Top 10 Idiots

Top 10 Idiots's Journal

August 13, 2018

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots Is On Hiatus This Week.

We'll be back on August 22nd with a new edition live from Detroit, the Motor City! But in the meantime here's some stuff that you may have missed from previous editions:

Edition #5-6:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210924111

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging consumers to stay away from a popular Kellogg’s cereal that has been linked to a massive salmonella outbreak affecting 100 people in 33 states.

“Do not eat this cereal,” the CDC tweeted Thursday along with a photo of Honey Smacks cereal. The agency revealed that 27 more people from 19 states had been infected from the outbreak since the last update on June 14.

In a statement released Thursday, the agency said, “Do not eat any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, regardless of package size or best-by date. Check your home for it and throw it away, or return it to the place of purchase for a refund.”

According to CBS News, the Kellogg Co. announced in June that it was investigating the third-party manufacturer that produces the cereal after being contacted by the FDA and CDC about the salmonella outbreak. Kellogg's recalled the cereal on June 14.

At least 30 people were hospitalized due to the outbreak, the CDC said. No deaths have been reported. The agency said that illnesses that occurred after June 19 might not yet have been reported. On average, it takes two to four weeks between when a person becomes sick and when his or her illness is reported.
https://www.newsweek.com/cdc-warns-dont-eat-cereal-after-honey-smacks-linked-salmonella-outbreak-33-1022914

So that explains why you might get salmonella while eating Honey Smacks – they’re endorsed by what appears to be a frog on smack.

*audience laughs and applauds*

Edition #5-7:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210950860

Gun-safety activist Fred Guttenberg arrived in Washington to address the Democratic caucus on Monday, furious that Congress had failed to prevent the potential spread of 3-D-printed guns.

After a multiyear legal battle, the federal government last month entered into a settlement with Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson, permitting him to publish his arsenal of firearm blueprints online. He intends to do so on Aug. 1. Lawmakers’ 11th-hour efforts have done nothing to halt his plans, and on Friday a federal judge denied a motion for an emergency injunction brought forward by a trio of gun-control groups.

Guttenberg, who has become a powerful voice against gun violence since his 14-year-old daughter was killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., told The Washington Post he was dismayed by his visit to the Hill. Five weeks have passed since the settlement was signed, yet only a handful of senators were aware of it, he said, adding that not a single House member knew either.

“I don’t know how we got to this place and no one was paying attention,” he lamented. “This is the safety of this country and its citizens who are now at risk in their offices, in courthouses and on airplanes.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/27/lawmakers-are-attempting-to-prevent-the-spread-of-3-d-printed-guns-it-may-be-too-late/?utm_term=.fae6a38bd0ad

You know things are fucked up when we have the most advanced technology in the history of mankind and our first thought is “how can we make things that kill people with it?”.

*audience applauds wildly*

Edition #5-8:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210979540

While appearing on Greg Hunter’s “USA Watchdog” YouTube program on Saturday, right-wing radio host Dave Janda claimed that President Trump has survived “close to a dozen” assassination attempts while in office.

“I believe there have been a number of assassination attempts on his life since he took office,” Janda said. “I’ve been told that there have been close to a dozen attempts on his life and obviously he has survived those. I believe the difference between JFK and Donald Trump is the following: Donald Trump has the support of the military. Donald Trump, I believe, has not only the Secret Service protecting him, but I believe he also has another layer of protection that he has arranged for, that he’s paid for himself, for him and his family.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-has-survived-close-to-a-dozen-assassination-attempts-claims-right-wing-radio-host-dave-janda/

Gee, you’d think that with all these assassination attempts it would make the news somehow. If only we had an outlet for reporting these things. What is it? Oh well.

*audience laughs and applauds*

Top 10 Conservative Idiots: Wednesdays at 2:00 PM /shameless self promotion

August 8, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Order Of The Phoenix Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-8: Wheel Of Corruption & The Order Of The Phoenix Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up New York City??? We made it, and you know that old saying, if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere! Glad to see you still have your trains running! Holy shit did we have quite the weekend! I mean you had Nazi rallies in Portland and DC, you had the DC worker’s metro strike, you had Apple forcing Alex Jones fans to get his latest podcast beamed directly to their tin foil hats, to Joe Arpaio telling Sascha Baron Cohen that he’d accept a blowjob from Trump. I mean, damn that is a lot! Do we have time for the thing? Yes? My producer is saying yes. So China’s extremely controversial and I might add glorious dictator Xi Jinping as you may have seen from John Oliver and elsewhere, has literally banned all instances of Winnie The Pooh from China. So I don’t know if any of you saw Disney’s excellent new live action Winnie flick “Christopher Robin”, well, you ain’t seeing that either. No, sir, I have not seen it yet. I’ve been too busy with my own show! And you got to feel for Xi, because, let’s face it – he really really does look like Winnie The Pooh… thank you sound effects guy! That was perfect timing by the way, “Oh bother!” is right! Wait, so does that mean this week’s Top 10 will be available in China? Yeah my producer is telling me that it isn’t available in China anyways. Eh, it’s basic math. If you add 0.0000000001 to one its’ still less than two, am I right? But seriously if you haven’t seen this thing involving China and Winnie The Pooh, it’s something else. And just watching Xi’s obsession with Winnie The Pooh is insane and it’s not healthy on multiple levels. But then again it’s classic dictator behavior. Thank you sound effects guy! Oh bother indeed! OK that’s enough of the intro, we have a lot of idiocy to get to this week, but first we have to play Bill Maher’s excellent New Rule from last week where he plainly spells out what this current administration is all about:

In the number one slot this week, we got to talk about it, it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room, I’m of course talking about Qanon (1), the internet conspiracy theory has finally come out of the 4chan basement and it may be the world’s biggest hoax! Taking slots number 2 and 3 we're going to talk about dueling rallies. Yes, cue dueling banjos. In the second slot is actually next week's Unite The Right Two: Electric Boogaloo Die Harder, and it's already a shit show before it even begins! For the third slot we're going to talk about last week's Proud Boys (3) rally in Portland, and it went about as well as you'd expect a Proud Boys rally to go. At number 4 of course is the guy who we currently call president and that’s Donald J. Trump (4) and we're going to do some Trump fact checking in regards to his latest tweet storm, because they are exquisite! In the fifth slot this week is Alex Jones (5). So yeah Infowars had quite possibly its’ worst week ever and expect Infowars to be broadcast live directly to the fillings of its’ listeners teeth! For number 6 this week is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and this week our resident pastor is going to delve into the religious side of the conspiracy theory known as Qanon. Whew, it's insane. At number 7 this week is our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates and this week we’re going to take a look at the funeral industry and specifically a disturbing new trend called “extreme funerals”. Taking the 8th slot this week we have a new installment of “How Is This Still A Thing” and this week we’re going to delve into Tim Allen’s controversial sitcom and ask “Last Man Standing: How Is This Still A Thing?”. In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week we have an all new edition of People Are Dumb, because, well, people are dumb! Finally this week we’ve got a new edition of Deep State Diaries. Last week we showed you the inner workings of the food industry with the USDA, this week we’re going to see how our votes are validated by checking out what’s going on at the Federal Election Commission! And we’ve got some awesome southern rock this week and we’ve got the great Blackberry Smoke visiting the show for the first time! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

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[font size="8"]Qanon
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Hey everybody! It’s time for the WHEEL OF CORRUPTION! YAY!!!!!

Of course you know the rules by now – I spin the wheel and we have to talk about whatever it lands on. Of course if it lands on the guacamole option, you know that it costs $1.50 extra. So here’s what is on the wheel this week:

- Guns
- Abortion
- Crime
- Poverty
- Sex
- Chance
- 5,000
- Infowars
- Nazis
- Go Directly To Jail
- Buy A Vowel
- The Trumper Games
- Lawsuits
- Whammy
- Donald Trump
- People Are Dumb
- ‘Merica!
- How Is This Still A Thing?
- A Random Tweet
- 10,000
- Community Chest
- Talk Shows
- Clip Without Context
- Something Random In The News
- Fox News
- Top 10 Investigates
- Polls
- Chance
- Nukes
- Civility
- Intermission
- Deep State Diaries
- 15,000
- Bankrupt
- Morally Bankrupt
- Golf
- The GOP
- Butter Beer
- Community Chest
- Florida (Obviously)
- This Fucking Guy
- Beating A Dead Horse
- Holy Shit
- Guacamole ($1.50 Extra)
- Harry Potter
- T-Shirt Cannon
- ? (Mystery Item)
- I Need A Drink
- Lightning Round
- Bonus Spin

Let’s get this going! Spin that shit! Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy stop! Clip without context!

Sure, go after the underground pedophiles, but what about the above ground ones, Mark? Like you know – those in your own party! If you’re going to get serious about this, get fucking serious! Spin it again! And it lands on… sex! So we got to talk about it, it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It’s of course the conspiracy theory known as Qanon. We’ve brought up Q before but this week it finally came out of the conspiracy theory closet and hit the mainstream media big time.

QAnon is the latest high-profile and spectacularly dumb right-wing conspiracy theory. Here's everything you didn't want to have to know about it.

If you're lucky, before last week you had only ever heard of QAnon from some of Roseanne Barr's less racist tweets. Because it was possible to live your life completely unaware of the new, dumb conspiracy theory taking off online until it finally spilled over into the real world thanks to Donald Trump. Recently, people who buy into QAnon have been visibly showing up at Trump rallies and campaign events, wearing T-shirts and signs to show that they're in the know and they support a president who is supposed to be secretly fighting an international ring of billionaire pedophiles.

But if you're one of those lucky people who doesn't spend lurking on or reading about the seedier parts of the Internet, QAnon is likely a big mystery for you. None of us want to have to know about this thing. But since it's spilling into the real world now, here are some of the basics about this convoluted and elaborate conspiracy.

What exactly does "QAnon" mean?

The whole thing started on 4chan. An anonymous user going by "Q," a reference to the highest level of security clearance, began posting in October of last year. According to Q, who claims to be one or more people high in the Trump administration, all past presidents have been involved in shadowy criminal dealings centered mostly on an international pedophile ring and a global sex trade of child slaves. Featuring prominently in this are the usual boogeyman: Barack Obama, the Clintons, George Soros, the whole gang.

Is that not Pizzagate?

It sounds a lot like it, doesn't it? Think Pizzagate but bigger, more complicated, and dumber. In fact, this is a pretty boiled down explanation considering how complex and grandiose the whole conspiracy is.
https://www.gq.com/story/what-the-hell-is-qanon

And yes if you do believe in the Qanon conspiracy theory, I have a bag of magic beans to sell you for $9.99, what do they do? They’re magic! So here’s a good question – how did the republicans get to be the party of batshit crazy, off the wall conspiracy theories?

When people started showing up at recent Trump rallies waving signs with giant “Q”s on them and making references to QAnon, a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories, members of the press, and no doubt many people at home, were puzzled. Aren’t things crazy enough already without this fresh new lunacy? The trouble is that this is neither the first nor the last absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory to infiltrate today’s GOP, getting both literally and figuratively within a few feet of the president of the United States. In fact, it would have been more surprising if the Republican Party wasn’t overrun with conspiracy theorists.

It’s hard to do justice to the intricate madness of what QAnon is about in a concise manner, but I’ll let Molly Roberts give it a shot:

The simplest description of the plot line goes something like this: President Trump isn’t under investigation; he is only pretending to be, as part of a countercoup to restore power to the people after more than a century of governmental control by a globalist cabal. Also, there are pedophiles.

A figure named “Q,” who supposedly possesses Q-level security clearance, disperses “crumbs” that “bakers” bring together to create a “dough” of synthesized information. (This is not how baking works, but that seems the least of our worries.) Because Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet and 17 is also a number Trump has said a few times, among other clearly-not-coincidences, he is the real deal, not an Internet troll engaged in an elaborate example of live-action role-play.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/08/06/why-the-gop-is-so-easily-infiltrated-by-bonkers-conspiracy-theorists/?utm_term=.fc5cac586357

And you should always listen to Dave Grohl too, for he is wise in the ways of the world! But this might be my favorite story related to Qanon, and who better to explain a batshit crazy conspiracy theory than batshit crazy conspiracy theorists? I mean if you thought the previous people were too stupid to insult, I give you Liz Crokin:

Last weekend, right-wing “journalist” and fringe conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin did an interview with online psychic and YouTube host Jenny Moonstone in which she laid out her theory that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his own death in 1999 and is now behind the QAnon account.

QAnon is an anonymous figure at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm” that alleges that high-ranking members of the Trump administration have been using the 8Chan forum board to drop hints revealing that Robert Muller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is really cover for a secret operation to take down a global network of satanic pedophile cannibals. Proponents of this conspiracy theory have increasingly been making their presence known at Trump rallies.

In a video posted by Moonstone on Sunday, Crokin explained her theory that JFK Jr. has been running the QAnon account all along, insisting that any mockery she receives, or attacks she endures, for promoting her absurd ideas is proof that she is right.

Crokin asserted that when she first heard the theory of JFK Jr. being behind the QAnon account, “it immediately resonated with me, I got goosebumps everywhere. I’m a very intuitive person and usually when that happens, that’s confirmation that there is truth to it.”

“Q at one point said, ‘You’re not going to believe who you are talking to here,'” Crokin said. “When Q wrote that, I thought it’s going to be someone that’s so crazy that even people that are woke and know what’s going on are going to be like, ‘Oh my lord, this is insane’ … John F. Kennedy Jr., that would be shocking because we all think he’s dead.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-john-f-kennedy-jr-faked-his-death-and-is-now-qanon/

That is a good point sir! I mean really you can’t get much more stupid than that! And not only is it underground pedophiles, it’s also satanic pedophiles too. I mean not unlike Kevin Spacey. Hey o!!!!!!!!!!!!! And by the way, you might be asking yourself “Who Is Q?”. Well now we have a face – the pedo patrol has got right on the case! I give you… *drum roll* this guy!

With the appearance of numerous sign-waving supporters at a Trump rally last week, the world at large was introduced to a far-right conspiracy theory known as QAnon. Until recently, QAnon stuff remained in the dark corners of 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit, but as it continues to spill into mainstream news coverage, we’re forced to hear about all the dumb shit these people are actually doing. According to a new report from The Daily Beast, that dumb shit now includes lionizing some minor player from Vanderpump Rules as a “Hollywood whistleblower.”

For those who have managed to remain blissfully unaware, QAnon is a far-reaching, multi-faceted conspiracy that claims—among other things—that President Trump and Robert Mueller are actually working together to take down a massive pedophile ring run by Hollywood celebrities and major Democratic Party players. “Deep state” secrets are leaked to supporters courtesy of an anonymous message board user named “Q.” Relying on cryptic information from an anonymous source has primed QAnon followers to believe pretty much anything from anyone, including Vanderpump Rules actor Isaac Kappy, who appeared on Infowars recently to accuse Tom Hanks and Seth Green of being secret Illuminati pedophiles.
https://news.avclub.com/the-hot-new-face-of-qanon-is-some-fucking-guy-from-vand-1828132542

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[font size="8"]A Tale Of Two Rallies: Washington, DC
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… wait for it… something random in the news!

Gee, you’d think that with all these assassination attempts it would make the news somehow. If only we had an outlet for reporting these things. What is it? Oh well. Spin it again! Racism! You know since the 2016 election racism has reared its’ ugly head time and time again, and the racists only seem to be growing in popularity since Trump got elected. We’ll get into his rallies in a minute. But speaking of rallies, one group in particular had rallies on both coasts. The first one was on the west coast in Portland, Oregon. The second is the one we’re going to get into right now and that’s what happened in our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. Ooh boy, the racists are pissed, folks. And they are coming for our nation’s capital. Is this Nazis on tour? Nazis on parade? Nazis on parade on parade? But guess what? That’s not the story we want to highlight here. Here’s the story we want to highlight here.

Metro is considering providing separate trains for opposing groups when demonstrators come to Washington, D.C., for a "Unite the Right" rally Aug. 12, the chairman of the transit agency's board said.

"We have groups clearly at odds with each other," Chairman Jack Evans said. "We'd like to keep the groups separate. We don't want incidents on Metro."

"Unite the Right" demonstrators plan to use Metro from the Vienna, Virginia, station to Foggy Bottom in D.C. Police and Metro are making plans to avoid a deadly confrontation like the one at the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally last year.

"Maybe put all of one group on a train or a certain car on a train," Evans said. "We're trying to see how can we keep the groups separate so we don't have any incidents but not put in place programs that could be problematic in the future."
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Metro-Planning-for-Unite-the-Right-Rally-490010251.html

Damn straight. Nazis On A Train might make a good comedy flick but in real life it doesn’t quite work that way. Anyway you want to know how this story played out? New York City, come on, let’s see how it played out!

Metro’s plans to keep white supremacists separate from other riders this weekend are still under review, but the agency attempted to clarify Monday that there are no plans for a “special train” for the group.

In a statement Monday, Metro said it continues to work with law enforcement agencies on security surrounding Sunday’s “Unite the Right” rally that comes one year after a man police said had ties to white supremacist groups plowed a car into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

“The transit agency is working closely with law enforcement to prepare security options that place the highest priority on protecting Metro passengers, employees and public safety, giving special consideration to the security challenges posed by rail car space constraints,” Metro said.

D.C. police security plans focus on keeping attendees of the “Unite the Right” rally separate from counterprotesters and other riders, something police in Charlottesville failed to do last year.
https://wtop.com/tracking-metro-24-7/2018/08/metro-no-special-train-for-unite-the-right-rally-in-dc/

Well so they may be canceled, or they may not. Either way, don’t ride the Metro if you’re going to Washington, DC that weekend. But really do we need a “white rights” pity party? We don’t, and this kind of crap is making the whole world cringe.

Last August, hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the alt-right descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for “Unite the Right,” a rally to put the power of white nationalists on full display. A year after that event resulted in chaos and violence, groups plan to hold another “white civil rights rally” in Washington, DC.

But a broad coalition of organizers representing anti-racist, anti-fascist, and socialist groups say that when Unite the Right 2 participants arrive in DC, they will be met with significant resistance throughout the weekend.

On the morning of August 12, Shut It Down DC, a coalition of local organizations working to plan counterprotests and other events against Unite the Right, will hold a “Still Here, Still Strong” Rally in DC’s Freedom Plaza. Counterprotesters also plan to be present at the actual Unite the Right event, which takes place later that afternoon in Lafayette Square. Two days before these events, organizers will hold a six-hour “action camp” to train those planning to protest on Sunday.

After the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed as she protested against the first Unite the Right; the brutal assault of DeAndre Harris, who was beaten by white supremacists in Charlottesville and faced criminal charges for defending a counterprotester; and other incidents of violence in the year since, organizers say the impacts of the first Unite the Right rally are still being felt today.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/6/17653252/unite-the-right-2-protest-antiracist-charlottesville-washington-dc

They’re here! They’re racist! They want… something. What that is, even we’re not exactly clear on what they want. I think even they’re not exactly clear on what they want. That’s why they’re racists. At least the DC police chief is preparing properly!

As D.C. anticipates a planned white nationalist rally to coincide with the August one-year anniversary of the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, D.C.’s police chief is prepared for what’s to come.

“Our role is to make sure we have a First Amendment event that goes on without any types of violence or destruction of property,” D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a Monday news conference. “We intend to have the entire police department engaged to make sure that we handle this type of thing.”

Jason Kessler, an organizer of last year’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, submitted a request earlier this year to the National Park Service to hold a rally between Aug. 11 and Aug. 12 at Lafayette Square, right in front of the White House.

Kessler’s application got an initial approval last month, but a permit had not been issued yet.
https://wtop.com/dc/2018/07/dc-police-chief-prepared-for-planned-white-nationalist-rally/

[font size="8"]A Tale Of Two Rallies: Portland
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Let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? And it lands on… Chance!

Nice! I get to advance to Go! I’ll take my $200 thanks! Spin it again! And it lands on… racism! Folks, in case you haven’t noticed Portland has a huge white supremacy problem. After all, it was the center of that Bundy shit show a couple of years back. You know that happened back in the very early days of the Top 10. So what happened on Saturday is exactly what you’d expect at a Proud Boys / Patriot Prayer rally by now.

Hundreds of right-wing protesters and counter-protesters faced off in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, shouting chants like, “USA, USA,” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” at each other across a barrier of police in riot gear.

The permit-less rally was organized by Patriot Prayer, a far-right group founded by Joey Gibson, who is running for U.S. Senate in Washington. In response, leftist Portland-area groups planned a counter-protest rally to start at City Hall and march towards the waterfront, where the Patriot Prayer rally took place.

“We’re here to teach a lesson to the entire country,” said Gibson to a crowd of supporters, minutes before the planned march. “Do not break the line – they will come to us. Go slow and keep tight.”

Many in helmets and riot gear of their own, the far-right groups began their march along the river at around 1:30 p.m. local time, after Gibson quickly took the mic to offer a prayer to the crowd. Anti-fascist protesters followed on the other side of the street, while police jogged to stay in between the two.

That’s when the announcements began. “This is the Portland police bureau. Remain on the sidewalk, get out of the street.” At 2:30 p.m. local time, Portland police were ordering crowds to disperse via loudspeaker.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-police-city-officials-prepare-for-right-wing-rally-and-counter-protest

?itemid=5114632

Dude, Dave Chappelle called you a racist. You’re a fucking racist. But you know that politics makes for strange bedfellows and we’ve seen more strange bedfellows with the Trump administration than you would have ever thought possible. And they attracted a lot of them to Portland.

Joey Gibson and his Patriot Prayer group came to Portland on Saturday itching for a fight, raising alarms in the Portland community and national press. Instead, the Portland Police did their work for them.

Patriot Prayer rallies, packaged in the language of free speech, attract far-right and alt-right pro-Trump groups, such as the Proud Boys, who provide “protection” for attendees. Gibson himself, however, cagily avoids using the kind of language that smacks of hate.

Gibson’s main intention seems to be to provoke left-wing, anti-fascist activists into physical confrontations with his rally-goers.

As it turned out, Gibson hardly needed help from the Proud Boys; Portland Police went beyond their mandate to provide protection by aggressively chasing counter-protesters down side-streets, and hurling flash-bang grenades into the crowds who had come to demonstrate against Gibson and his far-right comrades. The police handling of the Patriot Prayer protest provoked condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Coming seemingly from out of nowhere, Gibson sprang onto the West Coast political protest scene with no documented political involvement prior to January 2017, when he livestreamed protests of the Trump administration’s Muslim ban at the Portland airport. In April last year, Gibson began organizing his own rallies on the West Coast, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. That month, a Patriot Prayer rally in Portland attracted neo-Nazi Jeremy Christian, who allegedly murdered two people on the city’s public transit a month later.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-portland-rally-far-right-extremists-mingle-with-mainstay-maga/

Yes they are idiots. And racists and sexists and misogynists, and homophobes, and transphobes, and xenophobes. Seriously is there anything good about these guys? Probably not. So was there anything good that came out of Portland on Saturday? Probably not. Even the police were in on it, it seems!

On Saturday, in a planned protest that some worried would turn out to be “another Charlottesville,” hundreds of far-right demonstrators gathered in the city of Portland, Oregon, and were met by hundreds of counterprotesters.

The demonstrators said they were rallying to support the leader of the Patriot Prayer group, which has been behind contentious far-right rallies in several cities in the past couple years. Supporters of the far-right men’s group the Proud Boys also rallied in support.

But the clash turned out to be relatively nonviolent—there were just four arrests—and it was the Portland police who came under fire on social media afterward for their tactics. According to reports from the protests, the police were out in large numbers in downtown Portland and worked actively to keep the two groups separated. But, police said afterward, the crowds turned violent, and some protesters started throwing rocks and bottles at the officers.

“This was a dangerous situation for all those involved, including officers, and I am disheartened that this kind of illegal behavior occurred in our beautiful city,” Police Chief Danielle Outlaw said in a statement afterward.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-police-city-officials-prepare-for-right-wing-rally-and-counter-protest

[font size="8"]Infowars
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Let’s spin it to win it! And it lands on… what? Bankrupt? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Spin it again. And it lands on… Infowars. I’ll tell you someone who’s morally bankrupt and that’s Alex Jones. You know it’s not in my nature to kick a man when he’s down but considering Alex made an entire career out of that, I am pulling no fucking punches, damn it! It is off, it is going off the rails! I mean come on, this is a guy who instructed his followers to harass the parents of murdered children. He called the Parkland students “crisis actors”. He has said every single mass shooting in the last 5 years is a false flag. Well, you can’t false flag this, Alex!

In a rapid domino effect, conspiracy theorist and right-wing media host Alex Jones’ Infowars has been banned from popular streaming services like YouTube, Apple, Facebook, and Spotify. The controversial host has been responsible for the spread of extremely controversial conspiracy ideas, including accusations that the parents of Sandy Hook victims were crisis actors.

On Sunday night, Apple started deleting InfoWars episodes from iTunes, stating that the company does not tolerate hate speech. Now, the entire series appears missing, though a spin-off show and InfoWars app are still live.

After a social media backlash against Spotify for hosting episodes of Infowars and The Alex Jones Show, the streaming media company took four episodes off the air for violating their hateful conduct policy. Now, the entire show is missing, and other streaming services have joined in on the ban.

Earlier today (Monday), Spotify announced that The Alex Jones Show would no longer have access to the Spotify platform.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/08/06/infowars-banned-itunes-spotify-facebook-youtube/

But is it really victory just yet? I mean Alex can crow about how conservativism is being shadow banned all he wants, but in reality there’s no such thing. In fact we explored this topic back in Idiots #5-2 when we talked about how conservatives are afraid of getting banned from social media for being conservative. Nah, see there’s this thing called the “terms of service” which you get when you signed up, and they have this rule that says “don’t be hateful”. Most conservatives violate this rule because hate generally has a conservative bias to it.

With the mid-term elections rapidly approaching, YouTube has become the latest internet platform to restrict the activities of far-right conspiracy website InfoWars.

The company has pulled four InfoWars videos for including hate speech and graphic content, and has banned it from broadcasting live for 90 days.

The move represents the 'third strike' for InfoWars, which received its first in February for 'harassment and bullying', after posting videos claiming that the Parkland shooting survivors were crisis actors - a claim that would be laughable were it not also so callous. The site's second strike followed a few days later and involved similar claims.

However, because 90 days has elapsed since InfoWars' first and second strikes, they are deemed to have elapsed and the site isn't facing a YouTube ban altogether as a result of this third strike.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2018/07/26/why-youtubes-infowars-ban-is-meaningless/#381d708a65af

Um I wouldn’t exactly say it tastes like victory just yet. Even MailChimp banned Alex Jones, and come on, you got to take a service like MailChimp seriously when they say that!

Email marketing service provider MailChimp has removed accounts for Alex Jones and Infowars, citing "hateful content," according to Media Matters for America.

The progressive group said MailChimp confirmed its action on Tuesday, a day after the Infowars founder displayed a document from the company during a livestream broadcast. The document referenced in Jones's show reportedly said MailChimp had removed his account for violating the company's terms of use.

"MailChimp doesn’t generally comment on individual users or accounts, but we’ll make an exception today," the MailChimp statement read, according to Media Matters. "MailChimp notified Infowars that their accounts have been terminated for violating our Terms of Service, which make it clear that we don’t allow people to use our platform to disseminate hateful content."

"The decision to terminate this account was thoughtfully considered and is in line with our company’s values," MailChimp added.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/400755-mailchimp-removes-accounts-for-alex-jones-and-infowars

Oh and here’s my favorite part – if you try to do some fact checking on this subject and you don’t know what you’re talking about – don’t be surprised if you get owned!

InfoWars reporter Millie Weaver on Tuesday publicly humiliated herself by botching the basic terminology of economics journalism to try to claim Facebook is a public utility.

After Facebook axed Jones’ Facebook page this week, Weaver and other InfoWars supporters have tried to claim that this amounts to an unconstitutional violation of the website’s free speech.

The flaw in this argument is that Facebook is a privately run company that can make decisions about whether to give individual media outlets a platform — and the Constitution clearly states only that the government cannot do anything to restrict free speech.

Weaver, however, thinks that she has found a loophole by noting that Facebook is a publicly traded company — which means, in her estimation, that it is publicly owned.

“Dear Libtards who think Facebook is a privately owned business,” she writes on Twitter. “There’s a thing called fact-checking. Facebook is a public business that’s publicly traded. Using that argument to justify banning Alex Jones doesn’t work.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/infowars-reporter-tries-fact-check-claim-facebook-private-company-gets-utterly-humiliated/

By the way, Millie, if you want to do some fact checking, why don’t I show you Infowars’ terms of service for their very own fucking message board?

“You will not post anything libelous, defamatory, threatening, harassing, harmful, abusive, hateful, invasive of another’s privacy, racially or ethnically objectionable, or otherwise illegal.” But harassing or threatening the parents of murdered children is perfectly OK by their standards!! Oh New York City, thank you, I’m out!!!!

[font size="8"]Donald Trump [br] [/font] [br]

Shit, I still have a whole 40 minutes left? And we got Blackberry Smoke coming? OK fine I’ll do it for Blackberry Smoke. Let’s spin the wheel shall we? And it lands on…. Oh hey a clip without context!

24 years? Man I can barely keep up with the next 10 fucking minutes! Spin it again! Donald Trump. So we already covered dueling white supremacy rallies on opposite coasts. But someone who’s holding crazy rallies in his own right is of course the guy who we currently call president, Donald J. Trump. I mean the guy is becoming more unhinged by the day. Let’s go through his last couple of rallies, which really are becoming more hateful by the day. I mean just look at these winners:

Well hey if you want to move to Russia, the door is that way, and they will gladly have you! And they're not making America great again, they're making America white again! Oh and by the way before we get into the rallies, here’s some actual fact checking for our friend Millie from the previous entry:

Because of summer vacation schedules, we had fallen a month behind in updating The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

It turns out that’s when the president decided to turn on the spigots of false and misleading claims. As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months. That’s an overall average of nearly 7.6 claims a day.

When we first started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. But the average number of claims per day keeps climbing the longer Trump stays in office. In fact, in June and July, the president averaged 16 claims a day.

Put another way: In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/01/president-trump-has-made-4229-false-or-misleading-claims-in-558-days/

Yeah Trump lies kind of like that guy does. But that’s a staggering statistic there – 4,229 claims in 558 days. And it seems like every day he adds another 100 to that number. So let’s go through a few of these claims made over the last couple of days. Like did anyone see the news about Lebron James? See, LeBron is actually doing the world some good. But Trump of course decided to take a dump all over it:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1025586524782559232

So let’s put up the actual story:

"Anyone that's done what LeBron James has done for the past decade to 15 years for our children to prepare them to flourish in life has to be an intelligent person." With that, Akron Public Schools spokesman Mark Williamson joined first lady Melania Trump in praising a newly opened Ohio public school in support of disadvantaged youth, made possible by the LeBron James Family Foundation, which will spend at least $2 million a year to fund it. "He's a bright guy, end of story," Williamson told Reuters of the three-time NBA champion on Monday. Days earlier, President Trump referred to a CNN interview in which James was critical of him, noting "the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon ... made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do." Lemon counters that "referring to African-Americans as dumb is one of the oldest canards of America's racist past and present."

