“Massive Changes Could Be Coming From the Vatican. Conservative US Catholics Are Mad as Hell.”
“Book banning, then, is just one part of a broad effort to chill the free exchange of ideas in K-12 schools. But it is getting worse: Public school book bans rose by 33 percent in the 2022-23 school year compared with a year earlier.”
“Diana Nyad’s Swimming Brought Her Glory, Fame, And An Adversary Dedicated To Exposing Her Lies“. An amazing story. I had no idea.
“Pregnant with no OB-GYNs around: In Idaho, maternity care became a casualty of its abortion ban”.
“Apparently Disney+ is presenting classic Disney cartoons, but is editing out sequences that could be problematic for today’s younger viewers.” I’m sure no one will overreact to that report.
“Plenty of others will disagree, but it’s past time to make right-on-red the exception, not the rule.” Again, I am certain that no one will overreact to that.
“Yes, a new speaker will likely try to renege on the spending levels set in the debt limit agreement. But McCarthy was already trying to renege on it too, and telegraphing his intention to spend the next several weeks bringing up hard-right spending proposals with no chance of approval in the Senate. And getting Ukraine aid to the floor was going to be an extremely heavy lift with or without McCarthy as speaker — perhaps this is an area where it’s time to try a discharge petition.”
“For months, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his allies have defended Thomas’ practice of not disclosing free luxury travel by saying the trips fell under a carve-out to the federal disclosure law for government officials. But by not publicly reporting his trips to the Bohemian Grove and to a 2018 Koch network event, Thomas appears to have violated the disclosure law, even by his own permissive interpretation of it, ethics law experts said.”
“It’s Official: WGA Members Overwhelmingly Ratify New Three-Year Deal With Studios”.
“As Hollywood’s #MeToo Reckoning Turns Six, New Survey Shows Improvement in Toxic Work Environments — but Misconduct Continues”.
“Rising ocean temperatures and marine heat waves are pushing whales closer to busy shipping lanes. Flexible speed reduction areas could help prevent ship collisions, scientists say.”
“Twitter isn’t the first platform that’s financially rewarded the spread of misinformation, but its policy decisions have made it all the more vulnerable to abuse, an own goal that hurts not only trust in the platform but also users’ understanding of a major geopolitical event.”
“For many reasons, this is the hardest time I’ve ever had covering a crisis on [Twitter]. Credible links are now photos. On the ground news outlets struggle to reach audiences without an expensive blue check mark. Xenophobic goons are boosted by the platform’s CEO. End times, folks.”
“I can’t tell you whether Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce are in a romantic relationship with one another, and neither can you. Short of the people themselves coming forward, all we can offer is speculation. What we do know is that this apparent coupling has meant big business for the NFL. What we also know is that Swift and Kelce are names on everyone’s lips. That they’re being talked about so much is always good for them and they can both raise profiles and promote projects through this.”
RIP, Rudolph Isley, founding member of the legendary soul group The Isley Brothers
“The premise of all those dramas is that they’re what you do when you don’t have the votes to do what you want. If you’ve got the votes in the Congress and a President who will sign your bills, you just do it. Threatening to shut down the government is what you do when you don’t. Do what I say even though I don’t have the votes or I start breaking things. That’s the bottom line behind every one of these gambits. It’s all cut from the same cloth.”
“It would be tempting to compare the House GOP caucus to the Mickey Mouse Club. But at least the Mickey Mouse Club had a leader. House Republicans are nowhere close to being able to say the same.” The Mickey Mouse Club also had a snappy theme song, another thing the Republican caucus will never have.
RIP, Walt Garrison, former fullback for the Dallas Cowboys who also competed in rodeos.
It is the day for a Sunday cartoon featuring the very best that Republicans have to offer to this country.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/14/2199175/-Cartoon-Stinky-speaker
I’m thinking that Kevin McCarthy wished on the cursed monkey’s paw to become Speaker of the House.