And I'm going to throw in links relating to the Health Care Debate since that's somewhat Trumpy…

• Ezra Klein explains why people who think Medicaid is worthless are (a) wrong and (b) somehow under the impression that instead giving all that money to the rich in tax cuts is going to do anything for the people who will hurt by cutting Medicaid.
• Ed Kilgore explains how when Trump says there are no cuts in Medicaid, he's using a very deceptive way of measuring the numbers.
• And Kevin Drum explains how a cut is a cut is a cut.
• Trump's partial travel ban goes into effect today. As Dara Lind notes, there are still a lot of questions as to how it works and what it's supposed to do.
• And here's Ezra Klein again, this time discussing how some Conservatives seem to be trying to live up or down (take your pick) to the caricature that Liberals have of Conservatives.
• Once upon a time, weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned us that Saddam Hussein did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction and we should not go to war there on the belief that he did. Ritter was widely denounced as foolish and gullible, and his warnings were ignored. He is now warning that Trump's claims of chemical weapons in Syria are a lie that could be used to justify another war built on a false premise. Maybe someone oughta at least consider that this man could be right again.
• Former Bush-Cheney advisor Bruce Bartlett does not think the current Republican Party is dealing well with reality. I sometimes think it's because it gets in the way of believing the world is or could be the way they wish it was.

And we won't even get into those nutty tweets that Trump was sending this morning except to note that he still thinks the worst thing you can say about anyone is that their business is not prospering…even if that's not true. And he's sure embarrassing people who want to believe in him as a leader.

Maybe the smallest dog in the world…

There has been talk of a Single-Payer Health Care Plan here in the state of California. Sounds great…but as our pal Kevin Drum notes, it's darn near impossible for the foreseeable future.

And I meant to link to this piece by Kevin which notes that Americans are becoming more and more comfortable with the concept of Gay Marriage. I guess that's because they're noticing that God did not smite us all down or send locusts to devour our children as some had predicted would occur if Henry was allowed to marry Dave.

Matt Taibbi doesn't think a lot of the press these days. It's maddening how when reporters make one mistake, a lotta folks think they now have an excuse to not believe all the true things that get reported that they don't want to believe.

Matthew Yglesias explains "Why Donald Trump can't make deals in Washington." Matt's answer to that is "The big problem is he has no idea what he's talking about."

And finally for now, the question everyone is asking: What the hell are Fidget-Spinners?

Not much posting today and I'm afraid it may be like this through the weekend. I'll be around but not often.

A brief policy statement: I get lots of requests from folks asking me to plug Kickstarter, Go Fund Me or other endeavors that endeavor to raise money. Some of these are from friends. Some are from total strangers. A few do a bad job of pretending that they've ever had any use for this blog. One casual acquaintance wrote me the other day that he religiously reads newsfromme every day and also enjoys seeing Carolyn and me at Comic-Con (which she didn't attend the last few years of her life) and hopes to see us both again there next month.

You know, I don't mind people saying to me, "Hey, I know we don't know each other…" I do mind them pretending we're bosom buddies because they want something. Every time I've been in a position to hire writers or actors, I hear from a lot of close friends I never knew I had. There's a strong "How dumb does he think I am?" factor at work here.

I also sometimes get messages that seem to think I run a free public service where you send me your press release and I print it.

For some reason the requests come in clumps — one or two a day for a week or two…then suddenly, a whole bunch all at once. Today, I've had twenty-seven. Some are surely worthy causes. Others are things that I can't recommend because I haven't seen them or don't know much about them beyond what their marketers tell me makes them indispensable. I don't know what to do with all these so for the time being at least, I'm not going to do anything.

People…I don't even use this blog to promote my own projects very often. I don't think I've mentioned the last twenty comic books I had out. Why do you think I want to promote every single thing you do?

Henny Youngman — a little late in life but still being very Henny Youngman…

The home page of Google often has these little graphics called Google Doodles that salute someone or something for a day. A movement has been started on the 'net to get Google to note Jack Kirby on August 28, 2017. That's the date Jack would have turned 100 years old if he was still with us.

I think (forgive me if I'm wrong) that this campaign was started by a writer-cartoonist named "Calamity" Jon Morris. He is urging Kirby fans to send an e-mail to proposals@google.com with the subject line of "Google Doodle for Jack Kirby – August 28, 2017." In the body of the message, explain why Jack deserves this honor. If you're the kind of Kirby fan who would take the time to do this, you probably can list fifty reasons. I wrote the following in my message to them…

Jack Kirby was one of the great creative geniuses of the 20th century, bringing us a whole visual language birthed in comic books, and co-creating characters like Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, The X-Men, Thor, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer and countless others that will endure forever. Though widely celebrated within the comic book industry, he has not received nearly enough recognition outside that field. A Google Doodle on what would have been his 100th birthday would do much to rectify that oversight.

I don't know who crafts these things but whoever the Doodles Weaver is, I hope he or she realizes how deserving Jack is.

