In Trump's Orbit

 

"In Trump's orbit" seems to be the favorite phrase of all the "cool kids" in the media right now after his positive COVID-19 test, rapidly gaining ground on the ever-popular "existential threat". Without even trying, I returned an entire page of search results from newspapers, magazines, media all over the country sporting headlines or ledes with the phrase "in Trump's orbit". You could play a drinking game with it on cable news, but you'd end up in the ER.

So, while the media were beating this poor, misbegotten phrase to within an inch of its life, I had to ask — what, exactly, is "in Trump's orbit"? The answer, of course, was instantly clear — spent rocket stages, dud rocket stages, derelict satellites, tools lost overboard from ISS spacewalks, the odd NRO top-secret payload, drifting fields of orbital collision debris, a Tesla roadster... wait, wut? 

   

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Freedom Isn't Free

Getting up to date in our Thinning Out The Stupid Gene Department: Florida, gung-ho for reopening, beaches crowded as hell, has set a new one-day record for new COVID19 cases; even as one state after another begins mandating mask use, the governor of Georgia has stuck a blow for freedom by barring municipalities from mandating masks and, elsewhere in the Covidiot Universe, the co-founder of ReOpen Maryland — one of many groups standing up for our Constitutional right to manicures and ice cream — tested positive for COVID19 just a couple of weeks ago.

But as it's often said — Freedom Isn't Free.

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