1/ Frank Rich on the train wreck of Trump's campaign.....written before Manafort resigned Friday morning, probably due to his ties with Russia.....
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: Trump’s campaign shake-up, Paul Manafort’s Ukraine ties, and the cancellation of The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore.
Donald Trump is trying to bounce back from his lousy August by adding two potent personalities to his team this week. Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News is the new campaign chief executive, usurping Paul Manafort, and Roger Ailes has reportedly been recruited to prepare Trump for the presidential debates. Will either be able to prove that Trump is not, as other advisers have recently opined, “beyond coaching”?
Those dreary Trump “presidential” speeches — the “policy” addresses he has lately been reading listlessly from teleprompters — have bought him nothing. Trump is indeed beyond coaching, and, with Manafort sidelined, Trump is free to be Trump full-time again. Bannon and Ailes are both pugilists likely to pump his volume back up to the full Mussolini-Giuliani timbre. It may not make a difference come November, but I’d argue it’s the only way for Trump to go.
Those dreary Trump “presidential” speeches — the “policy” addresses he has lately been reading listlessly from teleprompters — have bought him nothing. Trump is indeed beyond coaching, and, with Manafort sidelined, Trump is free to be Trump full-time again. Bannon and Ailes are both pugilists likely to pump his volume back up to the full Mussolini-Giuliani timbre. It may not make a difference come November, but I’d argue it’s the only way for Trump to go.
2/ Remember the Orange One talking about "extreme vetting?" The Daily Show sent Jordan Klepper to a Trump rally to see if they could pass the test.....
An amusing and really outrageous four minutes.....
In a segment for Thursday’s “Daily Show,” correspondent Jordan Klepper tested GOP nominee Donald Trump’s supporters on their candidate’s proposed “extreme vetting” process for Muslim immigrants.
In a scripted foreign policy speech on Monday, Trump contradictorily said, “Only those who we expect to … embrace a tolerant American society should be issued visas.” Klepper’s test subjects — Wisconsin rally-goers — made that contradiction all the more evident.
One woman explained the importance of having “respect for everyone’s religion.” Asked if she respects Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, she answered yes, yes, and no, respectively.
3/ Andrew O'Hehir with a warning to the Democrats who think it's all going to be OK - it isn't. A very good analysis of where we are, and why.....
Hillary Clinton (Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder/AP/Steven Senne/Photo montage by Salon)
Are the two major political parties in America trading places, in demographic terms? Are Republicans becoming a populist party of the downtrodden and disenfranchised, while Democrats become the political home of the up-market urban elites? That may seem like too big a leap amid the intense divisions of 2016, when the Donald Trump distortion effect has so thoroughly warped the political landscape. But such a phase-shift has happened before, and there’s considerable evidence that it’s happening again.
Now that the aftermath of the political conventions has settled down and Trump’s campaign of self-sabotage has shifted into a new and spectacular gear, we once again confront the possibility that Trump himself will be nothing more than a bizarre footnote to the story of this extraordinary year. In his own limited and vainglorious fashion, Trump understands that: “I am your voice,” he told the GOP gathering in Cleveland. He is a ludicrous outrider of the apocalypse, not the thing itself. From here, it looks like our nation is on the verge of a political meltdown, and a political realignment, whose long-term consequences are unknowable.
4/ Corruption in our public life is everywhere, mostly in Republican states - read this story from the Times about Trump's casinos and it confirms the system is rigged. People like Trump and fat boy Chris Christie rigged it.....
By the time Chris Christie became governor of New Jersey, the state’s auditors and lawyers had been battling for several years to collect long-overdue taxes owed by the casinos founded by his friend Donald J. Trump.
The total, with interest, had grown to almost $30 million. The state had doggedly pursued the matter through two of the casinos’ bankruptcy cases and even accused the company led by Mr. Trump of filing false reports with state casino regulators about the amount of taxes it had paid.