Racist or not, the tweet has given extra publicity to the I Promise elementary school run by Akron Public Schools in James' hometown, which will offer classes for at-risk students in the third and fourth grades before expanding to the first through eighth grades by 2022, writes Jordan Weissman at Slate. He argues the school is deserving of attention not only because each student will receive free breakfast and lunch, a free Chromebook and bicycle, and tuition to the University of Akron paid for by James upon graduation, but because James is "sending the message that it's worth investing in our traditional public education systems, and that they should be trusted to run socially and academically ambitious schools." At the Guardian, Laurence Halsted adds James is the kind of role model "society needs now more than ever."
http://www.newser.com/story/262994/akron-public-schools-weighs-in-on-lebron-james-intelligence.html

Damn straight! And speaking of bullshit, here’s another one that Trump decided to take a dump all over – my home state. You know republicans have been trying to fuck with California since the 80s, and we’ve been through a lot of shit. We’ve been through fires, earthquakes, extreme heat, and you know what? We’ve survived it. And of course Trump couldn’t be bothered with facts. Let’s throw that tweet up there:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026587142989008897

I can’t even possibly begin to comprehend that word salad. But here’s someone who can!

In his first remarks on the vast California wildfires that have killed at least seven people and forced thousands to flee, President Trump blamed the blazes on the state’s environmental policies and inaccurately claimed that water that could be used to fight the fires was “foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

State officials and firefighting experts dismissed the president’s comments, which he posted on Twitter. “We have plenty of water to fight these wildfires, but let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires,” said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency.

He and others said that Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to a perennial and unrelated water dispute in California between farmers and environmentalists. Farmers have long argued for more water to be allocated to irrigating crops, while environmentalists counter that the state’s rivers would suffer and fish stocks would die.

The president first addressed the fires late Sunday, writing on Twitter, “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.” He also referred to a debate in forest management about the effectiveness of removing trees and vegetation as a fire control method.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/climate/trump-california-fire-tweets.html

[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Come on let’s give the wheel a good strong spin shall we? Oh hey look it’s a clip without context!

Really, Dave? I can’t think of one! You might want to lay off the covfefe, there, it’s some bad shit. Spin it again! Oh hey it’s time for Holy Shit! Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters of New York City, it’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened and it’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:

My fair congregation! There is a war brewing upon those in the religious right! For there is a conspiracy, if you will. One so outrageously batshit crazy that it deserves it’s own name and theme music! Yes of course I’m talking about the conspiracy theory known as “Q”. But since we are allowed to swear in my church, and I do say this with every ounce of the Good LAWRD in me, but fuck this fucking bullshit! I mean really, can it get any less Christiany than this? Yes, that is a word, sir! What do our religious brethren have to say about such ridiculousness?

Mark Taylor, the so-called “firefighter prophet” and radical conspiracy theorist about whom Liberty University is making a movie, appeared recently on “The Sharpening Report,” where he asserted that the U.S. military is training soldiers to fight underground because that is where satanic pedophiles build secret bunkers in which they abuse, sacrifice, and eat children.

“The underground child sacrifices, the sex trafficking rings, where is that stuff taking place?” Taylor asked. “Underground, in the tunnels.”

Taylor claimed that Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy investment banker and political donor who pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from minors a decade ago, had spent millions of dollars filling in tunnels on his private island that he and others had used to engage in pedophilia and cannibalism in order to be closer to Satan.

“There were having a dining room where they had cannibalism going on,” Taylor said. “It’s all going on underground. Now, the Lord showed me something: Why is it going on underground? Because, number one, they don’t have any resistance underground, and number two, they’re closer to the entities—digging down—that they’re trying to invoke.”

“That’s why they’re doing that,” he continued. “They’re closer to the enemies they’re invoking—of course, it’s in secret—[and] they have no resistance … I read an article where the military is literally training to start fighting underground because so much of that is going on underground right now, globally.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/firefighter-prophet-mark-taylor-says-the-military-is-gearing-for-war-with-pedophiles/

Of COURSE it’s got to be Satanic pedophiles! You wouldn’t want them dang normal, non religious secular pedophiles doing wrong would you? Can I get an amen??? You really cannot make this stuff up, and apparently it’s getting weirder and weirder! Apparently, people like the late, great Kate Spade were involved in this nonsense!

Liz Crokin, a pedophilia-obsessed right-wing “reporter,” responded to the reported suicide of renowned fashion designer Kate Spade on Monday by suggesting that Spade may have been involved in a satanic pedophilia ring and killed herself to escape jail time.

In a video uploaded just hours after news broke of Spade’s suicide, Crokin alleged that the designer may not have actually killed herself, based on warnings posted by “QAnon”—an anonymous poster on the 8Chan forum board that conspiracy theorists believe is a high-level Trump official ordered to leak out sensitive intelligence to their gang of amateur sleuths. Crokin said that “QAnon said that he warned that people would be committing suicide and today it was reported that she committed suicide.”

“The circumstances, just from the initial reports are very shady, they’re very suspicious, she allegedly hung herself with a red scarf and when I hear things like that I immediately think Illuminati and occult symbolism. The Illuminati is obsessed with the color red, we also know that the pedophile Satanists are obsessed with handkerchiefs, talk about handkerchiefs in the [John] Podesta emails,” Crokin said.

Crokin said that pictures of Spade and her husband show them to be “your typical creepy occult couple” and said the couple reminded her of “Tony Podesta and his ex-wife, who looks like Cruella de Vil.” She then urged viewers to search for images of Andy Spade and “pizza,” claiming that numerous photos of him delivering boxes of pizza were evidence that Spade is a pedophile. She also pushed this theory on Twitter:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-kate-spade-may-have-committed-suicide-because-she-was-a-satanic-pedophile/

Yes and apparently any time that you send out for pizza, you’re engaging in Q. Because who knew there were that many pizzas out there? I could seriously go all day on this nonsense! And by the way, would you validate these psychopaths? I know I wouldn’t!

Adherents to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory and former “Pizzagate” truthers who have alleged that President Trump is secretly working behind the scenes to dismantle a global network of satanic child sex traffickers believe a new press release from the Department of Justice has validated their wild conspiracy theories.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the arrest of more than 2,300 “suspected online child sex offenders.”
<snip>

The announcement was seen as validation by conspiracy theorists who have long-since obsessed over their belief that members of the political, media and corporate elite are part of an international network of pedophiles and that the Trump administration would soon be putting those figures in jail.

On The Goldwater, a news site built specifically for 8Chan users, an author named “Red Pill” wrote an article thanking “AG Jeff Sessions, the ICAC Task Force, and all agencies involved in the process of making America safe again.” The Twitter account for “An Open Secret,” which is a film about “Hollywood pedophiles & convicted sex offenders” shared the news to its followers.

Lisa Crowley, a #QAnon truther with tens of thousands of followers online, said she couldn’t wait until “all the BIG FISH in Hollywood, DC, & corporate America are finally indicted/arrested”:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/former-pizzagate-and-current-qanon-believers-say-the-doj-has-validated-them/

Excuse me a minute… But of course there’s mass indictments coming, my fair congregation, yes, there are mass indictments coming! Because when the good LAWRD JAYSUS rains down fire and brimstone, he rains it down hard!

One of the central components of the bizarre right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory, which alleges that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is actually just cover for the Trump administration’s effort to take down a global pedophile ring, is the belief that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has been racking up thousands of sealed indictments against powerful political, media, and business leaders who will soon be rounded up in mass raids.

During his recent appearance on the “USA Watchdog” program, right-wing radio host Dave Janda reported that these indictments will be unsealed once the primaries in the midterm elections are over and that former CIA director John Brennan will be among the first to be arrested.

“Everybody who is a freedom fighter is tired of hearing this, ‘It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,’ and nothing is happening,” Janda said. “What I’m told and have been told—and it’s been consistently told to me—you’re going to start to see movement on the indictments after the primaries are over.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dave-janda-qanon-mass-arrests-will-begin-after-the-primaries-are-over/

Yes, dissecting the Q saga is going to take a lot to unpack and it is going to be like that. By the way did anyone think that America would get to the point where this shit is in the news? I know I certainly did not! And by the way, don’t give VIP access to these morons! Because our GAWD will not allow that, his VIP room is pure!

When President Trump approached the podium at his rally last night in Duluth, Minnesota, he paused for a split-second to gesture to a man wearing a shirt emblazoned with the letter “Q.”

The Q on the man’s t-shirt refers to the right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Storm” that has thousands of adherents online. The theory goes like this: President Trump is not actually under investigation for possible collusion with Russian officials in 2016, but rather he is secretly working overtime to dismantle a global network of Satanic pedophiles involving some of the most powerful global elites and to share information about this secret project. According to the theory, Trump has ordered top-level officials to disseminate cryptic pieces of information—known as “crumbs”—to a bunch of random people on 4chan and 8chan who spend hours trying to put the puzzle pieces together. The conspiracy theory has been spread by the likes of Infowars and by comedian Roseanne Barr, but some conspiracy theorists have recently begun to allege that the whole operation was compromised once the unknown authors of the Q posts started to criticize one-time Q believers like Jerome Corsi and David Seaman of attempting to profit off the movement.

And as crazy as all of that sounds, it apparently didn’t stop anyone on the Trump advance team from giving someone advertising this theory front-row VIP access at last night’s rally.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-team-gives-vip-rally-access-to-qanon-truther/

Yes there you have it, the conspiracy theorists have come out of the closet and they’re abusing their VIP privileges! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:

[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Extreme Embalming
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Let’s spin the wheel shall we? Come on no whammy no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! No, a whammy!!!

Spin it again! Oh hey New York City, it’s time to investigate beyond the headlines! This is Top 10 Investigates!

The questions about what happens when one dies are some extremely tough decisions to be made, such as “how will I be remembered?”. “What’s going to happen to my loved ones?”. “What will happen to my estate?”. Yes, you probably have those questions in your head and so much more. But really, the questions about how you will be remembered after you pass on is the one we are looking at for this discussion today. And you most likely don’t want to be remembered in this way. A disturbing new trend has emerged among the funeral industry called “extreme embalming”. Here’s more.

Two weeks after Renard Matthews was tragically shot and killed in his New Orleans neighborhood, the 18-year-old looked exactly how he had in life. At his wake, he lay slumped in an office chair in front of a TV "playing" NBA2K with his hands wrapped around a PS4 controller. Clad in sunglasses, socks and flip-flops, and a Celtics jersey, he even had his favorite snacks—Doritos and root beer—within reach. And that’s just how his family wanted it.

Matthews’s wake was the latest in a string of what funeral directors call "nontraditional" memorial services. Instead of displaying their loved ones in a casket, some families choose to pose the bodies in life-like scenarios to see them as they were in life before they’re laid to rest. The practice first appeared in Puerto Rico in 2008 as a more celebratory send-off to the deceased, with the Marín Funeral Home posing bodies propped up on motorcycles or standing in a makeshift boxing ring.

In 2012, "extreme embalming" funerals hit New Orleans, when the family of Lionel Batiste—the drummer in the famed Treme Brass Band—asked the Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home to lean him next to his bass drum, his hand resting on the cane he always carried. When Mickey Easterling, a New Orleans socialite known for her extravagant parties, died two years later, her family tapped Jacob Schoen & Son to throw her a final blowout, posing her in her signature feather boa with a cigarette in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. And then there was Miriam Burbank, a Saints fan whose daughters had Charbonnet deck her out like they’d always seen her: sitting at a table in black and gold, with a menthol cigarette between her fingers and a can of Busch beer at her side.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmqy7/inside-new-orleans-extreme-embalming-funerals

In fact the concept of non traditional funerals isn’t anything new. It’s gaining in popularity from where it was 5 years ago. In fact there’s a company that actually launches remains into space.

When US Army Infantry Soldier Steven Jenks was deployed in Iraq, he used to get letters from his mother signed like this: "No matter how lonely you feel and how far you are, always look at the moon and know I am with you. I love you to the moon and back."

So when his mother died of lung cancer, Jenks thought it befitting to send her remains to the moon. "I will know that she is looking down on my family and maybe they won't feel so alone," he said in a statement.

Jenks is the first client of Elysium Space, a company that offers "celestial services to honor and celebrate the life of someone you love." (In other words, they launch small amounts of cremated remains into space.) In a press release, Elysium said: "The time to change the vision of death from the underground to the celestial is now."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdw8q/the-space-race-for-lunar-funerals-511

But even that isn’t anything new. However the concept has taken some interesting new turns and has generated controversy. Mainly – how do you prop up a corpse?

MIRIAM Birkbank is sat at a dining room table with a can of her favourite beer and a pack of cigs... but the 53-year-old isn't enjoying a relaxing evening at home after a long day's work.

In fact, she's dead - and her rigid body has been dressed up, contorted into position and put on display at the request of her family.

This is extreme embalming - where bodies are preserved by injecting them with a chemical fluid which makes them totally rigid - before being displayed in bizarre real life positions.

Corpses are forced into position by having their feet nailed to the floor, poles erected behind their necks - and even their limbs prized apart.

The demand for it is growing, with more and more people paying around £2,000 to have their loved one brought back to life for 2-3 days before the funeral takes place.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6750734/extreme-embalming-dead-funeral-pose/

Yes, there’s actually a growing demand for non traditional and unusual funeral services. Of course people want to be remembered as they lived, not as they died. But is this acceptable in current society? Some might say yes and others say no. It’s a hotly debated topic but ultimately we’ll leave it to the deceased.

Charbonnet Labat Glapion Funeral Home, where Matthews' wake took place, is accustomed to handling "extreme embalming" requests. They have go-to specialists that prepare the bodies according to the families' specifications or the stated wishes of the deceased, and also offer traditional New Orleans jazz funerals.

"One time, we stood a deceased drummer from a grassroots band at a drum set," the funeral home told Yahoo Lifestyle.

At another Charbonnet Labat Glapion wake, Miriam "Mae Mae" Burbank, 53, was positioned at a table with a menthol cigarette, an ashtray, and a Busch beer, her fingernails painted in the colors of her beloved New Orleans Saints football team.

"A lot of people didn't accept what I was doing," Burbank's daughter Zymora Kimball told WGNO of her mother's 2014 bar-themed memorial. "I didn't let that stop me, and I know she's happy with how she's looking. That's her, that's Mae."

Other examples of "extreme embalming" have positioned the dead in superhero costumes, driving a car (with some mourners taking the time to sit beside the deceased), or simply sitting in a realistic fashion wearing their everyday clothes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-lifelike-extreme-embalming-2018-7?r=UK&IR=T

That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

[font size="8"]Last Man Standing: How Is This Still A Thing
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New York City, let’s spin it to win it! And it lands on… come on no whammy no whammy no whammy… stop! Clip without context!

I love that he says this while he’s hawking a $1750 generator “with bonuses”. Really, it’s just the Home Shopping Network with an added bonus of “everyone’s going to die”. Spin it again! And hey, it lands on “How Is This Still A Thing!” New York City, it’s time once again to ask:

Tim Allen’s show “Last Man Standing” – how is this still a thing? It used to be that when your favorite TV show was canceled, that was it, it was done. Now we live in an era where shows can hop from network to network. Most of the time it’s generally harmless like Futurama or Brooklyn 99 or Arrested Development. But one show that’s being revived after being cancelled is getting a lot of attention, and it’s for all the wrong reasons.

When Fox announced in May that it would be resuscitating the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing for the 2018-2019 TV season, one question arose: would Tim Allen’s character be a vocal Trump supporter, like Roseanne Conner on ABC’s revived (and later, canceled) Roseanne? The Television Critics Association’s summer press tour seemed to offer an answer: maybe, but we won’t shove it in your face.

“He’s probably pro-Trump,” Allen declared of his Last Man Standing character, Mike Baxter. But “he probably doesn’t defend him,” Allen continued. He also offered that he thinks the character’s view of Trump might be less positive than it is benignly indifferent: “The dude is flying the plane right now; there’s no reason to take him out until he lands.”

“Oh yes we will!” Allen immediately chimed in mischievously. Despite the interjection, Abbott quickly repeated his statement that he didn’t expect the show to specifically comment on the president.
Try Vanity Fair and receive a free tote.Join Now

“We had a bank of stuff” planned in case “Mrs. Clinton” had been elected, Allen then offered. R.I.P., all those lost “lock her up” and pantsuit jokes.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/tim-allen-last-man-standing-fox-trump

Oh thank god he spared us a bunch of pantsuit jokes! Really, that is what passes for humor in the conservative male world? Well this show wasn’t the only one who was prepared for a Clinton victory and they were really hoping for it, because, jokes.

Tim Allen may be a supporter for president Donald Trump, but the “Last Man Standing” star said on Thursday there was one reason he was upset over Trump’s surprising victory. They had to throw away all their pantsuit jokes.

“We had a whole, we had a bank of stuff going on,” Allen said during the the revived comedy’s TCA panel, on how they were planning to address for not-to-be President Clinton. “Those of us in the comedy business went ‘shoot.’ Because of [Trump’s victory], we don’t have all that pantsuit stuff.”

But that doesn’t mean that the comedy leveled at the former Secretary of State’s expense would’ve been mean spirited. “Just the jokes that she would find funny,” he clarified, saying that the for comedians it’s important to not have too much of a partisan slant. “We want both sides to think it’s funny.”

Allen was responding to a question about any story lines the show had to drop because of ABC’s decision to cancel the show. Allen was explaining that “Last Man Standing,” like most other shows, were planning for Clinton to win.
https://www.thewrap.com/last-man-standing-tim-allen-upset-clinton-lost-to-trump-because-he-couldnt-tell-pantsuit-jokes/

Yes that’s the joke, and it’s further evidence of the fact that conservatives don’t really have a sense of humor. Or decency. So is his character pro Trump or not Pro Trump? That is the question!

While Allen admitted that, at least in some respects, his character Mike Baxter probably supports certain aspects of President Trump and his administration, he and the comedy’s executive producers say that there is no specific plan to vocalize that support. At least not now, and certainly not with the blatant, headline-grabbing pride that Roseanne Barr’s character on Roseanne did in that series’ controversial revival. That series was so popular before its scandal-induced cancellation that many critics, reporters, and couch surfers cynically assumed it had led to Fox’s decision to bring Last Man Standing back from the dead.

“It’s a legitimate question,” Allen said, referring to whether his character, who voiced his displeasure with then-President Barack Obama many times during Last Man Standing’s original run on ABC, would be openly MAGA.

“I think the guy’s kinda a centrist,” he continued. “I think the best line I heard is actually from [Bryan] Cranston from Breaking Bad. The dude’s flying a plane right now. There’s really no reason to get him out of the pilot seat until he lands. So this guy’s a practical guy. He owns a big business. If it’s helping his business, he’s probably pro-Trump. He probably doesn’t defend him. Whatever is good for his business and good for the state of Colorado.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tim-allens-last-man-standing-character-is-probably-pro-trump-but-wont-say-it-on-tv

Yes it’s probably for the best that the character doesn’t go full MAGA. Because when you go full MAGA you don’t go back. Just ask how well that worked for Roseanne.

Tim Allen, who raised eyebrows last year after likening being a conservative in Hollywood to living in 1930s Germany, has opened up about ABC's firing of fellow right-leaning actor Roseanne Barr.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the comedian -- whose sitcom "Last Man Standing" was canceled last year by ABC before being rescued by Fox -- said during a panel at the Television Critics Association press tour that the network "had to do what they had to do," when it came to firing Barr. Her rebooted sitcom was canceled in May after she sent a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an adviser to President Barack Obama. ABC has since ordered a spinoff of the show that will not include its titular star.

Allen, who plays an outspoken conservative on "Last Man Standing," also spoke of his longtime friendship with Barr, whom he called "the most diverse and tolerant woman I've ever known for a long time." He added that "it's a very icy time" for comedians.

"I've been a comedian for 38 years and I've never seen it, like Lenny Bruce said at the Purple Onion, 'We've gone backwards,' " Allen said, as quoted by Entertainment Weekly and other outlets. "There are things you can't say. There are things you shouldn't say. Who makes up these rules? And as a stand-up comic, it's a dangerous position to be in because I like pushing buttons. It's unfortunate."
https://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/2018/08/tim_allen_talks_last_man_stand.html

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There you have it, Last Man Standing is coming back on the air during a time when pushing buttons isn’t exactly the right thing to do in this increasingly hostile environment. That’s enough to make you ask – Last Man Standing:

[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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New York City let’s spin the wheel shall we? And it lands on… ‘Merica!

Ha ha, nice! Spin it again, oh hey it’s time for People Are Dumb!

So I want to start of course with America’s most penis shaped state of Florida. Actually I think most or all stories this edition are going to come from the Sunshine State. And there’s an interesting twist to this story that popped up two days after it published. And I know we briefly talked about this last week but there’s much more to it. . Which makes us wonder if there really is something in Florida’s water. Of course if there is, there’s probably an antidote to it. But still, this kind of thing definitely can’t be ignored. Here’s the original story:

A man made a beer run to a Jacksonville convenience store while carrying a live alligator, then posted a video of the “prank” on Facebook.

He yells: "Ya'll aint out of beer are ya? Is he taking the last bit of beer? You aren't taking the last bit of beer are you?"

The man then runs toward a customer with the gator — which had its jaws taped shut — and grabs a 12-pack, Wink News reports.

Florida wildlife investigators are said to be looking into the incident.

First Coast News spoke to the man who posted the video, and he said it was "all fun and games. I knew everybody in there."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-man-chases-people-with-gator-20180728-story.html

And now here’s the story as he tells it. So I guess this one falls under “you be the judge”.:

A man who walked into a convenience store with a live alligator tucked under his arm — with the whole fiasco recorded — was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, last week.

Robert Timothy Barr, 28 — who’s also known as Robby Stratton — and Kevin Scott Keene, 23, were charged with illegal possession of an alligator, illegal exhibition of dangerous wildlife and cruelty to animals, local news station WJXT4 reported.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which is investigating the incident, told HuffPost on Monday it is still trying to identify another individual in the case.

Barr was seen in a viral Facebook video boastfully running around the convenience store in late July carrying the 4- to 5-foot alligator whose mouth was duct-taped shut, per news station WTLV.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drunk-florida-man-who-made-beer-run-with-live-alligator-says-he-doesnt-remember-it_us_5b684b50e4b0de86f4a36b2f

Excuse me a minute… that one never gets old! So sticking with the Sunshine State, this is the only state where you can walk into a convenience store and have this happen to you. And really, it shouldn’t happen no matter where you are.

In one of the more vile episodes to recently transpire inside a 7-Eleven, a Florida man yesterday dumped a bucket containing human feces and urine inside a convenience store in St. Petersburg, according to police.

Investigators allege that Damian Simms, 41, arrived at the 7-Eleven around 1:30 AM Wednesday and proceeded to toss the slurry of human waste on the floor of the business. The liquid splashed on merchandise valued at $28.

Pictured at right, Simms apparently obtained the waste from a portable toilet. “The defendant threw a bucket of port a potty liquid human feces and urine,” reported Officer Donald Ziglar.

In late-May, Simms was trespassed from the 7-Eleven and “returned tonight with a bucket of human feces,” wrote Ziglar, who noted an “indication of alcohol influence.” The incident was recorded by store security cameras.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/vile-slurry-arrest-710532

Damn straight! Next up we’re going to South Carolina for this one. You know it’s fair season and people will definitely eat some junk food. But whatever your fair food is, as long as it’s deep fried and served on a stick, don’t do this!

A corn dog thief is on the loose in South Carolina, police report.

A Myrtle Beach woman told cops that she returned to her home yesterday afternoon and found a male intruder “just inside her door eating a corndog.” The 30-year-old victim said that she recognized the man as someone she had met last year (but whose name she did not recall).

When confronted by the homeowner, the suspect “said he was hungry and stopped by to get something to eat,” according to a Myrtle Beach Police Department report.

The suspect peddled away from the crime scene on a bicycle owned by the woman, who told cops that her phone was also missing.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/burglary/corn-dog-thief-sought-173958

Next up – bears! And of course you know that bears are godless killing machines. And if you have any sort of nice car, don’t leave food in it if you’re going anywhere near where bears are! Just don’t freaking do it!

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A North Carolina man plans to leave the dents in his rare vintage car for a while to relish the Alaska vacation story behind it. It’s not every day that a pricey collector’s treasure is damaged by a bear breaking into it to steal cookies.

“It’s bar room talk,” Tom Cotter of Davidson, North Carolina, said Monday shortly before he was scheduled to fly home from Anchorage after he toured the state for two weeks in his red 1965 289 Shelby Cobra with several other car collectors.

Cotter’s car sustained major rips to the vinyl roof and dents on the body when the bear broke into it last week at Alyeska Ski Resort, 38 miles (61 kilometers) south of Anchorage. He learned about the break-in when one of his friends texted him a photo of the damaged car the morning it was discovered.

No words were necessary for Cotter, who rushed out to assess the damages. ... “This car will forever be known as the bear Cobra,” said Cotter, 64, an author who writes about finding rare vintage cars. He also has a YouTube channel called The Barn Find Hunter.....
https://apnews.com/22784fa145d24107b9a272020e37dd20/Bear-tears-through-classic-Shelby-Cobra-on-Alaska-road-trip

Finally this week for People Are Dumb – you know… it’s 2018. Twitter and Facebook exist. And if you’re in any sort of public position, don’t be a dick. Because words and actions have consequences, and if you’re not careful it can backfire on you big time. Of course even worse if you’re the employer in this case.

A white police officer in Michigan who says he was taunted by fellow officers when he told them that he was part black will receive a $65,000 settlement, his attorney said.

Sgt. Cleon Brown, a 19-year veteran with the police department in Hastings, Michigan, said a series of taunts began in 2016 when he took a genetic test through Ancestry.com and learned that he was 18% African.

His colleagues at the police department were whispering "Black Lives Matter" while pumping their fists as they walked past him and his police chief referred to him as "Kunta," he said. (Kunta Kinte is a character in Alex Haley's novel, "Roots: The Saga of an American Family."

"It was almost like a disgraced type of reaction that I got from them like, 'Why are you proud of this type of thing?'," he told CNN affiliate WDIV.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/01/us/police-lawsuit-african-ancestry-settlement-trnd/index.html

That’s it this week for:

[font size="8"]Deep State Diaries Episode 8: The NSA
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Spin the wheel one final time this week! And it lands on… t-shirt cannon!!! Yes everyone will get our awesome new Top 10 tour shirt. Spin it again! And it’s time for Deep State Diaries!

It’s time for episode 8 of Deep State Diaries. Yes we’re touring the 24 branches and services that make up the United States government. Everything from the FBI to the IRS to the Pentagon to the CIA to the DPW to the DVA to parks and recreation and all branches and services in between. Of course if you’re here you probably already know more about our government and how it works than your average Fox News loving Trump supporter does. So that’s what this segment is going to address. We are going to do a deep dive into all that makes the United States the United States. Because we here at the Top 10 love to educate as well as entertain. Because we care.

[font size="6"]The NSA[/font]

*CONTROVERSY ALERT* *CONTROVERSY ALERT* *CONTROVERSY ALERT* For this next entry in our 24 part series exploring all of our government’s institutions and entities we’re going to take a look at our nation’s surveillance industry and explore the National Surveillance Agency. Fun fact: The NSA is actually an unofficial arm of the Department Of Defense. OK so we live in troubled times, obviously. And what happens when your boss owes his debt to a hostile foreign power? Well let’s just say that a lot of shit is going to hit multiple fans when this whole thing goes down.

As Cabinet members, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, looked on on Wednesday, Donald Trump sunk still deeper into the Russia-sympathy hole he has so effectively dug for himself since taking office. “No,” the president replied when asked by a White House pool reporter whether Russia is still targeting the U.S. with attacks on its digital infrastructure. Seemingly enamored of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, Trump has spent the past two days defending the Soviets from charges that they meddled in the 2016 presidential election, telling reporters that Putin gave a “very strong” denial when pressed on the matter behind the scenes. Even as the White House scrambles to backtrack, with certain staffers adamant that Trump correct the record—a push that resulted in a grammatical correction on Tuesday afternoon, and a feeble re-characterization on Wednesday—the person at the top of the food chain seems loath to accept the conclusions of people like Coats, who hours after the Trump-Putin presser put out an unequivocal statement: “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.” (Days before, Coats had drawn a comparison between Russia’s ongoing attempts at interference and warning signs before 9/11: “The warning lights are blinking red again,” Coats said. “Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.”)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-nsa-and-cyber-command-go-rogue

?w=840

Yes, listen to the Captain here! Now it is time to fight. Because we have never seen a president who has collided with a foreign power before, what do we do about it? And in fact how do we deal with it? That’s what the NSA is trying to answer here. And you know what? They’re not as evil as you think.

The head of the nation’s largest electronic spy agency and the military’s cyberwarfare arm has directed the two organizations to coordinate actions to counter potential Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections.

The move, announced to staff at the National Security Agency last week by NSA Director Paul Nakasone, is an attempt to maximize the efforts of the two groups and comes as President Trump in Helsinki on Monday said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “extremely strong and powerful” in denying Russian involvement in the presidential election two years ago.

It is the latest initiative by national security agencies to push back against Russian aggression in the absence of direct guidance from the White House on the issue.

“Nakasone, and the heads of the other three-letter agencies, are doing what they can in their own lanes, absent an overall approach directed by the president,” said Michael V. Hayden, who has headed the NSA and the CIA. “As good as it is, it’s not good enough. This is not a narrowly defined cyberthreat. This is one of the most significant strategic national security threats facing the United States since 9/11.”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-and-cyber-command-to-coordinate-actions-to-counter-russian-election-interference-in-2018-amid-absence-of-white-house-guidance/2018/07/17/baac95b2-8900-11e8-85ae-511bc1146b0b_story.html?utm_term=.399e9507b723

Not today, Loki! But then what happens when an agency gets too big for its’ own good? That is the case with the NSA, an agency can get too large and overstep its’ boundaries. In fact it seems to have both parties alarmed at how big it is:

Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have sent a letter [PDF] to the NSA's inspector general asking him to look into the agency's torching of metadata for hundreds of millions of phone calls.

"We write to request that you conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding, and any systemic problems that may have led to, the deletion by the National Security Agency (NSA) of certain call detail records (CDRs) collected from telecommunications service providers pursuant to Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)," the letter begins.

That deletion was announced back in June, one month after the spy agency revealed in a "statistical transparency report" [PDF] that it had collected 534 million call details in 2017, a tripling of the number from the previous year.

The NSA blamed "technical irregularities" for the receipt and storing of an unspecified amount of phone call data, and said that, since it was not possible to discern between legitimately and illegally gathered details, it was going to "delete all CDRs acquired since 2015."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/06/us_spying_programs/

So the NSA may be too big and we’re colluding with a hostile foreign power that’s bent on destroying us into oblivion. What do we do? Who do we call when the network gets too big for its’ own good? Where do we go from there?

A pair of U.S. senators is asking the National Security Agency’s inspector general to investigate the circumstances surrounding the spy agency’s decision to delete scores of call records that it collected for foreign intelligence purposes.

