It’s Friday. We made it. So why not end the week with a bang …

1) U.S. military drops a massive bomb on Afghanistan, an apparent effort to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS.


Yesterday, the U.S. military dropped “the mother of all bombs”—the biggest nonnuclear ordnance in the military arsenal, each bomb costing about $16 million—on a cave complex in Afghanistan. According to the Afghan ministry, thirty-six ISIS fighters were killed. From The New York Times:

The United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” — the most powerful conventional bomb in the American arsenal — on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan on Thursday, the Pentagon said, unleashing a weapon so massive that it had to be dropped from the rear of a cargo plane.

The strike was the first combat use of what is formally named the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast. President Trump has bestowed additional authority on the Pentagon in his first months in office, which the military has argued will help it defeat the Islamic State more speedily. Mr. Trump did not say whether he had personally approved Thursday’s mission.

“What I do is I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said after a meeting with emergency workers at the White House. He called the bombing “another very, very successful mission.”

Asked whether this sent a message to North Korea, Trump continued:

“I don’t know if this sends a message; it doesn’t make any difference if it does or not,” the president said. “North Korea is a problem, the problem will be taken care of.” He implied that China was “working very hard” on this issue.

2) Larry Pittman’s Lincolngate takes an amusing turn, as one Republican legislator creates a hashtag—and puts Honest Abe in hipster glasses:

There has still been no formal condemnation of Republican Representative Larry Pittman’s comparison of Lincoln to Adolf Hitler issued by the GOP—or House Speaker Tim Moore—but a few Republicans weighed in on Twitter, including our new favorite, Representative Bob Brawley of Mecklenburg. From the INDY:
3) Anti-Trump, pro-immigrant signs burned in Durham.

From the N&O:

In total, four signs in three yards were burned on Englewood Avenue in the Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood, between Broad Street and Hillandale Road.

The sign in Tucker’s yard had said, “He’s not my president. Impeach Trump.”

A second sign in her yard was reduced to the metal holder in scorched earth. The green, blue and orange sign had said, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor,” in Spanish, English and Arabic.

4) Trump signs a law that would cut Planned Parenthood funding.

If you perform abortions, you can now lose federal funding. It’s that simple. From The New York Times:

President Trump signed legislation on Thursday aimed at cutting off federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform abortions, a move cheered by conservatives who have clamored to impose curbs on reproductive rights.

The measure nullifies a rule completed in the last days of the Obama administration that effectively barred state and local governments from withholding federal funding for family planning services related to contraception, sexually transmitted infections, fertility, pregnancy care, and breast and cervical cancer screening from qualified health providers — regardless of whether they also performed abortions. The new measure cleared Congress last month with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.

The previous Department of Health and Human Services regulation, which took effect two days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, said that states and localities could not withhold money from a provider for any reason other than an inability to provide family planning services.

So much for good news. Enjoy your weekend, folks.