I Think We Could All Use A Laugh After That Debate

 Don’t you?

"Do Your Own Research"

 This was posted earlier this year, but I'm going to go ahead and call it evergreen.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

 This is mesmerizing.

Celui qui tombe (The one who falls) by Yoann Bourgeois

You Literally Can't Believe The "Facts" Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyers (And The Judge Agrees)

From NPR's David Folkenflik:

You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You.  So Say Fox's Lawyer

"Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox's lawyers: The "'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'"

"She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes.""

I Weep For Our Nation, Or, Facebook Is Not Your Friend

How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping The 2020 Election by Charlotte Alter, TIME Magazine

"The facts that should anchor a sense of shared reality are meaningless to them; the news developments that might ordinarily inform their vote fall on deaf ears. They will not be swayed by data on coronavirus deaths, they won’t be persuaded by job losses or stock market gains, and they won’t care if Trump called America’s fallen soldiers “losers” or “suckers,” as the Atlantic reported, because they won’t believe it. They are impervious to messaging, advertising or data. They aren’t just infected with conspiracy; they appear to be inoculated against reality."

Faux & Friends

 This.

In Other News...

From NPR (Although to be honest it should read “Fails”, as in still does not take it seriously):

Former DHS Official: White House Failed To Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously

"If you had a very clear voice at the top, from the president, from other senior leaders in the Republican Party, denouncing this and warning conservatives — warning Republicans — that these groups are trying to recruit you based on things that might sound like a typical conservative belief, but behind it is this insidious, ugly, evil thing, if we had more clear voices talking about it — it would somewhat inoculate people from that recruitment and that radicalization," she says. "But instead, we have the opposite effect. We have the president not only pretty much refusing to condemn, but throwing fuel on the fire, creating opportunities for more recruitment through his rhetoric."

“A Good Example Of Why I Decided To Vote For Trump”

The morning rundown from The NY Times is below. This is just a few days in the Trump/GOP-fueled dumpster fire.  

A telling sign of how far the GOP have fallen is the “None cared to comment”.  “No comment”, and/or “I haven’t seen the President’s tweet”, and/or “I don’t have time to discuss” and/or “Look over there!” is the mantra of a party that doesn’t care how low Trump sinks while taking America down with him.

Also, in other news demonstrating the abject failure of the administration in dealing with the coronavirus and how little regard Trump has for American lives over his ego:

• The U.S. will not join a global effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine and equitably distribute doses across nations, The Washington Post reports. Part of the reason: The World Health Organization, which the Trump administration has criticized, is involved in the plan.

Good morning. Russia is interfering in the election again. New York City delayed the start of school. And Trump has a new torrent of false claims.

Trump, unbound

President Trump at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday.Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

President Trump breaks so many of the normal rules of politics that it can sometimes be hard to know when his tweets and comments are truly newsworthy. Even by his standards, though, the past several days have stood out. Consider:

Trump said on Monday that a plane “almost completely loaded with thugs” wearing “dark uniforms” had been headed to the Republican National Convention to do “big damage.” The claim is similar to a baseless conspiracy theory that spread online over the summer, well before the convention. He has declined to condemn the killings of two protesters in Kenosha, Wis. He instead defended the 17-year-old charged in the shootings — a Trump supporter named Kyle Rittenhouse — saying he was acting in self-defense. Trump also promoted a Twitter post that called Rittenhouse “a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.” He defended violence committed by his supporters in Portland, Ore., who fired paintballs and pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters. He compared the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha to missing “a three-foot putt” in a golf tournament. He claimed that “people that you’ve never heard of” and “people that are in the dark shadows” are controlling Joe Biden. He claimed Democrats were trying to “destroy” suburbs with “low-income housing, and with that comes a lot of other problems, including crime.” He added that Cory Booker — one of the highest-profile Black Democrats — would be “in charge of it.” He predicted that the stock market would crash if Biden won. He said that Biden, at the Democratic National Convention, “didn’t even discuss law enforcement, the police. Those words weren’t mentioned.” In fact, Biden held a discussion at the convention on policing, with a police chief. Trump claimed that he “took control of” the situation in Kenosha by sending in the National Guard. In fact, Wisconsin’s governor, not the president, sent the National Guard. He retweeted messages asserting that the pandemic’s death toll was overstated. Evidence indicates the opposite is true. He said that protests against police brutality were actually a secret “coup attempt” by anarchists “trying to take down the President.”

Biden has taken a very different approach to the unrest in Kenosha, Portland and elsewhere. He has told no apparent untruths, and he has criticized violence from both the political left and right — even though many liberals, whose votes Biden needs, are uncomfortable with any criticism of people on their side of the debate.

G.O.P. reaction. The Times tried to reach about a dozen leading congressional Republicans and ask for their reaction to Trump’s claims. “None cared to comment,” Mark Leibovich writes. Senator Mitt Romney offered one of the few public responses, calling the president’s comments “simply jaw-dropping.”

Russia adds to the misinformation. A group backed by the Kremlin is again trying to meddle in the U.S. presidential election and push voters toward Trump, Facebook and Twitter said yesterday.