There is a meme in near-constant circulation among the fairly small ethos of kindhearted Facebook users featuring variations of an axiom along the lines of: “Never make fun of someone who mispronounces a word. It means they read it in a book.” While it is generally a good rule to never make fun of anyone for the way they pronounce anything, regardless (or irregardless) of how or where they came across the word, the exception to that rule comes when the president of a country, who has most likely never read a book to completion, seems unfamiliar with one of his own country’s most famous national parks.
So with Donald Trump’s total and perpetual ineptitude in mind, watch this video of him attempting to sound out the syllables in Yosemite while accidentally offering a casual greeting to a group of God’s chosen people, and laugh your ass off. Text it to a friend and laugh with that friend in prolonged, companionable meanness. Let’s take a national moment to raise our faces to the sky and guffaw out loud together at the stunted language sills of this racist murderer who often seems to have never even heard of the country he rules and also cannot read aloud or possibly silently very good.
Now that’s done, if you’d like to hang your head and cry at this video of John Lewis’s name on Trump’s impotent tongue, that feeling is also allowed.
A new report from The Aspen Institute says 30 state moratoriums on evictions have expired since May, leaving some 23 million Americans at risk of losing their homes. Meanwhile, there’s absolutely no certainty that federal lawmakers will extend the $600 per-week unemployment benefits that expired last Friday. So naturally, experts expect the number of Americans facing homelessness to climb even higher, especially in states hit hardest by the pandemic:
“Nationally, the figure [of those who said they had ‘no confidence’ they could pay next month’s rent] was 26.5% among adults 18 years or older, with numbers in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nevada, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee and Texas reaching 30% or higher. The margins of error in the survey vary by state.”
And even those who got a reprieve on eviction notices are still on the hook for the rent they missed, putting financial recovery from the pandemic that much further out of reach for millions of people. [AP]
- It really doesn’t take a ton of research to predict that the 2020 election is going to be a shitshow, but here is some research that predicts just that. [Twitter]
- And to ensure those predictions come true, Republicans are trying their best to make mail-in voting sound as bad as say, colluding with Russia to influence a presidential election, despite actually being super on board with either when it suits. [Twitter]
- New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s covid-19 recovery plan seems to be outdoor dining coupled with chasing off everyone with better ideas about managing the pandemic. [Politico]
- And the Republican National Convention strategy for 2020 seems to be giving this year more surprises, none of which seem to be competent leadership or any discernable amount of compassion for American citizens. [Axios]
- It’s pretty stiff competition, but Chad Wolf might just be America’s worst Chad, or possibly even the protoChad, a blueprint for all America’s shitty Chads. [The New York Times]
- Jared and Ivanka made over a hundred million dollars last year the American way—by being born already rich and then staying close to other rich people. [The Guardian]
- Alaska has long had a deadly problem with domestic violence and now the pandemic is limiting what meager resources are available. [ProPublica]
- Barron Trump isn’t going back to school, but that probably won’t stop his dad from saying your kid should. [Twitter]