1/ One of the best and wisest journalists we have is Bill Moyers, and in this article he gives us the big picture of what is about to happen to our country, and it isn't pretty. The true right wingers hate government, and in Trump they have their man - he is out to destroy our system, and if you think this isn't going to affect you think again.....
FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump throws a hat into the audience while speaking at a rally in a DOW Chemical Hanger at Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, in Baton Rouge, La. “
This piece originally appeared on BillMoyers.com.
We’re a week into the Trump administration and it’s pretty obvious what he’s up to. First, Donald Trump is running a demolition derby: He wants to demolish everything he doesn’t like — and he doesn’t like a lot, especially when it comes to government.
Like one of those demolition drivers on a speedway, he keeps ramming his vehicle against all the others, especially government policies and programs and agencies that protect people who don’t have his wealth, power or privilege. Affordable health care for working people? Smash it. Consumer protection against predatory banks and lenders? Run over it. Rules and regulations that rein in rapacious actors in the market? Knock ‘em down. Fair pay for working people? Crush it. And on and on.
Trump came to Washington to tear the government down for parts, and as far as we can tell, he doesn’t seem to have anything at all in mind to replace it except turning back the clock to when business took what it wanted and left behind desperate workers, dirty water and polluted air.
2/ A version of this was in DDD last week......
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
3/ One of the best "Bad Lip Reading" skits they have ever done....hysterical.....
He said what?! Bad Lip Reading put its own spin on President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day on Friday, January 20, and revealed some hilarious, made-up conversations between all the high-profile attendees.
The popular video series dubbed over the real estate mogul and his wife Melania Trump’s meeting with outgoing president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House — and, thankfully, that viral, awkward gift exchange between the two women. What was really in that Tiffany’s box? “Oh, surprise! I have some pretzels for you!” the former model, 46, says as she hands over the present. “Melania, do you know what you just said?” Barack, 55, asks.
4/ There are a couple of stories today that show signs that the Trump creatures are starting a slow moving coup to take over this country and change it into an authoritarian dictatorship, using all of the awesome power of the government against us all....
Trial Balloon for a Coup?
Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours
The theme of this morning’s news updates from Washington is additional clarity emerging, rather than meaningful changes in the field. But this clarity is enough to give us a sense of what we just saw happen, and why it happened the way it did.
News Reports
(1) Priebus made two public statements today. One is that the ban on Muslims will no longer be applied to green card holders. Notably absent from his statement was anything about people with other types of visa (including long-term ones), or anything about the DHS’ power to unilaterally revoke green cards in bulk.
The other was that the omission of Jews from the statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day was deliberate and is not regretted.
A point of note here is that Priebus is the one making these statements, which is not normally the Chief of Staff’s job. I’ll come back to that below.
(2) Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the intent of yesterday’s order was very much a ban on Muslims, described in those words, and he was among the people Trump asked how they could find a way to do this legally.
(3) CNN has a detailed story (heavily sourced) about the process by which this ban was created and announced.
5/ Before you get frightened by this next piece, watch this three minute ad from Danish TV......a wow.....
Sometimes it's difficult to find the things that we, as human beings, have in common.
We live in times when the "Us vs Them" narrative has become mainstream. We get caught up in minutiae and risk losing sight of what binds us, rather than divides us.
This Danish television station ad, entitled "All that we share," challenges this narrative with a simple but effective formula.
In the video, groups of Danes get onto a stage, stepping into delineated areas on the floor that define them by opposition — "The high earners" vs. "Those just getting by;" lifelong Danes vs. immigrants; "Those who trust" vs. "Those we try to avoid."
At some point, something happens that will push these people to step outside their defining boxes. And it's so heartwarming we want to cry.
6/ One take of the chaos the Trump creatures have created in their first two weeks is that they are grossly incompetent.....but what if this is a deliberate plan? Read on....it's scary.....
When I read about the incredibly active first week of the Trump administration, I struggle with two competing narratives about what’s reallygoing on. The first story is simple: the administration is just doing what it said it would do, literally keeping its campaign promises. Lots of people won’t agree, but it’s playing to its base. They’re also not really good at this whole government thing yet, so implementation is shaky. The second is more sinister: the administration is deliberately testing the limits of governmental checks and balances to set up a self-serving, dangerous consolidation of power.
A legitimate argument can be made for the former: a relatively extreme and inexperienced administration was just put in place, and they haven’t yet figured out the nuances of government. But a few of the events in the past 72 hours —the intentional inclusion of green card holders in the immigration order, the DHS defiance of a federal judge, and the timing of Trump’s shakeup of the National Security Council — have pointed to a larger story. Even worse, if that larger story is true, if the source of this week’s actions is a play to consolidate power, it’s going really well so far. And that’s because mostly everyone — including those in protests shutting down airports over the weekend— are playing right into the administration’s hand.
7/ Sam Bee with a wonderful seven minutes on the Muslim ban.....excellent!
Trump may have tried to use Tuesday’s Supreme Court nomination announcement to turn attention away from his executive order, which prohibits refugees and visitorsfrom seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, but Bee’s determined to keep the spotlight shining firmly on the topic.
