1/ Matt Taibbi with an important story - how the elites are using the threat of Russian Bots to label anything destabilizing as Putin's propaganda.....Taibbi has a knack of going behind the news and giving us the reality.....
Putin loves you; therefore, you love Putin. The enemy re-tweets you, therefore, you're in league with the enemy. We're at war with them, therefore we're at war with you.
One of the first rules of a shunning campaign is that it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to be what everyone's saying. Since most Americans went to high school, we tend to be instinctively familiar with the concept.
The crazy inverse logic of the new national blacklist was on full display after special prosecutor Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian "troll farm" operatives in February. In the wake of this foreign meddling charge, CNN reporter Drew Griffin banged on the door of an elderly female Trump supporter named Florine Goldfarb and accused her of being a Russia-collaborator.
2/ The SNL cold open, with Alec Baldwin as you-know-who.....pretty good this week....five amusing minutes...
Saturday Night Live this weekend opened with a bipartisan meeting on gun control, led by Alec Baldwin‘s Donald Trump, during which the president indicated that there were “30 million good reasons” why nothing will change.
POTUS, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Diane Feinstein, said in the wake of the Parkland school shooting that it was time to take a hard look at mental health, “which I have so much of. I have one of the healthiest mentals.” He than posed the idea that “maybe we just take everyone’s guns away,” and that no one should be allowed to have them, “not even whites.” Pence, seemingly distraught, was then assured by Trump that he “met with the NRA, [and] they gave me 30 million good reasons not to change a thing.”
3/ Jane Mayer in the New Yorker with the controversial article about Christopher Steele.....a long but fascinating read if you are following the Russia trail....
In January, after a long day at his London office, Christopher Steele, the former spy turned private investigator, was stepping off a commuter train in Farnham, where he lives, when one of his two phones rang. He’d been looking forward to dinner at home with his wife, and perhaps a glass of wine. It had been their dream to live in Farnham, a town in Surrey with a beautiful Georgian high street, where they could afford a house big enough to accommodate their four children, on nearly an acre of land. Steele, who is fifty-three, looked much like the other businessmen heading home, except for the fact that he kept his phones in a Faraday bag—a pouch, of military-tested double-grade fabric, designed to block signal detection.
A friend in Washington, D.C., was calling with bad news: two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley, had just referred Steele’s name to the Department of Justice, for a possible criminal investigation. They were accusing Steele—the author of a secret dossier that helped trigger the current federal investigation into President Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia—of having lied to the very F.B.I. officers he’d alerted about his findings.
4/ Bill Maher with a great opening monologue - lots of zingers.....an excellent six minutes....
Bill Maher broke down the string of setbacks that President Donald Trump’s administration has suffered in the past week on Friday’s “Real Time.”
“So much crazy shit happened, I’m just gonna have to go through it chronologically,” the comedian said.
From White House communications director Hope Hicks’ resignation to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance downgrade and the president’s apparent flip on gun control, “all this chaos makes it very difficult for the NRA to run the country,” Maher quipped.
5/ It's easy to get bogged down in the detail of Trump, Russia and Special Counsel Mueller [especially if you watch Rachel Maddow] so here is a synopsis from CNBC the business channel.....a primer, so to speak....
Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | Getty Images
US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the APEC leaders' summit on November 11, 2017.
As Robert Mueller accumulates guilty pleas and cooperating witnesses, President Donald Trump stands behind a final redoubt: Nobody has shown he conspired with Russia in 2016.
Whether Mueller ultimately alleges such a crime remains unknown. He now has help from Trump's former national security advisor, deputy campaign chief and campaign foreign policy advisor — all of whom have admitted felonies.
But whatever the special counsel concludes legally about "collusion," evidence on public display already paints a jarring picture. It shows an American president who has embraced Russian money and illicit favors, while maintaining rhetoric and policies benefiting Russia and undercutting national security officials of his own country.
6/ Seth Meyers with a good piece of comedic reporting on what Trump is doing about the opiod crisis......you won't be surprised either....six good minutes....
Seth Meyers took a detailed look at how President Donald Trump’s crusade against the opioid epidemic has progressed.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of “Late Night,” the host concluded that it was not exactly living up to Trump’s campaign promise to solve the crisis.
Meyers acknowledged that some positive steps had been taken, but explained that poor staffing choices and unfulfilled vows to boost funding and resources meant the war was far from over.
7/ John Oliver watched NRA TV, and it's weirder than you might think.....a great 20 minutes of comedic reporting....
The “Last Week Tonight” host characterized NRATV as an infomercial where stories are “amplified to terrify you and sell you products.”
In a show about firearms aimed at women called “Love At First Shot,” firing an AR-15 was even described as “a nice, light poof of happiness.”
“It’s a little weird to describe a semi-automatic rifle the way Bob Ross describes a fucking cloud,” Oliver said.
Some of the shows, he observed, were more akin to getting “a deranged letter from a serial killer.” https://www.huffingto
8/ Andrew Sullivan with a ray of hope - he muses if the chaos of this week is indeed the start of Trump's slide.....
One of my favorite words is quickening as a noun. The dictionary will tell you it means the period in early pregnancy when an unborn child first starts to move in her mother’s womb, or the act of bringing something to life. And what this last week suggests to me is that there is a quickening in the crisis of the Trump presidency. I’m not sure where it will lead, but something is stirring.
