A.M. Links: Trump Speaks at U.N. Today, Toys 'R' Us Files for Bankruptcy, Hurricane Maria Heads for Puerto Rico

• 

  Gage Skidmore / Flickr.com

  President Donald Trump will speak at the United Nations today.

• "US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe."
• Toys 'R' Us has filed for bankruptcy.
• Defense Secretary Jim Mattis: The North Koreans "are intentionally doing provocations that seem to press against the envelope for just how far can they push without going over some kind of a line, in their minds, that would make them vulnerable."
• Officials in Puerto Rico are urging residents to evacuate as Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, closes in.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily updates for more content.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Donald Trump will speak at the United Nations today.

He should save the expense and just tweet at them.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

Me and three buddies worked the midnight shift at Toys 'R' Us for one summer.

What a blast. Four immature boys plus an immature boss and all those toys? Do the math.

[BestUsedCarSales]

Did you get a bunch of toys shoved in your ass?

[Bee Tagger]

If he wanted to be extraordinarily clever he could do a tweet storm and iterate them with "a/n, b/n, c/n" etc and then end on "u/n"

[Fist of Etiquette]

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN...

Wiretap, eh?

[Citizen X - #6]

Wiretapped 'em? Damn near killed 'em!

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

They wiretapped his rectum?

[Episteme]

Explains the contents of his tweets.

[colorblindkid]

In a sane world, Trump would realize that these FISA courts are illegal and unconstitutional in all cases. But he won't. He'll just think they weren't right to do it 'this' time.

[Eek Barba Durkle]

The story I read yesterday, they first started wiretapping Manafort in 2014, but never found any evidence, so they dropped it.

And then, last year, he was put back under surveillance by a secret FISA order, up through the election and its aftermath.

But don't claim that Obama abused our intelligence structure for political monitoring. That would be crazy talk.

[Citizen X - #6]

Toys 'R' Us has filed for bankruptcy.

Geoffrey the Giraffe got a golden parachute, however.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

He was great in that Marquis de Sade movie.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Toys 'R' Us has filed for bankruptcy.

That Cyrillic letter in their name was doing them any favors in this anti-Russia charged environment.

[Citizen X - #6]

Fact: that letter is pronounced 'ya' and is also the first-person singular pronoun in Russian.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

Toys R Us was headquartered in Fargo?

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else used to say ja a lot?

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Heidi Klum?

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

The Ya Ya Sisterhood?

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

Lorde?

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Ashanti?

[Citizen X - #6]

Bob Marley?

[Anomalous]

Beethoven?

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

YHWH?

[$park? leftist poser]

Is he the opposite of NHWH?

[Cy]

Jarule's wife?

[Rat on a train]

Yet ??? is still in business with three Cyrillic letters!

[Citizen X - #6]

Pronounced A, V, and S.

[Rat on a train]

Try to pronounce ABCEHKMOPTXY!

[Citizen X - #6]

It's pronounced "Avsyenkmortkhu," and i'm pretty sure it's the name of a death metal band from Novosibirsk.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The North Koreans "are intentionally doing provocations that seem to press against the envelope for just how far can they push without going over some kind of a line, in their minds, that would make them vulnerable."

Maybe if you bribed them with food aid that didn't require scrubbing "USA" off the packages.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Forget cash - how sex and sleep are the key to happiness: Strong relationships and good health are more important to Britons than cars and holidays, research shows

Sleeping soundly and having a good sex life have a greater impact on wellbeing than money, it is claimed today.

Strong relationships with family and friends, job security and the good health of loved ones are also much more important than flash cars and exotic holidays.

The claims come from a new 'Living Well Index', which looks at how people cope best with the stresses of modern life.

If I get a good night's rest I am one happy mug, that's for sure.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

I sleep best right after sex. And by "right after," I mean immediately.

[Memory Hole]

Well, my dick wakes me up to have sex so I can attest to the connection.

[Episteme]

Cash, sex, sleep, relationships, health...

Welp, let's count all the things that I don't have and guess why I'm miserable! At least I have whiskey...

[Episteme]

At least I have whiskey...

(...until the lack of cash kicks in, that is.)

[Jerryskids]

Not surprisingly, I first read that as "how sex and sheep are the keys to happiness".

