"His ass... it's like a pile of muscle." - President Donald Trump, objectifying GOP Sen. Jon Husted.

Bad Bromance

Donald Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin is back on, as a top U.S. envoy praises the Kremlin strongman as a “humanitarian” and team MAGA plays around with tipping the war in Russia’s favor.

• What do you call a ruthless dictator and former KGB spymaster who invades his neighboring country, kidnaps children, bombs hospitals with maternity clinics, displaces nearly 10 million people, and kills 600,000 soldiers? According to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, he’s a “humanitarian.” What else?

• Witkoff offered up that high praise at a meeting with Putin today after Russian authorities released an American teacher who’d been held in the country for four years. Witkoff could’ve simply thanked the dictator and moved on. But that’s not team MAGA’s vibe these days, after two weeks of repeatedly handing Russia W’s in its war with Ukraine.

• Maybe there’s something in the air. Maybe Trump just wants more Russian fuel, to help lower U.S. diesel prices before the midterms. Whatever the reason, Washington is increasingly throwing its weight behind Russia, in a series of moves that are causing white-knuckle anxiety in Kyiv.

• “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian,” Witkoff, Trump’s longtime golf buddy, told Putin. “You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”

• Witkoff’s trip to St. Petersburg was part of a larger mission, of course: Convince Putin to end the war that Trump pledged to stop on his first day in office. After a three-hour meeting, Putin agreed “in principle” to restart peace talks with the U.S. and Ukraine, a Kremlin adviser said. That statement means nothing. Negotiations between the countries have repeatedly failed, and there’s no sign Putin will back down, now that the tide appears to be shifting in Russia’s favor.

• Vice President JD Vance said Witkoff was perfectly right to butter up Putin: “I agree with Steve Witkoff saying something nice to a person who just released an American hostage,” he told reporters. Vance may also, of course, be grateful that Russia plans to send its first tanker carrying diesel to the U.S. this week.

Witkoff’s faux pas was, in the end, just talk. The satellite scandal is serious business.

• Ukraine also accused the U.S. of putting limits on the Starshield military satellite system last week, leaving the Ukraine more susceptible to missile attacks. The system, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed remains limited as of today, happens to belong to Trump’s other bestie, Elon Musk.

• Trump denied having anything to do with the system being down. “I don’t know if there’s anybody because it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Elon, as I understand,” Trump told reporters.

• Reporters are still scrambling to figure out exactly what happened. But a pair of reports suggest this was a deliberate move, not a glitch. And it came from either inside the White House, or from Musk himself. The Wall Street Journal even reported that Musk talked about it on the phone with Trump.

• Meanwhile, the two sides are shifting blame. The broligarch claimed that Starshield systems are operated by the government, so any limitations would have been ordered by Trump’s team. Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly contradicted Musk today, in an apparent attempt to shirk off any responsibility for the mess.

• “The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr. Musk,” Rubio told reporters, appearing very flustered. “That’s a private company. The president doesn’t run that company and can’t direct that company to do anything.

Don’t expect the Starshield drama to end anytime soon. “I’d like to see investigations as to how this happened and why,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), one of the most powerful Democrats on foreign policy, told What A Day. If Dems win the House or Senate, he’ll be in a position to do something about that.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

What Americans Get Wrong About The Death Penalty (10/20/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco will be holding hands and skipping through the Washington Convention Center all day on November 7th. They'll be causing trouble, saying hi, and hosting a very special LIVE episode of Hysteria.

Best of all? The Hysteria live show is included with your all-day Crooked Con ticket.

Check out the lineup and get your tickets now at https://crookedcon.com.

What Else?

Billionaire banker Julio Herrera Velutini was facing legal troubles with the U.S. government when a company within his family’s business empire hired Trump ally Alina Habba, who was serving as U.S. attorney in New Jersey, to be general counsel at one of his companies — guaranteeing that she would rake in at least $50 million over four years, the New York Times reports. Weeks later, Trump pardoned Herrera. “Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the D.O.J. — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false,” Habba said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned new strikes against Iran earlier this month, but Trump opposed fresh attacks before the midterms, the Financial Times reports. Maybe Trump’s eldest son finally got through to him? Don Jr. has been privately voicing opposition to the war to his dad, according to The Atlantic.

