1/ Seth Meyers on Trump's unhinged address last week to the base.....he is incoherent and says whatever random thought comes into his head, but the base laps it up.....amazing....
2/ A most interesting column from Thomas Friedman in the Times, taking a step back and looking at the pressures on societies from a global perspective.....and we are in for some stressful times folks, short term [a new Justice] and long term....
Very well written.....
If you haven’t already noticed, let me be the first on your block to point it out: The big mainstream political parties across the industrialized world are all blowing up at once. It’s quite extraordinary.
The U.S. Republican Party has blown up in all but name, going overnight from an internationalist, free-trade, deficit-hawk party to a protectionist, anti-immigrant, deficit-dove party — all to accommodate the instincts of Donald Trump and his base.
As the former House Speaker John Boehner noted: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.” Actually, it’s dead, but it’s not alone in the cemetery.
Italy’s last election ended with its mainstream center-left getting crushed, bringing to power instead a coalition of far-left, far-right populists, whose focus ranges from guaranteeing minimum income for Italy’s 11 percent unemployed to rebuffing immigrants and the European Union.
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ttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06
3/ Stephen Colbert is horrified Justice Kennedy is retiring......funny, almost comedic reporting.....
On Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert reacted to the announcement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy‘s retirement, and he wasn’t too thrilled about it.
“I never thought I’d say this… but you’re only 81!” Colbert exclaimed. “You know what they say, they say 81 is the new 79! And don’t tell me your mind’s going. Because I’ve read Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, you never had one!”
Colbert called the retirement of Justice Kennedy a “seismic political event” since he was the deciding vote in many SCOTUS rulings and the vacant seat gives President Donald Trump the opportunity to nominate a second conservative judge.
4/ Remember the story about the Playboy bunny and George Broidy, where it's pretty clear Trump was the father of her child and was the real boyfriend even though Broidy said it was him......the mainstream media won't touch it....
It has often been said, quite accurately, that President Donald Trump is a master of the “Big Lie” theory. This is the concept that the larger a falsehood is, the more likely people will be to believe it, partly because it is difficult for the average person or even cynics in the news media to comprehend the brazenness of its dishonesty.
Over the past month, a story which, if true, would probably be the largest scandal of Trump’s presidency, has been slowly coming together in a way that is both shockingly outrageous and astonishingly clear-cut. However, the vast majority of the news media has almost completely ignored it.
5/ Amazing political ad from a woman veteran running against a Texas Congressman.....two "wow" [and I mean "wow"] minutes....gives you chills!
6/ John Oliver evicerates Stuart Varney, a Fox News hack....two delicious minutes....
President Trump’s schmoozy summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was less than two weeks ago. That’s how interminably long the last week has been.
It was a week that saw several members of the Trump camp try to deflect attention away from their cruel “zero tolerance” immigration policy that’s separated thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and placed them in what some have described as child concentration camps—Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and presidential adviser Stephen Miller’s trips to Mexican restaurants; Melania Trump’s trolltastic Zara jacket; and, last but not least, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders weaponizing her official White House Twitter account against a family-owned restaurant.
7/ Michelle Goldberg in the Times with a great column.....
Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, stood nearby as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press
secretary, spoke to the press on June 18.
Last year, the white nationalist Richard Spencer was kicked out of his Virginia gym after another member confronted him and called him a Nazi. This incident did not generate a national round of hand-wringing about the death of tolerance, perhaps because most people tacitly agree that it’s O.K. to shun professional racists.
It’s a little more complicated when the professional racist is the president of the United States. The norms of our political life require a degree of bipartisan forbearance. But treating members of Donald Trump’s administration as ordinary public officials rather than pariahs does more to normalize bigotry than exercising alongside a white separatist.
8/ Bill Maher was roasted by the right wing and Fox for saying it would be worth having a recession to get rid of Trump....here he doubles down in an extremely good segment, five very funny minutes....
Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by going after his critics over remarks he made about “hoping” for a recession in order to “get rid” of President Donald Trump.
Earlier this month, Maher had a panel discussion about the economy and how the “bottom has to fall out at some point” and that he was “hoping for it.”
“Because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy,” Maher previously said. “So please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts people, but it’s either root for a recession or you lose your democracy.”
Maher faced some backlash for his remarks. And now, he’s fighting back
9/ No matter what Trump does, the base still loves him and are pissed at us for pointing out his problems....
Supporters cheered for President Trump during a campaign rally in Duluth, Minn., on Wednesday.
LEESBURG, Va. — Gina Anders knows the feeling well by now. President Trump says or does something that triggers a spasm of outrage. She doesn’t necessarily agree with how he handled the situation. She gets why people are upset.
But Ms. Anders, 46, a Republican from suburban Loudoun County, Va., with a law degree, a business career, and not a stitch of “Make America Great Again” gear in her wardrobe, is moved to defend him anyway.
“All nuance and all complexity — and these are complex issues — are completely lost,” she said, describing “overblown” reactions from the president’s critics, some of whom equated the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children and parents to history’s greatest atrocities.
“It makes me angry at them, which causes me to want to defend him to them more,” Ms. Anders said.
10/ Trump is now attacking the late night TV hosts....
Stephen Colbert had quite the reaction to President Trump after he blasted him and other late-night talk show hosts at a recent rally.
Trump took a moment during the South Carolina rally Monday to blast “lost soul” Jimmy Fallon, “no talent” Jimmy Kimmel, as well as the “lowlife” Late Show host.
Well, Colbert took exception to Trump’s assertion that the “guy on CBS” has “no talent.”
“Hey, Mr. President. I will not stand here and let you talk that way about James Corden!” Colbert exclaimed. He is very talented! He sings! He dances! Have you seen his Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney?'”
