02/18/26
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, February 18th.
Thumb Appreciation Day.
You mean… Thumbpreciation Day?
“Oh Kim, isn’t it Ash Wednesday?” Yeah, for some people. But everyone can appreciate the thumbpreciation pun. And isn’t that, alone, worth a high holy holiday?
And now, the news.
Update: Rhode Island Shooting
-via AP News
Starting with an update on Monday’s Rhode Island ice rink shooting, which left two people dead and three others injured before the shooter died of what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
As early reports noted, the shooting was motivated by a family dispute and we have more details on the shooting. Spoiler alert… the details are awful.
We now know that the shooter was 56-year-old Robert Dorgan, who also went by Robert Dorgana, and the two killed were the shooter’s ex-wife and adult son. The three injured were the ex-wife’s parents, as well as a family friend.
All three remain in critical condition.
On Sunday, the day before the shooting, Dorgan responded to an anti-trans posts from Kevin Sorbo, as well as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, saying that the constant criticism of trans folks is “why we Go BERSERK.”
Can’t wait for the Trump administration to learn all the wrong lessons from this. Because this is someone who obviously needed some serious mental help. They didn’t do this specifically because they were trans. They happened to be trans, and their experience led them to be in a place where they clearly needed mental help. But we all know that’s not what the Trump administration is going to take from this.
Meanwhile 52-57% of mass shooters are white cis males and they’re like… well, in that case I think the only thing there is to actually have given them a heavier gun.
At least three bystanders were able to intervene and stop the attack from becoming much worse than it already was.
Armed Man at Capitol
-via ABC News
In vaguely related news… An 18-year-old man wearing a tactical vest and gloves, carrying a loaded shotgun and additional rounds, was stopped as he ran towards the US Capitol on Tuesday.
Capitol police saw him and ordered him to drop the weapon. He immediately dropped it and was taken into custody without incident.
At a press conference, Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan noted that he immediately complied adding, “Who knows what would have happened if we wouldn’t have officers standing here?”
I mean… he had a gun and was running to the Capitol. I think we can guess.
A motive is not clear at this time.
As a reminder, the government is in a partial shutdown and both the House and Senate are in no rush to change that fun little fact so they are both on vaca.
Partial Government Shutdown
-via ABC News
Not much to say about the partial government shutdown. It continues.
Senator Schumer sent the democratic demands late Monday night, but the specifics are unclear. The only thing we really know is, per the White House in response to Schumer’s proposal: "the parties are still pretty far apart."
And I’m sure Trump’s just itching to get this government working to full capacity ASAP, too. I know it’s just eating him alive.
Colorado Crash
-via CBS News
In Colorado, high winds causing a brownout (where dirt causes low-to-no visibility) is to blame for a 30-car pileup on I-25, just south of Pueblo, Tuesday morning.
At least four people were killed. 29 others were rushed to local hospitals with a range of injuries.
Lake Tahoe Avalanche
-via NBC News
And in Lake Tahoe, California, at least 10 skiers are missing and six others were left stranded after an avalanche on Tuesday.
This is a fluid situation. Hopefully by the time you hear this, there will be more answers but with 3-to-4 inches of snow falling per hour in the area, rescue was very difficult on Tuesday.
Nancy Guthrie
-via LA Times
You guys… where is Nancy Guthrie??
On Tuesday, the Guthrie family was officially cleared as suspects by authorities. This includes the brother-in-law, who was an early suspect though, to be clear, that was mostly on social media.
We also learned on Tuesday that the glove found near Nancy Guthrie’s home, which did have DNA in it, did not return a match in the national DNA database.
No match!
Where is Nancy Guthrie??
CBS Complies in Advance (Again)
-via CNN
Moving over to television… CBS, which is owned by Skydance, has once again complied in advance.
Stephen Colbert, who is in the middle of his final season with the Late Show because he made fun of Trump months ago and Skydance canned him, pretaped an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.
The FCC famously has an equal time rule that requires tv and radio stations to give equal airtime to all candidates.
Sidenote, the way I always remember this rule is because, in 2003, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for governor Conan used to do a bit where he had a cutout of Arnold’s face with the lips cut out and Conan would talk.