But the year after Governor Christie, a Republican, took office, the tone of the litigation shifted. The state entertained settlement offers. And in December 2011, after six years in court, the state agreed to accept just $5 million, roughly 17 cents on the dollar of what auditors said the casinos owed.
Tax authorities sometimes settle for lesser amounts to avoid the costs and risks of further litigation, legal experts said, but the steep discount granted to the Trump casinos and the relationship between the two men raise inevitable questions about special treatment.
5/ Rolling Stone thinks this video is amazing, so who am I to argue.....Frank Ocean [rapper] with "Nikes"....
Note - it's NSFW.....
"I got two versions. I got twoooo versions," Frank Ocean wrote in April 2015 announcing his new LP, then titled Boys Don't Cry. That lyric reemerged early Saturday morning in "Nikes," the first video off the singer's follow-up to 2012's Channel Orange and the first evidence that Ocean has more new music planned than his surprise "visual album" Endless.
"Nikes" boasts an array of tantalizing images, including self-immolation, semi-NSFW nudity, wild and glittery nights out and a rapping Chihuahua. The video also features a cameo by A$AP Rocky holding a photo of the late A$AP Yams, plus tributes to Pimp C and Trayvon Martin ("That nigga looked just like me," Ocean sings.)
Keeping with the "two versions" motif, "Nikes" has Ocean singing as a pair of different guises, one a sped-up vocal, the other slowed down, with the two distinct voices weaving alongside and contrasting each other over the song's first half. Midway through, Ocean's unadulterated voice steps in. "We're not in love / But I make love to you / When you're not here / I save some for you / I'm not him, but I mean something to you," Ocean sings.
The video ends with self-immolating Ocean – or at least someone wearing the same Jenny Holzer shirt as Ocean – being extinguished.
6/ You may have read recently Aetna is pulling out of Obamacare, and this is why. It's payback for not allowing the merger of Aetna and Humana.....and shows that when the gub'mint dares to stand up to these giant corporations the money talks.....make no mistake, this is money equalling power, with more than a touch of vindictiveness and spite.........
It's not often in the midst of an antitrust fight that the public gets a look at the gamesmanship that's happening behind the scenes.
But thanks to the Huffington Post's Jonathan Cohn and Jeff Young, we got a glimpseat how health insurer Aetna is making its case to acquire rival Humana — and new insight into Aetna's decision announced Tuesday to pull out of Obamcare exchanges in 11 states.
The reporters obtained a copy of a letter from Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini to the Justice Department on July 5. The letter was written while the government was still deciding whether to oppose the insurance companies' merger on the grounds that it (and another proposed deal between Anthem and Cigna) would hurt consumers and reduce competition.
The Bertolini letter was in answer to a Department of Justice request for information about how a decision on the Humana deal would affect Aetna's participation in the health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act.
The letter is pretty direct: If the government moved to block the merger, then Aetna would begin to pull out of the health insurance exchanges.
7/ The World's Biggest Asshole.....this video also has a point, but it's a little painful getting there.....two minutes.....
8/ Finally a story in big media linking the rain in Louisiana with climate change....and the lesson is this is just the beginning of more and more extreme weather events.
If there is a lesson for us it's that you'd better make damn sure your house can cope with Biblical deluges.....up to and including moving, before it's too late...
Climate change is never going to announce itself by name. But this is what we should expect it to look like.
That’s what many scientists, analysts and activists are saying after heavy rains in southern Louisiana have killed at least 11 people and forced tens of thousands of residents from their homes, in the latest in a series of extreme floods that have occurred in the United States over the last two years.
That increase in heavy rainfall and the resultant flooding “is consistent with what we expect to see in the future if you look at climate models,” said David Easterling, a director at the National Centers for Environmental Information, which is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Not just in the U.S. but in many other parts of the world as well.”
9/ Fascinating story from the Guardian about how finally President Obama, after being the focus of relentless attacks by the Republicans for eight years is finally finding himself....
