1/ Absolutely fascinating article about the root causes of the Trump phenomenon......America has split into two, with America A getting the good jobs and America B abandoned and declining. It's what is really happening in politics and our country in a nutshell..... insightful, and also a little scary....
A very good read....
US Elites Abandoned their Workers: Trump is their Revenge;
& You ain’t seen Nothin’ Yet
By John Feffer | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – –
The voters vowed to take their revenge at the polls. They’d missed out on the country’s vaunted prosperity. They were disgusted with the liberal direction of the previous administration. They were anti-abortion and pro-religion. They were suspicious of immigrants, haughty intellectuals, and intrusive international institutions. And they very much wanted to make their nation great again.
They’d lost a lot of elections. But this time, they won.
In Poland, that is.
2/ Bill Maher in great form.....an excellent five minutes.....
“Real Time” host Bill Maher, during his “New Rules” segment Friday, peacocked California’s thriving economy after the state raised taxes on its wealthiest citizens.
“If Republicans are going to keep calling states ‘laboratories of democracy,’ they have to start looking at the results from the lab,” Maher said, noting that after California raised taxes on the wealthy, the state now sits sixth on the list of world’s largest economies. “Whereas states like Kansas and Louisiana that went back to the old trickle-down theory of ‘cut taxes on the rich and they’ll always do the right thing,’ are financial catastrophes.”
3/ It's not Donald Trump we should be fearing - he's not going to be elected President, but it's his supporters who are the real threat. Trump has given them a license to be bigoted and angry....i.e. be themselves....
An unusual story for the Times to publish, because it's true and contrasts the media narrative - the media tries to lay it all on Trump, and ignore the bigots who worship him....
Interesting to compare this to our lead article.....but it's consistent - this is America B........
Donald Trump greeting supporters after a rally in Greensboro, N.C
Statesboro, Ga. — DEPENDING on whom you ask, political correctness is either an effort to expunge offensive expression from our culture, or it’s a weapon fashioned by the left to brainwash the next generation. If you believe the right-wing media, the next generation’s brains have already been sufficiently washed: The internet is flooded with disparaging articles about “trigger warnings,” “microaggressions” and “safe spaces” where, the right charges, frail young liberals seek shelter from unpleasant realities.
I could not help but think of that idea, the “safe space,” during a recent assignment to cover a Trump rally at the Coliseum Complex in Greensboro, N.C. Inside the auditorium, men gleefully referred to Hillary Clinton with misogynistic slurs; those same smears were printed on T-shirts sold by vendors outside. The men and women sporting them were constantly being pulled into photographs with their fellow Trump supporters, all of them slinging their arms around one another and flashing smiles and thumbs up.
Seemingly emboldened by the atmosphere of serial transgression, a man a few feet away from me answered a warm-up speaker’s call for solidarity with the victims of the massacre in Orlando, Fla., by shouting, “The gays had it coming!”
4/ Imagine if you worked in a Trump Hotel......no wonder they've come out with a new commercial.....two Jimmy Kimmel minutes.....
It can be tough to be affiliated with the Trump brand in 2016. There must be thousands of employees worldwide who facepalm every time their boss says the next controversial thing on the campaign trail, only to put on a smile and walk right back into work the next day like it never happened.
In defense of the hotel employees who are forced to wear the “Trump” name on their uniforms despite the GOP presumptive nominee’s most derisive rhetoric, Jimmy Kimmel created a new advertisement called “Don’t Blame Us.”
5/ If you live in South Florida, you need watch this clip from Chris Hayes looking at sea level rise in Miami.....seven minutes....
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 6/30/16
'We as a people will become afraid of the ocean'
Miami, Florida is already feeling the impacts of climate change - how will a city deal with the rising seas? Duration: 7:35
6/ The excellent Samantha Bee on Islamophobia....she travels to Dearborn, Michigan.....funny and informative.....
In Monday's episode of Full Frontal, Samantha Bee visited Dearborn, Michigan, to quell two misconceptions about Muslims: that they hate America and that they aren't doing anything to combat terrorism.
Bee spoke with Kassam Ali, the leader of the largest mosque in America, and police officer Mike Jaafar, and learned that American Muslims have continuously been working with authorities on combatting extremism.
The segment also showed an infographic of known sources of terrorism from 2001 to 2015. It revealed that the American Muslim community has given nearly three times more tips to the U.S. government than foreign governments, and is nearly on-par with the number of tips the FBI and CIA have given.