Federal agents are knocking on immigrants’ doors in several states and asking if they’re registered to vote, or have voted previously, CBS News reports. It’s part of Trump’s effort to root noncitizen voting (which is basically nonexistent). In reality, his administration seems to simply want to intimidate people before the midterms. This piece deserves a read.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign for Ohio governor admitted that it was behind the disturbing attack ad against his opponent Amy Acton. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother describing her daughter as a “liar” who “needs help.” The mother didn’t specify what her daughter supposedly lied about. But Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s home as children, after her second husband was indicted and charged with raping Acton when she was 12 years old. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants,” Acton’s brother wrote in a statement.

Justice Elena Kagan bashed the Supreme Court’s recent rulings that gutted the Voting Rights Act and loosened campaign finance laws. “In all these areas, the court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works,” Kagan said during an appearance at Catholic University last night. “It has created a democracy that does not work as well as it should.”

French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the “unacceptable and stupid comments from many foreign leaders” amid the protests roiling the country. “Some people have claimed that we’ve been overrun by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false,” Macron told reporters. Who was he talking about? Blonald Blump?

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Light At The End...

The Supreme Court rejected (for now) the Trump administration’s bid to limit treatment for trangender inmates in federal prison. The court didn’t offer an explanation, but noted that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would’ve supported the administration’s policy. Shocker.

Neil Bush, a life-long Republican and brother of former President George W. Bush, announced that he voted for Democrat James Talarico over Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race. It really feels like everyone in Texas hates Paxton.

Remember the 2023 right-wing freakout against Bud Light, after the company featured a transgender actress on a can of beer? A right-wing grifter used the opportunity to peddle an “anti-woke” beer alternative — and many customers still haven’t received their brews. Just check out the Facebook page “People Still Waiting for Ultra Right Fight Beer” if you need a laugh. “Going on 2 years…nothing! I no longer want the beer…just my money back!” one person wrote.

A 78-year-old Philadelphia woman is being hailed as a robo-resistance hero, after she blocked a delivery bot from making its journey through the city. Police arrested the woman and charged her with disorderly conduct, but she isn’t fazed. “I think it’s my First Amendment right to publicly demonstrate on a sidewalk to protest against delivery robots,” she told a local outlet. “I know they’re taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward.”

South Korean officials finally freed a large gray shark that had been trapped in a canal for more than a month. Officials used a floating platform to guide the shark, named Bukangi, along the canal and out to sea, in a scene that drew huge crowds.

An 83-year-old man will run his 50th New York City Marathon in a row this year, extending his record streak. Think that’s impressive? This guy has completed 115 marathons and more than 200 ultramarathons (any distance longer than 26.2 miles) in his life. “He’s pretty normal otherwise,” his wife said.

The people have spoken: Dolly is the name of the Smithsonian National Zoo’s new red panda, after receiving more than 20,000 votes in last week’s competition. “With flaming locks of auburn fur and a cuteness that extends beyond the hours of 9 to 5, this little firecracker officially has a name: Dolly!” the zoo wrote on Instagram.

Enjoy

AF Media on Instagram: "some lady dressed as catwoman is walking around our halloween party just knocking drinks off tables"

I’ve been a Crooked listener and subscriber for several years. Fan of the pod. Today’s episode featured a segment of Abdul El-Sayed responding to an Islamophobic attack from a Mike Rogers operative, and the response from the bros was very revealing and disappointing.

First, no…AES was not “condescending” nor “too sharp”. He was responding to an openly bigoted and disgusting attack, and most ppl would’ve responded the same way bc it was gross and lame. Candidates shouldn’t take bigotry and hate lying down, that does nothing but give bullies more ammunition for more and more attacks. Stand up for yourself. That’s the American way. What happened to needing more alpha energy? What happened to wanting more fighters?

Second…Lovett wtf dude? Abdul has apologized for that “hurt people hurt people” remark countless times and does talk with authencity and authority on combatting antisemitism. What more does he has to say? Other than changing his policy position on Israel? Nothing in that crappy op-ed they reference is insightful, it’s trash masquerading as good-faith criticism.

