1/ Frank Rich on what to make of this weeks news....
Photo: Pool/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, Trump’s unusual silence on Nancy Pelosi’s call to reschedule the State of the Union, the GOP’s about-face on Steve King, and Democrats’ deliberations about the next attorney general.
Yesterday morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Donald Trump to reschedule the upcoming State of the Union (or to submit it to Congress in writing), and Rudy Giuliani backed away from denials of collusion with Russia in the Trump campaign. How costly are these developments for Trump and the GOP?
I can’t resist saying it again: Pelosi is awesome.
2/ A very good SNL sketch, titled "Millenial Millions"....a funny five minutes, lots of zingers....
In keeping with the game show theme, this Press Your Luck-inspired segment has venom to spare. What initially seems like a lazy “millennials are just THE WORST, am I right?” sketch turns into an indictment of the generations before them that paved the way for their current state. The fact that so many will probably disagree with that interpretation is what will make this one of the most discussed parts of the 2019 premiere.
While this sketch is many things, “subtle” is not one of them. It paints both baby boomers and millennials in broad strokes, but Thompson’s Gen X host is also a villain hiding in plain sight. After repeated barbs leveled at his twenty-something contestants and the baby boomers that torture them, the host casually says something like, “I’m Generation X, I just sit on the side and watch the world burn.
3/ If Paul Krugman's headline doesn't grab you, nothing will. It's not just Trump....it's his "team" too.....
There have been many policy disasters over the course of U.S. history. It’s hard, however, to think of a calamity as gratuitous, an error as unforced, as the current federal shutdown.
Nor can I think of another disaster as thoroughly personal, as completely owned by one man. When Donald Trump told Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, “I will be the one to shut it down,” he was being completely accurate — although he went on to promise that “I’m not going to blame you for it,” which was a lie.
4/ Stephen Colbert on form with an amusing take on Trump's vindictive cancellation of Nancy Pelosi's trip.....seven funny minutes...
President Donald Trump canceled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) trip to Afghanistan on Thursday, a visit to see the troops in a war zone that had previously been kept secret for security reasons.
“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert blasted Trump’s decision to reveal the trip, which Trump said could still be made commercially or rescheduled for after the government shutdown ends.
“Basically, what Trump’s letter said was: ’Nancy, feel free to go commercial now that I’ve told the Taliban that you’re coming and staying at the Jalalabad La Quinta Inn,’” Colbert said:
5/ Excellent article from the Times on the incompetence of the British ruling class.....gives you the background of Brexit....well worth reading...
Describing Britain’s calamitous exit from its Indian empire in 1947, the novelist Paul Scott wrote that in India the British “came to the end of themselves as they were” — that is, to the end of their exalted idea about themselves. Scott was among those shocked by how hastily and ruthlessly the British, who had ruled India for more than a century, condemned it to fragmentation and anarchy; how Louis Mountbatten, accurately described by the right-wing historian Andrew Roberts as a “mendacious, intellectually limited hustler,” came to preside, as the last British viceroy of India, over the destiny of some 400 million people.
Britain’s rupture with the European Union is proving to be another act of moral dereliction by the country’s rulers.
6/ SNL - Pete Davidson and John Mulaney went to see "The Mule" starring Clint Eastwood, and the sketch is incredibly funny.....a buddy comedy tour de force....
What we see here is a great bit about an apparently bananas movie, but it’s also an example of pure friendship on display. How successful was it? I normally hate anytime anyone on SNL breaks onscreen, or seems unprepared for a sketch, and yet I cheered each time Mulaney trotted out a new joke that Davidson had apparently never heard before, sending the laughter into convulsive laughter. Maybe Mulaney gave Davidson the “Stefon” treatment, surprising him on live TV with new material. Who knows? All I know is that I would pay hard-earned money to see “The Mule-aney” in theaters, and would pay extra for the DVD commentary in which Mulaney just made Davidson laugh for 90 minutes.
7/ You look at this video of rich white kids in MAGA hats harassing a native elder at a march in Washington and you wonder how Trump has got to these
kids.....they are from a Catholic school in Kentucky and these little bastards were sent up by the school to join an anti-abortion march and got tied up with the Indigenous Peoples day ceremonies.
But hey, they're from Kentucky....three disgusting minutes.....and when you watch as much of the video as you can stand think - does this asshole remind you of a young Kavanaugh....