I have no idea if the Republican health care bill is going to pass and if so, what form it will be in by then. It does seem pretty obvious that it's a terrible bill that will create great suffering as it makes health insurance unaffordable for millions while it slashes taxes for folks who don't need their taxes slashed. It also seems to me that a lot of Republican leaders are trying to ram it through, regardless of what it will do, because to not "repeal and replace" would be to admit they might not be in total charge of the country.

Here's what I'm wondering. According to Nate Silver…

The House's bill was extraordinarily unpopular: On average, unfavorable views of the bill exceeded favorable ones by 25 to 30 percentage points. (For instance, 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the House bill, compared with the 32 percent who approved, in the most recent CBS News poll.) The Senate's bill, since it's substantially similar to the House's bill, isn't likely to rate much better.

What's on the mind of that 32% that wants to see the nation go this way with health care? I'm being serious here. I can think of a number of viewpoints here…

• I don't believe the bill will cause so many people to lose insurance or see their premiums soar. I trust the Paul Ryans of the world who say that won't happen.
• I do believe the bill will cause that many people to lose insurance and I'm fine with that. If they do, that's their problem. The government shouldn't be involved in stuff like this.
• I'm a Republican. If our leaders want to do this, I trust them.
• Nothing in government is permanent. If the bill does hurt people, it will be fixed. Republicans can fix it if they remain in power. Democrats can fix it if they take over. Why are we even talking about how many people will lose coverage a decade from now?
• It expunges something Obama did. That's reason enough for me.

I'll probably think of a few more later but mainly, I'm curious: How many people who support this bill support it because they honestly think it will lead to better health care for more people and how many because they think that it won't?

It's coming, coming! And if you're going, going, you're going to need a means of getting there and maybe parking there. The folks at Comic-Con International have updated their page on parking, shuttles and other means of transportation. You can access it right here. There's a ton of valuable info on that website that can make your visit much easier. Spend some time there before the con.

Thank Fred Burke for this. A mother ferret wants to show off her babies…

I've been getting a flurry of questions that might serve as the basis for post #25,000 here. This one from Christopher Geoffrey McPherson will not be that post…

I've been a professional writer (journalist, mostly) most of my life. I am semi-retired, but still write (novels, mostly). There have been many times when I just wanted to stop writing, take a break, turn my mind off and stop putting words on paper. It always passes, but there are times….

Do you ever find yourself in a similar situation? I imagine with all your work and the length of time you've been writing, it must have happened quite a lot.

No, never…which I suspect is a function of writing a lot of different things. If I get tired of the comic book script, I can go work on the animation presentation. I recently found myself for a few months jumping back and forth between a comic book script for kids and a script for a much more adult audience — a script full of naughty words and steamy sex. I adjusted easily but my spell-checker got very confused at the extremes of vocabulary.

Basically, when I get tired of writing one thing, I write something else for a while. I love the sheer act of writing so after spending a solid six or eight hours on an assignment that's due next week, I will often switch to something I'm writing without an assignment — something I may or may not go out and try to sell. Whether or not I will may depend on if I like it enough to finish it and then if I can figure out someplace I might sell it. A mix on my plate of those two kinds of writing can be very fulfilling. What I write on assignment pays money and probably gets produced or published soon. What I write not on assignment allows me to stretch and go new places and write things I especially want to write.

I recently finished something that if I hadn't seen myself write it, I would never have believed it came from me. I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's bad. It's merely different, which has a certain value even if all it ever is is a writing exercise.

So no…the answer to your question is that while I may get tired of a certain script or a certain project, I never get tired of writing. I really can't afford to since I have no skills for anything else.

One of the world's greatest stuntmen, Loren Janes, died Saturday at the age of 85. Janes founded the Stuntmen Association of Motion Pictures and Television, did stunts in hundreds of movies and thousands of television shows and justifiably bragged that he never had a major injury and never broke a bone. The list of stars for whom he doubled included Jack Nicholson, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Michael Douglas, Charles Bronson, Robert Wagner, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Yul Brunner, William Shatner, Frank Sinatra and even Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine and Esther Williams. Most notably, he did stunts for Steve McQueen in most of McQueen's films.

Actually for some of us, his most notable credit was that he did stunts all throughout It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. A lot of the stunt driving was Loren Janes and in the finale, when Eddie "Rochester" Anderson flies through the air and lands in the lap of an Abraham Lincoln statue, that's Loren in blackface makeup.

He was a superb athlete, competing in the Olympics in 1956 and again in 1964. He was also a good enough actor that he was occasionally given lines of dialogue and even hired for non-stunt roles. He was still working well into his seventies.

I got to spend time with Mr. Janes at two separate events relating to Mad World and he was a charming, fascinating guy who seemed to have been on the set of every movie made in Hollywood while he was active. Someone who was with us once made the comment that in Mad World, the biggest laugh may have been when the Three Stooges show up and do absolutely nothing. Janes told us he'd doubled for Moe in Snow White and the Three Stooges and he had plenty of stories from that filming.

He often lectured about his craft and one of the key points he made was that a stuntperson was an actor; that if he doubled the star diving through a plate glass window, he not only had to dive through the plate glass window — which in itself was difficult enough — he also had to do it with the body language of the actor he was doubling. Before he doubled Kirk Douglas, he'd spend hours studying how Douglas moved…and how he moved as that character.

