Just had a week's vacation in Charleston, and although the VRBO ad said wifi, they lied......so we're a bit behind.....anyway enjoy.....
The President brought in hundreds of Cubans on Air Force One.....thanks Obama.....
This picture from The Onion made it to Snopes because people were believing it......
CLAIM: As President Obama departed Cuba, dozens of prospective refugees clung to the wings of Air Force One.
FALSE
1/ Wow - Thomas Frank with an excerpt from his new book "Listen Liberal" [which I just bought], which brings a new perspective to the legacy of Bill Clinton and it isn't what your memory tells you. You remember vaguely he was a pretty good middle of the road President who should have told us all his personal life was none of our f##king business.
Think again.....his legacy was much worse.
A thought provoking story from Thomas Frank.....
Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton gives the thumbs up sign as he speaks to a gathering at the University of Toledo in 1992.(Credit: AP)
Everyone remembers the years of the Bill Clinton presidency as good times. The economy was booming, the stock market was ascending, and the mood was infectious. You felt good about it even if you didn’t own a single share.
And yet: What did Clinton actually do in his eight years on Pennsylvania Avenue? While writing this book, I would periodically ask my liberal friends if they could recall the progressive laws he got passed, the high-minded policies he fought for—you know, the good things Bill Clinton got done while he was president. Why was it, I wondered, that we were supposed to think so highly of him—apart from his obvious personal charm, I mean?
It proved difficult for my libs. People mentioned the obvious things: Clinton once raised the minimum wage and expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit. He balanced the budget. He secured a modest tax increase on the rich. And he did propose a national health program, although it didn’t get very far and was in fact so poorly designed it could be a model of how not to do big policy initiatives.
Other than that, not much. No one could think of any great but hopeless Clintonian stands on principle; after all, this is the guy who once took a poll to decide where to go on vacation. His presidency was all about campaign donations, not personal bravery—he basically rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, for chrissake, and at the end of his time in office he even appeared to sell a presidential pardon.
2/ A pretty good Bill Maher on the Republican race.....six minutes......
“Real Time” host Bill Maher last night discussed the lose-lose decision Republicans have to make between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
“You guys started out with 17 candidates,” Maher told GOP voters. “And somehow you ended up with Mussolini and Joe McCarthy.”
“Donald Trump is like Ebola, he’ll violently kill you right away,” Maher continued. “Cruz is more like the Zika virus, we wont see the damage until future generations.”
3/ Excellent article from the respected journalist Bill Moyers on two of the most prominent pseudoDemocrats, and why they should go......
There are two Democrats whose resignation from office right now would do their party and country a service.
Their disappearance might also help Hillary Clinton convince skeptical Democrats that her nomination, if it happens, is about the future, and not about resurrecting and ratifying the worst aspects of the first Clinton reign when she and her husband rarely met a donor to whom they wouldn’t try to auction a sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom.
In fact, while we’re at it, and if Secretary Clinton really wants us to believe she’s no creature of the corporate and Wall Street money machine — despite more than $44 million in contributions from the financial industry since 2000 and her $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, not to mention several million more paid by other business interests for an hour or two of her time — she should pick up the gauntlet herself and publicly call for the departure of these two, although they are among her nearest and dearest. And we don’t mean Bill and Chelsea.
4/ Frank Rich with one of his long articles on the Republican "establishment"......a well researched and fascinating story by the ultimate insider.....
In mid-July of 2015, a month after Donald Trump announced his presidential run, I joined a gaggle of political junkies in a clubby bar four blocks from the White House to hear a legendary campaign strategist expound on the race ahead. Our guest’s long résumé included service to Mitt Romney and two generations of Bushes. Not speaking for attribution, and not having signed on to any 2016 campaign, he could talk freely. The nomination was Jeb Bush’s to lose, he said. Scott Walker, the union-busting Wisconsin governor then considered something of a favorite, had no chance because he was just “too stupid.” And Trump? Please! Trump represented every ugly element that was dragging down the GOP in presidential elections. But our guy wasn’t fazed. The good thing about Trump, he said, is that he would finally “gather together all the people we want to lose” and march them off the Republican reservation — though to what location remained undisclosed.
That same week, I was at a similar gathering with John McCain, then in a mild fury that Trump had just appeared with the nativist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio at a weekend rally in Phoenix. McCain worried that by activating “the crazies” — the same crazies, it politely went unmentioned, that he helped legitimize by putting Sarah Palin on his ticket in 2008 — Trump could jeopardize both the GOP in general and McCain’s own incumbency if challenged in a primary. The senator soon said the same in public, and not long after that, Trump retaliated by mocking his wartime bravery with the memorable insult “I like people who weren’t captured.”
And that, you may recall, was the end of Trump.
