Celebrities Who Look Just Like Other Celebrities' Pets! Tabs, Thurs., July 16, 2020
I'm never going to finish reading all these open tabs. Never!
The Trump campaign has shitcanned Brad Parscale as campaign manager, replacing him with a different Trump yes-man, Bill Stepien. Parscale isn't altogether gone; he still has a position as "senior adviser" and will go back to his previous role, running the campaign's digital and data ops. Parscale made Trump look bad by bragging about the expected turnout for Trump's Virus Picnic in Tulsa last month, which people avoided like the coronavirus. Stepian is expected to get right to work improving Trump's poll numbers by causing traffic jams in Ft. Lee, New Jersey . [ CNN ]
The USA is getting close to 3.5 million cases of COVID-19 . Gosh, we're doing a great job of testing, aren't we? (We aren't) [ Washington Post, free access]
Donald Trump has no plan at all to handle the coronavirus. Exactly as NYU professor Jay Rosen warned us back in early May . [ Washington Post / PressThink ]
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp isn't just refusing to issue a mask order in his state; he's actively voided local mask orders put in place by several cities and counties around Georgia. [ Forbes ]
In an interview with the Atlantic , Dr. Anthony Fauci said he's not going anywhere, described White House efforts to undermine him as "bizarre," and said the resurgence of the coronavirus makes him want to "almost reset this and say, 'Okay, let's stop this nonsense.'" [ Atlantic ]
Remember all those inexperienced, apparently incompetent companies that won big no-bid federal contracts to provide medical supplies to the government? Congress is investigating, or at least Democrats on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis are. Among the fist-time recipients of big Rona contracts is a company owned by Donald Trump's former deputy chief of staff, Zach Fuentes. Bet a nickel Trump will say he barely knows the guy. [ NPR ]
That new HHS database where hospitals were ordered by the Trump administration to send all their COVID-19 stats , instead of to the CDC? Why yes, it was developed by a private company that got a no-bid contract, for no apparent reason. [ New York Times ]
Maybe you could use a picture of Thornton and his very polite paws. What a good boy.
A new body-cam video from one of the cops involved in the killing of George Floyd has been released, but only for in-person viewing, by appointment, at a courthouse in Minneapolis. It's reportedly very hard to watch, as you'd expect, but is also "the fullest portrait yet of the tragic events around Mr. Floyd's killing." [ New York Times ]
We have an update on Grace, the 15-year-old Michigan girl who was sent to Juvie because she didn't do her online classes. Did we mention Grace is Black? Did we have to? ProPublica's reporting on her case has gotten national attention, and now state and federal officials are calling for Grace to be released. The ACLU of Michigan is involved, Grace has a new lawyer, and thousands of people have signed an online petition for the judge to hold a new hearing in the case. [ ProPublica ]
Multiple high-level accounts on Twitter got hacked yesterday, with folks like Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and others appearing to offer to double the amounts of bitcoin anyone sent them. Surprise, it was a scam, and it led to Twitter's shutting down all its verified "blue checkmark" user accounts, some for hours. The whole mess seems to involve the hacker's getting access to Twitter's internal administrative tools , which allowed them to take over any user's account. The consensus is that it all could have been much, much worse. [ TechCrunch / TechCrunch ]
Unrelated to the hacking, but damned if we're clicking on THAT:
Fish with luscious human lips and teeth perplexes, arouses social media https: //t.co/2UfrmAg8gY https://t.co/tRBZw8zcVo
— New York Post (@New York Post) 1594842258.0
Update: Probably it's fake. [Cnet ]
White House officials tried to accuse Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman of creating a "hostile work environment" after he testified in the impeachment investigations. Just a little ratfucking to prevent Vindman's promotion, apparently. Vindman has requested to retire from the Army, citing "a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" from the White House. [NBC News ]
At least Donald Trump is polling well with boats. Or maybe their owners; we only read the headline. [ Maddow Blog ]
Water leaking into the Lincoln Tunnel? Nothing metaphorical about that, no sir. Maybe it's Antifa!
Who has “Lincoln Tunnel leak” on their 2020 Bingo card? https: //t.co/381QfE29zC
— InMinivanHell (@InMinivanHell) 1594837498.0
You could probably use another Thornton pic. Here you go; he was purring like mad.
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .
You should send money to support this little mommyblog. You keep us going, you know.