1/ Andrew Sullivan's column for New York Magazine has three subjects - normally one is excellent and the other two just interesting, so it's rare to have three really good little essays ....this one is worth reading in it's entirety folks....
If someone had asked me back in the day, if, in 2017, we’d be having a discussion about whether a fundamentalist baker should be forced by the law to create a wedding cake for a gay couple, I’d have been gobsmacked, as the Brits say. Smacked in the gob because only a decade ago such a question would have seemed so remotely hypothetical as to be absurd. And yet, here we are. A Christian baker has taken a stand on the grounds of religious conscience and artistic freedom not to provide a cake specifically designed for a legal, constitutional same-sex wedding. His case was just argued in the Supreme Court no less.
2/ SNL's cold open was Santa in a Mall dealing with kids with awkward questions....a funny six minutes....
As if working as a mall Santa Claus isn’t a pain in the ass enough for seasonal workers — the nylon costumes, the permanently sore legs, the lack of adequate cigarette breaks — SNL wants to throw in an additional hellish factor for our viewing pleasure: Why should kids keep their present requests light and cheery when they can talk politics instead? Bless America’s current crop of politically in-tune kiddos, who would seemingly rather ask for the truth about Al Franken’s resignation and the opioid crisis than a Barbie doll. But the feminazis might take that away too, who knows!
3/ An intelligent and reasoned look at the implications of the Al Franken issue by Marsha Gessen.....the #MeToo hashtag only works on half the country....
The cultural wave that brought down the Minnesota senator only works on half the country.
On what he called the worst day of his political life, Senator Al Franken
articulated two points that are central to understanding what has become known as the #MeToo moment. In an eleven-minute speech, in which Franken announced his intention to resign from the Senate, he made this much clear: the force that is ending his political career is greater than the truth, and this force operates on only roughly half of this country’s population—those who voted for Hillary Clinton and who consume what we still refer to as mainstream media.
There was one notable absence in his speech: Franken did not apologize.
4/ SNL sometimes does some strange sketches, but this one with James Franco is a doozy.....a painfully amusing five minutes.....
But that effort can sometimes take a fine sketch and send it into the stratosphere. This is such a sketch, with a simple premise that works because of Franco's utter commitment to the material. It's not that other hosts couldn't have played this character. It's that only Franco could have played this version of this character. When the right host gets the right role, it reminds you why SNL is so potent.
The key to what makes this sketch sing? Diction. Franco's enunciation: Each line of dialogue is razor-sharp, imparting purpose but also decades of pent-up frustration. On paper, a line like, "Little Pig Boy comes from the dirt" isn't inherently funny. But at that point in this sketch, uttered in that way by Franco, it turns into one of the greatest jokes in Season 43. Its precision comes from a very patient, repetitious series of call-and-responses that arrives at that atom bomb of a punchline.
5/ Paul Krugman with the obvious lesson from the tax bill - Republicans give billions to the rich, and increase the deficit by a trillion. To make up this number, the GOP will be coming for Medicare and Medicaid next.....be warned!
Republicans don’t care about budget deficits, and never did. They only pretend to care about deficits when one of two things is true: a Democrat is in the White House, and deficit rhetoric can be used to block his agenda, or they see an opportunity to slash social programs that help needy Americans, and can invoke deficits as an excuse. All of this has been obvious for years to anyone paying attention.
So it’s not at all surprising that they were willing to enact a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy even though all independent estimates said this would add more than $1 trillion to the national debt. And it was also predictable that they would return to deficit posturing as soon as the deed was done, citing the red ink they themselves produced as a reason to cut social spending.
6/ Stephen Colbert with one of his funniest five minutes ever......it's on #DentureDonald and the Middle East.....
At The Late Show, Stephen Colbert couldn't stop laughing at Trump's last slurred words, "United Shursh," so he played it twice. Everybody opposed Trump's Jerusalem decision, he said, so why did he do it? One explanation is he's fulfilling a promise to conservative pro-Israel groups and donors, but evangelical Christians also back the move as a way to spark the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Late Show "God" appeared to quash that idea. "Are you crazy?" he said. "I'm not going to send my Son into that tinder box! Didn't go so well last time." He's not going to Jerusalem, either, "God" said. "I'm not even sure it's my holy city anymore. I'm thinking of moving it somewhere more laid back, like Austin. It's my favorite city in the whole United Shursh." Watch below.
7/ And of course the internet went crazy.....[must watch #6]
8/ Millennials are a much maligned generation [whining, entitled slackers] but it's an unfair label - maybe it's defensive on our part because this generation is finding out what we have done to their future [and their planet], and they're pissed....
