1/ Frank Rich....excellent commentary as always....
Saturday didn’t go quite as planned. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/Shutterstock
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 campaign after Tulsa, the nationwide coronavirus surge, and Bill Barr’s attempt at a Friday Night Massacre.
President Trump’s Tulsa rally failed to be the campaign launchpad that he and his staff had envisioned. Where does his campaign go from here?
Perhaps the most important thing we learned from Trump’s Tulsa fiasco is that there is no Trump campaign.
2/ The new Joe Biden ad from the Lincoln Project....pretty good!
3/ It's not just Trump to blame for our ongoing disaster - it's Republicans including his supporters who seem to be blind, deaf and
dumb to the reality that's unfolding....
Good column from Paul Krugman in the Times....
Earlier this year much of America went through hell as the nation struggled to deal with Covid-19. More than 120,000 Americans have now died; more than 20 million have lost their jobs.
But it’s looking as if all those sacrifices were in vain. We never really got the coronavirus under control, and now infections, while they have fallen to a quite low level in the New York area, the pandemic’s original epicenter, are surging in much of the rest of the country.
4/ David Wallace-Wells on the failure of public health officials to manage the coronavirus crisis - yes the abject failure was Federal, but there were many local bungled responses as well. Remember when they closed beaches and parks, when we now know these are safe spaces with social distancing.
They said it was highly contagious, when in fact it isn't....the danger is indoor enclosed spaces.
Remember when they said masks were useless, and now it's clear masks cut the risks way down.
This will go down in history as the biggest cluster ever....
London, ca. 1918. Photo: Vintage_Space / Alamy/Alamy Stock Photo
Almost as soon as the first marches to protest the killing of George Floydbegan, in Minneapolis on May 26, conservatives and COVID contrarians seized on the rallies as a case study of liberal coronavirus hypocrisy. If the disease spread rapidly through the assembled protesters, they felt, it would show that those who’d spent the spring scolding Americans for resisting lockdowns didn’t care as much about public health as they did about advancing their own set of political values.
5/ Sarah Cooper with "How To Empty Seat"....Trump in Tulsa....one amusing minute....
6/ Michelle Goldberg in the Times...."we are too broken as a country to fight the coronavirus"....I wish she were wrong....
Graphs of the coronavirus curves in Britain, Canada, Germany and Italy look like mountains, with steep climbs up and then back down. The one for America shows a fast climb up to a plateau. For a while, the number of new cases in the U.S. was at least slowly declining. Now, according to The Times, it’s up a terrifying 22 percent over the last 14 days.
7/ John Oliver continues his stellar comedic reporting on Covid-19 and the prison system....an excellent 18 minutes....
8/ Umair is right in this column - Trump is indeed going to try to steal the election..
9/ Stephen Colbert had Melania Trump on the Late Show {Laura Benati] to ask about the tell-all
book about her....she is very good....
10/ Planting trees to solve the climate crisis? Jeff Goodell firmly explodes this attractive but deeply flawed idea...
According to a new report this week by the Pew Research Center, Americans have finally come to an agreement about how to solve the climate crisis: by planting trees. A trillion of them. In theory, those trees will suck so much carbon out of the air that we won’t have to worry about installing solar panels or ditching the SUV for an electric car. According to the Pew report, the trillion trees solution is supported by 90 percent of both Democrats and Republicans.
11/ Bill Maher......do Republicans have a safe word for Trump?
12/ Jeff Goodell on how the CDC has been gutted from doing anything to do with public health and the climate crisis....
A thought experiment: What if we lived in a world where the climate crisis directly threatened the lives of rich white guys? How different would the political debate be about cutting carbon and adapting to a superheated world?
These questions occurred to me the other day after reading an excellent new investigation into how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the top federal public-health agency, has failed to address the public-health implications of climate change, doing virtually nothing to prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans from rising temperatures and other climate impacts.
13/ The Lincoln Project with another vicious, ruthless ad.....love it! "Shrinking"....
14/ Read this Paul Krugman column and apply it to your right wing friends on Facebook, or look at the comments section of any political article in any paper.
