1/. Frank Rich with his excellent commentary on the issues of the day - Democrats should definitely read his first paragraph, but this article today has three great subjects for Rich to opine on..........
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 Georgia special House election, tax reform, and Sean Spicer’s gaffes.
Democratic hopeful Jon Ossoff won 48.1 percent of the vote in last night’s Georgia special election for Tom Price’s House seat — not enough to avoid a runoff, but a strong showing for the candidate who campaigned on “Make Trump Furious.” Will this strategy translate to 2018?
This little race was fun while it lasted, and may have been the most successful jobs program (albeit for journalists) of the Trump presidency. But even if Ossoff had actually won it’s hard to see how this contest was a bellwether for 2018 or much else. Georgia’s sixth district, we keep being reminded, is “ruby red” and hasn’t sent a Democrat to the House since the state’s native son Jimmy Carter was president. But it is also a wealthy suburban Atlanta district in which Trump beat Clinton by barely a single percentage point (as opposed to Mitt Romney crushing Obama by 23 points in 2012). With a war chest of $8.3 million and facing a divided field that included 11 Republicans, Ossoff performed a shade better than Clinton (who received 47 per cent of the vote to Trump’s 48) but couldn’t put it away. Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t.
2/. One the best Stephen Colbert openers for a while....seven very funny minutes on multiple subjects......I liked his farewell to Bill O'Reilly....
Stephen Colbert’s conservative pundit character gave a heartfelt tribute to his idol, Bill O’Reilly.
Late-night comedy has taken on Fox News and Bill O’Reilly for years, and with Wednesday’s firing of the cable news host, it felt like the “end of an era” — both for right-wing media and political satire.
Stephen Colbert, who launched his career by parodying O’Reilly, gave the man he owed a lot to an appropriate send off.
“We all saw this coming at us,” Colbert said in his monologue. “Like an old man cornering an intern in the break room.”
With O’Reilly’s sudden departure, Colbert could not help but think that there will be a void in homes all across the country.
“It’s like looking at your front yard and the big oak tree is gone,” he said. “And sure the oak tree said some disturbing thing about young black men. What with their rap music and rap tattoos. But dammit, that tree had been there forever and your grandpa liked to just sit there and stare at it. And then the tree would sell your grandpa gold coins and lubricating catheters.”
3/. The upper levels of the Democratic Party needs to be cleared out of all of the dead wood......if this doesn't happen, the Democrats will keep struggling.
Good analysis from the Guardian.....
S
ince losing the presidency to a Cheeto-hued reality TV host, the Democratic party’s leadership has made it clear that it would rather keep losing than entertain even the slightest whiff of New Deal style social democracy.
The Bernie Sanders wing might bring grassroots energy and – if the polls are to be believed – popular ideas, but their redistributive policies pose too much of a threat to the party’s big donors to ever be allowed on the agenda.
Even a symbolic victory cedes too much to those youthful, unwashed hordes who believe healthcare and education are human rights and not extravagant luxuries, as we saw when the Democratic establishment recruited Tom Perez to defeat the electorate-backed progressive Keith Ellison for DNC chair.
The Democrats demonstrated this once more this week when, in a special election triggered by Trump’s tapping of Mike Pompeo for CIA director, a Berniecrat named James Thompson came painfully close to winning a Kansas Congressional seat that had been red for over two decades, and his party didn’t even try to help him.
If Thompson’s picture is not on the Wikipedia page for “left-wing populism,” it really should be. Following a difficult upbringing during which he was homeless for a time, he joined the Army and attended college on the GI bill. He went on to graduate from Wichita State University and Washburn University before going into practice as a civil rights lawyer. He owns guns and looks natural in a trucker hat.
4/. Matt Taibbi with a searing look at the new book sensation - "Shattered".....behind the scenes in the Clinton campaign....
A new book by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes examines what went wrong during Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
There is a critical scene in Shattered, the new behind-the-scenes campaign diary by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, in which staffers in the Hillary Clinton campaign begin to bicker with one another.
At the end of Chapter One, which is entirely about that campaign's exhausting and fruitless search for a plausible explanation for why Hillary was running, writers Allen and Parnes talk about the infighting problem.
"All of the jockeying might have been all right, but for a root problem that confounded everyone on the campaign and outside it," they wrote. "Hillary had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn't really have a rationale."
Allen and Parnes here quoted a Clinton aide who jokingly summed up Clinton's real motivation:
"I would have had a reason for running," one of her top aides said, "or I wouldn't have run.
5/. If you want a more conventional book review, here is the Times take on the book......by the way, it's #1 on the best sellers list and there is a two month wait on Amazon for the hard copy....
Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in November came as a shock to the world. Polls, news reports and everything the Clinton campaign was hearing in the final days pointed to her becoming the first female president in American history.
In their compelling new book, “Shattered,” the journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes write that Clinton’s loss suddenly made sense of all the reporting they had been doing for a year and a half — reporting that had turned up all sorts of “foreboding signs” that often seemed at odds, in real time, with indications that Clinton was the favorite to win. Although the Clinton campaign was widely covered, and many autopsies have been conducted in the last several months, the blow-by-blow details in “Shattered” — and the observations made here by campaign and Democratic Party insiders — are nothing less than devastating, sure to dismay not just her supporters but also everyone who cares about the outcome and momentous consequences of the election.
