Idiocracy

Mashable reports: It wasn’t totally odd, at face value, that furniture site Wayfair was trending on Twitter on Friday. Maybe the retailer was having a giant sale? Unfortunately, Wayfair elbowed its way into the trending column with tens of thousands of tweets because of a much stranger situation. It boils down to this: Conspiracy theorists were purporting that the site …

The Daily Beast reports: In the dead of night, for reasons that are, at this point, beyond sufficient explanation, President Trump liked a tweet praising R&B star Summer Walker for bringing back a “stripper” vibe. The tweet was sent shortly after midnight Eastern Time and, at some point in the four hours after that, received a presidential seal of approval. …

RealClearPolitics reports: Donald Trump takes Kanye West seriously. In an Oval Office interview Tuesday, the president told RealClearPolitics he has been watching intently as the music mogul mulls a bid for the White House. The two are friendly, and Trump welcomed him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before the 2018 midterms. As Trump noted, the window of opportunity may have passed: …

The Daily Beast reports: In a round of new digital ads, the Trump campaign asks people to support the president as he stands up to the angry mobs trying to tear down iconic memorials. In one specific ad, the endangered statue that the campaign spotlights happens to be the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “The …

The Washington Examiner reports: During the evening of July 4, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn shared a video of himself leading five other people in a recitation of the oath of office traditionally given to federal elected officeholders, ending the oath with a slogan associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who took over Flynn’s …

Politico reports: Former national security adviser John Bolton suggested Sunday that President Trump pays more attention to television than he does to his advisers. “I think it’s a combination of television and listening to people outside of the government that he trusts for one reason or another,” Bolton said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “I think that if you …

Media Matters reports: K.W. Miller is an independent candidate running in Florida’s 18th Congressional District. Miller has repeatedly tweeted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan “#WWG1WGA” and “#GreatAwakening” (along with a hashtag for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory). He has also posted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan on Facebook and repeatedly posted “#GreatAwakening” on Instagram. He also put up a …

ABC News reports: Students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 have been attending parties in the city and surrounding area as part of a disturbing contest to see who can catch the virus first, a city council member told ABC News on Wednesday. Tuscaloosa City Councilor Sonya McKinstry said students have been organizing “COVID parties” as a …

CNN reports: In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America’s principal allies, that the calls helped convince some …

Politico reports: Sean Hannity traveled with President Donald Trump to Green Bay, Wis., for a Fox News town hall, and asked him this good question: “What’s at stake in this election as you compare and contrast, and what are your top priority items for a second term?” This is as standard a question as a sitting president can get — …

Roll Call reports: Showing President Donald Trump beautiful pictures of national parks helped Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., win the crucial backing they needed to get their public lands bill in motion. The senators, both considered vulnerable and in need of moderate voters in November, said on Wednesday that they needed Trump’s support to coax Majority Leader …

The Hill reports: Leaders at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy by issuing a statement in September 2019 contradicting the National Weather Service shortly after President Trump said Hurricane Dorian was headed toward Alabama. “The development of the statement was not based on science but appears to be largely driven by external influence from …

The Detroit Free Press reports: People burned letters informing them that they can vote by absentee ballot in future elections during a protest near Grand Rapids. The applications were burned Friday during an event called Operation Incinerator outside the DeltaPlex Arena in Walker. Many people had flags, shirts and signs showing support for President Donald Trump and Republicans. “For them …

Reuters reports: More than a third of Americans misused cleaners and disinfectants to try to prevent infection by the coronavirus, according to a survey taken shortly after President Donald Trump publicly asked whether injecting such products could treat COVID-19. Washing food with bleach, using household cleaning or disinfectant products on bare skin, and intentionally inhaling or ingesting these products were …

Tim O’Brien writes for Bloomberg: Donald Trump was at the steering wheel as we drove through the rain together on a New Jersey highway in 2005. He had recently considered taking the stage to play a politician in the Broadway comedy “La Cage aux Folles,” but he had other things on his mind as he glanced over at me. “I …

The Guardian reports: Cellphone location data suggests that demonstrators at anti-lockdown protests – some of which have been connected with Covid-19 cases – are often traveling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighboring ones. The data, provided to the Guardian by the progressive campaign group the Committee to Protect Medicare, …

The Associated Press reports: Reflecting on Mother’s Day this weekend, President Donald Trump said Friday that he could do no wrong in his mother’s eyes and perhaps that’s what framed his personality today. “I had a great mom. I loved my mom and she loved me, which … is probably not easy to do,” Trump told Fox News in an …

The Palm Beach Post reports: A fleet of more than 300 boats paraded along the Intracoastal waterway Sunday in support of President Donald Trump with flag-waving spectators cheering from canal banks and seawalls. The procession, which traveled from Jupiter to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and back, was dubbed “Trumptilla” by some supporters, who learned of the pageant through Facebook. It …

From the official site of the White House gift shop: COVID-19 , WE FOUGHT THE UNSEEN ENEMY, Everyday Heroes, President Donald J, Trump, Vice President Michael R. Pence, Secretary S. Mnuuchin, Drs. Jerome Adams, Deborah Birx, Anthony Fauci. Pre-Order Special Price $100. 20% of Proceeds Donated Each Day to U.S. Hospitals including Johns Hopkins for its COVID-19 Coordination and Trackins. …

The New York Times reports: President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television. He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5 a.m. watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for …