The NSA announced in late June that it was deleting all so-called call detail records (CDRs) collected since 2015 after discovering that “technical irregularities” resulted in the agency collecting data it was not authorized to receive.

The NSA said it publicly disclosed the developments in accordance with the agency’s “core values of respect for the law, accountability, integrity, and transparency.” While the spy agency said the root of the problem has been addressed, it offered limited details about the issue.

Now, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are asking Robert Storch, the NSA inspector general, to launch an investigation into “the circumstances surrounding, and any systemic problems that may have led to, the deletion by the National Security Agency (NSA) of certain call detail records,” according to a letter sent Thursday.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/400144-govt-watchdog-pressed-to-investigate-nsa-call-record-deletion

[font size="6"]Score Card [/font]

Overall importance: C
How Things Are Going: D
Likely hood To Survive: B

Overall: C-

[font size="6"]Next Week [/font]

When the Top 10 returns we’re going to take a look at how our legal system is going as we delve into the DOJ!

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Blackberry Smoke[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen my next guest is a great southern rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina and you can see them on tour everywhere this August and September. Playing their song “Flesh & Bone” from their new album “Shine A Light”, give it up for Blackberry Smoke!

New York City, we had an awesome time! Love you guys. We will be back very soon! We are off next week, I am taking a much needed vacay and we will be running a best of in the meantime. We will be back on August 22nd in the Motor City! See you in 2 weeks!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: Grammercy Theater, New York City, NY
Special Thanks To: Grammercy Theater management
Holy Shit Gospel Choir: Bethel Church Band, Brooklyn, NY
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
Legal: Top 10 Legal Department
Advertising: Top 10 Advertising Department
HR: Top 10 Human Resources Department
Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
Wheel Of Corruption By: Studio 1 Stage Props, Burbank, CA
Blackberry Smoke Appear Courtesy Of: 20183 Legged Records
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 On Twitter at: @10Idiots
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Hate mail? E-mail The Top 10 at: Top10ConIdiots@gmail.com

Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

August 6, 2018

Preview For This Week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots

Well hey if you want to move to Russia, the door is that way, and they will gladly have you! And they're not making America great again, they're making America white again!

*audience laughs and applauds*

This week on the Top 10 - we are live from New York City!!! With the famous Wheel Of Corruption! Qanon comes out of the conspiracy theory closet, we recap all the insanity over the weekend including the Proud Boys rallies in DC and Portland - which went about as well as you'd expect, Trump declares an all out assault on the free press, Alex Jones had his worst week ever, we have some more Profiles In #Civility, we ask how Tim Allen's show "Last Man Standing" is still a thing, and Trump goes off the rails attacking LeBron James for doing society good, something he doesn't know how to do! And in our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates we're going to take a look at the funeral industry and a new trend that is guaranteed to make you go "WTF". And in our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in "Holy Shit", our resident pastor is going to tell you about how his fellow religious zealots are literally turning on each other. And we've got a brand new edition of People Are Dumb, because People Are Dumb. And the next installment of Deep State Diaries is going to take you deep inside the surveillance industry as we look at the NSA! Plus some live music for you from Blackberry Smoke!

Top 10 Conservative Idiots: Wednesdays at 2:00 PM /shameless self promotion

August 1, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-7: Yachty McYachtface Goes On A 3 Hour Tour Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-7: Yachty McYachtface Goes On A 3 Hour Tour Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up St. Louis???? Nice to see there’s some awesome liberals in the Show Me State! We’re having a great time on the road here. This is our 4th stop and we’ve got plenty more coming through the rest of this season including our next stop in New York City, then we’re off to Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Jose, Oxnard, and then back home at the UCB Theater in Hollywood. Later in the year we’ll be hitting Nashville, Philly, Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, Denver, Lexington (new date added), Orlando, Atlanta and Washington DC. And… we are going to London, that’s in the UK don’t you know? Get your tickets! OK do we have time for the thing? OK I’ll make it short. We are not doing “People Are Dumb” this week but I got to talk about this story and it’s classic Florida. OK so… how… what… where… I can’t even. So this was in the Florida city of Jacksonville. Really, do you bring a gator when you go out on a beer run? Well this guy did and then he proceeds to literally use the gator as a weapon and accuse the convenience store of running out of beer. I mean come on if you’re going to go crazy, go all out! I’ve made a lot of beer runs in my life. I have never, not once thought to ever bring a live alligator with me. Shit, I wouldn’t even know where to get a live alligator! And this is one instance where I would say if you’ve got it, *DON’T* flaunt it! Maybe… leave the gator at home next time! OK that’s enough of the intro, we got a lot of idiocy to talk about. But first John Oliver is back and he trolls Facebook hard with a parody ad:

Wow, there was so much idiocy this week that once again it was impossible to contain it all. In the number one slot this week is the NRA (1) and the Trump administration is going to play “what would a dick do” and allow for the release of technology that allows you to 3-D print your own untraceable gun. In the second slot we’re going to lighten things up and tell you about how Betsy DeVos’ (2) $40 million yacht got defaced and sent out into the ocean. In the third slot this week is our Attorney General Jeff Sessions (3) who got in some trouble during a speech to conservative high school students while railing on “snowflakes” and we’ll delve into his “Religious Liberty Task Force”. Taking the fourth slot this week we have some more Profiles In #Civility (4) because once again there’s a metric fuck ton of these stories coming out. In the number 5 seed this week we have a new installment of “How Is This Still A Thing” and this week we’re going to ask “Donald Trump’s Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame: How Is This Still A Thing?”. Taking the sixth slot this week is a new installment of our weekly investigative piece “Top 10 Investigates” and this week we’re going to take a look at something called “Looksmax” – it’s an offshoot of the Incel movement with an added sense of self superiority. In the seventh slot this week is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and this week our resident pastor is going to tell you about the latest foray of the Dark One's descent into autocratic rule with the creation of the Religious Liberty Task Force. In the number 8 slot this week we’ve got a new installment of “Explaining Jokes To Idiots” (8) and I don’t know if you have heard of this new Netflix series called “Insatiable” – is it a quirky high school revenge comedy – or is it insufferable fat shaming??? We will tell you the difference! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week we’ve got a new installment of “I Need A Drink” and this week we’re going to get drunk and tell you about the guy who rigged the McDonalds Monopoly contest and took it for millions! Finally this week we’ve got a new edition of Deep State Diaries. Last week we showed you the inner workings of the food industry with the USDA, this week we’re going to see how our votes are validated by checking out what’s going on at the Federal Election Commission! And… holy shit, I can’t believe the musical guest we have on tonight. I’m really not worthy of appearing in front of the punk rock legends, I’m of course talking about Social Distortion! We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy! Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]

[font size="8"] The NRA & The Trump Administration
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OK so let’s play a game of “What would a dick do?”. Now let’s get a hypothetical situation going. You’re the NRA and your support is at an all time low and it’s continuing to decline especially since news has been coming fast and furious that you took Russian money and funneled it to your A+ members. So what do you do to take the heat off your membership? Why not… release documents and manuals that would allow anyone to 3-D print their own guns? Brilliant!

By the middle of this week, anyone with internet access will be able to download blueprints to 3D print an untraceable gun.

This idea came from the pro-gun group Defense Distributed, which was founded by Cody Wilson.

He posted his blueprints online five years ago and the U.S. State Department ordered him to take it down. However, Wilson fired back, citing free speech rights, and won a lengthy legal battle last week.

The guns, which will return to the internet Aug. 1, can be produced on a 3D printer without a serial number and can be produced without a background check.

Beyond the simple concern about unregistered weapons, some see other dangers with the 3D-printed firearms.

“Mostly because we see the great potential in terms of harm to the user that's unintentional because of the unsuitability of the material,” said Dave Dalton, operator of Hammerspace Community Workshop in Kansas City, Missouri.
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/ruling-on-3d-printed-guns-opens-door-for-easily-accessible-untraceable-firearms

Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! So really you want to make mass shootings worse by allowing anyone with a 3-D printer to make their own weapon? Fuck off! But there is some good news is that politicians are trying to block the spread of this.

You know things are fucked up when we have the most advanced technology in the history of mankind and our first thought is “how can we make things that kill people with it?”. But most everybody knows that this is a terrible idea except for you know gun nuts. But many states are planning to sue over this technology, like Washington.

Eight states are filing suit against the Trump administration over its decision to allow a Texas company to publish downloadable blueprints for a 3D-printed gun, contending the hard-to-trace plastic weapons are a boon to terrorists and criminals and threaten public safety.

The suit, to be filed Monday in Seattle, asks a judge to block the federal government's late-June settlement with Defense Distributed, which allowed the company to make the plans available online. Officials say that 1,000 people have already downloaded blueprints for AR-15 rifles.

"I have a question for the Trump Administration: Why are you allowing dangerous criminals easy access to weapons?" Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. "These downloadable guns are unregistered and very difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and will be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history."

Joining the suit were Democratic attorneys general in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maryland, New York and the District of Columbia. Separately, attorneys general in 21 states urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday to withdraw from the settlement with Defense Distributed, saying it "creates an imminent risk to public safety."
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/washington-to-sue-over-3d-printed-gun-plans/281-578608817

Yeah it’s cigarettes that are the problem, right, Homer? And by the way in case you’re wondering who’s really in charge on this issue, look no further than Trump himself who weighed on the subject. Seriously, he might as well wear a shirt that says “NRA approved” on it.

President Trump claimed on Twitter Tuesday that he had spoken with the National Rifle Association about 3-D printed guns and asserted that publishing instructions for making the weapons “doesn’t seem to make much sense!”

The tweet came just an hour after “Fox and Friends” ran a story on the attorneys general of eight states and the District of Columbia who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to keep blueprints for 3-D printed guns offline.

After reaching a settlement with the federal government in June, a Texas-based company plans to publish the instructions for 3-D printing weapons starting Aug. 1. The company, Defense Distributed, settled with the federal government after fighting the Obama administration in court for five years. The Obama administration argued that publishing the instructions for printing the weapons was a violation of firearm export laws, while Defense Distributed claimed the State Department was violating its First and Second Amendment rights.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court in Seattle Monday and is asking the court for a temporary restraining order to keep the blueprints from going live on Wednesday.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-says-told-nra-3d-printable-guns-dont-make-sense

[font size="8"]Betsy DeVos
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Let’s lighten things up a bit and talk about the least popular Secretary Of Education that the United States has ever had. After all this is a comedy show here. So if you missed it over the weekend, someone graffitied her $40 million yacht (one of 10) and set it afloat in Lake Huron. For what you might say was a 3 hour tour. Gee, where have I heard that before?

A $40 million yacht belonging to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was untied from its mooring at a Lake Huron marina, police said.

The SeaQuest, a 164-foot luxury yacht, registered under a Cayman Islands flag, was set adrift at the Huron Boat Basin, where it was docked.

"Around sunrise the crew woke to find the boat had been untied from the dock and was adrift," according to a vandalism report filed Sunday by the Huron Police Department.

The crew was able to regain control, but not before the ship struck the dock, suffering several scratches and scrapes, the report said.

The captain estimated that the collision caused between $5,000-$10,000 in damages.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/secretary-education-betsy-devos-40-million-yacht-set/story?id=56840039

Well I guess on the plus side, they didn't name it "Yachty McYachtface"! Maybe this is the New Adventures Of Yachty McYachtface? Or Yachty McYachtface Goes On A 3 Hour Tour? I don’t know – we’re just speculating here! But just the fact that Betsy DeVos owns a $40 million yacht is far from the least cringeworthy thing about this story. Their wealth is absolutely staggering.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s extravagant multi-billion dollar lifestyle comes with a yacht scheduler, a gift buyer and a toy repairer, according to a new report detailing her family’s astounding fortune.

DeVos disclosed her family’s wealth and all its trimmings, including $580 million in assets, when she stepped into the role of education secretary in February, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal dug into her family’s office to reveal the many assistants they hire on, from a household administrative assistant to a personal assistant to take care of all their Christmas season needs from suggesting gift ideas, buying gifts and wrapping presents.

And if the Christmas toys get broken, they have a property manager who takes care of that along with other duties like ensuring that “doors are well-oiled to avoid squeaking.” With all holiday season quickly approaching, the DeVos clan has assistants to help with travel, too.

The DeVos’s household assistant helps the teens pick out “clothing and personal items to pack for travel” and another assistant helps schedule trips on their 10 boats, including a 164-foot boat named the “Seaquest." An associate captain oversees the scheduling of their yacht trips and a boat maintenance assistant coordinates their meals aboard while also following “proper table etiquette, service and entertaining protocol.”
https://www.newsweek.com/can-you-afford-betsy-devoss-lavish-lifestyle-708369

That’s right. Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! That’s right – Betsy DeVos has over $600 million dollars in assets including multiple mansions, yachts, helicopters, jets and basically a whole fucking James Bond villain lair’s worth of vehicles. Oh but if you fact check that boat actually doesn’t belong to Betsy DeVos, OK! But that still doesn’t make it any better!

We have an update to Sunday's item about SeaQuest, the giant motor yacht docked in Milwaukee.

The boat doesn't belong to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick, but to his father, Richard DeVos, and his wife, Helen, according to a spokesman for Dick and Betsy's DeVos' Grand Rapids, Mich.-based private investment management firm.

Greg McNeilly, chief operating officer of Windquest Group, said many people confuse Richard, the co-founder of Amway, and his son Dick. He provided the original 2008 bill of sale for the boat, from the manufacturer to RDV International Marine Limited, and a document transferring the only other share in RDV to Richard M. DeVos years earlier.

Various sites that track the manufacture, sale and movements of so-called superyachts, list Dick and Betsy DeVos as its owner. When asked Sunday if Betsy DeVos was aboard the boat and planning any Wisconsin appearances, a Department of Education spokesperson said she was not and did not, that at some other family must be using the boat.

McNeilly said Monday that Betsy DeVos keeps an "iron curtain" between her duties as a member of President Donald Trump's cabinet and her private life, and that government officials in her department likely had no idea who actually owned the SeaQuest.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/09/17/u-s-education-secretary-betsy-devoss-163-foot-yacht-docked-milwaukee/674959001/

Gilligan!!!!!!! By the way in case you’re wondering how much this little escapade cost, to a family worth billions, it’s the equivalent of fixing a paint scratch on your car. They probably have this much in their couch cushions !

Someone untied a yacht owned by the family of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in Ohio, causing the vessel to drift into a dock and incur up to $10,000 in damages, police said.

The $40 million, 163-foot (49-meter) yacht was moored at the Huron Boat Basin when the captain reported it became untied around 6 a.m. Sunday, The Blade reported.

The vessel, named the Seaquest, struck the dock and ended up with large scratches before the crew was able to get control of it.

DeVos was in Ohio earlier this month to tour a career center and a correctional treatment program. It's unclear why the yacht was in Huron.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/Betsy-DeVos-40-Million-Yacht-Untied-Causing-10000-in-Damages-489252331.html

[font size="8"]Jeff Sessions
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Hey you know what? This might be the first Top 10 we’ve done in a long time where Trump hasn’t done anything stupid enough to get him a spot on the list! What????? Yeah how about a round of applause for that! But you know who is stupid and evil? Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions. Now… save your boos for later. Before we investigate what he did this week, we must first talk about what he did over the weekend!

Attorney General Jeff Sessions made light of some therapy practices on college campuses across the country, and accused some liberal universities of creating a generation of "snowflakes." While delivering remarks to Turning Point USA's High School Leadership summit, a right-wing non-profit organization, Sessions said that "far too many schools are complicit" in cracking down on students' First Amendment rights, preventing "genuine debate" to play out on the college campus.

"Whether you realize it or not, freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack," Sessions warned.

Sessions cited "safe spaces," art therapy (a platform issue recently taken up by Vice President Mike Pence's wife Karen Pence) optional exams and therapy animals on campuses as "coddling" young people and preventing them from "scrutinizing the validity of their beliefs on the issue of the day."

"After the 2016 election, for example, they held a 'cry-in' at Cornell -- I hope they had plenty of tissues for them to cry on. They had therapy dogs on campus at the University of Kansas, and Play-Doh and coloring books at the great University of Michigan, for heaven's sake. I thought that was...you know, give me a break! Students at Tufts were encouraged to 'draw about their feelings.'"

With such practices, Sessions said, schools are doing "everything they can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes." He called it a "disservice" to the students and nation alike.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sessions-slams-liberal-colleges-for-fostering-sanctimonious-sensitive-snowflakes/

Really Jeff? That’s what you have to complain about? Nothing else is mattering right now? We’ve solved all our problems? OK fine. But seriously why don’t you come up with solutions as to why today’s college students are overworked and overstressed! Or are you just going to complain about it? Complaining about it is easier.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday accused colleges of creating “a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes.” Sure, when it comes to handling free-speech scuffles, colleges have room to improve, said Howard A. Gillman, chancellor of the University of California at Irvine and a noted First Amendment scholar, in a Chronicle interview. But that’s not the best way to think about the issue, he said.

Gillman discussed ways colleges can “improve the quality of the conversation” about free expression. He also highlighted the security costs associated with protests and visiting speakers as a significant concern. Berkeley, he noted, spent nearly $4 million over a month on free-speech events, including a “free-speech week” that didn’t end up happening.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/UC-Irvine-Chancellor-on/244033

Yeah something tells me a “free speech week” might not be the best idea they’ve ever come up with, but seriously why are you continuing to bash Berkeley? Hold a grudge much? Oh yeah that’s *ALL* republicans do. While we’re trying to save our democracy from another Russian attack, they’re railing on “snowflakes”. Because, reasons. And by the way in case you’re wondering if he couldn’t be any more of a dick, look at what he told high school conservatives.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions chuckled and repeated "Lock her up" after the familiar Trump campaign rally chant rang out during his speech at a conservative conference for high school students on Tuesday.

The chant, President Donald Trump's pejorative mantra against political rival Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, occurred during the attorney general's appearance at Turning Point USA's High School Leadership Summit in Washington.

As Sessions commended attendees for fighting for conservative values, the crowd responded with cries of "Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!"

Sessions then laughingly repeated the line.

"Lock her up," Sessions said once, chuckling. "I heard that a long time over the last campaign."

During his speech, Sessions decried what he sees as the silencing of young conservatives on college campuses to create a "generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes." Sessions also praised the president, saying one of the things people liked about Trump was his willingness to stand up and express the views he thought were right.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-repeats-lock-her-chant-high-school-n894021

That one was stupid enough that it got the double facepalm folks! And then he *DOUBLED* down on his chants to lock Hillary up while speaking to college students! Seriously, he doesn’t get it does he? But then again neither does this whole damned administration! I mean really, if you cry about crybabies, does that make you a crybaby yourself? Ah! Just think about it!

Universities are "coddling" students and not fostering an environment for developing capable adults, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a group of high school students Tuesday.

"Rather than molding a generation of mature, well-informed adults, some schools are doing everything they can to create a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes," Sessions said.

Sessions made the statements during an address to the Turning Point USA's High School Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. The AG said universities are "actively preventing" students from "scrutinizing the validity of their beliefs."

"After the 2016 election, for example, they held a 'cry-in' at Cornell. I hope they had plenty of tissues for them to cry on," he said. "They had therapy dogs at the University of Kansas. Play-Doh and coloring books at the University of Michigan for heaven's sakes. You know, give me a break. Students at Tufts were encouraged to 'draw about their feelings.'
https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/07/ag_jeff_sessions_says_colleges.html

[font size="8"]Profiles In #Civility
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Regular viewers of the Top 10 will know by now that we started Profiles In #Civility because there are a *TON* of these stories that have been coming fast and furious lately. And we’re compiling all of these stories in one place that you can show to your conservative friends the next time one of them shoots their mouth off and calls for #Civility. So I want to start this week with one that really pissed me off, yeah it’s the one involving Mission: Impossible star Ving Rhames. Because I love these movies (Fallout is great, BTW) and he plays a great character in them. And you can’t even be safe in your own home anymore!

Actor Ving Rhames said he was a target of racial profiling earlier this year after Los Angeles police came to his home and held him at gunpoint in response to a neighbor calling 911.

Rhames, 59, recounted Friday during a radio interview promoting "Mission: Impossible Fallout," that he was watching television in his Santa Monica home when he heard noise coming from the backyard. He said he thought it was his two English bulldogs at first — only to quickly find out it was police.

"I get up, I open the door, there's a red dot pointed at my face from a 9 millimeter," Rhames said on Sirius XM's The Clay Cane Show on Friday. "And they say, 'Put up your hands.'"

Santa Monica police told NBC News that their officers do not carry laser-guided service weapons.

After following police instructions, one of the officers recognized Rhames because their sons went to the same school, the actor said. The officers then told him that a female neighbor had called police to report "a large black man was breaking into the house," Rhames added.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/actor-ving-rhames-said-neighbor-called-911-report-him-large-n895611

Seriously this is one situation where you might want to get to know your neighbors better, although I think Ving might want to take a raincheck on that one. Next up – there’s this story out of Colombus, Ohio. If you’re going to be a racist dick, maybe don’t be a racist dick when you’re sitting in a van with your work number and address on it!

The confrontation between the two strangers began as a traffic dispute on the North Side.

It should have ended there, on Morse Road at Interstate 71, with the honk of a horn. That’s where Charles Lovett left it.

Jeff Whitman didn’t.

Feeling wronged, Whitman showed up at Lovett’s house. That alone was unsettling; Lovett’s house was not right around the corner from the Tuesday morning encounter. It was almost two miles away.

People have been shot in situations that began like this, when a minor flash of road rage escalates. Given that, Lovett remained remarkably composed. He was so composed that he had the foresight to begin recording the encounter on his phone, a decision that would ensure that neither man would remain anonymous.

“Is there a reason you just followed me to my house?” he asks Whitman, who sits in his van at the end of Lovett’s driveway. At this point it is necessary to point out that Whitman is white and Lovett is black.

“I just want to let you know what a n----- you are,” Whitman says in the now viral video.
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180729/theodore-decker-racist-words-blow-back-on-man-family-and-business

Holy shit! Oh by the way this particular story doesn’t end there. It gets crazier. In fact we might need the Sad Hulk Music for this part of the story. It naturally escalated from there once the internet got involved and you know what classy people the internet can be!

&t=4s

They shared his image online, overloaded his voicemail and flooded consumer websites like Yelp with hundreds of negative reviews, complete with images of the Ku Klux Klan and Hitler.

“Your type is not wanted in this country any longer, nor are your ‘heating and cooling services’ ever needed again,” reads one.

All of this has had the intended effect.

“It was an awful mistake and obviously I don’t know how to explain it, and it’s ruined my life and it’s ruined my family’s life,” Whitman says.

He says this in a voicemail left for me on Thursday, two days after he most definitely didn’t apologize when confronted by a local television reporter.

Now, in this message, he sounds despondent.

“I’m out of business, I’m completely out, I’m done, I’ll never work in Columbus again,” he says. “This has completely and thoroughly ruined my life.” The message ends abruptly.

So the moral of the story here is don’t be a racist dick while sitting in a work vehicle. We can all agree with that one can we? Next up – we go to my home state of California! And specifically the district adjacent to my home district is the home of Dana Rorabacher (R - Moscow). So what happened when Dana couldn’t answer tough questions? Guess what!

Over the past two years, The Daily Banter has repeatedly scrutinized California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher for his ties to Russia. Warned as early as 2012 that the Kremlin had been cultivating him as an asset, he continued to spout Kremlin talking points and meet with dubious actors, including Russian spy Maria Butina, whom he met with in 2015. More recently, he found himself duped by Sacha Baron Cohen, who filmed him endorsing his bogus guns-for-tots program on his show Who is America?

All these issues have made Rohrabacher, running for his 15th consecutive term in California’s 48th district, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the 2018 midterms. But if you call his offices in Washington D.C. and Huntington Beach, CA, to register your dissent, you’ll be treated very poorly – or worse, reported to the police.

Ivy Perlman (name changed) is an activist from Los Angeles who currently lives in another state. Last week, she repeatedly called Rohrabacher’s offices with questions concerning these recent developments. Although any citizen is within their First Amendment rights to call a congressperson’s office, regardless of whether or not they live in their district, the Rohrabacher office refused to answer her questions and hung up on her multiple times, occasionally sending her straight to voicemail.

When Ivy called again, she found that the office had redirected her to the Capitol Police, who then placed a report with the LAPD’s Threat Assessments Unit and informed the Washington and Huntington Beach offices that they’d done so. Using her cell phone’s area code, they traced Ivy’s call back to the LA suburb where she was raised. Around 11:45 AM on Wednesday, July 18th, Ivy’s mother, Jen, found a card from the LAPD on her doorstep that read, “Ivy Perlman, please call me. Thank you.”
https://thedailybanter.com/issues/2018/07/27/rohrabachers-intimidates-citizens/

Hey Dana: ты сосать как личность! Thank you St. Louis! And then finally this last #Civility story I want to talk about this week is in Charlotte, North Carolina, and if you’re a racist and you’re going to use the N word, maybe you should learn that the word is not a catch-all!

Tin Nguyen and his partner, Cat Bao Le, say they will continue to confront white supremacists and hatred after an unknown white man banged on their door, yelled racial slurs, threatened to call police, and argued with them about a sign in their yard that says “F--- Donald Trump.”

The man told Nguyen and Le, “I’m gonna get you, n-----.”

Nguyen is a 38-year-old lawyer in Charlotte who defends people in immigration cases and whose mother and father were refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s. Le, 37, is also Vietnamese-American and is executive director of the Southeast Asian Coalition, a youth and advocacy organization in Charlotte.

What happened to them is the latest in a string of high-profile cases where a white person is captured on cellphone video demeaning a person of color or threatening to call police.

“They want to police everything that we do,” Nguyen said Tuesday, speaking to reporters in front of his home.
https://www.heraldsun.com/news/state/north-carolina/article215039475.html

[font size="8"]How Is This Still A Thing
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St. Louis, it’s once again time to ask:

This week – Donald Trump’s Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame. How is this still a thing? In the year and a half since the inauguration, Trump’s star in front of the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Blvd has attracted a lot of negative attention. It’s been smashed, it’s had a wall built around it, it’s been urinated on, it’s been used as a target for dog feces, it’s attracted people fighting in front of it, and this week it’s been smashed again.

President Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed Wednesday morning by a man with a pickax that witnesses say he concealed in a guitar case, police said.

Officers were called around 3:30 a.m. to the star's location on Hollywood Boulevard near Highland Avenue, where they found a small pile of rubble in place of the star that Trump received in January 2007 for his role in the NBC show "The Apprentice."

The star-smashing suspect, who reported the crime to police, later turned himself in to Beverly Hills police after leaving the pickax at the scene, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He called police and said, "See you soon," Lt. Karen Leong of the LAPD's Hollywood Division told the Los Angeles Times.

The suspect was identified as Austin Clay, 24, who was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism. His hometown was not immediately available.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/President-Donald-Trump-Star-Hollywood-Walk-Fame-Vandalized-489103611.html

And by the way if you’re considering visiting that area, it’s in a rather heavily visited spot on Hollywood Blvd, right outside the Dolby Theater. So if you’re a tourist vising the area or heading out to the Hollywood Bowl for a show, you might want to avoid this area.

A brawl between supporters of President Donald Trump and anti-Trump opponents broke out on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last night near the president’s damaged star.

The Los Angeles police are looking for two men that are shown assaulting three Trump supporters. They are also accused of stealing a camera.

A man who identified himself as Tony Hoff said on NBC-TV News that he and his friends knew that going to the star and dressing in full MAGA gear would provoke people. But he “didn’t expect” the chaos that happened.

The fights started around 9:30 PM near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland, just across from the theater where the Academy Awards are held. The Trump star has frequently been the scene of confrontations, and this week the star was destroyed by a man wielding a pickax.

The brawl resulted in Hoff sustaining a cut over his right eye and half-a-dozen blows. His companion, a female who was not identified, said they wanted to “incite conversations” and were “proud they stood up for what they believed.” She added that many productive conversations occurred before the violence.
https://deadline.com/2018/07/hollywood-walk-of-fame-fight-breaks-out-near-damaged-donald-trump-star-1202435553/

Yes there were probably people betting on this. But as horrifying as this is, what might be the funniest thing right now is there are guys dressed as Russian soldiers guarding the site where the WOF plaque once stood.

A pair of fake Russian soldiers stood guard at the remains of President Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, days after a man destroyed it with a pickax.

The two stonefaced men, dressed in olive green uniforms and thick hats, were spotted “protecting” the star on Hollywood Boulevard this week.

The guards also reportedly braved the 90 degree California heat in their heavy outfits and were also seen carrying a Russian flag.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/399440-russian-soldiers-guard-trumps-destroyed-hollywood-star

Now you’d think that would be enough for people to stay away, but Trump’s star on the Walk Of Fame, or what is left of it, has become the hottest tourist attraction in Los Angeles. So apparently maybe don’t do this in the future, kids. Because it can have some serious consequences.

A man who said he took a pickax to Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame early Wednesday has given himself up to police, authorities said.

The man strode up to Trump’s star off Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue about 3:30 a.m. and proceeded to destroy the majority of it, including bashing through Trump’s name plate, police said.

The man was carrying the pickax in a guitar case, according to KNBC-TV.

After bashing through the plaque, the man “called police and advised he had vandalized Donald Trump’s star and basically called on himself and said, ‘See you soon,’” said Lt. Karen Leong of the LAPD’s Hollywood Division.

Private security officers in the area attempted to intervene but couldn’t stop the man because they don’t have police powers, she said.

“I think they did the best they could,” she added.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-trump-star-pickaxe-20180725-story.html

Yes but apparently there won’t be any bad court thingys here. So why is this still a thing you might ask? With all the controversy surrounding the star, why wont it get taken down? Because the committee that runs the HOF won’t take down anything, that’s why!

Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star will not be removed, despite being vandalized and then fought over by rival protesters, TMZ reported on Sunday.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, keeping the star was not an easy decision. The LAPD and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce said that removing it could trigger attacks on other celebrities’ stars.

On Thursday, Trump’s star, while damaged and roped off, became a battleground for Trump supporters and opposers.

Trump supporting YouTuber Elijah Schaffer and Trump opposer, Instagram star “Real Snake Boy,” along with Schaffer’s bodyguard, Tony, ended up in a fight over Trump's divisive politics.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-walk-fame-star-will-stay-after-physical-altercation-1047074

So that explains why the Hollywood COC won’t remove stars even if they have a controversial nature attached to them. But why? Why won’t they remove stars you might ask? Well the answer is much more than just “we say so”.

In 2016, Otis Elevator heir James Otis walked up to Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, sledgehammer and pickaxe in hand. “I decided I just sort of had enough about the sexual abuse and the sexual misconduct towards women,” he told CBS News soon after. “And I realized there was many women in my own life who’ve experienced that sort of sexual abuse. So I said I’ve gotta come up and do something.”

That something was smashing the star to pieces, which was the most damage the star had ever seen... until this week, when the star was pulverized by protester Austin Clay yet again. (Amazingly, Clay was bailed out by none other than James Otis.) By now, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which oversees the Walk, is used to fielding requests for comment about the star. In response to The Outline the Chamber sent over a boilerplate statement carrying the weariness of someone who would really prefer to stop talking about this.

