Idiocracy

The Washington Post reports: In his opening statements at an election debate Thursday, a South Carolina congressman kicked things off with a joke. “Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings?” Rep. Ralph Norman (R) asked the audience at a Kiwanis club in his district. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.” …

Yahoo News reports: The Department of Health and Human Services is diverting millions of dollars in funding from a number of programs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, to pay for housing for the growing population of detained immigrant children. In a letter sent to Sen. Patty Murray, D.-Wash., and obtained by …

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump suggested the Spanish government tackled the Mediterranean migration crisis by emulating one of his most famous policies and building a wall across the Sahara desert, the country’s foreign minister has revealed. According to Josep Borrell, the US president brushed off the skepticism of Spanish diplomats – who pointed out that the Sahara stretched for 3,000 …

“You know, I took that test when I got my last physical, and the doctor said that’s one of the highest scores we’ve ever seen. I did that not because I wanted but I did it, I was always good at testing. But if there’s anything great about me it’s stability, and I’m a good manager. Always been a good …

“I think we’re gonna do much better than anyone thinks because the economy is so good, and people do like the job I’m doing. I had just beaten 17 people including the Bush dynasty. I then beat the Hillary Clinton dynasty. You can give me credit for Bernie Sanders and all because I was cause I was part of it, …

The Hill reports: President Trump in an Oval Office interview with Hill.TV launched one of his most ferocious broadsides to date against Jeff Sessions, suggesting the attorney general was essentially AWOL and performing badly on a variety of issues. “I don’t have an Attorney General. It’s very sad,” Trump told Hill.TV in an extensive and free-wheeling interview Tuesday from the …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Tuesday preemptively attacked Democrats for any potential criticism of his administration’s response to Hurricane Florence along the mid-Atlantic coast. Trump’s unprompted attacks against Democrats on Tuesday come less than a week after he claimed without evidence that the party was responsible for inflating the death toll of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to make …

The Washington Post reports: Anderson Cooper spent the last 10 minutes of his show on Monday night responding to a critic: the president’s son. On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a photo of Cooper standing in waist-deep water during a hurricane, with a caption suggesting that the CNN anchor was lying to make the president look bad. Trump Jr. …

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump escalated his trade-war rhetoric on Monday, threatening unspecified countries with tariffs if they “will not make fair deals with us.” The US is already engaged in a trade war with China and is expected to levy new tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as soon as Monday, on top of the tariffs …

The Hill reports: President Trump fumed against the “fake news media” on Friday night when he resurfaced a blunder former President Obama made on the 2008 campaign trail. Former President Obama has returned to the campaign trail in recent weeks to criticize Trump and his policies, which Ingraham discussed on her Friday night show. Obama’s blunder, which Ingraham also resurfaced …

It’s like two days of national scorn didn’t happen: President Donald Trump yesterday said he doesn’t believe the Puerto Rico death toll, and today he continued to stand by that position by touting comments from Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera. During a segment on The New York Times and media bias, Rivera had this to say regarding Puerto Rico:  “They’re saying …

Axios reports: Florida lawmakers are publicly disagreeing with President Trump’s claim that the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is not accurate. With just two months before the election — and with an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 Puerto Ricans who may have permanently settled in Florida since the hurricane — they know they can’t stay silent on an …

The Hill reports: President Trump told donors that he hopes to rebrand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the U.S., Mexico and Canada as the “USMC” pact, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. If the U.S. is unable to come to terms on a deal with Canada, Trump said he’s willing to drop the “C” from the new …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday appeared to cast doubt on studies that found roughly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico officials late last month increased the death toll as a result of the 2017 storm to 2,975 after a study by the George Washington University that assessed the aftermath of …

The Daily Beast reports: Kushner is Coulter’s top candidate as the anonymous author of last week’s New York Times op-ed by “a senior administration official” claiming to be a secret member of the insider resistance protecting the country against Trump’s worst excesses. “Because he and Ivanka are going to have to go back to the Upper East Side and go …

Here’s what Glorious Leader is responding to: JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon picked a fight with President Donald Trump — and immediately regretted it. “I think I could beat Trump” in an election, the Wall Street executive said at an event Wednesday morning that was supposed to celebrate his firm’s philanthropy. “I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter …

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump once tried to veto the use of Braille in the elevators of Trump Tower, and was unaware—and unmoved—by the fact that it was required by federal law, according to a Wednesday report from the New York Daily News. When an architect informed him the Braille was, in fact, mandatory, Trump reportedly responded “Get rid …

The Hill reports: President Trump in an early morning tweet on Wednesday doubled down on his defense of the federal response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico while taking aim at one of its frequent critics, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday what he had learned from the response to …

USA Today reports: President Donald Trump accused former New Jersey governor Chris Christie of “stealing from me” and feared that a presidential transition team was “jinxing” his chances of victory during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to journalist Bob Woodward’s new book on the Trump White House. In one passage from “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Woodward described a …

The Hill reports: President Trump’s scheduled trip to Ireland in mid-November has been canceled, an administration source confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday. No reason was given for the cancellation, although Trump was expected to face protests in Ireland. Trump had been expected to visit Dublin, the Irish capital, as well as a golf course he owns in Doonberg, County …