1/ This has been a very bad week for our country, and Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine summaries it......
This past week was, in some ways, the most potent distillation of the Trump era we have yet encountered. This is not because any single incident is worse than any previous one over the past year. It’s because the last few days have brought all of them together in a new, concentrated way — a super-storm, as it were, of liberal democratic destruction. We have deranged tweeting; truly surreal lies; mindless GOP tribalism; evangelicals making excuses for the molestation of minors; further assaults on the free press; an unprecedented attack on the most reliable Atlantic ally; the demonization of personal enemies; stupendous tribal hypocrisy with respect to sexual abuse; the White House’s endorsement of a foreign neo-fascist hate group; the vengeful hanging out to dry of a Cabinet member; and the attempt to pass a catastrophic omnibus piece of legislation in one mad, blind rush in order to get a “win.” And all in a few days!
At its center is mental illness.
2/ Republicans.....
3/ Thomas Edsall is one of the better Times columnists, and this serious article should make all of us very uneasy.....
President Trump has single-handedly done more to undermine the basic tenets of American democracy than any foreign agent or foreign propaganda campaign could.
“Trump is a political weapon of mass self-destruction for American democracy — for its norms, for its morality, for sheer human decency,” Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at Brookings, wrote by email:
So if Putin backed him, and if he did it to damage the United States, then he dropped one extremely smart bomb in the middle of Washington.
4/ Tom Tomorrow......
5/ The wise man of Washington Frank Rich on the week's news.....insightful as always....
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: Donald Trump and the Matt Lauer scandal, James O’Keefe’s shoddy brand of journalism, and the prospect of a federal government shutdown next month.
In the wake of Matt Lauer’s sudden firing from NBC after a colleague’s complaint of “inappropriate sexual behavior,” President Trump took to Twitter to accuse the network of “fake news” and lobbed nasty (or already disproven) allegations against morning MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and NBC News chairman Andy Lack. What could he hope to gain with that kind of response?
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault with, as yet, no legal consequences — even though he was caught admitting guilt (gleefully) to Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape. As our mad president’s delusional thinking has it, accusing others of his own crimes is always the best defense; it’s the same impulse that has led him to repeatedly claim that it was Hillary Clinton who colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault with, as yet, no legal consequences — even though he was caught admitting guilt (gleefully) to Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape. As our mad president’s delusional thinking has it, accusing others of his own crimes is always the best defense; it’s the same impulse that has led him to repeatedly claim that it was Hillary Clinton who colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.
6/ This is a little unfair, but most amusing....."The Millenial Job Interview".....two minutes....
7/ Sean Wilentz in Rolling Stone with a "where we are now" story on the Trump Presidency....and it's not good.....an excellent summary of the disaster that has befallen this country.....
Despite its legislative setbacks of the past year, the presidency of Donald Trump has been stunningly effective in its core mission, the dismantling of modern American government as it has evolved since the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century. And even though a civil war looms inside the Republican Party, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan and even frequent presidential critics like Sen. Bob Corker have firmly supported most of Trump's program. This should surprise no one: In many respects, the administration's agenda jibes with the main lines of Republican conservatism as laid down by Ronald Reagan more than 30 years ago, pressing massive tax reductions for the wealthy along with deregulation of finance and business. Trump's adherence to Reagan's dictum that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" is what permits McConnell and the others to behold him as a flawed but useful vehicle for their own politics.
8/ Seth Meyers on the Republican tax plan [AKA giveaway to the rich]......an amusing nine minutes....
9/ Matt Taibbi on the latest Trump plan to screw us all one government agency at a time - a visceral look at the new head of the Consumer Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney....a cruel joke....
Mick Mulvaney, pictured in September, is Trump's new pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Earlier this year, when researching a story on Donald Trump's executive appointments, I talked to current and former Hill staffers about Mick Mulvaney. The humorless debt truther from South Carolina was the man His Orangeness wanted to put in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, and the mention of Mulvaney's name generated a lot of adjectives.
"Dumb even by congressional standards," was one description. "A moron's moron."
Mulvaney was most famous for wanting to solve the national debt by deploying his sweeping ignorance of global economics as budget policy. Putting him in charge of the OMB was therefore like putting the Baader-Meinhof gang in charge of Lufthansa.
