer

74 Katie Couric

75 Minnie Driver

76 Ellen DeGeneres

77 Neal Patrick Harris

78 James Earl Jones

79 Kristen Davis

80 & 81 Hall and Oates

82 Jason Biggs

83 Seth Green

84 Patti Lupone

85 Chita Rivera

86 Michelle Lee

87 Jack Black

88 Bebe Neuwirth

89 Lee Majors

90 Sandra Bernhard

91 Victor Garber

92 Richard Chamberlain

93 Piper Laurie

94 Orson Bean

95 Roscoe Lee Browne 

96 Dylan McDermott

97 Rip Torn

98 Hal Linden

99 Brandon Routh

100 Rosanna Arquette

101 Sara Gilbert

102 Chris Penn

103  Camryn Manheim

104 Nicolette Sheridan

105 Mira Sorvino 

106 John Edwards

107 Bruce Campos

108 Tom Skerritt

109 Judith Ivey  

110 Nick Offerman

111 Stacey Keach

112 Leslie Ann Warren

113 Lanie Kazan  

114  Dan Bucatinsky

115 Ken Marino

116 Leslie Jordan 

117 Luke Perry

118 Demi Lovato

119 Matt Bomer

120 Andy Richter

121 Jane Lynch

122 Andrew Rannells 

 

 

Do the country a favor, tell a dumb Bondi joke

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes" 

 Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "."  AG Pam Bondi explains, "Some people call me Pam Bimbo and that's just not fair.  Bimbos are much smarter."  FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is ready with Bondi jokes, "Why did the Bondi get fired from the M&M factory?  For throwing out the Ws."   Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS. 

  

Let's all let AG Pam Bimbo Bondi know that we are a democracy and we will mock anyone who tries to harm our democracy.  We see you, Pam.  So do the country a favor and tell a dumb Bondi joke this week. 

 

We'll lead by example:   What did the Bondi say after glimpsing a box of Cheerios?  "OMG! Doughnut seeds!"

 

 

2025 passings

 

In 2025, we'll continue to note passings that we see as significant -- as we did previously "2024 passings" and  "2023 passings."

 

"James Dobson has left to run to the arms of Satan" -- Ann notes a most welcome death.

"Terence Stamp" -- Kat notes the passing of an actor. 

"A racist and homophobe dies" -- Kat notes the death of a fake 'athlete' in a fake 'sport.'

 

"julian mcmahon" -- Rebecca covers the passing of an actor.

 

"Michael Madsen" -- Stan covers the passing of an actor. 

 

 

"Shrimp Salad Rolls in the Kitchen" -- Trina notes the passing of a musical genius. 

 

"Teeny bopper and man tease Bobby Sherman has passed away" -- Stan notes the passing of a teeny bopper. 

 

"Jimmy Swaggart has finally joined his beloved in hell" -- Kat covers the passing of a monster.

"David Lynch" -- Stan notes the passing of a director.

"Joan Plowright" -- Marcia notes the passing of an actress 

"Movies and Leslie Charleson" -- Stan notes the passing of daytime actress Leslie Charleson. 

"Roberta Flack" and "Roberta Flack was one of a kind amazing" -- Kat and Elaine reflect on the art of Roberta Flack. 

"Gene Hackman" -- Stan covers the passing of a two time Academy Award winner.

"Shattered Love: A Memoir" -- at the start of the year, Marcia reviewed Richard Chamberlain's autobiography.  He passed away at the end of the March and a lot of readers e-mailed to say Marcia's review works as a good obit.

"Angie Stone" -- Betty covers the passing of the queen of neo soul.

 

"Jay North" -- Kat covers the death of a child actor from the 50s. 

 

"Clem Burke" -- Kat covers the death of a drummer. 

"MATLOCK, REACHER, MID CENTURY MODERN, Val Kilmer" and "More on Kilmer and ABC killed SHIFTING GEARS"  -- Stan covers the passing of an actor.

 

"Pope Francis has passed" and "The Snapshot" -- Trina and C.I. note the death of Pope Francis. 

 

 "David Souter, former Supreme Court justice" -- Betty notes a passing.