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

You must be from Georgia.

[Anomalous]

That was baaaad.

[Conchfritters]

If you can't make a buck in an age when parents buy their kids every fucking thing they want, perhaps you should go out of business.

[$park? leftist poser]

Toys R Us doesn't sell iPad apps.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Officials in Puerto Rico are urging residents to evacuate as Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, closes in.

BUILD THAT WALL, MR. PRESIDENT. We don't want these non-Americans coming across our borders!

[Episteme]

Puerto Rico is actually surprisingly good at stopping illegals...or folks who they think are illegals.

A few years back, a buddy of mine was getting married in the Virgin Islands, and his best man was flying in from Arizona with a stop in PR (which involved a pass through customs, despite not leaving the US; its part of the island's charm). It turns out that he's very tan and his SSN shares a series with many of those repurposed by illegals. So, he was detained and sent back to Arizona (where he had some nice interviews at the airport about who he was) and my pasty Irish ass got promoted to best man!

[Anomalous]

Oy vey, Maria.

[loveconstitution1789]

Puerto Ricans are US citizens, if they want.

But great one otherwise.

[Bee Tagger]

President Donald Trump will speak at the United Nations today.

"at" is the correct word here.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

The correct word is "in," because he will be inside the building.

[Bee Tagger]

Wrong, his speech will be about the UN, he will be speaking "on" the United Nations today.

[Rat on a train]

I bet it will televised so he will be speaking from the UN, but also speaking to the UN.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

But first, he is gonna grab the entrance.

[Episteme]

He'll go off script in the first thirty seconds, beginning to critique the craftsmanship of the marble of the dais and recommending a list of "his guys" in NYC who can fix up the place for half off list price...

[TW]

I'm not a Trump fan, but I have to admit that I loved his testimony to Congress in 2005 about how the UN remodeling plan.

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....9112/posts

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

This airline tried to improve long international flights with live theater

Put down the in-flight magazine, Icelandair has invented a new way to stave off traveling boredom: live theater starring your some of flight's crew (and a few professional actors).

Earlier this month the curtain raised on a show that took place on a transatlantic trip. The three-act play, Ahead of Time, was performed by some of the crew who studied with the British immersive theater group, Gideon Reeling, in their time off. The pilot flying the plane didn't step out to traipse down the aisles in costume, but the cabin staff and other airline employees were all in on it.

The horrible man is barefoot...

[Citizen X - #6]

Bad enough that you're stuck in a metal tube for hours, but making you sit through immersive theater? Those bastards.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

- said one gerbil to the other

[Bee Tagger]

"are intentionally doing provocations that seem to press against the envelope for just how far can they push without going over some kind of a line..."

I hesitate to say this, but this really needs to be trimmed down to less than 140 characters.

[Bee Tagger]

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort

This is news to Obama. Literally, he's finding out about it on the news.

[Episteme]

You think Obama's surprised? Imagine how Trump feels ? that conspiratorial stuff he was ranting about turned out to actually be true!

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

How watching football helped me understand people who deny climate change

How different am I from people who put their skeptical heads in the sand and keep burning fossil fuels like there's no next season? If I deny the neuroscience about the long-term implication of banging heads for sport, then I can continue being a fan, right?

Talk about inconvenient truths.

Good point: This winter I will not heat my home. Thank you.

[Bee Tagger]

The "if I try really hard to be as dumb as you, I can sympathize with you" line of persuasion is always a lot of fun.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

How is that different from any other winter? I mean you have a serious insulation problem with your chosen form of dwelling.

[Episteme]

Wait, so players stand for the National Anthem for years and things are fine, then Colin Kaepernick and his cronies start kneeling in protest and WHAM! CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANES TACKLING US ON EVERY DOWN!?!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

climate systems were going haywire

This is the fucking part that gets me about these hysterics--it's not enough to assert that the climate is changing, which is an observable phenomena. They have to couple what should be a bland scientific analysis with Armageddon-like religiosity, as if the earth's climate was always gentle and easily predictable and Americans driving SUVs is what turned things around.