Absurdly… that counted as airtime for Arnold! Which meant NBC could then give airtime to his opposition.
Absurd rule.
Also… Conan O’Brien has never made a mistake in his life. I’ll be taking zero questions.
Now, news coverage obviously is exempt from this rule, and so it was sort of accepted that late-night and daytime talk shows fell under that umbrella.
But the chair of FCC is Brendan Carr. He… certainly has heard of the 1st Amendment. Can’t say he’s a big fan of it, that’s for sure.
He is, however, a big fan of Trump. Why wouldn’t he be – Trump appointed him, afterall.
So now Carr is saying: “If you’re fake news, you’re not going to qualify for the bona fide news exemption.”
He hasn’t actually pulled the trigger yet. He’s only threatened to.
However, Skydance is owned by David Ellison. His dad is Larry Ellison (bummer of a sidenote – Larry Ellison’s Oracle just bought the US entity of TikTok), and they are friends, to the extent he’s able to have them, with Trump.
So CBS told Colbert that they could not air the Talarico interview. Instead, it could only be on YouTube. The FCC is already considering an investigation into The View for an equal time violation after their Talarico interview.
And look, I could do a whole thing about what’s going on, but Colbert talked about this on Monday night and absolutely nailed it when he said this: “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV. Because all Trump does is watch TV.”
This is very serious.
I… truly can’t wait for this administration to be out of office and, additionally, I can’t wait for the day all these losers like Carr are out of a job.
Jesse Jackson
-via Guardian
And ending with another very sad ending…
On Tuesday, the world lost an absolute giant of the civil rights era after Reverend Jesse Jackson died at age 84.
Time makes giants out of people we lose, but there are some people who are giants while they’re alive, too. That was Reverend Jesse Jackson.
In the 1960s, Jackson founded PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) as one of the earliest efforts to turn economic power into leverage for civil rights. It helped normalize corporate diversity commitments decades before they were common.
He popularized the Rainbow Coalition, a multiracial, multi-issue political alliance that reshaped how Democrats thought about coalition politics and laid the groundwork for progressive organizing.
In 1984 and 1988 he ran for president, the first serious Black candidate to do so after Shirley Chilsom. He won multiple primaries and forced civil rights, poverty, apartheid, and economic justice into those national debates.
And of course, voting - Jackson made voting access and registration central to his work, building the idea that political power is the enforcement mechanism of civil rights, not just a symbolic goal.
He led massive voter registration drives, especially in the South, pressed legal challenges to voter suppression, and framed voting as the core civil right after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
President Biden memorialized him on social media, in part saying: “Reverend Jackson influenced generations of Americans, and countless elected leaders, including Presidents. Reverend Jackson believed in his bones the promise of America: that we are all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never fully lived up to that promise, he dedicated his life to ensuring we never fully walked away from it either.”
President Obama said in part: “For more than 60 years, Reverend Jackson helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history. From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect.”
And look, yes, legacies are complicated things. People exist in the real world. He was a real person and pretending he didn’t also have fallacies diminishes all the good he did.
And he did a LOT of good.
There are too many quotes to choose from, but this one felt particularly poignant for the moment:
“You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you’re qualified and you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive.”
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Hey, today is also Cow Milked While Flying in an Airplane Day
This is real! This is a day to celebrate a cow named Nellie Jay, later named Elm Farm Ollie, who was the first cow to be flown and milked in an airplane. Yeah, first. Could be more. Could be a lot more. They just didn’t make the news. It was done to study the effect of height on cows’ ability to produce milk. In the 72-mile flight over Bismarck, Missouri, Nellie’s was milked and the milk was then put into paper cartons and parachuted down to the people watching from the ground.
The 1930s were wild.
Anyway, I’m proud of that cow. She was probably so confused and, frankly, annoyed.
But what a moooooo-ving story. I guess not really, but still. You gotta thumbpreciate when people try new things.
But more than those puns, because you didn’t turn off this episode yet, or at the cold open at the first thumbpreciation… I’m proud of you.