Sorry about the plethora of Trump articles and jokes, but this has been a great week of stories about the guy.....even without the dick comments from the Thursday debate.....
1/ Super Tuesday was a few days ago, but the media has already second-guessed the results for you that Bernie is finished and there is still a chance to beat Trump.....neither is true. Read this excellent analysis of what the REAL lessons of Super Tuesday are from Benjamin Studebaker....
What Really Happened on Super Tuesday
by Benjamin Studebaker
Unlike the British press, which openly acknowledges and parades its biases, many American news outlets like to maintain a pretense of objectivity. But this doesn’t mean that they’re objective, it just means that their biases are more insidious. Many media outlets clearly like Hillary Clinton and dislike Donald Trump, and these views have quietly colored their reporting on the presidential race. Last night Bernie Sanders won as many states as Donald Trump lost, but Clintonites will try to paint the democrats’ race as effectively over while anti-Trumpsters will look for excuses to say that the republicans’ race isn’t finished yet. These media narratives are used to give the press’ favorites “momentum”. If the public believes a race is over, it often is, regardless of whether or not the numbers really make it so. So by crowning a nominee (or refusing to crown one), media outlets exercise power to shape the races grounded in their biases. To understand what really happened last night, we have to look at whether candidates are meeting or exceeding their projected paths to their respective nominations.
2/ Great story from Heather Digby Parton in Salon on how Trump has dispatched his rivals one by one.......think of him as a skilled Silverback gorilla .....the scary thing is he hasn't really started on Hillary or Bernie yet.....
Very good story and an excellent analysis of how this buffoon has got so far....
Donald Trump(Credit: AP/Steve Helber)
Marco Rubio, the putative runner-up for the Republican nomination, told the press yesterday that he would not win the race by being mean. When the “Today” show’s Willie Geist asked him why he still didn’t need to attack Donald Trump, he said, “That is a media narrative… I’m not in this race to attack anyone… I didn’t run for office to tear up other Republicans.” He’s such a nice young man, isn’t he? So well-mannered. But you have to wonder just what race he thinks he’s running in because whether he likes it or not he’s about to be deluged with a flood of toxic insults which may leave him permanently scarred. As a headline at The Week put it: “Donald Trump is about to do terrible things to Marco Rubio.”
That article was written by Paul Waldman, who astutely observed:
As bullies go, Donald Trump is unusually skilled.
When Trump decides to go after you, he considers carefully both your weak points and the audience for his attack. So when he decided to pummel Jeb Bush — apparently for his own amusement, as much as out of any real political concerns — he hit upon the idea that Bush was “low energy,” something Bush had a hard time countering without sounding like a whiny grade-schooler saying, “Am not!” More than anything else it was a dominance display, a way of showing voters he could push Jeb around and there was nothing Jeb could do about it. With a primary electorate primed by years of watching their candidates fetishize manliness and aggression, the attack touched a nerve.
Donald Trump may be the best bully American politics has ever seen. He’s a blond-tufted silverback gorilla who’s laid waste to each rival, one by one.
3/ A very good two minute Jimmy Kimmel where he creates an ad paid for by Trump supporters.....funny.....
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump grew an orchard of low-hanging fruit Tuesday night when he declared, in his Nevada caucus victory speech, that “I love the poorly-educated!”
Just because it’s low-hanging doesn’t mean it isn’t also delicious, as demonstrated by Jimmy Kimmel Live. On Wednesday night, host Jimmy Kimmel introduced the inevitable “Poorly-Educated Americans for Trump” campaign commercial.
4/ John Oliver with an epic takedown of Trump.....you may have seen golf hats saying "Make Donald Drumpf again".....this sixteen minute clip is where it comes from.....
One of Oliver's best!
Leonardo DiCaprio was still Oscar-less when “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver hit airwaves last night to give GOP front-runner Donald Trump the thorough flogging he so rightfully deserves.
“We have mostly ignored Trump on this show,” Oliver prefaced. “But he has now won three states, has been endorsed by Chris Christie, and polls show him leading most Super Tuesday states, which is a big deal.” Oliver noted that “since 1988, every candidate who’s won the most states on Super Tuesday went on to become their party’s nominee.”