“To reiterate: The Hollywood Walk of Fame is an institution celebrating the positive contributions of the inductees,” said Leron Gubler, President/CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “When people are unhappy with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways than to vandalize a California State landmark. Our democracy is based on respect for the law. People can make a difference by voting and not destroying public property.”
https://theoutline.com/post/5547/hollywood-walk-of-fame-protest-donald-trump?zd=1&zi=t34kahv6

There you have it – that explains why the HOF will never remove stars. That’s enough to make you ask – Donald Trump’s Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame:

[font size="8"]To p 10 Investigates: Looksmaxing
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St. Louis, it’s time to investigate beyond the headlines. This is Top 10 Investigates!

The era of social media has given rise to some very crazy movements, both good and bad, that you might not have heard of. It’s also given rise to celebrities who wouldn’t otherwise be celebrities. In the last two years, and especially in the last six months since the devastating terror attack in Toronto that killed 8 people, you might have heard of a burgeoning movement called “Incels”. These people – primarily young, under 25 males, call themselves “involuntarily celibate”. But recently, the Incel movement has broken off and given birth to a newer movenement called “Looksmax”. Here is how the Looksmax movement is defined.

It’s late on a Friday, and hundreds of men are browsing the forum Lookism.net. A new member logs on and posts two photos showing the lower half of his face.

“What surgeries/implants are needed to fix this?” he asks. “As you can see I have a recessed jaw/chin.”

The replies come swiftly: “It’s not just your chin. Your upper lip is retruded as well. Orthognathic surgery if you can afford it. Chin implant or [genioplasty] if you can’t. You should also look at jaw angle implants,” someone responds. “Start saving.”

It’s a typical exchange on the message board, where new posts continue to pop up throughout the night with men asking other men for physical evaluation and advice.

“Rate my face.” “I already know I’m ugly.” “Dropped 7K on a nose job.” “Candid photo of my profile reveals my subhumanity.” “I don’t even leave the house anymore, I don’t want to be seen.” “No Tinder matches in first 24 hours — is it over?” At one point, someone compares the skull sizes of Justin Bieber and Zayn Malik, carefully assessing which pop star has a more masculine-shaped head.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-looksmaxing-obsession_us_5b50e56ee4b0de86f48b0a4f

Yes unfortunately these people have probably never seen Fight Club. Think of Looksmaxing like the Incel movement but with an added sense of both self superiority and self loathing. But in order to further understand the Incels and the Looksmaxers we must first begin to understand their language.

Michael had never even heard of incels until he accidentally stumbled onto a YouTube video criticizing men whose identities centered on their being involuntarily celibate. The high school student—who declined to share his real name in an article that might portray him as an angry virgin—had long struggled to date women, and the clip had the opposite of its intended effect: he actually found himself agreeing with arguments that were supposed to make him cringe. Suddenly, Michael realized, he had a proper term for what he now calls his "condition," and when he plugged "incel" into Google, he ended up on subreddits that provided an entire vocabulary around which to order his existence.

<snip>

"At first, 'low inhib,' [but] I later made the inference that it meant somebody who was shameless, and pretty much acted out with little to no regret," he told me. "'Beta-bux' was extremely confusing, but then I figured out that it just meant some unattractive man [who] literally used his abundance of money to keep a mildly attractive woman by their side, and if the money wasn't even a variable, the relationship wouldn't exist."

The incel world is not unique within the wide array of misogynist and other fringe American subcultures for providing adherents a shared dialect with which to spread toxic ideas. But if you're not already steeped in the primordial muck of the broader manosphere, it can be exceedingly difficult to parse what these people are talking about, and why. As J.M. Berger, an analyst of the intersection between radical ideology and social media and author of the forthcoming book Extremism explained, the incel community is still relatively new, small and understudied. "Another complicating factor is that a lot of different ideological strains are currently consolidated under the alt-right heading," he told me. "Drilling down into the component parts of the alt-right is a challenge, and it's sometimes easier for people to just treat it as a more cohesive group than it actually is."

But given incels' demonstrated capacity for murder, and the broader reality that much of the violence in American life is perpetrated by men against women, it can be helpful to have a general idea of how these people think—and how they talk. What follows is a brief guide to 32 of the most common phrases used across the murky forums and subreddits populated by incels, along with an attempt to grapple with the ubiquity of each term in what amounts to a noxious alternate reality.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmaze/learn-to-decode-the-secret-language-of-the-incel-subculture

That’s about the most accurate way of describing Looksmaxing that we can think of. But there’s even more method to the madness than a strange vocabulary and way of looking at the world and even themselves. Incels and Looksmaxers live in a dangerous subculture. One where murder and other horrifying thoughts lurk.

Ben, who tweets from the handle @BenIsYourHero and declined to give his full name, found the image in a closed Facebook group called “Incels say the darndest things,” a gathering place where users mock and argue against the work of the “involuntary celibate” community. Soon, his tweet went semi-viral, popping up on blogs, anti-incel Tumblrs, and incel subreddits.

The term incel, a self-adopted label for a group of men who blame women and feminism for their inability to find sexual partners, first gained public notoriety in 2014, when Elliot Rodger killed six people in Santa Barbara, California, in “retribution” for women refusing to give him the sex he believed he deserved. It entered mainstream discourse again in 2018, when Alek Minassian allegedly killed 10 people in a Toronto vehicular attack after praising Rodger on Facebook and declaring “the Incel Rebellion has already begun!”

Incel culture has flourished online, where like-minded men post unsigned messages on Reddit, 4chan, and incel message boards, describing their most sinister fantasies about worlds in which women are collected like tax dollars and redistributed for sex. These insular communities have developed an in-group lingo that’s tricky for outsiders to parse. When a community that’s highly anonymous, decentralized, and often contradictory becomes fodder for memes, which are easily stripped of their provenance and edit history, it becomes extremely difficult for observers to understand and contextualize what they’re seeing. Memes can provide crucial insight into what’s really going on in incel forums. They can also warp the truth. Whether a meme is a bit of primary-source incel doctrine, a hyperbolic riff on an in-joke, or a work of satire can be impossible to determine if you don’t spend hours a day steeping yourself in the native language of incel culture.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/07/incel-memes-like-millimeters-of-bone-and-virgin-vs-chad-mask-a-dangerous-and-toxic-culture.html

That is probably the way Incels and Looksmaxers see themselves. But if you want to see what kind of celebrity the Incels make their own, look no further than this.

Incel is shorthand for “involuntary celibate”, a term used to describe (largely) men who are not only serially rejected by women romantically and sexually, but also feel that they are being denied sex that they are in some way owed. Their justification for this entitlement is rooted in the fact that they consider themselves physically attractive, or at least think they are “nice guys”. This has caused them to develop a universal hatred of women for repeatedly rejecting them despite these perceived good qualities. Born in the depths of Reddit and 4chan, the term entered public discourse after the south California shooting by “incel hero” Elliot Rodger in 2014, and re-emerged earlier this year following the Toronto van attack by self-proclaimed incel Alek Minassian.

When it comes to Love Island’s Alex, he fits the perfect archetype of an incel: he’s stereotypically attractive, an A&E doctor who saves lives, has indicated that he feels he is owed attention, and has, generally speaking, failed to secure it. Incels have flocked to Reddit and 4chan to support “our boy” Alex, seeing him as a mainstream reinforcement of their incel beliefs. This fandom was bolstered by the nation’s own (and admittedly waning) Alex fandom – with the Twitter hashtag for the show previously rife with support for Alex. For his incel fanbase, the widespread support became the perfect rationale for their own incel-related gripes: How could the nation’s successful, attractive, loveable sweetheart still not manage to get a girlfriend?
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2018/07/how-love-island-s-alex-became-incel-icon

There you have it, that’s not only how Incels see themselves, it’s what kind of celebrities they call their own. That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters of St. Louis, it’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened and it’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:

My fair congregation! You know in these deeply divided times we live in, the one person who you can always count on is the good LAWRD JAYSUS! In fact people who work under the Dark One are praising JAYSUS so heavily that they now are going to feel the need to force their beliefs on others. In fact, our current Attorney General – the one who they call Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, feels that the time is now to fully expunge separation of church and state! Behold!

The Trump administration has consistently championed a narrow view of religious liberty in America. But the Justice Department’s latest religious liberty initiative may be the most far-reaching — and potentially troubling — one yet.

On Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a “Religious Liberty Task Force” that will enforce a 2017 DOJ memo ordering federal agencies to take the broadest possible interpretation of “religious liberty” when enforcing federal laws. That memo, for example, prohibits the IRS from threatening the tax-exempt status of any religious organization that actively lobbied on behalf of a political candidate, which is not allowed under the Johnson Amendment.

In a bold speech delivered at the Justice Department’s Religious Liberty Summit, Sessions characterized the task force as a necessary step in facing down the prevailing forces of secularism. “A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom,” he said, which “must be confronted and defeated.”

The task force will be spearheaded by Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy Beth Williams. The Advocate reports that in 2010, Panuccio, as an attorney, defended supporters of Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California for nearly five years. More specific details of the task force’s structure and organization have not yet been announced.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/7/31/17631110/jeff-sessions-religious-liberty-task-force-memo-christian-nationalism

Yes, even JAYSUS thinks this is ridiculous! So much for that thing we call the First Amendment, which guarantees that anyone can practice any religion they like. But be it not for the ultra paranoid, completely insane Christians, we would not be in this mess! But here we are!

Today, HRC blasted the Trump-Pence Administration’s creation of a taxpayer-funded task force as part of their ongoing campaign to license discrimination against LGBTQ people in the public square. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of the task force this morning at the U.S. Department of Justice alongside anti-LGBTQ extremists from Alliance Defending Freedom and the Colorado baker who refused to serve a gay couple in violation of the state’s nondiscrimination law. It will be led by Jesse Panuccio, who was an attorney in 2010 for supporters of Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban.

“This taxpayer funded task force is yet another example of the Trump-Pence White House and Jeff Sessions sanctioning discrimination against LGBTQ people,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “Over the last 18 months, Donald Trump, Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions have engaged in a brazen campaign to erode and limit the rights of LGBTQ people in the name of religion. The Attorney General standing shoulder-to-shoulder this morning with anti-LGBTQ extremists tells you everything you need to know about what today’s announcement was really all about.”
https://www.hrc.org/blog/doj-creates-religious-liberty-taskforce-to-defend-anti-lgbtq-discrimination

You know ladies and gentlemen give it up for the Top 10 Gospel Choir! How great are they? So you know who the target is? It’s really just an elaborate dog whistle to the Dark One’s even darker base because we have had countless stories about just how sinful they can be! And in our good book it doesn’t say that, it invokes the golden rule – “judge not lest ye be judged” and that is the only sin in our book, and breaking it is EVIL!!! Can I get an amen?

The Trump administration has a tough time making its case to evangelical voters. Convincing them of the existence of a war on religion helps.

On Monday, Jeff Sessions stood before the assembled crowd at a "Religious Liberty Summit" in Washington and assured the largest and most powerful demographic group in America that their years of suffering unimaginable cruelty at the hands of the federal government would soon come to an end. "This Department of Justice is going to court across America to defend the rights of people of faith," he declared, announcing the formation of a Religious Liberty Task Force to ensure that the DOJ effectively implements its guidance on the subject, both in the office and also in court. "As our nation grows older, we must not let it depart from this noble tradition."

Sessions' speech, on its face, does not pertain only to Christianity. But in his descriptions of "our great tradition of religious freedom," the subtext is text: He bemoaned the inability of "ministers" to "affirm...holy writ from the pulpit," and applauded the legal battle over contraceptives waged by the Little Sisters of the Poor. He excoriated judges for refusing to hold that "morality" can be the basis for secular laws. He fondly name-checked Pilgrims, Catholics, Presbyterians, and other Christian groups who settled this country after fleeing persecution in Europe. And he invited Jack Phillips, the bakery owner who refused to serve a same-sex couple in Colorado, to speak as a panelist. Thanks to President Trump, he reminded the audience, we say "Merry Christmas" again.
https://www.gq.com/story/jeff-sessions-religious-liberty-dog-whistle

Yes and listen to the good LAWRD! Because that’s not how any of this works! You know the Constitution says one thing and the book sayeth another, let’s not combine the two of them! So how is this going to work you might ask? Well it’s essentially going to give the Christian right an excuse to be bigger dicks than they already are!

WASHINGTON — American culture has become "less hospitable to people of faith," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday in vowing that the Justice Department would protect people's religious freedom and convictions.

Sessions spoke at a Justice Department summit on religious tolerance at a time when courts have been asked how to balance anti-discrimination laws against the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees. He also announced the creation of a "religious liberty task force" to implement Justice Department guidance on respecting and accommodating religious beliefs, including those of department employees.

Conservative groups immediately praised Sessions for promising to protect deeply held religious convictions, though critics of the Trump administration have repeatedly voiced concerns that the attorney general's stance undercuts LGBT rights and favors the rights of Christians over those of other faiths.

Sessions, the country's chief law enforcement officer, warned Monday of a "dangerous movement" that he said was eroding protections for religious Americans.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-sessions-america-hospitable-religious-people-20180731-story.html

There you have it – only the truly paranoid would think their freedoms are being eroded! Mass has ended may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:

[font size="8"]Insatiable: Fatty Patty’s Revenge
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OK… OK. So we got another week and another batch of idiots who just quite don’t get humor. I mean really if these people had been around in the 90’s, Chris Farley would not have had a career. And the Austin Powers sequel, which featured a character called “Fat Bastard” would have never been made, because the fat police would have accused them of fat shaming. Now the subject of body image in the 2010s is a tricky one because we have this thing called the “internet” and they can be a tad, well, let’s just call them “judgmental”. But really the fat police – and this is coming from someone who is in no way shape or form small – are as insufferable as the condition they are angry about!

A woman’s petition to cancel Netflix’s upcoming dark comedy series “Insatiable” gathered more than 118,000 signatures on Change.org on Tuesday. Signatories have decried the project as a “tone-deaf” venture that encourages “fat shaming.”

The series stars Debby Ryan as a high schooler who is bullied for being overweight, before losing weight when she’s forced to get her jaw wired shut after being punched in the face by a homeless man. Several took to social media to protest the trailer, which shows Ryan with and without a fat suit to represent her character’s unplanned weight transformation that garners positive attention from her classmates, whom she wishes to take vengeance on.

“For so long, the narrative has told women and young impressionable girls that in order to be popular, have friends, to be desirable for the male gaze, and to some extent be a worthy human … that we must be thin,” the petition reads. “This series needs to be cancelled. The damage control of releasing this series will be far worse, insidious, and sinister for teenage girls, than it will be damaging for Netflix in their loss of profit.”.
https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/insatiable-fat-shaming-netflix-show-1202882565/

Seriously – that guy would not have a career today if the fat shaming police had been around in the 1990s. But what the fuck? Have you seen the show? Are you in a position to judge where you’ve actually seen it? No? OK then thanks for playing!

And so to Insatiable, a Netflix comedy-drama that has yet to air, but is already the subject of a petition calling for it to be banned. A single one-minute-52-second trailer has been released, from which it can be inferred that the story concerns an overweight girl who is the victim of bullying. Owing to a plot device, she has to have her jaw wired shut during a summer holiday. The side-effect of this is that she loses weight. She returns to school looking like the classic high school princess – and hellbent on bloody revenge. From the looks of the trailer, chaos ensues. As one might expect in a comedy-drama.

At the time of writing (although the number is climbing fast), almost 170,000 signatories are demanding Insatiable never be aired, on the basis that it is “fat-shaming”. When I read this, my naive assumption was that the entire series must have leaked online, giving a complete overview of the story arcs, nuances and so on. But no – people who really do imagine themselves to be progressives really are calling for a creative work to be banned on the basis of a trailer. All manner of furious commentators weighed in, railing against what they think it is about, producing some fantastically witless statements, including a widely quoted one from someone who explained “physical violence is not an OK response to bullying”. Good point! Also, murder is terrible. There should be no shows about it.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2018/jul/27/ban-fat-shaming-show-insatiable-netflix-its-critics-cry-but-none-of-them-have-seen-it

OK so here’s the thing people – we get the idea of body shaming. And you know what, unlike Planet Fitness, we really are a judgement free zone! But don’t immediately judge it without seeing it first, that is what we call “shooting the messenger”. And that is something we are *NOT* cool with, because we’re the messengers, damn it! Even the stars are defending the show!

Ryan also said that she and the show's writer and showrunner, Lauren Gussis, felt it was important that in scenes where Patty was heavier, her size was not used "as a punchline" and the abuse the character suffers is never justified.

Gussis also put out her own statement on Twitter, saying that she was suicidal as a teen and that she wanted revenge on her own bullies. She said this caused her to develop an eating disorder and "the kind of rage that makes you want to do dark things."

"This show is a cautionary tale about how damaging it can be to believe the outsides are more important — to judge without going deeper," Gussis wrote. "Please give the show a chance."

Still, users on Twitter are already criticizing "Insatiable."

"What purpose do the false sexual assault accusations in the script serve, though?" actress Mara Wilson wrote, seemingly responding to an undisclosed plot line in the show.

In a Twitter thread, Nabela Noor, a beauty vlogger, wrote that the trailer "repelled" her, and asked for a show where an overweight girl loves herself as she is.
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/netflix-series-insatiable-accused-fat-shaming-stars-defend-show-n893511

So really yeah we know fat shaming is a thing and it’s not a pleasant one. But at least give the show some time to come to fruition. Remember all the hoopla surrounding the flick “I Feel Pretty” by the same people for the same reasons? I mean come on they made Amy Schumer apologize for her own damn movie!

It’s 2018 and nobody wants to see Debby Ryan in a fat suit.

Let’s just get that out of the way first.

Yet that’s how she appears in the 90-second trailer for her new teen show "Insatiable," which premieres August 10 on Netflix. In the promo, released last week, we meet Patty, an apparently miserable, tormented, fat teenager who has her jaw wired shut following an attack in a parking lot. When she returns to school, she’s newly thin and determined to exact revenge on her high school bullies.

The Twitter backlash was swift with some calling the show “fat torture porn” and others citing it as an example of fat tropes that need to be eliminated. One person asked, "Why was it necessary for Patty to lose weight? Why couldn’t a fat person get revenge?"

When I was a teenager, I was a clerk at a video store hellbent on collecting fees from customers who returned movies after our midnight deadline. After closing one night, I was up at the front of the store alone. A man rapped on the window as he dropped his tapes through the outdoor slot.
https://www.salon.com/2018/07/23/insatiable-fat-revenge-story/

Fat torture porn? I don’t remember that section on Porn Hub! So if there’s one thing I want to say to the fat shaming police is this – and I will shout it from the rooftops! LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP!!!! Seriously, have a sense of humor about yourselves. Remember I mentioned Chris Farley? He made a whole career out of it! And take a page from our favorite animated programs! The Simpsons? Homer is fat! Family Guy? Peter Griffin is fat! South Park? Cartman is fat! But not these people, they won’t have any of it!

Alyssa Milano on Friday defended the upcoming Netflix series "Insatiable" after social media users accused the show of fat-shaming. The dark comedy focuses on a teenager named Patty, who has been bullied over her weight, but gets revenge on her bullies after she becomes thin.

Milano, who co-stars on the show, addressed the critics and said, "We are not shaming Patty. We are addressing (through comedy) the damage that occurs from fat shaming. I hope that clears it up." The actress linked to an article about the show in Teen Vogue that talks about the nuances of the series.

The trailer for "Insatiable" was released Thursday. It shows Patty, a high schooler who classmates call "Fatty Patty," played by actress Debby Ryan. After Patty gets her jaw wired shut during the summer, she returns to school "hot." In a voiceover, Patty refers to herself as a "former fatty," and the teen is ready for payback against anyone who was mean to her.

On the show, disgraced attorney Bob Armstrong (played by Dallas Roberts) sees Patty's potential as a beauty queen and takes her under his wing as he coaches her for beauty pageants. Milano plays his wife, Coralee.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alyssa-milano-netflixs-insatiable-fat-shaming-accusations-defense/

[font size="8"]I Need A Drink
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Hey St. Louis, I really need a drink!

So you know the deal behind this segment is that we kick back, have some drinks, and talk about anything in the news as long as it doesn’t relate to politics. Because there’s so much bad shit in the news right now that it really makes one want a nice stiff glass of Jack doesn’t it? So bartender, tell me, what goes well with a Big Mac? A Big Mac martini? What’s in that? Thousand island and vodka? I’ll just stick with my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. So this week we’re going to tell you about the guy who bilked McDonalds out of millions.

A wild story about a network of criminals arrested on charges that they defrauded McDonald's out of more than $24 million through its Monopoly promotion is making the rounds on the internet after Jeff Maysh unearthed the full account in a Daily Beast report over the weekend.

The story dates back to the 1990s, when Jerry Jacobson, a former police officer, set up a scheme to provide winning McDonald's Monopoly pieces in exchange for a cut of the money, the report says.

Launched in 1987, McDonald's Monopoly game is one of the fast-food chain's longest-running marketing promotions. Customers collect the Monopoly game pieces and tokens attached to McDonald's packaging for a chance to win up to $1 million.

In the 1980s, Jacobson took a job at a specialty printing company, where he worked with one of its clients, Simon Marketing, on its $500 million McDonald's account, The Daily Beast reported. He went on to be hired by Simon Marketing and was responsible for overseeing the printing of McDonald's game pieces and transporting them from the production presses to the packaging factories. He was known for running a tight ship, the report says.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-monopoly-game-rigged-scam-report-2018-7

Yes where’s my drink? Ah thank you waitress! And by the way give it up for the wait staff here at Helium – truly great. The greatest, OK? Nobody is greater! Back on topic – so holy shit! $24 million and all it took was running his own printing company? So who gets to play him in the movie?

Ex-cop Jerome Jacobson ended up claiming over $24 million (£18 million) in cash and prizes, ripping off millions of game-playing customers in the process, and thanks to his court case coinciding with 9/11 he has been forgotten by history.

However, an investigation by Daily Beast crime reporter Jeff Maysh this week has revealed the sheer scale of the scam to the world.

Temptation proved too much for Jacobson, who ended up in control of the Monopoly instant prize tickets through his security job at a marketing firm, and despite having an accountant shadow him as he delivered them to restaurants he still managed a quick visit to the toilet to pilfer them.

But stealing the prize tickets was just the start, as he had develop a national network of gangsters, friends, family, ex-drug dealers, gamblers, a family of Mormons and his butcher to claim the prizes which included cars and $1 million cash prizes.

He even sent a winning $1 million ticket to a children’s hospital in Tennessee, because he could. His gave his step-brother, who was rich anyway, winning $1 million tickets which he gave to the Salvation Army or flushed down the toilet.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/30/how-the-ex-cop-in-charge-of-mcdonalds-monopoly-pulled-off-24000000-scam-7776720/

Excuse me a minute… I love that scene! So he sent a million dollar ticket to a children’s hospital because he could. Congratulations, Jerome! You screwed over some needy kids! That sounds like a very Trumpian thing to do. “I hire the best people, OK?”. So how was this contest rigged? How was he able to get away with such a heist? And more importantly – who gets to play him in the movie? I personally say Will Ferrell but that depends since I couldn’t find a picture. Anyway…

On August 3, 2001, a McDonald’s film crew arrived in the bustling beach town of Westerly, Rhode Island. They carried their cameras and a giant cashier’s check to a row of townhouses, and knocked on the door of Michael Hoover. The 56-year-old bachelor had called a McDonald’s hotline to say he’d won their Monopoly competition. Since 1987, McDonald’s customers had feverishly collected Monopoly game pieces attached to drink cups, french fry packets and advertising inserts in magazines. By completing groups of properties like Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues, players won cash or a Sega Game Gear, while “Instant Win” game pieces scored a free Filet-O-Fish or a Jamaican vacation. But Hoover, a casino pit boss who had recently filed for bankruptcy, claimed he’d won the grand prize–$1 million dollars.

Like winning the Powerball, the odds of Hoover’s win were 1 in 250 million. There were two ways to win the Monopoly grand prize: find the “Instant Win” game piece like Hoover, or match Park Place with the elusive Boardwalk to choose between a heavily-taxed lump sum or $50,000 checks every year for 20 years. Just like the Monopoly board game, which was invented as a warning about the destructive nature of greed, players traded game pieces to win, or outbid each other on eBay. Armed robbers even held up restaurants demanding Monopoly tickets. “Don’t go to jail! Go to McDonald’s and play Monopoly for real!” cried Rich Uncle Pennybags, the game’s mustachioed mascot, on TV commercials that sent customers flocking to buy more food. Monopoly quickly became the company’s most lucrative marketing device since the Happy Meal.

Inside Hoover’s home, Amy Murray, a loyal McDonald’s spokesperson, encouraged him to tell the camera about the luckiest moment of his life. Nervously clutching his massive check, Hoover said he’d fallen asleep on the beach. When he bent over to wash off the sand, his People magazine fell into the sea. He bought another copy from a grocery store, he said, and inside was an advertising insert with the “Instant Win” game piece. The camera crew listened patiently to his rambling story, silently recognizing the inconsequential details found in stories told by liars. They suspected that Hoover was not a lucky winner, but part of a major criminal conspiracy to defraud the fast food chain of millions of dollars. The two men behind the camera were not from McDonald’s. They were undercover agents from the FBI.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-an-ex-cop-rigged-mcdonalds-monopoly-game-and-stole-millions

Yes… I’ll take some more Jack please! Thank you! So holy shit! This *IS* a real life crime movie waiting to happen! So anyway this goes on to further explain just how crazy the odds of you actually winning even a PT Cruiser or even a million dollars are:

He read small print that revealed how the odds were stacked against the customer: McDonald’s makes one piece from each set of properties extremely rare, so while thousands have three of the four railroads, the odds of pulling the Short Line Railroad—and winning a PT Cruiser—were 1 in 150 million.

Come on let’s face it, the PT Cruiser probably isn’t worth $100 these days. What? It’s a PT Cruiser! I’ve driven these cars – they’re the shittiest cars known to man! So that’s where you draw the line then sir, are you serious? Security! Thank you. PT Cruiser fan in the audience. But here’s how the FBI finally caught the guy:

Before each bi-annual game, Jacobson arrived at the drab Dittler Brothers’ office at 5 a.m to observe their Omega III supercomputer making the McDonald’s prize draw. He watched the printing presses that roared for 24 hours a day for three months, using 100 railroad cars of paper to print half a billion game pieces. Laid end-to-end, the paper tickets would stretch from New York to Sydney–nearly two tickets for every American. Jacobson observed technicians applying the “INSTANT WINNER!” stamp to blank game pieces, and pioneered random watermarks that deterred counterfeiters. He locked the winning pieces in a vault behind coded keypads and dual-entry combination locks. It was Jacobson who personally scissored out the high-value game pieces and slipped them into envelopes, before sealing each corner with a tamper-proof metallic sticker. In a secret vest, of his invention, Jacobson transported the winning pieces to McDonald’s packaging factories across the country.

Everything he did was overseen by an independent auditor. On flights she sat in coach, while Jacobson flew first class, where he tried to impress other passengers by flashing his old police badge. On one flight, Jacobson and another security manager sent an air steward back to show the accountant the empty liquor bottles they’d guzzled. When they arrived at the factory, Jacobson would summon a forklift of french fry containers, hide the winning game piece, and send it into the wild. Then he liked to hit a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse and order “everything”–more than he could eat, and charge it to his expense account.

[font size="8"]Deep State Diaries Episode 7: The Federal Election Commission
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It’s time for episode 2 of Deep State Diaries. Yes we’re touring the 24 branches and services that make up the United States government. Everything from the FBI to the IRS to the Pentagon to the CIA to the DPW to the DVA to parks and recreation and all branches and services in between. Of course if you’re here you probably already know more about our government and how it works than your average Fox News loving Trump supporter does. So that’s what this segment is going to address. We are going to do a deep dive into all that makes the United States the United States. Because we here at the Top 10 love to educate as well as entertain. Because we care.

[font size="6"]The FEC[/font]

In case you haven’t noticed – or you’re living under a rock – we’re in an election year! So naturally of course in our quest to educate people on what the Deep State actually does, we have to talk about the Federal Election Commission! As you know they’re the governing body of our nations’ elections to make sure that they’re fair and safe. Of course when you’re involved in Russian “meddling” is it really safe and secure? Well let’s find out! Let’s start with this case out of Michigan where a democratic candidate accused a GOP candidate of… wait for it… election fraud! Shocker!

WASHINGTON – Four years after the Free Press first raised questions about excessive contributions former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land may have made to her own campaign for U.S. Senate, she and her husband have agreed not to challenge a Federal Election Commission finding to that effect and pay a fine of $66,000.

Last week, the FEC said that it had closed the case brought by the Michigan Democratic Party in 2014 against Land — the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2014 — and her husband, Dan Hibma, over questions about contributions first reported by the Free Press.

As part of an agreement between the FEC and the campaign signed in May, Land and her husband accepted the commission’s finding that Hibma contributed $700,000 to the campaign — well more than the $2,600 limit per election — though they said they agreed to the settlement only “for the purpose of settling this matter expeditiously and avoiding litigation.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/07/30/terri-lynn-land-husband-pay-fine-excessive-contributions/863372002/

Yes isn’t it? But the FEC is so much more than the auditing body of our elections. For instance they also govern how much money that candidates can give to politicians. Of course you know that since the decision known as “Citizens United” was approved, all of those rules got thrown out the window!

The National Rifle Association (NRA) violated federal law by using a common vendor to illegally coordinate with four Republican Senate candidates, according to a complaint filed by a non-partisan public interest watchdog.

On Monday, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) submitted a 25-page complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that that the NRA used a consulting firm to evade federal rules prohibiting coordination between congressional candidates and outside spending groups.

The complaint alleges that GOP consulting firm OnMessage created a shell corporation called Starboard–located at the same address and with essentially the same business model–in order to share and use strategic information between the NRA and the Senate candidacies of Tom Cotton, Cory Gardner,Thom Tillis and Ron Johnson during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.
https://lawandcrime.com/administrative-law/nra-illegally-used-shell-company-to-coordinate-with-gop-in-violation-of-election-law-complaint-says/

Yeah that’s kind of how the NRA is reacting right now – maybe Sideshow Bob is an NRA employee, or at least we think. But then what happens when a candidate files illegally? See you should pay attention here folks!

U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly, who represents Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District, received “excessive contributions” totaling $75,100 when he first captured the north Mississippi House seat in 2015.

The Federal Election Commission found that Kelly, a Republican and former district attorney from Tupelo:

• Received campaign contributions from four individuals totaling $25,200 that exceeded the limit of $2,700 that a person can donate during an election cycle.

• Received a loan of $50,000 — $49,900 of which exceeded the campaign limits because they were guaranteed by an individual other than the candidate, thus, they were considered contributions.

The issues, according to the FEC audit, were resolved during the investigation with the loan being repaid and contributions returned.
https://mississippitoday.org/2018/07/14/fec-kelly-received-contributions-exceeding-limits-in-2015-special-election/

And by the way what happens when you file illegally? Well there’s many things that can happen but the main thing you need to know is that it will get tied up in court for years and probably get thrown out before it advances because, US legal system.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials wrote in documents released Friday that the Trump Organization may have made an illegal contribution to the Trump campaign by having a staffer assist Melania Trump with her speech at the Republican National Convention, but dismissed the complaint because the action was too minor to be considered a violation of law.

