This is the post Republican convention edition, and although there are plenty of stories out there saying "the speech" was too dark and full of fear and hate, unfortunately that's exactly what Trump supporters wanted to hear. I watched it, and it got to me folks.....until my brain started working again. But there are countless millions out there whose brains don't really work very well, and they love'd it.
The media consistently underestimate Trump - he is a kind of evil genius, and unless the forces of "good" are mobilized and people become less complacent we may be in for a big surprise in November.
1/ If you watched Trump's speech Thursday, it was a powerful message to America full of fear and hate......but reading the news this week dissecting the lies and delivery was to miss the message, because our corporate media doesn't get it - this narcissistic sociopath has captivated a significant portion of white, stupid America and the remainder of us need to be aware - Trump could win.
I agree with Andrew O'Heir in Salon - we are entering strange times.....
His dark materials: After that diabolical, masterful performance, Donald Trump could easily end up president
Seen live, Trump's speech hits 7.5 on the Nuremberg scale, and the nightmare scenario inches closer to reality
Dion(Credit: Reuters)
CLEVELAND — It’s not OK that the Republican Party nominated Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. That clearly suggests that reality has stripped a gear and we have careened off into a deeply stupid alternate dimension that resembles a 1980s straight-to-cable sequel to “They Live.” It was definitely not OK to be inside Quicken Loans Arena as Trump accepted that nomination, giving a speech that was sometimes profoundly awkward and went on much too long but was also — it’s always better to face the truth — a masterful display of demagoguery and manipulation.
From the ashen, haunted faces around me in the press gallery, and the conversations over hastily guzzled drinks before and after, I feel sure I wasn’t the only person here who felt as if he were suffering from PTSD, sunstroke and a stomach virus, all at the same time. Still, it was an educational bout with the existential flu. Anybody who still thought Donald Trump was a joke and a dumbass who would humiliate himself and his party go down to Mondale-scale defeat now knows better. You can pick Trump’s speech apart and examine its flaws, of course, but from the point of view of performance and dynamics only one verdict is possible. He killed it. He. Killed. It.
Michael Moore said the other night on Bill Maher’s show that he now thought Trump would win the election, and that feeling has been sneaking up on me for months now.
2/ Frank Rich on Trump, Roger Ailes and the GOP......and even Rich sees the anger and how Trump is channelling it....
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: the Trump show at the Republican National Convention, Ailes's ouster, and where the GOP goes from here.
Party conventions traditionally offer candidates a chance to reach voters who may not have paid close attention to the primaries, and to sharpen their tone for the general-election campaign. Was Donald Trump's RNC acceptance speechnoticeably more presidential than his primary campaign? And if so, does that improve his chances against Hillary Clinton?
An angry tirade, devoid of facts and policies and delivered in a nonstop shout, is not presidential. It wasn’t really a speech, even though it went on for some 75 minutes. (If Trump had been listening to it instead of delivering it, he would have left before halftime.) But none of that really matters in the case of Trump, who has created his own reality and gotten untold millions of Americans to buy into it. Last night, he wasn’t trying to reach out to fence-sitters, centrists, or independents and convert them. What he wanted instead was to ratchet up the fears of any racists, nativists, Second Amendment zealots, and garden-variety hard-right Republicans who had somehow slept through the primaries and still might be rallied to register and vote. The speech was one long piercing dog whistle. And it just may have penetrated the mad dogs he wanted to reach and mobilize.
3/ Bill Maher did special convention coverage, and this was from the night before Trump's speech......in this 3 minute clip see Michael Moore, yes Michael Moore, say he thinks Trump is going to win......
And this was before Trump's amazing speech, which will be repeated endlessly on Fox and right wing media.....oboy.....
Bill Maher hosted a special “Real Time” Wednesday night after the conclusion of the third day of the Republican National Convention. His guests included documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid, and journalist and LGBT rights activist Dan Savage.
Panelists Reid and Savage began loudly agreeing with Maher and each other about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s mob trial of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during his convention speech on Tuesday night, in which the audience started chanting in unison “guilty” and “lock her up.”
4/ The Times's "The Strip" by Brian McFadden with his look at our politics.....good cartoon.......
5/ Michael Moore followed up after the speech with this posting, and it's logical, clear-eyed and analytical - he repeats - Trump is going to win......and tells us why. Read this, and see if you can refute his reasoning....
Excellent story.....
ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Friends:
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.
I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly - “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!
6/ Thomas Frank with a story written before the convention which applies now more than ever - the elites, from the media that tell us how to think to the wealthy who sell our jobs to China, don't understand the depth of the anger in our country.
Read this excellent, thought-provoking story, then think about Hillary's choice of Tim Kaine [a DINO] as VP - a direct "screw you" to everyone who voted for Bernie.