The particulars, this time, are that a group of students from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School attending--surely under supervision from the school--the March for Life Rally in Washington DC were recorded at the Lincoln Memorial confronting Nathan Phillips, who was present for the coinciding Indigenous People's March.
Watch this video.
One report from the local Fox station says, “The young man's intent is unclear.”
It isn’t unclear. We know this face. The intent of that cold stare and hard smile are obvious: to intimidate, dismay, mock, disrupt, and disturb an old man. That face has been a useful tool of the people who seek to cause fear to those whom they dislike. In the particulars of prior versions, this is the face of the people who screamed at the schoolchildren in Little Rock. This is the face of the louts who dumped sodas on the people at the lunch counter in Greensboro. This is the face of Lawrence Rainey and Cecil Ray Price on trial for murder.
The boys watching this young man understand the intent. They surround this man, mock him, and do all they can to frighten him. They’re enjoying a moment of thrilling fearless cruelty. It goes on and on.
8/ Matt Taibbi on how under cover of the Kavanaugh hearings the gub'mint changed the rules on military spending.....this is how the
elites get away with stealing our money....
October 4th, 2018, was a busy news day. The fight over Brett Kavanuagh’s Supreme Court nomination dominated the cycle. The Trump White House received a supplemental FBI report it said cleared its would-be nominee of wrongdoing. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens meanwhile said Kavanaugh was compromised enough that he was “unable to sit as a judge.”
The only thing that did not make the news was an announcement by a little-known government body called the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board — FASAB — that essentially legalized secret national security spending. The new guidance, “SFFAS 56 – CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES” permits government agencies to “modify” public financial statements and move expenditures from one line item to another. It also expressly allows federal agencies to refrain from telling taxpayers if and when public financial statements have been altered.
9/ The SNL cold open with Alec Baldwin as Trump.....not their best in my opinion, but Kate McKinnon as Nancy Pelosi is wonderful.....eight minutes....
Game show parodies are as old as SNL itself, but there’s still something fairly relevant about portraying the government shutdown via this prism. “We decided to do this in the only format you understand: A TV game show with women holding briefcases,” says Kenan Thompson’s Steve Harvey early on, and he’s not just talking about Trump. At this point, we’re all watching a zero-sum game in which there is no compromise, only winners and losers. (At this point, there only seem to be losers, particularly those affected by the shutdown.)
Kate McKinnon gets the lion’s share of the time amongst the briefcase-holding members of Congress, once again establishing her primacy as the show’s go-to laugh-getter at this point in SNL history. Melissa Villaseñor hit the absolute jackpot when she started portraying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last Fall, but unfortunately gets little to do here.
10/ Interesting story in Fast Company, basically a summary of the trends we already see....but it's sobering, especially if you live in Florida....
Across the country, far more people are in danger of becoming climate refugees than you might think
11/ This was the most popular story in the Times for three days running...
The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s
Many of us have learned that happiness is a skill and a choice.
When I told my friends I was writing a book on older women like us, they immediately protested, “I am not old.” What they meant was that they didn’t act or feel like the cultural stereotypes of women their age. Old meant bossy, useless, unhappy and in the way. Our country’s ideas about old women are so toxic that almost no one, no matter her age, will admit she is old.
In America, ageism is a bigger problem for women than aging. Our bodies and our sexuality are devalued, we
are denigrated by mother-in-law jokes, and we’re rendered invisible in the media. Yet, most of the women I
know describe themselves as being in a vibrant and happy life stage.
12/ Good article from New York Magazine on the controversial Gilette and Nike ads....
An image from Gillette’s new campaign. Photo: Gillette
Gillette’s new bullying-and-#MeToo–focused publicity campaign, launched yesterday with a two-minute web video, inverts the company’s slogan, changing “Gillette: The Best a Man Can Get” to “The Best a Man Can Be.” In doing so, it takes the “man” out of a dependent clause (“Gillette” is the subject of the original slogan, with an implied “is” to follow) and makes him the main subject.
This is important: Instead of offering the man something, the slogan now asks him to do something. Gillette has spent decades making him the best razors it could; now it’s the man’s turn to deliver.
Whatever this is, it isn’t marketing.
Gillette ad - basically says 'don't be a dick", and has upset a lot of dicks....
Nike ad with Colin Kapernick....very good....
13/ Tom Tomorrow....
14/ One of those long interactive stories from the Times that's fascinating.....52 places to visit in 2019....
We have been to a few of these places, but not enough!
