Yoohoo! Welcome to the Trash Report. I'm Elinor Jones (AKA Mother Trash Panda) here with the latest of some stuff I found that I want to write about because nothing makes me happier than seeing (sensing) you happy. There's a lot of nonsense out there, and I want to make fun of it! Get in, girls; we're going to read quietly.

Shutting Down the Shutdown

Anyone else remember that episode of The West Wing when there was a government shutdown and President Bartlet looked so impossibly cool when he said "shut it down" and all the lights went off and it was for a noble cause and eventually served a purpose? Yeah, this is not that. In fact, that episode of television—while awesome—may have planted a terrible seed in the heads of many aspiring politicians who think a shutdown will be cool when it's actually just a stressful pain in the ass for everyone, as well as a losing political position. Anyway, the government didn't shut down yesterday, like it was threatening to do. Way to go, fuckheads. 

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is seizing the annoying moment to announce his plan to oust Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Like, you want your face on this mess? Your tiny, tiny face, that is poorly served by how big you always make your hair? You wanna own this? Take it, buddy. You can have it. Have stupid faces, win stupid prizes. 

Great Statespersons, Living and Deceased and Chaotic

I think that whenever news orgs send out a little update about somebody old, they need to start it with either "DEAD" or "NOT DEAD," just to save us the milliseconds of worry/relief. Yesterday former President Jimmy Carter turned 99 years old, and the alert started with an all-caps "FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER" and I assumed it was going to say "DEAD AT 99" but instead was like "CONTINUES BEING A CHILL AND UNPROBLEMATIC RETIRED POLITICIAN, AND HE TURNED 99." And that millisecond when I didn't know where the headline was taking me was a real roller coaster! Because mere hours earlier, I received a news alert that started with "SENATOR DIANE FEINSTEIN" followed by "DIED" which wasn't surprising, but it put me in that mindset to expect death from others. 

Anyway, longtime California Senator Diane Feinstein passed away last week at the age of 90. The whole wide internet has been piling on with jokes about it because she has been so very old for such a long time, which is admirable, but she was having a hard time at work, which is relatable, but the combo = not so great for a US Senator. Everybody has something to say about it, and I do too!

California Senator Diane Feinstein passed away last week at the age of 90. Her office reports that she has no intention of stepping down.

US Representative and chaos factory George Santos entered the chat to lament Feinstein's death while soft-dropping a husband that nobody had heard about. So far all we know about said husband is that his name is Matt, and he's heartbroken about Diane:

Celebritizing Sports

Taylor Swift went to another football game to watch Travis Kelce, and I am soaking up this story like some burnt ends of a smoked brisket bathing in an extremely sweet barbecue sauce. This is a joke about Kansas City, where Kelce plays, and the kind of barbecue they eat there; I learned about both of these things in the past 10 days and show no signs of stopping!

Local Trash

Target announced last week that it's closing nine stores nationwide due to theft and safety concerns. CNN reported this as "Target Says It Will Close Nine Stores in Four Major Cities" and the first thing I could think was, OMG, they called us a major city?!? Wow! 

So, the company is trying to make it seem like theft and safety are the primary reasons for the closures, but I think the real reason is that those small Targets sucked ass and nobody wanted to shop at them. I would happily drive past the Powell and Hollywood Targets to get to a fully stocked airport or Mall 205 Target where I knew that I could find nine colors of every plain t-shirt and all the cute pens and at least 6,000 kinds of candles to smell, as God wanted for his favorite creations. Maybe it only seemed like theft was a huge problem at those little Targets because they only had like 20 things in them and they were all boring? So. Do you think we could turn those buildings back into bowling alleys? Because I want to buy exactly one thing at those specific coordinates and it's a bottle of Budweiser in the shape of a bowling pin.

Since I am really into sports now, I must address our beloved Damian Lillard leaving the Blazers for the Milwaukee Bucks. It's too bad! For one thing, I hate how Milwaukee spells Milwaukee. For two, we don't have a ton of hometown heroes and the Blazers haven't had a star like Dame in ages. It really speaks to our city's niceness that the bulk of the commentary about the trade is just like, "oh man, well, I hope he gets everything he wants and more!" We are the "I just hope both teams have fun!" novelty sports T-shirt of American sports cities, and it's nice even if it is a bummer.

Can I make this connect to Taylor Swift again? Oh hell yeah:

Well, I gotta go, pals! Whatever you're up to this week, I know for sure you will do it attractively, authentically, and in a way that will make all of your haters jealous. I cherish you.

Admirably,