1/ Frank Rich with his big picture view of the Republican race, and commentary on Trump's lurch towards fascism.....always insightful.....
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: the GOP debate over Syrian refugees, Trump's latest surge, and the comparatively low-key Democratic presidential race.
Republican presidential candidates and governors have called for turning away Syrian refugees, Ben Carson has likened them to “rabid dogs,” and Donald Trump is peddling an urban legendabout Muslims cheering the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New Jersey. How can a major American political party do this without incurring some political cost?
It can’t. The GOP — not just Trump and Carson — offers something to offend almost every minority group in the country: black, gay, Latino, and Muslim people. And one majority group: women. Even its so-called moderate Establishment candidates are culpable: Jeb Bush called for admitting only Christian refugees from Syria; John Kasich has proposed a government agency to promote “core Judeo-Christian Western values,” a plan that strikes me as not just anti-Muslim but anti-Semitic despite the lip service paid to “Judeos”; Marco Rubio opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. None of this will hurt Republican candidates in safe, gerrymandered House districts or in deep-red states. But it will cripple them in presidential elections, and contested races for the Senate and governorships in purple or even purplish states, let alone blue ones.
It can’t. The GOP — not just Trump and Carson — offers something to offend almost every minority group in the country: black, gay, Latino, and Muslim people. And one majority group: women. Even its so-called moderate Establishment candidates are culpable: Jeb Bush called for admitting only Christian refugees from Syria; John Kasich has proposed a government agency to promote “core Judeo-Christian Western values,” a plan that strikes me as not just anti-Muslim but anti-Semitic despite the lip service paid to “Judeos”; Marco Rubio opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. None of this will hurt Republican candidates in safe, gerrymandered House districts or in deep-red states. But it will cripple them in presidential elections, and contested races for the Senate and governorships in purple or even purplish states, let alone blue ones.
2/ John Oliver with a comedic look at the refugee crisis......a few laughs, but some great reporting too....
The host of Last Week Tonight on HBO John Oliver took on the Syrian refugee crisis on Sunday night’s show, highlighting the absurdities that have come to light in the argument since the deadly attacks in Paris. After giving credit to the spirit of the French people who have returned to life-as-usual in defiance of terror threats, Oliver focused his segment on the refugee crisis out of Syria and its impact on the United States.
Regarding the ongoing debate on Syrian refugees entering this country and the state governors who opposed this process, Oliver had a message. “That’s pretty extreme, but that’s also pretty meaningless for two reasons,” he said. “One: Governors don’t have the legal authority to ban refugees and two: even if they could, Syrians can just walk between states like anyone else! The lines on maps aren’t crocodile-filled moats.”
After Jeb Bush’s simple assertion last week that “I think you can prove [you’re a Christian],” Oliver had a bit of fun at the expense of struggling GOP contender. Oliver continued, “A Christian has ears that protrude from the head, while non-Christians lack ears all together! Oh you know what, I’m thinking about seals and sea lions. I often get them confused.”
3/ Matt Taibbi with how our media is failing to cover Trump......but his headline is the story......
America Is Too Dumb for TV News
Trump and others are proving it: we can't handle the truth
Donald Trump claimed erroneously that "thousands of people" in New Jersey "were cheering" on 9/11
Donald Trump said this to supporters at an Alabama rally:
"Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering."
It was a hell of a revelation. Where did this witnessing take place? Was he standing on the Hoboken terminal clock tower? George Stephanopoulus challenged Trump on this on ABC's This Week, noting that police said nothing like that happened.
TRUMP: It did happen. I saw it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You saw that…
TRUMP: It was on television. I saw it.
Until recently, the narrative of stories like this has been predictable. If a candidate said something nuts, or seemingly not true, an army of humorless journalists quickly dug up all the facts, and the candidate ultimately was either vindicated, apologized, or suffered terrible agonies.
4/ Seth Meyers is getting more political - his segment "A Closer Look" is like a John Oliver effort......this is six minutes of exposing Trump's obvious lies.....amusing and edgy too......
“Late Night” host Seth Meyers was on fire Tuesday night when he lit up Donald Trump for spending the weekend lying to justify his racism and Islamophobia.
Trump swears that he saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on 9/11, a claim that Meyers says has been universally debunked. “But even when he was confronted about the lie by George Stephanopoulos, Trump stood his ground,” Meyers said. He then ran the clip of Trump doubling down saying that he saw it with his own eyes.
“But let’s remember Trump also said he met Vladimir Putin when they were on the same episode of ’60 Minutes’ even though they filmed their segments thousands of miles apart. So, Trump’s understanding about how TV works is not entirely trustworthy.”
5/ There was a news story last week about how Stephen Colbert is losing Republican viewers to the other late night shows......this is why - his humour is too sophisticated for the average right-winger......
