1/. A major Frank Rich story is in this weeks New York Magazine, and it's about Roy Cohn, Trump and the corruption of New York's elites......it's a fascinating look at how Trump is a clone of Roy Cohn, who was termed the worst man in the world.....
Mr Rich gives us some great background on how Trump operates just like Cohn, who was his mentor.....
By
Amid the aftershocks of Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey last May, I went to see Angels in America at the same theater in London, the National, where I’d first seen it as a New York Times drama critic some 25 years earlier. The play didn’t transport me quite as far from the lamentable present as I’d hoped. The new production, now on Broadway, doesn’t radically depart in tone or quality (high) from the first. But the play’s center of gravity had shifted. While Tony Kushner’s epic had been seared into my memory by the frail figure of Prior Walter, a young gay man fighting AIDS with almost the entire world aligned against him, this time it was Roy Cohn who dominated: a closeted, homophobic, middle-aged gay man also battling AIDS but who, unlike the fictional Prior, was a real-life Über-villain of America’s 20th century. “The polestar of human evil,” as one character describes him. “The worst human being who ever lived … the most evil, twisted, vicious bastard ever to snort coke at Studio 54.”
2/. This weeks SNL cold open, with a large cast of characters from Trumpworld, including the REAL Stormy Daniels.....five good minutes....
It’s not going to help President Donald Trump to deny climate change, the actual Stormy Daniels warned Alec Baldwin
in a surprise turn on “Saturday Night Live’s” cold open.
“A storm’s a comin’, baby,” Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) cautions in a phone call.
“What do you need for this to all go away?” Baldwin/Trump asks earlier in the skit.
“A resignation,” she responds, to a hoot from the audience.
3/. I love these - Stephen Colbert interviews "Melania", played by Laura Benanti.....she is very very funny....
Fake Melania Trump, played by Laura Benanti, is not a huge fan of her new waxwork at Madame Tussauds in New York.
“She looks nothing like me,” the spoof first lady joked on Friday’s broadcast of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
But there was one detail the figure’s creators got “right,” Benanti said.
“Wax Melania won’t hold Donald’s hand either,” the bogus FLOTUS quipped, before suggesting another amusing use for the sculpture
4/. One of the Times' most thoughtful columnists, Thomas Edsall with a look at how AI, robots and software are driving an industrial revolution that will affect every system, corporation and institution and all of us in ways no one knows yet......a little nerdy, but really informative....
Industrial Revolutions Are Political Wrecking Balls
Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum, is unlikely to have had Trump in mind when he described the fourth industrial revolution in Davos in January 2016:
We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
Compared with previous industrial revolutions, Schwab continued,
the fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.
5/. Seth Meyers with a definitive look at the Guiliani saga, including facts which are in short supply with this scandal.....an amusing 10 minutes......
Seth Meyers blasted President Trump and Rudy Giuliani for their constantly-changing narrative regarding Michael Cohen‘s payment to Stormy Daniels.
Meyers began by mocking Trump’s defense of Giuliani that he recently joined the legal team and that he still needs to “get his facts straight.:
“Yeah, give the kid a break! He’s only 73 going on Nosferatu,” Meyers quipped. “He’s a former mayor and U.S. attorney who’s now the lawyer for the President of the United States and Trump talks about him like he’s a trainee at Chipotle.”
6/. Now THIS is interesting. Remember Michael Cohen's third client, Elliot Broidy who used Cohen to negotiate a settlement of $1.6 million with a Playboy bunny? As this story in New York magazine says what if the client was actually Trump, and Broidy's $1.6 million payoff money was a bribe to Trump?
A "wow" story....and the feds know the truth now too.....
On May 2, Rudy Giuliani revealed that the Trump administration has been lying for months about the fact that Donald Trump reimbursed his personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he fronted to buy porn star Stormy Daniels’s silence about her affair with Trump. Until then, Trump had been claiming that he didn’t know about any settlement, and that he hadn’t had a sexual liaison with Daniels. (The official White House line continues to be that Daniels is lying about having sex with Trump, but almost no one believes this.) Giuliani has claimed that Trump gave him the okay last week to contradict several months’ worth of denials, by revealing Trump’s payments to Cohen.
