Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steve Peoples: Right Wing Site Tied Billionaire First Funded Fusion GPS Trump File (TPM)
A conservative website with strong ties to the Republican establishment first retained the firm that investigated Donald Trump's past - and ultimately produced a dossier that alleged a compromised relationship between the president and the Kremlin.
Eline Gordts: "Report: First Charges Filed In Mueller's Russia Probe" (Huffington Post)
It is unclear yet who has been indicted or what the charges are in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Marc Dion: Jesus Christ Akbar! (Creators Syndicate)
It wasn't just a good newspaper story; it was a great newspaper story.
Susan Estrich: A Trump Crisis (Creators Syndicate)
Here's an idea: Declare the American opioid epidemic a health emergency. […] When you're president of the United States, you can do more than talk. You can take action: Make existing funds available, reallocate priorities, send funds to the states for treatment, ask Congress for new money or new programs, ask the agencies for new regulations. Or then again, you can just talk.
Susan Estrich: Everybody Needs a Lawyer, But Do They Need You? About Gloria Allred, Lisa Bloom and Representing Harvey Weinstein (Creators Syndicate)
I wasn't surprised, last summer, when my old friend Gloria Allred went after me for representing Roger Ailes, the late former president of Fox News, who died before he had the chance to defend himself against charges that he vehemently denied. I know the mantra well: Everybody needs a lawyer, but they don't necessarily need you.
Lucy Mangan on the vital importance of legal abortions (Stylist)
It is 50 years this week since the 1967 Abortion Act legalising terminations of pregnancy came into force in the United Kingdom.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
TAKE 'THE TRUTH PLEDGE'.
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Nearly back to seasonal temperatures.
Butterflies Stuck Up North
Misplaced Monarchs
Monarch butterflies, those delicate symbols of spring and summer, should mostly be in Texas by now, winging their way to Mexico for the winter.
But Darlene Burgess keeps seeing colorful clusters of them - and she lives in Canada.
"As nice as this is to see, I really wish I wouldn't see it because they're running out of time," said Burgess, who does evening monarch counts at Point Pelee National Park in Canada. "It's really not good for them."
It's not just Canada. Swarms have been seen elsewhere, including near Cape May , New Jersey, at levels more normal for late September and early October.
Scientists say tens of thousands of the butterflies are likely to be stranded far north of where they'd normally be this time of year because of the unusually warm weather and strong winds that have kept them from migrating south, said biologist Elizabeth Howard, director of the monarch tracking non-profit Journey North .
Misplaced Monarchs
Dinner With T-rump
Woody Harrelson
Dinner with Donald Trump (R-Execrable) sounds like a true and complete nightmare, right?
Well, Woody Harrelson can confirm. For him, the experience was so obnoxious that he excused himself midway through to smoke a joint.
Harrelson, who has since given up smoking weed, detailed the experience to his insufferable friend Bill Maher on Friday night's Real Time.
In 2002, Harrelson explained, he attended a dinner with his friend Jesse Ventura. Trump was also in attendance - in fact, he was courting Ventura to be his running mate on (get this) the 2004 Democratic presidential ticket.
"It was brutal," he continued. "I never met a more narcissistic man. He talked about himself the whole time. I had to walk out, like, halfway through to smoke a joint ... just to, like, steel myself for the rest of it."
Woody Harrelson
Because She's A Girl
Emily Nash
Anything boys can do, girls can do better. And they should be rewarded for it.
Emily Nash wasn't awarded the first place championship trophy at the Central Mass. Division 3 boys' golf tournament on Tuesday. The reason? She's a girl. That's it.
The 16-year-old had the best score by four strokes, yet she wasn't allowed first prize or the chance to advance to the state tournament individually. The trophy was given to a boy who technically was supposed to be in second place.
According to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), girls are only allowed to play on a boys' team, but can't compete individually. Female golfers can only play individually during the girls' season.
"I wasn't aware until after my round that if I won, I wouldn't be able to get the title or the trophy. So I was definitely disappointed, but I understand that there are rules in place," she told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. "I don't think people expected this to happen, so they didn't really know how to react to it. None of us are mad at the MIAA or anything like that, but I was definitely disappointed."
Emily Nash
Letters Sell For $12,500
Harper Lee
A batch of letters handwritten by "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee to a friend has sold for more than $12,000.
A statement from the Los Angeles-based Nate D. Sanders Auctions says 38 letters from the deceased novelist to her late friend Felice Itzkoff went for $12,500 in a sale that ended Thursday night. The minimum bid was $10,000.
The letters span the period from December 2005 to May 2010 and include a note written on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the nation's first black president.
In the note, Lee referred to former President Lyndon B. Johnson and actor Gregory Peck, who portrayed small-town attorney Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of "Mockingbird," a story of racial injustice in the Jim Crow South.
"On this Inauguration Day I count my blessings ... I'm also thinking of another friend, Greg Peck, who was a good friend of LBJ. Greg said to him, 'Do you suppose we will live to see a black President?' LBJ said, 'No, but I wish her well,'" Lee wrote.
Harper Lee
Never Comes Through
T-rump
One of the most stunning parts of the White House's debacle over Donald Trump's (R-Prevaricator) recent call to a Gold Star family was how it caught both the president and the chief of staff in outright lies.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (R-Untrustworthy) told a story to discredit a congresswoman that turned out to be completely fabricated, as video from the event later showed.
Trump, who was mad that Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) said he insulted a fallen soldier's widow during a condolence call by telling her that her husband "knew what he signed up for." Trump tweeted that Wilson was lying - and he had the goods to back up his claim.