Good column from Michelle Goldberg....
On a Friday night last month, I moderated a debate in Manhattan about whether we should scrap capitalism. It was organized by the socialist magazine Jacobin; defending capitalism were editors from the libertarian publication Reason. Tickets for all available 450 seats sold out in a day. So Jacobin moved it to a venue that holds around twice as many. The extra tickets sold out in eight hours.
When I arrived, people were lined up for blocks; walking to the door, I felt like I was on the guest list at an underground nightclub. Most attendees appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, part of a generation that is uniquely suspicious of capitalism, a system most of their elders take for granted.
The anti-Communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was alarmed to find in a recent survey that 44 percent of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country, compared with 42 percent who want to live under capitalism.
9/ Jordan Klepper plays an Alex Jones [crazy right wingnut] character, and plays this role to the hilt.....and he's funny! A good five minutes on the NRA....
Jordan Klepper of Comedy Central’s “The Opposition” isn’t afraid to shoot down iffy gun legislation.
On Monday’s show, the satire-armed host took aim at a GOP bill that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines with a permit. The proposal, backed by the National Rifle Association, has a friendly name, Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. But basically, Klepper said, it would enable some people with violent records like domestic abusers to carry their concealed weapons in states with stricter gun laws as long as it’s legal for them to do so in the state from where they came.
Noting that “a domestic abuser is not a good guy with a gun,” Klepper quipped of the legislation:
“It lowers the bar across the country so that every state has to abide by the loosest conceal carry laws. Americans love lowering the bar. It’s so much easier getting over it that way.”
10/ The title of this story is "How The Republicans Broke Congress".....says it all......good reporting....
In the past three days, Republican leaders in the Senate scrambled to corral votes for a tax bill that the Joint Committee on Taxation said would add $1 trillion to the deficit — without holding any meaningful committee hearings. Worse, Republican leaders have been blunt about their motivation: to deliver on their promises to wealthy donors, and down the road, to use the leverage of huge deficits to cut and privatize Medicare and Social Security.
Congress no longer works the way it’s supposed to. But we’ve said that before.
Eleven years ago, we published a book called “The Broken Branch,” which we subtitled “How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track.” Embedded in that subtitle were two assumptions: first, that Congress as an institution — which is to say, both parties, equally — is at fault; and second, that the solution is readily at hand. In 2017, the Republicans’ scandalous tax bill is only the latest proof that both assumptions are wrong.
11/ Peter Travers in Rolling Stone with his best 10 movies of the year.....with trailers.....darn it I've only seen one of them....
Todays video - a hilarious French commercial.....
Todays political jokes [truths!]
We hang petty thieves and appoint the great thieves to public office.
Aesop, Greek slave & fable author
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
Plato, ancient Greek Philosopher
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
Nikita Khrushchev, Russian Soviet politician
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
Quoted in 'Clarence Darrow for the Defense' by Irving Stone.
Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.
John Quinton, American actor/writer
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.
Oscar Ameringer, "the Mark Twain of American Socialism."
I offered my opponents a deal: "if they stop telling lies about me, I will stop telling the truth about them".
Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952.
A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
Texas Guinan. 19th century American businessman
I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles de Gaulle, French general & politician
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Doug Larson (English middle-distance runner who won gold medals at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, 1902-1981)
Todays Catholic jokeA young Catholic girl went to confession and said to the priest, "I'm pregnant."
He asked, "How did this happen, my child?"
She said, "I think it must be the second coming."
The priest, shocked by this reply asked, "What makes you think this has anything to do with the Second Coming?"
She replied, "Because I swallowed the first one...
Todays pet store joke
A woman went into a store to buy her husband a pet for his birthday. After looking around, she found that all the pets were very expensive. She told the clerk she wanted to buy a pet, but she didn't want to spend a fortune."Well," said the clerk, "I have a very large bullfrog. They say it's been trained to give blowjobs!""Blowjobs!" the woman replied."It hasn't been proven but we've sold 30 of them this month," he said.The woman thought it would be a great gag gift, and what if it's true...no more blowjobs for her! She bought the frog.When she explained froggy's ability to her husband, he was extremely skeptical and laughed it off. The woman went to bed happy, thinking she may never need to perform this less than riveting act again.In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the noise of pots and pans flying everywhere, making hellacious banging and crashing sounds. She ran downstairs to the kitchen, only to find her husband and the frog reading cookbooks."What are you two doing at this hour?" she asked.The husband replied, "If I can teach this frog to cook, your ass is gone."
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