SAY WHAT?

INTEL REPORT--Ken Burns has no patience for the people who pick apart his documentaries without having ever watched them. He’s talking about the eggheads, the “third- and fourth-rate academics,” the journalist sitting across from him in a French-American bistro in Manhattan, whom he accuses — falsely, I can report, since that journalist is me — of having prepared by Googling “controversy.”

‘WANTS TO BE FAIR’--Journalist Ronan Farrow hit the morning news circuit on Monday to support hisexplosive report of a second woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughof sexual assault.

Farrow, whose article with Jane Mayer was published Sunday in The New Yorker, stood firm amid attacks on his work and said the story Deborah Ramirez told about Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her at a party when they were Yale students “exceeds the evidentiary basis we’ve used in the past in several cases that were found to be very credible.”

There’s a “fairly high level of evidence for this kind of a case” to be published, Farrow said on CNN’s “New Day.”  

INTEL REPORT--I chuckle every time I hear it — which is every day, lately. “Denmark isn’t socialism! France isn’t socialist!! There’s no socialism in Europe!” So say American elites — pundits, columnists, usually men with earnest glasses. Have they been smoking too much capitalism?

They’re reacting to the dire prospect of socialism like priests who just met the devil — only the devil was busy saving souls from hell. They don’t quite know what to do with that. How to process it. They don’t even understand, funnily enough, just like those priests, whether or not to even call it “the devil” anymore. Hence: “Nothing’s socialism!! Nope!!” — how else to square the prospect of socialism rising amongst young Americans, except by denying it exists? “That’s not the devil!! — that’s just another cowboy!!” 

INTEL REPORT--For a just-published profile of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the New Yorker’s Paige Williams got spotty cooperation. As it turns out, Sanders treats profile writers much the way she treats the press in her increasingly rare briefings. With a meddling touch, that is. Writes Williams: “Sanders may accept that she can’t control the questions she is asked, but she nevertheless tries to take control of every exchange. In her interactions with me, she took this approach to extremes, saying that almost everything was off the record.” 

INTEL REPORT--Speaking at the Global Climate Action Conference in San Francisco today, Michael Bloomberg made the following comment about anti-fossil fuel activists outside the event: “We’ve got environmentalists protesting an environmental conference. It reminds me of people who want to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep people out from a country we go to for vacations. Something’s crazy here.” In response, Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued the following statement:

INTELLIGENCE REPORT--Three years ago, federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to several of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez’s aides, instructing them to appear before a federal grand jury to discuss her 2015 re-election campaign. 

INTEL REPORT--Senator John McCain was a powerhouse in American politics. His legacy is far reaching and impacts every facet of civil life in our country. I didn’t always agree with him, especially on matters of foreign policy, but Americans always knew where he stood on the issues; and one always trusted that he arrived at his opinions by way of thoughtful analysis, battled tested experience, and a sense of personal integrity that transcended party lines. This week of national mourning is appropriate in light of his tremendous influence. 

INTEL REPORT--It might be time for DJ Omarosa Manigault Newman to drop another mixtape as it seems her books sales are fading faster than her political career.

According to the Washington Post, the sales of Omarosa’s  Unhinged, a memoir of her time in Trump’s White House, have fallen some 40 percent since the book debuted. 

While rich companies like Walmart and Target are enjoying huge profit boosts, most American workers have seen their wages decline over the past several months—a fact that undermines Trump and the GOP's glowing assessment of the U.S. economy (Photo: Noah Berger/Reuters)

Just days after an alarming study by the Urban Institute found that nearly half of the American public can't afford basic necessities like food, healthcare, and housing, new Commerce Department data released on Wednesday showed that corporate profits are soaring to new heights thanks in large part to President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cuts.

Back in January, the controversial cryptocurrency Tether (USDT), “anchor[ed] to the price of national currencies like the U.S. dollar, the Euro, and the Yen,” as its website puts it, found itself in the midst of an existential crisis. For months, concerns had been circulating in the media and in online forums that something was off. The company that produced the coin, Tether Limited, had promised since its inception that for each unit it created on the blockchain, one actual U.S. dollar would be held in reserve. But in August 2017, a blogger on Hackernoon.com who goes by Bitfinex’ed started raising questions about whether Tether was really sitting on all those greenbacks. If it wasn’t, the coin wouldn’t really be tethered at all.

POLITICS--A new anti-bullying program in Florida sounds so good on paper. The first of its kind in the nation, it gives public money to kids who have been victims of bullying and helps them attend private school. Florida Gov. Scott (R) touted it as an example of government stepping in to do good.

“Every child in Florida should have the opportunity to get a great education at the school of their choice so they can achieve their dreams,” Scott said in March upon signing the bill into law.

In his second year in office, Donald Trump has almost doubled the number of lies he told in his first year. In June and July alone he was averaging 16 lies a day.

-cw

Fox News booked the wrong Democratic candidate. She had a lot to say!!

1)TSA screeners win immunity from abuse claims. Fliers may have difficult time recovering damages for an invasive screening, aka groping. A ruling claims under a federal law that governs assaults, false arrests and abuses, since TSA screeners are not investigative or law enforcement officers this law doesn't apply. During a pat down, should the agent suffer a sudden attack of uncontrollable hand wandering this scenario could play out. Passenger: "Hey watch it."  TSA Screener: "Oh Yeah, YOU watch it. I got immunity."  

1) Southwest Airlines announced plans to ban peanuts from their flights as of August first. Possible reasons. Pretzels are cheaper and not wanting a passenger to have an allergic reaction to peanuts. It's hard to believe a person, allergic to peanuts, would not know it and eat them for the first time on a plane. If flying without peanuts is simply unthinkable, you could bring your own with you until the TSA disallows them.

1) The FAA has declared it is not its job to regulate seat size or legroom on planes. This was in response to a lawsuit filed by the group Fliers Rights. Since 1978 seats have moved 3 inches closer. The width of seats is around 17 inches and seat pitch has been reduced from 35 to 31 and even as low as 28. With the seats, the legroom and that tiny bag of what may or may not be trail mix, ain't flyin' grand? According to a source, someone at the FAA said. "Hey!  You want a bigger seat and more leg room, save up and fly first class. 

1) To paraphrase Spock's "Live Long and Prosper" "To Live Long Drink Coffee." A research project in Britain involving a half million adult coffee drinkers showed that, over a ten year period, they had a slightly lower risk of death. In the past we knew drinking coffee didn't help to sober a person up. It just made them a wide awake drunk. Also, coffee might help keep a person awake longer. But this is new, the lower risk of death was the same for instant, ground or decaf. Lattes didn't do diddly.

2) These are troubling times for honeybees.

1) America's stockpile of cheese is at its highest in more than 100 years.The USDA reports that America has 1.385 billion lbs. of cheese.The reason is cows are producing too much milk. Milk is easier stored as cheese. In 1981 we had an excess of cheese and President Reagan ordered it given to the poor. He was derided for that except by the poor who received the cheese. They did no deriding. There is probably no way to get cows to reduce their milk production. They are notoriously stubborn and a bit slow.

1) Thousands of Swedes are having NFC chips implanted between their thumb and index finger.  The chips can function as contactless credit cards and key cards. These are the same microchips that have been used to track animals and packages. Should the chip malfunction or a programming error occur it might mean Bjorn Faltskog appears to be Rudy the Labrador Retriever, and he's lost and so, incidentally, is his package somewhere in Brazil. Bjorn's credit card transaction is denied and he wonders how and what Rudy ordered that is in a package making its way through Brazil.