“At this point, Donald Trump is America’s back mole,” Oliver explained. “It may have seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it’s gotten frighteningly bigger, it is no longer wise to ignore it.”
5/ OMG......Lady Gaga does it again with an emotional, powerful performance at the Oscars. Wonderful.......
In the story is also the clip of her singing "The Sound Of Music" from last years Oscars.....when Merica realized she had an incredible voice.....
Lady Gaga has somehow become the darling of awards season.
After winning a Golden Globe, paying tribute to David Bowie at the Grammys and scoring an Oscar nomination, all eyes were on the pop star as she performed "Til It Happens to You" from the documentary "The Hunting Ground" at the 88th annual Academy Awards.
6/ Trump is the creation of the Republican party, and the endgame of the cynical manipulation of stupid, bigoted America. A very good essay by Robert Kagan in the Washington Post.
View Photos
The Republican presidential candidate focuses on Super Tuesday state primaries after a win in Nevada.
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Post.
When the plague descended on Thebes, Oedipus sent his brother-in-law to the Delphic oracle to discover the cause. Little did he realize that the crime for which Thebes was being punished was his own. Today’s Republican Party is our Oedipus. A plague has descended on the party in the form of the most successful demagogue-charlatan in the history of U.S. politics. The party searches desperately for the cause and the remedy without realizing that, like Oedipus, it is the party itself that brought on this plague. The party’s own political crimes are being punished in a bit of cosmic justice fit for a Greek tragedy.
Let’s be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party’s creation, its Frankenstein’s monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party’s wild obstructionism — the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements, the persistent calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions, the insistence that compromise was betrayal, the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition — that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at?
7/ A wonderful four minute video called "Why Wolves Change Rivers", about Yellowstone National Park and the reintroduction of wolves into the ecosystem......
George Monbiot explains that when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable 'trophic cascade' occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? Find out in this beautiful little film.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir
8/ I know we would have to wait a little for something real to be written about the fat, evil bastard that was Antonin Scalia.....this is by a lawyer who clerked for him.....
Antonin Scalia (Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)
In the two weeks since his death, many have spoken about Antonin Scalia’s undeniable impact on American law. As attention shifts to filling the vacancy he has left on the Supreme Court, I would like instead to talk about his less appreciated impact on contemporary physics. But first, a bit of background.
Antonin Scalia generally detested science. It threatened everything he believed in. He refused to join a recent Supreme Court opinion about DNA testing because it presented the details of textbook molecular biology as fact. He could not join because he did not know such things to be true, he said. (On the other hand, he knew all about the eighteenth century. History books were trustworthy; science books were not.) Scientists should be listened to only if they supported conservative causes, for example dubious studies purporting to demonstrate that same-sex parenting is harmful to children. Scientists were also good if they helped create technologies he liked, such as oil drills and deadly weapons.
9/ A video that's one of the rare ones where you go "how the hell did they do this"? It's a four minute film on pollination, part of a TED talk, with bees, butterflies and even bats in slo-mo and close-up.....astonishing camera work......
A wonderful little film....
The hummingbird doing rolls chasing a bee is not to be missed. Be sure and watch closely (around 2 min 40 sec) and check out the baby bat under its mother. Unreal. If you never knew what goes on in the garden when you aren't paying attention, watch this - some of the finest photography you will ever see.
10/ And apart from Scalia's blatant ignorance, he was corrupt as well, fighting for the rights of corporations over people every time....
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was worth billions of dollars to corporate America, if a Dow Chemical settlement made public Friday is any indication.
Dow was in the midst of appealing a $1.06 billion class-action antitrust ruling after a jury found that it had conspired with other chemical companies to fix prices for urethane, a material used in furniture and appliances.
But because of Scalia’s death and the sudden unlikelihood of finding five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn the case, Dow decided to settle for $835 million, the bulk of the original award.
“Growing political uncertainties due to recent events with the Supreme Court and increased likelihood for unfavorable outcomes for business involved in class-action suits have changed Dow’s risk assessment of the situation,” the company told Bloomberg News.
The case reveals how corporations have used the conservative majority on the court as a safety valve to nullify unfavorable rulings.
