1/ The political master Frank Rich on Teleprompter Trump and the networks caving.....excellent as always...
Photo: SAUL LOEB/Saul Loeb/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, Trump’s Oval Office address, the networks’ decision to carry it live, and the Democrats’ response.
When Donald Trump announced that he wanted to address the nation this week, he opened an unusual debate about whether the networks should carry the president’s speech, air it with a delay, incorporate some sort of fact-checking, or not carry the address at all. Did they make the right decision?
The broadcast networks made a scandalously bad call in covering this speech live in prime time.
2/ Jonathan Chait muses Trump had no idea what would happen with a Gub'mint shutdown....
President Trump declaring in December he would not blame Democrats for his shutdown. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
The Trump administration’s shutdown of the federal government over the last two weeks is a synecdoche for the way it has run the federal government over the last two years. They blundered into it almost by accident, without any understanding of what they are doing nor any plan for success.
Just as Trump did not expect to win the election and neglected to plan for his transition, he shut down the government on a whim, after right-wing media complained about his plan to approve a government funding bill. Nobody in the administration had a clear understanding of just what a shutdown would entail.
3/ Democrats need to embrace the power of rage.....interesting article.....
Welcome to 2019. There’s a government shutdown going on, and federal employees ― from cafeteria workers to janitors to research scientists ― are cut off from their income for a second week. The resolution of this dispute depends on hundreds of representatives and senators and a recalcitrant, rageful president agreeing on funding for a wall, or perhaps, according to The New York Times, on what the definition of a “wall” even is.
Amid this profoundly dysfunctional existential wrangling over the fulfillment of a campaign slogan, speculation
about the 2020 presidential election has begun in earnest.
4/ Trevor Noah on Trump and a National Emergency.....shot before we saw Teleprompter Trump Tuesday night,
it's still relevant and more importantly cleverly funny too!
Trevor Noah likened Trump to the infant character in “The Incredibles,” who becomes dangerous as he discovers his supernatural powers.
“Thanks to Trump, we’ve learned that during an actual emergency a president can do much more than build a wall. He can just shut down your internet, send the troops in. He can just control the country. So if I’m the Democrats, I would just give Trump the wall before he finds out what he can really do. I know it sounds crazy, but right now, he’s like the baby from ‘The Incredibles.’ He only knows that he can float. We do not want him finding out that he can shoot lasers out of his eyes.”
5/ A fascinating and insightful article on the cult of Trump, and how to deal with it's followers. Unfortunately it seems we, the sane ones who can tell the Emperor Trump has no clothes on, have to try to wean the nasties from their delusions. It would be better just to let them die off, but it's a little difficult and indeed dangerous with 25% of the country in the cult....
A very good story....
On December 20, 1954, some 62 years before Donald Trump would be sworn in as president of the United States, Dorothy Martin and dozens of her followers crowded into her home in Chicago to await the apocalypse. The group believed that Martin, a housewife, had received a message from a planet named Clarion that the world would end in a great flood beginning at midnight, and that they, the faithful, would be rescued by an alien spacecraft.
6/ Cartoon from Mount Dora's own Taylor Jones....he nails it!
7/ Right wing media hate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but their attempt to make a scandal out of this dance video a bunch of students made at Boston U. backfired big time.....here is the video, and it's charming!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the youngest woman elected to the House of Representatives, has been the target of several conservative smear campaigns — including attacks on her pro-working-class agenda (she dared to grow up in a single-story house!) to “Sandy,” her suspiciously Anglophone teenage nickname. (To think a Puerto Rican from the Bronx not only wasallowed into a Westchester County high school, but may have fraternized with other English-speaking students! ¡Qué horror!)
The latest public smear arrived less than 24 hours before she was sworn into Congress — issued by the now-deleted Twitter account @AnonymousQ1776, presumably a follower of QAnon, a pervasive right-wing conspiracy theory. The user unearthed something no more dastardly than a video of the freshman congresswoman… dancing on a rooftop with her friends. “Here is America’s favorite commie know-it-all acting like a clueless nitwit she is,” the user wrote erroneously citing the date of the video. “High School video of ‘Sandy’ Ocasio-Cortez.”
