1/ Frank Rich with the week's stories....excellent as always....
We don’t need Graham to hold hearings to know that there was no attempted coup. Photo: WIN MCNAMEE/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 biggest revelations from Andrew McCabe’s book, Bernie’s 2020 prospects, and what to make of Roger Stone’s latest antics.
In a series of interviews promoting his new book, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe has said that Trump erroneously believed that North Korea did not have the capability to launch nuclear missiles “because Vladimir Putin had told him so,” and that senior congressional Republicans raised no objection when McCabe briefed them on an open FBI investigation into the president. Do McCabe’s revelations change the way you understand any of the major actors of Trump’s presidency?
The two major indictments McCabe is leveling against Trump — that he is out to sabotage the rule of law and shows every sign of being a Russian asset — are hardly news.
2/ Bill Maher on Amazon vs New York City....and the "Two Americas" we live in.....
This is one of his better ones folks....five excellent minutes, common sense, truth and great comedy....
Following the Amazon-New York debacle, Bill Maher said tonight the company should be looking outside of big cities for where to set up HQ2.
“Herein lies a chance for Amazon to show the world that a tech company can actually do good,” he said.
Maher said that a big problem in America is that “the blue parts of America are having a big prosperity party, while that big sea of red feels like their invitation got lost in the mail.”https://www.mediaite.
3/ If you live in Florida or any coastal city, you will want to look at this map, which gives a graphic comparison of sea levels and residential areas....i.e. you can tell at which foot of sea level rise your house will be under water.....but of course long before that the sewage systems, water supply and other infrastructure will cease to function.
Note this map says which areas will be under water from flooding....the flooding could be torrential rain, offshore winds, king tides or hurricane driven flooding.....they don't say.
4/ The default map above is set at a 5 foot rise in sea level or flood....here is the likelihood of this happening for the next decades, and you can set the risks between low to extreme - it's set on medium....but from what we are hearing about the acceleration of the Greenland ice and Antarctica melting my belief is that it's between fast and extreme, which would mean over a 50% chance of a 5 ft. flood before 2040...
5/ Celebrity Family Feud from SNL.....seven pretty good minutes....
Host Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) welcomed veteran and newbie Oscar nominees like Spike Lee (Don Cheadle), Glenn Close (Kate McKinnon), Sam Elliot (Beck Bennett), Olivia Coleman (Cecily Strong), Lady Gaga (Melissa Villaseñor), Bradley Cooper (Kyle Mooney), Rami Malek (Pete Davidson) and Mahershala Ali (Chris Redd)
Thompson acknowledged at the top that they were going to do a black woman Oscar nominees pane,
“but Regina King was on vacation.”
Cheadle as Spike Lee and Villaseñor as Lady Gaga were scene stealers, with Strong’s Olivia Coleman
certainly conveying that she was “pissed,” as the English say – in more ways than one.
6/ Andrew Sullivan on the devastating new book out on the corruption of the Catholic Church, and how the Vatican is 80% gay......Sullivan is both gay, Catholic and a small c conservative, but he is disgusted with the moral degradation of the Church exposed in this book.....
Just what you suspected.....
A survivor of clergy abuse speaks out in Vatican City. Photo: Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images
I spent much of this week reading and trying to absorb the new and devastating book by one Frédéric Martel on the gayness of the hierarchy at the top of the Catholic Church, In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy. It’s a bewildering and vast piece of reporting — Martel interviewed no fewer than “41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignori, 45 apostolic nuncios, secretaries of nunciatures or foreign ambassadors, 11 Swiss Guards and over 200 Catholic priests and seminarians.” He conducted more than 1,500 interviews over four years, is quite clear about his sources, and helps the reader weigh their credibility. He keeps the identity of many of the most egregiously hypocritical cardinals confidential, but is unsparing about the dead.
The picture Martel draws is jaw-dropping. Many of the Vatican gays — especially the most homophobic — treat their vows of celibacy with an insouciant contempt.
http://nymag.com/
7/ Jabba the Trump.....
8/ The always interesting Benjamin Studebaker with a column on how important Bernie is to the progressive movement....and how he has never lost his integrity, unlike some others in the race....
