1/. The always excellent Frank Rich with his take on the important news of the week......Democrats read his last comments, and tremble...
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 attacks on his attorney general, the Senate’s health-care vote, and new messaging from the Democrats.
New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci pledged to “fire everybody” to stop leaks to the press and almost immediately threatened Reince Priebus, implicitly accusing him of a felony. Meanwhile, the rift between Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggests Sessions may be out before long. What does Trump hope to gain from the purges in the highest reaches of his administration?
At this juncture the priorities of Donald Trump have winnowed down to a single agenda item: saving himself and his family from legal culpability for their campaign interactions with the Russians and their efforts to cover up those transactions ever since. Almost everything this president does must be viewed through this single lens. If you do so, you’ll find his actions usually make sense.
At this juncture the priorities of Donald Trump have winnowed down to a single agenda item: saving himself and his family from legal culpability for their campaign interactions with the Russians and their efforts to cover up those transactions ever since. Almost everything this president does must be viewed through this single lens. If you do so, you’ll find his actions usually make sense.
2/. Sam Bee on the weeks news, and "The Mooch".....a wonderful five minutes....
Samantha Bee bid farewell to outgoing White House Press Secretary Sean Spicerand introduced the administration's newest cast member, Communications Director Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci, on Full Frontal Wednesday.
Bee let Scaramucci speak for himself, showing clips from his first press conference where he threw out motivational platitudes and expressed his adoration for the other members of President Trump's administration. But as Bee noted, Scaramucci has already sewn discord in the White House, threatening a big staff purge and promising to fire any leakers (Bee's segment was taped before Scaramucci seemingly accused Chief of Staff Reince Priebus of leaking his financial disclosure documents – however, the reporter who broke the story, Lorraine Wollert, said she obtained them through a public records request).
As for his primary job of handling the President, Scaramucci said he plans to let Trump be himself and express himself fully.
http://www.rollingstone.com/tv
3/. And unless it's comedy, or a really outstanding story I promise this is the last article about "The Mooch" - Matt Taibbi nails this ditz wonderfully.....
4/. Stephen Colbert on Trump threatening Alaska....sad. Three minutes....
Stephen Colbert gave President Donald Trump a hilarious mafia movie-themed slap down on Friday’s “Late Show.”
While picking apart reports that Trump is seeking revenge on the state of Alaska following Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) vote against the GOP’s efforts to repeal Obamacare, Colbert described the current White House as “like organized crime, except for the organized part.”
He then likened Trump’s administration to Martin Scorsese’s classic 1990 mob film “GoodFellas,” but with several amusing differences.
5/. The insightful Andrew Sullivan with his weekly column for New York Magazine....this week - Trump's descent into madness, and how can it be stopped....
We have become, at this point, inured to having an irrational president in an increasingly post-rational America. We’ve also come to tell ourselves that somehow (a) this isn’t really happening, (b) by some miracle, it will be over soon, or (c) at some point the Republican Party will have to acknowledge what they are abetting, and cut their losses. And yet with each particular breach of decency, stability, and constitutionality, no breaking point seems to have arrived, even as the tribalism has deepened, the president’s madness has metastasized, and the norms of liberal democracy are hanging on by a thread.
But surely this week must mark some kind of moment in this vertiginous descent, some point at which the manifest unfitness of this president to continue in office becomes impossible to deny.
6/. A wonderful Times photo essay on what is happening to Africa, due to overpopulation and climate change starting to wreak havoc on the poor people there....it's a long article, but informative if you want to stay up to date on issues our gub'mint won't be dealing with or even acknowledging.....
Loss of Fertile Land Fuels
‘Looming Crisis’ Across Africa
Climate change, soil degradation and rising wealth are shrinking the amount
of usable land in Africa. But the number of people who need it is rising fast.
of usable land in Africa. But the number of people who need it is rising fast.
LAIKIPIA, Kenya — The two elders, wearing weather-beaten cowboy hats with the strings cinched under their chins, stood at the edge of an empty farm, covering their mouths in disbelief.
Their homes — neat wooden cabins — had been smashed open. All their cattle had been stolen. So had their chickens. House after house stood vacant, without another soul around. It was as if some huge force had barreled into the village and swept away all the life.
Sioyia Lesinko Lekisio, one of the elders, had no doubts who did this. Swarms of herders from another county had invaded, attacking any farm or cattle ranch in their path, big or small, stealing livestock, ransacking homes and shooting people with high-powered assault rifles.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” he said. “They want our land.”
Kenya has a land problem. Africa itself has a land problem. The continent seems so vast and the land so open. The awesome sense of space is an inextricable part of the beauty here — the unadulterated vistas, the endless land. But in a way, that is an illusion.
7/. The Boy Scouts of America, inspired by Trump's speech, have a new merit badge....
8/. Trevor Noah from the Daily Show with some Mooch, but mostly Trump vs Sessions.....eight good minutes....
Trevor Noah served the president a stern warning Thursday: Back down from his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions ― or else.
The host of “The Daily Show” made a case for Donald Trump to keep Sessions in his administration, despite the president’s public humiliation of the attorney general, in which he suggested he would’ve never hired Sessions had he known he was going to recuse himself from the investigations into Russia’s interference in the Trump campaign.
So, what about Sessions should Trump be worried about?
“The tiny man has big friends,” the late show host said, before playing clips of several high-profile GOP congressmen, including Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), vouching for Sessions amid Trump’s smear campaign.
Those Republicans, Noah said, are “explaining what Donald Trump has forgotten: On a pure political level, Sessions is exactly the wrong person for Trump to mess with.”
Trump was considered a joke in Washington until Sessions backed his presidential campaign and convinced the “GOP establishment” that Trump could “execute their agenda.”
