1/ Bill Maher's opening from his show Friday night.....powerful, spot on and very funny too.....a great seven minutes......
Bill Maher Just Made A Very Serious Point About The Trump Administration ‘Circus’
“While you’re watching the clown screw the pony, they’re breaking into your car,” he said.
Bill Maher
Bill Maher warned people not to get distracted by the circus surrounding President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday.
The “Real Time” host admitted it was “fun to watch the wheels come off the Trump car” — using the president’s 77-minute “brain fart” of a news conference the previous day as an example.
But it’s only amusing “until we remember we’re riding in the back,” Maher cautioned. “Then it’s not so fucking fun any more.”
Maher said the administration’s refusal to discount Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, as a possible candidate for ambassador to Canada was merely one of its several distraction tactics.
2/. "The Master" Frank Rich with his insights on Trump.......
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 saga of former NSA Michael Flynn, President Trump and the press, and SNL’s surge.
On Friday, asked about reports that now-former national security adviser Michael Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russian officials, Donald Trump said, “I don’t know about that …I’ll look into that.” Since Flynn’s resignation Monday night, the White House line has been that Trump had been “looking into it” for weeks, and last night the New York Times and CNN revealed that Trump aides had spoken with Russian intelligence before the election, which the administration had also denied. With calls for a formal investigation only growing louder, how long until the official explanation of this scandal changes again?
I suspect the official explanation will change four times even while I write the answer to your question. When you create a White House of Lies from the Oval Office, as Trump has, and grant a license to your entire administration to lie with impunity, it soon becomes impossible for all the players to keep their stories straight whether they are talking to the press, or to federal or congressional investigators, or to each other.
3/. Samantha Bee with another viciously funny takedown on the House weenie in chief - Paul Ryan..... seven excellent minutes....
Samantha Bee used Wednesday night’s Full Frontal to give Paul Ryan a very sarcastic profile about how the House Speaker went from being the “conscience of the Republican party” to an obedient enabler for President Donald Trump.
After examining how Ryan was once seen as a principled, intellectual leader of the GOP, Bee went on to explain how Ryan was now a “faithful husky” who is completely prepared to put his political party ahead of the country. Bee went on to cite a number of instances where Ryan would offer “feeble” criticism of Trump’s most controversial moments, yet he still supported Trump in order to stop a Democratic Party victory.
“Paul Ryan would put Cthulu in the White House if it would let him privatize Medicare,” Bee said. “Sure it’s an eldritch creature of infinite darkness, but it can sign 20 tax cut bills at once, and that’s worth ditching a lot of core principles.”
4/. Andrew Sullivan is a columnist for New York Magazine, and here he gives his pretty insightful observations on six topics, starting of course with Trump and Putin.....worth reading.....
The question that remains, of course, is the motive.
Why on Earth would any campaign for president be in constant, secret touch with the intelligence agents of a hostile foreign power?
I cannot know. Maybe Flynn is a rogue loner. It’s also possible, I guess, that the Trump campaign just wanted to keep in touch with the intelligence services of one of this country’s nemeses, if only to wish them Merry Christmas — five times in one day. It’s also conceivable that Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort’s deep ties to the Putin regime were utterly irrelevant to the sudden amendment, this past summer, to the GOP party platform that removed a call to send arms to Ukraine. It’s also possible, I suppose, that deep down I’m straight.
But there’s one explanation that chills me even more than a foreign power’s potential blackmail over an American president. And it is that Trump and Putin are natural allies in their fight against the postwar, U.S.-led international order that has kept the peace for 70 years.
5/. Bill Maher with his "New Rules", and it's one of his serious ones [still with jokes, just not as many]......he asks how Republicans have a lock on Patriotism......a very good six minutes....
Bill Maher’s New Rules segment was exceptional this Friday. He called out Trump and the Republicans in general for doing things no Democrat would get away with using examples in the mode of Jon Stewart.
Bill Maher tonight ended his show by asking why Republicans let so much slide from someone who has the “magic R” next to their name.
He said that President Trump has gotten away with things that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would never would have, like his answer to Bill O’Reilly about Russia.
“I gotta say to all you flag-waving right-wingers,” Maher said, “who always say ‘I’m not just gonna stand here and let you run down America,’ you’re standing there and letting Trump run down America.”
6/. Charles Blow is the Times columnist who is most vocal about Trump......here he reinforces the value of protests....
The Trump resistance movement is stretching its wings, engaging its muscles and feeling its power. It is large and strong and tough. It has moved past debilitating grief and into righteous anger, assiduous organization and pressing activism.
Welcome to the dawn of the fighting-mad majority: The ones who didn’t vote for Trump and maybe even some who now regret that they did.
They are charging forward under the banner of sage wisdom that has endured through the ages: Show up, get loud and fight back. Do it with your body and words, with your time and money, with every fiber of yourself. They see what this dawning regime means and they don’t intend, not even for a second, to wait around to see what happens. “What happens” is happening right now and it’s horrific.