Why Bernie Sanders Matters More Than People Think
Every time I find a way to say that there is no one like Bernie Sanders, there are people who don’t believe me. Aren’t there other candidates who support the same policies he supports now? Some of them are younger. Some of them aren’t old white guys. Why can’t it be one of them, why can’t it be someone new? Over and over, I have tried to find ways to explain that there is a real difference between Bernie Sanders and everyone else. Today, as Sanders announces his candidacy for the presidency, I’m going to try one more time.
We have a tendency in American politics to focus too much on individuals and personal narratives, especially in presidential campaigns.
9/ Seth Meyers on Trump's attacks on the Green New Deal.....cleverly done and funny too.....seven good minutes....
Seth Meyers mockingly summed up “desperate” President Donald Trump’s skewed take on parts of the Democrats’ proposed Green New Deal with just two words.
The “Late Night” host on Wednesday said Trump’s incorrect claim that cows would be banned as a consequence of the sweeping plan to combat climate change was “fake moos.”
Meyers also poked fun at conservatives worried that a future president could declare a national emergency, as Trump has done to fund the U.S.-Mexico border wall, to tackle global warming.
10/ Matt Taibbi on the Bernie announcement to run in 2020, and how he really pisses off the Democratic elites.....who are more scared of him than Trump....
Ending a lengthy period of deliberation, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who won over 1,800 delegates and captured 43 percent of the Democratic Party vote in 2016, announced his candidacy in an email to supporters this morning.
“Brothers and Sisters,” Sanders writes. “I have decided to run for president of the United States.”
Sanders goes on to promise “an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign” that will “begin with at least a million people from across the country.”
The email contains a lengthy list of policy positions the senator is expected to elaborate upon in the coming weeks. Sanders pledges to create a “government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” then adds a coda to his familiar theme of taking on special interests, including those that have traditionally held sway as donors within his own party.
11/ Tucker Carlson invited the wrong guest on his show, i.e. a smart European.....a revealing seven minutes....
Tucker Carlson was a viral sensation on Wednesday night, but probably not in ways the Fox News host had hoped.
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman was invited onto Carlson’s show after calling out the world’s elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month for not paying their fair share of taxes. Bregman didn’t back down from that stance during his appearance on Carlson’s show, and called the host “a millionaire funded by billionaires” and “part of the problem.”
That led to a stream of interview-ending profanities from Carlson.
While the segment never aired, Bregman and NowThis News released leaked footage of his end of the interview, which included audio of Carlson.
12/ You may have read about Hudson Yards, the New York development which is now partially open.....here is a fascinating article from NY Magazine about this playground for billionaires,and how unreal it is because it's a very expensive bubble......
On a day when the cold makes the skyline snap into focus as if you’re seeing it through new lenses, Hudson Yards seems more virtual than real. Jagged and reflective, the five new towers have a high-definition clarity that the physical world mostly lacks. At a distance, the tallest looks like a high-browed robotic duck with a beak so generous you could almost land a helicopter on it. That’s the outdoor observation deck, which juts out 65 feet and comes to a point 1,100 feet above the street. From here — or better yet, from the set of bleachers that allows you to peer over the glass railing — I can look down on the Empire State Building. I can behold the widescreen, high-res view of a New York more orderly and wondrous than the one most of us live in. The space won’t open for another year, but I can already see the over-the-top weddings in the party room upstairs, where guests can dance far, far above the stink and mess below. An adventurous few will be able to take a dedicated elevator even further up to the pointed peak, don a harness, climb out on a catwalk in the open air, and howl into the wind.
On March 15, after 12 years of planning and six of construction, the Related Companies (which is actually just one mammoth real-estate company) will open the gates to its new $25 billion enclave, an agglomeration of supertall office towers full of lawyers and hedge-funders, airborne eight-figure apartments, a 720,000-square-foot shopping zone, and a gaggle of star-chef restaurants.
13/ We keep hearing about how the latest invention or technology is going to change our lives, but this one sounds real - 5G cellphones and data transfers will be in our lives from 2020....
Read on....
The prototype of a 5G smartphone from Samsung at CES. Photo: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images
Over the next few years, your smartphone is going to be transformed. Not just around the edges, as we’ve come to expect, but in revolutionary ways: dramatically higher battery life, download speeds a hundred times faster than what we have now, extremely low latency, and the ability for device- and app-makers to radically rethink how they design their products. By 2029, your smartphone may not even be the primary way you interact with the digital world, and you will almost assuredly be using other mobile devices in ways that simply aren’t possible today.