5/ An amusing [and frankly a little scary] video from Samantha Bee, where she assembles a focus group of young Trump supporters.....seven minutes.....
Samantha Bee's Donald Trump focus group (Screen capture)
As Donald Trump's rise in American politics continues, many bewildered Americans have posed the same question: Just who are the people supporting this guy?
Full Frontal host Samantha Bee tried to find out. In a segment aired on Monday, she talked to a diverse group of Trump supporters to understand why they support him.
Much of the support seemed to be based on Trump's style. One person said that "what makes Mr. Trump great" is that he makes jokes. Another said, "He's got very sort of simplistic but evocative language that I think speaks to a lot of people at almost like a limbic or primal level."
But the supporters did not appreciate when Bee took Trump's comments at face value. Time and time again, they argued that media coverage of Trump is unfair.
6/ Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on Hillary, and how the millennials are right about her.....
Jann Wenner endorsed Hillary Clinton in a 'Rolling Stone' editorial this week. Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images
I was disappointed to hear that Rolling Stone had endorsed Hillary Clinton, but I also understood. In many ways, the endorsement by my boss and editor, Jann Wenner, read like the result of painful soul-searching, after this very magazine had a profound influence on a similar race, back in 1972.
Jann explains this eloquently in "Hillary Clinton for President":
"Rolling Stone has championed the 'youth vote' since 1972, when 18-year-olds were first given the right to vote. The Vietnam War was a fact of daily life then, and Sen. George McGovern, the liberal anti-war activist from South Dakota, became the first vessel of young Americans, and Hunter S. Thompson wrote our first presidential-campaign coverage. We worked furiously for McGovern. We failed; Nixon was re-elected in a landslide."
The failure of George McGovern had a major impact on a generation of Democrats, who believed they'd faced a painful reality about the limits of idealism in American politics. Jann sums it up: "Those of us there learned a very clear lesson: America chooses its presidents from the middle, not from the ideological wings."
But it would be a shame if we disqualified every honest politician, or forever disavowed the judgment of young people, just because George McGovern lost an election four decades ago.
http://www.rollingstone.com/
7/ A Finnish News Team report on the US elections.....with subtitles. Two hilarious minutes from "Funny Or Die"..........
“FINLAND’S CHANNEL 8 NEWS TEAM: THE ONLY SOURCE YOU NEED FOR THE U.S. ELECTION WITH THE LATEST ANALYSIS OF THE GOP AND DEMOCRATIC CONTENDERS FROM A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE.”
8/ One of orange man's huge strengths is how viciously he attacks his opponent's weaknesses.......great story from Andrew O'Hehir in Salon.....
Donald Trump (Credit: AP/Greg Allen)
When is a news story not a news story? That question hung in the air much of the day on Friday, as the major cable news networks laboriously steered around any direct reference to the political bombshell that had set social media aflame since the small hours. Once again the mainstream media had been Trumped, made to look floundering and foolish by the Republican clown-prince even as it wrestled with one of the biggest news days of the year. Belgian authorities had apparently captured a leading suspect in the Brussels attacks, and the United States military had apparently killed an ISIS leader in Syria. But for at least half the day, those headlines felt like footnotes to the hot topic TV news wouldn’t even touch.
With no apparent sense of irony, Fox News sought to recast itself as a sober, responsible news organization, whose guests and commentators are deeply concerned about the toxic nature of American political discourse. During the 11 a.m. hour of Fox’s “Happening Now,” an entire group of panelists earnestly embraced Hillary Clinton’s recent complaint that moderate, centrist, reasonable voices had been excluded from public debate and political media, and that this was harming democracy.
9/ SNL did a "Walken Family Reunion" skit, and if you like Christopher Walken you will find this amusing....five minutes of Walkens.....
Oftentimes, “SNL” will bring back super popular hosts and guest stars and make fun of them in one long skit that they have to participate in. That was certainly the case for Christopher Walken, who has been hosting since the 1980s and has played myriad characters over the years.
For the “Walken Family Reunion,” Christopher got to reunite with some of his favorite “family members” at a bar. There were some cousins and a niece and nephew played by Amy Poehler and Andy Samberg. Jason Sudeikis got in on the action, along with Fred Armisen, who plays a very flamboyant relative.
Darrell Hammond, Kristen Wiig and even Kenan Thompson all had roles to play. All the while, they were all using classic Walken speech, with its famous elongated pauses and awkward speaking patterns. The episode originally aired in April of 2008, but it’s still funny to this day.
10/ Simon and Garfunkle's "Sound Of Silence" like you have never heard it before......one of the most powerful and moving music videos you will ever see.....
And if you watched it a few weeks ago, look at it again - it's even better the second time......
If you choose to remake a song, you will undoubtedly face comparison to the original. Such is exceedingly the case when you remake a legendary song from the soundtrack of the 1960s counterculture movement. Disturbed does just that with the Simon & Garfunkle hit, The Sound of Silence, and does it brilliantly.
