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IRA'S STUPID STUFF - EARLY AUGUST, 2016

1. An NBA all-star basketball player posted a picture of his penis to the public on Instagram or Snapchat or some such. "I pushed the wrong button," he said. "It could happen to anyone." Not to me. But this sort of thing seems to happen often to NBA players. Did you see that the US Olympic team 'accidentally' had drinks in a Rio bordello? Oops...

2. Kansas elects a doctrinaire, tax-slashing governor and state legislature. After a few years, Kansas faces such a huge budget crisis that the Speaker of the Kansas State House of Representatives lost in his primary, one of about a dozen other tax-cutting conservatives in the Kansas legislature to lose their seats. Even a notorious Kansas Tea Party member of the US House of Representatives lost.

Wait a minute. That's smart stuff. Never mind...

3. Trump says that he'll keep Putin out of Ukraine. A little late for that, don't you think?

4. A Texas law allowing students to bring concealed weapons onto university campuses goes into effect on the 50th anniversary of one of the first mass shootings in American history that took place...wait for it...on a Texas university campus. If it was in any other state but Texas, you'd just know that it was a joke. It's not.

5. A spokeswoman for Trump tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the dead Marine whose parents have been involved in a tussle with Trump was probably killed because Obama and Hillary changed the rules of engagement in Iraq...in 2004...four years before Obama took office. You're fired! The only member of the Trump campaign allowed to lie with impunity is Trump!

6. Hillary doubles down. "The FBI says that I told the truth about the emails."  Not really. Just admit that you screwed up and move on. Or, as Krauthammer  has said, take lying lessons from Bill.

7. Florida's Governor Rick Scott demands that the federal government step up with anti-zika funding after he cuts Florida's pest research and control budget by 50%. It's the new States Rights mantra from conservatives...the states have the right to demand federal bailouts.

EXPAT BONUS: 600,000 or so recipients of retirement benefits from the American Social Security Administration were no longer able to access their online accounts as of August 1st. In order to increase cyber security, Social Security now requires you to register a text-enabled cell phone. You log in using a user name and password, they text you an access code to input. One problem. The system only allows you to register a cellphone with an American telephone number. Either the government can't figure out how to accommodate 600,000 foreign-residing recipients, doesn't realize that foreign-residing recipients were being locked out of the system, or just doesn't care. Either way, stupid.

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