1/ One of the major tragedies of our time is wholesale corruption of the Republican Party....Eric Levitz tells us why....
The Republican Party’s chief executive confers with its top shareholders. Photo: Richard Ellis/Alamy
When the Republican Party took full control of the federal government in 2017, a drug overdose epidemic had just killed more Americans in a single year than the Vietnam War had claimed over its entire duration. Wage growth for working-class families was tepid, while the costs of housing, health care, and higher education were soaring. Every month, more than 10 million Americans were cutting back on basic nutrition to make rent; every year, tens of thousands were being forced into bankruptcy to cover medical costs.
2/ OK - settle in, get yourself a drinkie, a few tissues and watch this powerful, passionate and moving tribute to John McCain from his daughter Meghan.....17 minutes of wow....sniffle....
In an equally empowering and emotional tribute, Arizona Sen. John McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, honored her late father on Saturday as a great warrior, American and father who was “defined by love,” not politics.
“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly,” she said at the memorial service held at Washington National Cathedral. The audience included former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“He was a hero. He was a congressman. He was a senator. He was a nominee for president of the United States,” she said. “These are all the titles on a wall of a life well lived. He was a great man.”
3/ Nice and quiet, humming away in the background is the theft of our government by Trump's nest of vipers.....
Betsy DeVos is one of these evil bastards....
Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Republican Party’s economic policies have grown so corrupt and regressive as to be literally unbelievable. In focus groups, Democratic operatives have found that swing voters will often dismiss simple descriptions of the GOP’s self-avowed fiscal priorities as partisan attacks — after all, how could any major political party actually favor slashing Medicare benefits to lower taxes on the one percent?
Alas, a plain recitation of the Trump administration’s agenda on student debt is sure to strike many Americans as even more implausible.
But before we examine the president’s (absurdly corrupt) “college affordability” policies, let’s take a quick tour of the crisis that he inherited.
4/ Tim Conway tells two elephant stories on the Carol Burnett show....incredibly funny.....four minutes.....
5/ Tongue in cheek, but an excellent column from Thomas Friedman....
Sept. 3 (AP) — President Trump stopped his motorcade in Manhattan today, jumped out of his limousine and shot a man on Fifth Avenue who was shouting anti-Trump epithets. The shooting was recorded by the White House press pool as well as by dozens of bystanders with cellphones and by security cameras in the area. When asked for his reaction, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “We will need more information than is available at this point.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said through pursed lips that he “was not going to comment on every up and down with this president.”House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he already had information indicating that the man whom Trump shot “worked for the Clinton Foundation and may have been a relative of former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.”
6/ A lot of truth in this one from Tom Tomorrow.....
7/ Wow - Umair defines Capitalism, and if there's a flaw in his logic I can't see it.....a powerful, insightful and depressing article that's a "must read"......
Every so often, when I write about capitalism, I get a furious response, from a certain kind of man (it’s always a man): “dude, you don’t even know what capitalism!! I can’t believe this!! You’re so dumb! ”
Translation: Mommy!! Umair’s being mean to me again! Calm down, Tucker. Let’s think about it.
America is something like history’s greatest experiment in capitalism. In a sense, we’re lucky to have it — it’s rare that a society devotes itself furiously, single-mindedly, one-dimensionally to an ideology, rejects the world, and pursues its own course. Here we have something truly rare and unique, which doesn’t happen often in social thinking: a perfect experiment to test the hypothesis — what would happen if a society only ever chose capitalism?
Or, one I like better: what would happen if capitalism were given total freedom to be itself?
8/ A long interview with Stephen Colbert by Rolling Stone......insightful....he's a "normal" comedian!
Not long ago, Colbert made it through one of the biggest artistic challenges of his life. The Colbert Report had seen 10 years of steady success, but his new show stumbled hard in its initial months, earning skeptical reviews and falling well behind Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show in the ratings. As Colbert explains over two hours of conversation the following day, he managed to turn the ship around midcourse, but not without some pain. Dampening his control-freak tendencies and belatedly hiring a showrunner, CBS News vet Chris Licht, was just the start.
Colbert is 54 years old — “a little old for this job,” he says. But it’s hard to imagine pulling off his turnaround without the layers of craft he built over 11 years on The Daily Show and nearly 1,500 episodes’ worth of the high-wire comedic feat that was The Colbert Report.This past season, The Late Show was the most-watched show in late night, with segments going viral again and again. And if there has been some anxiety along the way, the solution is simple, he says: “You keep working.”
9/ The original "Born To Create Drama".....one minute...
10/ All of the tributes to John McCain center on the man's integrity, bravery and his service to this country. But as Matt Taibbi points out let's not forget he was an extreme war hawk....
Good story....
I was surprised to hear the great Stevie Wonder — the creator of the searing anti-war, anti-Vietnam song “Front Line” — paid tribute to John McCain in the middle of a concert this past weekend.
On one hand it made sense, as Wonder has always been about love and forgiveness, and he’s rarely had a bad word for anyone. But he is also a political voice, who sings passionately about America’s inability to reckon with its violent nature.
