1/ The true legacy of Trump will be the judges he has and will appoint.....all of them extreme right wing conservatives, and whether you realize it or not these crazies will influence your lives....
One evening last November, Don McGahn, the top lawyer in the Trump White House, walked onstage in an opulent ballroom at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. He looked out at the audience of several hundred judges, lawyers, clerks and law students seated under a pair of glittering chandeliers that hung from a ceiling accented in gold. McGahn, who rarely gives interviews or speeches, had come to speak at the annual conference of the Federalist Society, the powerful network of conservative lawyers, and the occasion felt like a homecoming and a victory lap
2/ John Oliver with a good riff on the idiot Giuliani.....2 minutes...
John Oliver took on Rudy Giuliani‘s wild appearance on Meet the PressSunday, when the Trump lawyer declared “truth isn’t truth.”
Giuliani told NBC News anchor Chuck Todd that “truth isn’t truth” when trying to make a point about people making contradictory statements in statements to Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation.
When Todd called him out on the gaffe, Giuliani protested, “Don’t do this to me.
Two separate but linked pieces about how climate change has become such a sticking point for conservatives - both articles refer to the right's anger and virulence to any attempts to pass meaningful climate legislation, i.e. they know they're wrong, but blame the left instead of changing with the facts......
3/ Paul Krugman with an excellent column on Republicans....
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Truth isn’t truth.
Rudy Giuliani’s latest bon mot is a reminder, if anyone needed it, that calling the Trump administration Orwellian isn’t hyperbole, it’s just a statement of fact. Like the ruling party in “1984,” Donald Trump operates on the principle that truth — whether it involves inauguration crowd sizes, immigrant crime or economic performance — is what he says it is. And that truth can change at a moment’s notice.
For example, not long ago, Republicans insisted that Russia was our greatest threat, and that Barack Obama was betraying America by not confronting Vladimir Putin more forcefully; now Putin is one of the good guys, and the base has gone along with the change. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
4/ A story on why Australia, the country most affected by climate change in the world can't get anything climate-related done at all......clue - follow the money....
A lone tree near a water trough in a drought-stricken paddock on the outskirts of Walgett, in New South Wales, Australia, in July
SYDNEY, Australia — Mile after mile of the Great Barrier Reef is dying amid rising ocean temperatures. Hundreds of bush fires are blazing across Australia’s center, in winter, partly because of a record-breaking drought.
The global scientific consensus is clear: Australia is especially vulnerable to climate change.
And yet on Monday, Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, abandoned a modest effort to reduce energy emissions under pressure from conservatives in his party. And on Tuesday, those same conservatives just missed toppling his government.
What on earth is going on?
5/ Bill Maher's opener last week.....pretty good, Omarosa and Fox News....five minutes....
HBO
“Not such a good week for the president,” Bill Maher announced at the top of Friday night’s Real Time. “He lost his one black friend.”
Yes, the comedian began the latest edition of his HBO program by addressing the soap opera that’s captivated the media’s attention: Omarosa’s roaring rampage of revenge against her former employer, President Donald Trump.
The reality-TV villainess turned senior White House aide to Trump is promoting her new tell-all book Unhinged, and has been dropping Easter eggs—in the form of tape recordings of private conversations with the president and various other White House officials.
6/ A reality check for you.....the blue wave may be limited. A serious story from the Times....
Why Even a Blue Wave Could Have Limited Gains
The divergent geography of 2018 means we will really have two midterm elections, and one favors Republicans.
The proper way to view the 2018 midterms might not be as one event, but as two very different elections playing out at once. It’s almost Mars vs. Venus: The Senate hinges on red, rural states where Democrats are on defense. But the House will be decided by swing, suburban seats where Republicans are highly vulnerable.
These radically different maps could produce dramatically divergent results — and make Congress even more toxic and adversarial in 2019.
It's hard to believe, but true: If every state’s and district’s election results on Nov. 6 were a uniform eight-point swing in the Democrats’ direction from the 2016 presidential result, Democrats would gain 44 House seats — almost twice the 23 they need to control the chamber. But with that same eight-point swing, the party would lose four Senate seats, leaving them six seats short of a majority.
7/ John Oliver with a most interesting piece of comedic reporting about Trumps trade war.....it's funny, he reveals the advisor who is leading Trump and you will learn something about what a disaster it is......
A very good 19 minutes....
What: The only way to explain Trump’s potentially disastrous trade policies back to him that has any chance of getting through at all.
Who: John Oliver and the team at Last Week Tonight.
Why we care: “Trade wars are good and easy to win,” is something the actual President of the United States actually tweeted before plunging the country into a regrettable, unnecessary trade war that it is so far losing bigly. At the start of the year, the U.S. faced tariffs on just 18 products total. At this point, however, after all of Trumps bluster and the tariffs he’s imposed, the U.S. is now looking at tariffs on over 10,000 products.
8/ Timothy Egan with an interesting column on a huge group of us that are completely ignored by politicians......