Trump did not have any proof. Even the White House later admitted that there was no recording of the call. And both the mother and widow of Sgt. La David Johnson eventually said Wilson was accurate in her recounting of what happened.
This situation played out pretty typically for Trump: He makes a claim, he says he has proof and but then he never produces the aforementioned proof.
T-rump
Las Vegas Shooting Victims Turning To
GoFundMe
In a nation politically incapable of preventing mass shootings, and where the right to quality affordable health care is not guaranteed, online fundraising sites are filling the gap to help pay for very expensive U.S. medical bills, like in the case of many survivors of the Las Vegas massacre.
About one month after the shootings, in which 59 people died and more than 500 people were injured, dozens have turned to the popular fundraising site GoFundMe to help them pay for things like surgery and rehabilitation.
There are at least 29 fundraising profiles on the site that specifically reference the Oct. 1 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, and they follow in the footsteps of other Americans (and even one hospital) who have turned to crowdfunding in order to avoid a medical bankruptcy. Most profiles are asking for money to pay for surgery and rehabilitation costs, and explain that these victims sustained gunshot and shrapnel wounds. One was trampled and another impaled with a tree branch.
Before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, 62 percent of all bankruptcies in the U.S. had medical causes. While there is some evidence to suggest that the ACA is linked to a steady decrease in personal bankruptcy filings, Americans today are still struggling to afford to pay their bills - especially those in states that chose not to expand Medicaid eligibility after the ACA took effect.
There are few reliable estimates for how common is the practice of crowdfunding for medical bills, but an April 2016 analysis of such sites found that YouCaring.com had 15,880 active medical campaigns, while FundRazr had 5,326. Also, from 2010 to 2016, the popular crowdfunding site GoFundMe has raised $3 billion, with most of it going toward medical and health campaigns.
GoFundMe
Hopes Dashed
Antarctic Marine Sanctuary
Hopes for a vast new marine sanctuary in pristine East Antarctica were dashed Saturday after a key conservation summit failed to reach agreement, with advocates urging "greater vision and ambition".
Expectations were high ahead of the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) -- a treaty tasked with overseeing protection and sustainable exploitation of the Southern Ocean.
Last year's summit in Hobart saw the establishment of a massive US and New Zealand-backed marine protected area (MPA) around the Ross Sea covering an area roughly the size of Britain, Germany and France combined.
But an Australia and France-led push this year to create a second protected area in East Antarctica spanning another one million square kilometre zone failed.
Officials told AFP that Russia and China were key stumbling blocks, worried about compliance issues and fishing rights. Consensus is needed from all 24 CCAMLR member countries and the European Union.
Antarctic Marine Sanctuary
Changed Name In China To "Golden Arches"
McDonald's
One of the world's largest fast-food chains, McDonald's is a fairly recognizable name to the average person. But for patrons in China, that name just got more complicated.
McDonalds Corp. changed its name in China to one that reflects the chain's main logo: "Golden Arches (China) Co Ltd," according to Reuters. The decision came after McDonald's sold parts of its China business to a new company that plans to expand to about 4,500 locations throughout the location. There are currently around 2,500 locations.
But despite concerns by customers in China about the name-change, McDonald's has clarified that it is only on paper - and not necessarily in its branding.
That means customers in China shouldn't expect to see anything too different at their local restaurant. Regardless, the name change seems to have prompted confusion on social media in China.
According to CNN Money, social media users on Weibo - used in place of Twitter in China - have made jokes about the name change. One user joked that Golden Arches "sounds like a furniture store. Are you sure the fod is edible," according to CNN Money. Another described it as "rustic," and one pointed out the significance of the Golden Arches, as displayed in the recent biopic on McDonald's Ray Kroc called The Founder, according to CNN Money.
McDonald's
Science Says
Jack Frost
Winter is coming ... later. And it's leaving ever earlier.
Across the United States, the year's first freeze has been arriving further and further into the calendar, according to more than a century of measurements from weather stations nationwide.
Scientists say it is yet another sign of the changing climate, and that it has good and bad consequences for the nation. There could be more fruits and vegetables - and also more allergies and pests.
The trend of ever later first freezes appears to have started around 1980, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of data from 700 weather stations across the U.S. going back to 1895 compiled by Ken Kunkel, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information.
The average first freeze over the last 10 years, from 2007 to 2016, is a week later than the average from 1971 to 1980, which is before Kunkel said the trend became noticeable.
Jack Frost
In Memory
John Mollo
John Mollo, the Oscar-winning costume designer who famously worked on Star Wars, has died at the age of 86, as reported by The Times.
Mollo was a military history expert who acted as a historical advisor on several films, including The Charge of the Light Brigade and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, before progressing to costume design.
After finishing work on Kubrick's film, Mollo - who had never watched a science fiction film beforehand - met with George Lucas to discuss the director's third feature film.
Soon after that discussion, he was hired to work on Star Wars. Using Ralph McQuarrie's sketches, Mollo designed the iconic outfits worn by Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the stormtroopers.
There was, of course, also Darth Vader's costume: with only £900, Mollo began making McQuarrie and Lucas's vision a reality, basing the eventual design on World War 1 trench armour and Nazi helmets.
For his work on Star Wars, Mollo was awarded the best costume design Oscar. He would once again win the prestigious Academy Award in 1983 for Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. Mollo also worked on Alien, Cry Freedom and returned to the Star Wars universe for The Empire Strikes Back.
John Mollo
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