Later on, Bee asks Ali if there's something he'd like to say "1001 times for people to ignore, but this time on national television?" It was a clear jab at the right-wing media and anti-Muslim figures that continuously — and falsely – claim that American Muslims aren't condemning terrorism and don't love America.
7/ A pretty good Thomas Friedman column on America B and Brexit......
The British vote by a narrow majority to leave the European Union is not the end of the world — but it does show us how we can get there.
A major European power, a longtime defender of liberal democracy, pluralism and free markets, falls under the sway of a few cynical politicians who see a chance to exploit public fears of immigration to advance their careers. They create a stark binary choice on an incredibly complex issue, of which few people understand the full scope — stay in or quit the E.U.
These politicians assume that the dog will never catch the car and they will have the best of all worlds — opposing something unpopular but not having to deal with the implications of the public actually voting to get rid of it. But they so dumb down the debate with lies, fear-mongering and misdirection, and with only a simple majority required to win, that the leave-the-E.U. crowd carries the day by a small margin. Presto: the dog catches the car. And, of course, it has no idea now what to do with this car. There is no plan. There is just barking.
8/ Jessica Williams and her final segment on the Daily Show......it shows how much we will miss her as she interviews Bernie supporters who say they will vote for Trump.....five amusing minutes.....
Jessica Williams (Credit: Comedy Central)
“Daily Show” correspondent Jessica Williams aired her last segment Thursday night after a four-year tenure with the show.
Williams interviewed a panel of Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters who refuse to get on board with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and instead favor GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Some panelists conceded — with little to no prodding — that Trump is, as one woman put it, “a racist and a bigot,” but “Hillary has been a scam artist all her life.”
“I don’t get it,” Williams said. “How do you go from a left-wing progressive like Bernie, to a man who worships money only slightly less than he worships himself?”
9/ A story by my favorite author Thomas Frank on an insiders newsletter for the lobbying industry, and how this is symptomatic of the corruption in our country.....they're brazen, and don't care if you know about it because the decay runs too deep.....
(Credit: Brandon Bourdages via Shutterstock)
This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.
Although it’s difficult to remember those days eight years ago when Democrats seemed to represent something idealistic and hopeful and brave, let’s take a moment and try to recall the stand Barack Obama once took against lobbyists. Those were the days when the nation was learning that George W. Bush’s Washington was, essentially, just a big playground for those lobbyists and that every government operation had been opened to the power of money. Righteous disgust filled the air. “Special interests” were much denounced. And a certain inspiring senator from Illinois promised that, should he be elected president, his administration would contain no lobbyists at all. The revolving door between government and K Street, he assured us, would turn no more.
Instead, the nation got a lesson in all the other ways that “special interests” can get what they want — like simple class solidarity between the Ivy Leaguers who advise the president and the Ivy Leaguers who sell derivative securities to unsuspecting foreigners. As that inspiring young president filled his administration with Wall Street personnel, we learned that the revolving door still works, even if the people passing through it aren’t registered lobbyists.
This is the link to "Influence"...
10/ There's weird, and then there's Japanese weird.....for proof watch this real Japanese commercial.....two amazing minutes.....
It’s only July 1st, and while we’re only 50% through 2016, I can be relatively sure you’re not going to an advertisement as creative, uplifting, and depressing all at the same time as this one.
The ad is for the Japanese company Ocedel Lighting, and it has been sweeping up awards at a variety of festivals this year, including Cannes Lions and the Asia Pacific AdFest.
The purpose of the ad? To get you to buy Ocedel LED lights, and they go about it in the absolute and distressing and most amazing way. What begins as one man’s heartbreaking realization that he can not keep the lights on for his family blossoms into a Tim Burton-esque dreamscape that I won’t even describe in detail because it really must be seen to be believed.
11/ Sam Bee on Brexit.....an excellent six minutes....
After the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, many Americans came to a troubling realization: A campaign driven largely by racism and xenophobia really can win an election — and that means Donald Trump really could become president.
"The Brexit vote was driven by angry, less educated, older white voters who feel screwed by globalization and the establishment, and have been fed a chip butty of xenophobia slathered in slogan sauce," Full Frontal host Samantha Bee said on Monday.
But Bee noted the parallels aren’t as strong as one may think. "America is not Britain," she said. "Being not Britain is pretty much central to the whole America brand."