In journalism this is known as getting out in front of a story.
7/. SNL's host was the very impressive Donald Glover.....here is a skit where the cast needs to keep quiet, with Glover is reading Kanye's tweets......it's funnier than it sounds! Five minutes....
“Saturday Night Live” married the sheer terror of “A Quiet Place” with the horrifying comments of Kanye West in a hilarious monster mash.
In the sketch, pals played by host and “Atlanta” star Donald Glover, Aidy Bryant, Kenan Thompson, Cecily Strong and Beck Bennett try mightily to stay silent so they won’t be picked off by monsters alerted to their presence by sound — just like in Jon Krasinski’s film “A Quiet Place.”
But Glover can’t shut up about tweets he’s reading on his phone by Kanye.
8/. A good article from Raw Story on how Trump games the media, and they just keep falling for his tricks....
U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump in Washington, U.S. July 12, 2017
Perhaps after failing democracy in the worst way, you might think staff at the New York Times had learned their lesson.
9/. Jimmy Kimmel on the crazy eyes of the buffoon Giuliani.....four minutes...
As everyone and their mother knows by now, Rudy Giuliani blew up the news world on Tuesday night when he had an interview on Hannitydropping Trump-related bombshells like it was his job. (Even though it’s, you know, kind of the opposite of his job. Attorney-client privilege and all that.)
What everyone maybe doesn’t know is that Giuliani seemed pretty darn excited about his foray into the Fox News fray, and the giveaway is that he had what Jimmy Kimmel called Wednesday night “a major case of crazy eyes.”
10/. This is a little disturbing - Ford won't be making cars any more - just SUV's.....
Why Is a ‘Green’ Car Company Pivoting Back to S.U.V.s?
Two years ago, the Ford Motor Company boasted about having been named Interbrand’s Best Global Green Brand and said it was committed to working to meet stricter fuel economy standards. Last week, after lobbying with the rest of the industry to strike down those standards, Ford announced that it would largely abandon the American passenger car market in favor of building more trucks, crossovers and S.U.V.s.
Ford’s announcement marks a significant turning point for the American auto industry. The only heritage United States carmaker that didn’t go bankrupt in the Great Recession of 2008, it had become one of its greenest. But its decade’s worth of investment in developing more fuel-efficient cars is now taking a back seat to profit.
11/. A Bill Maher "New Rules", where he goes after his favorite topic - political overcorrectness....five good minutes....
On Friday night, Bill Maher when after the “professionally offended” for their reaction to Amy Schumer‘s new film, I Feel Pretty.
In the romantic comedy, Schumer stars as a woman with insecurity issues who, after hitting her head from a fall, sees herself as the most beautiful woman on the planet. And in a segment called “Explaining Jokes to Idiots,” Maher blasted critics who dissected the film not because of its merit but because of various social justice reasons.
“The professionally offended have decided that even though it’s a movie by women filmmakers presenting a pro-woman message, ‘it does it the wrong way!'” Maher mocked. “Amy helped wrong, even though she really just remade The Nutty Professor, where someone not thin and not cool magically see themselves as better looking and gain confidence, except when Eddie Murphy did it, he didn’t have the purity police up his ass.”
12/. There's a water war brewing over the Colorado river.....it will be an interesting summer because the snowpack was light again this year, and Lake Mead is near crisis levels....
Lake Mead is the country’s biggest reservoir of water. Think of it as the savings account for the entire Southwest. Right now, that savings account is nearly overdrawn.
For generations, we’ve been using too much of the Colorado River, the 300-foot-wide ribbon of water that carved the Grand Canyon, supplies Lake Mead, and serves as the main water source for much of the American West.
The river sustains one in eight Americans — about 40 million people — and millions of acres of farmland. In the next 40 years, the region is expected to add at least 10 million more people, as the region’s rainfall becomes more erratic.