FEC lawyers wrote in an April 2017 filing, first made public on Friday, that Trump Organization employee Meredith McIver’s assistance in writing Trump’s July 2016 speech may have resulted in “a corporate contribution to the Committee.”

However, commissioners wrote that because the value of such services appeared to be too minor for consideration, the commission decided to dismiss the allegation.

Trump’s speech sparked backlash after it was found to have included words and phrases identical to former first lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/395890-fec-dismisses-complaint-alleging-trump-org-made-illegal-trump-campaign

[font size="6"]Score Card [/font]

Overall importance: A
How Things Are Going: B
Likely hood To Survive: B

Overall: B

[font size="6"]Next Week [/font]

Ooh this is going to be a fun one! Next week we’re going to take our first stab at looking at the intelligence community as we look at the NSA!

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Social Distortion[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, my next guests are punk rock legends from my home of Orange County, California. You can see them on tour everywhere this fall and at the Surf City Blitz festival in Huntington Beach on October 27th. Playing their song “Machine Gun Blues” from their album “Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes”, give it up for the legendary Social D!!!

St. Louis, we had an awesome time! This was fun! We’ll be back soon! We are off to New York City (NEW YORK CITY????) next! See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: Helium Comedy Club, St. Louis, MO
Special Thanks To: Helium Comedy Management
Holy Shit Gospel Choir: Sixth Street Baptist Choir, St. Louis, MO
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
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July 25, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-6: Dennis & Kanye Go To Pyongyang Palace Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-6: Dennis & Kanye Go To Pyongyang Palace Edition

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up Kansas City??? Man we’ve been having an awesome time on the road so far and it’s great to see that we have amazing audiences in the places that we’ve visited so far. This is our 4th stop this season and we are definitely going to try to hit as many places along the way this season. We are hanging out at the lovely Alamo Drafthouse and this is my kind of place – it’s got movies, beer, and comedy! All 3 great things rolled into one! And hey if they sponsor our show it’s even better! So let’s talk some golf. I am not much of a golfer but when I saw this story trending over the weekend I couldn’t help but wonder… what the fuck. You know The Open was this weekend and while most of the attention was being placed on 6th place golfer Tiger Woods, this story involving British golfer Eddie Papperelle slipped through the cracks. Here’s the thing Eddie – I know many of us can work hungover, and well. As Zach Galafinakis put it – “I do my best work hungover, fewer brain cells to confuse the issues”. But really, Eddie, if you’re playing in a tournament, you might want to save the heavy drinking for *AFTER* the tournament, not during! And then my favorite part is how he tweets out “I was not that drunk!”. Hey Eddie, we’ve all been there. At least pick a profession you can do drunk, like my job! OK enough of the intro! We got a lot of idiocy to cover this week, but first Jim Jefferies is back and he tackles the subject of diversity at Comic Con:

Holy crap, where do we begin this week? Well the guy who we currently call “president”, Donald J Trump (1) used his favorite medium – the Tweet – to threaten nuclear war with Iran. Wow. In the second slot this week is Dennis Rodman (2), and he got a plus one to North Korea and he really wants to bring along Kanye West, because, reasons. In the third slot, Alex Jones (3) is absolutely losing it, and this time he may have committed an on air felony or two. . In the fourth slot this week is Profiles In #Civility and whew there were quite a lot of these stories! Taking the fifth slot this week we have a new installment of “How Is This Still A Thing”, and this week after a series of scandals, we’re going to ask: “The National Enquirer – How Is This Still A Thing?”. Taking the sixth slot this week is our weekly investigative piece Top 10 Investigates (6) and this week we’re going to talk about how your choice of breakfast cereal can possibly kill you. Taking the 7th seed this week is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and our resident pastor has some very alarming news for you concerning the Dark One’s choice of SCOTUS nominee. In the number 8 slot we have a new installment of “Beating A Dead Horse” and this week we’re going to talk about something called Trump Derangement Syndrome, because that’s a thing. I heard a guy on the twittersphere say so! In the number 9 (NEIN!!!) slot this week we’ve got a new installment of People Are Dumb because, well, people are dumb! Finally this week we’ve got a new edition of Deep State Diaries. Last week we showed you the inner workings of the food industry with the USDA, this week we’re further exploring the food industry by including drugs this time around and exploring the FDA! Plus we’ve got some new music for you from a great band you might have heard of called AWOLNATION. They have a great new album out called “Here Come The Runts”. Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]

[font size="8"]Donald Trump
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Ladies and gentlemen, returning to the top spot this week is the guy who we currently call “president”, Donald J. Trump! Bravo, take a bow! So what was the colossal fuck up that happened this week to earn Donny the top spot on the list? Well, only the threat of nuclear war against Iran. You know the GOP has been beating this war drum as long as I’ve been alive. But this is the first time they’ve ever actually made a direct threat.

President Donald Trump threatened his Iranian counterpart in a Sunday night Twitter post:

Trump's tweet followed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cautioning the American leader on Sunday about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying: "War with Iran is the mother of all wars."

"You are not in a position to incite the Iranian nation against Iran's security and interests," the Iranian leader said, in an apparent reference to reports of efforts by Washington to destabilize Iran's Islamic government. Still, Rouhani did not rule out peace between the two countries.

The heated exchange comes as tension between the two nations has increased since Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal with Iran that was struck during the Obama administration.

Monday morning, Trump's hawkish national security advisor, John Bolton, backed the president's threat. “I spoke to the President over the last several days, and President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before," Bolton said in a statement released by the White House.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/trump-to-iran-president-never-ever-threaten-the-united-states-again.html

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Holy fucking shitballs! Did Trump really just say that? Of course he did, and if you expect anything less then we’re not living in the same year. Here’s the tweet. Can we throw that up there?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1021234525626609666

That must have been an exceptionally angry 3:00 AM toilet tweet that morning. Is someone putting something in Trump’s food? You know he’s taking a colossally backed up shit when he puts his all caps face on! Just let that image sink in for a moment. So in case you’re wondering what Iran’s response is, well, they handled it about the way you’d expect.

Iran has shot back at US President Donald Trump, dismissing his all-caps Twitter warning that the country would suffer consequences if it continued to threaten the US, saying it was unimpressed by the late-night tweet.

"COLOR US UNIMPRESSED," Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Monday night, employing Trump's penchant to use all capital letters in his tweets.

"The world heard even harsher bluster a few months ago. And Iranians have heard them -- albeit more civilized ones -- for 40 yrs. We've been around for millennia & seen fall of empires, incl our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries. BE CAUTIOUS."

Zarif's online comments are the latest in the escalating war of words between Washington and Tehran. Zarif's tweet comes less than a day after Trump posted a furious Twitter warning to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/iran-trump-intl/index.html

Calm down! We’re all not going to die. Yet. Let’s take a look at what might possibly be fueling this insane all caps tirade here. Really, Trump is like your angry uncle who’s just now figuring out how to use social media and can’t figure out why nobody is on his AOL chat line anymore. Get with the times, Uncle Tom!!!! So what’s fueling this?

Anytime Iran and the United States trade threats, global oil markets snap to attention. The reason is the narrow stretch of water at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

President Trump did not mention the strategic Strait of Hormuz in his late Sunday tirade against Iran, tweeting in capital letters that Iran “WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE,” in case it threatened the United States.

But Iran is often quick to remind the world of its key location along one of the world's main oil tanker routes. On Sunday, before Trump's threat, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had said that any war with Iran would be “the mother of all wars.” Earlier this month, Rouhani implied that Iran has the power to severely disrupt the oil trade in the Persian Gulf, which would likely mean an attempt to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Last weekend, Rouhani appeared to repeat his veiled threat and was quoted on his official website as saying: “Mr Trump! We are the people of dignity and guarantor of security of the waterway of the region throughout the history. Don't play with the lion's tail; you will regret it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/24/the-oil-route-that-could-be-behind-the-escalating-trump-iran-threats-explained/?utm_term=.5dec12f3e964

Of course that’s the problem. And yes we’re very disappointed that that’s the reason crazy Uncle Donnie was threatening nuclear war during his 3:00 AM shit. But here’s where we’re probably all gonna die, and for possibly real this time!

Current Council president and Swedish Ambassador to the U.N. Olof Skoog told CBS News' Pamela Falk that, "any escalation, rhetorically or otherwise in that region is something that would be of concern."

"The region needs the complete opposite, which is de-escalation and confidence building," Skoog said.

The U.S. is pushing many countries hard to stop buying Iranian oil before U.S. sanctions are put back in place as part of the Trump administration's rejection of the Iran nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama. The sanctions will make any foreign institutions that continue to do business with Iran subject to huge fines and possible blockage from the U.S. financial system.

Many U.S. allies in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere have been trying to negotiate exemptions to the looming rules, but as of last week, they didn't appear to be getting far.

"One council member has moved away from the deal," Skoog said of the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 agreement, "so of course that makes it difficult for the Council to express itself, but the great majority of Council members and certainly members of the United Nations are fully behind the deal that was struck."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-countermeasures-threats-donald-trump-twitter-warning-hassan-rouhani/

[font size="8"]Dennis Rodman
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OK so you’re Dennis Rodman and you and everyone’s favorite, loveable mass murdering dictator Kim Jong Un are like this, and he finally gives you that +1 invite that you’ve been clamoring for, for many years now, who do you bring along? Well, Mr. Rodman has one person in particular that he’d like to bring along on his next diplomatic mission.

Earlier this month, Kanye West tweeted an image of a Chicago Bulls jersey signed by Dennis Rodman with the caption, “One of my biggest inspirations… always breaking barriers with independent thought.”

Now, in a new interview, Rodman thanked the rapper and said that he planned to invite West to North Korea, where the former NBA star has struck up an unlikely friendship with the hermit state’s dictator, Kim Jong-un. “Kanye, he’s doing amazing work around the world so I respect him too,” Rodman told Us Weekly. “So hopefully one day we’ll get together and collaborate on certain things. Guess what, I’ll take Kanye West to North Korea with me.”

Rodman continued, suggesting the rapper might be inspired to record an album by the experience. “Matter of fact, I’m going to invite him next time I go to North Korea. If the door’s open in September, I will invite Kanye West with me to go to North Korea with me… If he wants to make an album about that, he’ll be there for like six to seven days, and he’ll see what’s going on. Now, go make a song about this. So here you go.”
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/dennis-rodman-kanye-north-korea-album/

I'm not sure if I should be thrilled that Dennis and Kanye are having a bromance, or if I can't wait for the movie Dennis & Kanye Go To Pyongyang Palace? Thank you Kansas City! But there’s more to this three-way bromance and it doesn’t involve Kim Jong Un.

Kanye West and Dennis Rodman bonded over Chicago (the city – not West’s youngest daughter) and the ex-NBA star sent the rapper a pretty sweet gift afterward.

Rodman tells The Blast that he met Kanye at the March for Our Lives rally in DC a few months ago. The two stars took a pic together, and after the rally, The Worm said he wanted to send Yeezy a personalized and signed jersey, being that he was a big fan.

Rodman, of course, famously played for the Bulls during their heyday and, West was raised in Chi-town.

Rodman tells The Blast that he met Kanye at the March for Our Lives rally in DC a few months ago. The two stars took a pic together, and after the rally, The Worm said he wanted to send Yeezy a personalized and signed jersey, being that he was a big fan.

Rodman, of course, famously played for the Bulls during their heyday and, West was raised in Chi-town.
Dennis Rodman Kanye West

A source tells us that Rodman always respected West for being a “free spirit,” like himself, and remembered when the rapper dyed his hair blonde a few years back like Rodman did back in the mid 90’s.
https://theblast.com/dennis-rodman-kanye-west-jersey-chicago-bulls/

Wait, whoa whoa whoa. Back up! Beep beep! Didn’t Kanye recently come out as a hardcore Trump supporter (see Top 10 #4-16 )a few months ago? What was he doing at the March For Our Lives? This is something that Trump supporters wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. Come on, Kanye, if you’re going to be overtly political, at least be consistent with your beliefs! So Mr. Rodman’s politics haven’t exactly won him a lot of fans lately.

A number of jokes during the evening from the roasters involved Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey.

The ex-basketball star and reality TV personality struggled through most of his time on Saturday during the taping of the roast in Hollywood.

It got particularly tense when Rodman made a joke about the North Korean leader and his pal, Kim Jong-un.

Trying to give Willis a hard time about some of his movie choices, Rodman said, "You keep making these bomb movies like Kim, but at least he is smart enough not to release his."

That did not go over well and elicited boos.

Rodman struggled in general and apologized a number of times to the audience and guests onstage as he flubbed his lines.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/dennis-rodman-booed-at-bruce-willis-roast-1127188

No I’m pretty sure they’re booing you. But here’s the other weird thing – so Rodman wants to bring everyone’s favorite fun loving dictator to the US – to watch a Knicks game of all things!

Next up for Dennis Rodman — bringing Kim Jong Un and James Dolan together.

The NBA Hall of Famer tells the Daily News that if Kim visits the United States, he hopes to bring the North Korean dictator to see the Knicks and meet their leader.

“The first thing he wants to do is go to a Knicks game — he wants to go to Madison Square Garden,” according to Rodman.

Now the lead adviser of Business Development for anytickets.com, The Worm is in charge of coordinating VIP outings for the lifestyle brand. He’s confident he can make it happen.

“If you want to go to a Knicks game and meet Dolan, you can go meet him,” Rodman said of his plan to broker a summit.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ny-ent-dennis-rodman-james-dolan-kim-jung-un-20180626-story.html#

[font size="8"]Alex Jones
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I was originally going to talk about the Oath Keepers bailing on their own protest for this entry but then Alex Jones had to go be his usual batshit crazy self. But he really might be losing it this time. What, I’m being completely serious here! So we’re going to tell you the latest batshit crazy thing he said, and then tell you all the crazy things he did to come to that conclusion. Because it is Alex Jones here, and I swear that he must have fact checkers working double overtime. God bless the fact checkers, BTW!

Infowars host Alex Jones on Monday issued a threat toward special counsel Robert Mueller, accusing him of covering up sex crimes and suggesting he wanted to duel the former FBI chief in an imaginary gunfight.

Jones made the comments on an episode of "The Alex Jones Show," first reported by Media Matters.

"I mean, Mueller covered up for a decade for [Jeffrey] Epstein kidnapping kids, flying them on sex planes, some kids as young as seven years old reportedly, with big perverts raping them to frame people," Jones says in the video, referring to billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes after being accused of soliciting multiple teenage girls as young as 13.

"Mueller is a monster, man," Jones continues in the video. "People say, 'Well, God, aren't you scared of him?' I'm scared of not manning up. I'm constantly in fear that I'm not being a real man, and I'm not doing what it takes, and I'm not telling the truth."
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/398512-alex-jones-threatens-mueller-youre-going-to-get-it-or-im-going-to-die-trying

Yes something tells me it will be like Wiley Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner. But just I can’t even… I mean… holy shit. But of course it gets weirder – way weirder. Alex has likened himself to the men who brought down Nixon – Woodward and Bernstein. Wait, does he know anything about the Nixon administration?

Right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones argued he was acting as a journalist, comparing himself to the Washington Post reporters who uncovered the Watergate scandal, when he questioned on his talk show "Infowars" the official narrative given by officials in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.

In written arguments filed om court on Friday, Jones moved to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by the families of some of the 26 people killed in the Connecticut shooting. Jones acknowledged that he had called the shooting a hoax, but said he now believes it happened.

"Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein relied on allegations from 'Deep Throat' to link the Nixon Administration to the Watergate break-in," his lawyers wrote in filing for a dismissal. "Such journalism, questioning official narratives, would be chilled if reporters were subject to liability if they turned out to be wrong,"

A gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at the Newtown, Connecticut, school Dec. 14, 2012.

Several families filed suit in April in state Superior Court, saying that Jones' comments questioning the shooting have tormented them and subjected them to harassment and death threats by his followers, some of whom have accused them of being crisis actors.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alex-jones-compares-himself-woodward-bernstein-move-dismiss-sandy-hook-n893841

Yeah so Alex is losing it big time. But then again, he never really had “it” to begin with. And you know we’ve tried to understand on this program, the alt right’s obsession with pedophilia – and they are fucking obsessed – but it can’t be done! And they are obsessed!

Alex Jones has on more than one occasion spoken out against Mueller's investigation over alleged collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race, but this time he picked up on a few shadowy episodes from the special counsel's FBI past.

InfoWars host Alex Jones has accused special counsel Robert Mueller of covering up sex-related crimes, Media Matters reported, citing Jones’ comments on Monday’s edition of the Alex Jones Show. The host went on to verbally threaten the former FBI director with an imaginary duel.

In a video, Jones alleged that Mueller, who headed the agency from 2001 to 2013, had during all those years been covering up for multiple sex abuse cases involving Jeffrey Epstein, a now convicted billionaire, whom he points out was “kidnapping kids, flying them on sex planes, some kids as young as seven years old reportedly, with big perverts raping them to frame people.”

“Mueller is a monster man,” Jones continued, stating that he personally is scared of “not manning up” and “not telling the truth” and thereby avoiding facing up to Mueller.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201807241066646796-alex-jones-demon-mueller-child-rape/

Someone actually has to write for that character! And I don’t know how guys like Alex Jones get away with saying this shit. It’s like 6 Degrees Of Kevin Bacon, except there’s just one degree, and Kevin Bacon is a satanic pedophile! I mean really Alex isn’t any different from that crazy woman who was on Trading Spouses all those years back. Remember those times? I miss those times!

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones threatened special counsel Robert Mueller during a Monday episode of his InfoWars show, miming a shooting and saying he would "die trying" to take Mueller down.

Jones began by making unfounded claims about Mueller and Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of solicitation of a minor for prostitution in 2008.

"That's the thing, is like, once it's Mueller, everyone's so scared of Mueller, they'd let Mueller rape kids in front of people, which he did," Jones said. "I mean, Mueller covered up for a decade for Epstein kidnapping kids, flying them on sex planes, some kids as young as seven years old reportedly, with big perverts raping them to frame people."

"That's a demon I will take down, or I'll die trying," Jones continued.

Jones made repeated shooting gestures as he closed out the rant.

"It's not a joke. It's not a game. It's the real world. Politically. You're going to get it, or I'm going to die trying, b*tch," Jones concluded. "Get ready. We're going to bang heads. We're going to bang heads."
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/youre-going-get-it-or-im-going-die-trying-btch-alex-jones-issues-stunning-threat

[font size="8"]Profiles In #Civility
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Ed. Note - for the record, we are *NOT* going to include the story about the Texas waiter who wrote "We don't tip terrorist" as that story proved to be a fake. Back to the show!

So two weeks ago during our Austin show we debuted a new segment called “Profiles In #Civility”. Now if you need a back check on this, it got started when conservatives started a # on the twittersphere after Maxine Waters had that rant against Trump and started getting death threats. But #Civility extends so far from there. So now we’ve turned this into a regular feature because there are a metric fuck ton of these stories coming out. Let’s start with this story out of Arizona where a pharmacist denied a transgender woman’s access to hormone medication.

CVS has fired an Arizona pharmacist after he refused to fill out a transgender woman's prescription for hormone medication, the company announced Friday.

The company also issued an apology to the woman, saying the pharmacist's action "does not reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care."

Hilde Hall wrote about her experience at the Fountain Hills CVS in a blog post for the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday, stating the unidentified pharmacist in April had refused to fill out the first hormone prescription she had been issued by her doctor.

"I was finally going to start seeing my body reflect my gender identity and the woman I've always known myself to be," she wrote.

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/cvs-fired-a-pharmacist-who-refused-to-fill-out-a

Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! So there’s your #Civility – a holier than thou pharmacist denying a trans woman her basic right to live. And seriously what the fuck are self-described Christians like this doing in any position where they might actually have to help someone? Seriously! Next up there’s this story out of Albany, New York.

A Home Depot in Albany allegedly fired a black man after a racist Trump supporter hurled abusive racial slurs at him.

The Times-Union reports that Maurice Rucker, 60-year-old black man, was let go from a job he’s held for 10 years—making $13 an hour—because he politely asked a customer to leash his dog in the store.

“I said to him, “Sir, when you have your dog in here we prefer that you keep it on a leash,'” according to the Times-Union.

He turned around and said, ‘F**k you. You’re an a*****e you’re a piece of s**t,'” Rucker said.

He says, ‘If Trump wasn’t president, you wouldn’t even have a job.’ He said, ‘You’re from the ghetto, what do you know?'”

“I’ve lived all over the country and I’ve had no one talk to me the way that this guy talked to me,” said Rucker.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/home-depot-fires-60-year-old-black-man-trump-supporter-screams-racist-abuse/

MAGA! Thank you audience! It should really be – MARA – make America racist again! Of course the good news is that at least Home Depot learned a bit of #Civility out of this.

After a man last Thursday approached the checkout at a Home Depot in Albany, N.Y., staff member Maurice Rucker asked him to leash his dog. That's when the man exploded.

Rucker, a 60-year-old black man, claimed he was fired Tuesday after defending himself from a customer who, he told the Times Union, went on a racist tirade. But after the news media covered his story, the company changed its mind.

The customer allegedly responded to Rucker's request with insults. "'If Trump wasn't president, you wouldn't even have a job,'" the customer said, according to Rucker's retelling to NBC affiliate WNYT. "You're from the ghetto, what do you know?"

Rucker, who did not respond to a request for comment, said he asked the man to leash his dog so he'd be in compliance with store policy. The man replied with expletives until Rucker decided he had enough...more..

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-was-fired-after-an-encounter-with-a-%e2%80%98racist%e2%80%99-customer-after-sharing-his-story-home-depot-changed-its-mind/ar-BBKSLKK?li=BBnbcA1

Yeah! So Home Depot learned a lesson in #Civility. But you know which alt right celebrity apparently didn’t get the memo about #Civility? Roseanne. You know Roseanne, we have this thing called Google, and it still doesn’t excuse the situation any differently!

In the above video, released by Roseanne Barr on her own YouTube channel, the fired actress “explains” the racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett that wrecked her otherwise popular show.

Barr promised to release her own explanation after a series of interviews and her apology to Jarrett when the controversy first erupted in May. In this video, she appears frustrated and agitated, going back and forth with the off-camera interviewer before finally unleashing.

“I thought the bitch was white! God dammit, I thought the bitch was white! Fuck!” she screamed.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/watch-manic-roseanne-barr-screams-i-thought-the-btch-was-white-in-video-explanation-of-valerie-jarett-tweet/

No… no you didn’t, and you can’t blame it on the Ambien, either. Finally I do want to mention this story involving Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and Pizzagate co conspirator Mike Cernovich, and while Gunn got the memo about #Civility, Cernovich definitely didn’t. And let’s just let the irony of this one sink in – a guy arrested for rape, is calling someone else a child rapist! Yeah that happened.

The jokes about rape and pedophilia that got James Gunn fired from his position as writer and director of Marvel’s hugely successful Guardians of the Galaxy franchise are largely un-funny, tasteless, and in most cases disgusting. We should probably get that out of the way right up front, because to defend Gunn in the wake of Disney’s decision is—to a lot of reactionaries with itchy @ fingers—is to also defend the content of the tweets.

But a surprisingly often overlooked part of the conversation is the fact that the ringleader of Gunn’s downfall, Mike Cernovich, had to scroll back to 2011 to find the tweets at all. Seven years, conveniently bypassing apologies and mea culpas, overlooking attempts at change, ignoring statements like the one Gunn posted just days before he was fired:

“Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor.”

To deny someone the capacity to change is a dangerous precedent to set, not just in Hollywood where a person’s public life is on display 24/7 but to anyone engaging in the social media age. It sets the bar at, “What’s the point?” It gives the message that concepts like betterment and learning are futile because the sins of your past are an immovable weight that only gets heavier the harder you climb. Strange, from a monolith like Disney, which has worked tirelessly to paint over a past filled with scars like Song of the South and Dumbo‘s horribly stereotypical black crows, to name just a few. But through a sheer effort of PR and Marvel-aided goodwill, that Disney feels like a ghost of the studio now. Which is exactly what makes Gunn’s firing so frustrating; Disney didn’t fire a director, they fired his ghost.
http://collider.com/james-gunns-firing-guardians-of-the-galaxy/

[font size="8"] How Is This Still A Thing: The National Enquirer
[br] [/font] [br]

Time once again to ask:

The National Enquirer. How is this still a thing? In a day and age where your local newspaper has been consolidated and repackaged to the point where it may just now be literally a sheet of paper, one magazine with outlandishly worded headlines that you see while waiting in line at your local supermarket is still being printed after all these years – the National Enquirer. In the last two years the tabloid has become louder and bolder, and may have violated a federal law or two when it comes to discussing the current administration.

Federal investigators looking into President Donald Trump‘s former lawyer Michael Cohen have been digging into payments made to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump in the past. Now, it appears that American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer who made one of those payments, could be in trouble as well, according to The New York Times.

In 2016, A.M.I. paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about a relationship she said she had with Trump from 2006 to 2007. The deal gave A.M.I. the rights to the story, which they chose to sit on, effectively keeping the allegations under wraps. The deal also included an arrangement for McDougal to publish columns in A.M.I.’s publications, which she claims they did not fulfill.

Prosecutors are now looking at whether A.M.I.’s behavior crossed the line from journalism into political activity, given that they spent money on something that is believed to be for the benefit of Trump’s campaign. McDougal, in a lawsuit, claims that her attorney at the time, Keith Davidson, had been in touch with Cohen regarding the status of the agreement.
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/feds-believe-national-enquirer-publisher-acted-as-political-supporter-for-trump-campaign-report-says/

And why does he like the National Enquirer? We have a president who loves having his ass kissed repeatedly. We live in an era where fake news exists, but there is none more fake than the National Enquirer, yet somehow, Trump loves them. In their excessive reporting of Trump, they may have violated a law or two.

Federal authorities examining the work President Trump’s former lawyer did to squelch embarrassing stories before the 2016 election have come to believe that an important ally in that effort, the tabloid company American Media Inc., at times acted more as a political supporter than as a news organization, according to people briefed on the investigation.

That determination has kept the publisher in the middle of an inquiry that could create legal and political challenges for the president as prosecutors investigate whether the lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, violated campaign finance law.

It could also spell trouble for the company, which publishes The National Enquirer, raising thorny questions about when coverage that is favorable to a candidate strays into overt political activity, and when First Amendment protections should apply.

A.M.I.’s role in the inquiry received new attention on Friday with news that federal authorities had seized a recording from Mr. Cohen in which he and Mr. Trump discussed a $150,000 deal A.M.I. struck before the election, effectively silencing a woman’s claims of an affair by buying the rights to her story and not publishing it. The men also discussed whether Mr. Trump should buy the rights away from the company, which he did not ultimately do, according to a lawyer for the president, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/us/politics/trump-michael-cohen-american-media.html

But the connections between the National Enquirer and the Trump campaign may be greater and far more reaching than previously expected. In fact things between the two may be worse than Trump’s nightly phone calls to Sean Hannity.

This will undoubtedly come as a surprise, but Michael Cohen, who just valiantly resigned from the Republican National Committee’s finance committee over migrant-family separations, might have engaged in some shady dealings while representing Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.

Three sources tell the Washington Post that during the presidential campaign and after Trump was elected, National Enquirer executives would send Cohen digital copies of articles related to Trump for his approval prior to publication. Since Trump has a close relationship with David Pecker, chief executive of the magazine’s parent company American Media Inc., the stories tended to be quite positive to start with, but one person said Cohen would sometimes request changes, like a more flattering cover photo or headline change.

The sources said Trump also had access to some pieces about his opponents before publication, like the infamous September 2015 cover story that claimed Hillary Clinton was ill and had “SIX MONTHS TO LIVE!” They also claimed that Trump associates — Cohen, communications adviser Hope Hicks, or sometimes the candidate himself — would call Pecker to suggest stories. They said one example is the Enquirer report that alleged Dr. Ben Carson botched operations.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/national-enquirer-ran-stories-by-trump-before-publishing.html

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So we live in an era where fake news is real news, sensationalist journalism and opinion panels replace actual news, and everything right is wrong. And Trump loves all of this. In fact no one picks better articles than he does. He picks the best articles, believe us. So what are they doing? They’re creating a fake news empire!

When Donald Trump acolyte David Pecker purchased 13 of Bauer Publishing’s gossip, celebrity and teen-oriented weeklies for a reported $80 million on June 15, the transaction permitted Pecker’s perennially strapped company, American Media Inc. (publisher of the National Enquirer, Us Weekly, Star, Globe, OK! and Radar Online) to corner the tacky tabloid journalism market.

AMI’s acquisition of Bauer’s In Touch, Life & Style and Closer mags also awarded the 45th president a valuable prize: effective control of the pop-culture engine that helped propel him to the White House and could very well keep him there.

“Mr. Pecker has repeatedly used his brands as a cudgel on behalf of his friend Trump,” Larry Hackett, the former editor of People, argued last week in Australia’s New Daily. People, along with Entertainment Weekly, is the nation’s only celeb-focused magazine not owned by Pecker—with the rest of Time Inc.’s magazines, they were recently purchased by Meredith.

“He has peddled false stories about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama without any regard for the facts,” Hackett continued. “That’s regrettable if it’s one or two publications. But now he has control of… magazines with an estimated readership of 38 million, a virtual monopoly on the eyeballs of supermarket and Walmart shoppers. What’s to stop him from using those titles [to launch] unfounded attacks on Mr. Trump’s political foes, his Hollywood critics, unwanted immigrants?”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/national-enquirer-boss-is-building-a-gossip-empire-to-do-trumps-bidding

In fact look at one story developing and how the National Enquirer simply bought the rights to it for $150,000 and kept it hidden. Yes, it actually involves Trump and a prostitute - to which we here are seriously not shocked at all!

Michael Avenatti has a warning for President Trump: More tapes are out there.

At a roundtable Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week,” the lawyer for adult-film star Stormy Daniels said that the secret recording of Trump that was revealed two days ago is far from the only one made by Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen.

“This is not the only tape,” Avenatti said. “I can tell you that for a fact. There’s multiple tapes.”

He added: “That, ultimately, is going to prove to be a big problem for the president. You know, that old adage, ‘You’ve lived by the sword, you die by the sword,’ is going to be true in this case, because the president knew that his attorney, Michael Cohen, had a predisposition toward taping conversations with people.”

On Friday, three people with knowledge of the conversation told The Washington Post that Cohen had secretly taped a discussion with Trump in September 2016 about whether to purchase the rights to Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal’s account of her alleged affair with Trump.

That conversation took place one month after AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, bought the rights to McDougal’s story for $150,000 and then shelved it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-is-not-the-only-tape-michael-avenatti-says-there-are-more-secret-recordings-of-trump/2018/07/22/fe05f112-8dcb-11e8-8322-b5482bf5e0f5_story.html?utm_term=.98022f8d608d

There you have it – an actual outlet known for fake news is caught actually rigging the real news. That’s enough to make you ask – The National Enquirer:

[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Death By Cereal
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Kansas City, It is time to investigate beyond the headlines! This is Top 10 Investigates!