It may seem too early to call, but we already have a winner in the 2016 election.
He’s someone the pundits wrote off long ago. An improbable outsider who rode an insurgent wave to snatch the nomination from the establishment. An unconventional politician whose raucous rallies underscored his appeal to voters far outside his party base.
His name is Barack Obama. And he can thank the freak show that is Donald Trump’s Republican party for restoring his stature as a unifying, national leader with a moderated and mature approach to a complex and unstable world.
Eight years ago, Obama represented an existential threat to the Republican party, and not just because he was going to lead the Democratic party to win the White House and Congress by large margins.
No, Obama’s biggest threat was that he could realign American politics, shifting it fundamentally towards progressives for a generation. He and his campaign aides talked privately of being the Reagan of the left: a transformative figure who would leave an indelible legislative mark at home and restore America’s position on the world stage.
10/ Clever, and most entertaining clip of Nicole Pensce playing "Happy Birthday" on the piano as classical composers would have played the song.....Beethoven, Bach etc.....
Very well done, a nice video.....four minutes....
11/ Remember Trump released a letter from his Doctor saying he was is great shape? Newsweek had actual Doctors look at this letter, and concluded it's a fake......interesting, but not really surprising, is it?
Donald Trump tests positive for every medical ailment. All of them. Supposedly, that’s what his doctor says—or at least, that’s what the Trump campaign portrays him as saying.
On Monday, Trump opined that Hillary Clinton did not have the mental or physical stamina to be president. This was playing off of a conspiracy theory that has been pushed in the conservative media and by Trump supporters for weeks. As I wrote earlier this week, Fox News’s Sean Hannity and others even attempted to claim Clinton suffered from seizures, a vile misrepresentation that harms people who have epilepsy, as I do.
Still, the Trump acolytes have not dropped their lying campaign about Clinton’s health, and their argument that people with epilepsy are unfit for political office. They are demanding she produce all of her medical records. Since these lies are harming people with seizures, let’s talk about the health of both candidates and the relevant information released by their campaigns.
12/ Sometimes you read about truly evil people, and this story tells us about Angela Corey, the cruelest prosecutor in America based [of course] in Floriduh. What a horrible woman.....
In March of 2011, 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez was taken into an interview room at a Jacksonville, Florida, police station and interrogated by Michelle Soehlig, a ponytailed female officer. Before Soehlig began questioning him, she told the child, “These are your constitutional rights,” and slid over a document listing the Miranda warnings, familiar to anyone who’s seen an episode of Law & Order. Cristian was otherwise alone, squirmy, resting his head on his chubby arms and sometimes talking to himself, as if practicing what to say to the adults who would question him, muttering, “Pow! Pow! Pow!” He responded to Soehlig’s questions with a barely audible “Uh-huh,” so she prompted him to say “Yes.” It was after 2 am.
“Has he woken up?” Cristian asked at one point, referring to his 2-year-old brother David.
“He’s still sleeping,” Soehlig replied, meaning that David was still in a coma. She gave Cristian a doll to help him demonstrate what he might have done to David. Later, she would point to the doll’s head, asking Cristian if he hit his brother there and, if so, how many times. The scene is captured in Juvenile Lifers, a documentary about incarcerated children made by Cyril Denvers and Anthony Headley. The directors were given access to court footage and documents for their film, which was partially funded by the French public-access channel France 5.
13/ Whatever you do in your food buying, never, ever knowingly buy food from China [or Vietnam and Cambodia].....it's bad for you, and could give you cancer.....
Recently I was reading an article on AltHealthWorks.com about a fake rice being produced in China. The rice is being made out of plastic believe it or not and no one is doing anything about it. Naturally, as a health advocate and researcher of food and how food is processed I thought to myself, this is going WAY too far.
Plastic rice? Ingesting even small amounts of plastic is horrible for the digestive system and hormones. The BPA (chemical) in plastic mimic’s estrogen and this hormone skyrockets in the body when BPA is ingested. Ingest plastic rice and you’re basically asking to die young of breast cancer.
