Rapture scheduled for today? Disney caves, Kimmel returns; More Trump Threats; Bad science; Fat Bears
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
Before we get into the ongoing Kimmel melodrama, some believe we may be able to skip the whole thing, since the Rapture may occur today.
Some say it won’t happen until tomorrow (Wednesday), which is the best case scenario. Give poor Jimmy a break!
Jimmy Kimmel will return to ABC tonight after the show’s controversial suspension last week. Disney said the move was made "to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country."
Sinclair ABC stations won’t air ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ for now, will ‘evaluate potential return’. (No word as of this writing if Nexstar will air the show.)
John Oliver’s take on the issue: Video.
Jimmy Kimmel's suspension was always about censorship (Just ask Trump) | The Daily Show (Video)
I’m glad Disney’s reinstating Kimmel, but the cynic in me can’t help but notice that the policy reversal wasn’t motivated some sort of noble, patriotic respect for the Constitution and the First Amendment, but rather its finances. Disney’s stock dropped last week, and the Disney+ website was swamped by the high volume of customers terminating their subscriptions. In predicting how this whole affair would be resolved, the bottom line was, well, the bottom line.
More: The backlash to ABC/Disney canceling Kimmel shows why it's important for businesses and the public to understand that two-thirds of Americans are not Trump voters. A lot of powerful people just don’t realize how unpopular Trump is.
Like Donald Trump, President Richard Nixon maintained an “enemy’s list”, a compilation of his major political opponents. The Nixon administration kept the list secret (until it was revealed during the Watergate hearings), and it didn’t try to pressure the Department of Justice to take action against those targeted. (Instead, they unsuccessfully tried to weaponize the Internal Revenue Service, but that’s another story.)
Unlike Nixon, Trump publicly updates this list on an almost daily basis, announces who he’d like the DOJ’s next victims to be, and criticizes the department when it can’t manufacture crimes with which to charge his political adversaries. Here’s the latest:
Unease grows at the Justice Department as Trump's threats get even more blunt.
A Most Profound Transgression. In demanding that the attorney general go after his enemies, Donald Trump is upending fundamental norms of fairness and neutrality in the American legal system.
Trump announced that pregnant women who use acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol or, in the words of Jon Stewart, “As they’re known now, ‘Plaintiff A’) risk having autistic babies. As is the case with many Trump policy choices, this one has no basis in reality: “If it’s wrong, it’s fine.”
At least the media is calling his BS up front: (AP) Trump makes unfounded claims about Tylenol and repeats discredited link between vaccines and autism.
Study links Trump being President to increased use of Tylenol. (Satire: Borowitz)
The Heritage Foundation’s insidious new “Manhattan Project for Babies” wraps Christian nationalism in the guise of a plan to raise birth rates. This isn’t about supporting families. It’s about enforcing a cultural hierarchy
Fat Bear Week is here early, and the bears are fat and playful.
Ah, Florida:
Florida woman arrested for alleged bizarre Silly String attack that left man with a forehead laceration.
Drunk Florida man drives eight blocks with woman’s body on windshield after striking her off E-bike.
Florida man killed wife because she performed voodoo on him.
Sylvester Stallone, Florida man: Why he’s embraced his new home state.
Florida lawmaker introduces bill that would allow armed volunteers at churches.
Florida parents ponder future with fewer vaccines: 'It's just scary'.
Scientists warn that your morning cup of coffee or tea is likely full of invisible microplastics. But it still has the caffeine, right?
Today’s clickbait medical breakthrough, of which you may or may not ever hear anything again: Common kitchen spice may reverse Alzheimer's disease, study suggests. TLDR: Cinnamon. Actually, sodium benzoate, a key compound produced when the body metabolizes cinnamic acid, a compound found in cinnamon. KGB’s advice: read the comment section after the article.
Keep scrolling down. Lots of interesting stuff in On This Day, including videos.
Quote of the Day:
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
--Walter Lippmann (Wikipedia link)
(More Walter Lippmann quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
BBS Global Day, Celebrate Bisexuality Day, Innergize Day, International Day of Sign Languages, National AFM Day, National Apple Cider Vinegar Day, National Checkers Day, National Great American Pot Pie Day, National Snack Stick Day, Restless Legs Awareness Day, Rosh Hashanah, Teal Talk Day, and Za'atar Day.
Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA.
On This Day:
2024 – Israel launched airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing more than 490 people.