Breakfast cereals. They come in all shapes, colors and flavors. You love them as a kid and you probably also love them just as much as an adult. However, one brand in particular has been getting hit hard in the news lately because of a massive recall. In fact the recall is so massive that it’s hit a sizeable majority of the United States. And before anyone asks if your breakfast cereal could possibly kill you, we answer with “yeah, probably”.

So that explains why you might get salmonella while eating Honey Smacks – they’re endorsed by what appears to be a frog on smack. And yes, we’re aware that Death By Cereal and Frogs On Smack recently played a double headlining show at the Troubadour. But of course like all things happening in 2018, this story gets weird.

A Utah couple says their 5-month-old son is the state’s only known person infected with salmonella in a nationwide outbreak tied to Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal and they’re struggling to comprehend how it happened.

When 5-month-old Andy Lyons contracted salmonella, his parents were left baffled.

“But then his salmonella matched the outbreak for the Kellogg’s recall,” mother Ashley Lyons said.

The link doctors found to the Honey Smacks outbreak may have answered one question, but raised several more in its place.

“Yeah, we still aren’t 100 percent sure how,” Ashley Lyons said.
https://www.wral.com/parents-say-5-month-old-got-salmonella-from-honey-smacks-cereal/17704959/

Here’s the thing – maybe don’t feed your five year old Honey Smacks! Although that might be safer than a lot of children’s food on the market currently.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a popular Kellogg’s cereal has been linked to a salmonella outbreak that has infected 100 people in 33 states.

The CDC announced Thursday that customers should avoid Honey Smacks, tweeting, “Do not eat this cereal.” The agency says it found salmonella in samples of Honey Smacks, which has been subject to a voluntary recall by Kellogg since mid-June.

It says that regardless of expiration date, the cereal should be thrown away or returned to a retailer for a refund.

The CDC says at least 30 of the people infected in the outbreak have been hospitalized. It says most people infected with salmonella develop a fever, cramps or diarrhea within 12 to 72 hours of being exposed to the bacteria.
https://apnews.com/8f023952727c42e4abeb8cf77aa1c4ff/'Do-not-eat-this-cereal':-CDC-links-Honey-Smacks,-salmonella?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Yes – do not eat that. Do not feed your kids that. Do not feed your pets that. Just stay away from the bad cereal. Apparently there is an entire website dedicated to food poisoning that you need to be made aware of as they keep track of this sort of thing.

The cereal was first recalled on June 14, 2018. Two UPC numbers of the product were recalled. The recalled product had “best if used by” dates of June 14, 2018 through June 14, 2018.

But several days later, the CDC told consumers to not eat any Honey Smacks cereal of any size package or any “best if used by” date. No explanation for this huge recall expansion was given.

Consumers have been advised to throw away any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, and to clean out containers if the cereal was decanted out of the original box. Even if some of the cereal was eaten and no one got sick, public health officials said discard it.

The cereal was first recalled on June 14, 2018. Two UPC numbers of the product were recalled. The recalled product had “best if used by” dates of June 14, 2018 through June 14, 2018.

But several days later, the CDC told consumers to not eat any Honey Smacks cereal of any size package or any “best if used by” date. No explanation for this huge recall expansion was given.

Consumers have been advised to throw away any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, and to clean out containers if the cereal was decanted out of the original box. Even if some of the cereal was eaten and no one got sick, public health officials said discard it.
https://foodpoisoningbulletin.com/2018/kelloggs-honey-smacks-salmonella-lawsuit-filed/

Yes, that apparently might be healthier for you than a bowl of Honey Smacks currently is. That is it for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

[font size="8"]Holy Shit
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Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters of Kansas City, it’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened and it’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:

My fair congregation! There is a war brewing among us! But it’s not so much that we are the ones fighting it, it’s forces led by the Dark One who are fighting this god forsaken atrocity! For the man whose name we dare not speak – THE DARK ONE – if you will, is about to roll back 100 years of progress with the single stroke of a pen. So apparently we were given the Dark One because it was GAWD’s plan to save America! I mean did you know that? I am a good pastor and I didn’t know this!

Among the “prophets” who make the rounds of Religious Right media declaring that Trump was chosen by God to be the U.S. president is Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj, who appeared on Jim Bakker’s television show this week.

Selvaraj described for Bakker and his audience a vision he said he was given during a prophetic conference in Gettysburg on July 4. In his vision, God was an enormous figure standing on the east coast holding a shepherd’s rod across the U.S. God told Selvaraj that He would judge America for its political crimes. Among the kinds of unrighteousness for which America will be judged, he said, are abortion and marriage equality.

Selvaraj delivered a similar message during a speaking engagement last year, during which he said that Jesus told him that Trump’s term is “the period of grace extended for this nation” and that Americans needed to surround Trump in prayer because he was under a witchcraft attack. Selvaraj describes himself as a former “staunch and orthodox Hindu” who at the age of 16 had “a life-changing supernatural encounter” with Jesus Christ.

During his recent interview with Bakker, Selvaraj said God told him that “diabolical secret alliances and plans” made during the Obama administration would have continued if Hillary Clinton had been elected, and that God had decided to make Trump president to give American Christians an opportunity to “establish righteousness in the land”:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/prophet-selvaraj-says-god-gave-us-trump-to-bring-righteousness-to-america/

Yes, I like that one! But now things are getting grim especially when the highest court in the land is at stake, and the Dark One and his minions have their eyes set on it!

“The stakes have never been this high” is the subject line on a Monday morning fundraising email from Religious Right political operative Ralph Reed and his Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Getting Judge Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court will be the ultimate victory for conservative and Christian values,” reads the donation page.

“With a conservative Supreme Court majority within reach, the stakes in this fight have never been so high,” wrote Reed, who asked for donations to help make sure that the group’s petition urging Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “cuts through the noise.”

Wrote Reed:

You and I both know what’s at stake: speech, religious freedom, the Second Amendment, and the right to life.

You and I both know why this fight matters. And you and I both know why we must make sure a conservative like Brett Kavanaugh gets seated on the Supreme Court before the November election. …

With your help, we’ll take this fight across the finish line—and protect conservative values for decades to come.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ralph-reed-confirming-kavanaugh-will-be-ultimate-victory-for-religious-right/

Yes, brother Ralph! That is not how this works! You have it all wrong, because that is not what JAYSUS would want, and saying otherwise is not only a SIN it is BLASPHEMY of the highest order, and we cannot allow that! But why would the fairer sex support this madness? I mean are they the creatures spoken about in the Handmaids Tale? Yes probably!

Concerned Women for America, an anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ-equality group committed to promoting its “biblical worldview” in public policy, has launched a Women for Kavanaugh campaign.

CWA President Penny Nance recorded the first episode of her new podcast, “Use Your Voice,” on the day President Trump was preparing to announce the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. “We are at a tipping point in our nation’s history,” she said, adding later in the podcast, “This has generational consequences for our nation.”

CWA joined most other Religious Right groups in immediately announcing support for Kavanaugh, who, Nance said last week, “has shown through action, not just words, his choice to esteem women.” CWA has launched a $500,000 campaign called “Women for Kavanaugh,” which it describes as “rallying our happy warriors across the nation to use their voices in support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.” According to the campaign, “The left’s hatred of Trump is blinding them to the simple record of this exceptional nominee.”

Like some other Religious Right leaders, Nance has been publicly downplaying the movement’s goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, saying that “we don’t go at this the way the left does.” She claims that the group is not calling for specific outcomes but simply looking for a justice committed to a “constitutionalist” judicial philosophy. CWA General Counsel Mario Diaz said on the group’s podcast, “This Supreme Court vacancy is not about Roe.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/anti-choice-group-launches-500000-women-for-kavanaugh-campaign/

I think even the GOOD LAWRD JAYSUS is trying to send us a message! They say that it isn’t about Roe and they just casually drop it in the conversation like a pharmaceutical drug advertisement glosses over the fact that their drugs might have fatal consequences. Seriously, they just gloss over death like it’s no big deal, much in the way these lunatics are trying to gloss over Roe like it’s no big deal. Is that right my fair congregation? Can I get an amen??? But just remember when it comes to protecting the Dark One, it’s a deep state conspiracy!!!!

When President Trump spoke to the press earlier this week in an attempt to mitigate the damage caused by the comments he made during his press conference with Vladimir Putin dismissing Russian interference in the 2016 election, the lights briefly went out, which is proof to End Times broadcaster Rick Wiles that the intelligence community was using “psychological warfare” to control the president.

As Trump insisted that he now accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion regarding Russian interference, Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly accidentally turned the lights off for a few seconds, but Wiles believes that something far more nefarious was at work.

After his co-host Doc Burkhart said there is no such thing as a coincidence and so the room going dark was either a deliberate plan by Kelly or something “planned by God to send a message,” Wiles insisted that the incident was really a signal from the intelligence community to Trump that they will permanently turn his lights out f he doesn’t fall in line.

“It was a warning to President Trump,” Wiles said on his “TruNews” program last night. “The lights went out precisely as he uttered the words that he was ordered to say—’I support the U.S. intelligence community.’ They turned out the lights on him because that was psychological warfare, they were doing psy-ops on him—’We’re going to turn the lights out on you, Mr. Trump, permanently. We’re going to turn the lights out on you.’ I really believe that they used the moment to try to put the fear in him.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/lights-out-rick-wiles-says-the-intelligence-community-is-using-psychological-warfare-against-trump/

By the way, give it up for our gospel choir! How great are they? So according to people who are in the cult of the Dark One, whose name I dare not speak, one minute they love him, the next they are told to be fearful of him! But when it comes to defending the highest court of the land, I hope this is the one thing you leave today’s sermon with when you are confronted with those that support the Dark One and his cult. This one, just I can’t even.

Religious Right radio host Janet Mefferd and former Family Research Council fellow Tim Dailey told American Family Radio listeners that the urban legends surrounding Bigfoot and UFO sightings are not only real but also part of a secret plot the devil is carrying out on Earth.

Mefferd hosted author and former Family Research Council fellow Tim Dailey on Friday to discuss, among other paranormal topics, what Mefferd called “the Bigfoot question.” Mefferd asked Dailey how Christians should interpret reported Bigfoot sightings and how it ties into a “paranormal conspiracy” allegedly orchestrated by Satan.

Dailey said it was telling that “many, many reliable observers” have reported spotting Bigfoot but yet there is a “virtual absence” of tangible proof that would convince the skeptical public that such claims were credible.

“It’s real. It’s a projection. It’s a demonic virtual reality, but it’s not nuts-and-bolts, in this case, flesh-and-blood creatures,” Dailey said.

Mefferd went on to ask Dailey why nobody ever takes a picture of Bigfoot “at noon,” when someone could take a well-lit photograph. Dailey said that the devil designs Bigfoot sightings to happen when it is too dark to take clear photographs.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/american-family-radio-warns-listeners-of-satanic-conspiracy-behind-bigfoot/

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There you have it folks!!! Bigfoot is a satanic demon!!!! And these people want control of the highest court in the land? Give me a break! Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:

[font size="8"]Beating A Dead Horse: Trump Derangement Syndrome
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Kansas City, it’s time for a new edition of:

There’s a common logical fallacy that never really gets paid a lot of attention these days. And it’s fairly common in the era of Trump. It’s when you accuse the person you’re debating of having “______ derangement syndrome”. So we’re going to take a look at what causes Derangement Syndrome, and why you should be concerned about it when accusing your next debate opponent of it. See, DS is not a thing. It’s not defined in the DSM and it’s not considered a mental illness. Derangement Syndrome is a term that was coined by the late Charles Krauthammer in 2003 when he was accusing liberals then of having “Bush Derangement Syndrome” relating to the 2000 election. Cut to 2018, same shit, different year, and it’s really a case of “Beating A Dead Horse”. So let’s explain a bit further.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump diagnosed his opponents with an illness.
"Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia," he tweeted. "They would rather go to war than see this. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome!"

Worried you might have Trump Derangement Syndrome? Wondering where it came from? I'm here to help!
Let's start with what Trump Derangement Syndrome means.

Urban Dictionary offers up this handy definition: "Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/19/politics/trump-derangement-syndrome/index.html

Well you’re not wrong, sir. This is what is clearly happening. So it’s not really a mental condition at all, even though some would like for it to be. In fact CNN (*Trump voice* fake news!) even further defines TDS as having 3 distinct stages.

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into three distinct phases or stages:

1. "In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, as if 140 characters were all it took to change the world."
2. "The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of hyperbole."
3. "As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality."

Again, you’re not wrong, Sir. But in an era where we have been miseducating people for 40 fucking years on what the president actually does, things might get lost in the conversation. Like the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. And in the era of fake news, that’s all you need! But one thing you definitely don’t need is the guy who the disease is named after playing armchair doctor!

President Donald Trump and his supporters have a new buzz phrase to diagnose his critics: "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

The term is supposed to describe voters who are so angry and opposed to the U.S. president that they are incapable of seeing any good in what he does. "TDS" has popped up on Fox News in recent weeks and was cited by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in interviews this week before being used by the president himself on Twitter on Wednesday.

His tweet: "Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome!"

It's the latest linguistics salvo by a president who fundamentally altered the definition of "fake news" and tries to discredit opponents of his administration by pointing to the most extreme critiques.

In the case of Russia, Trump's fiercest detractors, including former CIA Director John Brennan, this week went so far as to call Trump's actions "treasonous" after he doubted U.S. intelligence findings that Russia tried to sway the 2016 presidential election.
http://www.startribune.com/trump-s-diagnosis-for-critics-trump-derangement-syndrome/488529491/

Yes, you’re wrong!!! Stop saying that! Not everybody has TDS. And if you do, there’s a laundry list of side effects. The cure of course is this show! And you can see our ad in Golf Digest magazine if you want more information. So what happens when you use this in an actual debate? Well let’s just ask Whoopi Goldberg!

“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro got snarled in a yelling match on live television Thursday on an episode of “The View” after Pirro appeared to suggest Goldberg suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Pirro, a former judge and prosecutor who hosts “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” appeared as a guest on the daytime talk show in part to discuss her new book, “Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.” But the discussion about Pirro’s book soon went awry, illustrating why friends and families across the country on opposite sides of the political spectrum sometimes vow to have only Trump-free conversations.

Pirro, answering a question about President Trump’s commitment to conservative ideology, ticked off accomplishments for which she credited the president, such as lower unemployment among African Americans. Co-host Meghan McCain chimed in to make a statement about his popularity among Republicans, but just as she was finishing, Goldberg interjected, saying she had a question.

That’s when Pirro appeared to mutter something about people having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term popular particularly on Fox News for Americans outspoken in their criticism of Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/07/20/whoopi-vs-judge-jeanine-trump-derangement-syndrome-comment-sparks-yelling-match-on-the-view/?utm_term=.e3f61f2ad107

OK now you’re wrong! You’re definitely wrong! I think I might be coming down with a case of TDS myself! But we still have a lot more show to do, damn it! But TDS affects everybody! Even Capitol Hill isn’t immune from this disease, and we need to find a cure!

Sen. Rand Paul said on Monday that the conversation around Russian interference in the 2016 US election and President Donald Trump's break with the intelligence community on the issue was misdirected and animated by anti-Trump animus.

"Any country that can spy does, and any country that can meddle in foreign elections does," the Kentucky Republican said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."

He continued, "All countries are doing this, but we've elevated this to a higher degree, and we've made this all about the sour grapes of Hillary Clinton losing the election, and it's all about partisan politics now. This is truly the Trump derangement syndrome that motivates all of this."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/rand-paul-donald-trump-russia-cnntv/index.html

[font size="8"]People Are Dumb
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Hit it!

Of course you know by now that people are people and people are dumb. So who is dumb this week? I want to start with this story out of where else but America’s most penis-shaped state of Florida. So here’s the thing guys if you get caught drinking and driving, perhaps this is not the best excuse to give when trying to get out of a ticket.

An inebriated motorist assured Florida police that he was not drinking while driving, but only swigging from a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon when his vehicle paused at stop signs and traffic signals, according to a police report.

Earle Gustavas Stevens, 69, was arrested two weeks ago for driving his Mercury Grand Marquis while under the influence. The Vero Beach resident, now free on $1500 bond in advance of a July 31 arraignment, was nabbed after a driver called 911 to report that Stevens’s car repeatedly tapped her bumper while they were in a McDonald’s drive-thru lane.

When a sheriff’s deputy contacted Stevens, he reeked of alcohol, was slurring his words, and had ”red and glossy” eyes. On the Mercury’s passenger seat was a bottle of Jim Beam, from which Stevens admitted he had been drinking.

Asked if he was drinking in the auto, Stevens replied, “No.” He then explained he was enjoying the bourbon at “Stop signs.” The deputy further noted Stevens’s distinction when it came to drinking while driving: “He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals.”
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/drunk/vero-beach-jim-beam-285073

Next up – we’re also sticking with the great state of Florida here. I’m not sure what the bigger fail is – oh wait – yeah it’s definitely the tourist that managed to get stabbed by a guy with no arms! *cue horror music*

An armless Florida man has been charged with stabbing a Chicago tourist in Miami.

Miami police officials say 46-year-old Jonathan Crenshaw, a homeless man, held a pair of scissors with his feet and stabbed 22-year-old Cesar Coronado twice then fled the scene.

The incident happened just after midnight on Tuesday.

According to the incident report, Crenshaw said he was lying down when Coronado approached him and punched him in the head.

The Miami Herald reports a friend who was traveling with Coronado said they asked Crenshaw for directions when he suddenly jumped up and stabbed Coronado in his arm.

Read more: http://www.timeswv.com/cnhi_network/armless-florida-man-stabs-tourist-police-say/article_a97b2a9c-40c9-51f9-94bf-bc1f318eaeb3.html

Excuse me a minute… Next up we’re going to the great state of New Hampshire for this story. OK so here’s the thing – we are all about free love and judgement free zones. But here's a guy who took the "judgement free" policy of the Planet Fitness gym chain just a little too literally!

A Haverhill man who stripped naked and did yoga poses in a crowded Planet Fitness over the weekend learned the limits of the gym chain’s “judgement-free” philosophy.

Eric Stagno, 34, was arrested at the Planet Fitness in Plaistow, N.H., shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to police Captain Brett Morgan.

“When officers arrived, they found him there, completely nude: on his knees in a yoga-type position,” Morgan said. “He walked into the gym, stripped down at the door, then proceeded to walk back and forth a couple of times before settling in on the yoga mats.”

The gym was fairly crowded at the time, but Stagno kept to himself, Morgan said. He checked himself out in the mirror and made his way over to the yoga mats, seemingly unaware that those around him were perturbed.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/07/23/haverhill-man-strips-naked-crowded-planet-fitness/eEPggW9BW8zE5EI1pzexbL/story.html?refresh=true&s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter

Love that movie so much! And he really was streaking in a gymnasium! Next up – I don’t know if you’re familiar with the concept of “escape rooms” or not but this one guy in Vancouver, Washington definitely wasn’t.

A man who broke into a Washington state escape room this week called 911 because he couldn’t find a way out.

Early Sunday, police called NW Escape Experience owners Rob and Tamara Bertrand, telling them someone had broken into their business. Deputies said a man tried to break in through a back door of the escape room in Vancouver, Washington, which is located inside a strip mall.

When the man couldn't get through the back door, he used a key found in a lockbox to open the mall's electrical room, Tamara told USA TODAY. Another key gave him access to a suite that shared an unlocked door with NW Escape Experience. After pushing down storage lockers attempting to block the way, the man was inside.

The business houses three escape rooms, interactive experiences where participants must solve a series of riddles and puzzles to break free. Rooms are themed, including one known as The Kill Room splattered with fake blood. A steel autopsy table and skeleton sit in the center of the room, Tamara said.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/vancouver/man-breaks-into-vancouver-escape-room-then-calls-911-when-he-cant-get-out/283-573845239

Finally this week for People Are Dumb – movies. Specifically “The First Purge”. You know – those charming flicks about what would happen if all crime were legal for 24 hours a day for one year, well, don’t take them for real life inspiration!

A Texas man is facing charges after he allegedly stabbed another man at a movie theater.

Police said it all started when Bryan Morrison went to see ‘The First Purge’ at the Cinemark in Sherman, Texas on Friday.

“It’s ironic the stabbing occurred given the nature of the film,” said Sgt. Brett Mullen, with the Sherman Police Department.

Investigators say Morrison wouldn’t sit in his reserved seat, and moved seat-to-seat throughout the theater.
https://kfor.com/2018/07/12/man-arrested-after-allegedly-stabbing-man-over-seats-at-the-first-purge/

That’s it this week for People Are Dumb!

[font size="8"]Deep State Diaries Episode 6: The Food & Drug Administration
[br] [/font] [br]

It’s time for episode 6 of Deep State Diaries. Yes we’re touring the 24 branches and services that make up the United States government. Everything from the FBI to the IRS to the Pentagon to the CIA to the DPW to the DVA to parks and recreation and all branches and services in between. Of course if you’re here you probably already know more about our government and how it works than your average Fox News loving Trump supporter does. So that’s what this segment is going to address. We are going to do a deep dive into all that makes the United States the United States. Because we here at the Top 10 love to educate as well as entertain. Because we care.

[font size="6"]The FDA[/font]

So last week we explored the US Department Of Agriculture, a cabinet level position that oversees America’s farming operations and domestic food production. So why do we need the FDA, you might ask? Well sir/madam I answer you. If you saw our investigative piece “Top 10 Investigates” this week you know about the cereal recall of Honey Smacks. Well guess what? That ties right into what we’re going to talk about this week! So there’s a couple of ways the FDA works and they can both be good and bad. For instance you might have seen something called “the Impossible Burger” popping up at your favorite burger and beer establishment lately.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the key ingredient in the vegetarian-friendly Impossible Burger. It's a big win for Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods as it expands its distribution.

The ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, releases a protein called heme that gives the meat substitute its distinctive blood-like color and taste. Just as the Impossible Burger was gaining in popularity and reach, The New York Times published a report last year revealing that the FDA was concerned that the soy-based ingredient had never been consumed by humans.

In a letter to Impossible Foods released Monday, the FDA deemed soy leghemoglobin GRAS, or generally recognized as safe, in its most recent review.

“Getting a no-questions letter goes above and beyond our strict compliance to all federal food-safety regulations,” Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick O. Brown said in a statement. “We have prioritized safety and transparency from day one, and they will always be core elements of our company culture.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/24/key-ingredient-in-impossible-burger-approved-by-fda.html

Only thrice the fat of normal hot dogs! But what else does the FDA do? Well it’s all well and good about food, but what about the drugs part? It’s in their name after all.

As part of its ongoing implementation of the Drug Quality and Security Act and to advance the goals of its 2018 Compounding Policy Priorities Plan, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing several actions to protect public health related to the compounding of human drug products.

“We continue to implement the compounding provisions of federal law and advance a modern framework for the development of compounded drugs,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. “Our actions underscore our focus on protecting patients while making sure we have an enduring framework for better compounding that is well informed by input from the clinical community. Our aim is to be responsive to the medical needs of patients who require compounded medicines, while making sure that these products are compounded under appropriate standards. We recognize that there continues to be great interest in our work in this important policy area and we’re committed to providing updates as we take a continuing series of actions to implement the comprehensive plan that we outlined earlier this year.”

Today, the FDA is issuing an alert warning about a bulk drug substance (active pharmaceutical ingredient) used in compounding that carries significant safety risks for patients. The FDA is also taking steps regarding its approach to bulk drug substances that are used to make compounded drugs.
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm614281.htm

Yeah so I wonder how the FDA feels about mind bending experimental hallucinogenic peppers crafted by Guatemalan mental patients? That is a good question! Well how about some much better drugs?

A new drug to treat malaria could help millions.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug Krintafel (tafenoquine) for the treatment of malaria following a Priority Review this past Friday.

The drug, developed by GSK Pharmaceuticals and Medicines for Malaria Venture, is a single dose medication designed for people who've had malaria before. It prevents the relapse of malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax (P.vivax).

P.vivax is one of several parasites in the Plasmodium family known to cause malaria. It accounts for infection with malaria in 15-20% of the cases around the world; that's roughly 8.5 million infections per year.

Unlike its cousin Plasmodium falciparum, which is responsible for approximately 75% of the cases, following the initial infection in the blood, P. vivax can go into a dormant stage in the liver, where most anti-malaria medications cannot reach it.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fda-approves-drug-treatment-malaria/story?id=56768295

Yeah so there is always that! Now what happens when the FDA doesn’t approve of a drug, what happens there? Well let’s just say that much like the IRS, if you’re in the food and / or drug industry, this is one organization whose bad side you don’t want to be on!

The nicotine levels of traditional cigarettes are in the spotlight as the Food and Drug Administration prepares to decide whether to further tighten regulations on the products.

The FDA has said it will pursue any nicotine product standard “using the best available science to determine a level that is appropriate for the protection of the public health.”

The FDA is considering levels as low as 0.3 to 0.5 milligram of nicotine per gram — which would reduce the nicotine yield by up to 97 percent.

A public comment period ended July 16, with the FDA receiving 7,728 submissions on its advanced notice on proposed rulemaking. It is not clear when the next FDA step will occur.

Among those making comments were affiliates of the Big Three tobacco manufacturers: Altria Client Services, RAI Services Co. and ITG Brands LLC.
https://newsadvance.com/news/business/very-low-nicotine-cigarettes-draw-fda-scrutiny-some-fear-smokers/article_93c28d69-8e79-5681-bee9-ffe71f502596.html

[font size="6"]Score Card [/font]

Overall importance: B
How Things Are Going: B
Likely hood To Survive: C

Overall: B-

[font size="6"]Next Week [/font]

Next week we’re going to take a look at how the governing body of our electoral system is handled as we take a look at the FEC!

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]AWOLNATIONl[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is an awesome band from Los Angeles. They have a great new album out called “Here Come The Runts” and you can see them at the Red Sun Festival in Redding, CA September29th and the Voodoo Music & Arts Festival in New Orleans on October 26th – 29th. Playing their song called “Passion”, give it up for AWOLNATION!

Kansas City, this was fun! Can’t wait to come back! We are off to St. Louis next! See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: Alamo Drafthouse, Kansas City, KS
Special Thanks To: Alamo Drafthouse Management
Top 10 Gospel Choir: Our Church Of The Nazarene Choir, Shawnee, KS
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
Legal: Top 10 Legal Department
Advertising: Top 10 Advertising Department
HR: Top 10 Human Resources Department
Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
Wheel Of Corruption By: Studio 1 Stage Props, Burbank, CA
AWOLNTION appear courtesy of: Red Bull Records
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 On Twitter at: @10Idiots
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Hate mail? E-mail The Top 10 at: Top10ConIdiots@gmail.com

Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

July 22, 2018

Preview For This Week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots

I'm not sure if I should be thrilled that Dennis and Kanye are having a bromance, or if I can't wait for the movie Dennis & Kanye Go To Pyongyang Palace?

*audience laughs and applauds*

This week the Top 10 is live from Kansas City! Trump wants to bring Putin to the White House, Dennis Rodman wants to bring Kanye to North Korea, the Oath Keepers want to bring the heat to Maxine Waters' office, we ask how the National Enquirer is still a thing, Beating A Dead Horse discusses Trump Derangement Syndrome, and we have some more Profiles In #Civility. Plus in our weekly investigative piece Top 10 investigates, we're going to food poisoning, and specifically death by breakfast cereal! And our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in "Holy Shit", our resident pastor is going to look at how the religious right is going to erode your rights - and probably die trying! And some more People Are Dumb, because people are dumb. And the next installment of Deep State Diaries is going to take a look at how our food is approved by looking at the FDA! Plus we've got some live music for you from AWOLNATION!

Top 10 Conservative Idiots: Wednesdays at 2:00 PM (we promise this time!) /shameless self promotion

July 18, 2018

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-5: Diary Of A Wimpy Trump: Nyet Rules! Edition

Top 10 Conservative Idiots #5-5: Diary Of A Wimpy Trump: Nyet Rules! Edition

Ed. Note - due to a scheduling conflict at our host venue, the Top 10 will be early tonight! Enjoy!

Welcome back to the Top 10 Conservative Idiots! What’s up New Orleans? Man we had a great time in Austin but now we are continuing this show on the road. We’re hanging out here at the lovely Café Istanbul. Man I love New Orleans food, and you guys are drunk too! For those of you at home there’s a lot of drinking going on in NOLA! You got French food, you got Cajun food, you got creole food, you got fried chicken, you got Po’Boys, and it’s really a crazy mix. Not to mention the beer, wine, and booze flow pretty freely here! Seriously I am going to get fat by the end of this trip. Well, OK… fatter, because the food here in NOLA is so damn good! Do we have time for the thing? OK so we got to talk about Blake Shelton for a minute. I love this story. So Blake was doing a show at a festival in Oregon, and he admitted that he had quite a bit to drink before the show, after all, it was Pendleton Music Whisky Festival in Oregon, so I can imagine that was flowing pretty freely backstage. But rather than apologize, Shelton actually asked fans for video of it! To which of course the social media gods provided in droves, and the even funnier thing is that Shelton blamed it on Pitbull as a joke, because why wouldn’t you? And then someone tweeted at Blake “Oh so that’s the kind of show you put on? For people who spend their hard earned dollars for you to show up drunk?” to which Blake responded “Oh sorry ma’am, this account is for people with a sense of humor! No cry baby tweets! Try again tomorrow!”. Ah, that was the best part. Got to love it when stars have a sense of humor about themselves! OK enough of the intro. We got a lot of idiocy to cover this week. But first I got to play this clip from Jim Jefferies where he destroys the now former head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt:

There is so much idiocy to cover this week, where do we start? How about we start in the first slot with recapping the insane interview that was the Congressional hearings of Peter Strzok (1). Holy crap that was insane. In the second slot this week is Donald Trump (2) and we’re going to recap his visit to the UK because it is quite frankly one of the most insane things ever, and the amount of protestors there was about 3 Trump inaugurations. In the third slot this week is also Donald Trump, and once again, the trouble making kid gets sent to the principal’s office for a third time in another episode of Diary Of A Wimpy Trump: Nyet Rules! (3). In the fourth slot this week we have some more “Profiles In #Civility” to tell you about which includes a lot of racism and Trump supporters being, well, Trump supporters. In the fifth slot this week is our weekly arm chair investigative piece Top 10 Investigates (5) and this week we’re going to tackle the tricky subject of Micro Cheating (5) – are you guilty of it? Spoiler alert! Probably! And in the sixth seed is of course our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in “Holy Shit” and this week our resident pastor is going to tell you some of the more batshit crazy reactions to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh coming from the Christian right. At number 7 is the CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, John Schnatter (7) and we’re going to ask: “Papa John’s Pizza: How Is This Still A Thing?”. In the 8th slot this week is the Alt Right (8) and we’ve got a lot of news to cover including the Proud Boys attracting an unruly crowd in Los Angeles, while Alex Jones is the go to guy on internet censorship. Yes, really. And in the number 9 (NEIN!) slot this week we have a new installment of “I Need A Drink” and this week we’re going to get drunk and discuss the end of Blockbuster Video. No, for real this time! Finally this week we’ve got a new edition of Deep State Diaries and this week we’re going to show you the inner workings of the food industry by exploring the US Department Of Agriculture (USDA) and we’re here to tell you this list is USDA certified fresh! Plus we’ve got some live music for you from San Diego’s Slightly Stoopid! They have a great new album called “Everyday Life Everyday People” that you should really check out. Enjoy! And as always don’t forget the key!