Every once in a while I would hear something crazy from China like this and was always wary of food from China for this reason. You have to think, not only is the food being shipped from the other side of the world (just think of what could happen during that time and possible exposure or contamination) but beyond that look at what certain Chinese companies are doing to food. Making it fake, and as cheap as humanly possible. China is using their innovative methods that they use to make cheap technology products, toys and other consumer products and applying that mindset to food, which is absolutely dangerous.
14/ President Obama is still trying to sneak the TPP through Congress, and it's going to happen in the lame duck session after the Nov. 8 election. This story is just one of the bad things that will happen if he does succeed in getting this abomination of a bill, the ultimate corporate giveaway, passed.....
The TPP would require us to limit food labeling and to import meat and poultry that do not meet U.S. food safety standards
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would require us to allow food imports if the exporting country's safety regime is deemed "equivalent" to our own, even if it violates our food safety laws. These rules would effectively outsource domestic food inspection to other countries.
Under the TPP, any U.S. food safety rule on pesticides, labeling or additives that is higher than international standards would be subject to challenge as "illegal trade barriers." The U.S. could be required to eliminate these rules and allow in the unsafe food under threat of trade sanctions.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already inspects less than 1% of all seafood imports for health hazards. Entering into the TPP with Malaysia and Vietnam, both TPP negotiating parties and major seafood exporters, would increase seafood imports and further overwhelm inspectors' limited ability to ensure the safety of our food. Some TPP countries have serious shrimp and fish safety issues. For example, even with the minimal inspections, high levels of contaminants have been found in Vietnam's seafood.
15/ The Mayor of Miami Beach on the Zika cases, and how our revolting Governor deliberately withheld information to score political points.....a two minute interview with MSNBC....
Amid the public health concerns and worries about impacts on tourism, the news of Zika spreading to Miami Beach has set off a political quarrel between Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine — rumored to be eying a gubernatorial run in 2018 — and Gov. Rick Scott.
He's taken to cable news channels to accuse Scott of withholding information from him about the presence of Zika in the popular resort city, which is a crucial economic engine for the region's tourism industry.
Fourteen hours after Levine told reporters late Thursday that there was "no outbreak, no epidemic of Zika on Miami Beach," Scott held his own press conference in Miami to announce that five cases were confirmed and Zika was being transmitted locally in South Beach.
On Friday, Levine blamed Scott for a lack of communication that left the mayor unaware of what was going on in his own city. On Friday night and Saturday afternoon, the mayor took to cable news networks to blast the governor.
"On Friday, the governor played politics with this horrible issue," Levine told CNN's Martin Savidge on a live segment aired just after 1 p.m. Saturday.
16/ "The Brand New Testament" is a new movie, about God, Jesus's younger sister Ea and what happens when she gets pissed off......
You will probably need to watch this trailer twice to really get it, but trust me - it's really funny, and a must see movie when it comes out!
It's not available except in the original French....yet....
God is a mean bastard from Brussels, but his daughter is determined to set things straight in cult director Jaco Van Dormael’s madcap fantasy
Imagining God as a wrathful bastard living in Brussels who gets his kicks watching his creatures suffer, and his 10-year-old daughter Ea as humanity’s no. 2 Saviour after her brother JC retires to become a statue, Jaco Van Dormael confirms his title as Belgium’s wacky philosopher-king of filmmakers. Most recently seen exploring the nature of time in the sci-fi-sh Mr. Nobody, he apparently felt ready to tackle a serious subject like the way God mis-runs the world. The Brand New Testament (Le Tout Nouveau Testament) does not disappoint; on the contrary, it is irresistibly laugh-out-loud and feel-good, without the sticky-sweet undertones of The Eighth Day, which starred a boy with Downs syndrome. Apart from the support of Catherine Deneuve, in good form as one of the 18 Apostles, there are no international names to push it along, and the Franco-Belgian-Luxembourg comedy will have to fend for itself on strong audience word of mouth after its bow in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight.
