He's liked and trusted. The real reason Trump hated Fauci is because his approval ratings were so much higher. But in a larger sense, destroying a figure of endearment and trust is right out of the Russia/Authoritarian playbook, where you want to destroy the ability of citizens to trust any one or anything. It's the flip side of the "fire hose of falsehood" strategy, where you inundate people with alternate explanations for an event (except for the honest one) and try to burn people out so they stop believing it's possible to know the truth. But in the case of destroying a trusted figure, they are trying to destroy trust in anything. They've also done this with government institutions as well.

gun but there wasn't supposed to be. I don't know the correct terminology, but the prop master thought he had cleared the chambers and replaced them with the blanks, but a projectile was stuck somewhere in the gun and discharged because there is still a small amount of gunpowder in the primer (?) to set off the effects.

It's almost unheard of for live ammunition to be purposefully discharged on a movie set. It is so rare that the few known instances are pretty notorious:

Twilight Zone The Movie in the John Landis segment (very recklessly)
Manhunter directed by Michael Mann (very recklessly)

I've seen the possibility floated that live ammo was used during Full Metal Jacket (that was in the UK and they may have different rules) but only under extreme caution and I've never seen that verified by a good source. I rather doubt it. One reason why it hasn't been an issue is that well-done squibs actually look a whole lot better than live ammo.

One of the eyewitnesses to the Twilight Zone incident said he had been in the film industry for two decades and never seen or even heard of live ammunition being used on set.

I ordered a Women's World Cup replica soccer ball signed by several members of the USWNT. I was nervous about that order but it came with a certificate of authenticity and a photograph of the balls being signed, so I guess it was okay. I DID NOT have contact with customer service so I cannot speak to that, sorry.

Sorry you had issues with them. Sometimes places can go down hill rapidly, or maybe I just got lucky.

I had to check this thread out because Thom Hartmann mentioned in on his program yesterday.

I'm just relaying what is in several of the books (most likely "Peril" and "I Alone Can Fix It," but possibly "Frankly We Did Win This Election".

The story in those books (for whatever they are worth) is that the Secret Service was in the process of trying to move Pence as well as members of Congress to locations away from the Capitol. Many refused to go, including Pelosi and Pence, stating that they wanted to certify the election that night. It's not that Pence did not leave the Capitol that day "because he didn't trust the driver." He was dead set on not leaving the Capitol period and finishing the certification to show the Insurrectionists that they hadn't won. (So were Pelosi, McConnell and I can't remember who all else).

Both Pelosi and Pence were opposed to following Secret Service orders to get into vehicles because they both knew that if they were put inside a car that the car would leave the Capitol. Pence was told, "Just sit in the car for your own safety" but he knew if he got inside the car would usher him away to the undisclosed location (which are disclosed in the books).

The way it's presented in the books, it wasn't like Pence suddenly distrusted the Secret Service in the sense they might be up to nefarious deeds. He just knew the protocol, he was aware they wanted him away from the Capitol and he didn't want to leave. Nowhere in those books is it suggested there was a plot to remove him or anyone else from the Capitol for the purpose of delaying certification or overturning the election. But something new is coming out every day so as Rachel Maddow always says, "Watch this space."