[div style="padding: 20px; background-color: #ffffff; border-radius: 10px; box-shadow: 0px 2px 4px 1px #aaa;"][div style="font-family: arial, helvetica; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; padding-bottom: 8px;"]

[font size="8"]The Peter Strzok Hearing
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OK so we need to do some flashbacks here for a minute. You know that thing they do in movies that catches the audience up to speed on what was previously going on with the characters. So remember back during the 2016 election when FBI agent Peter Strzok sent text messages proclaiming that Trump was going down in the November general election? Well that didn’t happen. Now this week, our right wing Congress, in its’ infinite wisdom, decided to investigate these texts last week. Because you know, there’s nothing else pressing at the moment.

Last week, FBI agent Peter Strzok sat before two House committees for 10 contentious hours as Republican lawmakers accused him of partisan bias in his work in the FBI. Observers of all political stripes — Republican, Democrat, neither — derided the hearings as a “made-for-TV spectacle” rather than a serious congressional inquiry. Even Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee — well known for conducting long-running hearings into the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi — lamented on “Face the Nation” that the hearings are a “circus” and a “freak show.”

And yet sensationalist congressional hearings are on the rise. Why?

The answer, in part, is that control of Congress shifts back and forth much more frequently than in the past — and so parties now focus on party branding and messaging as much as on lawmaking. As a result, committees spend a rising share of taxpayer funds on communications staffers at the expense of fewer aides with policy or investigatory responsibilities. No surprise, then, that recent investigations seem more like the circus than genuine policy or oversight work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/07/17/why-was-the-peter-strzok-hearing-such-a-circus-because-congress-wanted-it-that-way/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4a4325c740aa

Yup – Congress is fast becoming a literal 3 ring circus. Can’t wait for the lions, tigers, bears, and bearded lady to show up! But this entire thing was easily a category 5 shit storm. Could easily venture into category 6, where you will see thunder and lightning accompany said shit! But of course you know he had to weigh in!

On the verge of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump railed against the Russia investigation and embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok, calling the agent "a disgrace to our country" and saying the probe "hurts our relationship with Russia."
Asked about the tone he expects at his upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump shifted topics, saying in a CBS News interview excerpt that "we're greatly hampered by this whole witch hunt that's going in the United States."
Trump also said he watched Strzok's House testimony last week. The President said Strzok, who had sent texts critical of Trump, was "a disgrace to our country" and "a disgrace to the FBI."
"I thought (Strzok's testimony) was an absolute disgrace. Where he wants to do things against me before I was even, I guess before I was even the candidate. It was a disgrace," Trump said during the interview at his resort in Turnberry, Scotland. "And then he lied about it. And you know, talking about shutting it down and 'we, we.' And he says, 'Oh, I meant the American people' all of a sudden, you know, he came up with excuses, I guess, given to a lawyer, but everybody laughed at it."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/15/politics/donald-trump-peter-strzok-disgrace/index.html

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. So the guy who sent a couple of text messages is a disgrace? This fucking president has been a national disgrace!!! Thank you, New Orleans! But we’re still not done with this story. This whole administration so far has been like peeling an onion – each layer reveals something new, and when it does, it stinks, and you’re more likely to cry as a result.

Embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok told lawmakers Wednesday in a marathon, closed-door interview that the anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with an FBI lawyer were part of an "intimate" conversation and he did not intend to act on any of the missives, according to Democrats in the meeting.
But Republicans argued that Strzok's claims about the messages after the fact were simply not credible, and one lawmaker claimed to have learned new information from his interview Tuesday with the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees.
Strzok's interview -- which stretched more than 11 hours and included unclassified and classified sessions -- was just the latest instance where Republicans and Democrats came away with dueling assessments over the FBI's actions during the 2016 election.
Wednesday's interview was the first chance for Congress to grill the FBI agent at the center of the controversy over the FBI's handling of its investigations into Hillary Clinton and Russia.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/peter-strzok-congress-meeting/index.html

You know what guys, who hurt you? I don’t think that question has been asked enough about this administration. Who hurt them? I could talk about this hearing all day but I will tell you my favorite part of this whole thing. So according to New York representative Hakeem Jeffries, well.. .

Rep. Jefferies Blasts ‘Kangaroo Court’ Strzok Hearing: Not Worthy of an Ace Ventura Investigation (Mediaite)

Adding to mounting backlash from some lawmakers against criticism of Peter Strzok, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY 8th District) railed against Thursday’s hearing about the former FBI agent’s work, saying it wasn’t even worth the an investigation by fictional pet detective Ace Ventura.

“This investigation is a joke. It’s a fraud,” Jeffries said. “This hearing is a kangaroo court. It is a three-ring circus. It is not even meritorious of an investigation by Ace Ventura pet detective, let alone 75 members of the United States Congress.”

Jeffries contended the hearing was nothing but a distraction tactic to divert attention from Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation into President Donald Trump‘s campaign, and possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.
https://grabien.com/story.php?id=181809

[font size="8"]Donald Trump
[br] [/font] [br]

Well, Trump didn’t save the noble queen. Instead, he snubbed her. Of course unless you’re living under a rock, you know last week that Trump went to England, and turned Picadilly Circus into an actual circus, because that’s what he does everywhere he goes. In fact the Top 10 is going to London on December 12th at the 99 Club, Leicester Square. Just thought I’d plug that for ya. But getting back on topic, we got to talk about what happened when Trump met the Queen.

No one decent wants to watch a trapped animal endless in agony. So it was a relief this morning to find the prime minister relishing the sort of mischievous delight to which she’s been a stranger since she ran through a field of wheat.

If only for a couple of seconds, the pulverising stresses of her situation melted away as she revealed to Andrew Marr that Donald Trump’s advice, in the vexatious matter of Brexit, was to sue the EU.

For all its mesmerisingly imbecility, we probably should have guessed. Litigation has been such a reflex response to the thwarting of his will for so long that his unofficial signature tune is Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue”.

And on that bombshell, the comic portion of Trump’s diplomatic tour ended. In a few frantic days, he insulted May about Brexit, pushed Boris Johnson’s outlandish claim to replace her; insulted the leaders of Nato states about low defence spending; praised the Queen as beautiful “inside and out” during an outpouring of gibberish to Piers Morgan; claimed that many protesters gathered at his golf course were protesting for him ... and far too much more to be catalogued in such a limited space.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-uk-visit-theresa-may-marr-sue-eu-trump-summit-helsinki-a8448286.html

Right. I swear even the best sitcom writers on the planet couldn’t make up a character as crazy as Donald J. Trump is. He literally does the wrong answer for everything. You could ask him “where do babies come from?”. He’d answer “pancakes?”. You could ask him what color the sky is. He’d answer “Yellow?”. But the thing is you know what Britons really saw? They didn’t see the President Of The United States. They saw an infomercial.

GLASGOW — On Monday, President Trump will have a closely watched meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, just days after the announcement that 12 Russian military intelligence officers had been indicted on charges of hacking Democratic organizations in an effort to affect the 2016 election.

But first, a bit of golf.

Mr. Trump was shielded from members of the American news media who traveled with him here to Trump Turnberry, the luxury Scottish resort where he is staying — but not from British journalists who captured protesters on a nearby beach shouting, “No Trump, no K.K.K., no racist U.S.A.” as he teed off on Saturday.

The group chanted across windswept grasslands and a protective buffer of dozens of law enforcement officials, some of them on horseback. According to footage captured by the BBC, the president appeared to wave at the crowd before turning back to his golf game.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/world/europe/uk-trump-scotland-golf.html

But wait! There’s more! Did you see that previous article that Trump took a golf cart out on one of the world’s oldest and most traditional golf courses? Seriously, that guy is such a fat lazy fuck that he couldn’t even walk that golf course. But the sad thing is if you’re American and you plan on visiting the UK or living there any time soon, Trump just fucked things up.

President Donald Trump's catastrophic visit to Britain began with a political scandal of his own creation. In an interview with the Sun, a British tabloid, the US president slammed the British prime minister, Theresa May, and supported her rival. He criticised her conduct of Brexit, the most contentious issue in British politics, and used inflammatory language about immigration, the second-most-contentious issue in British politics.

The story appeared just as Ms May was hosting a black-tie dinner for him at Blenheim Palace. Mr Trump then took it all back, dismissing the journalists who had accurately reported his words as "fake news" and offering some flabby support for Ms May. In response, the Sun published the full audio recording of the interview online - and loudly supported its original story with the front-page headline "FAKE SCHMOOZE."

The interview seemed like a diplomatic fumble. But it was not. All of the views Mr Trump expressed were in fact consistent with the previous actions of his administration. John Bolton, Mr Trump's national security adviser, has recently met with pro-Brexit members of Parliament - in effect, a party within the Conservative Party - to ask how he could help their cause. Behind the scenes, Mr Trump's team has lobbied Britain on behalf of Tommy Robinson, a violent white nationalist and co-founder of the fringe English Defence League, who is now in prison.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-uk-visit-anti-us-protests-brexit-theresa-may-president-queen-a8448976.html

Thank you Susie. My sentiments exactly! I mean even the Royals are pissed at Trump. William and Harry didn’t even come to Trump’s visit at the Palace. I mean really remember when we used to have a president that was loved and respected around the world? I miss those times!

Prince Charles and Prince William refused to meet Donald Trump during his four-day visit to Britain, according to reports.

The royals, who are first and second in line to the throne, declined to take part in the trip and left the Queen to meet the US President alone, it is claimed.

Instead, the Prince of Wales, 69, attended a board meeting at Highgrove and an event with Gloucestershire Police while the Duke of Cambridge, 36, played in a charity polo match.

“This business of Prince Charles and Prince William not being there for the Trump visit was a snub,” an insider told the Sunday Times.

“They simply refused to attend. It’s a very, very unusual thing for the Queen to be there on her own.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-william-charles-snub-donald-trump-uk-visit-queen-royal-family-a8448991.html

[font size="8"]Donald Trump
[br] [/font] [br]

So Trump’s trip to England was a swing and a miss. But now we go to Helsinki where Trump takes the shit storm with him to meet the real president of the United States – Vladimir Putin! Yes, which means once again we have an episode of Diary Of A Wimpy Trump. Thank you graphics department! Seriously every time Trump meets with Putin I feel like he’s the trouble making kid who repeatedly gets sent to the principal’s office. Trump’s got some ‘splainin to do!

US President Donald Trump, in a stunning rebuke of the US intelligence community, declined on Monday to endorse the US government's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying he doesn't "see any reason why" Russia would be responsible.
Instead, Trump -- standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin -- touted Putin's vigorous denial and pivoted to complaining about the Democratic National Committee's server and missing emails from Hillary Clinton's personal account.

"I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said during a joint news conference after he spent about two hours in a room alone with Putin, save for a pair of interpreters.
Trump's statements amounted to an unprecedented refusal by a US president to believe his own intelligence agencies over the word of a foreign adversary and drew swift condemnation from across the partisan divide.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/donald-trump-putin-helsinki-summit/index.html

?fit=1024%2C744&ssl=1

Oh… oh! Trump’s got some ‘splainin to do! I mean while he bemoans NFL players for disrespecting the flag, Trump took a giant shit on it! And I mean come on, given his diet, that shit will definitely stink up the joint! Thank you, New Orleans! Ah, I’ll drink to that! But you know who won? It aint Trump, that’s for sure!

Russia may have already won the first point in the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — before the two leaders even shook hands.

About four hours before the meeting in Helsinki was set to begin on Monday, Trump tweeted that “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” — referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible Trump campaign collusion during the 2016 presidential election.

The main point of his message was clear: America is to blame for bad Washington-Moscow relations, not the Kremlin. And 40 minutes before the meeting, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Trump’s tweet with two words: “We agree.”

That’s stunning. Trump and Russia are now — very publicly — on the same page about why they believe ties between the two countries are so poor. That could serve as a huge propaganda win for Russia, which has spent decades bashing the US for Moscow’s economic and political problems.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17575334/trump-putin-russia-meeting-tweet

That graphic always kills me by the way! So Trump not only swang and missed hard, he also admitted that yeah, he might have committed some light treason. Or maybe it’s some full on, full bore complete treason!

Following a day of discussions between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Mr. Trump left Monday's summit neglecting to hold Putin accountable for Russia's role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election -- saving most of his criticism for America itself.

"I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think that we've all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago, a long time, frankly, before I got to office," Mr. Trump said during a joint press conference with Putin.

Offered multiple chances to denounce Russia's actions, Mr. Trump instead placed blame on the FBI and said that he had "confidence" in both parties -- the intelligence community and Russia.

"All I can do is ask the question - my people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be but I really want to see the server but, I have confidence in both parties," Mr. Trump said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/trump-putin-meeting-us-russia-helsinki-finland-summit-live-updates-today-2018-07-16/

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You know this whole meeting is like as if Trump is the unruly middle school student who constantly gets sent to the principal’s office. So this is like those movies Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, and this is Diary Of A Wimpy Trump. For the sake of subtitling, let’s call it “Diary Of A Wimpy Trump: Nyet Rules!”. Thank you graphics department! So what’s it going to take to charge Trump with treason, guys? Or are you all in on it?

Shortly afterwards, Brennan appeared on MSNBC to demand that Trump officials resign in protest. Brennan has long been a vocal opponent of Trump, and has been one of the loudest voices supporting the unproven theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Trump has accused Brennan of knowingly using a dossier of salacious and false allegations against him (Trump) to jump-start Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing and fruitless ‘Russiagate’ probe. Trump said that Brennan “disgraced himself...and the entire Intelligence Community” in doing so.

At the conference, Trump and Putin both emphatically denied accusations of collusion in the runup to the 2016 election, with Trump saying he “beat Hillary Clinton easily” without Russian help, and Putin calling the claims “nonsense” and challenging the press to show “a single fact that would prove” any collusion occurred.

Trump said that he “brought up” allegations of election-meddling with Putin, and said that Putin “may well want to address it,” but did not elaborate further on the subject.
https://www.rt.com/usa/433422-trump-putin-conference-treason/

This is insane. Trump can never claim anyone is disrespecting the flag or our country ever again if he took a giant dump on it. I mean even George Bluth is going “hey! I’m off the hook now!”. But you got to know that Russia are not our friends!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and several other Kentucky representatives said they agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, breaking with Donald Trump's comments after his friendly meeting with Vladimir Putin.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, the Russians are not our friends and I entirely agree with the assessment of our intelligence community," McConnell said in a statement to the Courier Journal on Monday.

Trump received immediate backlash from politicians on both sides of the aisle when he met with Russian President Putin. During the meeting, he accepted Putin's claim that the Russians did not interfere, contradicting the U.S. intelligence community's research.

"The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the President and policymakers," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a statement to USA TODAY. "We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security."
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/16/kentucky-politicians-trump-putin-meeting-disgraceful-john-yarmuth-rand-paul/789553002/

[font size="8"]Profiles In Civility
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Folks, last week we debuted a new segment in which we touched on the fact that despite calls for something called “civility” – something unheard of in this day and age of Trump, there are a lot of these kinds of stories that have been coming out lately. Which is mainly white people calling the cops on black people. But this week there’s just one Profile In #Civility that I want to expand on – someone famous got the cops called on them for doing the very thing they’ve done 100 times before. Yup, that’s right, we have to talk about it!

Adult film star Stormy Daniels, who is involved in an ongoing legal dispute with President Donald Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen, was arrested early Thursday morning at a strip club in Columbus, Ohio, according to her lawyer, Michael Avenatti. Police say Daniels touched patrons while performing onstage, which is a violation of Ohio state law. She was charged on three misdemeanor counts.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, posted a $6,054 bail on Thursday and was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday morning, July 13, according to court records. The charges against Daniels were subsequently dropped Thursday afternoon, according to Avenatti.

Police said undercover cops witnessed Daniels violating Ohio’s Community Defense Act. The law says that nude employees cannot touch or be touched by patrons other than family members while on the premise of a “sexually oriented” establishment where they appear on regular basis. The Columbus Dispatch found that the law is rarely enforced.

Avenatti believes that Daniels’s arrest was a part of an elaborate “sting operation.” Daniels is suing Trump for defamation following comments he made after revelations of an alleged affair between the two went public.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/12/17564084/stormy-daniels-arrested-ohio-michael-avenatti-setup

Yeah BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So the question is – was this a political setup or not? That’s where the #Civility question comes into play. I mean come on if you go to a strip club and you don’t get motorboated, you fail at life! At least make it rain, man! Not rainman, sir! And you are at a strip club called “Sirens” you know there’s got to be cops that hang out there on a daily basis!

Ohio prosecutors dropped charges against Stormy Daniels on Thursday — hours after she was cuffed for allegedly violating an arcane state law by “smacking” an undercover cop’s face “with her bare breasts” during a performance, authorities said.

The 39-year-old porn star — who is suing President Trump in a case involving an alleged tryst — was arrested while performing at the Sirens strip club in Columbus on Wednesday night.

Less than 10 hours later, Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted the charges had been tossed “in their entirety.”

Prosecutor Joseph Gibson confirmed to the Daily News he had granted Avenatti’s motion to dismiss the charges, which were filed under Ohio’s little-enforced Community Defense Act.

Avenatti previously said his client, who was paid $130,000 by Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen to keep mum about allegedly sleeping with the President in 2006, was arrested while “performing the same act she has performed across the nation at nearly a hundred strip clubs.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-stormy-ohio-071218-story.html

Yeah… excuse me a minute… it was kind of like that! I mean really you bought the ticket, you attended the show, what did you expect was going to happen at a strip club? I mean I’ve been to a few of these in my life, I knew what to expect. But here’s where it gets weird.

Politics did not play a role in the arrest of porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to the head of the police union in Ohio’s capital city where Daniels was briefly charged with interacting too closely with patrons who turned out to be undercover police officers.

Officers applied an illegal sexual contact law indiscriminately at Sirens night club during a performance, arresting two other women in addition to Daniels, said Jason Pappas, head of the FOP Capital City Lodge #9.

“The suggestion that this is politically motivated is absolutely untrue,” Pappas said Friday.

Prosecutors on Thursday dropped charges against the porn star hours after she was accused of illegally rubbing undercover police officers’ faces against her bare breasts during her performance.
http://time.com/5338760/police-politics-stormy-daniels-porn-trump-ohio/

Because of course they didn’t! But they did, or did they? I mean this is the Trump administration we’re talking about here. You know somewhere there’s a kid asking their parents right now “Mommy what’s a golden shower?” or “what does grab them by the pussy mean?”. So much better than her e-mails. Back on topic this might be the strangest thing about the arrest is that it is paying attention to all the strange laws the stripping and exotic dancing community has to follow.

The recent arrest of Stormy Daniels during a performance at the Sirens gentlemen’s club in Columbus, Ohio, started with a dropped bikini top and ended with dropped charges. Undercover city detectives — some female — took it upon themselves to come to the club where Daniels was performing, tip her and a few other dancers, then arrest the women for violating local statutes that forbid contact between strip club dancers and patrons. Daniels, specifically, was cited for some brief fondling as well as drawing the detectives’ face between her breasts and shaking them. Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like: motorboating as legally actionable offense.

In many strip clubs around the country, it’s commonplace for a dancer to offer a customer a quick hug, squeeze or cleavage snuzzle as a thank-you for a tip. (I’m so tempted to make a tit-for-tat pun right now. Stripper Jesus, stay my hand.) Whether it’s considered legal or not varies from municipality to municipality. Arbitrariness is the lay of the land. When it comes to strip club regulations, ’twas ever thus.

Upon news of Daniels’ arrest, former exotic dancer and headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, Jo Weldon, started some rollicking threads on Twitter and Instagram inviting exotic dancers, past and present, to share the most ridiculous regulations they’ve encountered in their work.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-burana-stormy-daniels_us_5b48f0cae4b0bc69a7870bcd

Now all the stupidity of this arrest and the absurdity of #Civility, it’s not going to stop Stormy from performing her act, even in Ohio where the arrest took place! I mean you can’t keep a good stripper down!

Stormy Daniels, who has made headlines for her alleged affair with President Donald Trump, was arrested Wednesday night after allowing patrons of a gentleman's club touch her.

Daniels is still expected to appear at a Wayne gentleman's club in August.

Michael Avenatti, Daniel's attorney claimed the arrest in Columbus, Ohio was "politically motivated" and "reeks of desperation."

"She was arrested for allegedly allowing a customer to touch her while on stage," Avenatti later tweeted, adding: "They are devoting law enforcement resources to sting operations for this? There has to be higher priorities."

Daniels' Thursday night performance will go on as schedules despite her arrest.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/11/stormy-daniels-perform-strip-club-wayne-nj/774358002/

[font size="8"]Top 10 Investigates: Micro Cheating
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It’s time to investigate beyond the headlines. This is Top 10 Investigates!

If you’re in a relationship, whether it’s a short term relationship or a long term relationship, or you’re married or single, you probably don’t think about the number of ways that relationship could end. But as it turns out, it could end way faster than you would think. Because as new science and research has pointed out, there’s plenty of possible ways a relationship could end. This is the new concept and phenomenon known as “micro cheating”. Here’s how this is defined.

Have you heard about the latest trendy term that's sparking quite an uproar on the Internet? It is yet another form of cheating we should all be informed about, no matter your relationship status. And while the last thing I want to be is the bearer of bad news, I encourage you to keep reading so you, too, can be well-versed on the ins and outs of micro-cheating.

So what exactly is micro-cheating?

Australian psychologist and consultant Melanie Schilling recently defined micro-cheating as "a series of seemingly small actions that indicate a person is emotionally or physically focused on someone outside their relationship."

According to Schilling, this form of infidelity essentially stems from secrecy and deception. It ultimately comes down to trivial behaviors that might indicate your partner is no longer totally committed to your relationship.

Or, as Urban Dictionary defined this term back in 2008: "when someone cheats on a partner, but just a little bit."
https://www.popsugar.com/love/What-Micro-Cheating-44506759

But is it creeping? Is it cheating? Or is it a combination of the above? Most likely it is a combination of all of the above. But you could be cheating and not know it. In fact there’s a whole list of warning signs of the possibility of micro cheating. Apparently you could be guilty of it and not know it.

It's called "micro-cheating": the small, seemingly innocuous acts of flirtation that don't necessary qualify as cheating but might be considered a little sketchy by your partner.

Many of us have experienced flirtatious relationships with friends and never acted on them sexually. Are these friendships signs of infidelity? Should you be worried if your significant other is attracted to someone else? Or could a little harmless flirtation actually be good for your relationship?

Flirtation is normal, sex therapist Tammy Nelson said. "Why shut down your natural feelings of attraction for someone just because you are in a monogamous relationship with someone else?" she asked. "You might be married, but you're not dead."

A flirty friendship could help feed the flames of your relationship, but it depends on the couple. "In some cases, flirting outside the relationship enhances the primary relationship, and in other cases, it siphons energy from the primary relationship," marriage and family therapist Nicolle Zapien explained. The key is to know your partner and to communicate about the friendship before it becomes a problem in your relationship.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/health/flirty-friend-relationship-sex-kerner/index.html

This is where you might start to actually question whether or not this is a thing. Seriously, if you think about it – James Bond is a notorious micro cheater. Especially on Moneypenny. But how do you know, would you believe there are warning signs? Why yes there are warning signs!

We spend a lot of time with our colleagues. In fact, we probably spend more time with the people we work with than almost anyone else. Since you're likely also surrounded by people you have things in common with, it's not all that surprising that people fall in love at work.

Proximity is a funny thing. Research has found it takes around 200 hours for people to become close friends, because the more time you spend with someone, the more chance their positive and attractive qualities shine through. This is fine for people who are single, but if you're in a monogamous relationship and you start having feelings for someone at work, things can get messy.

In some cases, a work spouse relationship is born, where you share the trials and tribulations of the workplace with each other, have lunch together, and emotionally depend on one another. In other cases, the people involved may not have put strong boundaries in place, and they can start to behave inappropriately.

Monogamy is hard, according to Tammy Nelson, a consultant sex therapist for adult infidelity dating site Ashley Madison.
https://www.thisisinsider.com/are-you-falling-in-love-with-your-colleague-2018-7

Yes, monogamy is hard, although somehow we think Ashley Madison may not be the best person to ask on this subject. That would be like asking Trump about his love of fine dining. So apparently you can subtly cheat on your partner without knowing it. Even cheating on social media is still cheating.

Cheating: it's nothing new. It's the subject of some of the most popular books, TV shows and movies in America. Media typically depicts cheating as physical affairs, but WSFA recently spoke with a relationship expert about a different kind of beast.

"Micro-cheating" is on the rise, and it's a term for a series of seemingly small actions partners can do that could have whispers of infidelity— without even being physically unfaithful. This can include flirtatiously texting or messaging another person on social media. Thanks to online dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, it’s easier to connect with others, including people in committed relationships.

Reporter Rosanna Smith talked to Montgomery counselor Sandra Segall about the dangers of micro-cheating for couples, and the signs they should look for to know their significant other is being unfaithful, but we decided to dive deeper. We wanted to know what the third party, the person being cheated with, should do in the situation.

The obvious answer is, of course, to not get involved with someone in a committed relationship, and Segall, a licensed professional counselor, said as much, advising the person to find out if the person they are talking to is in a relationship before messaging them flirtatiously or dating them. According to the Associated Press and the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 22 percent of men say that they've cheated on their significant other at least once during their marriage, and 14 percent of wives admit to it.
http://www.wsfa.com/story/38516396/what-to-do-when-you-find-out-youre-the-other-person-in-a-cheating-relationship

So apparently James Bond cheats all the time. In fact Bond cheats so much his cheats have their own cheats. It’s cheating inception. But apparently even the so-called “experts” think this is 100% grade A bullshit:

Staying up to snuff on all of the newest dating trends and terminology can be super tricky, especially when it comes to certain gray areas that can be particularly hard to universally define, like micro-cheating. Upon first hearing the phrase used, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Even after one of my friends broke it down for me, I still found myself wondering, what is micro-cheating actually? And if it is what I think it is, is it really a legitimate form of infidelity? Well, the short answer is, it totally depends.

"Micro-cheating is inappropriate sexual flirtation via social media from someone who's already in a relationship, NYC relationship expert Susan Winter tells Elite Daily. "And, it may also be an in-person office flirtation that remains verbal, rather than physical."

However, the reason micro-cheating is not a black and white issue is because not everyone defines inappropriate behavior in the same way. Some people consider flirting with other people to be OK in certain situations as long as it doesn't turn into anything physical, or emotional. Oftentimes in relationships, partners don't take the time to specifically define behavior they would consider to be a breach of trust. According to Anita A. Chlipala, a dating expert and licensed marriage therapist, by not having conversations about what each one of us feels is or isn't OK, space is left open for a partner to make assumptions that may not be accurate.
https://www.elitedaily.com/p/what-is-micro-cheating-experts-explain-whether-not-this-really-counts-as-infidelity-9445074

So even the experts aren’t exactly clear on what this is. That’s it this week for Top 10 Investigates. Good day.

[font size="8"]Holy Shit

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Gather around, my fair brothers and sisters of New Orleans, it’s time to take a seat in the pew and pass the collection plate! For the Holy Church of the Top 10 has convened and it’s our weekly duty to remind you why the holiest among us are also the most full of:

My fair congregation, something afoul is afoot! For the Dark One, whose name I dare not speak, might be getting an upgrade to his crumbling administration! Yes, for a second justice has resigned from the highest court in the land. Meaning that the religious right is salivating over the prospect that they will now have the ability to eliminate rights and freedoms that people – mainly the fairer sex – have once had, and it is not a good thing!

Religious Right leaders have joined right-wing pundits and political activists in heaping praise on Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. Many praised Trump for following through on his campaign promise to pick judges from the list that was pre-approved by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society, which puts Americans’ access to health care, women’s ability to choose safe and legal abortion, and legal equality for LGBTQ Americans at risk.

Not surprisingly, the Heritage Foundation’s John Malcolm and Elizabeth Slattery called the choice “another home run” by Trump. Among other things, they praised a dissent in which Kavanaugh suggested that the Supreme Court may want to reconsider its holding in a 1935 case that upheld the constitutionality of independent agencies. They also defended Kavanaugh from a few right-wing critics who said he has not been aggressive enough in promoting the Religious Right’s opposition to abortion and its weaponized interpretation of religious liberty, saying that Kavanaugh “has been playing the long game to advance an understanding of the laws and Constitution that is faithful to the text and original meaning.”

National Review’s Jim Geraghty told conservatives, “Everybody you like loves this guy.”

Here are some excerpts from press statements and messages to activists.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-leaders-praise-trump-scotus-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/

Hey give it up for the Top 10 Gospel Choir – how great are they? Now you know that the cat is out of the bag on how they really feel – you know the Dark One could nominate Hitler and Satan to the Supreme Court and they would be praising how great their choices are. But now you’re going to hear some ridiculously stupid shit coming from the religious right. Yes, we’re allowed to swear in our church, ma’am! But what we are not allowed to say is the name of the Dark One! For he is the most evil being in the world right now! He is the devil incarnate!!! But that wasn’t even the craziest thing that was said!

Right-wing radio host Jesse Lee Peterson reported on his program yesterday that he has concerns about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court based on the fact that Kavanaugh is “a mama’s boy” and is not a “real man” because both of his children are girls.

Peterson said that while he trusts President Trump because “he has not been wrong yet about anything,” he does have concerns about the fact that Kavanaugh talked about his mother too much during his acceptance speech.

“During his speech, it was all about his mama,” Peterson complained. “He always love his mama. It was all about the impact that his mother had on his life while he was growing up, how she influenced him, even though he was raised by his father too. He gave this big old long speech about his mother and then, right at the end, he said, ‘Oh yeah, I love my daddy too.'”

“So that concerns me,” Peterson said. “He is a mama’s boy.”

“The other thing is he has no boys, he has only girls,” he continued. “Real men make boys first and I notice that most men are not real men anymore and they are making girls.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jesse-lee-peterson-brett-kavanaugh-is-a-mamas-boy-and-not-a-real-man/

Yeah I think the Dude answers that question better than you, Jesse! But apparently this appointment is the best one of the Dark One’s performances so far! Really do these people even hear themselves talking?

Right-wing political operative, author and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is calling President Trump’s Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh the president’s “best performance so far” and “an example of the way President Trump is brilliantly strategic on the issues that are really important.” Gingrich’s comments were made in an op-ed for Fox News and during an appearance on the network this week. Gingrich said he was in the White House just hours before the announcement to meet with Vice President Mike Pence and other officials, and that he had a chance to spend time with Kavanaugh.

“Since these appointments are for life,” Gingrich said, “President Trump’s influence on the federal court system will last decades beyond his time in office.”