They aren't getting it.....
A snapshot of America in the middle of June 2016. It is several days before the first great shock of the summer, the Brexit vote, and here in America, all is serene. The threat posed by Senator Bernie Sanders has been suppressed. The Republicans have chosen a preposterous windbag to lead them; the consensus is that he will be a pushover. For all the doubts and dissent of the last year, the leadership faction of the country’s professional class seem to have once again come out on top, and they are ready to accept the gratitude of the nation.
And so President Barack Obama did an interview with Business Week in which he was congratulated for his stewardship of the economy and asked “what industries” he might choose to join upon his retirement from the White House. The president replied as follows:
… what I will say is that – just to bring things full circle about innovation – the conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying.
In relating this anecdote, I am not aiming to infuriate because the man we elected in 2008 to get tough with high finance and shut the revolving door was now talking about taking his own walk through that door and getting a job in finance. No. My object here is to describe the confident, complacent mood of the country’s ruling class in the middle of last month. So let us continue.
7/ One of the people who have the power to fight this orange monster is Jon Stewart, and he may be back. He appeared on Stephen Colbert's show for a very funny, but passionate and angry takedown of Hannity and Trump.....
A wonderful, even heartwarming 13 minutes.....
If you have felt this election season has been missing some serious Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert brought him back in a BIG way tonight. After the two old pals reacted to the Roger Ailes news, Colbert gave complete control of his show over to Stewart, who proceeded to deliver an epic takedown of the hypocrisy of Trump supporters through the example of Sean Hannity.
For the purposes of this bit, Stewart nicknamed Hannity “Lumpy.”
He showed how for years, Hannity has been attacking President Obama for certain qualities like narcissism and elitism and divisiveness, while giving Trump a complete and total pass on these same things.
For example, Hannity called Obama’s faith into question because of Reverend Wright, but when the Pope criticized Donald Trump, Hannity was offended anyone would dare attack anyone’s faith.
And that’s when Stewart delivered this message:
“Either Lumpy and his friends are lying about being bothered by thin-skinned authoritarian less-than-Christian readers of prompter being president, or they don’t care, as long as it’s their thin-skinned prompter authoritarian tyrant narcissist. You just want that person to give you your country back because you feel that you’re this country’s rightful owners. The only problem with that, this country isn’t yours! You don’t own it! It never was! There is no real America! You don’t own it! You don’t own patriotism, you don’t own Christianity, you sure as hell don’t own respect for the brave and sacrifice of military, police and firefighters! Trust me!”
That last part got Stewart legitimately angry, because as he explained, that 9/11 first responders health care bill he fought hard for faced fierce resistance in Congress. And who fought back? Why, Stewart said, a lot of the people at the Republican National Convention this week crowing about patriotism and about how “Blue Lives Matter.”
8/ Trump's choice for VP Mike Pence has got a pass from the media, with the narrative of him being the calming choice for VP to the crazy Trump. This ain't the truth, as the excellent Sam Bee points out......
And don't forget if Trump wins, this asshole will be running the country just like Cheney did.....
Samantha Bee is back on air after a three-week hiatus ― and she’s gone full throttle for Donald Trump’s vice-presidential choice, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
“Indiana voters hate Pence as much as Indiana Jones hates snakes,” the comedian said during her opening monologue on “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” Monday night.
Bee showed footage of people booing Pence being while he threw out the first pitch at an Indiana baseball game, along with negative headlines criticizing him as being out of his league.
“Who is Mike Pence?” Bee asked during the segment. “If you’re a lady Hoosier, you may recognize him as the governor who inspected your reproductive organs every 30 days to make sure you weren’t using them in ways that would make Jesus sad.”
9/ Trump's Russian connections and admiration for his soulmate [strongman] Putin have made the Times - excellent column from Paul Krugman......
If elected, would Donald Trump be Vladimir Putin’s man in the White House? This should be a ludicrous, outrageous question. After all, he must be a patriot — he even wears hats promising to make America great again.
But we’re talking about a ludicrous, outrageous candidate. And the Trump campaign’s recent behavior has quite a few foreign policy experts wondering just what kind of hold Mr. Putin has over the Republican nominee, and whether that influence will continue if he wins.
I’m not talking about merely admiring Mr. Putin’s performance — being impressed by the de facto dictator’s “strength,” and wanting to emulate his actions. I am, instead, talking about indications that Mr. Trump would, in office, actually follow a pro-Putin foreign policy, at the expense of America’s allies and her own self-interest.
10/ This is really funny - Stephen Colbert had Melania Trump [?] on his show to discuss the plagiarism......if you missed this, you have to watch - LOL funny.....four minutes.....
Did the 2016 election season just find its Tina Fey?