He was one of the best and that's why he worked so much. And I think it's interesting that most of the stunt people in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — though they spent their careers crashing cars and falling off roofs — lived to older ages than the stars they doubled. I hope the Academy includes Mr. Janes in the "In Memoriam" reel at next year's Oscars because he probably logged more camera time and participated in more memorable movie scenes than most of the actors they'll automatically include.

The great Stan Laurel died February 23, 1965. One of those in attendance at his funeral was a man named Gene Lester, a professional photographer who had been a fan and friend of Laurel's. Right there, it is said, he began telling people there should be a big TV special/tribute to Stan, explaining to the world how important and wonderful he was. Many celebrities who were present said they'd gladly participate in such a thing, especially if — as Lester also suggested — all the proceeds went to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. When Dick Van Dyke volunteered to host, the idea really took off and CBS offered a time slot and the funding.

At some point, it is further said, control of the special was shifted from Lester to more experienced producers and the final product, which aired on November 23 of that year, had little resemblance to what Mr. Lester had envisioned or what Van Dyke and others had agreed to be in. It was done on the stage where Red Skelton usually taped with most of his production staff though, as Buster Keaton reportedly quipped, Red had the good sense to not be a part of it. Keaton was on it as were — among others — Lucille Ball, Phil Silvers, Danny Kaye, Louis Nye, Bob Newhart, Fred Gwynne in his Herman Munster suit, Gregory Peck, Harvey Korman and Cesar Romero. Yes, amazingly Cesar Romero was available.

What started as a tribute with Laurel and Hardy film clips and stars telling why they loved those men so turned into a semi-splashy variety special with a lot of material that had little to do with Stan and Ollie. I remember watching it when it aired — I was thirteen — with much the same look that we would all see four years later on the faces of the audience members watching "Springtime for Hitler" in The Producers. Most of those in the show, especially Dick Van Dyke, had similar expressions and muttered how glad they were Stan wasn't around to see it.

This is the entire program and you will not watch it. I promise you: You will not watch it. But you might want to watch a little here and there, skipping around, just to marvel at how a very good idea can go so horribly wrong…

A lot of folks who were worried about the future of MAD magazine are real happy this morning to hear who its new editor is going to be. It's our friend Bill Morrison, who used to be the head guy at Bongo Comics and who is currently the President of the National Cartoonists Society.

There was this fear that they'd bring in a stranger who'd barely read MAD, let alone respected its heritage. We all know Bill well enough to know he's not that person. Here's the Hollywood Reporter announcing the news and here's Tom Richmond.

Congrats to Bill. I used to tell outgoing editor John Ficarra (and before him, Nick Meglin) that though they were friends of mine, MAD was so important to me that if they ever ruined it, I would not hesitate to publicly denounce them and put various curses on their heads. I can say the same thing to my friend Bill because I know I'll never have to do that with him.

Hey, remember not so long ago when the Writers Guild of America couldn't make a deal with the Producers and it looked like there might be a Writers Strike? Well, it looks like we're there again, only with the Actors…

We have presented reasonable proposals to address the critical concerns facing our members and that are integral to making a living in this industry. The AMPTP has responded with outrageous rollbacks that cut to the core of our basic terms and conditions. Despite our efforts, the AMPTP has failed to make sufficient progress on our most critical issues. The status quo is simply unacceptable and our members, standing together, will not give in to management's onerous demands nor back down on our critical proposals.

After a comprehensive update from the negotiating committee, the National Board of Directors today unanimously voted to authorize sending out a strike authorization referendum to SAG-AFTRA members, unless a satisfactory agreement is reached by June 30, 2017.

I dunno quite how to score this one. SAG-AFTRA is a strange beast because it has so many members who do not rely on acting jobs for their main source of income. They have a lot of folks in there who do something else to pay the rent and then the two or three acting jobs they get each year are kind of a bonus in terms of money and maybe ego. But then they also have a lot of people who are pretty militant about wanting to act…and i don't know how the two groups currently stack up against each other.

Also: Of all the unions, SAG-AFTRA has the widest disparity in income between the top folks and the bottom ones. They generally manage to unite pretty well against the whole idea of rollbacks. If major ones remain on the table, there will be a strike.

We are only days from the above-stated deadline. If there's no agreement by this Friday, there will be a strike authorization vote — not a vote to strike but a vote to authorize the guild leadership to call a strike if the two sides remain far apart with no hope for movement. This is what the WGA did and the massive support theirs got from the members seems to have unjammed things in the bargaining and led to an acceptable deal. The most likely scenario for SAG-AFTRA would seem to be following the writers' script…but you never know for sure with this guild.

One key difference between the guilds, of course, is that when actors go on strike, it immediately shuts down most production. When we writers go out, it sometimes takes everyone but the soap opera producers and late night watchers a little time to notice. If I had to bet, I'd bet on no strike. And if that happens, SAG-AFTRA will owe the Writers Guild residuals for replaying their plan.

A newly-hatched baby chick helps another chick out of its shell…