Bonkers 🤯😱🌻✡️😱🤯🍎🍯

Kimmel’s Back:  Jimmy Kimmel was a bit emotional last night and had nice things to say about Erika Kirk’s grace in the face of her husband’s murder, but he didn’t hold back in his criticism of Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and their almost successful efforts to have him and his staff permanently fired in their quest to stifle speech they don’t like. Kimmel received a leg up from Robert DeNiro who played Carr in a Godfather skit that slammed Trump and Carr for their mobster like behavior. As a result of media groups Sinclair and Nexstar’s decisions to keep Kimmel in the penalty box, the show was dark in about 20% of the US market, but lots of people who don’t generally watch late time TV, me included, watched his return, making up some of the viewership loss. Before moving on to the guest portion of his show, Kimmel threw in a dig about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s newest efforts to muzzle what journalists who cover the Pentagon report.  The new policy bars media from reporting anything, even unclassified information, without Pentagon signoff, another example of the way that the Trump administration is trying to curtail all that free speech that is only okay when it meets Trump’s criteria or fawns over his “good looks,” “brilliance,” and “accomplishments.” Exercising his right to say whatever he wants, unhinged or not, Trump delivered one of his rambling diatribes to the United Nation’s General Assembly.  In his hour-long speech, he called the member countries stupid and their open border immigration policies and energy ideas, as in the recognition of climate change, suicidal, a “double-tailed monster” that “destroys everything in its wake.” He bragged about brokering peace between countries still at war or where he had little involvement although at least this time he didn’t claim that he’d successfully achieved peace between Armenia and Cambodia, two countries with no conflict to settle.  He also complained about the teleprompter being broken, threatening its operator even though it may not have been broken and was being operated by a member of the White House staff.  One of the UN escalators was broken, forcing him to walk up to his destination, something he actually managed to do cankles and all and that Melania pulled off in her usual high and spindly stilettos. The UN is a very flawed institution and there’s something seriously amiss about them routinely holding their annual meetings during holidays 🍎🍯when Israel, the country they take joy in slamming, can’t attend but even given those flaws, Trump’s speech, was seriously embarrassing.  His new-found support for all things Ukraine was weird too because who among us doesn’t believe that the mercurial TACO man will flip back into Putin’s camp at some point soon. After all, he negotiated the return of the Bagram base to the Taliban during Trump One and now insists that it should be given back so consistency is hardly one his strong points.  After Trump’s speech one foreign diplomat texted the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor: “This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?” Some of us do see, apparently the rest either don’t see or don’t care. 🤯

Viral Musings:  With RFK Jr and Mehmet Oz by his side, Trump announced that the use of acetaminophen, Tylenol in the US, Paracetamol in many overseas markets, during pregnancy is a cause of autism.  The evidence for that connection is sketchy at best but Trump, who once mused about injecting bleach to cure COVID and still stands by hydroxychloroquine, isn’t much of a believer in science.  Giving another one of his unhinged speeches, he repeatedly called for pregnant women to avoid Tylenol no matter what.  The problem with that advice is that high fevers can be dangerous for pregnant women and taking Tylenol is often their only option.  The bottom line, pregnant women should follow the advice of their doctors, not Trump or almost anyone associated with his MAHA brigade.  The Trump crowd is also recommending leucovorin, a form of folate, also referred to as folinic acid. The drug is given to some cancer patients receiving treatments that block folate pathways because cells need folate. Several small studies have studied the drug’s impact on children with autism and found improvements in verbal and social skills, particularly among children whose mothers’ folate levels were low during pregnancy. Scientists say the studies had a number of weaknesses and need to be reproduced on a larger scale but leucovorin, while not a cure all, could help some autistic children.  However, there are side effects to taking leucovorin so again this is one to be discussed with your medical team rather than the president who plays one on TV and his sidekicks, some of whom may have ulterior motives or maybe even investments that would benefit from a run on the drug.  And lastly, while it’s true that autism rates have grown significantly, much of that increase is attributable to the broadening definition of autism, more awareness, and improved diagnosis rather than Tylenol and/or vaccines, another one of the MAHA contingents’ bugaboos.    

More 💩:  Yesterday Trump abruptly cancelled the meeting that he’d agreed to hold with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.  The purpose of that meeting was to hammer out a deal to keep the country funded past the end of the month.  The Democrats want the government to keep funding Affordable Care subsidies and to reinstate some, if not all, of the Medicaid money that was cut by Trump’s big not so beautiful bill.  Without the subsidies, premium costs are expected to increase dramatically, putting insurance out of the reach of many.  The Medicaid cuts will also leave many without care and lead to the closing of hospitals, particularly those in rural communities.  The blame game has just begun.  In other political news, as expected Democrat Adelita Grijalva won the Arizona special election to fill the House seat left vacant by the death of her father, Raúl Grijalva.  She will be sworn in early next month when in addition to upping the size of the Democratic caucus, she is expected to provide the remaining vote needed for the discharge petition that could force the release of the Epstein files. And yes, despite Trump’s shiny objects efforts, Epstein remains an issue.  Lastly, Trump has declared antifa to be a domestic terrorist organization despite antifa not being an organization. What he’s really doing is justifying targeting left wing groups and the people who fund them while ignoring that the majority of domestic terrorism originates on the right.

#BringThemAllHomeNow