08/31/23

Good morning! It’s Thursday, August 31st.

Eat outside day. A holiday very clearly created before our current climate crisis. Eat outside where? In LA, where we’re under a heat advisory? After having the first tropical storm ever? Hard pass.

And now, the news.

Hurricane Idalia

-via AP News

Let’s start with an update on Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall on Wednesday as a Category 3. As it passed over Georgia, it downgraded to a tropical storm, with gusts of wind hitting 70 MPH. In order for it to be a hurricane, winds have to be at least 74 MPH. Which I point out here because, it’s like… technically a tropical storm but only just technically.

And lest you think it’s just devastating winds and rain people need to be worried about, in Florida there’s another concern: snakes.

Snakes!

Because people are reporting seeing them slither across the flooded streets.

Snakes!

Rain from the storm is not just affecting Florida and Georgia, but also South Carolina. In all, 400,000 customers are without power as of this recording.

McConnell Freezes Again

-via NBC News

For the second time this summer, Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican party in the actual real life Senate, froze on camera while speaking. This time he froze for more than 30 seconds.

Ironically, he was asked about seeking reelection at the time it happened. And just as it happened in July, he just froze. This time, his aide brushed his arm and was immediately concerned. Because this is concerning. I’m no doctor, but again – I worked on the very serious medical show I can’t name because of the ongoing writers and actors strike (union solidarity all day every day baybeeeeeee), wherein America’s Sweetheart Rachel Bilson played a cardiothoracic surgeon with a heart of gold. So I do know a lot about medicine. Also my mom and Carmen. But really, most of my knowledge came from Bilson’s Zoe Hart.

ANYWAY, as basically a doctor, these episodes are concerning. Because are we really supposed to believe they’ve only happened on twice and wow what a coincidence that they were both on camera?

Sure Jan.

U.S. Dept of Health Recommends Easing Up on Pot Restrictions

-via NBC News

In, “be a lot cooler if you did,” news… The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says marijuana should no longer be in the same category as drugs like heroin and LSD.

It’s currently a schedule I drug, but they’re recommending it be moved to a schedule III drug, which would also eliminate an IRS code intended to prevent drug dealers from claiming tax deductions for business expenses. Which is so funny to me, to think about drug dealers trying to claim like… baggies and rolling papers as a write off but ugh! The law! Not the drug law – the tax law!

This would actually affect dispensaries where pot is legal, which it is in 40 states (though it’s still illegal nationwide).

Giuliani Found Liable

-via NY Times

There’s so little bits and bops of Trump Crime Update Time news, but not enough to make a whole segment, so I’ll probably do it tomorrow (as we await the ruling over whether Marky Meads can move his crime to a federal court). But there has been a ruling in a related case.

Former America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, has been found liable in the Georgia defamation case brought against him by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the mother-daughter team of election workers who Rudy, falsely, accused of mishandling ballots and obstructing a free and fair election.

As we all knew, it was Giuliani who was doing that, actually.

And lest you think that this means Giuliani understands that he did something wrong, his political advisor is out here saying the opinion is “a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment.”

What actually happened is that Giuliani didn’t have evidence that the women mishandled ballots. Because they didn’t. A fact his hair-dye sweaty noggin knew, but it didn’t stop him from claiming over and over again that the women did something wrong.

They were subject to death threats and nonstop harassment.

And yet they believed so strongly in the democracy they were working to preserve by volunteering as election workers, that they had the guts to appear at the House January 6th committee hearings. A daunting task that Giuliani himself was too chicken to do.

Because when you’ve done nothing wrong, you’re not trying to hide you light under a bushel.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again… Rudy Giuliani is a dinkus.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of weather that allows me to go outside. Not today, that’s for sure. But one day…

Also you know what? Rachel Bilson. I’ll say it! We’re the same height, as everyone who knows me knows. Also Zoe Hart.

And hey you know what? I’d love to tell you more about her character, but there’s a strike right now and that show, which brought the world the cutest showmance of the century, is struck work. Maybe if the AMPTP can ALSO stop being dinkuses, we can talk more about it.

But in the meantime… more than the idea, the mere memory, of a lovely day outside, because you are also an absolute dream… I’m proud of you.