On Friday afternoon, shortly after the New York representative and her fellow Dems ushered in the “H.R. 1: The For the People Act” — which would restore major tenets of the Voting Rights Act, plus curb gerrymandering and corporate influence on elections — Ocasio-Cortez took a quick dance break in front of her new office in D.C., where she twirled and mouthed along the words to Edwin Starr’s 1970 protest hit, “War.”
“I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous,” she wrote on Twitter. “Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!”
“It is unsurprising to me that Republicans would think having fun should be disqualifying or illegal,” said Ocasio-Cortez to Hill reporter Olivia Beavers. “But I think it is really part of the larger question about who should run and how we should run and I think it is great. You can be young and run for office.
8/ Stephen Colbert with the dire news the shutdown is affecting craft breweries.....funny and clever, three minutes...
9/ David Wallace-Wells asked some intelligent scientists and other knowledgeable people what is going to happen to the world in 20 years.....
some of the answers are surprising....
It’s 2039 and just about everything’s changed. Photo-Illustration: Eugenia Loli
This month, we are all tentatively dipping our toes into the New Year, wondering what horrors and highlights might await us in 2019 — the year that served as a setting, you may remember, for Blade Runner, Akira, and Running Man, three of the most iconic future-casting movies ever made and now divergent choose-your-own-dystopia visions of the years ahead (perhaps some more plausible than others). They are also reminders that, though Americans today may have a hard time imagining a future all that different from the present — we dream less about flying cars and space travel than about somewhat improved health care and slightly more immersive video games — it was not all that long ago that we believed (sort of) that very wild futures were possible just a decade or two down the road.
10/ "Jokes Seth Can't Tell" is a segment on the late Show with Meyers, and this isn't their best but it's an amusing four minutes.....
with the wonderful Amber Ruffin.....
Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel swooped in once again to save Seth Meyers from his own offensive jokes.
11/ "Sound Of Silence" from Disturbed, live on the Conan show with a full orchestra....one of the most
powerful songs ever, an improvement on the original....in my opinion!
12/ Movies to see in 2019....
Photo: Vulture
In 2018, stars were born, superheroes were vanished, and husbands were bad. What will be the biggest film stories of 2019? It’s too early to say, but if you want to impress your friends by having opinions on movies months before they actually come out, here’s a guide to the projects we’re most excited about in the new year.https://www.vulture.com/
13/ Amazingly enough this amusing commercial is from Walmart.....one minute...
14/ An incredible 11 minute intro from arguably the best three man rock band ever - Rush, with Niall Peart the drummer
showing why he was the best rock drummer in the world....
From a live concert in 2012.... Rush have been playing together for 40 years....
And if you are interested in Rush we caught this the other night - "Time Stand Still", a documentary on Rush and it's free on Amazon Prime....
15/ And TV shows to see this coming year....
True Detective, PEN15, The Crown, and Killing Eve. Photo: HBO/Hulu/Netflix/BBC America
The year ahead promises to be a pivotal one for the TV industry: HBO is charting a path into its post–Game of Thrones future with a flurry of high-profile adaptations; Netflix will face serious challenges from a trio of new streaming services by Disney, Apple, and WarnerMedia; and the march of Hollywood’s A-list to the small screen has burst into a full-on sprint. In other words, there’s a ton of great television coming in the next 12 months. Here’s our obsessive guide to the shows we’re most excited to see in 2019, arranged in chronological order by premiere date. Happy watching!
Todays video - winter weather at Birmingham airport...wow!
Some VERY rude and definitely non-PC British jokes...hilarious.....
Got invited to a party and was told to dress to kill.
Apparently a turban, beard and a backpack wasn't what they had in mind.
After a night of drink, drugs and wild sex, Jim woke up to find
himself next to a really ugly woman.
That's when he realized he had made it home safely.
