1/ The perceptive wisdom of Frank Rich on the battles to come.....
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, the results and implications of the 2018 midterm elections.
In the run-up to yesterday’s election, amid an escalation in political and ethnic violence, Donald Trump and the Republican Party sent voters to the polls with a message of fear and racial resentment. Will anything that happened yesterday make the party rethink that strategy?
Trump is the Republican Party.
2/ Watch Trump lose his temper and berate CNN's Jim Acosta....two painful minutes....he doesn't think he should be questioned about anything....
Acosta had asked the president about the racist, anti-immigration ad from his re-election campaign that was subsequently banned from airing by Facebook, NBC, Fox, and elsewhere. Trump tore into the journalist after he refused to sit down.
“I’ll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” said Trump to Acosta. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.”
3/ This corrupt and racist mini-Trump is now our Governor....Floriduh has done it again, but worst of all is the realization that a Trumpism has so much support in this state - 51%, mostly in the rural areas and small towns....like Mount Dora. Cities like Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa are blue, but everywhere else is deep red.
A very good article on how DeSantis slimed his way through....and what he promised....
And by the way goodbye to anything on climate change....
Two years ago, Florida was the first state to suggest that things had gone horribly wrong for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, and that an upset of historic proportions was in the works. On Tuesday, Florida delivered yet another verdict on the state of American politics: Trumpism is alive and well in 2018.
That judgment came in the form of a victory for Ron DeSantis, the Trump-loving Republican candidate for Florida governor. CNN called the race for DeSantis at 11 o’clock Eastern on Tuesday. The ex-GOP congressman had a lead of 79,000 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting, barely edging out Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee who was vying to be the first black governor in Florida’s 173-year history.
4/ The great Tom Tomorrow....
5/ I know you are sick and tired of reading about climate change etc. etc., but we try to give you the facts here at DDD so you can at least have some idea of what's coming down the pike. Which is why it's important for you to read this assessment of the recent IPCC report on the warming of the planet. It's coming faster than you can possibly imagine, and this article from David Wallace-Wells could help you make decisions about where to live and how to make yourself safe in the coming decade....
Anyway, a "must read" for intelligent people.....
You now have permission to freak out. Photo: George Rose/Getty Images
Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed — initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world’s most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands’ representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming “genocide.”
The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 — echoes the charge. “Amplifies” may be the better term.
6/ Two SNL ad spoof's, both hysterical and two minutes each.....
HuckaPM, how Sarah Huckabee-Sanders sleeps at night.....laugh out loud funny....
Democratic enthusiasm for Tuesday's potential "blue wave"....two funny and in retrospect pretty painful minutes....
This sketch will get a lot of attention between now and Election Night, and will either be seen as a prophecy or a last deep breath into a paper bag come Wednesday. Regardless, it’s a sign of how far the show has come in terms of wrestling with its own naiveté heading into the last elections, and how strong the show has become in depicting Trump’s America without having to depict Trump himself. No matter which way things go Tuesday, you can’t say SNL isn’t smug in its assertions about what will unfold.
7/ And what irony after you watch the Dem. skit.....a story from Politico....
On the eve of the midterms, President Donald Trump’s approval is falling, young voters are energized, and Republicans look poised to lose their House majority.
It’s enough to make Democrats nervous, miserable wrecks.
8/ Sam Bee on anti-Semitism....an excellent seven minutes....
On Wednesday night, Samantha Bee slammed President Donald Trumpand the Republican Party for “tolerating” anti-Semtitism.
Bee began by blasting the White House’s response to the horrific synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, pointing to their attacks on the media and portraying the president as the “true victim.”
The Full Frontal host said the Republican Party not only “tolerates” anti-Semitism but “benefits” from it as well.
“Mainstream conservatives would never say anything negative about Jewish people outright but there are other words they use like ‘coastal elites,’ ‘globalists,’ ‘Hollywood liberals’ or ‘Jon Leibowitz‘ [aka Jon Stewart],” Bee told her viewers. “And currently the biggest, loudest dog whistle is George Soros.”
9/ Benjamin Studebaker with "The Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Warren".....a fascinating and pretty convincing case for not supporting her for 2020....
There was a time when everyone on the left in the United States liked Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), when she seemed like the most left wing option available in a sea of swamp creatures. Warren gave the left the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011, and in return she became its darling–the person everyone on the left wanted to see run for president, the person everyone on the left hoped could someday win. This is the story of how that changed.
Today, party insiders increasingly believe Warren is politically tactless and young left-wing activists increasingly believe she is an obstacle for the left rather than ally. This happened in stages.