Actress/singer Laura Benanti nailed the part of Melania Trump on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night, offering a comically inept defense against accusations of plagiarism.
In making her point, she then plagiarized everyone from Charles Dickens to Dr. Seuss to a McDonald’s commercial.
Check it out in the clip above, and see if you don’t start ba-da-ba-ba lovin’ it.
11/ Samantha Bee nailing it again - she goes to Cleveland to interview Evangelicals.......an excellent [and scary] four minutes......
In the latest episode of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, evangelical Christians attending the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado were interviewed about the upcoming election. As Bee said, if picking Mike Pence as vice president "was supposed to make evangelicals more excited about Trump, he needn’t have bothered."
Bee describes Donald Trump in the segment as a "thrice-married, adulterous reality star and failed casino impresario who mocked a disabled reporter and spoke of wanting to bang his own daughter," but the voters clearly did not hold these qualities against him.
One woman said, "I believe, truly, that Trump is appointed by God to lead this country back in the direction it needs to go." Another man made the argument that by not presenting his best self, Trump has no "skeletons in his closet" and is thus a more moral person than Hillary Clinton.
12/ Ted Cruz spoke at the convention and the picture of the Trump family looking [shall we say] displeased went viral.....needless to say the internet responded....a couple of these are most amusing....
Let the battle commence.
No, not for the White House, but over this image of Donald Trump and his family shooting daggers at Ted Cruz for not endorsing the reality TV star’s presidential bid.The photograph showing the Trump clan looking angrily at the Texan senator during his speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Wednesday night soon went viral. It also became the subject of an intense Photoshop battle.
13/ Earlier in RNC week Stephen Colbert went to visit Jon Stewart at his rural [?] retreat to try to get him back on the show......two segments, four and six minutes.....all of you fans of the old Daily Show will love this......
Just after Jon Stewart left The Daily Show, we saw real estate mogul Donald Trump's meteoric rise as a presidential candidate — an event that desperately called out for his commentary. But if Stewart remains absent as Americans' satirical media conscience, at least he's bringing back another old favorite: the conservative persona of Stephen Colbert.
A sketch on Monday night's episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was a Comedy Central reunion. Colbert searched for his old mentor to help him during the Republican National Convention coverage. He finds Stewart in the woods, blissfully unaware of the chaos of this year's presidential election, presuming that Jeb Bush would be the Republican nominee.
His reaction to discovering that Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee was expected — especially after he asks Colbert if he's allowed to take a swig of water as the name is unveiled.
While a flabbergasted Stewart wasn't able to provide much help, he had a comrade in his unassuming cabin that would be up to the task of dissecting the Trump phenomenon: The Colbert Report alter ego of Stephen Colbert. With that, the old Colbert made his glorious return to television, with a patriotic entrance featuring the American flag, his trademark Captain America shield and a chariot.
14/ You may have read about the North Miami shooting of a mental health therapist, lying on the ground with his hands up, trying to calm a patient of his who some "concerned citizen" called to say he had a gun, which was actually a toy.
This is the four minute Channel 7 Fox News story of footage at the scene, and an interview with the therapist in hospital......it's a little chilling. When you watch this, wonder to yourself why are SWAT cops with AR 15's unable to defuse a situation of an older man, flat on his back with his hands up and an obviously disturbed guy with a toy truck in his hands without violence....
And consider this too......how would the British or Canadian cops handle this? Maybe search both of these guys, make sure there's no gun but just a toy truck, and let the therapist take the patient back to the home. Not call in the SWAT team with rifles.....
Video released Wednesday shows the moment before North Miami police shot an unarmed, behavioral therapist as he tried to calm a man with autism, according to WSVN.
Still recovering in a hospital bed, Charles Kinsey is now talking about what happened in that cellphone video recorded Monday.
"When I went to the ground, I went to the ground with my hands up," he said. "And I am laying there just like this, telling them again there is no need for firearms."
Police were responding to a 911 call about a disturbed man walking around with a gun, threatening suicide. Kinsey said that man was one of his patients, Rinaldo, who has autism. The reported gun, he said, was actually a toy truck.
The video shows Kinsey, with both hands held up in the air, telling officers "All he has is a toy truck. A toy truck. I am a behavior therapist at a group home."
15/ And this is a follow up story from the Miami Herald, with an astonishing theory from the head of the PBA about why the therapist was shot. This really is a WTF story......
How does a trained SWAT officer with an AR15 fire three shots at 50 yards, miss with two of the shots and hit the wrong guy with the third, if you believe the story he was firing at the mental patient.
The PBA officer also fails to explain if the shooter was trying to protect the therapist, why did they then handcuff him and leave him on the ground, face down, for 20 minutes?
Only in Merika.....
