Chuck and Mollie teach different lessons; A surprising idea for Biden's VP; Fox News on Trump's in Trouble in Texas

Former campaign adviser James Carville has long been a feisty and fearless presence on political news shows, and Thursday was no exception.
When MSNBC's Brian Williams asked him who he thought Joe Biden should pick as his running mate, Carville offered a succinct and blunt response, "I don't care."
"Pick Sarah Palin," Carville continued. "I'll be for her too. I just want to win this thing."
Obviously, Palin isn't seriously being considered on Biden's short list, but Carville was entertaining as always.
Stellar Job, You Guys. Just Great. Really.
"Government" and "efficiency" aren't words that often go together, and the coronavirus stimulus payments are a glaring example of that.
The federal government sent out $1,200 to American taxpayers but apparently didn't take the basic step of checking to see if the people whose names were on the checks were still breathing.
Yep. The feds sent checks to over a million dead people, totaling nearly $1.4 billion.
Oh, and they still don't have a plan to get that money back.
Judge to Trump Family: Go Pound Sand
The president's niece, Mary L. Trump, has a book coming out, and it's supposed to be a salacious tell-all. Needless to say, Donald Trump is less than thrilled about it.
The Trump family, led by the president's brother, Robert Trump, attempted to get a New York surrogate's court to block the release of the book, claiming that a nondisclosure agreement Mary Trump signed in relation to the settlement of Fred Trump, Sr.'s estate blocked her from sharing this damaging information.
The judge tossed the whole case right out of court because the relief sought had nothing to do with the long-settled matter of the administration of the Trump patriarch's estate.
Looks like that book is coming out after all.
I'll Take My Ball And Go Home

Pro-Trump conservatives have long complained about getting unfair treatment from Twitter and other major social media platforms.
This week, many of them decided they had had enough, and flocked to Twitter competitor Parler.
A whopping 500,000 new users signed up for Parler accounts, spurred by reports of two popular pro-Trump Twitter accounts getting banned.
Republican politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced they were registering for Parler accounts as well.
Now, it appears that the vast majority of these people -- including Cruz and Paul -- still kept their Twitter accounts, so it remains to be seen how big of an impact Parler will have in the long term.
Whiffing a Softball
Fox News' Sean Hannity had Trump for a one-on-one town hall on Thursday, and he lobbed one particular softball at the president...who whiffed bigly.
It was one of the most head scratching: Hannity asked Trump to name his top priorities for his second term, if he won re-election, and Trump failed to name even one.
Instead, Trump dropped a long, rambling answer about how he'd spent very little time in Washington and then "all of a sudden" found himself President of the United States.
Watch the video here.

Et tu, Fox News?
Trump's bromance with Hannity lives on, but the president's animosity towards his one-time favorite Fox News continues to build.
This latest news is unlikely to help: a poll commissioned by Fox that shows Biden leading in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and even Texas.
Yep, Texas.
Trump won all those states in 2016, but cannot prevail in November without them. Florida has been expected to be a swing state, but if the Lone Star State is within reach for Biden -- game over for Trump.
Fake News, But It's Our Fake News
Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma may have had a disappointing turnout, but he did get one major benefit from it: the campaign's "biggest data haul" ever, according to campaign manager Brad Parscale.
What the Trump campaign is doing with that data, however, is raising concerns about users' privacy and security.
An analysis by the MIT Technology Review of both the Trump and Biden apps found that the Trump one accessed an abnormally broad swath of users' personal data -- not to mention pushing out "highly questionable or entirely disproven information."

Why So Defensive?

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) got visibly indignant on Thursday when CNN’s Manu Raju tried to ask him if it’s “appropriate” for Trump to refer to the coronavirus as “the kung flu.”
During McCarthy’s weekly press conference, Raju pressed him on Trump’s repeated use of the phrase, even though the president’s administration previously decried the slur as “highly offensive.”
McCarthy did not appreciate the question, and went on a short rant before abruptly ending the presser and stomping off without answering it, or any other questions.
Watch what happened here.