Bee pointed out that the UK, unlike the US, hasn’t dealt with large-scale immigration for most of its existence. Perhaps as a result, the UK is also far less diverse: About 87 percent of the UK population is white, while about 64 percent of the US is. This has driven a far broader xenophobic sentiment in the UK — and in the rest of Europe, as the continent deals with a refugee crisis — than one may expect in America.
"Trump’s brand of right-wing, racist, anti-immigrant demagoguery isn’t American," Bee said. "It’s a European import. And if we’re smart, we’ll stop it at the border and send it back where it came from."
Still, she acknowledged the possibility that the US could fall for the same trap as many UK voters did with Brexit and elect Trump — and that would send the wrong message.
"That is really the worst outcome of Brexit: not the breakup of the EU, or the fact that you can now use the British pound as loo paper; it’s that the vote made these hateful morons think that over half the country agreed with them," Bee said. "This is why it’s not enough for Trump to lose. It has to be a fucking landslide."
12/ A sad story from the Times on how Republicans have privatized our infrastructure and sold it to private equity firms, and how this is screwing the services we take for granted.......like ambulances....
The title of the story is "Dial 911, and Wall Street answers"....
A Tennessee woman slipped into a coma and died after an ambulance company took so long to assemble a crew that one worker had time for a cigarette break.
Paramedics in New York had to covertly swipe medical supplies from a hospital to restock their depleted ambulances after emergency runs.
A man in the suburban South watched a chimney fire burn his house to the ground as he waited for the fire department, which billed him anyway and then sued him for $15,000 when he did not pay.
In each of these cases, someone dialed 911 and Wall Street answered.
The business of driving ambulances and operating fire brigades represents just one facet of a profound shift on Wall Street and Main Street alike, a New York Times investigation has found. Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms, the “corporate raiders” of an earlier era, have increasingly taken over a wide array of civic and financial services that are central to American life.
Today, people interact with private equity when they dial 911, pay their mortgage, play a round of golf or turn on the kitchen tap for a glass of water.
13/ After reading all of the shitty news in the world, have another look at this skit by Tim Conway and Harvey Korman "The Dentist".....the funniest two minutes ever.....
Do you remember the Carol Burnett Show? It aired on CBS from 1967 through 1978 for 278 episodes, and again with 9 episodes in the fall of 1991. In 1969, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway starred in a nine-minute segment about a rookie dentist (played by Tim Conway) and his first patient (played by Harvey Korman). Although the original skit took about nine minutes, the last three minutes would have you rolling on the floor. For me, l saw its original airing on television in 1969, but had not seen it again until now. You may remember it if you are close to my age. It is still as funny as it was in 1969......
14/ A good story from HuffPo about how the voters of Florida have elected Republicans to full control of our state, and how they have repaid the voters by screwing them over and over and over again........
Massive toxic algae blooming around the southern half of the Florida peninsula, coating public health, tourism, business and real estate on both Florida coasts with dangerous scum, is the real consequence to taxpayers and voters of losing their bet on Republican leadership: Gov. Scott, Senate President Joe Negron, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam, state representative Matt Caldwell, US Senator Marco Rubio, and all the insiders and cronies they corralled to serve on boards like the water management districts and Public Service Commission. This isn’t hyperbole. A real bet was made by voters. A real bet was lost.
It wasn’t too long ago — although it seems like ages — that sober minds in the Republican and Democratic parties understood whatever their differences, attention must be paid to the public interest. In time, the GOP’s lock on both houses of the legislature and the executive mansion boiled down to a myopic confidence that the best way to protect people was to allow corporate interests to take over the functions of government.
Republican voters crystallized their preferences by electing a businessman with no government experience, Rick Scott, to be governor, persuaded that “enlightened self-interest of the profit motive” was real and not imagined.
15/ The toxic scum on our beaches and waterways is a direct consequence of Big Sugar, and the Republicans in Florida that they own, up to and including Governor Voldemort.....he really is one of the most evil, disgusting creatures ever to occupy political office.....
Gov. Rick Scott took another cheap shot at the White House this week for a crisis he and his party had a big hand in creating. The governor declared a state of emergency for Martin and St. Lucie counties after a massive algae bloom in the St. Lucie River prompted beach closings on the Atlantic Coast. Scott, predictably, blamed President Barack Obama for not investing enough in flood control in southeast Florida. This from a governor who for years fought the federal government over water cleanup efforts and who collects huge sums from big polluters in the Everglades to push his political agenda.
