Time for tRump mental exam?

 

Donald Trump promotes wild conspiracy theory Joe Biden was executed and cloned

Maybe it is time to invoke the 25th Amendment? 

 

Americans trust PBS because it’s publicly funded, not in spite of it

“President Trump says he is ‘restoring trust in government funded institutions.’ Our findings demonstrate that such trust already exists, in spades, towards PBS.”

By Christopher Ali, Hilde Van den Bulck and Jonathan Kropko June 4, 2025, 2:19 p.m.

On May 2, President Trump signed an executive order ordering CPB to halt all funding to PBS and NPR local stations. The justifications for this unprecedented action included the vast array of content available on multiple digital platforms and accusations of bias within public broadcasting’s newsgathering efforts and reportage.

Trump stated that CPB has violated its mandate of not endorsing “any political party.” Regarding PBS and NPR, he declared: “Neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” The executive order claims to be politically neutral, stating that “which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter,” but a corresponding article from the White House chastised both public broadcasters for “spread[ing] radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.'”

The executive order has been heavily disputed. PBS CEO Paula Kerger called it “blatantly unlawful.” CPB stated that its mandate comes from and, therefore, can only be terminated by Congress. Yet the President has found many in the Republican Party to support his viewpoints. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene held a hearing on March 26 entitled “Anti-American Airwaves.” This hearing followed in the footsteps of a longer history of Republican criticism of U.S. public media’s alleged left-leaning bias and “woke” agenda — the latter often illustrated through reference to children’s programming like Sesame Street.

Contrary to these ideologically inspired beliefs, our empirical research — recently published in the Journal of Communication, the flagship journal of the communication studies discipline — finds that Americans from across the political spectrum don’t subscribe to the notion of a biased PBS. We found that those who watch PBS trust it immensely, for several complementary reasons.

In our article, “An Island of Trust: Public Broadcasting in the United States,” we report the findings of a nationally representative survey (n=1,500) of PBS audiences. The original study was funded by a Knight News Innovation Fellowship at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University for two of our authors. Our aim was to verify and nuance PBS’s own surveys that claim it has been the most trusted public institution in America over the last two decades. Do Americans who watch PBS really trust it more than any other public institution? And if so, what aspects of PBS, its audience, and wider media context explain this unique position and level of trust?

We found that those who watch PBS trust it along three different axes. First, viewers say PBS is an excellent value for public dollars. Overall, 47.4% of our respondents said that PBS’ value for public dollars was “excellent.” What’s more, survey respondents told us that they trust it precisely because it’s publicly funded. 41.9% said that they considered PBS’ funding structure a reason to put significant trust into PBS.

 From The Washington POST:

"In recent weeks, Trump has also attempted to block congressionally approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, though its affiliated news organizations draw significant funding from private donations.

NPR sued to halt that executive order, calling it “textbook retaliation” by the Trump administration over journalistic coverage it finds unfavorable."

full STORY IS HERE. 

 

Reading TO the kids

 From an excellent story in The Guardian (Full story is HERE)

Screen time has increasingly replaced story time, and experts warn this could lead to children falling behind

Alaina Demopoulos

Mon 2 Jun 2025 07.00 EDT

Last week, former elementary school teacher Spencer Russell posed a question to parents who follow his Instagram account, Toddlers Can Read: “Why aren’t you reading aloud to your kids?”

The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. “It’s so boring,” said one parent. “I don’t have time,” said another. One mother wrote in: “I don’t enjoy reading myself.”

Others reported difficulty getting their children to sit still long enough for a full dose of Goodnight Moon or Mother Goose: “He’s always interrupting,” or “my son just wants to skip all the pages.” They noted the monotony of story time, with one saying: “I love reading with my kids, but they request the same book over and over.”

 

5

 A Five Deferment Draft Dodger.

 i.e. A COWARD.

 

 

Advertiser changes.

 "Starting July 7, the U.S. Postal Service will begin delivering the Montgomery Advertiser print edition, part of a continued push to optimize resources as digital readership demand increases."  (Source: Advertiser story HERE.) 

Too bad there are no reporters there to ask questions...like how many Advertiser employees will be out of  a job as a result of this change?

 

New AG Candidate

 “No boys in girls’ sports. No DEI. No more woke nonsense.”

Jay Mitchell says he is a conservative who would support President Donald Trump’s policies in Alabama. 

Phones!

 An increasing number of schools worldwide are banning cell phones. Since the beginning of 2025, a new law in Brazil prohibits pupils from using smartphones during breaks or in class.

Is it working? See the story HERE. 

 

Best Supermarkets in The U.S.?

 

				See rankings HERE.

ANOTHER confederate holiday

  Today is one of several days the State of Alabama "celebrates" The Confederacy. Most state offices are closed today for Jefferson Davis' birthday.

It is one of three holidays in Alabama that commemorates Confederate leaders: Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which is commemorated in January on the same day as Martin Luther King Day; and Confederate Memorial Day in April. 

The Davis statue shown here is in front of the Alabama Capitol building. 