That 1983 song, “Front Line,” describes a phenomenon we don’t talk about much: Our unthinking worship of all things military, and our unparalleled ability to quickly forget military atrocities, so as to embrace the inevitable next invasion
The “Front Line” protagonist is an African-American Vietnam vet, but Wonder might as well be singing about McCain
Back in the world, the paper reads today
Another war is in the brewing…
They laugh and say quit braggin’ ’bout the war you should have never been in
Another war is in the brewing…
They laugh and say quit braggin’ ’bout the war you should have never been in
But my mind is so brainwashed I’d probably go back and do it again.
11/ Paul Krugman with a damn good column.....and a scary picture...
Admirers of President Trump saw him speak last week at an Ohio Republican Party dinner.
Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a friend of mine — an expert on international relations — made a joke: “Now that Eastern Europe is free from the alien ideology of Communism, it can return to its true historical path — fascism.” Even at the time, his quip had a real edge.
And as of 2018 it hardly seems like a joke at all. What Freedom House calls illiberalism is on the rise across Eastern Europe. This includes Poland and Hungary, both still members of the European Union, in which democracy as we normally understand it is already dead.
12/ You may have seen Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen's new lawyer on TV recently.....but what you probably don't know is that he's not a very nice chap.....here's the background on this hired gun.....
Something most people don’t know about Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, is that he’s also currently representing a Ukrainian oligarch whose name is often linked to one of the most powerful mobsters in the world.
For the past four years, Davis — a 72-year-old former special counsel to former President Bill Clinton — has served as a registered foreign agent for Dmitry Firtash, who has been fighting to avoid extradition to Chicago, where he faces charges of international racketeering and money laundering. In registering with the Justice Department as Firtash’s foreign agent, Davis said his firm was being paid $80,000 a month — or about a million dollars a year — by a man described by prosecutors as an “upper-echelon” associate of Russian organized crime. The case against Firtash “seeks to protect this country, its commerce and its citizens from the corrupting influence and withering effects of international organized crime,” prosecutors wrote last year.
13/ This climate story is both a call to arms to face the most serious crisis mankind has ever faced, and a treatise on why we are doomed....read it, and decide which option will come true...
Signs of a world in turmoil are not hard to find. People are increasingly feeling the effects of rapid climate change. Cities boil in more than 120-degree heat, California burns and the Arctic thaws. Meanwhile, biodiversity loss is reaching terrifying levels, with animals going extinct at about 1,000 times the natural rate. In addition, as societies, we’re facing increased inequality, unemployment and soaring personal debt levels.
14/ An interesting story.....now I understand why I never buy Red Delicious apples....
For more than 50 years, America produced more Red Delicious apples than any other. But that may soon change. “It’s the beginning of the end,” an apple historian said.
After more than a half-century as America’s most-grown apple, the Red Delicious is on track to be ousted this year by a sweet, juicy, young upstart: the Gala.
That’s according to the U.S. Apple Association, a trade group, which released its production forecast for 2018 last week.
“It’s the beginning of the end,” said Tom Burford, an apple historian, orchard consultant and admitted Red Delicious detractor. “How are you going to market a tasteless apple when the consumer has tasted so many good apples?”
Despite his bias, Mr. Burford has a point: The decline of the Red Delicious, with its
mild flavor and often mealy texture, can be credited to a shift in consumer
preferences toward apples that are crunchier, crisper and sweeter.
15/ The best September movies [with trailers]....some incredibly violent ones this month....
September brings the merciful end of blockbuster season and a beginning to the merciless onslaught of awards season. That means you get Robert Redford’s final performance, Matthew McConaughey aiming for Oscar-sanctified sleaziness and the makers of TV’s This Is Us letting a host of famous names mount a full-frontal assault on your tear ducts. Plus you can choose from name-driven documentaries (will it be M.I.A. or Michael Moore?) and outrageously violent fever dreams (demon-killer Nic Cage or gun-toting teenyboppers). All this and the return of the Predator! Here’s your moviegoing guide for the month.
Todays Jewish joke
A man tells a Rabbi: “I have a strong desire to live to eternity, what am I supposed to do?”
“Get married,” replies the Rabbi.
“It’s that simple? Would that allow me to live forever?”
“No, but the desire will disappear.”
Todays Polish joke
A customer asked, "In what aisle can I find the Polish sausage?"
The clerk asks, "Are you Polish?"
The guy, clearly offended, says, "Yes I am. But let me ask you something.
If I had asked for Italian sausage, would you ask me if I was Italian?
Or if I had asked for German Bratwurst, would you ask me if I was German?
Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog would you ask me if I was Jewish?
Or if I had asked for a Taco, would you ask if I was Mexican?
Or if I asked for some Whiskey, would you ask if I was Irish?"
If I had asked for Italian sausage, would you ask me if I was Italian?
Or if I had asked for German Bratwurst, would you ask me if I was German?
Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog would you ask me if I was Jewish?
Or if I had asked for a Taco, would you ask if I was Mexican?
Or if I asked for some Whiskey, would you ask if I was Irish?"
The clerk says, "No, I probably wouldn't."
The guy says, "Well then, because I asked for Polish sausage, why did you ask me if I'm Polish?"
The clerk replied, "Because you're in Ace Hardware."
Sods laws....
1. Law of Mechanical Repair -
After your hands become coated with grease,
your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to
pee. 2. Law of Gravity -
Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped,
will roll to the least accessible place in the
universe.3. Law of Probability -
The probability of being watched is directly
proportional to the stupidity of your act.4. Law of Random Numbers -
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a
busy signal; someone always answers.5. Variation Law -
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one
you were in will always move faster than the
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