Donald Trump is a vulgar, uninformed, anti-intellectual, extremely unpopular grifter helming a family of grifters who apparently intend to milk their moment on the mount for every red cent.
7/. Stephen Colbert was on good form this week......a great opening monologue on Steven Miller, Trumps pet yapper.... a funny seven minutes....
CBS
, Stephen Miller sort of invited this. Donald Trump’ssenior adviser has made a disproportionate share of waves recently—especially on Face the Nation this past Sunday, when he told John Dickerson, “The media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” To some, that statement rang a littledystopian—not to mention authoritarian. So naturally, late-night sounded off on it Monday night. The bluntest critique came from Stephen Colbert, who dropped a rare F-bomb to express his disbelief.
8/. Matt Taibbi on the total hypocrisy of Trump's pledge to end corruption......any time Trump says something, he means the exact opposite.....
During his campaign, Donald Trump released a 100-day "action plan" that supposedly targeted "special interest corruption.
On October 13th of last year, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump gave a desperate speech at a desperate moment. A week after the surfacing of the infamous "grab them by the pussy" video, Trump presented himself as the common man's only defense against a vast conspiracy of global financial interests:
"There is nothing the political establishment will not do," he said, "and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense."
Including running Donald Trump as an anti-corruption candidate! He went on:
"For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests they partner with, our campaign represents an existential threat," Trump said. "It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class ... and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities."
9/. Jonathan Chait with an interesting theory - Trump actually believes he's doing his job bigly well.....
Donald Trump’s disorienting, surreal press conference contained one moment of pristine clarity, when the president predicted, “Tomorrow, the headlines are going to be, ‘Donald Trump rants and raves.’” This prediction, while quite correct, raises the question of why Trump thought it was a good idea to hold a media event whose principal effect would be to produce headlines depicting him as rambling and unhinged. Reports from the administration have supplied the answer, which is quite simple: His boasts spring from a place of utter, self-delusional conviction.
Trump, reports Mike Allen, “truly believes this had been the best start to a presidency in history, and no one around would ever disagree to his face.”
10/. Sam Bee is one of our most valuable comedic reporters - this is a brilliant six minutes on the Republicans are using the bright shiny objects [Flynn, Press Conference disasters] to distract us, while they are passing monstrous bills quietly.....Bee lists just a few of these horrors.....
Funny, and biting.....great stuff....
Imagine the Trump presidency as a nightmarish theme park full of orange clowns and questionable rides spewing exhaust and dripping with oil; the longest lines would be for the big attractions like a Putin-themed rollercoaster that’s just a straight track through tons of fog, and a fortune teller modeled after Kellyanne Conway that never tells you anything bad about yourself. It isn’t that the other rides aren’t as scary; it’s just that they don’t catch the eye of regular visitors who’d rather have their vomit induced on a real show-stopper.
It’s these sideshows that Full Frontal was looking to highlight on last night’s episode in which Samantha Bee opened with a segment titled ”The Great Unchecked Legislative Fuckfest of 2017”. Turns out that while we’ve been trying to keep up with Trump’s ties to Russia, the Republican congress has been taking advantage of something called the Congressional Review Act to make America evil… again? This includes things like allowing coal companies to dump coal juice in rivers, and the extinction of the Endangered Species Act that helps protect some of America’s coolest critters such as bear and wolf.
11/. It may be difficult to understand why Vladimir Putin is admired by conservatives, but after reading this excellent article from The Atlantic one can see Putin's attraction for Republicans and Trumpies......most interesting, and frankly scary.......
It’s Putin’s World
How the Russian president became the ideological hero of nationalists everywhere
in 2012, vladimir putin returned to the presidency after a four-year, constitutionally imposed hiatus. It wasn’t the smoothest of transitions. To his surprise, in the run-up to his inauguration, protesters filled the streets of Moscow and other major cities to denounce his comeback. Such opposition required dousing. But an opportunity abroad also beckoned—and the solution to Putin’s domestic crisis and the fulfillment of his international ambitions would roll into one.
After the global financial crisis of 2008, populist uprisings had sprouted across Europe. Putin and his strategists sensed the beginnings of a larger uprising that could upend the Continent and make life uncomfortable for his geostrategic competitors. A 2013 paper from the Center for Strategic Communications, a pro-Kremlin think tank, observed that large patches of the West despised feminism and the gay-rights movement and, more generally, the progressive direction in which elites had pushed their societies. With the traditionalist masses ripe for revolt, the Russian president had an opportunity. He could become, as the paper’s title blared, “The New World Leader of Conservatism.”
12/. Whiny libtards......suck it up! Tom Tomorrow says so.....
13/. Have a look at this again.....Katy Perry and Jodi DiPiazza [who is autistic] sing a duet at a benefit for autism......there's a forward giving a look at Jodi's life and how the family deals with her autism, then it cuts to a live performance of "Firework". I know it's designed to get some moisture in the tear ducts, but it's done really well.....