11/ Think you've seen the real Trump? Someone has taken one of his speeches and dubbed in a gay voice, and it all seems so appropriate, even the hand gestures.....
A very amusing two minutes.....
Donald Trump has become known for his distinct oratory style (among other things) while campaigning for president this year. But what if Trump spoke with what is stereotypically considered to be the “gay voice”? What would that sound like? Thanks to YouTuber Peter Serafinowicz, you no longer have to wonder. He recently took Trump’s victory speech in South Carolina and dubbed Trump with a lispy and colorful ‘gay voice’, turning Donald J. Trump into Donald Gay Trump.
12/ We can talk about Trump endlessly, but the more fundamental question is who are his supporters? This story from Vox is really interesting....
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I
n the five days leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary I fielded a survey of 358 likely voters, hoping to better understand who supports Donald Trump, why, and what it may mean for the Republican presidential nominating contest.
What I found is a trend that has been widely overlooked. A voter’s gender, education, age, ideology, party identification, income, and race simply had no statistical bearing on whether someone supported Trump. Neither, despite predictions to the contrary, did evangelicalism.
Here is what did: authoritarianism, by which I mean Americans’ inclination to authoritarian behavior. When political scientists use the term authoritarianism, we are not talking about dictatorships but about a worldview. People who score high on the authoritarian scale value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders. And when authoritarians feel threatened, they support aggressive leaders and policies.
13/ Remember "The Producers?" Here's a parody about [guess who] Trump, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick which was shown on Jimmy Kimmel......five minutes, professionally done and amusing.....
We're all still a little bit shocked that the living embodiment of disappointment Donald Trump is doing so well in the Republican presidential primaries, and so are a lot of other people.
But now, thanks to 'Jimmy Kimmel Live', we know where all this has come from - it's all the work of the bumbling Bialystock and Bloom from 'The Producers'.
In his star-studded post-Oscars show, Jimmy Kimmel brought in the original stars of the movie - Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick - to recreate it with a few crucial differences. This time, rather than producing musicals, the two main characters run political campaigns.
They thought they could make more money with a failed campaign so picked the last candidate you could possibly think of, but everything backfired in true old-timey movie fashion.
14/ Tired of bloody Trump?
OK OK, here's the folks at "Bad Lipreading" with a three minute bio of Ted Cruz.....an unpleasant but very amusing clip!
In a Republican presidential primary that’s breaking all barriers of taste and dignity, it’s tough for humorists to keep up, but somehow the folks at Ba Lip Reading have managed. Their new “Ted Cruz: A Bad Lip Reading” is a tour de force that nails the brand’s loopy, offbeat humor, but also combines slick editing, a canny narrative, and an appropriately nasty edge to match the Republican primary’s tone thus far.
15/ I suspect almost all of the readers of this blog haven't worked a minimum wage job.....which is why I for one found this essay fascinating, because we have no idea what it's like to be poor.
Read this - the next time you get annoyed at someone less affluent than you, it may calm you down.....
When presidential candidate Bernie Sanders talks about income inequality, and when other candidates speak about the minimum wage and food stamps, what are they really talking about?Whether they know it or not, it’s something like this.My Working Life ThenA few years ago, I wrote about my experience enmeshed in the minimum-wage economy, chronicling the collapse of good people who could not earn enough money, often working 60-plus hours a week at multiple jobs, to feed their families. I saw that, in this country, people trying to make ends meet in such a fashion still had to resort to food benefit programs and charity. I saw an employee fired for stealing lunches from the break room refrigerator to feed himself. I watched as a co-worker secretly brought her two kids into the store and left them to wander alone for hours because she couldn’t afford childcare. (As it happens, 29% of low-wage employees are single parents.)At that point, having worked at the State Department for 24 years, I had been booted out for being a whistleblower. I wasn’t sure what would happen to me next and so took a series of minimum wage jobs. Finding myself plunged into the low-wage economy was a sobering, even frightening, experience that made me realize just how ignorant I had been about the lives of the people who rang me up at stores or served me food in restaurants. Though millions of adults work for minimum wage, until I did it myself I knew nothing about what that involved, which meant I knew next to nothing about twenty-first-century America.