13/. A new study says the Florida mangrove trees that protect the coastline from flooding and wind damage are retreating westwards, and will soon all be lost due to sea level rise.....oh well....
South Florida's mangroves are so vital to the area's unique ecosystem you can't even sneeze on the trees without upsetting environmentalists. Donald Trump infamously lost a negotiation to take over a golf course in Miami-Dade's Crandon Park partly because he wanted to remove 450 yards of mangroves. More recently, a Miami power couple was cited for illegal mangrove chopping and forced to replace the plants.
But a new study from Florida International University warns that, despite strict environmental regulations protecting the unique trees, carbon emissions from cars, power companies, and other fossil-fuel-burning industries have succeeded in all but killing South Florida's coastal mangrove population.
14/. Summer movies to watch out for......maybe some of them will be playing at Mount Dora's new Epic theater!
Not every summer release will hit the multiplex with hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing and various fast-food tie-ins behind it. Many won’t even hit enough screens to qualify as a “wide release.”
But summer is a big season at your local arthouse theater too, where the race to find a movie that successfully counterprograms superhero bombast and lures in an audience that wants something a little more down-to-earth is already on in earnest. (After all, the arthouse megahit My Big Fat Greek Wedding broke out over the summer of 2002 but actually debuted in April.)
These dramas and comedies are typically lacking in effects budgets and other frippery, and many of them will sink without a trace. But if past summers are any indication, at least a couple of these will break out — if only among the sorts of folks who patronize your local Landmark. And if we’re lucky, some of them will be among the best movies of the year. Check out these 17 smaller, under-the-radar releases if you want a break from the summer heat andthe blockbuster shenanigans
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Todays old people joke
An elderly couple, who were both widowed, had been going out with each other for a long time. Urged on by their friends, they decided it was finally time to get married. Before the wedding, they went out to dinner and had a long conversation regarding how their marriage might work. They discussed finances, living arrangements and so on. Finally, the old gentleman decided it was time to broach the subject of their physical relationship.
'How do you feel about sex?' he asked, rather tentatively.
'I would like it infrequently' she replied.
The old gentleman sat quietly for a moment, leaned over towards her and whispered, "Is that one word or two?
Todays lawyer joke
A doctor, an architect, and an attorney were dining at the country club one day, and the conversation turned to the subject of their respective dogs, which were apparently quite extraordinary. A wager was placed on who had the most intelligent dog.The physician offered to show his dog first, and called to the parking lot, "Hippocrates, come!"Hippocrates ran in, and was told by the doctor to do his stuff. Hippocrates ran to the golf course and dug for a while, producing a number of bones. He dragged the bones into the country club, and assembled them into a complete, fully articulated human skeleton. The physician patted Hippocrates on the head, and gave him a cookie for his efforts.The architect was only marginally impressed, and called for his dog, "Sliderule, come!"Sliderule ran in, and was told to do his stuff. The dog immediately chewed the skeleton to rubble, but reassembled the fragments into a scale model of the Taj Mahal. The architect patted his dog and gave him a cookie.The attorney watched the other two dogs, and called "Bullshit, come!"Bullshit entered and was told to do his stuff. Bullshit immediately sodomized the other two dogs, stole their cookies, auctioned the Taj Mahal replica to the other club members for his fee, and went outside to play golf.
Todays blonde joke....
There was once a blonde woman on a plane to Detroit.
She was in the economy class, but after takeoff, she saw an empty seat in first class and moved there.
An attendant saw her and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you have a ticket for economy class, not first. You cannot stay here."
The blonde replied, "I can and I will."
The attendant told the copilot, who came and talked to the woman.
"Ma'am, we really can't have you staying in this seat, your ticket was for economy."
"You can't make me move."
The copilot told the captain, who tried to talk her out of the seat but it didn't work.
Finally, a man who had heard what had been going on told the attendant to let him have a go at getting the woman out of the seat because he was married to a blonde too, so he knew how to deal with her.
After a quick chat with her, she moved.
The shocked attendant asked him how he did it.
The man replied, "I told her first class wasn't going to Detroit."
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