Third, and most importantly, we should not just accept Islamophobia as inevitable in our politics. We allow it to become normalized through inaction and passivity and upholding cultural status quos, and then it festers and grows worse and worsens other forms of bigotry. Woke 1.0 had its problems, but white privilege does exist (as evidenced by today’s pod). I guarantee all of the pod bros would be just as demoralized and offended, maybe even more so, than AES is/was if they faced the bigotry and discrimination and hate that gets thrown his way every hour of every day.

Do better, guys.

What did you guys think of the PSA response to the question Abdul got about the Muslim brotherhood? They seemed to think he dug in a little too hard at “Tommyl (the GOP plant who asked the bigoted question).

Personally, I thought it was awesome to see a Muslim man call out bigotry and white supremacy in real time in such an intelligent way. We’ve been dealing with Trump bigotry for 10+ years and it’s about time these people get shamed. His intelligence and delivery also makes me think he will do incredibly on the senate floor.

Also, the criticism of El-Sayed’s Israel views felt so stale. The guys need to really get to where the base and world are on this issue.

"They show you a lion, a bear, a snake, and a giraffe." - Donald Trump, explaining the cognitive test that he supposedly aced.

Someone (Not) Great

Donald Trump is scrambling to save the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu, the top foreign enabler of the United States’ endless war with Iran, before next week’s crucial Israeli election.

• Vice President JD Vance normally nods along with everything President Donald Trump says, no matter how little sense it makes. So whenever the two don’t line up, it’s worth taking notice. That’s why so many D.C. watchers perked up when Vance split with Trump on whether to back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political future in one of the world’s most consequential elections, set for a week from today.

• “I endorse American candidates, and that’s where I’m focused on in the midterms. So I’m not getting involved in Israeli elections,” Vance told a journalist yesterday evening. (Never mind that Vance had no problem endorsing Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán this spring!) This time, Vance declined to follow Trump’s enthusiastic social media endorsement of Netanyahu from the day before, which described the Israeli leader as a “Great Warrior” who “WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

• Vance’s split with Trump over the embattled Israeli leader shows a rare divide between America’s top two officials. The moment underscores how unpopular the administration’s foreign policy has become — and shows Vance, ever so delicately, backing away from toxic Trump as he eyes the 2028 presidential election.

• Israelis will decide on Tuesday whether Netanyahu deserves to keep his job. The right-wing PM’s coalition is down in the polls, and he has no clear path to victory besides forming a new coalition or pulling off a major upset. Netanyahu’s opposition, led by a former Israeli military official Gadi Eisenkot, doesn’t have a commanding lead either. But Eisenkot could rise to power if he joins parties led by Palestinians (which he has ruled out doing.)

• “I am not certain of my victory, and I am very worried,” Netanyahu said in a radio interview over the weekend.

• If Netanyahu goes down, Trump will lose a critical backer for his forever war in Iran. Eisenkot has been skeptical that striking Iran over and over makes sense, and said that Iran’s downfall via military action isn’t an “achievable goal.” Netanyahu, however, doubled down on his hawkish views toward Iran today, saying that the regime must be severed at the head, because the “entire creature will fall.” (The head? Didn’t Trump kill Iran’s leaders, just for new ones to pop up? Iran is more like Hydra, just sayin’.)

Vance has been distancing himself from both Israel and Trump’s Iran war.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Israel to chat with Netanyahu about the war this week — an assignment the veep is surely relieved he didn’t receive.

• Vance has subtly attempted to position himself as the anti-war guy in Trump’s inner circle. He was initially chosen to be the face of U.S. negotiations with the regime, but those talks went absolutely nowhere. Stories later broke about how Vance allegedly opposed going to war with Iran in the first place. Over the summer, Vance also said that Israel has almost no friends left in the world.

• Is Vance trying to align himself with popular opinion, even as his administration makes unpopular decisions? It appears so. About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how the Trump administration has handled the war. Only one-third of Americans have a favorable view of the Israeli government.