Mulvaney was most famous for wanting to solve the national debt by deploying his sweeping ignorance of global economics as budget policy. Putting him in charge of the OMB was therefore like putting the Baader-Meinhof gang in charge of Lufthansa.
10/ Stephen Colbert on Matt Lauer.....he makes this pathetic story funny.....five minutes....
Returning from an extended Thanksgiving weekend, Stephen Colbert began “The Late Show” on Wednesday by introducing himself as “one of the few men still allowed on television.”
He went on to detail the allegations of sexual misconduct that have been lodged against Matt Lauer, who was fired from NBC’s “The Today Show” on Wednesday.
“‘Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her. It’s bad enough he gave her a sex toy — but he also gave instructions? He found a way to mansplain sexual harassment. ‘You’re doing that wrong, let me get in there.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT, quoting a report in Variety
11/ Thomas Frank with some excellent observations on where liberals are now.....outraged at Trump, but unable to go beyond that, especially the Democratic Party.....
I
t has been one year since the US slipped through a hole in the space-time continuum and chose as its leader the most unpopular presidential candidate of all time. Every now and then you get a bracing reminder of the crazy that has been transpiring ever since.
One of these came to me while I was flipping through Donald Trump’s 2015 campaign book, Crippled America, the cover of which displays his proud pompadour and the first few pages of which assert that “As for the presidency and the executive branch” – meaning the executive branch of Barack Obama – “the incompetence is beyond belief.”
To recapitulate, that’s Trump calling Obama incompetent. What do you say when confronted with a big-league, flat-out, beyond-belief distortion like that? Do you get all sincere and point out that, no, Obama was actually good at the job and Donald Trump is the incompetent one ... that Trump gets all kinds of things wrong and doesn’t know what’s in the constitution and is unaware that the executive has this power and that power and is ignorant of everything else on this-here long, long list of examples extending the entire length of the page?
That’s certainly how the liberal wing of America’s pundit class has dealt with Trump.
12/ Trevor Noah with an excellent segment on the "Pochahantas" controversy from the Racist-In-Chief.....this might, however, give you pause.....
Trevor Noah flipped the script on Tuesday: He criticized President Trump for referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” during an event on Monday honoring Native American war veterans — but he also argued that Ms. Warren has yet to answer for claiming Native American heritage, which she did for many years.
At one point, she contributed a family recipe to a Native American cookbook titled “Pow Wow Chow.” This was all the ammunition Mr. Noah needed.
“If you’re contributing recipes to a book called ‘Pow Wow Chow,’ you better be comfortable in your Native American identity. The problem is, in 2012, the New England Historical Genealogical Society looked into it, and they found no proof of Native American lineage. Which is problematic, because she wrote for ‘Pow Wow Chow.’ I mean, that would be like finding out I am completely white, I have no African blood, yet I wrote the book ‘Snacks for Blacks.’” — TREVOR NOAH
13/ Want to feel guilty? Like your life is a meaningless jumble and a waste? Watch this for three minutes then.....
14/ Who'd a thunk it? I certainly didn't. According to Thomas Friedman in the Times India is more technologically advanced than we are, as far as using technology in everyday life goes.....
Maybe it's because our Wifi and internet access are monopoly providers [Comcast, Time Warner etc], and we only have four huge cellphone companies....and all of these price fix so there's no competition.
Mumbai, INDIA — In a recent MSNBC interview I described President Trump as a “brain-eating disease.”
I did so because his indecent behavior, and nonstop outrageous tweets and actions, force you as a commentator into a terrible choice: either ignore it all and risk normalizing Trump’s excesses or write about him constantly and risk not having the time to learn and report about the big trends now reshaping the world — trends that one day will surprise your readers and leave them asking, “Why didn’t I know this?”
To inoculate myself against Trump eating my brain, I occasionally get as far away as I can. This time it was to India, where I learned a ton that I didn’t know: I found India trying to leapfrog out of poverty and catch up to China by engaging in a rapid digitization of its entire economy and power grid.