2022 – Voting began in the five-day sham annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, leading to Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
2020 – A grand jury in Kentucky declined to indict three police officers for the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in a drug raid gone wrong, leading to nationwide protests in the U.S.
2009 – “Modern Family” premiered on ABC. (Video)
1994 – The film “The Shawshank Redemption” was released. (Video)
1980 – Reggae legend Bob Marley's final concert at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA
1973 – Argentine general election: Juan Perón returned to power in Argentina.
1969 – The film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” premiered. (Video)
1967 – Seven people died, 46 people were injured, and more than 150 boats capsized when a squall hit Lake Michigan during Michigan's first coho salmon sport fishing season.
1962 – ABC-TV’s first color series, “The Jetsons”, premiered. (Video)
1961 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy nominated African American civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, although pro-segregation Southern senators manage to delay his confirmation until September 11, 1962.
1957 – Little Rock schools integration crisis: President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, and federalized the Arkansas National Guard, ordering both to support the integration of Little Rock Central High School.
1956 – A tropical storm originating in the eastern Pacific Ocean passed into the Gulf of Mexico and was upgraded and named Hurricane Flossy just hours before striking the Gulf Coast and causing 15 deaths and an estimated USD$24.8 million in damages.
1955 – An all-white jury in Mississippi finds Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam not guilty in the torture-murder of 14-year-old African American boy Emmett Till.
1952 – After being accused of financial improprieties, Senator Richard Nixon delivers his "Checkers speech" nationwide on television and radio, defending his actions and successfully salvaging his nomination as the Republican candidate for Vice President.
1949 – President Truman announced the Soviets had exploded a nuclear device.
1933 – Standard Oil geologists arrived in Saudi Arabia.
1923 – “The Prophet,” by Lebanese-American poet-philosopher Kahlil Gibran, was published.
1920 – The Louisiana hurricane dissipated over Kansas after forcing around 4,500 people to evacuate and causing $1.45 million in damages.
1913 – The United Mine Workers of America launched a strike which eventually escalated into the Colorado Coalfield War.
1905 – Norway and Sweden sign the Karlstad Treaty, peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.
1875 – Billy the Kid was arrested for the first time.
1846 – Astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
1806 – Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis.
1779 – American Revolution: John Paul Jones, naval commander of the United States, on board the USS Bonhomme Richard, wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1978 – Anthony Mackie, American actor
1971 – Sean Spicer, American political aide, 30th White House Press Secretary
1970 – Ani DiFranco, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1959 – Jason Alexander, American actor, singer, and voice artist
1957 – Rosalind Chao, American actress
1956 – Peter David, American author, actor, and screenwriter (died 2025)
1949 – Bruce Springsteen, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Video)
1947 – Mary Kay Place, American actress
1945 – Paul Petersen, American actor, singer, author, and activist
1943 – Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer-songwriter
1938 – Romy Schneider, German-French actress (died 1982)
1930 – Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (died 2004) (Video)
1928 – Roger Grimsby, American journalist and actor (died 1995)
1926 – John Coltrane, American saxophonist and composer (died 1967)
1920 – Mickey Rooney, American actor, singer, director, and producer (died 2014)
1897 – Walter Pidgeon, Canadian-American actor and singer (died 1984)
1889 – Walter Lippmann, American journalist and publisher, co-founded The New Republic (died 1974)
1869 – Mary Mallon, American cook and typhoid carrier (“Typhoid Mary”) (died 1938)
1215 – Kublai Khan, Mongolian emperor (died 1294)
63 BC – Augustus, Roman emperor, founder of the Roman empire (died 14 AD)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2018 – Gary Kurtz, American film producer (Star Wars) (born 1940)
2000 – Carl Rowan, American journalist and author (born 1925)
1998 – Mary Frann, American actress (born 1943)
1994 – Robert Bloch, American author and screenwriter (born 1917)
1987 – Bob Fosse, American actor, dancer, choreographer, and director (born 1927)
1981 – Chief Dan George, Canadian actor, author, and poet (born 1899)
1974 – Cliff Arquette, American actor and comedian (Charlie Weaver) (born 1905)
1939 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (born 1856)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
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Welcome to America, where the end times are scheduled between Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and Fat Bear Week. Disney pulled him, the Rapture didn’t pull us, and Trump is pulling medical “facts” out of the same place he stores his golf balls.
Blessed be the ones who can still laugh while the empire argues about burkinis, Tylenol, and Silly String felonies in Florida. The circus isn’t coming to town. It’s already running the tent.
Maybe God will rapture trump, his entire administration, all republican politicians, and scotus.