Yes, Trump can read. But can he rise to the occasion?

I stopped watching SNL around the time Eddie Murphy left. But oh my GOD, they're on fire right now.

Trump IS literate. Samantha Bee's lovely theory that Donald Trump cannot read has made a bit of a comeback in recent days, so perhaps the time has come for me to spill a bean or two.

I had a chance to speak with someone who ran the teleprompter for Trump during the Republican convention. This person -- call him Teleprompter Guy, or TG for short -- confirms that Der Donald can, in fact, read. Trump has a teleprompter operator of his own, but shortly before giving his big speech, the Creamsickle-Colored Autocrat decided to use the services of TG, who was hired to help other speakers address the convention. Trump made the switch because the font on TG's equipment was more readable.

Cameras happened to be on Trump as he made that decision. If you would like to see the man filmed in the actual act of reading, go here.

Just to prove that my source is for real, here's a bit of insider knowledge: Teleprompter Guy had fallen off a roof shortly before the convention and had to do the job while in a wheelchair; Trump, clever as always, nicknamed him "Wheels." (TG is fine now.) I should also note that TG is not a political animal and not a reader of this blog, and that he also ran a teleprompter for Hillary at one venue. My interaction with him was a matter of pure happenstance.

The Bowling Green massacre. Kellyanne Conway's great gaffe may not be such a jocular matter after all. Remember the apartment bombings in Russia -- the terror events that allowed Putin to consolidate power? This censored article offers evidence that Putin orchestrated those events.

One of the odder footnotes to the whole affair was a statement that Gennady Seleznyov, the Speaker of the Duma, had made on the floor of Parliament on the morning of September 13, 1999. I have just received a report, he had announced to legislators. An apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night.

The announcement was a tad premature: The building went boom three days later.

Was something in the works for Bowling Green? Were those plans put on hold after Kellyanne "pulled a Seleznyov"?

Why Melania sleeps elsewhere. A few days ago, reader joseph (with a small j) sent in this delightful note:

You may remember that I said Trump was taking synthetic testosterone. Well, http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/317486-longtime-doctor-trump-takes-drug-to-promote-hair-growth AND http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/the-not-so-hard-truth-about-hair-loss-drugs-20121115

The first story quotes the ever-delightful Dr. Harold Bornstein, who reveals that he prescribed finasteride to Der Donald in order to prevent hair loss. Finasteride is also known as Propecia, and there is growing evidence that it...um...has a certain side effect. How to put this? Visualize an uncooked spaghetti noodle. Now visualize a spaghetti noodle that has been in boiling water for ten minutes. I think you get the picture.

The story is going viral. Christo Grozev, of all people, is talking about it. (One of his readers says that Canada won't allow anyone who has recently taken Propecia to donate blood.) The WP notes that the drug may also cause depression and suicidal ideation.

Trump's hair has caused him many problems over the years. Remember the story about the time he (allegedly) raped his first wife, Ivana?

The New Yorker recently dug up an extract from Trump’s biographer Harry Hurt’s book, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, in which he described in detail about what happened on the night when Ivana was allegedly “raped” by Trump.

According to Hurt, who had access to the court papers filed by Ivana Trump, the real estate mogul once violently tore her hair out and then forced himself on her sexually after undergoing a “painful scalp reduction” operation.

“Trump was furious that a ‘scalp reduction’ operation he’d undergone to eliminate a bald spot had been unexpectedly painful. Ivana had recommended the plastic surgeon. In retaliation, Hurt wrote, Trump yanked out a handful of his wife’s hair, and then forced himself on her sexually. Afterward, according to the book, she spent the night locked in a bedroom, crying; in the morning, Trump asked her, ‘with menacing casualness, “Does it hurt?”‘”

While Trump denies that he ever raped Ivana or that he even underwent a “scalp reduction” operation, two of Ivana’s friends corroborated her statements back in 1990.

Anger over painful hair surgery: #Trump's excuse to #rape his wife #Ivana and violently tear out her hair: https://t.co/dlXSF15TjE @Lawrence
— Fielding Mellish (@n64k) October 19, 2016

Before the publication of the book, however, Ivana Trump released a statement saying that she did not mean to use the word “rape” in the literal sense.

Donnie, I suggest the Yul Brynner look. It's very dude-ly. A lot of chicks dig it. And it's very Russian.

I want to be a paid protester! There were protests in Tennessee last week when the governor gave an address. A Republican state senator, Paul Bailey, tweeted that the protestors "admitted" to being paid -- thereby giving a local spin on an allegation often made by Republicans nationwide in recent times. Usually, these paranoid nitwits point to Evil George Soros as the mastermind. Soros apparently has all the money in the world, and he secretly funds anything and everything that rightwingers don't like.

Of course, Bailey's "evidence" turned out to be hilariously nonexistent.

What I want to know is: Where do I sign up? We all love the idea of being paid to do something we want to do anyways. I'll work cheap, Evil George! If you want me to show up at your next shindig in DC, all I ask is the cost of a bus ticket and lunch at Five Guys. Deal?