Republicans just don’t get Stephen Colbert: Why the Fox News-watching, climate-change denying crowd can’t understand complex satire
Colbert's ratings are down. Republicans are crowing they won't watch him. Indeed, they are afraid to be challenged
When it was first announced that Stephen Colbert would take over for David Letterman as host of “The Late Show”—both the right and the left complained. The left worried that the end of “The Colbert Report” and his pundit persona would signal a huge loss for politically progressive satire. The right argued that the choice of Colbert signaled that CBS was, to quote Rush Limbaugh, at “war on the heartland of America.” “CBS executives made it clear” however, “that they expected Mr. Colbert to broaden his appeal when he moved to the medium of late night on a network.”
At least that was the idea.
We now have data that paint a different picture.
6/ The Times has put together a compendium of some of the police shootings of black people across the country......
The Videos That Are Putting Race
and Policing Into Sharp Relief
Raw video has thoroughly shaken American policing. Grainy images of questionable police behavior, spread through social media, have led to nationwide protests, federal investigations and changes in policy and attitudes on race.
“A lot of white people are truly shocked by what these videos depict; I know very few African-Americans who are surprised,” said Paul D. Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former prosecutor. “The videos are smoking-gun evidence,” he added, “both literally because they are very graphic, which generates outrage, and figuratively, because people believe their own eyes.”
“A lot of white people are truly shocked by what these videos depict; I know very few African-Americans who are surprised,” said Paul D. Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former prosecutor. “The videos are smoking-gun evidence,” he added, “both literally because they are very graphic, which generates outrage, and figuratively, because people believe their own eyes.”
7/ A long and sometimes nerdy article about why our politics are going to get worse.....yes, worse and it's because the tradition of paternalism from our elites has broken down into something much more disruptive, and this dynamic is fraying the fabric of society.
It's a little difficult to read at times, but if you want to know what's coming and why, have a look at this......it's worth it - it's excellent.
Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz (Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Joe Mitchell)
With almost total gridlock in Congress, and a couple of rank amateurs dominating the GOP presidential primary, you can be forgiven for thinking that America has reached a record peak of political dysfunction—especially considering how weak the Democratic Party has been in response, as seen in the recent off-year elections. But if you think we’ve reached a peak, you might want to think again, according to Peter Turchin, a former theoretical biologist who turned his attention to studying human history more than a decade and a half ago.
8/ A rude but very funny Bill Maher five minutes, and he explains the refugee crisis is the fault of........Australians? Huh?
Warning - salty language.....
Bill Maher wants to blame Aussies for the problems the U.S. faces. Picture: YOUTUBVE / REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER
He reminisces back to a time when American movies starred Americans, casting the likes of Rebel Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Simon Baker and Russell Crowe as "an Aussie hoard that flawlessly mimics our American accent and then takes jobs that rightfully belong to Billy Bob Thornton".
9/ Greenland - one of the two major ice fields on the planet is melting much faster that anticipated......a Times investigation.....
At one point several hundred thousand years ago, snow began falling over the center of the earth’s largest island. The snow did not melt, and in the years that followed, storms brought even more. All around Greenland, the arctic temperatures remained low enough for the snow to last past spring and summer. It piled up, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium. Eventually, the snow became the Greenland ice sheet, a blanket of ice so huge that it covered 650,000 square miles and reached a thickness of 10,000 feet in places. Meanwhile, in Antarctica, a similar process was well underway. There, as snow fell upon snow for years without end, the ice sheet spread out over a much vaster area: 5.4 million square miles, an expanse far larger than the lower 48 states. By the start of the modern era, when power plants and electric lights began illuminating the streets of Manhattan, about 75 percent of the world’s freshwater had been frozen into the ice sheets that lay over these lands at opposite ends of the earth.
10/ This is charming....."How To Age Gracefully", where older people and kids give advice to their younger friends......give it a click, you'll get the idea.....
Five "nice" minutes.....
A couple of Floriduh stories.....just goes on and on.....
11/ Carl Hiaasen with a column on how the disgusting piece of fecal slime YOU elected - Rick Scott - is planning to gut our state parks.....
Gov. Rick Scott is one boot-step closer to denaturizing Florida’s state parks.
A Senate committee last week voted 7-1 to confirm Jon Steverson as Scott’s hand-picked choice to lead the shriveled and demoralized Department of Environmental Protection.
One of Steverson’s missions is to fulfill the governor’s dream of opening state parks to hunting, cattle grazing and commercial timber harvesting. The second part of Steverson’s job is to take the heat for this obscene idea, and he’s getting plenty.
Environmental leaders and citizen groups have blasted the scheme, ostensibly designed to make parks pay for themselves. The full Senate refused to confirm Steverson’s nomination last spring, so he remains “interim” head of DEP for now.