“Nice misdirection, Criss Angel, but you can’t just shake your keys and distract us from this giant mess you made,” Bee said on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Full Frontal.” “We’re not cable news, we’re Americans. And we would like a word.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
8/ Thomas Frank visits Missouri to see why Trump won.....it's some of what you might think, but not all.....a very well written essay.....
Liberal Americans like to think we know the answer to a lot of things – including why those who live outside liberal bubbles chose Donald Trumpover Hillary Clinton.
Small-town people, we liberals think, are Republican people. At their best, they are pious, respectful, and conservative; at their worst they are smug and self-righteous, small-minded and yet capable of broad prejudice. People in the hinterlands, we think, are just different: all the adults are church-going puritans with a neatness obsession, and all the kids long to escape and finally be themselves.
But there’s another way of looking at it, and it is just this: small towns are dying.
Donald Trump doesn’t really reflect the moral values of middle America. He is a consummate city slicker, a soft-handed, foul-mouthed toff who lives in a 58-story building and has been identified with New York City excess his entire life. But people in rural areas are desperate these days. Many of them chose Trump, despite his vulgarity and his big-city ways, because he promised to make them “great again”.
9/ A one minute Super bowl ad for Mercedes by the Coen Brothers, no less! Blocked in!
And Peter Fonda still looks good.....
Mercedes' Super Bowl ad has the makings of a baby boomer fantasy: It includes Peter Fonda, Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" and references to the 1969 classic flick "Easy Rider." But advertising aficionados might be more interested in the ad's directing credits: Joel and Ethan Coen.
The Coen brothers -- whose film credits include "No Country for Old Men," "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski" -- have not directed a Super Bowl spot in years, according to Mercedes.
10/ In case you are thinking Trump voters have to be a little alarmed at the incompetence and confusion of Trumps' first two weeks, think again. They love it.....he is doing exactly what he said he would do, and the Fox machine is feeding them different news than you are watching so they don't know about a lot of the chaos that's happening.....
MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio — The challenge Annette Cottrell pondered was how to grade President Trump’s stormy first full week on the job. A trade war bubbling up with Mexico. A divisive border wall. A ban on refugees from war-torn countries. Brawls with the news media and national parks.
“I’d give him an A-plus,” Ms. Cottrell, 38, said from her salon, Mane Attraction, on Main Street here in the seat of a conservative Ohio county of pastures and maple groves where Mr. Trump won 70 percent of the vote. “He’s doing what he said he was going to be doing.”
11/ Naomi Klein, author of the "Shock Doctrine", writes her thoughts on how the Trump administration will create chaos and then exploit iy, and us to consolidate power......pretty convincing....
That’s relevant because of the central, if little-recalled role played by the man who is now the U.S. vice president, Mike Pence. At the time Katrina hit New Orleans, Pence was chairman of the powerful and highly ideological Republican Study Committee. On September 13, 2005 — just 14 days after the levees were breached and with parts of New Orleans still underwater — the RSC convened a fateful meeting at the offices of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Under Pence’s leadership, the group came up with a list of “Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas Prices” — 32 policies in all, each one straight out of the disaster capitalism playbook.
Vehicles form a line at an Exxon gas station off of Interstate 55 in Jackson, Miss., Aug. 30, 2005. The station was one of the few in the city with both power and gas one day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Photo: Rick Guy/The Calrion Ledger/AP
To get a sense of how the Trump administration will respond to its first crises, it’s worth reading the list in full (and noting Pence’s name right at the bottom).
12/ Seth Meyers with 90 seconds of tough talk to Trump.....biting humor.....love it...
In a special quick segment called “Hey!” Tuesday night, Late Night‘s Seth Meyers dug into the President’s claims that millions of “illegals” tipped the balance of popular votes in Hillary Clinton‘s favor.
Meyers, easily the most anti-Trump host on the late night laffer circuit, addressed the President indirectly, saying, “Hey! Why do you keep lying about this? There is zero evidence for this claim.” The administration’s new press secretary, Sean Spicer, defended the comments to the media yesterday, confirming that it is a “personally held belief” of President Trump’s.
13/ Since there are definite signs we are moving to an authoritarian state I thought this story was fascinating, on what it's really like to live in Russia...
Photograph by Dima Zverev
Commuters on the escalators of the Moscow subway on a Monday morning.
On one of my first reporting trips to Vladmir Putin’s Russia — of which there’d be so many that they’d blend into residence — my friend Alex and I got stuck in Moscow traffic a few cars ahead of an EMT van. The siren wailed, the lights whirled, but no one would budge: The ambulance crawled along at the same pace as the rest of us. When I noted this, Alex scoffed. Everyone knows that ambulance drivers make money on the side selling VIP airport rides, he said. Who knows who’s in that van right now? Fuck ’em.
What struck me most, at that moment, was how little difference it made whether his allegation was true, an urban legend, or something that had occurred only once or twice. All you needed for it to matter was for it to be plausible. The moment you lived in a society where someone could conceive of an EMT van used as an Über-Uber, you lived in a society where ambulances no longer received the right of way.