I was lucky. I didn’t become one of those millions of people trapped as the “working poor.” I made it out.
16/ Don't ever think the pharmaceutical industry is doing some good in the world....they aren't. A hard hitting story from the Times on the slew of TV ads you see on TV, and why they're spending this money to make you paranoid......
A LITTLE more than a decade ago, most health care advertising was confined to mass-market drugs, and hospitals and doctors generally considered the practice tacky or ethically dubious. More often than not, the ads appeared in unassuming places like cheaper women’s magazines or the New York subway — for decades New Yorkers sat beneath ubiquitous rainbow posters for Dr. Jonathan Zizmor that promised to conquer blemishes: 212-594-SKIN!
But today, health care advertising is skyrocketing and likely to turn up in business-class lounges in airport terminals or the Jitney to the Hamptons. It occupies the center spreads and back covers of elite magazines alongside plugs for luxury watches, jewelry and resorts. On television it has found its way into prime-time slots: presidential debates, primary campaign coverage and even the Super Bowl.
17/ Mary and I saw Michael Moore's new movie "Where To Invade Next" last night, and it's amazing.....
Has Michael Moore gone soft? You might think so, making a snap judgment of Where to Invade Next, a crazy-like-a-fox documentary hellbent on seeing the best in people. Other people. Not us Americans. Turns out we suck at practicing what we preach. So here's Moore, the proudly schlubby Michigan warrior, heading off to Europe to plant our flag in countries where folks know how to live. In other words, he intends to steal the good stuff and bring it home. Naive? For sure. Manipulative? You bet. Moore's detractors see him as an arrogant fat cat passing himself off as the common man to nail easy targets. Even his supporters buy the arrogant part, but find – as I do – that Moore is just the pain in the ass we need in a crisis. Moore's newfound mellow approach in Where to Invade Next is meant to disarm us. This is Big Mike the entertainer, not the provocateur of cinematic missiles such as Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko. Don't believe it. No laugh in this doc – and there are plenty – goes out without a sting in its tail.
Todays video - time for some Clint moments......four minutes of some internet guys' opinion of his five greatest scenes.....
Todays senior jokes
BIRTH CONTROL FOR GRANDMA
The doctor that had been
seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally
retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her
to bring a list of all the medicines that had been
prescribed for her.
As the doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized
seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally
retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her
to bring a list of all the medicines that had been
prescribed for her.
As the doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized
Grandma had a prescription for birth control pills.
"Mrs. Smith, do you
realize these are BIRTH CONTROL Pills?
"Yes, they help me sleep at night."
"Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could
possibly help you sleep!"
She reached out and patted the young Doctor's knee...."Yes, dear, I
know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in
the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter
drinks. and believe me, it definitely helps me sleep at
night."
You gotta Love Grandmas
"Mrs. Smith, do you
realize these are BIRTH CONTROL Pills?
"Yes, they help me sleep at night."
"Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could
possibly help you sleep!"
She reached out and patted the young Doctor's knee...."Yes, dear, I
know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in
the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter
drinks. and believe me, it definitely helps me sleep at
night."
You gotta Love Grandmas
THE NICE MAN
BECAME IMPATIENT
A man was riding a bus, minding his own business, when
the gorgeous woman next to him started to breast-feed her baby.
The baby wouldn't take it, so she said, "Come on sweetie, eat it all up
or I'll have to give it to this nice man next to us."
Five minutes later, the baby was still not feeding, so
or I'll have to give it to this nice man next to us."
Five minutes later, the baby was still not feeding, so
she said, "Come on, honey. Take it or I'll give it to this
nice man here."
A few minutes later, the anxious man blurted out, "Come on kid.
A few minutes later, the anxious man blurted out, "Come on kid.
Make up your mind! I was supposed to get off four stops
ago!"
ago!"
BIOLOGY EXAM
Students in an advanced
Biology class were taking their mid-term exam. The last
question was, 'Name seven advantages of Mother's
Milk. The question was worth 70 points or none at
all.
One student, was hard
put to think of seven advantages. He wrote:
1) It is perfect formula
for the child.
2) It provides immunity
against several diseases.
3) It is always the
right temperature.
4) It is inexpensive.