Scott's order Wednesday calls on state agencies to take several steps to redirect and manage the flow of water in and out of Lake Okeechobee. The unseasonably heavy rains this winter forced the Army Corps of Engineers to dump billions of gallons of dirty water down the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, causing environmental damage on both coasts as nutrient-rich water from the lake flowed to coastal estuaries.
To stem the spread of the algae, Scott directed the South Florida Water Management District to store additional water north and south of the lake. Algae blooms cause health problems and harm the local ecosystem and water-related businesses. With Scott's order, the state will expand the monitoring for toxins and open a hotline for complaints.
16/ Movie review from the Times......"The Legend Of Tarzan".......they like it!
Samuel L. Jackson, left, and Alexander Skarsgard in “The Legend of Tarzan.
“The Legend of Tarzan” has a whole lot of fun, big-screen things going for it — adventure, romance, natural landscapes, digital animals and oceans of rippling handsome man-muscle. Its sweep and easy pleasures come from its old-fashioned escapades — it’s one long dash through the jungle by foot, train, boat and swinging vine — but what makes it more enjoyable than other recycled stories of this type is that the filmmakers have given Tarzan a thoughtful, imperfect makeover. That must have been tough given the origin story’s white supremacy problems.
"Tarzan" trailer.....looks pretty good......
Todays video - Oops....
Last week I included a link to a collection of horror movies, but this one is the one I meant to put in.....two scary minutes.....
Todays video - an absolutely charming ad for Evian.....excellent.....2 minutes.....and ladies should like it!
Todays retiree joke
Four old retired men are walking down a street in Yuma , Arizona. They turn a corner and see a sign that says, "Old Timers Bar - ALL drinks 10 cents." They look at each other and then go in, thinking this is too good to be true.
The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, "Come on in and let me pour one for you! What'll it be, gentlemen?" There's a fully stocked bar, so each of the men orders a martini.
In no time the bartender serves up four iced martinis shaken, not stirred and says, "That'll be 10 cents each, please." The four guys stare at the bartender for a moment, then at each other. They can't believe their good luck. They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis, and order another round.
Again, four excellent martinis are produced, with the bartender again saying, “That’s 40 cents, please." They pay the 40 cents, but their curiosity gets the better of them. They've each had two martinis and haven't even spent a dollar yet. Finally one of them says, "How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a dime apiece?"
"I'm a retired tailor from Phoenix," the bartender says, "and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the Lottery Jackpot for $125 million and decided to open this place. Every drink costs a dime. Wine, liquor, beer it's all the same."
"Wow! That's some story!" one of the men says. As the four of them sip at their martinis, they can't help noticing seven other people at the end of the bar who don't have any drinks in front of them and haven't ordered anything the whole time they've been there. Nodding at the seven at the end of the bar, one of the men asks the Bartender, "What's with them?"
The bartender says, “They’re retirees from Florida. They're waiting for Happy Hour when drinks are half-price, plus they have coupons."
Todays Dear Abby joke
Dear Abby,
My husband hasn't worked for the last 14 years. All he does is get dressed in the morning and hop in his fancy car to visit his cronies. I know he`s cheated on me many times with young girls who could be his grand daughters....
I know this because he brags about this to me. He smokes fancy cigars and drinks the most expensive Champagne day and night. We sleep in separate beds because he keeps telling me he knows I`m a lesbian and my varicose veins and fat behind turns him off.
Should I clobber him with my frying pan, or should I just leave him ? Your advice would be appreciated ....
Sincerely,
Mad as Hell
Dear Mad as Hell,
You don`t have to take that kind of treatment from any man. I suggest you pack your bags and move out ASAP! Don`t resort to clobbering him with the frying pan , and try to act more like a lady.
Remember ....... you`re running for President of the United States, so try acting like one.
Best of luck to you
Abby
Todays Will Rogers jokes
Never squat with your spurs on . . .Will Rogers , who died in a 1935 plane crash, was one of the greatest political sages t his country has ever known.Some of his sayings:1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.3. There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.5. Always drink upstream from the herd.6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.8. There are three kinds of men:The ones that learn by reading.The few who learn by observation.The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment .10. If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.The moral : When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.ABOUT GROWING OLDER...First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.Third ~ Some people try to turn back their odometers . Not me; I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it's such a nice change from being young.Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.Tenth ~ Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.And, finally ~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.
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