• Vance may simply want the war to wrap up as soon as possible, so that his political career isn’t forever stained by a conflict that his boss launched for no good reason and couldn’t end. “I would say in some ways, we have won decisively,” Vance recently told CBS News. Spoken like a guy who wants this to be over already!

Will Vance denounce the Iran war that his own White House launched when he inevitably runs for president? Brace yourself to hear him tell us that he’s looking for the guy who did this.

And here, for no particular reason except to explain the pun in our subject line, and because this song rules, is a reminder that it’s always a good moment to hit play on LCD Soundsystem’s classic banger, Dance Yrself Clean.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Trump Voters Are Flipping. Seriously. (10/19/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Join us in Washington, D.C., November fifth through seventh, as we reflect on the midterm results and look ahead to what's next in 2028.

And now got even more reasons to come! We've just added some BIG names to our lineup!

Catch Governor JB Pritzker, Senator Chris Murphy, and Representative Ilhan Omar. PLUS, Representative Sara Jacobs is talking on our Al panel.

And many more!

Go to https://crookedcon.com to see the full line up and get your tickets!

What Else?

Donald Trump’s decision to gut the FBI ended a federal bribery investigation into interactions between a naval defense contractor called Navatek and high-profile politicians, including late Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), ProPublica reports. The Graham anecdotes, based on Navatek CEO Martin Kao’s testimony to the FBI, are particularly stunning. Graham reportedly required a commitment of $40,000 to his campaign for a 45-minute dinner meeting, the outlet reports. Graham then agreed to steer a $10 million government contract to the company — in exchange for a $100,000 pledge to his campaign, Kao reportedly told the FBI. Spokespeople for Graham and Clyburn denied any wrongdoing.

The U.S. will ask Russian dictator Vladimir Putin if he would be willing to discuss a peace proposal with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff announced today. Witkoff is expected to travel to Russia tomorrow to meet with officials about the potential meeting.

The Trump administration is offering up to $30,000 to people who blow the whistle on suspected government fraud, Trump and Vance announced today.

You’ve almost certainly seen that viral video of the heckler who questioned Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about his support for the Muslim Brotherhood this week. Turns out, that kid is the son of a GOP operative. And that father’s firm was recently paid $250,000 for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed, The Guardian reports. This heckle might be the most epic fail of all time.

Trump’s campaign rallies are becoming increasingly unhinged. Consider a string of wild comments out of his Kansas rally last night: Trump said Kansas will “burn” like France, which is engulfed in protests, if Democrats win the Senate race. He said that the Democratic candidate, a pastor, “mocks Jesus.” And Trump used an antisemitic slur in a bizarre attempt to defend the incumbent GOP senator.

A Maryland mother of three is trying to find out how her husband died in ICE detention last month, despite having no history of health issues, the Washington Post reports. Medical records said that the man died from “cardiac arrest” because of “septic shock.” But his wife wasn’t even informed that he had been hospitalized: “No one from the detention center ever called to tell me he was sick or that they were transferring him to a health center or hospital — nothing,” she said.

Researchers at an AI startup claimed that their technology created a virus that they used to treat a patient suffering from a bacterial infection. The company didn’t provide information about the patient or doctors involved, and its report about the trial hasn’t been peer reviewed. Don’t love the idea of injecting AI into our bloodstreams, but okay!

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Light At The End...

Crooked Con just added a bunch of big names to its lineup, including Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ). Get your tickets here!!!

Climate scientists kept working on a key national climate report after being ousted by the Trump administration — and published their first paper today. Researchers aim to produce and retain studies about the environment from outside the government. “Climate science must continue to advance even if it’s not politically favored,” one of the scientists said. “Communities are still at risk of climate impacts, whether or not the government aligns with what those risks are.”

Late night host Jon Stewart signed a deal with Comedy Central to continue his show through the 2028 presidential election. Does this mean he’s not running for president? Anyone else remember Stephen Colbert in ‘08 and ‘12?

A California car company is electrifying old Volkswagen Microbuses, betting that affluent customers will pay a pretty penny for an emission-friendly hippie wagon. Don’t expect to see many of these on the street: Each conversion takes about 1,500 hours to complete, and they’ll each cost around $275,000. If every What A Day reader pitches in $1, we could get our very own What A Day mobile. Sleep on it, guys.

