Jon Stewart was in the news again this week, when he testified in Congress about the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Less than 24 hours later, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill that continues funding compensation for the 9/11 First Responders for 70 years. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/06/jon-stewart-911-bill-passes-house-judiciary-committee Unfortunately, the bill still has to get passed by the Senate, and its anyone's guess what McConnell will do. However, if he sits on the bill, it's likely that even the Republican Party will demand its passage. As I mentioned earlier today, the MOST important election in 2020 will be the Senate face in Kentucky (bye bye, Mitch). It's worth noting that Jon Stewart was the most trusted man in America when he was the host of the Daily Show. https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/10/ Two years later, that title passed to Bill Clinton, and last year, it passed to Anderson Cooper, who works for Trump's favorite network, CNN. The Daily Show first aired on July 21, 1996, and Stewart took over as host on January 11, 2009. After he left in August of 2015, Trevor Noah took over. During its time on the air, the Daily Show has earned 24 Primetime Emmy Awards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Show FOX , which premiered in February of 1996, has NEVER won an Emmy or a Dupont-Columbia Award or a Pulitzer. Just saying .... It wasn't long ago that Trump effectively appointed Stephen Miller as his "immigration czar". Like virtually all of Trump's officials, he did not last very long in his position. Yesterday, Trump called Thomas Homan out of retirement to be the "immigration czar". Truth be told, he really is not much of an improvement over Miller. Here are a few key phrases from the article listed below: Homan has a controversial reputation. Under his leadership, border arrests during the Obama administration surged. In 2016, The Washington Post began a profile of Homan: “Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it.” Later, he defended the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border, telling Fox News the month that he retired that “you’d have to put the blame on the parents.” After leaving the Trump administration, Homan joined Fox News as a contributor. Trump announced the appointment during a phone interview with FOX. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/14/trump-names-thomas-homan-former-acting-ice-chief-border-czar.html No word yet on what role Stephen Miller will continue to play on immigration, but (ideally) it will be more limited than it is now. A few sentences from his bio paint a very good picture of Miller's character: Tapper accused Miller of dodging questions, while Miller questioned the legitimacy of CNN as a news broadcaster, and as the interview became more contentious, with both participants talking over each other, Tapper ended the interview and continued to the next news story.[71][72][73] After the interview was over Miller refused to leave the CNN studio and had to be escorted out by security.[74] I really LIKE the work done by editorial cartoonists, since they have the power to cause great change in our society. On occasion, though, a cartoon strays a bit too far, and can cause embarrassment to the paper it gets published in. Garry Trudeau has ruffled a few feathers on occasion, and so has Steve Benson. In April, the New York Times published a cartoon that offended enough people that the paper decided to stop publishing political cartoons. THIS is the cartoon that caused the outrage: 
The cartoon was thought to be anti-Semitic by a number of people. To a degree, i would agree with them. However, in view of Trump's recent actions in, and towards, Israel, I also believe its pretty accurate. As Ann Telnaes said this morning in The Washington Post, editorial cartoons are democracies "canary in the coal mine". Comments? Schmidt: Drug addition is not limited to the United States. It's interesting to note that the richest self made woman in Asia is a woman who heads a pharmaceutical company. Her company is the leading producer of psychotropic drugs. Psychotropic drug: Any drug capable of affecting the mind, emotions, and behavior. Some legal drugs, such as lithium for bipolar disorder, are psychotropic. Many illicit drugs, such as cocaine, are also psychotropic. Also known as psychodynamic drug. https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/chemistry-teacher-richest-woman-asia-190614230546046.html Apparently realizing that he had just stepped on a huge pile of dog crap, Trump reversed himself yesterday, and said that "of course", he would report foreign interference in a political campaign to U.S. law enforcement authorities. Since he has told more than 10,000 documented lies since taking office, it is difficult to know what he would actually do. https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-06-14/trump-reverses-course-says-of-course-he-would-report-foreign-interference In May, John Bolton said that an attack on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers is an attack on all Americans. Since the headline appeared in The Onion, you know that is is absolute nonsense. Sadly, though, it isn't much of a stretch to believe that it IS something that Bolton could have said. https://politics.theonion.com/john-bolton-an-attack-on-two-saudi-oil-tankers-is-an-1834791494 In the book, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump by Bandy Lee) ", 27 mental health experts concluded that Trump is mentally ill. In my opinion, John Bolton isn't playing with a full deck either. The MOST IMPORTANT RACE in November of 2020 is the Kentucky senate race. McConnell has been elected to he Senate 6 times. In 1984, he actually got less than 50% of the vote, but still managed to get a higher percentage than his Democratic opponent. Since then, he's expanded his victory margin, and peaked at 64.7% in 2002. As Dockadams mentioned above, Mitch is not very popular in Kentucky. However, he still has a razor-thin margin over a generic Democratic opponent. The "Ditch Mitch" campaign appears to be strong. In addition, the fact that McConnell is linked to Russian mob money (via the new aluminum plant) and his wife's "assistance" to her dad's company as a result of her role as Transportation Secretary might be enough to cause his defeat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_McConnell McConnell is the third least popular senator in the entire country: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/431002-poll-33-of-kentucky-voters-approve-of-mcconnell I seriously doubt that Trump will get re-elected. Even if he does, though, he won't be able to do anywhere near as much damage if McConnell is no longer in office. Even if the Republicans manage to keep the Senate, it's impossible to imagine ANY Republican who would be worse than McConnell. There have been rumors about her departure for months, and Trump finally made it official this morning - by tweet, of course. She apparently had planned to leave earlier, but discovered that working in Trump's White House was the "kiss of death", since people had trouble getting jobs after working for Trump. As a result, she stayed on longer than she had planned. Sarah's predecessor, Sean Spicer, apparently has not found work since his departure as press secretary in July of 2017, although he told Sean Hannity that "he is working on a book." She IS married, and has three children, but it certainly would be frightening to wake up to the face shown above every morning. 
I recently stumbled on a website titled "mediabiasfactcheck.com that evaluates the "slant" of various news sources. I checked a few of my favorites just for fun, and discovered that the Des Moines Register was actually one of the more "neutral" newspapers. Media Bias/Fact Check also has published a list of the MOST RELIABLE "fact checking" sites, and you'll recognize most of them. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/2016/07/20/the-10-best-fact-checking-sites/ I've been relying on Snopes for YEARS, but don't check the site very often. When I took a quick look this morning, this message popped up, and you could have SLAPPED me silly. https://www.snopes.com/enough-is-enough/ I was not familiar with the acronym SLAPP, but it stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation, and its purpose is to suppress freedom of speech, a commodity that is in danger under the Trump administration. Snopes has apparently been attacked by a group called Proper Media LLC, which is based in San Diego. participation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation If you are interested in helping Snopes survive, the company has set up a GoFundMe site that is listed in the second link above.
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