5) It bonds the child to
mother, and vice versa.
6) It is always
available as needed.
And then the student was
stuck. Finally, in desperation, just before the bell rang
indicating the end of the test, he wrote:
7) It comes in two
attractive containers and it's high enough off the
ground where the cat can't get it.
He got an A.
A RIDE IN THE TAXI
A woman and her twelve-year-old son were riding in a taxi in Detroit. It was
raining and all the prostitutes were standing under
awnings.
Mom," said he boy, "what are all those women
doing?"
"They're waiting for their husbands to get off work," she
replied.
The taxi driver turns around and says, "Geez lady, why don't you tell him
the Truth? They're hookers, boy! They have sex with men
for money."
The little boy's eyes get wide and he says, "Is that true
Mom?"
His mother, glaring hard
at the driver, answers "Yes".
After a few minutes, the
kid asks, "Mom, if those women have babies, what
happens to them?"
She said, "Most of
them become taxi drivers."
Todays golf joke
A group of men live and die for their Saturday morning golf game. One man transfers to another city and they're lost without him.
At the same time, a woman joins their Club. When she hears the guys talking about their golf round, she says, "I played on my college's golf team and was pretty good. Mind if I join you next week?"
No one wants to say 'yes', but they're on the spot. Finally, one man says "Okay, but we start at 6:30 a.m.". He figures the early tee-time will discourage her.
The woman says this may be a problem, and asks if she can be up to 15 minutes late.
They roll their eyes, but say, "Okay". She's there at 6:30 a.m. sharp, and beats them with an eye-opening 2-under par round. She's fun and pleasant and the guys are impressed. They congratulate her and invite her back the next week. She smiles, and says, "I'll be there at
6:30 or 6:45."
The next week she again shows up at 6:30 sharp. This time, she plays left-handed. The 3 guys are incredulous - she beats them with an even par round, despite playing with her off-hand.
They're totally amazed.
They can't figure her out. She's very pleasant and a gracious winner.They invite her again, but each man harbors a burning desire to beat her.
The third week, she's 15 minutes late, which irritates the guys. This week she plays right-handed, and narrowly beats all of them. The men grumble that her late arrival is petty gamesmanship on her part.
However, she's so charming and complimentary of their strong play, they can't hold a grudge.
This woman is a riddle no one can figure out. They have a few beers in the Clubhouse, and finally, one of the men asks her, "How do you decide if you're going to golf right-handed or left-handed?"
The lady blushes and grins. "When my Dad taught me to play golf, I learned I was ambidextrous," she replies "I like to switch back and forth."
She continued, "When I married after college, I discovered my husband sleeps in the nude. From then on, I developed a silly habit. Before I leave in the morning for golf practice, I pull the covers off him. If his Willie points to the right, I golf right-handed. If it points to the left, I golf left-handed."
The guys think this is hysterical. Astonished at this bizarre information, one of the guys asks, "What if it's pointing straight up?"
She replies, "Then, I'm fifteen minutes late."
Todays taxi joke
Last week a
passenger in a taxi heading for BWI
passenger in a taxi heading for BWI
Airport leaned
over to ask the driver a question and gently
over to ask the driver a question and gently
tapped him on
the shoulder to get his attention.
the shoulder to get his attention.
The driver
screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit
screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit
a bus, drove up
over the curb and stopped just inches from a
over the curb and stopped just inches from a
large plate
glass window.
glass window.
For a few
moments everything was silent in the cab.
moments everything was silent in the cab.
Then,
the shaking driver said, "Are you OK? I'm so
the shaking driver said, "Are you OK? I'm so
sorry, but you
scared the daylights out of me.”
scared the daylights out of me.”
The badly
shaken passenger apologized to the driver and
shaken passenger apologized to the driver and
said, "I didn't
realize a mere tap on the shoulder would
realize a mere tap on the shoulder would
startle someone
so badly.”
so badly.”
The driver
replied, "No, no, I'm the one who is sorry, it's entirely
replied, "No, no, I'm the one who is sorry, it's entirely
my fault. Today
is my very first day driving a cab. I've been driving
is my very first day driving a cab. I've been driving
a hearse for 25
years."
years."
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