1/ Frank Rich on the weeks news....his first story is disturbing....
Photo: Pete Marovich/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 constitutional crisis brought on by Trump’s opposition to Congress, the Trump tax exposé, and Michael Cohen’s dirty work for Jerry Falwell Jr.
With the decision to assert executive privilege to keep the unredacted Mueller report away from the House Judiciary Committee, Donald Trump continues to treat Congress, in the words of John Yoo, “like they’re the Chinese or a local labor union working on a Trump building.” Will his stonewalling work?
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that we’ve hit a moral bottom where John Yoo is aghast at Trump. John Yoo!
2/ An insightful article from Susan Rice in the Times on Trump's foreign "policy"....of course he doesn't have one, it's all about pleasing the base....
Americans can be forgiven if they struggle to find any coherence in the Trump administration’s foreign policy. It zigs and zags, with senior administration officials saying one thing and President Trump contradicting them without warning the next day. It punishes our allies and coddles our adversaries; it privileges demagogy over democracy. Mr. Trump’s approach appears impulsive, improvisational and inchoate — devoid of clear purpose, values or even ideology.
Yet, upon closer examination, there is indeed a consistent logic staring us in the face.
The unifying theme of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy is simply to service his domestic politics.
3/ An incredibly funny parody commercial for 'Rectix", with Adam Sandler.....two very good minutes...
4/ Andrew O'Heir in Salon on a bad week for the media.....
Democracy dies in darkness, or so the self-congratulatory motto atop the Washington Post’s home page tells us. But democracy can die of other things too, including laziness and ground-in conventional wisdom and a rising tide of propagandistic bullshit. This has been one of those weeks when all those impulses are on display in the mainstream media, alongside the laudable intention to let some sunlight into the dark places.
In fairness, both the Post and the New York Times — the shrunken but still formidable flagships of American journalism — have done a great deal to correct course and renew their sense of mission after their catastrophic missteps in covering the 2016 election.
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/
5/ Stephen Colbert with a most amusing commentary on Trump and "Chiner"....almost
comedic reporting, a good 9 minutes....
6/ Vox did an interview with Bill McKibben about his new book "Falter"....an excellent read by the way....
Sean Illing
There’s an interesting debate in the climate world about the best way to mobilize people. Some think it’s counterproductive to be alarmist, mostly because it risks overstating the evidence or because it “feeds a paralyzing evidence of doom and hopelessness,” as climate researcher Michael Mann put it. Journalists like the aforementioned Wallace-Wells
Where do you come down on this?
Bill McKibben
We actually have some experience in what it takes to mobilize people, having built the first big planet-scale climate campaign called 350.org.
7/ SNL with a CNN report from Tripoli that goes terribly wrong.....four very good minutes.....
8/ Fox News and it's relentless attempts to keep 40% of the country stupid and ignorant about our climate.....sad.
While sea level rise may be the most talked-about adverse effect of climate change, there is virtually no aspect of life on Earth that isn’t under threat from global temperature rise — including life on Earth itself. The United Nations recently released a summary of a report written by 400 scientists who found that up to one million plant and animals species are facing extinction, many within the next few decades, due to climate change and other man-made factors. “Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before,” the report reads
9/ A three minute segment from Jimmy Kimmel and George Clooney....amusing....
George Clooney took a stand against “rampant dumbfuckery” — including climate deniers, the antivaxx movement and President Trump’s windmill-cancer warnings — in a hilarious Jimmy Kimmel Live bit from Tuesday’s episode. The actor-director outlined his vision to stop such “highly contagious” “dumb shit” via a fake organization called United to Defeat Untruthful Misinformation and Support Science, or UDUMASS.
10/ I-phone a little slow? Be ruthless with apps you don't use, and this Times article tells you how....
If you’ve never bothered to organize the apps on your phone, clean out old files or wrangle your notifications into a sensible order, that disorder can make your phone an overwhelming, slow and buggy device. You can fix this and give your phone new life. Decluttering takes just a few minutes.