11/ Ignore the voice, Michelle Wolf is very funny in this five minute look at TV news...
Michelle Wolf‘s controversial performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner raised ire and made headlines. Now, the comedienne has a new Netflix show and she has made it clear she has no intentions of holding back or letting the media know what she thinks of their 24/7 coverage and ratings-grabbing drama.
In a video from her show The Break posted online today, Wolf blasted cable news for their dramatic makeover from the days when Walter Cronkite would simply state things like “The President has been shot.”
“News got a sexy glow-up,” she said, adding it now has “all the drama and substance and Botox of a Real Housewives wine fight.”
Then, she showed some examples of Don Lemon and his repeat guest, pro-Trumper Steve Cortes.
12/ We wish, we wish.....this was last week, now he has a Supreme Court nominee....
This Was the Week That Finally Broke
Trump’s Spell
He was defeated by the two things he hates most: immigrants, and the media.
Donald Trump can’t define or pronounce the word Manichaean, but he knows it when he sees it. For Trump, there are two types of people; Donald Trump, and losers, and the one thing Donald Trump can’t abide is a loser. Donald Trump lost this week on immigration, and across the board. He lost, doubled down, lost again, hocked his cufflinks, lost, tried to flip the table and was finally escorted out of the casino and had his knees broken in the parking lot when he couldn’t pay his marker.
Donald Trump was defeated this week by the two things he hates most: immigrants, and the media.
13/ Maureen Dowd's column this Sunday was about Ivanka, and you will learn a few things about the royal daughter.....
Ivanka Trump hasn’t had the influence on her father and his presidency that many people hoped for.
It was Ivanka’s nightmare.
Sipping vodka under chandeliers in a cool private club on the Lower East Side, the New York elite — the very ones Ivanka’s father scorned at a rally a few days ago for looking down on him even though he has “a much better apartment” and is “smarter” and “richer” — were shaking their well-coiffed heads over the fall of the first daughter.
Why had she stayed mute for so many days about the torment her father was inflicting on thousands of immigrant children? What will happen to her if Michael Cohen flips? Did she know she was as out as an outcast Edith Wharton character, doomed never to return to her privileged perch as a Manhattan society darling?
14/ A wonderful, charming story from a woman who just turned 60, and passes on some wisdom......
I was born on June 22, the second day of summer. It is also the birthday of Kris Kristofferson and Meryl Streep, both of whom, I’m told, I later resembled, although not at the same time.
Sixty is a big round number, seeming to mark, once and for all, the difference between middle age and the thing that comes after that. Who else turns 60 this year? Madonna, in August. Prince and Michael Jackson would have, too, if they’d made it.
As for me, I had always hoped I would arrive at this age with equal measures of joy and acceptance — grateful for what has mostly been a happy life, even if wistful that there are surely more days behind me now than ahead. I had imagined myself on this birthday sitting in an Adirondack chair, listening to all my intolerable 1970s music (Gentle Giant! The Mothers of Invention! Fairport Convention!) while my loved ones expressed their adoration, prog-rock notwithstanding.
Well, there was plenty of that last week. We had lobsters and corn and steamers on the deck here in Maine. My wife, Deedie, put some candles in a blueberry pie, and everyone sang their hearts out.
15/ Interesting story about South Florida's infestation of iguanas.....
South Florida’s not quite Jurassic Park, but it’s getting close.
Packs of green iguanas are swarming seawalls, roaming yards and parks, and leaving a path of destruction and filth in their wake. Like a shot of espresso, the hot summer sun has stoked activity in the cold-blooded creatures, which experts say may be at record numbers.
“This year is the most iguanas I’ve seen and I’ve been in business for nine years,” says Thomas Portuallo, owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Iguana Control. He says the invasive lizards are out of control with “many hundreds of thousands” creeping around Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fe
16/ The TV critic of Rolling Stone with the best shows of 2018....
Rob Sheffield's Picks for Best TV of 2018 So Far
Surreal sitcoms, psychedelic superhero shows and streaming reality
TV – Rob Sheffield on his favorite TV shows at the year's halfway point
Todays video - 'The Smart Janitor".....amusing, two minutes....
Todays medical joke
This is so true! They always ask at the doctor's office why you are there, and you have to answer in front of others what is wrong and sometimes it is embarrassing. There is nothing worse than a Doctor's Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients. I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.A 65-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk.The Receptionist said, 'Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?''There's something wrong with my dick', he replied.The receptionist became irritated and said, 'You shouldn't come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that. ''Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,' he said.The Receptionist replied; 'Now you've caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.'The man replied, 'You shouldn't ask people questions in a roomful of strangers, if the answer could embarrass anyone.The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, 'Yes??''There's something wrong with my ear,' he stated.The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice.. 'And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?''I can't piss out of it,' he replied.The waiting room erupted in laughter...Todays senior joke
A retired older couple returned to a Mercedes dealership where the salesman has just sold the car they had been interested in to a beautiful, leggy, busty blonde in a mini skirt and a halter top.The old man was visibly upset. He spoke to the salesman sharply, "Young man, I thought you said you would hold that car till we raised the $55,000 asking price.Yet I just overheard you close the deal for $45,000 to the lovely young lady there. And if I remember right, you had insisted there was no way you could discount this model."The salesman took a deep breath, cleared his throat and reached for a large glass of water.Well, what can I tell you? She had the cash ready, didn't need any financing help, and, Sir, just look at her, how could I resist?", replied the grinning salesman sheepishly.Just then the young woman approached the senior couple and gave the car keys to the old man.There you go," she said. "I told you I could get that idiot to lower the price.See you later Dad. Happy Father's day!
