Wow, with less than two weeks to the midterm elections, news is coming fast and furious. Crazy, corrupt shit.

• The FCC and the Fifth Circuit Court killed a Biden-era broadband program intended to get broadband Internet access to poor, rural families and students. Wouldn’t want to do anything that would actually help people, now would we?
• Some combination of Musk and the White House have intentionally downgraded Ukraine’s Starlink access, crippling the communications links that defend against Russian drones. We’ve given Musk the power to determine US policy by himself. Really, really bad idea.
• Convict Donny has offered farmers $8B to vote for him. Bribery writ large.
• Some random billionaire wants a Presidential pardon and decided giving Alina Habba (?!?!?) a $50M payoff is the way to go.
• FEMA has now decided that the “Federal” part of their name is gone. They’re moving to push disaster recovery responsibilities and costs on the states. Does that mean our Federal taxes will go down?
• Consistent with the White House evolving into an armed bunker. Convict Donny wants to kick the press corps out completely. And turn the briefing room into a swimming pool. As if Trump would ever swim…
• The French are having a bad year. Not sure what they’re rioting about, but I think I’ll wait a while on that next trip to France.
• Vivek Ramasmarmy’s attack ad in Ohio is a travesty. Lower than low. I hope we’ve seen the last of that creep.
• Journalists like Paul Krugman are openly calling Trump a traitor for siding with Russia/Putin. And calling him a Kremlin asset. It’s about time. Forget the calls for impeachment; we need to put Comrade Trump on trial for treason.

And on and on. On one hand, it’s good to stay informed on current events. On the other, it’s exhausting and depressing.

In better news, UK’s football team is a joy to watch this year. We were a strong team in my college years, with players like Art Still and Sonny Collins. And now 45 years later, we’re a strong team again. Football and basketball season will overlap a lot in November, so plenty of sports to get excited about post-elections.

Also good news, my whole-body ache from yesterday is gone. Gonna have to think before I get dual vaccine shots again – the old body doesn’t shrug them off the way it used to.

Final good news thought for the day is that The Diplomat, my vote for best show on TV, is back with a fourth season. It’s fantastic. We’re restricting ourselves to just two episodes per night to stretch it out a bit. Great plot, great writing, great acting…it gets my vote for all the award shows.