Gingrich praised the remarks made by Kavanaugh at the White House announcement of his nomination as “professionally sound and unassumingly personable,” adding, “I couldn’t help but wonder how the Democrats are going to try to demonize this eminently likable man, who currently serves on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/newt-gingrich-kavanaugh-nomination-is-trumps-best-performance-so-far/

Yes, keep talking sinners! Because lying is a sin!! And it is a sin that is very clearly outlined in our good book right here! For which you can buy copies right after the show! And you can see for yourself where it clearly says that. I know which passage and verse they appear in! Not that passage, good sir! But you know with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Focus on the Family, the massive nonprofit organization that got the IRS to re-classify it as a church in order to avoid government regulation and, it claimed later, to protect the privacy of its donors, sent supporters an email on Friday morning praising Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and offering a “free resource” on the nominee. “On issues of religious freedom and free speech, among others, his court opinions and dissents portray a judge who deeply values our God-given rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” says Focus.

The “resource” is a webpage containing basic biographical information and a section on “What makes Kavanaugh a good prospect for the Supreme Court?” High on that list is his “originalist and textualist judicial philosophy.” Focus also notes that Kavanaugh has called the late right-wing Justice Antonin Scalia a “hero and a role model.”

“Originalism” is a judicial philosophy grounded in the belief that judges should interpret the language of the Constitution according to what they believe the document’s authors originally meant. Scalia was supposedly devoted to originalism—championed by the Federalist Society and all but mandatory for conservative judicial candidates to embrace—but applied it inconsistently in order to support his favored outcomes. Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, whose name is used as an epithet by right-wing judicial activists, eloquently denounced originalism in a 2010 commencement address at Harvard.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/focus-on-the-family-praises-kavanaugh-for-originalist-judicial-philosophy/

There you have it! Religious groups are now literally telling their parishoners which way to vote, so much for separation of church and state! But we are not an official church. Mass has ended, may you go in peace! That’s it this week for:

[font size="8"]John Schnatter
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It’s time once again to ask:

Papa John’s Pizza: How is this still a thing? Yes, the company founded by John Schnatter has been in quite a bit of trouble the over some of the founder’s remarks. You might remember when he denounced his employees’ right to health care while he lives in a giant mansion with a private golf course. Or you might remember when they became the official pizza of the Alt Right when Schnatter said some racist remarks about NFL players and anthem protests (see Top 10 #3-21 ). But this week it might have sent them over the edge.

John Schnatter—the founder and public face of pizza chain Papa John’s—used the N-word on a conference call in May. Schnatter confirmed the incident in an emailed statement to Forbes on Wednesday. He resigned as chairman of Papa John's on Wednesday evening.

The call was arranged between Papa John’s executives and marketing agency Laundry Service. It was designed as a role-playing exercise for Schnatter in an effort to prevent future public-relations snafus. Schnatter caused an uproar in November 2017 when he waded into the debate over national anthem protests in the NFL and partly blamed the league for slowing sales at Papa John’s.

On the May call, Schnatter was asked how he would distance himself from racist groups online. He responded by downplaying the significance of his NFL statement. “Colonel Sanders called blacks n-----s,” Schnatter said, before complaining that Sanders never faced public backlash.

Schnatter also reflected on his early life in Indiana, where, he said, people used to drag African-Americans from trucks until they died. He apparently intended for the remarks to convey his antipathy to racism, but multiple individuals on the call found them to be offensive, a source familiar with the matter said. After learning about the incident, Laundry Service owner Casey Wasserman moved to terminate the company’s contract with Papa John’s.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/07/11/papa-johns-founder-john-schnatter-allegedly-used-n-word-on-conference-call/#f125fe54cfc4

Yes, Papa John himself went full racist during an exercise in how to handle public relations events, which suggests that perhaps he didn’t quite get the message. And you never go full racist, even hardcore 1488 white supremacists know that. Shit, even Rand Paul knows that John Schnatter is a racist scumbag. And Rand Paul is also a racist scumbag.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Monday he would not return thousands of dollars in political donations from John Schnatter, who resigned from Papa John's last week after he admitted to using a racial slur.

"I think the language that was said to be used was unacceptable and should not be used, period," Paul said after telling the Courier Journal he would not return the donations.

The Kentucky Republican received $17,000 from Schnatter in political donations from 1996 to 2018, according to a Courier Journal analysis of the pizza baron's FEC filings.

"Perhaps we should ask the same question of all the media covering this story: Are any of the TV stations or newspapers going to give back the advertising money they have taken from Papa John's over the years?" said sokesperson Kelsey Cooper said in a statement.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/16/rand-paul-wont-return-papa-johns-schnatter-political-donation/788156002/

And that is certainly true. So how is Papa John’s Pizza still a thing if their founder is such a racist asshole and an overall horrible human being? Well even their board of directors is asking him to stop talking.

Papa John's continued to distance itself from founder John Schnatter over the weekend, prohibiting him from talking to the press, removing him from the pizza chain's advertising materials and revoking his office space at the company's headquarters.

"The company has specifically requested that Mr. Schnatter cease all media appearances, and not make any further statements to the media regarding the company, its business or employees," Papa John's said in a press release late Sunday.

The company created a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the ties between Papa John's and its founder after he admitted last week to using a racially charged slur during a May conference call.

The committee terminated Schnatter's "Founder Agreement," which designated him as the face of the company's advertising and marketing, and terminated his sublease agreement for office space at Papa John's Louisville, Kentucky, headquarters.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/16/papa-johns-further-distances-itself-from-founder.html

Yes, Papa John went there, and in this day and age, you most certainly cannot go there. Perhaps it’s time for the Papa John’s company to take a step back and retool its’ image. Even the University Of Louisville dropped their name from their stadium.

A week that began with reports that Papa John’s founder Papa “John” Schnatter somehow worked an overt hard-r racial slur into a conference call with a marketing company is ending with the removal of Schnatter’s name from virtually everything on which it had previously been emblazoned. There are only so many of these left at this point, but the University of Louisville announced on Friday that it would begin the work of prying Papa’s brand off their football stadium and, uh, The John H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise at the Louisville College of Business. He had already withdrawn from the school’s board of trustees on Wednesday, and had stepped down from the school’s Athletic Association back in April.
https://deadspin.com/louisville-removes-papa-johns-name-from-football-stadiu-1827586851

So Papa Johns lost their lucrative corporate sponsorship. And to even kick a man further when he’s down, the Papa John’s Corporation kicked him out of their Louisville headquarters and asked that he not talk to the press:

Papa John’s International Inc.’s board put further distance between the pizza chain and its outspoken founder, John Schnatter, for using a racial slur, agreeing to review all ties to him, evict him from the headquarters and remove him from all marketing materials.

A special committee of independent directors ordered the termination of a so-called founder’s agreement that designated Schnatter as the brand’s face and voice and is requesting he cease media appearances on behalf of the firm, the company said in a statement after a Sunday night board meeting. Though Schnatter resigned as chairman this month and no longer holds a formal management role, he remains on the board and still owns about 30% of the company’s shares.

Schnatter came under pressure after a media report that he used a racial slur and graphic descriptions of violence against minorities in a conversation with the company’s former media agency, Laundry Service. That was months after he exited the chief executive job over critical comments about the National Football League’s national-anthem controversy.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-papa-johns-schnatter-20180716-story.html

Which just goes to show you – in this day and age, maybe don’t say something racist. Even analysts are predicting that Papa Johns is better off without its’ key ingredient: Papa John.

Papa John's accepted Schnatter's resignation as chairman of the company's board on Wednesday and decided to no longer use his image in any of its advertising or marketing materials. However, Schnatter, who owns a 24 percent stake in Papa John's, remains on the company's board.

"This decision is the first of several key steps to rebuild trust from the inside-out," Ritchie said.

The company's next steps will include retaining an independent expert to audit its existing processes and policies surrounding diversity and inclusion and sending its senior management to its restaurants to hold listening sessions with employees.

"I will personally be leading this effort because there is nothing more important for Papa John’s right now," Ritchie said.
"We want to regain trust, though I know we need to earn it. We will demonstrate that a diverse and inclusive culture exists at Papa John’s through our deeds and actions."

Papa John's shares closed Friday at $53.55, recouping the losses it logged Wednesday, and then some. In the aftermath of the report, the stock hit a 52-week low of $47.80, but is now up about 4 percent for the week as a whole.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/papa-johns-is-not-an-individual-ceo-says-plans-diversity-audit-.html

Yes, in addition to racism and excess greed, Papa John himself thinks of diversity the same way that Ron Burgundy does. Which makes us think that the company is better off without him. That’s enough to make you ask – Papa John’s Pizza:

[font size="8"]The Alt Right
[br] [/font] [br]

So the Alt Right is finding out that its’ messages of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny aren’t exactly welcome in a society that is becoming more free and accepting of these things. Case in point – the Proud Boys. Yes, that group of winners was dining in the Top 10’s hometown of Los Angeles when they attracted unruly crowds on both sides, as was expected, and well, things got really ugly really quickly, as was expected.

Members of the far-right “Proud Boys” were chased out of a Los Angeles bar on Saturday by a group of democratic socialist protesters.

Video from the incident shows the left-wing activists shouting “No Proud Boys, no KKK, no fascist USA” at the group at L.A. bar The Griffin.

The L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) shared video of the incident on Twitter, in which their members and others from anti-gentrification group Defend North East Los Angeles can be heard chanting and yelling “F--- you fascist,” “Get out of here, Nazi” and “Facist pigs, squeal — you’re all swine.”

The Proud Boys are a far-right organization of men that was started by a former founder of Vice Media. They describe themselves as "western chauvinists" who "refuse to apologize for creating the modern world," according to their web site.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/397177-proud-boys-group-run-out-of-la-bar-by-democratic-socialists-calling

Hell yes it did. And like all things the Alt Right does, they’re quickly finding out that people might be really pissed off at them. But you know there’s crazy and then there’s Alt Right crazy. The difference is that they take your normal crazy and add racism and misogyny among other horrible traits. But here’s the thing about the right wing that you need to know – when you kick them down, they get right back up again. And yes, they are planning a 2nd Unite The Right rally.

Weeks until the anniversary of last year’s deadly “Unite the Right” demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., city officials said efforts are underway to keep a proposed “Unite the Right 2” next month from turning tragic.

Charlottesville officials discussed their plans for the proposed Aug. 12 protest during a public meeting held Thursday in anticipation of a federal judge ruling whether the rally occur can occur.

“We are preparing for worst-case scenarios, that’s our job,” said Andrew Baxter, Charlottesville’s fire chief, WVIR-TV reported. “My goal, my definition of success, will be on Monday, August 13, that the community says to us, ‘you guys were too prepared.’”

Charlottesville resident Jason Kessler, a 34-year-old white nationalist activist who organized last year’s “Unite the Right,” sued the city in March for refusing to let him hold a protest on the event’s anniversary. His case is currently pending in Charlottesville federal court, and a hearing has been set for July 24 regarding whether the city should be forced to grant him a permit, potentially giving officials fewer than three weeks to prepare.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/14/charlottesville-braces-worst-weeks-until-unite-rig/

Yes so the Alt Right sends out their best… um… lawyers to deal with the situation. I thought these people hated trial lawyers, did they not? I mean who wants to go hear a bunch of semi-patriotic yahoos who carry around pocket versions of the Constitution yet couldn’t recite one article from it scream about how much they hate everyone who’s not a MAGAhole? Let these assholes speak to empty rooms and eventually they’ll go away. But no…

Jason Kessler, the far-right activist who organized last year’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counter-protester was killed, said that he thought people “need to separate the alt-right” from real-life events like his upcoming Unite the Right anniversary rally because those people “aren’t used to being out of the internet.”

It was reported yesterday that Kessler and other white nationalist and militia groups had signed consent decrees in which they agreed to discourage “paramilitary activity” in Charlottesville so that they could resolve a lawsuit stemming from last year’s rally. The same day, he also appeared on the alt-right podcast “The Public Space” hosted by white nationalist Jean-François Gariépy, to who Kessler suggested that many alt-right people are ill-equipped to behave properly at “in real life” events such as his rally because their activism largely takes place on the internet.

Gariépy asked Kessler to explain why he is “talking about collaborating with the police, collaborating with the secret services” for his “Unite the Right 2” anniversary rally in D.C., and whether he believed there was merit to accusations that he “encourages people to find themselves in situations where they will get doxed.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jason-kessler-tells-alt-right-activists-to-stay-away-from-neo-nazis-at-unite-the-right-2/

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Wait. So you’re telling me that the Alt Right and Neo Nazis shouldn’t mix and that they should welcome doxing? Ok I want whatever brand of Covfefe these guys are smoking. Because this is some truly fucked up logic here. The alt right and the neo Nazis actually have a lot in common. You would think these guys would make natural allies. But here’s where it gets weird. So the good news – they can’t carry guns.

Jason Kessler on Thursday promised to be active in discouraging organized, armed groups from returning to Charlottesville, casting doubt on his ability to hold an anniversary Unite the Right rally this August.

Kessler and Redneck Revolt, an anti-fascist group, signed consent decrees this week, resolving a lawsuit brought by Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

The lawsuit sought to prevent nearly two dozen white nationalist groups, militia groups and their leaders from paramilitary activity at demonstrations in Charlottesville.

Kessler and Redneck Revolt were the only two defendants remaining. Under the 19 consent decrees and four additional default judgments expected to be entered by the court, the other defendants already have agreed not to engage in paramilitary-like activity in the city.
https://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/unite-the-right-organizer-jason-kessler-anti-fascist-group-agree/article_4ab46fa6-decf-527a-ae93-dda5f07fccdf.html

So yeah Unite The Right 2: Electric Boogaloo Die Harder is going to be kind of like that. And how is it going to play out? Only time will tell!!!

The lead organizer of the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was the last defendant to enter into a consent decree, in which he promised not to facilitate organized, armed paramilitary activity at any future rallies in the city.

The decree permanently prohibits Jason Kessler and the others who signed from participating in militias, alt-right organizations and protests in Charlottesville.

The lawsuit was brought against protestors on behalf of the city, local businesses and neighborhood associations for organizing an armed rally.

Redneck Revolt, which describes itself as an “anti-racist, anti-fascist community defense formation,” also entered into a consent decree earlier this week.
http://www.nbc12.com/story/38631034/unite-the-right-organizer-vows-not-to-repeat-violence-in-charlottesville

[font size="8"]I Need A Drink

[br] [/font] [br]

Hey New Orleans, I really need a drink!

And man do I need a drink this week. So you know the idea of this is where we get have some drinks and talk about anything in the news as long as it doesn’t relate to politics because, let’s face it, there’s some pretty dark shit in the news right now. So if you’re between drinks right now this is the perfect time to order another round or two! And it got really dark really quickly. Plus I’m in a city where booze flows freely by the way, is it safe to say that? So tell me bartender, what goes well with a rented DVD? A bottle of Bud Dry? That hasn’t existed as long as… OK fine, fuck it. I’ll just take my usual Jack Daniels mixed with Jack Daniels. I call it the “Double Jack”. So a very sad thing happened last week in Alaska. Let’s explain further.

Two Blockbuster video stores are closing in Alaska, leaving just one left in the United States.

A couple franchise outlets in Alaska famously continued to survive long after the parent company of the formerly ubiquitous national chain folded. They were long bolstered by nostalgia as well as remote communities with a lack of high-speed Internet access for streaming video. But now they’re both shutting their doors for the last time Sunday night, the AP reported.

“These are the last two Blockbuster stores in Alaska that survived and it is sad to say goodbye to our dedicated customers,” the managers posted on Facebook. “We have thought of you as family for the past 28 years … Thank you for sticking by us throughout all these years. I can’t tell you how much it means to us. We hope to see you at our stores during the closing, even if it’s just to say ‘Hello.’ What a great time to build your media library and share some Blockbuster memories with us.
We will miss all of you!”
http://ew.com/movies/2018/07/13/blockbuster-video-stores-closing/

Yes that probably is not a wise investment, Randy, as there is only one last Blockbuster Video in America and it’s in Bend, Oregon. Which makes us wonder – hey what happened to all that crazy movie memorabilia John Oliver bought a while back?

Try as he might, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver will not be known as the man who single-handedly saved Blockbuster.

Back in April, Oliver bought a number of items from Russell Crowe’s divorce auction, including a leather jockstrap from the film Cinderella Man. Pledging to donate the items to a worthy cause, Oliver zeroed in on two of the last remaining Blockbusters, located in Alaska, promising that if one of them contacted the show, they could display the memorabilia in their store.

Unfortunately, the attempted publicity stunt didn’t do the trick and the two Alaska Blockbusters are due to close next week, leaving just one Blockbuster in the entire U.S. The stores, located in Fairbanks and Anchorage, will officially close on Monday, July 16. The last remaining Blockbuster store is located in Bend, Oregon.
http://fortune.com/2018/07/13/blockbuster-video-oregon-john-oliver/

Excuse me a minute… And here’s where it gets weird. See, gone are the days when you would actually get in your car and drive to a Blockbuster Video to rent a DVD. Only to find there’s nothing good and then you get back in the car and drive home. Now you can just push a button and have these movies available to you instantly. The really fucked up thing in this day and age is that the last Blockbuster in America has actually seen a resurgence!

A man parked his motorcycle on the sidewalk Saturday morning, ruining the aesthetic of the last remaining Blockbuster in the contiguous United States.

“You can’t park there,” general manager Sandi Harding told the man as he walked into the store in Bend, Ore. “People are trying to take pictures.”

The man paused for a beat. There was confusion in his response.

“Trying to take pictures?”

Somehow he had missed the past decade, when Blockbuster the video rental behemoth became Blockbuster the fallen victim of modernity.

In 2004, at the company’s peak, 9,000 Blockbuster outlets studded city blocks and suburban strip malls nationwide, a onetime indelible fixture of the family movie night. But soon after, Netflix, Redbox and the cold march of digital progress eroded the customer base at each store.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/07/14/why-are-you-still-here-inside-the-last-blockbuster-left-in-america/?utm_term=.8979837bce6f

Yeah remember when they would pick like the most bland, G-rated, boring, unoffensive movie to show on the TV monitors? Like Air Bud or Babe: Pig In The City? Although somehow I don’t think Ted would be the movie I would choose, but if you have no customers, fuck it! I mean come on even Arnold jokes about the end of Blockbuster Video!

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a frequent critic of President Trump, takes fresh aim at his fellow Republican in a new video in which he mocks Trump’s efforts to save the coal industry, saying it makes no more sense than protecting Blockbuster video-rental stores.

The three-minute video opens with Schwarzenegger, an actor well known for his time-traveling title role in “The Terminator” movie series, lecturing a Trump bobblehead.

“So President Trump, I know you really want to be an action hero, right?” Schwarzenegger says. “So take it from the Terminator, you’re only supposed to go back in time to protect future generations. But your administration attempts to go back in time to rescue the coal industry, which is actually a threat to future generations.”

“It is foolish to bring back laughable, outdated technology to suit your political agenda,” Schwarzenegger continues. “I mean, what are you going to bring back next? Floppy disks? Fax machines? Beanie Babies? Beepers? Or Blockbuster? Think about it. What if you tried to save Blockbuster?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-new-video-arnold-schwarzenegger-ask-trump-what-is-next-after-saving-coal-bringing-back-blockbuster-video-stores/2018/06/28/06bb942a-7af2-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html?utm_term=.baa415926cad

[font size="8"]Deep State Diaries Episode 5: The USDA
[br] [/font] [br]

It’s time for episode 5 of Deep State Diaries. Yes we’re touring the 24 branches and services that make up the United States government. Everything from the FBI to the IRS to the Pentagon to the CIA to the DPW to the DVA to parks and recreation and all branches and services in between. Of course if you’re here you probably already know more about our government and how it works than your average Fox News loving Trump supporter does. So that’s what this segment is going to address. We are going to do a deep dive into all that makes the United States the United States. Because we here at the Top 10 love to educate as well as entertain. Because we care.

[font size="6"]The USDA[/font]

This week we’re going to take a look at how our meat is processed. Not that kind of meat, sir. Go ahead, let all of the jokes out! I’ll just sit here and finish my second double Jack & Jack. I mean come on if you’re going to talk shit about how big your meat is, whip it out! Don’t be shy! You won’t get arrested for public nudity. This is New Orleans! What happens in NOLA, stays in NOLA, am I right about that? OK let’s get back to business here, we got Slightly Stoopid waiting. They’re on a huge tour right now and I’m sure they’d like to get back to it. Back on track. The US Department Of Agriculture oversees the American farming industry. And right now we are in a state with a lot of farms, isn’t that right, Louisiana? But they oversee how all of our domestic animal and vegetable products are produced. To take a look at what they do exactly, let’s see how they are monitoring our fruits that are produced in states like my home state of California.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decreased its estimates for California and Texas orange production.

The California orange forecast is 44 million boxes, down 1% from the USDA’s June projection. The Texas orange forecast is 1.88 million boxes, down 11% from June.

The estimate for California valencias has been lowered 5% to 9 million boxes, on par with last season.

The forecast for California navels is steady at 35 million boxes, which is down 11% from the 2016-17 season.

While USDA lowered its estimate for Texas oranges, 1.88 million boxes still represents a 37% gain from last season.
https://www.thepacker.com/article/usda-lowers-forecast-california-texas-citrus

He does kind of look orange doesn’t he? Anyway getting back on topic, and speaking of Trump, who did he nominate to lead this department? After all they do get a cabinet position, and on America’s Next Top President, that position will get quickly eliminated!

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln adjunct professor was nominated by President Donald Trump on Monday to become Undersecretary for Agricultural Research, Education and Economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Scott Hutchins, an adjunct in the Entomology Department at UNL, would oversee the Agricultural Research Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Economic Research Service and the National Agricultural Statistics Service as the USDA's chief scientist.

The current global leader of integrated field sciences for Corteva Agriscience, the agricultural division of DowDuPont, Hutchins lives in Carmel, Indiana.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Auburn, a master's degree from Mississippi State as well as a Ph.D. from Iowa State, and was the president of the Entomological Society of America in 2007.

Professor Gary Brewer, head of UNL's Entomology Department, said Hutchins is "a great strategic planner" with professional development expertise, conducting workshops and planning sessions for the department.
https://www.mdjonline.com/neighbor_newspapers/extra/news/unl-adjunct-tapped-by-trump-to-be-usda-s-top/article_9c067ea2-a8f5-5348-a535-e7c562c5c69a.html

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/

Wow. Just… wow. Just like everything he nominates, Trump manages to pick the absolute worst candidates for the job! I mean the current head of the USDA used to run a giant chemical company that, I don’t know, poisoned agriculture! That would be like nominating the iceberg to lead America’s boating industry! Straight ahead! Cling clang!!! I mean come on, they’re thinking of getting rid of bees! Bees for damn sake!

Bee populations in North America have been in decline since the 1940s. This is of great concern to the agriculture industry because about 75 percent of specialty crops depend on the services of pollinators – of which bees are the most economically important.

In the United States, honey bees and native bees are the most economically important species contributing approximately $15 billion in crop value. USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) invests in research to investigate the reasons for the declining populations, promote pollinator health, reduce honey bee colony losses, and restore pollinator habitats.

Since 2008, NIFA has invested about $49 million in grants on research, education, and extension programs that address bee health. Among these is Michigan State University’s Integrated Crop Pollination project, where researchers and extension specialists have developed sustainable pollination strategies for both wild and managed bees. One of their successes was to develop landscape models to identify where best to establish native plants to enhance crop pollination, such as marginal soil sites near pollinator-dependent crops. Another project went to the University of Maryland, where researchers, extension specialists, and beekeepers refined and validated best management practices to minimize losses from pests and diseases.
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2018/07/17/nifa-funded-research-aims-keep-bees-job

You know what before we go we should definitely take a look at what the USDA is doing to help the bee population. This is about as evil as it gets. You might as well appoint Homer Simpson to be head bee guy.

Over the last half-decade, nearly a third of the North American bee population has disappeared. New research suggests in some parts of the United States, climate change could be the reason bee populations continue to shrink.

To better understand how global warming affects bee health, scientists from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden exposed bee nests in Arizona to a variety of temperatures. Researchers altered the temperatures by painting the nests black, white and clear.

Black paint caused the nests to absorb more of the sun's energy, replicating the region's future climate, should temperatures continue to rise unabated. The black paint effectively fast-forwarded to the climate of the years 2040 to 2099.

White paint caused the hives to reflect heat, taking bees back in time to climate conditions similar to those observed in the 1950s. Clear paint worked as a control.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/06/28/Study-links-shrinking-bee-population-climate-change/9501530188908/

Damn it!!!!

[font size="6"]Score Card [/font]

Overall importance: B
How Things Are Going: C
Likely hood To Survive: B

Overall: B

[font size="6"]Next Week [/font]

Next week we are going to show you more of the food world as we visit the Food & Drug Administration!

[font size="8"]And Now This:[/font]
[font size="8”]Slightly Stoopid[/font]

Ladies and gentlemen, returning to our fine program, is none other than San Diego’s biggest stoner rock band. They have a new album out called “Everyday Life, Everyday People” and you can see them on the School’s Out For Summer tour running through August! Playing their song “If You Want It”, give it up for Slightly Stoopid!

New Orleans, this was an awesome experience! I love you guys! We’ll be back soon! We are off to Kansas City next! See you next week!

Credits

Host: Initech
Top 10 Conservative Idiots Recorded In Front Of Live Audience At: Café Istanbul, New Orleans, LA
Special Thanks To: Café Istanbul Management
Top 10 Gospel Choir: Holy Foursquare Church Choir, Shreveport, Louisiana
Images: All images copyright belongs to respective copyright holders.
Videos: All videos copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Articles: All article content copyright belongs to respective copyright holders
Writing: Top 10 Writing Department
Graphics: Top 10 Graphics Department
Research: Top 10 Research Department
Lighting & Stage Props: Top 10 Lighting Department
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Initech’s Wardrobe Provided By: JAB Inc.
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Slightly Stoopid Appear Courtesy Of: Stoopid Records
Management: Initech Productions, CCC Management
Follow The Top 10 On Twitter at: @10Idiots
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Hate mail? E-mail The Top 10 at: Top10ConIdiots@gmail.com

Initech Productions: Yes, We Got The Memo

July 16, 2018

Top 10 Quick Takes: Proud Boys Gathering In LA Gets Ugly

Los Angeles police were called to an altercation at a neighborhood bar in Atwater Village on Saturday that stemmed from a gathering of members or supporters of a known hate group.

Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” men’s club that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group, were patronizing The Griffin on Los Feliz Boulevard on Saturday night, when word began spreading of the group’s presence.

Many of them were wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats and black polo shirts trimmed in yellow stripes from the Fred Perry fashion label, garments commonly associated with the group (the Fred Perry brand has distanced itself from the association).

<snip>

LAPD officers were called to the bar at 10:35 p.m., in response to a report of “large groups fighting at the 3000 block of Los Feliz Boulevard,” said Officer Rosario Herrera.

“When officers arrived they advised both parties to leave the location, both agreed and there was no report taken at that time,” Herrera told L.A. Taco.

There were no arrests.

Cell phone video shot on Saturday shows a uniformed LAPD officer standing in a crowd of patrons and staff inside the bar, where the lights were turned on. A crowd in the background is chanting, “No Proud Boys, No KKK, no fascist USA.” An unidentified man in a black T-shirt and black-and-gold baseball cap can be seen flashing the ‘OK’ sign with both of his hands to someone off camera — a gesture whose origins the Anti-Defamation League has traced to a “white power” meme born on the online forum 4chan.

In another video, filmed outside the bar, a young man standing in a group of men wearing “MAGA” hats and black and gold-trimmed polo shirt is heard arguing with someone off camera, saying: “… and Irish people were slaves just like the f-cking black people. I don’t wanna hear that f-cking shit.”
http://www.lataco.com/proud-boys-gathering-at-atwater-bar-the-griffin-draws-protests-police-possible-mom-no-arrests/

Fuck the Proud Boys. GTFO out of California.

July 15, 2018

Preview For This Week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/1018255780838035458

Oh the humanity!!!!!!!!

*audience laughs and applauds*

This week - the Top 10 is live in New Orleans and it's gonna be a rager! We break down the Peter Strzok hearing, recap all the madness from Trump's London visit, introduce America's Next Top SCOTUS Justice, tell you about the latest Mueller indictments, Alex Jones is the go to guy on internet censorship, and we have more Profiles In #Civility. Plus in our weekly investigative piece, Top 10 Investigates, we're going to take a look at something called "Micro Cheating" - are you guilty of it? And in our weekly visit to the Holy Church Of The Top 10 in "Holy Shit", our resident pastor is going to tell you some of the more insane ramblings from the Christian right about SCOTUS. Also we ask how Papa John's is still a thing, and the Alt Right is planning Charlottesville 2: Electric Boogaloo Die Harder. We've also got a new installment of "I Need A Drink" in which we get drunk and discuss the end of Blockbuster Video. And we've got the next installment of Deep State Diaries in which we find out how our meat is processed as we tour the USDA. Plus some live music from Slightly Stoopid!

Top 10 Conservative Idiots: Wednesdays at 2:00 PM /shameless self promotion

July 12, 2018

Top 10 Quick Takes: Trump Is A Stable Genius II

President Trump called himself a “very stable genius” again on Thursday while discussing his social media habits after the NATO summit in Brussels.

Trump was asked during a press conference if he will take to his Twitter page while boarding Air Force One and send out his own comments after meeting with international leaders.

“No, that’s other people that do that,” Trump said. “I don’t. I’m very consistent.”

“I’m a very stable genius,” the president added.

Trump during the press conference also said NATO allies have agreed to "substantially up" their dense spending after his frequent criticism, adding that he will raise the issue of election meddling when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Foreign leaders, however, denied that NATO members will increase spending beyond previously set goals.

Trump in January defended his mental fitness for office, calling himself a “very stable genius” and “like, really smart.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/396628-trump-calls-himself-a-stable-genius

Well you know what they say about repeating the lie long enough...

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About Top 10 Idiots

This is the official DU account for the new format Top 10 Conservative Idiots separate from the host account Initech. The new format Top 10 will launch June 13th, 2018 and all posts related to the Top 10 (promos, etc) will be posted from this account only. The Top 10 is posted once a week on Thursdays at 2:00 PM. There is a full archive of all past, present and future Top 10 editions that can be found here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218599098\ Announcements for our current season schedule are posted in our Best Of editions that appear at the end of each season. Updates are posted regularly on the official Top 10 Mastodon account and the official Holy Shit Mastodon account. The Mastodon accounts are used to announce what's going to be in next week's edition, new content, advertising our segments, and so on. This account will post official Top 10 editions, and any related content including our spinoff series: Holy Shit The Sunday Sermons. If you wish to contact the Top 10 you may do so here: E-mail (all questions, concerns, suggestions, and hate mail welcome): Top10ConIdiots@gmail.com Follow the Top 10 on Mastodon: Top10ConIdiots@mstdn.party Follow The Holy Church Of The Top 10 on Mastodon: ChurchOfTop10@mstdn.party **This account will ONLY be used to post official Idiots editions, promos, and things related to the Top 10. No other posts will come from this account** Top 10 Wiki: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211322508

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