Everything we’re seeing from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, suggests the growing possibility, at the very least, that Trump is implicated in a conspiracy with a foreign power to defraud the United States of America (that’s a better way of describing it than “collusion”).
9/ Jimmy Kimmel has a feature called "Mean Tweets", where celebrities read awful tweets about themselves....an amusing two minutes, these celebs are in the music business....
Adam Levine, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Nick Jonas and other musicians poked fun at themselves in the latest installment of Jimmy Kimmel Live's "Mean Tweets."
Many Twitter users cracked jokes about the celebrities' looks. "Nick Jonas was cute back when he was in the Jonas Brothers, and now he looks like a ferret," the pop singer read. "Watching Alice Cooper and all I can think is that he looks like a ball sack with face paint on!" noted the hard rock icon. "Adam Levine is if a flaccid penis could kinda sing [sic]," the Maroon 5 vocalist deadpanned, responding, "Whoa, this is riddled with mistakes."
10/ Stephen Colbert went to Congress to talk to some Senators and Congressmen about the Russia investigation, and the resulting 10 minutes is hilarious......wonderful stuff!
Stephen Colbert desperately wants an update on the investigation into possible ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
So for Friday’s broadcast of “The Late Show,” the comedian visited Washington, D.C., to see if he could tease any new information out of congressmen.
With a fake memo of his own in hand, Colbert attempted to persuade Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to leak new developments to him regarding the Trump-Russia probe.
“Just say anything. Give me a hint, anything,” Colbert at one point pleaded with Warner.
“Just blink it out in Morse code. Tell me anything, don’t you understand?”
11/ The election this year is the Democrats to lose, but the National Democratic Party is determined to screw things up.....
Guns and ammo on the floor of the NRA convention at the NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Louisville, Kentucky, May 21, 2016
For the last couple of decades, the biggest impediment to passing sane gun laws in America hasn't been the National Rifle Association. It hasn't been the Republican Party. It hasn't been public opinion, or some weird national firearm fetish. It's been the Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, HuffPost reported tha
12/ Stephen Colbert on Trumps really bad week.....six amusing minutes....
The discord within the Trump administration reached a fever pitch this week: One of President Trump’s closest aides, Hope Hicks, announced her resignation; Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, r has seen his security clearance downgraded; and reports have swirled that Mr. Trump is planning to fire H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser.
“CNN summed it up this way: ‘White House meltdown on full display.’ Well, the White House tours must be getting really interesting. ‘O.K., now we’re passing the Lincoln Bedroom. On your right, you’ll see John Kelly suffocating Jared Kushner with a pillow, and on your left, you’ll see the claw marks on the wall left by Steve Bannon as they dragged him to the curb.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“McMaster found himself in a little hot water with Trump last month when he told a German audience that Russian meddling in the election was ‘incontrovertible,’ which violated Trump’s policies against acknowledging Russian interference and of using big words. ‘Look, just say, ‘Sad!’ O.K., fancy pants?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT
13/ Affordable housing is a slow moving crisis all over this country, and it's especially acute in California where Disney workers smile for the visitors, and sleep in their cars at night.....this is going to get worse as cities [where the jobs are] get more expensive....
ANAHEIM, Calif. — On Disneyland’s Main Street, Emily Bertola spends hours working on her feet, embroidering names onto mouse ears at the Mad Hatter shop, where she has been an employee for the last two years. She usually offers visitors the sunny smile she was trained to give.
None of her customers know that for months, she slept in the back of her truck, showering at the park before her shift.
Her struggle is hardly unique to Disneyland.
Orange County is known for its affluence, and for its tourist industry. But the thousands of workers who keep its resorts, restaurants and hotels running are sometimes struggling to stay afloat.
As the state grapples with soaring housing costs, workers in California earning just above the minimum wage find it difficult to pay for basic costs. Many employees at Disneyland have moved farther inland, driving hours each day to work. Others, like Ms. Bertola, have opted to move from couch-to-couch or sleep in their cars for months at a time.
14/ I am beyond disgusted with Florida Republicans.....we are gutted again......note the education bill was sponsored by our own Senator asshole Dennis Baxley - vote this bastard out.....contribute to Gary McKechnie, a decent man and a progressive......
In the end, they rolled over and played dead.
On guns. On education. On integrity and responsibility.
A group of Florida senators refused on Monday to stand up to the ambitions of the House speaker and the implied threats of the National Rifle Association.
And so Florida suffers.
It’s exasperating, but not necessarily surprising. Under feckless and toothless President Joe Negron, the Senate had already abdicated its traditional role as the state’s last hope for sanity.
Now, some might say that Negron only went along with Speaker Richard Corcoran’s sabotage of public schools on Monday in exchange for concessions on Negron’s higher ed agenda. Don’t buy it.
Corcoran practices a radical form of politics. He starts at an extreme place, and insists he will not budge. Then, instead of meeting halfway, he doles out crumbs and expects everyone to be thankful.
And the wimps in the Senate let him get away with it. For the second year in a row.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/p
Give a contribution to Gary so he has a chance of beating Baxley...
15/ The Times selects some of the new shows and movies streaming this month.....can't wait for "Atomic Blonde!"....
Todays video - a funny Jewish joke....2 minutes...
Todays Redneck Medical Terms
Todays male blonde joke
A blond man and a brunette woman were happily married and about to have a baby. One day, the wife started having contractions, so the husband rushed her to the hospital, and she gave birth to two baby boys.
The blond man turned to his wife and yelled, "All right, who's the other father?"
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