The North Miami police officer who shot an unarmed, black mental health worker caring for a patient actually took aim at the autistic man next to him, but missed, the head of the police union said Thursday.
It was a stunning admission from the police officer and from John Rivera, who heads up Miami-Dade’s Police Benevolent Association. But it was one meant to calm the fears of a nation besieged with cellphone videos of police shooting and sometimes killing unarmed black men.
In this case, Rivera said, the officer ended up wounding the man he was trying to save.
“I couldn’t allow this to continue for the community’s sake,” Rivera said Thursday during a hastily called press conference at the union’s Doral office. “Folks, this is not what the rest of the nation is going through.”
North Miami police and investigators have been tight-lipped since the Monday shooting,even as video of most of the encounter has been released. The story gained international attention and public pressure for answers mounted.
16/ Our corrupt and totally crooked Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke at Trump's convention, and here she is lumped in with the rest of the charlatans.....
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (Credit: Reuters)
While the second half of Wednesday night’s RNC programming was dominated by the usual professional politicians one expects at events like this (and fireworks thanks to Ted Cruz) the earlier parts of the evening were downright puzzling. After Laura Ingraham worked the crowd into an orgasmic frenzy of hate towards both Hillary Clinton and the press, the hard-won energy drained out of the room as the gathered were subject to one frankly weird speech after another.
Phil Ruffin, Pam Bondi, Eileen Collins, and Michelle Van Etten: These speakers ranged from uninspiring to being Ambien in human form. Bondi managed to look alive at parts and Collins confused the audience by talking about government having roles outside of cracking skulls and kicking hippies, but it was Ruffian and Van Etten that truly made no sense from an aesthetic or political perspective.
Ruffin was a trollish man whose speech was so boring that it started to feel like a human rights violation. Van Etten, portrayed as an entrepreneur, was somehow even worse, so bad that the cringe could be felt across Twitter.
Sure, the Trump campaign is scooping from the bottom of the barrel for convention speakers, but was this really the best he could do?
17/ Movie review - "Absolutely Fabulous".......if you loved AbFab the TV series, you'll like the movie.......
“Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” opens with Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and her bestie, Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), blundering into a fashion show. While ordinary latecomers might try a discreet entrance, bobbing and weaving as they scamper for seats, the constitutionally unmindful Eddy and Patsy stumble onto the catwalk, creating a distraction that forces everyone’s attention on them. What seems like mere table-setting — Eddy galumphing among the gazelles — is a sly declaration of intent in a happily self-conscious feature-length goof.
As it announces, “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” is the big-screen iteration of the BBC series created by Ms. Saunders that enjoyed an erratic run from 1992 to 2012. It’s basically more of the amusing, often very funny, occasionally wincing raucous same, with Eddy and Patsy as the brand-wearing and hard-partying — and hard-smoking, sometimes-snorting — irresistible fools whose adventures are as female-specific as Lucy and Ethel’s were decades earlier. The story this time hangs on Eddy’s efforts to revive her sagging public relations career, a slender narrative thread that Ms. Saunders adorns with bright bits, much like a string of Christmas lights.
Todays video - here is the clip again of a guy on a super bike outrunning the cops in a suburban area. It's shot with a helmet cam and you can see some of the street signs that show his locations blacked out, because it looks like he got away.
Until he posted it....he has since been arrested....
Todays blonde joke
A blonde finds herself in serious trouble. Her business has gone bust and she’s in dire financial straits.
She’s desperate, so she decides to ask God for help.
She begins to pray… ‘God, please help me. I’ve lost my business and
if I don’t get some money, I’m going to lose my house as well. Please let
me win the lottery’
Lottery night comes, and somebody else wins.
She again prays… ‘God, please let me win the lottery! I’ve lost my business, my house and I’m going to lose my car as well.’
Lottery night comes and she still has no luck.
Once again, she prays… ‘My God, why have you forsaken me? I’ve lost
my business, my house, and my car. My children are starving. I don’t
often ask You for help, and I’ve always been a good servant to You.
PLEASE let me win the lottery just this one time so I can get my life back in order.’
Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens open.
The blonde is overwhelmed by the Voice of God, Himself…
‘Sweetheart, work with Me on this…. Buy a ticket.’
Todays second blonde joke
“Stay!”I pulled into the crowded parking lot at the local shopping center and rolled down the car windows
to make sure my Labrador Retriever Pup had fresh air.She was stretched full-out on the back seat and I wanted to impress upon her that she must remain there.I walked to the curb backward, pointing my finger at the car and saying emphatically,"Now you stay. Do you hear me?""Stay! Stay!"The driver of a nearby car, a pretty young blonde, gave me a strange look and said,"Why don't you just put it in 'Park'?"Todays senior jokesT
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How to be cruel to old guys:AARP Eye Chart11:12:13: THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE
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