History is chock-full of examples of climate acting in extreme ways, but these people act as if it's never happened before in order to justify their authoritarian, managerial impulses, and like this guy, they actually believe that doing so is an indication of their intelligence. No, freaking out about climate change doesn't show that your smart, it shows that you're an infantile drama queen with no sense of perspective and no knowledge of the past.

[Zeb]

A lot of people seem to have this idea that the climate and the biosphere in general is in some kind of delicate balance and everything will fall apart if that is disturbed. Which is absurd. If that were the case, complex life would never have made it.

[some guy]

Exactly. The only reason we exist is because robust negative feedback mechanisms exist in the climate system which work to keep things at a relatively comfortable temperature for life. It takes a huge external force to disrupt those mechanisms even a little. But even large forcings will just move the stable state around a bit. It takes something epic like a large meteor strike or a mega-volcano eruption to eliminate this stable state altogether.

Climate alarmism is all about wanting to feel special, as if great deeds are being done. Everyone wants to feel like they are saving the world, but first they have to find a way to convince themselves that the world needs saving.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

Actually, that delicate balance has been disturbed numerous times throughout the history of the earth. It is only because of one of those disturbances that complex life arose in the first place.

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

Complex animal life only rose once the oceans became oxygenated through the demise of the Canfield Ocean, which was anoxic, full of sulfur, and present for close to a billion years. The invasion of land by lichens lead to an increase in the weathering of the continental minerals, leading to a depletion of the sulfur in the ocean. That was one of the factors, anyways.

[Jerryskids]

If I deny the neuroscience about the long-term implication of banging heads for sport, then I can continue being a fan, right?

Ever looked into the long-term effects of sitting at a computer terminal all day? We're all beating the shit out of our bodies, most of us do it over a long period of time for not much money, professional athletes do it all at once for a shot at incredible wealth. Everything's trying to kill you, sooner or later something's going to succeed.

[Aloysious]

Woman shouted 'If you can't beat them, eat them' after biting detective

A young woman shouted "If you can't beat them, eat them" after she bit a detective in a Garda station.
Megan McQuaide (18) was arrested after she was involved in a traffic accident in Barnesmore, Co Donegal, on June 24th.
Ms McQuaide, of Meadowbank Avenue, Strand Road, Derry, was found by garda? standing in the middle of the road and was shouting and striking out at the emergency services.
She was a passenger in a car but was unhurt. She was taken by ambulance to hospital but had to be accompanied by garda? because of her behaviour.
She was physically aggressive to hospital staff and was arrested for public order offences and taken to Letterkenny Garda station.
As she was being released into the care of her grandmother when leaving Letterkenny Garda station, she sank her teeth into the chest of a female Garda.

[Citizen X - #6]

She seems fun.

[Bee Tagger]

This is what i announce to an empty kitchen when I drink my raw egg protein shake in the morning.

[geo1113]

Another Megan McQuaide

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

"US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe."

Fun fact: don't hire the sleaziest man in Washington - which is a true accomplishment - to run your presidential campaign.

[Jerryskids]

Manafort isn't the sleaziest man in Washington, that would be Roger Stone. Oh wait - Trump hired him, too.

[Idle Hands]

I really don't know if he's the sleaziest but the guy is up their. But who else are you going to get to run Donald Trumps campaign? it was pretty well assumed that it was going to be an embarrassing garbage truck fire/crash that was probably going to peter out around Iowa.

[Episteme]

Toys 'R' Us has filed for bankruptcy.

Ah shit. I guess it's time to grow up...

[Aloysious]

'Mad Pooper' wanted by Springs police

The Colorado Springs family has spent weeks trying to get a mystery woman they've dubbed "The Mad Pooper" to stop defecating in their neighborhood, right outside their house.

Cathy Budde says her kids caught her first mid-squat, pants down and unashamed.

...snip...

"It's abnormal, it's not something I've seen in my career," Sgt. Johnathan Sharketti said. "For someone to repeatedly do such a thing ... it's uncharted territory for me."

[Citizen X - #6]

A refugee troll from Hit'n'Run?

[Bee Tagger]

The name has to come from this, right?

[Chipper Morning, Mean Girl]

At least she didn't poop a hate crime.

[Citizen X - #6]

WELL, I HATED IT.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

How much human doo has the rookie on the force had to bag? I am thinking pounds. Poor rook.

