1/ A shrewd observation about Trump from Jonathan Chait.....
Photo: WIN MCNAMEE/Getty Images
The news of a wave of mail bombs sent to various critics of President Trump was a genuinely frightening moment, and in such moments modern Americans instinctively turn to the president to perform the office’s role of ceremonial head of state. Much of the cable-news chatter focused on whether, or for how many minutes, Trump could stick to the dignified script of denouncing violence and advocating civility. The unsurprising answer was: not very long.
But the important issue here is not Trump’s inability to convincingly advocate civility for an entire news cycle. Indeed, civility is not really the question at all. The issue is Trump’s conviction that he should not be subjected to any scrutiny or criticism.
2/ Three incendiary and wonderful minutes of the Gillum/Desantis debate...."A Hit Dog Will Holler"....
Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, a Democrat who has been the target of bald-faced racism over the course of his campaign, was blistering in his criticism of his GOP opponent during a Wednesday night debate.
Gillum, who would be the state’s first black governor if elected, came just short of calling Ron DeSantis a racist as the former congressman was grilled on his ties to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
“I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist,” Gillum said.
3/ Matt Taibbi with a story saying don't rush to judgement with the rest of the media about the pipe bombs....yes it's probably who you think it is, but wait till the FBI finds the bastards....
Explosive devices and/or suspicious packages were sent to a number of major Democratic Party-linked figures this week, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, philanthropist and financier George Soros, former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and former CIA chief John Brennan.
The offices of the San Diego Union-Tribune were also evacuated after “suspicious packages” were found, and a device was removed from the Time Warner center in Manhattan, home to CNN.
Early news stories drew immediate connections to aggressive and irresponsible rhetoric from the right, including from President Trump. The Guardian noted that Soros has long been the target of right-wing paranoia, with Trump claiming Soros paid protesters against the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The New York Times story about the incidents was quick to draw a similar connection:
4/ Sam Bee with her opener last night.....eight very amusing minutes, with some great zingers....
“Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee mocked Fox News on Wednesday for accidentally writing “white power” instead of “white powder” in a news alert.
“Suspicious package sent to CNN contained ‘some kind’ of ’white power,’” read the conservative network’s now-deleted alert about the suspicious packages sent to its rival media organization and leading Democrats.
“I don’t mean to be critical right now, but autocorrect doesn’t change ‘white powder’ to ‘white power’ unless you type ‘white power’ a lot,” Bee said.
5/ Great article from Rolling Stone on how Trump and his toadies are killing our planet....
Nobody had high hopes for Trump’s environmental policy. He had, after all, said climate changewas a hoax and sent out more than 100 skeptic tweets even before running for president. But the speed, recklessness and spite with which his administration has sought to upend environmental protections has been breathtaking. Climate change aside, even the common-sense need to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink is being challenged as the administration has unleashed a slew of regulatory rollbacks. And his science-denying, fossil-fuel-fetishising policies couldn’t come at a worse time — the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just published its most dire report yet, advising that if we don’t get to zero carbon emissions by 2050, we’ll blow past a 1.5 C temperature rise, the threshold for disaster.
6/ Another brilliant Ted Cruz ad, directed by Richard Linklater.....one minute...."Ted"....
7/ Seth Meyers on the pipe bombs, Lou Dobbs and the migrant caravan.....an amusing 8 minutes....
President Donald Trump is trying to scare as many people as he can with lies about the caravan of migrants from Honduras ― and he’s having some success with that, Seth Meyers said.
On Wednesday, the “Late Night” host discussed a New York Times article that quoted a 75-year-old Republican woman from northern Minnesota who was afraid that migrant gangs would take over people’s summer lake homes.
“We have a lot of people who live on lakes in the summer and winter someplace else,” Meyers quoted the woman as saying. “When they come back in the spring their house would be occupied.”
8/ Paul Krugman with a very good column.....
When the Trump tax cut was on the verge of being enacted, I called it
and when they did, Republicans would once again pretend to care about
debt and demand cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Sure enough, the deficit is soaring. And this week Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, after declaring the surge in red ink “very disturbing,” called for, you guessed it, cuts in “Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.” He also suggested that Republicans might repeal the Affordable Care Act — taking away health care from tens of millions — if they do well in the midterm elections
9/ Trevor Noah's brilliant way how blacks can have their votes counted....register as Republicans!
Trevor Noah offered a hilarious scheme to fight voter suppression on “The Daily Show” Thursday. Sure, it might sound mad, but just hear him out.
“Every black person in America needs to register as a Republican,” he said.
Noah used the gubernatorial race in Georgia between Democrat Stacey Abrams, attempting to become the first black woman elected governor, and Republican Brian Kemp as his jumping-off point.
10/ David Wallace-Wells with a new horror Trump is about to unleash on us - small particulate air pollution....
An excellent story....