10/ Another Floriduh story from Carl Hiaasen - this is the corrupt bastard you just elected Agriculture Commissioner.....
The races for governor and the U.S. Senate have grabbed most of the attention – all candidates promise that they’re anti-algae – but not far down the ballot is a contest that could have an irreversible impact on what our beaches and waterways will look (and smell) like in the future.
A Republican named Matt Caldwell is running for commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, one of the silliest mash-up titles in Tallahassee. The job is known as “Ag Commissioner” and is historically protective of farmers, ranchers and citrus growers.
https://www.miamiherald.com/
https://www.miamiherald.com/
11/ A poignant essay on the reality of poverty in North Carolina and the effects of Hurricane Florence, but it could be anywhere USA....
Before the storm, I called Alyeesha — a friend of a friend. She’d stayed at my house a few years ago when she was escaping a bad relationship. She lives Down East, back in her hometown in Carteret County, North Carolina, in a small one-room house that was her grandmother’s sharecropping cabin. She rents the cabin from the man who now owns the land; it is not hers.
I’ve been there once. She had a mattress on the floor, a sofa from a Rent-a-Center, and a picture of her grandmother on the wall. I wanted to let her know that if she was evacuating from the hurricane, there was a sofa waiting for her here.
“Naw, I’m going to ride it out,” she said.
12/ You may or may not have heard the term "Brexit crashout", but get ready because it's coming. Interesting.....
Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images
Worried by gyrating stock markets? Spooked by the ten year anniversary of Lehman’s collapse? Time to stop fixating on emerging economies like Turkey, or Trump’s trade wars hurting global growth, and turn your focus to the U.K. — which is even now, after last week’s summit, on a path to the worst sort of Brexit, a disorderly “no deal” in which the U.K. leaves the European Union with no agreement at all on March 29. That means no plan and no disruption-reducing transition period — which in turn means chaos at U.K. and E.U. ports, food and medication shortages, and, if we’re unlucky, an eventual U.K. financial crisis for which we’re extremely unprepared. And there isn’t a scenario that has a decent chance of changing that trajectory.
13/ Republicans keep saying how well the economy is doing, but even if this is true it doesn't trickle down to actual wages for working people.....
Really interesting analysis in the Times of how badly real people are going.....
Unemployment Looks Like 2000 Again. But Wage Growth Doesn’t.
Trying to solve an economic mystery.
Lots of measures are telling us that the United States labor market is doing well. In some cases, very well.
Most prominently, the unemployment rate has fallen steadily over the last nine years. It dipped to 3.7 percent in September, and it has averaged 4 percent over the past year, the same as it did at the economic peak just before the 2001 recession.
14/ Amusing and different - "The President Show" with what happened to Trump in 2020? Two minutes...
It’s the year 2030, and people continue to wonder what happened to former President Donald Trump who disappeared from the public eye in 2024.
Comedy Central’s “The President Show” chronicles the (future) fall of Anthony Atamanuik’s Trump through interviews with former Vice President Mike Pence, former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway (played brilliantly by Kathy Griffin) and “former” son Donald Trump, Jr.
15/ Interesting - the Silicon Valley elites who make and improve our smart phones, tablets and other computing devices won't let their own children have a phone.....they say it's bad for them!
Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer in Menlo Park, Calif., said their daughters, ages 5 and 3, have no screen time “budget,”
Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them.
A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.
“Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little,” said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. “If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more.”
Ms. Stecher, 37, and her husband, Rushabh Doshi, researched screen time and came to a simple conclusion: they wanted almost none of it in their house. Their daughters, ages 5 and 3, have no screen time “budget,” no regular hours they are allowed to be on screens. The only time a screen can be used is during the travel portion of a long car ride (the four-hour drive to Tahoe counts) or during a plane trip.
16/ A pretty unbiased review of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that leads into an essay on movie reviews in general.....
Bottom line - if you liked Queen, go see the movie....
Todays Jewish jokes
...
Todays blonde jokes....
- What can strike a blonde without her even knowing it? A thought.
- Why did the blonde stare at frozen orange juice can for 2 hours? Because it said 'concentrate'.
- Why did the blonde scale the glass wall? To see what was on the other side.
- Why were there bullet holes in the mirror? A blonde tried killing herself.
- How did the blonde die while raking leaves? She fell out of the tree.
- What do you do if a blonde throws a grenade at you? Pull the pin and throw it back.
- How do you drown a blonde in a submarine? Knock on the door.
- Why did the blonde tip-toe past the medicine cabinet? So she wouldn’t wake up the sleeping pills.
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