6/. Following on from our story last week, the Times asks "Is American Retail at the Tipping Point?
Along the cobblestone streets of SoHo, Chanel handbags and Arc’teryx jackets are displayed in shops like museum pieces, harking back to the height of the neighborhood’s trendiness. But rents there are softening, and the number of vacant storefronts is rising.
Today, some of the most sought-after real estate by retailers is not in SoHo, but five miles away in Red Hook, a gritty Brooklyn enclave with a shipbuilding past. E-commerce merchants are vying to lease part of a huge warehouse space, spanning 11 acres, that would allow them to deliver goods the same day they’re ordered online.
The profound reordering of New York’s shopping scene reflects a broad restructuring in the American retail industry.
7/. You are not going to believe this video from Jimmy Kimmel.....and these are real Trump supporters.....four minutes....
Jimmy Kimmel often wonders what it would take to convert someone who voted for President Donald Trump to the other side.
The Trump administration has already racked up a number of losses, with very few wins. One self-inflicted loss was the decision made last week to keep private the White House visitor logs which document who comes in and out of White House grounds — a break from the Obama administration, which chose to make the records available.
Kimmel wanted to test where Trump voters stand on this issue, so they sent a fake reporter on the streets of Hollywood to ask people about the surprising individuals who have visited the White House this year. From Joseph Stalin to Jared from Subway, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” made up multiple outrageous encounters with the president and asked his supporters about them.
“Donald Trump has decided to meet with Casey Anthony about child endangerment,” the fake reporter told one passerby who voted for Trump.
8/. Just another story on the rising seas and flooding in South Florida, but as this story in Bloomberg says the real estate collapse will come when too many people put their properties up for sale.....i.e. you need to sell before your neighbor does!
Condominiums going up in Edgewater, across the bay from Miami Beach. Sea-level rise hasn't stopped developers from building by the water's edge, or people from buying there
The Nightmare Scenario for Florida’s Coastal Homeowners
Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house.
On a predictably gorgeous South Florida afternoon, Coral Gables Mayor Jim Cason sat in his office overlooking the white-linen restaurants of this affluent seaside community and wondered when climate change would bring it all to an end. He figured it would involve a boat.
When Cason first started worrying about sea-level rise, he asked his staff to count not just how much coastline the city had (47 miles) or value of the property along that coast ($3.5 billion). He also told them to find out how many boats dock inland from the bridges that span the city’s canals (302). What matters, he guessed, will be the first time a mast fails to clear the bottom of one of those bridges because the water level had risen too far.
“These boats are going to be the canary in the mine,” said Cason, who became mayor in 2011 after retiring from the U.S. foreign service. “When the boats can’t go out, the property values go down.”
9/. One of the major failings of our political media is false equivalence, the theme that both sides are equally guilty of polarization and obstruction.....which of course is complete BS....
Good article from Rolling Stone....
Democrats filibustered Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, before Republicans changed Senate rules to vote him through
In the 230-year period between the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and Barack Obama's election, opposition parties blocked a grand total of 68 presidential nominees. In the three years and 10 months between Obama's inauguration and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's move to eliminate the filibuster for lower court nominees, Republicans had blocked 79 of them – that's 54 percent of the historic total in just under four years.
Last week, the current Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, moved to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees after the Democrats filibustered Donald Trump's pick, Neil Gorsuch, who had come off as aloof and unresponsive during his confirmation hearings and offered no reason for refusing to meet with two (women) Democratic senators. But as Media Matters noted, the political press largely portrayed the Republicans' choice to do away with the filibuster as the fault of Democrats – they said the Democrats forced McConnell's hand, and in some cases blamed both sides for generic "dysfunction." This followed weeks of stories about how the party's "liberal base" was forcing Democrats to block Gorsuch, and wondering if Dems would have the courage to stand up to their constituents.
10/. Trump is a fan of Alex Jones, the crazy radio host that we got some inside scoop on because he is involved in a child custody battle with his ex.....so Stephen Colbert got to work.....five very amusing minutes....
Stephen Colbert mocked professional conspiracy theorist and "insane radio host" Alex Jones on The Late Show on Monday. Colbert played the role of an airwaves personality named Tuck Buckford, parodying Jones' breathless, abrasive, shouting delivery as he spouted paranoid, wildly implausible theories.
Todays video - a powerful anti-texting ad from the UK that I guarantee will grab your emotions.....four minutes....Mary I need a hanky....
Tredegar Comprehensive School and Gwent Police (Gwent is located in south-east Wales,UK) present a trailer for a half hour drama entitled 'COW' --The film that will stop you from texting and driving," with SPECIAL EFFECTS BY ZIPLINE CREATIVE www.ziplinecreative.co.uk(this is a trailer video)
Todays United Airlines jokes....
New United Airlines Motto’s:
1. “Drag and Drop”
2. “We put the hospital in hospitality”
3. “Board as a doctor, leave as a patient”
4. “Our prices can’t be beaten, but our passengers can”
5. “We have First Class, Business Class and No Class”
6. “Not enough seating, prepare for a beating”
7. “We treat you like we treat your luggage”
8. “We beat the customer. Not the competition”
9. “And you thought leg room was an issue”
10. “Where voluntary is mandatory”
11. “Fight or flight. We decide”
12. “Now offering one free carry off”
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