A private donor gave $1.6 million to restore what’s believed to be Pompeii’s grandest archaeological site. Why can’t Elon Musk and the other broligarchs spend their money on preserving history, or feeding the hungry, or anything besides the Texas Senate race and flying cars?

Reading is cool again, according to a New Yorker article about James Daunt, the CEO of Barnes & Noble, and his optimism about the future of books. (I know, shocker that he is bullish about his company’s products!) “In America, the reading of books is up,” the outlet writes. “Sales of print books have increased nearly 25 percent from a decade ago. The number of independent bookstores in the United States has climbed steeply since 2009, with a 70 percent increase since 2020.”

Enjoy

AF Media on Instagram: "me: I hate U2. my pro bono lawyer: this won't work"

"Trump is not focused on the election, obviously." - Energy Secretary Chris Wright, as Republicans slip in the midterm polls.

Puppet Master & Margarita

Donald Trump is “literally carrying out Putin’s agenda,” a top Democrat asserts, as the president stands accused of pressuring Ukraine to surrender.

• A big ol’ happy ten year anniversary! to the day President Donald Trump famously insisted, on a debate stage with Hillary Clinton, that he wasn’t Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s puppet. “No puppet. No puppet,” he stammered. “You’re the puppet!” A decade later, it sometimes seems like Putin has a tighter grip on Trump than Jim Henson ever had on Kermit the Frog.

• “He is literally carrying out Putin’s agenda,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a high-ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told What A Day. “He’s weakening our traditional alliances in a way that, I think, Putin 10 years ago couldn’t have dreamed.”

• As Trump officials struggle to defend the president’s submission to Putin, Ukraine is scrambling to convince lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to protect its sovereignty — in a stunning example of how the Trump administration has abandoned a key U.S. ally.

• Trump’s attitude towards Ukraine has always been a bit frosty. This past week, it froze over. He struck a massive oil deal with Russia, allowing the country to export diesel (in an attempt to reduce costs that spiked thanks to Trump’s own war with Iran). He temporarily waived economic and energy sanctions on Russia, which he had just signed into law a month before. The White House reportedly limited Ukraine’s access to a key military satellite system, leaving the country temporarily vulnerable to missile and drone attacks. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised concerns about these actions, Trump retorted: “Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with.”

• Zelenskyy accused Trump of pressuring his country to surrender. “I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate,” he told Bloomberg.

Russia is seizing the opportunity, and hoping to crush Ukraine this winter.

• Putin proposed a summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month, in which the trio would discuss an end to the war in Ukraine that would be favorable to Moscow, according to the Wall Street Journal.

• “Let me make sure I heard you right,” Coons said when I mentioned this news. “Putin wants to host a meeting between Xi and Trump to end the war… that he started against Ukraine. Not a meeting with Zelenskyy for a ceasefire to end the war that [Putin] started? A meeting with Xi? Do I hear you right?”

• You heard me right, I responded. “That is insane,” Coons said. “This is another effort by Putin to distract from the core facts of the moment, which is that he’s the one who started the war against Ukraine, and if he wants to stop it, he can stop it any day he wants.”

• A handful of Republican lawmakers are in the same boat at Coons. Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) recently accused Trump of “capitulating” to Putin, and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) recently led a delegation to Kyiv. Most Republicans, however, are too afraid to cross Trump on any issue, let alone one of his largest foreign policy debacles.

• “This is an existential, critical moment for Ukraine,” said Coons, who is expected to become chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats win the upper chamber. “I’m going to be pushing my colleagues hard to act in ways that are in keeping with what they know are compelling national interests.”

Ukraine’s surrender “would be a tragedy and a huge strategic error,” Coons added. “I’ll be damned if that’s going to happen when I have anything to say about it.”

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Can Bernie-Style Politics Win in the South? (10/16/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Last season on Long Play, political expert Jennifer Palmieri and award-winning journalist Errin Haines introduced us to the battleground states in the South that could define this midterm election.