Ever downloaded an app for a single purpose, such as a conference, work meeting or vacation, and then left that app on your phone to digitally rot away on the home screen? Be honest.
11/ A Weekend Update interview with Elizabeth Warren [the wonderful Kate McKinnon].....three minutes....
12/ Interesting article from the Times on casual friendships and how important they are....
When I was laid off in 2015, I told people about it the way any good millennial would: By tweeting it. My hope was that someone on the fringes of my social sphere would point me to potential opportunities.
To my surprise, the gambit worked.
Shortly after my public plea for employment, a friend of a friend sent me a Facebook message alerting me to an opening in her department. Three rounds of interviews later, this acquaintance was my boss. (She’s now one of my closest friends).
Think of the parents you see in the drop-off line at school. Your favorite bartender.
The other dog owners at the park. The sociologist Mark Granovetter calls these
13/ Adam Sandler on SNL as a brutally honest tour promoter.....three funny minutes...
We didn’t think we’d be getting four free minutes of therapy when clicking on this Adam Sandler sketch, but, well, here we are, and we have a lot to think about with our (nonrefundable, ugh) summer plans. Word to the wise: Are you trying to travel away from your problems? Are you mentally in a place to travel at all? Sandler’s tour guide, pissed at the occasional negative review of his Italian adventures, has some words of wisdom you need to swallow. “If you’re sad now, you might still feel sad there,” he explains. “If you were sad where you are, and then you get on a plane to Italy, you in Italy will be the same sad you from before, just in a new place.” https://www.vulture.
14/ Scott Maxwell with an excellent column that tells us what the Republicans have been up to in the Legislature in addition to the obvious bills they have passed, like butchering felons right to vote.....
The Florida Legislature was like an F5 tornado this session with more than 3,000 bills whipping in the winds.
Now that the storm has subsided, it’s time to figure out what happened – on everything from guns and schools to housing and Canadian drug imports.
First, though, I wanted to start with an announcement:
I will not be eating my column.
15/ And to finish, an absolute classic "Floriduh" story......completely bonkers....
Disney World may be the most magical place on Earth, but it turned into a legal nightmare for a great-grandmother with arthritis.
A 69-year-old woman was arrested at a Disney World checkpoint when an Orange County Deputy found CBD oil in her purse. She then spent 12 hours behind bars before being released on a $2,000 bond.
Todays airline joke
Passengers on a plane are waiting for the flight to leave. The entrance opens, and two men walk up the aisle, dressed in pilot uniforms. Both are wearing dark glasses.
One is using a seeing-eye dog, and the other is tapping his way up the aisle with a cane. Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start.
The passengers begin glancing nervously, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming.
The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport. As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plow into the water, screams of panic fill the cabin. But at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.
Up in the cockpit, the co-pilot turns to the pilot and says, "You know, Bob, one of these days, they're going to scream too late, and we're all gonna die."
Todays teacher joke
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. At one point in the discussion, the teacher remarked
that it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow an entire human being because, even though the
whale was a very large mammal, its throat was very small.
"But the whale swallowed Jonah," the little girl insisted.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human. It was physically impossible, she
said.
The little girl said, "When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah."
The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."
Todays Florida joke
of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he pushed it to 80 mph,
enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left.
"Amazing," he thought as he flew down I-95, pushing the pedal even more.
Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a Florida State Trooper, blue
lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 100 mph, then 110,
then 120. Suddenly he thought, "What am I doing? I'm too old for this!"
and pulled over to await the trooper's arrival.
Pulling in behind him, the trooper got out of his vehicle and walked
up to the Corvette. He looked at his watch, then said, "Sir, my shift
ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a new reason
for speeding--a reason I've never before heard -- I'll let you go."
The old gentleman paused then said: "Three years ago, my wife ran off
with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.
"Have a good day, Sir," replied the trooper.
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