12/ How our Republican legislature has allowed Voldemort to make Floridians sicker by rejecting the $50 billion in Obamacare funding.......so Florida is the third worst in the country for rates of health insurance coverage.....
Strange isn't it? Every fetus is sacred, but according to Republicans everyone else can fend for themselves.....
You can feel it, can't you? That dull headache at the back of your scalp; the sinus pressure when the temperature drops down to the 70s one day, then bolts back into the 90s the next. There's constant hacking from across the office.
The tail-end of the calendar year is when everyone starts getting ill — here in South Florida worst of all,because the seasonal residents and vacationers who are just arriving on our shores are packing their own germs. Making it worse: You're surrounded by uninsured folks.
A new comprehensive study of rates of insurance coverage in the Age of Obamacare finds Florida at the bottom of the list in terms of protected people.
13/ Good TV you [and I] may have missed - "The Leftovers"..........
What’s it gonna take to get you to watch The Leftovers?
HBO's series is having a mind-blowing second season — but nobody's watching
Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) amid the devastation
Look, what's it gonna take to get you to watch The Leftovers?
Do I have to come over to your house and watch it with you? I'll do it if you provide snacks, because I'm feeling downright evangelical about this show — appropriate for a series that considers matters of religion and eternity.
Everybody who loves TV has watched a show that's inspired feverish declarations of love, an insistence on viewing each episode as soon as possible, and a tendency to browbeat others until they, too, are enjoying it just as much. This is not a terribly pleasant affliction, and people tend to keep their distance from you when you are in its throes.
But, dammit, it must be borne. Because nobody is watching The Leftovers, and the second season is some next-level stuff.
Todays video - "Beware Of The Doghouse", a video that women will love.....
Men - Christmas is coming, so watch this and don't make the mistakes these poor schleps did.....
A reminder of what will happen if you get your girl the wrong gift this year. LOL!!! Dual-bag gets put in the doghouse for getting the wrong anniversary gift, and learns the ways of the Doghouse!
Todays subtle joke
A pretty but arrogant woman is eating at the most exquisite of restaurants.
She is eating a lot of cauliflowers and meats, when she accidentally passes gas.
Embarrassed, she looks to blame it on someone else, so she tells the nearby waiter, "Stop it!"
The waiter responds, "Sure Ma'am, I'll try. In which direction was it heading?"
Todays religious joke
A nun walked into Mother Superior's office and plunked down into a chair. She let out a sigh heavy with frustration.'What troubles you, Sister?' asked the Mother Superior. 'I thought this was the day you spent with your family.'
'It was,' sighed the Sister. 'And I went to play golf with my brother. We try to play golf as often as we can. You know I was quite a talented golfer before I devoted my life to Christ.''I seem to recall that,' the Mother Superior agreed. 'So I take it your day of recreation was not relaxing?''Far from it,' snorted the Sister. 'In fact, I even took the Lord's name in vain today!'
'Goodness, Sister!' gasped the Mother Superior, astonished. 'You must tell me all about it!'
'Well, we were on the fifth tee...and this hole is a monster, Mother - 540 yard Par 5, with a nasty dogleg right and a hidden green...and I hit the drive of my life. I creamed it. The sweetest swing I ever made.And it's flying straight and true, right along the line I wanted...and it hits a bird in mid-flight!'
'Oh my!' commiserated the Mother. 'How unfortunate! But surely that didn't make you blaspheme, Sister!''No, that wasn't it,' admitted Sister. 'While I was still trying to fathom what had happened, this squirrel ran out of the woods, grabbed my ball and ran off down the fairway!'
'Oh, that would have made me blaspheme!' sympathized the Mother.
'But I didn't, Mother!' sobbed the Sister. 'I was so proud of myself! And while I was pondering whether this was a sign from God, this hawk swooped out of the sky, grabbed the squirrel and flew off, with my ball still clutched in his paws!''So that's when you cursed,' said the Mother with a knowing smile.
'Nope, that wasn't it either,' cried the Sister, anguished, 'because as the hawk started to fly out of sight, the squirrel started struggling, so the hawk dropped him right there on the green, and the ball popped out of his paws and rolled to about 18 inches from the cup!'Mother Superior sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, fixed the Sister with a baleful stare and said...'You missed the fucking putt, didn't you?'
Todays blonde joke
There was a blonde who just got sick and tired of all the blonde jokes.
One evening, she went home and memorized all the state capitals.
Back in the office the next day, some guy started telling a dumb blonde joke.
She interrupted him with a shrill announcement, "I've had it up to here with these blonde jokes. I want you to know that this blonde went home last night and did something probably none of you could do. I memorized all the state capitals."
One of the guys, of course, said, "I don't believe you. What is the capital of Nevada?"
"N," she answered.