[Episteme]

She needs to steal something first at each scene, so she can be the Scat Burgler!

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

Watch H.R. McMaster React to President Trump's Tweet Calling Kim Jong Un 'Rocket Man'

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster appeared on two Sunday shows today, and he was asked in both about President Trump's tweet referring to Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man."

And McMaster was also asked on ABC's This Week as well. George Stephanopoulos read the tweet and asked, "I assume Rocket Man is Kim Jong Un?"

"It appears to be so," McMaster said. "That is where the rockets and missiles are coming from."

Wha happen?

[Episteme]

Did Donald Trump always give odd nicknames to folks, or does he just now desperately want to be Tony Stark?

[Aloysious]

Hobby Lobby controversy starts over 'racist' cotton decoration

Hobby Lobby, once embroiled in controversy for denying contraception coverage to employees, is again in the national spotlight.

This time, it's a fall decoration in the arts-and-crafts store that's drawing ire.

A Facebook post late last week shows a photo of a raw cotton plant in a glass vase on one of Hobby Lobby's shelves.

"So wrong on so many levels" is how Texas shopper Daniell Rider described it.

"There is nothing decorative about raw cotton," she said. "A commodity which was gained at the expense of African-American slaves. A little sensitivity goes a long way. Please remove this decor."

[Zeb]

Bad joke time:

Q: Why don't black people take Aspirin?
A: They hate picking the cotton out of the bottle.

The raw cotton looks pretty decorative to me.

[Jerryskids]

The SJW's are intentionally doing provocations that seem to press against the envelope for just how far can they push without going over some kind of a line, in their minds, that would make them vulnerable.

[Rhywun]

denying contraception coverage

That still doesn't compute, years later.

Oh well, they're still evil Nazis so let's drag their name through the mud some other way - no matter how stupid.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Didn't we go through this a couple years ago?

[Citizen X - #6]

So the existence of cotton is racist? That seems like a stretch.

[loveconstitution1789]

Thanks for helping get Trump elected to a second term SJWs!

[Rebel Scum]

President Donald Trump will speak at the United Nations today.

"I have invited you all here to inform you that the US is leaving the UN and this building is scheduled to be demolished in 1 hour. You're all fired. Losers."

Nah, but a man can dream, right?

[Rhywun]

Middle-east ambassadors with hundreds of unpaid parking tickets hardest hit.

[Crusty Juggler - Lawbertarian]

"US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe."

Investigators have spent years probing any possible role played by Manafort's firm and other US consultants, including the Podesta Group and Mercury LLC, that worked with the former Ukraine regime. The basis for the case hinged on the failure by the US firms to register under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that the Justice Department only rarely uses to bring charges.

The FBI was investigating the firms belonging to each presidential campaign manager, but hey let's talk about Sean Spicer!

[Rebel Scum]

Toys 'R' Us has filed for bankruptcy.

Shame. I haven't finished my Nerf collection.

[Episteme]

Just imagine the Going Out Of Business Sale!

[Aloysious]

High schoolers paint 'rape' on chests at football game

Four high school students in South Carolina are under fire after spelling out the word "rape" on their chests during a football game. A picture circulating on social media showed four shirtless young men from Westside High School with the letters spelled in pink on their bodies.

The four students in the photo posted it to social media alongside the caption "What we do to Daniel," apparently a reference to the opposing team. The photo was taken during a "Touchdown Against Cancer" game where other students had painted pink letters to rally against cancer, the Independent Mail reported.

"They have not been expelled, but they have been punished," said Kyle Newton, director of external affairs for the district, according to the Independent Mail. "This is not acceptable anywhere and anytime. At best, this is offensive to just about anyone and at worst this is traumatic to some people."

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

They meant to spell out "pear" but got confused.

[damikesc]

They meant "aper" actually.

[Rebel Scum]

Officials in Puerto Rico are urging residents to evacuate as Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, closes in.

Trump wins the election and then a series of major hurricanes strike islands full of brown people. Coincidence???

[loveconstitution1789]

If its a new weapon, then I am impressed.

[damikesc]

Obama wishes he had a speech in him like Trump delivered today. The line about Venezuela suffering because Socialism was faithfully executed is the best line a U.S. President has said this century.