The music starts at the three minute mark....
14/. Most interesting story from "The Failing New York Times" on how Mexico City, a city of over 30 million people, is running out of water and slowly imploding.....great journalism, with lots of graphics and pictures....
Buildings now undulate where once the area was flat.
MEXICO CITY — On bad days, you can smell the stench from a mile away, drifting over a nowhere sprawl of highways and office parks.
When the Grand Canal was completed, at the end of the 1800s, it was Mexico City’s Brooklyn Bridge, a major feat of engineering and a symbol of civic pride: 29 miles long, with the ability to move tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater per second. It promised to solve the flooding and sewage problems that had plagued the city for centuries.
Only it didn’t, pretty much from the start. The canal was based on gravity. And Mexico City, a mile and a half above sea level, was sinking, collapsing in on itself.
It still is, faster and faster, and the canal is just one victim of what has become a vicious cycle. Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further.
15/. The erudite Benjamin Studebaker on an unlikely topic - Judge Judy......but read on, you will see his point.....
And the last line is chilling....
A Judge Judy Think Piece
by Benjamin Studebaker
The internet is often full of aesthetic think pieces. It’s easy to write them–you identify some show or artist that’s captured the attention and the artistic sensibility of your readers, and you make some vague connection between the themes of that art and some current issue. On prestige websites, you can often find writers pumping out think pieces about prestige programs. Often it’s some big critical hit on HBO like Game of Thrones, or an edgy Netflix original series like House of Cards. These are thought to be the important shows, because they’re the shows our social, cultural, and political elite enjoy. Think pieces get lots of clicks, because they make us feel that the stuff we’re watching, reading, or listening to really matters. But do they matter? The most popular Game of Thrones episode was watched by about 8.9 million people. A new season of House of Cards gets seen by about 5 million. Meanwhile, every week, like clockwork, 10 million people watch Judge Judy.
Judge Judy has been the most popular daytime TV show the last 7 years in a row, and it’s been on TV for two decades. It’s beaten Oprah. It beats Dr. Phil. It beats Ellen. It beats The O’Reilly Factor. It beats Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel put together.
Todays video - time for "Biggus Dickus" from Monty Python's "Life Of Brian".....still amazingly funny after all these years....
Todays blonde joke
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Todays Indian joke
On his 70th birthday, a man was given a gift certificate from his wife.The certificate was for consultation with an Indian medicine man living on anearby reservation who was rumored to have a simple cure for erectile dysfunction!The husband went to the reservation and sawthe medicine man.The old Indian gave him a potion and..... with a grip on his shoulder warned,'This powerful medicine. You take only teaspoonful, and then say'1-2-3.'When you do, you become more manly than you have ever been in life, and can perform for as long as you want."The man thanked the old Indian and as he walked away, he turned and asked,"How do I stop the medicine from working?"
"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,' he responded, "but when she does, medicine will not work again until next full moon."He was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom.
When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!"Immediately, he was the manliest of men. His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked,"What was the 1-2-3 for?"
And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
Todays golf jokes
LAW 2: Your best round of golf will be followed almost immediately by your worst round ever. The probability of the latter increases with the number of people you tell about the former.
LAW 3: Brand new golf balls are water-magnetic. Though this cannot be proven in the lab, it is a known fact that the more expensive the golf ball, the greater its attraction to water. Expensive clubs have been known to be partly made with this most unusual natural alloy.
LAW 4: Golf balls never bounce off of trees back into play. If one does, the tree is breaking a law of the universe and should be cut down.
LAW 5: The higher a golfer's handicap, the more qualified he deems himself as an instructor.
LAW 6: A golfer hitting into your group will always be bigger than anyone in your group. Likewise, a group you accidentally hit into will consist of a football player, a professional wrestler, a convicted murderer and an IRS agent - or some similar combination.
LAW 7: All 3-woods are demon-possessed. Your Mother-in-Law does not come close.
LAW 8: Golf balls from the same "sleeve" tend to follow one another, particularly out of bounds or into the water.
See LAW 3.
LAW 9: The last three holes of a round will automatically adjust your score to what it really should be.
LAW 10: Golf should be given up at least twice per month.
LAW 11: All vows taken on a golf course shall be valid only until the sunset.
LAW 12: Since bad shots come in groups of three, your fourth consecutive bad shot is really the beginning of the next group of three.
LAW 13: If it isn't broke, try changing your grip.
LAW 14: It's surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when you lie 8.
LAW 15: Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.
LAW 16: Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.
LAW 17: It's not a gimme if you're still 4 feet away.
LAW 18: The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.
LAW 19: You can hit a 2-acre fairway 10% of the time, and a 2-inch branch 90% of the time.
LAW 20: Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make a double or triple bogey to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.
LAW 21: If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to use it to lay up just short of a water hazard.
LAW 22: There are two things you can learn by stopping your backswing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.
LAW 23: A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.
LAW 24: Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.
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