“In other words, Jeff Sessions did for Donald Trump what Dr. Dre did for Eminem,” the host joked.
9/. In case there is any doubt what the long game is for the brains behind this Administration ["President" Steve Bannon], read this story written a few months ago, and apply it to what is happening now....
At CPAC this week Stephen Bannon, the Chief Advisor and intellectual heft behind the Twittering infant that sits in the Oval Office, provided a little glimpse of the future he has planned for all of us.
10/. This is amusing - a three minute song by Randy Rainbow "Before He Tweets"..... three minutes.....hmmmm, wonder who he means?
11/. Yes we all know summers are getting hotter, but to see this in a very cool interactive chart is an eye opener...
Extraordinarily hot summers — the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s — have become commonplace.
This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.
The chart above, based on data from James Hansen, a retired NASA climate scientist and professor at Columbia University, shows how summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades.
To create the bell curves, Dr. Hansen and two colleagues compared actual summer temperatures for each decade since the 1980s to a fixed baseline average. During the base period, 1951 to 1980, about a third of local summer temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere were in what they called a “near average” or normal range. A third were considered cold; a third were hot.
Since then, summer temperatures have shifted drastically, the researchers found. Between 2005 and 2015, two-thirds of values were in the hot category, and nearly 15 percent were in a new category: extremely hot.
12/. A friend of ours, anguished at what is happening to our country, wrote this beautiful poem.....
I Cry
Without warning, tears come.
Emotions rise to the surface
erupting into gasping sobs.
I weep for the injustice
of innocent young black men
imprisoned without cause.
I'm tormented by climate change.
Greed like a hungry caterpillar
devours everything, anything.
I shed tears for the millions
without a warm bed, a meal;
sheltered in rusty cars, tents,
. . .boxes.
I cry for the voiceless victims
of bigotry, hate and corruption.
Reacting with anger, fear,
. . .and unrest.
I feel shame when our nation ignores
thousands fleeing tyranny and oppression,
and I grieve because there is no hope.
...my heart aches for so many,
yet, all I do is cry.
13/. Movie out this week - "Atomic Blonde" with Charlize Theron......looks good, decent reviews....
Set in the days leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Atomic Blonde takes place in an underworld where the Cold War is over but the conflict continues, like the throbbing of a vestigial limb. In that respect—and perhaps that respect only—it belongs to the tradition of post-war thrillers like Carol Reed's The Third Man or Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds, where danger and intrigue exist where they shouldn't and the players involved are enmeshed in self-doubt and crippling mission drift. For the spies of Atomic Blonde, the purpose of chasing a MacGuffin called "The List" has been vastly diminished by world events, but they keep on fighting regardless. That's who they are.
Atomic Blonde trailer.....
14/. Also out this week is "Valerian" directed by Luc Besson who also made the amazing "Lucy"......this story explains why this reasonably good movie flopped at the box office......movie nerds may want to see it in 3D at the theater for what looks like truly astonishing CGI.....
However I think we can wait for it to come on Netflix....
I don’t know about you, but I was personally looking forward to Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, for several reasons. I thought Besson’s 2014 film Lucy was an encouraging turn for its wildly uneven director, and I still follow Cara Delevingne on Instagram, but most importantly, I like science fiction and wacky aliens on principle. Part of me liked to imagine that the rest of the country was on the same page.
Valerian trailer.....wow....
Todays marital joke
"You never surprise me" a woman moaned one day to her long suffering husband.
"Buy me a surprise for my birthday. Something that can accelerate from 0 to 150 in under 4 seconds,
"Buy me a surprise for my birthday. Something that can accelerate from 0 to 150 in under 4 seconds,
... And I'd prefer a blue one!", she hinted.
Happy and excited she was counting down the days for her birthday. And finally she got the beautiful present her husband had thoughtfully chosen for her ...
Happy and excited she was counting down the days for her birthday. And finally she got the beautiful present her husband had thoughtfully chosen for her ...
Todays doctor joke
A guy comes home from work feeling bad about the day's activities. He lays down on the couch and ponders his actions. Like most of us, his conscience has two voices; that of his good moral side and that of his mischievous side.
While staring at the ceiling, a voice in his head says "don't worry about it, a lot of doctors have sex with their patients."
The man tosses and turns in reflection of his actions.
Again the voice says "don't worry about it, a lot of doctors have sex with their patients."
Feeling somewhat relieved, the man begins to relax and feel better about himself at which time another voice in his head says, "but you're a veterinarian."
Todays little old lady joke
A young man shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him
around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at him.
She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him and said,
"I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that you look so much like my late son."
He answered, "That's okay."
"I know it's silly, but if you'd call out 'Good bye, Mom' as I leave the store, it would make me feel so happy."
She then went through the checkout, and as she was on her way out of the store, the man called out, "Goodbye, Mom."
The little old lady waved and smiled back at him..
Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.
"That comes to $121.85," said the clerk..
"How come so much? I only bought 5 items."
The clerk replied, "Yeah, but your Mother said you'd be paying for her things, too."
Bet you thought this was going to be a tear jerker.
around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at him.
She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him and said,
"I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that you look so much like my late son."
He answered, "That's okay."
"I know it's silly, but if you'd call out 'Good bye, Mom' as I leave the store, it would make me feel so happy."
She then went through the checkout, and as she was on her way out of the store, the man called out, "Goodbye, Mom."
The little old lady waved and smiled back at him..
Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.
"That comes to $121.85," said the clerk..
"How come so much? I only bought 5 items."
The clerk replied, "Yeah, but your Mother said you'd be paying for her things, too."
Bet you thought this was going to be a tear jerker.