Todays Stanley joke....
Stanley died in a fire and his body was burned pretty badly.
The morgue needed someone to identify the body, so they sent for his two best friends, Cooter and Gomer. The three men had always done everything together.
The morgue needed someone to identify the body, so they sent for his two best friends, Cooter and Gomer. The three men had always done everything together.
Cooter arrived first, and when the mortician pulled back the sheet, Cooter said, 'Yup, his face is burned up pretty bad. You better roll him over.'The mortician rolled him over and Cooter said, 'Nope, ain't Stanley '
The mortician thought this was rather strange. So he brought Gomer in to confirm the identity of the body.
Gomer looked at the body and said, 'Yup, he's pretty well burnt up. Roll him over..' The mortician rolled him over and Gomer said, 'No, it ain't Stanley '
The mortician asked, 'How can you tell?'
Gomer said, 'Well, Stanley had two assholes.' 'What? He had two assholes?' asked the mortician.
'Yup, we never seen 'em, but everybody used to say:
'There's Stanley with them two assholes.'
Todays lawyer jokes....
10 – Speaking Ill of the Dead …
One day the phone rang at a law office and when the receptionist answered a man asked to speak to Mr. Dewey. “I’m sorry, sir,” the receptionist said. “Mr. Dewey passed away yesterday.” “Oh, is that right? Goodbye.” But everyday for the next two weeks the same man called back and the same exchange occurred. Finally, the receptionist said, “Sir, I have told you repeatedly that Mr. Dewey died, why do you keep calling and asking for him?” “Oh,” the man replied, “I just like to hear it.”
9 – K-99 Problems …
What’s black and brown and looks good on a lawyer? A doberman pinscher.
8 – In Flames and Inflamed …
A man was sent to hell for his sins. As he was being led into the pits for an eternity of torment, he saw a lawyer passionately kissing a beautiful woman. “What a joke!” he said. “I have to roast in flames for all eternity and that lawyer gets to spend it with that beautiful woman.” Satan jabbed the man with his pitchfork and snarled, “Who are you to question that woman’s punishment?”
7 – Double Time …
What’s the difference between a lawyer and a gigolo? A gigolo only screws one person at a time.
6 – No Good Question Goes Unbilled …
A man went to a lawyer and asked what his fee was. “$100 for three questions,” answered the lawyer. “Isn’t that a little steep?” said the man. “Yes,” said the lawyer. “Now, what’s your third question?”
5 – Unless It’s One of Our Witnesses, Of Course …
What separates witnesses from the lowest form of life on earth? The wooden partitions around the witness stand.
4 – You Can’t Get Mad at Gravity …
How do you get a lawyer out of a tree? Cut the rope.
3 – Of Swine and Men …
A rabbi, a Hindu, and a lawyer are in a car that breaks down in the countryside one evening. They walk to a nearby farm and the farmer tells them it’s too late for a tow truck but he has only two extra beds and one of them will have to sleep in the barn. The Hindu says, “I’m humble, I’ll sleep in the barn.” But minutes later he returns and knocks on the door and says, “There is a cow in the barn. It’s against my beliefs to sleep in the same building as a cow.” So the rabbi says, “It’s okay, I’ll sleep in the barn.” But soon, he is back knocking on the door as well, saying, “There is a pig in the barn, and I cannot shelter in a building with a pig.” So the lawyer is forced to sleep in the barn. Shortly, there is another knock on the door and the farmer sighs and answers it. It’s the pig and the cow.
2 – Have a Cigar …
A young lawyer, defending a businessman in a lawsuit, feared he was losing the case and asked his senior partner if he should send a box of cigars to the judge to curry favor. The senior partner was horrified. “The judge is an honorable man,” he said, “If you do that, I guarantee you’ll lose the case!” Eventually, the judge ruled in the young lawyers favor. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t send those cigars?” the senior partner asked. “Oh, I did send them,” the younger lawyer replied. “I just enclosed my opponents business card with them.”
1 – It’s Funny Cause It’s True
How many lawyer jokes are there, anyway? Only three. The rest are true stories.