15/ New [fake] TV show for you....."The Real Housewives of ISIS"....British humour at it's most sardonic....two minutes....
16/ Lauren Ritchie nails why Florida's schools are in such bad shape - #44 in the nation. It's the Republican legislature of course....Floriduh!
When you hire a lifelong politician whose wife founded a charter school, and you make him king of education in Florida, all but the dimmest of political watchers get the point: Charters are the No. 1 priority.
The other 90 percent of Florida public school students who go to traditional campuses can pound sound.
Charter and voucher school supporters such as Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and Mount Dora’s home-schooled state Rep. Jennifer Sullivan — chair of the House Education Committee — have made it clear that school choice will be getting a boost in this year’s legislative session, and they’ve got the muscle to do it.
Unfortunately, charter and voucher schools are the GOP’s alternative to doing actual work — you know, tackling a truly messed up education system that would take creative thinking and unity to change.
How did schools get so upside down?
17/ One of the things I am going to miss is conch chowder.....the Bahamian conch is being overfished to the point of collapse....
WHEN YOU'RE A conch, mating is better in a group. In fact, it’s the only way it works. These slow-moving Caribbean sea slugs carry heavy pink and orange shells, which make chasing down mates cumbersome. To be successful, a mating ground must have some 50 or more conchs spawning at once.
But in the Bahamas, where conchs are a vital part of the culture and economy, the slugs are finding it increasingly difficult to reproduce. Overfishing and loose regulations have pushed many pockets of conch communities below the critical level needed for mating, according to recent scientific surveys. That means conchs in those regions may eventually die of old age without reproducing, leading to the demise of the conch fishery
Todays clever jokes
FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE WORDS
1. The meaning of opaque is unclear.
2. I wasn't going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.
3. Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time consuming.
4. A man tried to assault me with milk, cream and butter. How dairy !
5. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down.
6. If there was someone selling marijuana in our neighborhood, weed know
about it.
7. It's a lengthy article about ancient Japanese sword fighters, but I
can Sumurais it for you.
8. It's not that the man couldn't juggle, he just didn't have the balls to
do it.
9. So what if I don't know the meaning of the word 'apocalypse'? It's
not the end of the world.
10. Police were called to the daycare center. A 3-year old was resisting a
rest.
11. The other day I held the door open for a clown. I thought it was a
nice jester.
12. Need an ark to save two of every animal? I Noah guy.
13. Alternative facts are aversion of the truth.
14. I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it.
15. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
16. Did you know they won't be making yardsticks any longer?
17. I used to be allergic to soap but I'm clean now.
18. The patron saint of poverty is St. Nickeless.
19. What did the man say when the bridge fell on him? The suspension is
killing me.
20. Do you have weight loss mantras? Fat chants!
21. My tailor is happy to make a new pair of pants for me. Or sew it seams.
22. What is a thesaurus's favorite dessert? Synonym buns.
23. A relief map shows where the restrooms are.
24. There was a big paddle sale at the boat store. It was quite an oar deal.
25. How do they figure out the price of hammers? Per pound.
1. The meaning of opaque is unclear.
2. I wasn't going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.
3. Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time consuming.
4. A man tried to assault me with milk, cream and butter. How dairy !
5. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down.
6. If there was someone selling marijuana in our neighborhood, weed know
about it.
7. It's a lengthy article about ancient Japanese sword fighters, but I
can Sumurais it for you.
8. It's not that the man couldn't juggle, he just didn't have the balls to
do it.
9. So what if I don't know the meaning of the word 'apocalypse'? It's
not the end of the world.
10. Police were called to the daycare center. A 3-year old was resisting a
rest.
11. The other day I held the door open for a clown. I thought it was a
nice jester.
12. Need an ark to save two of every animal? I Noah guy.
13. Alternative facts are aversion of the truth.
14. I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it.
15. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
16. Did you know they won't be making yardsticks any longer?
17. I used to be allergic to soap but I'm clean now.
18. The patron saint of poverty is St. Nickeless.
19. What did the man say when the bridge fell on him? The suspension is
killing me.
20. Do you have weight loss mantras? Fat chants!
21. My tailor is happy to make a new pair of pants for me. Or sew it seams.
22. What is a thesaurus's favorite dessert? Synonym buns.
23. A relief map shows where the restrooms are.
24. There was a big paddle sale at the boat store. It was quite an oar deal.
25. How do they figure out the price of hammers? Per pound.
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