Todays video - mainly for guys, but ladies if you are interested in detail this is amazingly intricate......Rube Goldberg would have been proud of these people....
Todays Obituary joke
Anyone who has had to write an obituary for a loved one knows how challenging it can be.
That’s why we have to hand it to offspring of former New Orleans firefighter William Ziegler for penning one of the most entertaining tributes we’ve read.
Ziegler, 69, “escaped this mortal realm” on July 29. The family jokes that, unlike previous times, this was “not a ploy to avoid creditors or old girlfriends … he assures us that he is gone.”
The obituary appeared in the Times-Picayune on Friday. The publication has said the tribute “quickly went viral” and some have called it “one of the all-time great obituaries.”
Ziegler’s daughter, Sharah Currier, told the Times-Picayune that her dad would always pass along strange obituaries. “He would have loved this,” she says. “He probably would have forwarded this obituary to us.”
Here it is in its entirety:
He assures us he is goneWilliam Ziegler escaped this mortal realm on Friday, July 29, 2016 at the age of 69.We think he did it on purpose to avoid having to make a decision in the pending presidential election.He leaves behind four children, five grandchildren, and the potted meat industry, for which he was an unofficial spokesman until dietary restrictions forced him to eat real food.William volunteered for service in the United States Navy at the ripe old age of 17 and immediately realized he didn’t much enjoy being bossed around. He only stuck it out for one war.Before his discharge, however, the government exchanged numerous ribbons and medals for various honorable acts.Upon his return to the City of New Orleans in 1971, thinking it best to keep an eye on him, government officials hired William as a fireman.After twenty-five years, he suddenly realized that running away from burning buildings made more sense than running toward them. He promptly retired.Looking back, William stated that there was no better group of morons and mental patients than those he had the privilege of serving with (except Bob, he never liked you, Bob).Following his wishes, there will not be a service, but wellwishers are encouraged to write a note of farewell on a Schaefer Light beer can and drink it in his honor.He was never one for sentiment or religiosity, but he wanted you to know that if he owes you a beer, and if you can find him in Heaven, he will gladly allow you to buy him another.He can likely be found forwarding tasteless internet jokes (check your spam folder, but don’t open these at work). Expect to find an alcoholic dog named Judge passed out at his feet. Unlike previous times, this is not a ploy to avoid creditors or old girlfriends. He assures us that he is gone. He will be greatly missed.
Todays funny tweets jokes....
Todays 5 undeniable facts joke
A wise person once said
1. We all love to spend money buying new clothes but we never realize
that the best moments in life are enjoyed without clothes.
2. Having a cold drink on hot day with a few friends is nice, but
having a hot friend on a cold night after a few drinks - PRICELESS.
3. Breaking News: Condoms don't guarantee safe sex anymore. A friend
of mine was wearing one when he was shot dead by the woman's husband.
4. Arguing over a girl's bust size is like choosing between Molson,
Heineken, Carlsberg, & Budweiser. Men may state their preferences,
but will grab whatever is available.
AND...
5. I haven't verified this on Snopes, but it sounds legit --- A recent
study found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer
than the men who mention it.
A wise person once said
1. We all love to spend money buying new clothes but we never realize
that the best moments in life are enjoyed without clothes.
2. Having a cold drink on hot day with a few friends is nice, but
having a hot friend on a cold night after a few drinks - PRICELESS.
3. Breaking News: Condoms don't guarantee safe sex anymore. A friend
of mine was wearing one when he was shot dead by the woman's husband.
4. Arguing over a girl's bust size is like choosing between Molson,
Heineken, Carlsberg, & Budweiser. Men may state their preferences,
but will grab whatever is available.
AND...
5. I haven't verified this on Snopes, but it sounds legit --- A recent
study found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer
than the men who mention it.
