And now we’re in the first Friday of October! Spooky season is is full swing!

We had a few more days of unusually warm weather, then a couple of days of cool and damp weather, and now we are getting warmer than usual again!

Let’s move on to the Friday Five in which I bring you: a story about bad headline writing and topic framing, the top five stories of the week, and five stories about traitors & liars (plus notable obituaries).

This Week in Click-bait or What-about-ism:

‘Were They Hacked?’: NBC Mocked for Saying Experts Are ‘Puzzling’ Over Why COVID Death Rates Higher for Republicans

Stories of the Week:

America’s Top-Voted Bedtime Story Is Guaranteed To Give Your Kids Nightmares – We’re surprised and a little incredulous. I think that the people who are incredulous don’t remember what being a kid was like.

Country Radio Still Won’t Play Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” – the 1975 hit was an ode to birth control and sexual freedom that shocked the industry and many of the genre’s more conservative listeners

Scooby-Doo’s Velma Is Officially a Lesbian, and Hayley Kiyoko Feels “Alive and Seen” – “You walked so Lesbian Velma could run.”

How Not to Be All About What It’s Not All About: Further Thoughts on Writing About Someone Else’s Culture and Experience

Biden to pardon all federal offenses of simple marijuana possession – begins process to decriminalize

This week in Traitors, Liars, and Thieves:

Oath Keepers trial highlights the right’s obsession with finding cheat codes for real life – Stewart Rhodes all but promised his followers he had "one neat trick" to evade criminal charges for sedition

They Want to Keep Teen Girls Married and Pregnant – The far right and evangelical Republicans share a goal of ensnaring young women and girls in their control. Abortion bans give them a giant win

The Scariest Part of the Proud Boys Isn’t the Violence – Andy Campbell, HuffPost reporter and author of “We Are Proud Boys” joins New Abnormal host Andy Levy for a riveting interview about the scary plots the far-right group is hatching

Herschel Walker was caught in another lie — why the GOP reaction this time is eyeopening – Conservative Christians refuse to reckon with the fact that their preferred senator from Georgia is, by their own logic, now an accused murderer

Fulton County prosecutor investigating Trump aims for indictments as soon as December

In Memoriam:

Loretta Lynn, country music icon who sang ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ has died

Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter Turned Country Superstar, Dies at 90

Jim Redmond, who helped his son Derek to finish line at 1992 Olympics, has died