1/ The always insightful Frank Rich with an in depth look at the Nixon Watergate scandal and the similarities to the Trump administration's issues with Russia and corruption. Rich is a brilliant writer, and since you may have forgotten how traumatic the Nixon years were this is a worthwhile read, and it may also give you some comfort.....
An excellent article....
2/ Bill Maher with his opener from last Friday.....a caustic riff on Democrats always losing.....very amusing if a little painful, six minutes....
Moral victories are about the only thing Democrats can hang onto after suffering two more losses in the special elections earlier this week. Left-wing comedian Bill Mahercould only laugh at the depressing election results on HBO’s “Real Time” Friday.
“I think I know why you are all excited tonight,” Maher said to start his monologue. “Because a Democrat almost won the election.”
“The Democrats poured a lot of time and money in this election. And he came so close,” he added. “Party leaders are calling it a ‘terrifying brush with success.'”
All joking aside, Maher then told his audience that President Donald Trump is the “worst person ever.” Despite this, and despite Trump being a Republican, Democrats have lost every special election since the new administration took over.
“Democrats are so lame the Russians are like, ‘We were going to hack this election but why bother,'” Maher said.
3/ Timothy Egan from the Times with a heartfelt column "Our Fake Democracy".....read it and see if you disagree with him.....
We tell ourselves stories in order to live, as Joan Didion said. We do this as a nation, as individuals, as families — even when that construct is demonstrably false. For the United States, the biggest institutional lie of the moment is that we have a government of the people, responding to majority will.
On almost every single concern, Congress — whether it’s the misnamed People’s House, or the Senate, laughably mischaracterized as the world’s greatest deliberative body — is going against what most of the country wants. And Congress is doing this because there will be no consequences.
We have a fake democracy, growing less responsive and less representative by the day.
4/ Sam Bee with her pretty good opener on liberals being demonized by conservatives.....five amusing minutes....
“Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee wishes summer could be carefree, but she says conservatives’ efforts to demonize liberals are making it difficult.
Case in point: A PAC ad supporting Republican Karen Handel in her ultimately victorious Georgia congressional campaign against Democrat Jon Ossoff exploited last week’s shooting at GOP Congress members during a baseball practice. The incident left Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) with serious injuries.
The commercial warned that the “unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting Republicans” and they’re the same ones backing Ossoff.
Bee had enough of that noise.http://www.huffingtonpos
5/ Besides opioids and heroin we have another epidemic in this country - Lyme disease, caused by tick bites. If you are going to the Northeast or hike a lot, you need to read this and protect yourself....
In 2004, Kelly Osbourne was bitten by a tick. Her dad burned it off with a match and that, she thought, was the end of that.
But in the years that followed, she suffered from persistent body aches, headaches, stomach pain and trouble sleeping. In 2013, she had a seizure on the set of her show, Fashion Police. As her symptoms piled up, so did the prescriptions: Ambien, Trazodone, anti-seizure medications, even painkillers, despite her past addiction issues. The pills robbed her of her energy and emotions. "You know in movies where a mental patient sits in a rocking chair in a cardigan and nightgown and stares at a wall all day?" Osbourne wrote in her new memoir, There Is No F*cking Secret: Letters From a Badass Bitch. "That was me."
6/ Stephen Colbert with a wonderful three minutes on Trump's idiotic tweets...
On Monday night, Stephen Colbert slammed President Trump for several of his most recent tweets.
He mocked Trump for referring to himself as “T.”
“Who the hell is ‘T?'” Colbert asked. “You know there’s already a letter for when you’re talking about yourself. It’s ‘I’ as in ‘I don’t believe anyone calls you ‘T!’ You can’t give yourself a nickname!”
The Late Show host then mocked Trump’s tweet that accused President Obama of “colluding or obstructing” during the election.
“Hold on,” Colbert continued. “Nobody is accusing Obama of colluding or obstructing. That’s your deal.”
7/ John Oliver with one of his excellent comedic reporting segments, this one on the anti-vaxxer movement....20 minutes....
John Oliver took aim at vaccine skeptics on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, blaming the misinformation and confusion on everything from the rising popularity of memes to Donald Trump's statements on the campaign trail.
"Despite [vaccines'] success, small groups are both skeptical and vocal about vaccines, which is nothing new," the host said. "But these days their voice has been amplified by the human megaphone that is the president of the United States." Trump has often advocated for vaccinating with smaller doses over a longer period. "No more massive injections," the mogul tweeted in 2014. "Tiny children are not horses – one vaccine at a time, over time."
Many parents have embraced the spacing-out movement: A 2015 survey in the journal Pediatrics found that 93 percent of pediatricians, in a "typical month," were asked at least once to delay vaccines. But Oliver argued that, despite the reassurance it might bring, that method is a "middle ground between sense and nonsense." "It's like saying, 'It would be crazy to eat that entire bar of soap, so I'll just eat half of it,'" he cracked.
After exploring the frightening rise of measles, Oliver reiterated the lack of scientific evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism. Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, said her organization investigated "dozens of studies" and wound up with no proof of a link: "There comes a point where there's so much evidence, none of which shows any link between vaccines and autism, that you have to say 'enough.'"
8/ You can look at this story [about how the only people still smoking in the US are the poor] in two ways - how we keep screwing the poor, or how the poor keep screwing themselves.....I know how Republicans would interpret it.....