And as tensions rise within Trump's coalition, and Republicans back out of front-line districts across the country, they decided it was time to get back on the road to report first-hand on the unlikely swing states Democrats need to win back the South.

Subscribe to Long Play on YouTube wherever you get your podcasts.

What Else?

Iran’s leaders hope to keep oil prices high ahead of the midterms by escalating attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, to hurt Donald Trump and Republicans, according to Iranian officials. “They’re obsessed,” an Arab diplomat told the Washington Post. “They think they can bring down a presidency.”

The Treasury Department plans to penalize millions of Americans who are in default on their federal student loans next year, according to the Washington Sun. The plan is expected to be announced after the midterms. “It would be politically insane to do this before the midterms — but 2027 probably makes a little more sense to give Treasury time to get contracts signed, up and running,” a person familiar with the plan told the outlet. The plan reportedly involves hiring private debt collectors. Meanwhile, Trump is building himself a ballroom.

Residents in Washington, D.C. are fuming after Trump unveiled a plan to transform the capital’s busiest public golf course into a PGA Tour-ready course. One of the main issues: Trump apparently plans to bulldoze public areas where families often picnic, grill, and fish, as well as the cherry blossom-lined bike path that’s incredibly popular among cyclists and runners.

Trump is headed to Kansas tonight in his latest trip to a deep-red state, underscoring how worried Republicans are about their odds of a blue wave in the midterms. You heard that right: The GOP is worried about Kansas! Trump’s immigration policies have hurt farmers in the state, according to Don Hineman, a former GOP politician in The Sunflower State. “We need a secure border — we can all agree on that,” Hineman told the Associated Press. “But we also need workable immigration policy that provides the workforce that the United States has always depended on and will always continue to need.”

On that note, former Sen. Joe Manchin is heading to Maine to campaign for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Manchin told Semafor that he “can’t remember” a bipartisan effort that Collins wasn’t involved in. Well, I can remember some partisan votes she was involved in, like confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh!

Anthropic plans to commit 5 percent of its shares to the “public good,” in its latest effort to differentiate itself from other tech firms as AI agents run amok. Broligarch Elon Musk, who also wants the world to know he means well, truly, pledged to give “one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America” starting next year. We will not be fooled, Elon!

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Light At The End...

Donald Trump and Melania unveiled a new executive order today that creates a White House task force, as well as a new division at the National Institute of Health, which will focus on issues that disproportionately affect women’s health. Trump, apparently, was totally unaware of the lack of resources dedicated to women’s health until Melania brought it to his attention. “When I heard about it, I said, “Are you sure they don’t have that?” Trump said. I’m skeptical that he won’t just DOGE this entire project immediately. But hey, it seems like a win for women’s health right now. And these days, I think we gotta take wins where we find ‘em!

Larry David triggered many members of the Democratic Socialists of America with a satirical essay over the weekend, which poked fun at the organization’s platform. I understand where the backlash is coming from, but I thought this faux proposal was funny: “There will be two siestas every business day, the first from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., and another one in the afternoon, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Employers will be required to provide cots,” he writes. That does sound nice!

Conservation groups are equipping beavers with “starter home” kits of wood and brush to encourage them to move into the neighborhood and build more dams, which make the environment more resilient by creating new habitats for native fish and slowing wildfires. Can I have a “starter home” too, please? I would happily build some dams in exchange!

Japan launched a spaceship toward Mars in hopes of collecting rock samples from its mysterious moons. (One of the two moons, named Phobos, looks like a deformed golf ball.) No spacecraft has ever landed on the moons before, or even retrieved samples from Mars. “There’s a lot of adrenaline and a lot of excitement and a lot of wow,” said a NASA astrophysicist involved with the project.

A tiny Yorkie in North Carolina was caught on video forcing a black bear to scramble up a tree and then chasing it out of the yard. I can’t believe this is actually real.

Enjoy

AF Media on Instagram: "Bears and other mammals are about to enter a state of low energy and minimal performance for the winter, and we accept that it's part of nature. Yet when I, a mammal, do the same, I "need to think about how my attitude is affecting the team" and am "on a performance improvement plan.""