One tends to imagine life in an autocratic regime as dominated by fear and oppression: armed men in the street, total surveillance, chanted slogans, and whispered secrets. It is probably a version of that picture that has been flitting lately through the nightmares of American liberals fretting about the damage a potential autocrat might do to an open society. But residents of a hybrid regime such as Russia’s — that is, an autocratic one that retains the façade of a democracy — know the Orwellian notion is needlessly romantic. Russian life, I soon found out, was marked less by fear than by cynicism: the all-pervasive idea that no institution is to be trusted, because no institution is bigger than the avarice of the person in charge.
14/ The internet is a cruel place, and these days Trump is taking the brunt of the biting humor we are used to.....this is a very amusing piece from HuffPo....
President Trump has only been in office five days and already he has made headway on many of his most alarming campaign promises ― from preparing to dramatically restrict immigration from Muslim-majority countries to erasing Obama’s climate change initiatives. There are, of course, ways for the millions of Americans appalled by Trump’s agenda to organize, resist, and take action. And then, there’s some good old-fashioned Twitter trolling.
It’s been hard for many to resist taking a dig at Donald on the internet platform he holds so dear, and most recently it’s been the art world who has taken up the gauntlet. British humor website The Poke called upon its readers to incorporate Trump into some of art history’s most iconic works, thereby, of course, making them “much better and far more beautiful ― or at the very least more orange.”
The good art nerds of Twitter delivered, responding with classical paintings updated to reflect Trump and his team’s penchant for “alternative facts,” “pussy” grabbing, Vladimir Putin and, allegedly, golden showers. Let the dragging commence.
15/ Paul Krugman with a good column......guess what the topic is?
Betsy DeVos, whom Donald Trump has nominated as education secretary, doesn’t know basic education terms, doesn’t know about federal statutes governing special education, but thinks school officials should carry guns to defend against grizzly bears.
Monica Crowley, selected as deputy national security adviser, withdrew after it was revealed that much of her past writing was plagiarized. Many other national security positions remain unfilled, and it’s unclear how much if any of the briefing materials prepared by the outgoing administration have even been read.
Meanwhile Rex Tillerson, selected as secretary of state, casually declared that America would block Chinese access to bases in the South China Sea, apparently unaware that he was in effect threatening to go to war if China called his bluff.
Do you see a pattern here?
Todays video - if you have ever watched a Wes Anderson film you will appreciate this three minute commercial for H&M stores.....it stars Adrian Brody...
His films are distinctive because of his framing of every shot in symmetrical terms......watch the squareness of this mini film.....
You probably know filmmaker Wes Anderson from his meticulous, quirky, and outrageously charming movies like Rushmore, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. What you may not know is that he’s also brought his unmistakeable style to the world of commercials for years, and this holiday season he’s made a short film for clothing retailer H&M.
In “Come Together,” Adrian Brody plays a conductor on the H&M Lines Winter Express railroad, who has to inform his passengers that due to unexpected delays the train won’t make it to its destination on time, effectively causing everyone onboard to miss Christmas. But the conductor has some ideas that could make the situation a little brighter for everyone.
I’m softie as it is, so it doesn’t take a lot to get me emotional when it comes to the holidays and notions of family and friends, but in just under four minutes Anderson and Brody are able to push all the right buttons.
Todays Dakota Pipeline joke......
US and Canadian officials toured the Dakota Pipeline route yesterday. Government spokespersons said all went well.
Todays heartwarming joke
As she sat by him, he whispered, his eyes full of tears,"You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times.When I got fired, you were there to support me.When my business failed, you were there.When I got shot, you were by my side.When we lost the house, you stayed right here.When my health started failing, you were still by my side.You know what Martha?""What dear?" she gently asked as her heart began to fill with warmth."I'm beginning to think you're f#cking bad luck."
Todays attorney jokes
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and arethings people actually said in court, word for word, taken down andpublished by court reporters that had the torment of staying calmwhile the exchanges were taking place.ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?WITNESS: My name is Susan!_______________________________ ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?WITNESS: No, I just lie there.____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?WITNESS: July 18th.ATTORNEY: What year?WITNESS: Every year._____________________________________ ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?WITNESS: Forty-five years._________________________________ ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?WITNESS: Yes.ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?WITNESS: I forget..ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in hissleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?____________________________________ ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?WITNESS: Are you shitting me?_________________________________________ ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?WITNESS: Yes.ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?WITNESS: Getting laid____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?WITNESS: Yes.ATTORNEY: How many were boys?WITNESS: None.ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get anew attorney?____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?WITNESS: By death..ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?WITNESS: Take a guess.___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beardATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male._____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to adeposition notice which I sent to your attorney?WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.______________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight._________________________________________ ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?WITNESS: Oral..._________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PMATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?______________________________________ And last:ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?WITNESS: No.ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?WITNESS: No.ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?WITNESS: No..ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when youbegan the autopsy?WITNESS: No.ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
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