By Jon Bauer
Herald staff
First off, congratulations and thanks to all who got their ballots in. For those who didn’t we’re spamming your email with TV adds from the Rossi-Schrier race for the next year. As for the rest of the week that wasn’t:
Can we line her robe with bubble wrap? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reportedly fractured three ribs in a fall in her office Wednesday and was taken to a Washington, D.C., hospital the next day for treatment and observation.
Demonstrating the court’s typical split, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan sent Ginsburg a get-well card, while Justices Samual Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented in part hoping she “feels better soon” but to take the rest of the term off.
Gone in a puff of vapor: Alarmed by a significant increase in electronic cigarette use among minors, the FDA is planning severe restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes, including a ban on most flavored devices as well as age-verification rules for online sales, even as e-cigarette makers, such as the makers of Juul, continue to claim they don’t market to minors.
But the timing couldn’t be worse. Vaping companies were planning a major marketing tie-in with McDonald’s to include an Apple Pie-flavored e-cig in the new Happy Meal For Adults — No Really, Just for Adults, No Kids.
Must have left it in my other pants: Two men were arrested by a Department of Natural Resources officer on state forest land near Granite Falls while illegally harvesting $12,000 worth of timber for firewood. One the men told the officer he thought the free timber was a perk of his Discover Pass, which allows entrance to state parks. But turns out, he didn’t have the Discover Pass.
We’ll save them both the trouble of their planned defense in court; the judge isn’t going to buy that their last name is Weyerhaeuser and their timber permit is pending.
Careful what you wish for: For the first time in eight years, Democrats won control of the U.S. House in Tuesday’s elections, likely halting the legislative agenda of President Trump and Republicans and resulting in greater oversight of the president and his administration, even as Republicans kept their handle on the Senate.
The Democrats’ celebration on the steps of the U.S. Capitol was interrupted by the spectacle of a dog catching the car it was chasing. President Trump then got out of the limo and kicked the dog.
Well, recuse me: Attorney General Jeff Sessions submitted a resignation letter to President Trump, “at your request,” following nearly two years in office under constant criticism from the president for recusing himself from oversight of special investigator Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives. In a tweet, Trump thanked Sessions for his service, “and wish him well.”
Trump then kicked Jeff Sessions.
It’s now “Operation Caravan? What Caravan?”: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has directed the Pentagon to stop using the name “Operation Faithful Patriot” for the deployment of thousands of troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to support border patrol efforts to stop illegal immigration in advance of a caravan of migrant families heading north from Central America.
“‘Faithful Patriot’ used to be President Trump’s nickname for me,” sniffed Sessions as he walked out the door.
Perfect for the college student stuck in his dorm room on Thanksgiving: Pringles, the makers of those saddle-shaped potato-like chips that come in a can, for a limited time is selling chips that are flavored like turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie.
Yet, somehow, a chip flavored like mashed potatoes stumped them.
Jon Bauer: jbauer@heraldnet.com.
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