🇺🇸 Mug Shot Mania

Good morning, and happy Tuesday. Every so often, it’s the shelter dog that adopts the humans. Scout was a stray at a shelter in Michigan until the pooch decided he was tired of waiting to be adopted. After successfully escaping the shelter and its fences 3 separate times, he found his forever home. The story gets even better when you hear where he ended up…

Plus, a Tennessee woman has earned the Guinness World Record for the longest competitive mullet…

Also, own a piece of your favorite city, fill two nests with one (million) eggs, and say so long to the screwtops.

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TRUMP

Mug Shot Mania

Following his surrender to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, former President Donald J. Trump became the first president to have his mug shot taken. Moments after his mug shot was taken Thursday, Trump posted the image to his Truth Social platform, along with a fund-raising link.

Reporting from the Left: Trump raised $7.1 million after Georgia booking, mugshot (POLITICO)

Reporting from the Right: Trump fundraising spikes after Fulton County mugshot, surpassing $20M in August (FOX News)

From The Flag: The image is being used across the political spectrum as a way to support and criticize him. Trump’s presidential campaign has capitalized on the image to raise upwards of $7 million since his booking. Meanwhile, his GOP political rival, former Governor Chris Christie, released an unflattering political ad featuring the mugshot. Here’s what both sides are saying.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

We Should Be Rethinking Merchandising Mug Shots (and Mug Shots In General)

• Supporters and opponents of Trump are trying to profit from this moment by reducing it to an excessive amount of merchandise.

• The former president’s supporters are already embracing the booking photo as a badge of honor and defiance, and it will define an era.

• Donald Trump shouldn't get special treatment from Fulton County authorities, but his surrender is an opportunity to rethink the practice of publicizing suspect photos.

The Dangerous Marketing of the Trump Mug Shot Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times: “First out of the gate, not surprisingly, was the Trump campaign itself, which overnight splashed the picture on a variety of merch. Hours later, the Never Trumpers, otherwise known as the Lincoln Project, had also reproduced the mug shot on a — pun alert — shot glass, along with the acronym ‘F.A.F.O.’ and the exhortation to ‘Raise a glass to justice.’ Not long after that, Green Day, the punk band, offered a T-shirt on Instagram that had swapped out the portraits on the cover of its 1997 ‘Nimrod’ album with the mug shot. … But what does it mean, exactly, that no matter our allegiances at this particular moment, or our different versions of recent history, we share a common ground right in the middle of an ocean of consumer kitsch? … ‘It shows the cynicism of late capitalism and the era we are in,’ said Wendy A. Woloson…”

Belligerence and hostility: Trump’s mugshot defines modern US politics Chris McGreal, The Guardian: “Now comes what Donald Trump Jr described as ‘the most iconic photo in the history of US politics’ before the booking picture of his father glaring into the camera was even taken. But whether deeply divided Americans view the first ever mugshot of a former president as that of a gangster or a rock star is very much in the politics of the beholder. Trump’s hostility shines through as he turns his eyes up toward the camera above him and in his taut, downturned mouth as he is booked into the Fulton county jail on charges of trying to steal the 2020 presidential election. Dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, he makes no attempt to put on a smile like some of his co-defendants in their mugshots. The picture does not flatter but it does convey the message many of Trump’s supporters want to hear – belligerence.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Trump may spin his mug shot into gold, but for others it's an unnecessary humiliation Jennifer Tucker, MSNBC

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Mixed: This is a Badge of Honor vs. This May Hurt in the Long-run

• The left hoped these indictments and the mug shot would harm Trump, but it’s only serving as a rallying cry for his wronged supporters.

• The idea that Trump’s arrests could give him “Street Cred” among Black voters is reductive, and not supported by facts.

• “What the mugshot does — especially this particular mugshot — is give Trump the appearance of somebody who is bravely standing up to forces that are going after him.”

Trump’s Mugshot Is A Symbol Of The Right’s Struggle Against Tyranny Evita Duffy-Alfonso, The Federalist: “The photograph means something to hard-working female athletes who lost awards and scholarships thanks to men posing as women. It represents any American who has been shadowbanned, censored, or suspended by social media thought police because they told the truth about Covid, vaccines, biology, the war in Ukraine, or the Hunter Biden laptop. It represents all the doctors who had their licenses suspended or were given ‘psychiatric evaluations’ because they refused to parrot the regime’s official line on coronavirus and acceptable mitigation methods, and instead offered alternatives. The mugshot is a rallying cry for everyone whose business was unconstitutionally shut down during Covid, especially those whose businesses never reopened. It symbolizes all the students who were put on lockdown and forced to wear masks and take an experimental vaccine, and the grandparents who died alone in Covid confinement.”

Have Donald Trump’s Arrests Provided Him with ‘Street Cred’? Noah Rothman, National Review: “...the idea that there is no ‘better way to make a billionaire relatable’ than arresting and releasing him on a six-figure bond is doubtful. Six in ten arrestees are detained pre-trial because they cannot afford bail. And when their sentence concludes, people ‘on probation are much more likely to be low-income than those who aren’t, and steep monthly probation fees put them at risk of being jailed when they can’t pay,’ the Prison Policy Initiative observed. … The implication that African-American men will warm to Donald Trump only because he is the target of law enforcement betrays a sordid assumption about African-American men. Even if we take his stipulation at face value, it is not well supported. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted between Trump’s third and fourth arrests found that two-thirds of black Americans agreed with a majority of America’s voters that Trump’s ‘federal criminal charges’ were ‘very serious.’”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Why Trump’s Mugshot Is A Big Win For Trump Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire

FLAG THIS

GOP Primary Voters See Trump as More Electable

More people see former President Trump as electable after the release of his mug shot and his decision to skip the first GOP debate of the 2024 cycle.

The new Morning Consult poll found that 62 percent of potential primary voters surveyed believe Trump has the best chance of any Republican of beating President Biden (The Hill).

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

Crazy Horse, Hand-Tongue Connection, Phil A. O’Fish

On This Day in 1877: Oglala Sioux leader Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a US soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory.

Quanta Magazine: The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues

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Today I learned that McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich has its own mascot: Phil A. O'Fish.