The effects of small-particulate pollution are going to get worse with climate change. Photo: Jed Share/Kaoru Share//Getty
The list of crimes Donald Trump has committed against the planet, in just two years, is already so impeachably long that his slippery-fish climate denial registers as hardly more than a footnote. “I have a natural instinct for science,” the president bragged to the Associated Press Tuesday, a week after the U.N.’s IPCC raised the alarm on global warming that is much faster, and more horrifying, than it had acknowledged before. “And I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture,” said Trump. On Sunday, Lesley Stahl pressed the president on his contention that there were scientists saying that extreme weather had been worse in the past: “Who says that? ‘They say’?” Trump responded, defensively, “People say. People say.”
11/ Stephen Colbert on Trump and climate change....four good minutes....
With hurricanes regularly thrashing America’s coastlines, Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday that he wished President Trump would believe the scientific consensus on climate change. But Trump has made it clear he doesn’t.
“I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture,” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“After a year of massive storms causing untold damage, and our glaciers just shrinking in every direction, Trump was still ambivalent on the concept of climate change. He told the reporter, ‘You have scientists on both sides of the issue.’ That is true, there are scientists on both sides. On one side, all the scientists. On the other, one guy who runs a blog called RealTrueAmericanScienceEagle.
12/ Amber Ruffin is one of Seth Meyer's writers, and she riffs for three minutes on Megan Kelly's "blackface" comments.....amusing....
13/ The wonderful Tom Tomorrow....
14/ Trevor Noah with three minutes of unscripted jokes between takes of The "Daily Show"....he's funny!
The 2016 presidential election was like a contest for control of an airplane’s cockpit, says Trevor Noah.
“The Daily Show” host said in a behind-the-scenes bit released Wednesday that President Barack Obama had been like “swaggy pilot” who had “everything under control.”
“Obama spoiled a lot of people because of how competent he was,” Noah joked.
15/ Good TV - "The Bodyguard", on Netflix.....the British hit show.....Times review...
Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes in “Bodyguard.” The thriller, a big hit in Britain, arrives on Netflix on Wednesday.
The British writer Jed Mercurio builds television shows the way the Cenobites build puzzle boxes in the “Hellraiser” movies. Get too close to one, and its intricate mechanism shoots its hooks into you, pulling you through a portal into a gyre of suspense from which there’s no escape.
Mercurio’s most successful medium is a mash-up of the police procedural and the political conspiracy thriller, and his storytelling trademarks include severe psychological duress, inappropriate sex among public servants and the ease with which major characters are killed off. Most noticeably, he strives to keep every conspiratorial option open and every possible suspect in play for as long as possible. There are definite heroes and villains, but you might not know which is which until just before the final credits
Todays high school joke
Boy: The principal is so dumb!
Girl: Do you know who I am?
Boy: No...
Girl: I am the principal's daughter!
Boy: Do you know who I am?
Girl: No...
Boy: Good! *Walks away*
Girl: Do you know who I am?
Boy: No...
Girl: I am the principal's daughter!
Boy: Do you know who I am?
Girl: No...
Boy: Good! *Walks away*
Todays thinking person's jokes
To start your day off in an intellectual way, here are a few of life’s
mysteries to ponder over coffee.
1. Ever wonder about those people who spend $5.00 each on those little bottles of Evian water?
Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE
2 . If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea does that mean that one
person enjoys it?
3 . There are three religious truths:
a. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
b. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
c. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or Hooters.
4 . If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
5 . Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale
bread to begin with?
6 . If Fed Ex and U.P.S. were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
7 . Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?
8 . What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?
9 . I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole
lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me ... they're cramming for their final exam.
10 . If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly
are the others here for?
11 . Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?
12 . Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?
mysteries to ponder over coffee.
1. Ever wonder about those people who spend $5.00 each on those little bottles of Evian water?
Try spelling Evian backwards: NAIVE
2 . If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea does that mean that one
person enjoys it?
3 . There are three religious truths:
a. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
b. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.
c. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or Hooters.
4 . If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
5 . Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale
bread to begin with?
6 . If Fed Ex and U.P.S. were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
7 . Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?
8 . What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?
9 . I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole
lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me ... they're cramming for their final exam.
10 . If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly
are the others here for?
11 . Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?
12 . Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?
13 . At income tax time, did you ever notice: When you put the two words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells ... 'THEIRS'?
Todays blond joke
While her husband was at work, a blonde decided to paint their living room.
After her husband arrives home, he finds his wife lying on the floor in a pool of sweat while wearing a parka and a mink. He asked her what she was doing.
She said, "I wanted to prove to you that not all blonde women are dumb, and I wanted to do it by painting the living room."
He says that he was impressed at the good job she had done, but asked, "Why are you wearing two coats?
She replied, "I read the directions on the paint can, and they said, ''For best results, put on two coats!'"