Dolphin Chat

 

We’re About To Talk To Dolphins… But Are We Ready To Hear The Truth?

"Inspired by Google Translate, a new AI may soon let us talk to dolphins. But once they understand us — what will they say?"

WOW? Can anyone predict the first comments from (or to) them? 

 SOURCE: HERE

Military/Tuskegee

 "...the (tRump) administration and its ideological allies are erasing the accomplishments of Black service members from the nation’s military narrative. Units such as the 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters; the Tuskegee Airmen; the Montford Point Marines; and the Buffalo Soldiers are no longer central to the story the military tells about itself. The Pentagon has erased countless photos, videos and articles about these units from its websites — although quickly restoring some, such as the Tuskegee Airmen, in response to an outcry."

(Source: The Washington Post HERE.) 

Spine Chilling Cinema presents "Rocketship-XM" 1950

 

 

This WAY early sci-fi film...1950...is interesting to watch now! 

Israel? Israel WTF?

 

"Israel has killed at least 32 Palestinians waiting to get food at two aid distribution sites in Gaza, leaving more than 200 others injured.

Israeli tanks opened fire on thousands of civilians gathered at a distribution site in southern Gaza’s Rafah on Sunday morning, killing at least 31 people, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.'

Rainy May!

 

Montgomery made the top 5 Raniest Month of May...No. 4 on record, with 9.65 inches. According to weather service data No. 1 is 2017 with 12.74 inches (records go back to 1948).

 

Go Ireland!

 

Hanceville, Alabama

I'm sure you've followed the news from The Cullman County town of Hanceville....with the entire police department fired. The city council has also voted to

• Suspend the department as they know it
• Hire a new chief
• Have the new chief hire new officers and dispatchers to rebuild the department
• Form a committee to help select the new chief

blah blah blah....

So all of this was going on in the little town (population 3,217) and Hanceville Mayor Jim Sawyer and city council members knew nothing?

The mayor says "The City of Hanceville remains focused on building a stronger future for our citizens, and we thank our community for its understanding and support as we move forward together." 

SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/alabama-police-evidence-missing-hanceville-fd8e2a71fa8546ff1d1bfdf6c732bb32

The Black Lives Matter Movement is Dying. Thank You tRump.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/us/politics/george-floyd-trump.html

 Workers removing the BLM memorial from the street near the White House.

tRump SILENCE as bombs fall on Ukraine

 “The world may go into weekend mode, but the war does not stop for weekends or weekdays. This cannot be ignored,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram Sunday. “Silence of America and others around the world only emboldens Putin.”

 

tRump????? Nothing???

Birmingham Water Works Board

 

“While I understand I am well compensated ($446, 118), it’s less than I previously earned in legal fees from the BWWB while serving as outside counsel and less than my earning potential if I remained in private practice.”

Birmingham Water Works General Manager Mac Underwood 

Then, would you do the Birmingham Water Works customers a favor and go back to your old job?

SOURCE: HERE.

tRump Takes Credit!

 "You will become officers in the greatest and most powerful Army the world has ever known," Mr. President (told West Point Graduates), "And I know because I rebuilt the Army and I rebuilt the military, and we rebuilt it like nobody had ever rebuilt it before."

Source: HERE

 

...and that should be enough evidence to send the draft doger to a dementia ward. (Preferably in Russia, since he likes Putin so much!)

Mars!

 

At first glance, this view may look like a vista from a bluff in the southwestern United States.

But those aren't ordinary mountains in the distance. What appears to be a sierra is in fact the rim of an enormous crater on Mars, formed when an asteroid slammed into the Red Planet billions of years ago. The vantage point is from the slopes of the three-mile-tall Mount Sharp, sculpted over time within the crater after the ancient collision. 

NASA's Curiosity rover captured this extremely wide snapshot as it traversed its extraterrestrial stomping grounds in Gale Crater this February. The agency has since converted that data into a 30-second immersive video, which you can watch further down in this story. 

SOURCE: https://mashable.com/article/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-panoramic-video

No need to ID who "he" is....

 ‘I Even Believe He Is Destroying the American Presidency’

May 20, 2025

 

From a NY Times opinion column.

Read it HERE.

I tried, but gave up after a few pages. Too distressing. I now change channels if he is speaking, or even just visible. 

It COULD have been MUCH Worse....

 NY Times STORY about a ship captain who fell asleep.....whoops!

tRump

 I am lowering my abhorrence of all things tRump for a moment to point out an excellent N.Y. Times analysis HERE:

"Geoffrey Kabaservice, the vice president for political studies at the Niskanen Center, a center-left libertarian think tank, wrote by email:

Will the Trump presidency be as destructive as James Buchanan’s presidency, which led directly to the Civil War?

What I think we can say with confidence is that no president in living memory has attacked the sources of American strength and dynamism in the way that Trump already has done. In particular, his withdrawal from American global leadership and his sabotage of American scientific and technological pre-eminence — at precisely the moment we are vying with China for superiority in those areas — has no parallel."