The original acoustic version of The Sound of Silence (Wednesday Morning, 3 AM – Simon & Garfunkle 1964) made its appearance during the rise of folk rock. The gentle harmonies and acoustic guitar easily captured the attention of a nation during a time of growing social tension. The song’s deep emotion draws in the listener taking them on a journey of deep contemplation.
The Disturbed remake offers everything the original did and more. The remake is haunting, slower, and darker. Disturbed vocalist David Draiman, typically known for his raspy, power metal voice, sings beautifully; his voice is crisp and clear.
The Sound of Silence closes with a crescendo of instrument and voice. The listener stirred by the somber anthem is left hanging on wistful yearning.
The visual canvas of the music video matches the feel of the song. Dark, grayscale images of a bleak landscape are punctuated by closeups of Draiman’s face as he sings. The imagery is surreal suggesting a return of music to a forlorn society. While it may seem over the top to some, it is a fitting backdrop for this moving hymn.
11/ One of the issues of our politics is low voter turnout, especially the younger demographics, but as this article says with some interesting charts and graphs it's not all the fault of the young...democracy doesn't work in their favor at all, quite the opposite....
Very interesting and insightful....
This has been true for a long time–Millennials did not invent low youth voter turnout:
Many people see figures like this and their knee-jerk response is to scold young people for failing to show up, often attributing it to the laziness or lack of civic virtue of the current crop of young people. But as we see above, young people have been less active in politics since long before Millennials came on the scene. There are larger reasons why young people tend to feel disenfranchised by democratic politics–it’s because the system discriminates against them.
12/ Seth Meyers on a subject you may need a refresher on - Kansas and it's tax cutting Governor..... a very good six minutes indeed....
Last week, New York’s Eric Levitz argued that more attention should be paid to the disastrous budget implemented under Kansas governor Sam Brownback, since all three contenders for the GOP nomination favor similar policies on a national scale. And Monday night, Seth Meyers dedicated a segment to Kansas and its relevance to the presidential race, comparing the situation to a cleaning product that suggests testing on a small patch of fabric first. “Kansas was the small patch of fabric,” said Meyers, “and not only did the cleaner not work, the couch exploded.”
You can watch Meyers’s segment below. Come for the smart talk about Kansas’s budget woes; stay for the jokes about the state’s auction of sex toys seized from a tax-delinquent porn shop.
13/ Perky Pam Bondi, Florida's Attorney General, endorsed Trump last week, and do you know why? The reason is, as usual with Floriduh politicians, corruption......
Yes - the ranking law officer in Florida is as corrupt as the rest of them.....
CREDIT: SCREENSHOT
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi endorses Donald Trump during a rally in Tampa.
Bondi’s Monday endorsement comes more than two years after she decided not to follow the New York attorney general’s lead and sue Trump over accusations Trump University seminars swindled people. The timeline of that fall 2013 episode raised eyebrows. Three days after a Bondi spokeswoman said the attorney general was studying New York’s lawsuit to see whether she wanted to take similar action in Florida, Trump cut a $25,000 check to a committee associated with Bondi’s campaign. That seeming conflict of interest was criticized in the Florida press at the time, but a Bondi spokesperson justified her decision by suggesting no action was necessary because the affected Florida consumers would be compensated if New York won that case.
With Trump now closing in on the Republican presidential nomination, Trump University is under heightened scrutiny.
14/ Samantha Bee with a very funny look at the awfulness of Ted Cruz......six excellent minutes.....
Even in the guise of comedy, though, Bee highlighted the unsettling rhetoric of Cruz's supporters, which includes his father, the Rev. Rafael Cruz, and their mission to dissolve the separation of church and state. Rafael Cruz also cites his son as the candidate that's inherently the choice of God, saying that divine messages have been sent to the senator through the likes of his wife, Heidi Cruz.
15/ Here's a blog that says voters in Florida are revolting.....against the discharge of pollutants into the oceans from Lake cesspool......thanks Big Sugar and it's purchased politicians.....
Of course, most Florida voters aren't upset about this, they are asleep as usual.....
Republican voters are rebelling at having their taxes used against them by insiders and their property used as Big Sugar's sacrifice zones. They know Florida's political leaders are shielding Big Sugar by refusing to complete the one action voters already ordered into the Florida Constitution: buy billions of dollars of agricultural land now in private ownership in order to stop the state's waterways from being turned into toxic waste sites.
Donald Trump did not recognize the broad based civic revolt against pollution in Florida today. Nor, for that matter have Democrats grasped how the issue is connecting Republican and Democratic voters on both the east and west coasts of the state.
