NATIONAL KITTEN DAY UPDATES
Meow Meow Meow Meow / Meow Meow Meow Meow ...
-Continuing its rather stunning debut, Mark Zuckerberg's "Twitter-killer" app Threads has now cleared 100 million downloads entering Monday morning, which is hitting historic levels despite the app being very new, Threads leadership seemingly attempting to tamp down expectations of the app being used for breaking news (end users do what end users will do), and being a part of the Meta virtual borg. But the growth is clearly a reaction to the degradation of the useability and user profile of Twitter - and that is evidenced by a precipitous plunge in both the number of users of Twitter and in the "engagement" (i.e., how many posts one likes and re-Tweets and interacts with other users) of those who come to use it.
-In response, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has responded with a new commitment to reducing the radicalism on the site and waiving the $8 fee that purchases usability for users - PSYCH! Just kidding! In reality, the billionaire weirdo responded to the developments first by trying to defend the now-rampant anti-semitism and racism now rampant on the site, then trying to mock the rudimentary Threads app by Tweeting "Zuck is a cuck," and then following THAT up with the even more well-reasoned Tweet "I propose a literal dick measuring contest" (with a ruler emoji just to make the point clear).
-Guess throwing $44 billion into a rabbit hole makes people testy ...
-There is yet another twist in the apparent attempt by the Wagner Group to sorta-kinda remove Vladimir Putin in Russia, as the New York Times reports that Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin and Putin met personally two days after the attempt. The report said 35 officials were there for over three hours, and the session was a negotiation involving integrating the Wagner Group into the Russian military. Thus far, those negotiations have held, though the situation on the Ukrainian front continues to slowly erode for Russia (SLAVA UKRAINI!).
-On the legislative front, MSNBC reports negotiations to finalize a 2023 budget are hitting snags for reasons totally predictable for this Congress - namely, the House GOP and its UltraMAGA leadership throttling agreements made by Kevin McCarthy (SINO, CA) and the White House regarding spending limits. While the Senate are working with bipartisan support to create a budget to fit the terms agreed to when the debt limit was raised, the UltraMAGAts are flipping and instead are demanding much lower spending limits than agreed to, looking to flip provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at promoting clean energy (because climate change rocks?), and looking to add legislative language to support recent SCOTUS decisions to deny abortion rights nationally and marginalize LGBTQI communities (because those decisions are only popular with their voters). With a September 30 deadline and Republican Senators promising a tougher stance against the UltraMAGAts, a shutdown seems somewhat unlikely ... but not off the table. Stay tuned.
-As of the end of today, the United States Marines will not have a commander for the first time in its 164-year history, and is one of 184 promotions that have been stalled in the Senate. There is one reason for the lack of leadership and the bottleneck in promotions - AL freshman Senator Tommy Tuberville. Tuberville, who parlayed an at-best mediocre career as Head Coach of the Auburn University football team into a win in the ruby-red state known for less-than-mediocre white political leadership, has defied everyone from the White House to the Pentagon to his Senate Republican colleagues by his actions. Tuberville is holding up the nominations in an attempt to get the military to stop all abortion services and fertility treatments for its members, incorrectly believing that the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision and various state legislation that robs women of their rights to agency of their own bodies should apply to the military (which it specifically does not). Even though his actions are, by every account, hurting the military and even perhaps losing moderate votes, thus far Tuberville does not seem to want to or be able to change his mind, ensuring the standoff will continue ...
-In legal news, the District of Columbia has recommended former Trump attorney and BORAT sequel star Rudy Giuliani be stripped of his ability to practice law there due to his roles in the various attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential election for his client, Twice-Indicted Ex-President (TIEP) Trump, from the winner, Joe Biden. The action comes amid multiple reports that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is focusing on a December 20 meeting in which a number of attorneys (including Giuliani, Andrew Clark, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell) may have pivoted their efforts from seating fake elector slates to some kind of action on January 6, 2021. There is a belief that indictments against all these attorneys may be coming, and Eastman is awaiting a decision from the CA Bar to see if he will have his law license stripped in that state.
-Axios reports Joe Biden occasionally swears at staffers if he thinks they aren't doing their job. The story is, of course, being inflated by Fox and its ilk in their continued efforts to say Biden is too old to be President. The same forces also attempted to use the photo of Biden with his shirt off wearing swim trunks on a beach this morning as further proof that Biden is too infirm to continue (not showing photos of the obese, spray-tanned, slack-jawed guy they want to reinstill into the White House). So it goes ...
-On this date in 1925, the Scopes Monkey Trial began in TN. On this date in 1962, the Telstar communications satellite went into orbit. On this date in 1965, the Rolling Stones got their first Number One hit - "Satisfaction." On this date in 1985, Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship was bombed and sunk by French agents in New Zealand, killing one. On this date in 1991, Boris Yeltsin became President of Russia. And on this date in 2018, the last of a group of soccer players in Thailand who became stuck in a cave during a flash flood were rescued - all were rescued.
-Happy Birthday to John Calvin, Solomon Northup, Camille Pissaro, Adolphus Busch, Nikola Tesla, Marcel Proust, Mary McLeod Bethune, Joe Shuster, Don Herbert, David Brinkley, Eunice Shriver, Jake LaMotta, Bobo Brazil, Johnny Bach, Fred Gwynne, David Dinkins, Pete Carril, Jerry Herman, Mavis Staples, Ronnie James Dio, Arthur Ashe, Ron Glass, Virginia Wade, Arlo Guthrie, Greg Kihn, Andre Dawson, Neil Tennant, Cindy Sheehan, Bela Fleck, Fiona Shaw, Roger Craig, Urban Meyer, Sofia Vergara, Adrian Grenier, Vivek Murthy, Jessica Simpson, and Thomas Ian Nicholas.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Jelly Roll Morton, Arthur Fiedler, John Hammond, Mel Blanc, Omar Sharif, Roger Rees, and Jim Bouton.
-Feed the Worms: notorious gangster Legs Diamond entered Earth on this date.