Seven wheelchair athletes have been banned from the Paralympics after
they tested positive for WD40.
ITS A BOY" I shouted "A BOY, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, ITS A BOY".
Seven wheelchair athletes have been banned from the Paralympics after
they tested positive for WD40.
ITS A BOY" I shouted "A BOY, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, ITS A BOY".
And with tears streaming down my face I swore I'd never visit another Thai
Brothel!
A boy asks his granny, 'Have you seen my pills, they were labeled
LSD?'
Brothel!
A boy asks his granny, 'Have you seen my pills, they were labeled
LSD?'
Granny replies, f**k the pills, have you seen the dragons in the
kitchen?
Wife gets naked and asks hubby, 'What turns you on more, my pretty
face or my sexy body?'
kitchen?
Wife gets naked and asks hubby, 'What turns you on more, my pretty
face or my sexy body?'
Hubby looks her up and down and replies, 'Your
sense of humor!
The wife's back on the warpath again. She was up for making a sex
movie last night, and all I did was suggest we should hold auditions
for her part.
I've accidentally swallowed some Scrabble tiles. My next crap could
spell disaster.
My sister-in-law sat on my glasses and broke them. It was my own
fault. I should have taken them off.
I spent a couple of hours defrosting the fridge last night, or
"foreplay" as she likes to call it.
After both suffering from depression for a while, me and the wife were
going to commit suicide yesterday.
sense of humor!
The wife's back on the warpath again. She was up for making a sex
movie last night, and all I did was suggest we should hold auditions
for her part.
I've accidentally swallowed some Scrabble tiles. My next crap could
spell disaster.
My sister-in-law sat on my glasses and broke them. It was my own
fault. I should have taken them off.
I spent a couple of hours defrosting the fridge last night, or
"foreplay" as she likes to call it.
After both suffering from depression for a while, me and the wife were
going to commit suicide yesterday.
But strangely enough, once she killed herself, I started to feel a lot better.
So I thought, "Screw it, soldier on!"
I woke up this morning at 8, and could sense something was wrong. I
got downstairs and found the wife face down on the kitchen floor, not
breathing!
I woke up this morning at 8, and could sense something was wrong. I
got downstairs and found the wife face down on the kitchen floor, not
breathing!
I panicked. I didn't know what to do.
Then I remembered McDonald's serves breakfast until11:30.
Bought the missus a hamster skin coat last week.
Bought the missus a hamster skin coat last week.
Took her to the fair last night, and it took me 3 hours to get her off the Ferris wheel.
The other night, my wife asked me how many women I'd slept with.
The other night, my wife asked me how many women I'd slept with.
I told her, "Only you. All the others kept me awake all night!"
My missus packed my bags, and as I walked out the front door, she
screamed, "I wish you a slow and painful death, you bastard!"
"Oh," I replied, "so now you want me to stay!"
A Catholic boy in confession says, "Bless me Father, I have sinned, I
masturbated while thinking about my sister."
"That's a disgrace," said the priest," especially when you have two
gorgeous brothers."
A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to
this country so that they can see their own doctor.
I've just installed strobe lights in the bedroom.
It makes the wife look like she's moving during sex.
And a blonde joke!
An Alabama pastor said to his congregation, "Someone in this congregation has spread a rumour that I belong to the Ku Klux Klan. This is a horrible lie and one which a Christian community cannot tolerate.
I am embarrassed and do not intend to accept this. Now, I want the party who said this to stand and ask forgiveness from God and this Christian family."
No one moved.
The preacher continued, "Do you have the nerve to face me and admit this is a falsehood? Remember, you will be forgiven and in your heart you will feel glory. Now stand and confess your transgression."
Again, all was quiet.
Then, slowly, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde with a body that would stop a runaway train rose from the third pew. Her head was bowed and her voice quivered as she spoke, "Reverend there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I never said you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I simply told a couple of my friends that you were a wizard under the sheets."
The preacher fell to his knees, his wife fainted, and the congregation roared.
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