The Coming Green Wave
This silent majority will no longer stand by as the Trump administration tries to destroy a century of bipartisan love of the land.
If anger were a volcano, and you let loose all the rage felt by people over the daily assaults on public land by the Trump administration, you’d have an eruption with the fury of Mount St. Helens.
And if just one unorganized voting segment, the 60 million bird-watchers of America, sent a unified political message this fall, you’d have a political block with more than 10 times the membership of the National Rifle Association.
9/ Apparently Ivanka has a very thin skin - this SNL skit got her really upset......yesssssssss......
Scarlett Johansson. Photo: NBC/Saturday Night Live
If you have a healthy sense of humor, perhaps seeing yourself as the object of a pretty scathing SNL sketch would be a weird honor, even if that sketch in question paints you as an anti-feminist who’s wholly complicit in the ongoing destruction of our nation. Too bad Ivanka Trump doesn’t feel that way. Even if she was played by a wigged-up Scarlett Johansson! In Omarosa Manigault Newman’s new memoir Unhinged, Omarosa writes that the First Daughter was apparently put into a tizzy by SNL’s “Complicit” perfume sketch that aired last year, so much so she could barely stop talking about it in subsequent days. (Remember, it’s the scent for women who could stop all of this, but won’t!
10/ Gail Collins is a columnist for the Times who specializes in sarcasm......and delivers in this amusing piece on the horrid Betsy DeVos.....
As education secretary, Betsy DeVos has been working hard, doing her best to protect for-profit schools
Today let’s talk about the evil deeds of Betsy DeVos.
We’ve been distracted, what with Omarosa and the Manafort trial and that $90 million military parade we were so looking forward to. At the same time, our secretary of education has been busy, working to protect for-profit colleges from their students.
Yes! We keep being told that Donald Trump was elected because working-class Americans were worried that their kids wouldn’t be able to move up in the world. And now DeVos is making it easier for those very same kids to be cheated when they try to prepare for a career.
It’s quite a story, just as DeVos is quite a gal.
11/ Most interesting story from NPR - they say the Miami real estate boom is fueled by foreign investors who are fully aware of climate change and rising sea levels, but believe they can sell their investments before the market crashes.....well good luck with that!
12/ Tom Tomorrow.....
13/ Nothing political - just a really interesting story on beekeeping and how important it is to agriculture.....
OK there is some climate politics - bees are vital to the California almond industry, the sector that uses 11 gallons of scarce water for every almond....
But fascinating anyway....
Beekeepers refilling sugar syrup (honey bee feed) on an almond orchard near Madera, Calif.
Every February, white petals blanket first the almond trees, then the floor of the central valley, an 18,000-square-mile expanse of California that begins at the stretch of highway known as the Grapevine just south of Bakersfield and reaches north to the foothills of the Cascades. The blooms represent the beginning of the valley’s growing season each year: Almond trees are first to bud, flower and fruit. At the base of the trunks sit splintered boxes — some marked with numbers, some with names, some with insignias — stacked two boxes high on a wooden pallet that fits four stacks. Inside the boxes are bees, dancing in circles and figure-eights and sometimes just waggling. With almond season comes bee season. Everyone in the valley knows when it’s bee season. There are bee-specific truckers; motels occupied by seasonal workers; annual dinners to welcome the out-of-towners; weathered pickups with license plates from Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Florida parked in front of orchards at all hours of the night. And those ubiquitous boxes.
14/ Of course we need a "Floriduh" story.....a scene at Orlando airport....video too....
Todays rabbi joke
At Friday night services, Morris went to his friend Irving and said,
"Irving,I need a favor - I'm sleeping with the rabbi's wife.
Can you hold him in temple for an hour after services for me?"
"Irving,I need a favor - I'm sleeping with the rabbi's wife.
Can you hold him in temple for an hour after services for me?"
Irving not very fond of the idea, but being Morris' lifelong friend, he reluctantly agreed.
After services, he struck up a conversation with the rabbi asking him all sorts of stupid
questions in an effort to keep him occupied.
questions in an effort to keep him occupied.
After some time, the wise rabbi became suspicious and asked,
"Irving what are you really up to with all this?"
"Irving what are you really up to with all this?"
Irving, filled with feelings of guilt and remorse, confessed to the rabbi "I'm sorry Rabbi,
my friend Morris is sleeping with your wife right now and asked me to keep you occupied."
my friend Morris is sleeping with your wife right now and asked me to keep you occupied."
The wise rabbi smiled and, putting a brotherly hand on Irving's shoulder, said
"Irving I think you'd better hurry home, my wife died two years ago!"
"Irving I think you'd better hurry home, my wife died two years ago!"
Todays Native American joke.....
It's late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in South Dakota asked their new chief
if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'
'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the meteorologist at the weather service responded.
So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?'
'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going to be a very cold winter.'
The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?'
'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'
'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked.
The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting a shitload of firewood'
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