Anyway good reporting from the Washington Post.....
I can't preview the story because I use an adblocker and can only read the story once.....trust me it's interesting....
9/ There are multiple stories out there saying Trump is suffering from dementia.....and after watching this segment from John Oliver I totally agree.....a scary two minutes.....scary 'cos he's the President.....
On Sunday night, John Oliver addressed President Trump‘s admission that there were no tapes of his conversations with then-FBI Director James Comey.
Oliver played a clip from his recent interview on Fox & Friends and Trump gave this explanation:
“Well, I didn’t tape him. You never know what’s happening when you see that the Obama administration and perhaps longer than that was doing all of this unmasking and surveillance and you read all about it and I’ve been reading about it for the past couple of months about the seriousness of the- and horrible situation of surveillance all over the place and you’ve been hearing the word ‘unmasking,’ a word you probably never heard before. So you never know what’s out there, but I didn’t tape and I don’t have any tape and I didn’t tape.”
“What the f–k was that?!?” Oliver reacted.
The Last Week Tonight host said when Trump talks, it sounds like a cross between a “lottery machine that spits out words” and a “Speak & Spell that fell into a toilet.”
10/ A Floriduh story - Delray Beach is between Boca Raton and West Palm Beach, and it has the dubious distinction of being the overdose capitol of the country because of the phony heroin "treatment" centers that have started there. Some excellent investigative journalism from the Times.....
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — It was the kind of afternoon that cold-weary tourists revel in as they sip mojitos near the beach — a dazzling sun, a sky so blue it verged on Photoshopped and weather fit for flip-flops. But the young visitor from Arkansas, curled up into a ball near the sidewalk, had a better reason to be grateful. He was alive.
“You are overdosing on heroin,” Sean Gibson, a paramedic captain with the Delray Beach Fire-Rescue, had told him earlier this year, after the man fell off his bike, hit a chain-link fence and collapsed, blood trickling down his face. Mr. Gibson sprayed Narcan, an opiate blocker, up the man’s nose as he lay on his back and, before long, the man — who had shot up heroin at a recovery group home — sat up, polite and embarrassed. “Thanks, guys,” he said, before being taken to the hospital as a precaution.
11/ Movie out this weekend - "Baby Driver".....I've seen the trailer for this film and it looks amazing....Rolling Stone thinks so too....
Baby Driver trailer.....
Todays video - widely acknowledged to be one of the best car chases ever filmed [until Baby Driver!]- from "Bullitt" with the wonderful Steve McQueen....
"Bullitt" chase scene inside San Francisco.....3 minutes.....
"Bullitt" chase scene out on the highway.....7 minutes....
Todays golf joke
This guy brings his best golf buddy home, unannounced, for dinner at 6:30 after golf. His wife screams her head off while his friend sits open mouthed and listens to the tirade.
"My bloody hair and makeup are not done, the house is a f****** mess, the dishes aren't done. Can't you see I'm still in my f****** pyjamas and I can't be bothered with cooking tonight! Why the f*** did you bring him home unannounced you stupid idiot?"
"My bloody hair and makeup are not done, the house is a f****** mess, the dishes aren't done. Can't you see I'm still in my f****** pyjamas and I can't be bothered with cooking tonight! Why the f*** did you bring him home unannounced you stupid idiot?"
"Because he's thinking of getting married."
Todays Mensa joke
Several of the Mensa members went out for lunch at a local cafe.When they sat down, one of them discovered that their salt shaker contained pepper, and their pepper shaker was full of salt.How could they swap the contents of the two bottles without spilling any, and using only the implements at hand?Clearly -- this was a job for Mensa minds.
The group debated the problem and presented ideas and finally, came up with a brilliant solution involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer.They called the waitress over, ready to dazzle her with their solution."Ma'am," they said," we couldn't help but notice that the pepper shaker contains salt and the salt shaker contains pepper."
But before they could finish .......... the waitress interrupted. "Oh -- sorry about that." She leaned over the table, unscrewed the caps of both bottles and switched them.
There was dead silence at the Mensa table.
Todays Jewish joke
A Catholic, a Protestant, a Muslim, and a Jew were in a discussion during dinner.
Catholic: "I have a large fortune....I am going to buy Citibank!"
Protestant: "I am very wealthy and will buy General Motors!"
Muslim: "I am a fabulously rich prince.... I intend to purchase Microsoft!"
They then all wait for the Jew to speak....
The Jew stirs his coffee, places the spoon neatly on the table, takes a sip of his coffee, looks at them and casually says: "I'm not selling."
A bonus joke - the Apple Watch
A Navy pilot walks into a bar and takes a seat next to a very attractive woman.
He gives her a quick glance then casually looks at his new Apple watch for a moment.
The woman notices this and asks, "Is your date running late?"
No,” he replies, “I just got this state-of-the-art Apple watch, and I was just testing it.”
The intrigued woman says, “A state-of-the-art watch? What’s so special about it?”
The pilot says, “It uses alpha waves to talk to me telepathically.”
The lady says, “What’s it telling you now?”
Well, it says you're not wearing any panties.”
The woman giggles and replies, “Well it must be broken because I am wearing panties!”
The pilot smirks, taps his watch and says, “Darn thing’s an hour fast.”