Yes, while our president has been busy playing golf, tweeting about LaVar Ball and pushing an anything-that-will-pass tax plan, China has been busy creating a cashless society, where people can pay for so many things now with just a swipe of their cellphones — including donations to beggars — or even buy stuff at vending machines with just facial recognition, and India is trying to follow suit.
15/ Good TV.....what to look out for in December.....
When historians look back at the cosmic coincidences that made up the annus miserablis that was 2017, they will likely skip over the fact Netflix released a movie named Bright and a German horror series titled Dark within mere days of one another. We, however, are happy to celebrate such a glorious irony right here and now. The streaming service is also dropping a pair of stand-up specials from heavyweight talents (and supposedly the new season of Black Mirror,which is scheduled for "late 2017" ... so, um, soon?). Meanwhile Amazon is keeping Jean-Claude Van Damme employed with a new series, as well as making what's arguably 2017's greatest exploitation movie available as well. And Hulu's offering up Scorsese's latest for those who missed it last winter. Here's your complete streaming guide for the month of December. (Check out our standard TV must-see choices for the month here.)
Todays philosophical jokes
1. My goal for 2017 was to lose just 10 pounds. Only 15 to go.2. Ate salad for dinner. Mostly croutons & tomatoes. Really just one big round crouton covered with tomato sauce. And cheese. FINE, it was a pizza. I ate a pizza.3. How to prepare Tofu:a. Throw it in the trashb. Grill some meat4. I just did a week's worth of cardio after walking into a spider web.5. I don't mean to brag, but I finished my 14-day diet food in 3 hours and 20 minutes.6. A recent study has found women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.7. Kids today don't know how easy they have it. When I was young, I had to walk 9 feet through shag carpet to change the TV channel.8. Senility has been a smooth transition for me.9. Remember back when we were kids and every time it was below zero they closed school? Me neither.10. I may not be that funny or athletic or good looking or smart or talented. I forgot where I was going with this.11. I love being over 70. I learn something new every day and forget 5 others.12. A thief broke into my house last night He started searching for money so I woke up and searched with him.13. I think I'll just put an "Out of Order" sticker on my forehead and call it a day.14. November 6, 2017 will be the end of Daylight Savings Time. Hope you don't forget to set your bathroom scale back 10 pounds on Saturday night.15. Just remember, once you're over the hill you begin to pick up speed.
Todays Millennial joke
Dearest Dad,I am coming home to get married soon, so get your check book out. I'm in love with a boy who is far away from me. As you know, I am presently living in Australia ... and he lives in Scotland . We met on a dating website, became friends on Facebook, had long chats on Whatsapp. He proposed to me on Skype, and now we've had two months of a relationship through Viber. My beloved and favorite Dad, I need your blessing, good wishes, and a really big wedding.Lots of love and thanks.Your favorite daughter,LillyDAD'S RESPONSE:My Dearest Lilly,Like Wow! Really? Cool!I suggest you two get married on Twitter, have a honeymoon on Tango, buy your kids on Amazon, and pay for it all through PayPal. And when you get fed up with this new husband, sell him on eBay..Love,
Your Dad
Todays oldies joke
Old Goat Quiz
Great mental exercise for the over-60 crowd.
Which of the following names are you familiar with?
1 Monica Lewinsky
2. Spiro Agnew
3. Benito Mussolini
4. Adolf Hitler
5. Jorge Bergoglio
6. Alfonse Capone
7. Vladimir Putin
8. Linda Lovelace
9. Saddam Hussein
10. Tiger Woods
You had trouble with #5 didn't you?
You know all the liars, criminals, adulterers, murderers,
thieves, sluts and cheaters, but you don't know the Pope??
Lovely, just lovely....
Which of the following names are you familiar with?
1 Monica Lewinsky
2. Spiro Agnew
3. Benito Mussolini
4. Adolf Hitler
5. Jorge Bergoglio
6. Alfonse Capone
7. Vladimir Putin
8. Linda Lovelace
9. Saddam Hussein
10. Tiger Woods
You had trouble with #5 didn't you?
You know all the liars, criminals, adulterers, murderers,
thieves, sluts and cheaters, but you don't know the Pope??
Lovely, just lovely....
sometimes I worry about you
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