What is clear is that voters wanted a divorce from Marco Rubio. His too facile, too slick, and too evasive talking points on issues of deep voter concern -- including Big Sugar -- didn't stick. On the failure of state party leaders to protect people, property, and public health, Rubio was held to account by primary voters.
Take the southwest coast of Florida, for example, where Republican voters have traditionally followed the course set by very wealthy development and agricultural interests -- like the family of former Secretary of State Katharine Harris. Another top Bush supporter from Southwest Florida, Al Hoffman, provides an even clearer example how GOP self-dealing runs straight through the varsity business associations like the Florida Council of 100 that Hoffman once chaired, to the junior varsity, local county Chambers of Commerce and business councils. The ordinary GOP voter does not know Al Hoffman's name, or the deep traps that siphon campaign contributions to establishment candidates, but they know the outcomes.
16/ One more on the same subject, and I included it because I respect the writers controlled anger......
If you child is running a fever, there’s no mystery what to do. You make the child rest and take every necessary step to bring the child’s fever down. Entrusting Florida’s waters to reckless and ignorant elected officials is exactly the same as parental malpractice. It is like locking a child in a car parked at a mall parking lot while the parent goes shopping.
There is only one excuse for forgetting to take care of our waterways: that the campaign funders and politicians voters elected want it that way.
The mainstream media are filled with talking points like this: “State wild officials could not pinpoint the reason for the deaths of the fish recently.” Bullshit. The massive, horrendous, shocking and sad fish kills happening in and around the Indian River Lagoon represent the political corruption infecting the state of Florida.
Todays video - found this nine minute compilation of Clint Eastwood shootouts......a couple of new ones too.....
Todays thoughtful jokes....
My goal for 2015 was to lose just 10 pounds. Only 15 to go.
.........
Ate salad for dinner! Mostly croutons & tomatoes. Really just one big, round crouton covered with tomato sauce. And cheese. FINE, it was a pizza. I ate a pizza.
...........
How to prepare Tofu:
1. Throw it in the trash.
2. Grill some Meat.
...........
I just did a week's worth of cardio after walking into a spider web.
..............
I don't mean to brag but......I finished my 14-day diet in 3 hours and 20 minutes.
..................
A recent study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.
...................
Kids today don't know how easy they have it. When I was young, I had to walk 9 feet through shag carpet to change the TV channel.
.................
Senility has been a smooth transition for me.
................
Remember back when we were kids and every time it was below zero out they closed school?
Me neither.
...............
I may not be that funny or athletic or good looking or smart or talented....
I forgot where I was going with this.
...................
I love being over 50. I learn something new every day.......and forget 5 others.
...............
A thief broke into my house last night......
He started searching for money so I woke up and searched with him.
...............
My dentist told me I need a crown. I was like: I KNOW !, Right?
...............
I think I'll just put an "Out of Order" sticker on my forehead and call it a day.
................
PS: Sunday, March 13, 2016 began Daylight Savings Time.
Did you forget to set your bathroom scale back 10 pounds on Saturday night.
Todays marital joke
Travis wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Christmas Party. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong.
Travis had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he saw is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose! Travis sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed.
He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: "Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian.
He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating. Travis asks, "Son...what happened last night?"
"Well, you came home after 3AM, drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door.
"Confused, he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me????
His son replies, "oh THAT!...Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed,"Leave me alone bitch, I'm married!"
Broken Coffee Table $239.99
His son replies, "oh THAT!...Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed,"Leave me alone bitch, I'm married!"
Broken Coffee Table $239.99
Hot Breakfast $4.20
Two Aspirins $.38
Saying the right thing, at exactly the right time.....PRICELESS!
Todays single lady joke
Ethel checked into a Motel on her 65th Birthday; she was lonely and a little depressed at her advancing age so she decided to risk an adventure.She thought, "I'll call one of those men you see advertised in phone books for escorts and sensual massages."She looked through the phone book, found a full page ad for a guy calling himself Tender Tony, a very handsome man with assorted physical skills flexing in the photo. He had all the right muscles in all the right places, thick wavy hair, long powerful legs, dazzling smile, six pack abs and she felt quite certain she could bounce a dime off his well-oiled buns .......She figured, what the heck, nobody will ever know. I'll give him a call. "Good evening, ma'am, how may I help you?Oh my, he sounded sooo sexy!Afraid of losing her nerve if she hesitated, she rushed right in, "I hear you give a great massage. I'd like you to come to my motel room and give me one. No, wait, l'll be straight with you. I'm in town all alone and what I really want is sex. I want it hot, and I want it now. Bring implements, toys, everything you've got in your bag of tricks. We'll go at it all night - tie me up, cover me in chocolate syrup and whipped cream, anything and everything, I'm ready! Now how does that sound?He said, "That sounds absolutely fantastic, but you need to press 9 for an outside line.
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