You will find, as Krugman puts it - "belligerent ignorance"....
In the early 20th century the American South was ravaged by pellagra, a nasty disease that produced the “four Ds” — dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. At first, pellagra’s nature was uncertain, but by 1915 Dr. Joseph Goldberger, a Hungarian immigrant employed by the federal government, had conclusively shown that it was caused by nutritional deficiencies associated with poverty, and especially with a corn-based diet.
15/ Tom Tomorrow on the police....
16/ You may have missed this one.....Laura Benati and Christina Baranski both doing Melania Trump.....exceptionally
funny, watch them all lose it including Colbert....eight minutes...
17/ According to this new book Miami will be gone by 2067.....interesting book review....my opinion and also
Jeff Goodell's is that South Florida's infrastructure will fall apart much faster than that....
The prospects for Miami are grim, a scientist tells Mario Alejandro Ariza in his new book: “The water’s rise will be merciless and — geologically speaking — swift.” Ariza wishes there were a more favorable forecast for his hometown. Like his Dominican grandmother, he hopes to celebrate his 80th birthday in Miami. That will be in 2067, when most of the region’s coastal zone, about 500 square miles that is home to 60,000 people, is likely to be underwater unless bold measures are taken.
18/ Bill Maher with a plea for us to stop being afraid....especially millennials...five minutes....
19/ "He's not a whiny bitch" - wonderful Biden ad....
20/ Why do Trumpies not get what a disaster their hero has got us into....
Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed. Photo: Cengiz Yar/Getty Images
By any objective standard, the president’s prospects for reelection are looking down. Joe Biden is continuing to lead him in trial heats nationally (by 8.1 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics averages) and in most battleground states. The president’s job approval numbers are lower than they’ve been since last December. People are still very afraid of COVID-19, and despite one good monthly jobs report, the economy is still in the ditch, with unemployment higher than at any time since the 1930s.
21/ Tracey Ullman is a wonderful British comedian....here is a skit about being too "woke"....2 minutes....
22/ I am a sucker for good reviews, so I watched this movie.....wow! Incredibly good, and it's everything
the review says it is. Note - it's ultraviolent....
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Kim Da-mi in The Witch. Netflix
One Good Thing is Vox’s recommendations feature. In each edition, find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend.
While the coronavirus pandemic has smashed the brakes on Marvel and Warner Bros.’s summer blockbuster slate this year, the next great superhero movie is already here, streaming on Netflix: The Witch Part 1: The Subversion.
23/ Looks like some decent shows here....we can vouch for "My Brilliant Friend" Season one as incredibly good, and it's
not a chick flick guys....good to know there's a Season Two...
So many of the constants of American entertainment went away over the course of this very strange and frequently tragic spring. No movies (at least, not in theaters). No plays or concerts or opera. No sports. The one reassuring constant of quarantine has been television, as binges old and new replace the many activities we used to do when it was safe to go outside.
24/ Jon Stewart produced and directed "Irresistible", as Rolling Stone puts it "A Political Satire That Stings"....
The stumbling block for political satire is that it’s almost always partisan — which is great if it flatters your views, and grating if it doesn’t. But not for Jon Stewart. In his first writing-directing gig since 2014’s docudrama Rosewater, the former late-night fixture ingeniously makes it impossible to take sides … since both sides totally suck. As host of The Daily Show between 1999 and 2015, Stewart knew that the only way to deal with the toxic mix of politics, media, and money afflicting the body politic was to resist. Or at least to see it as something other than the inevitable result of an artificially engineered war between the left and the right. His target isn’t one political party. It’s passivity.
25/ Florida in the summer is like Spain - no one goes outside between 1pm and 5pm....just too damn hot,
so here is a list of books for you from the Guardian....
Today's video - attachment at the bottom, a clever series of magic tricks...
Today's second video - a two minute horror movie....note - scary!
Todays retiree joke
Four old retired men are walking down a street in Yuma , Arizona. They turn a corner and see a sign that says, "Old Timers Bar - ALL drinks 10 cents." They look at each other and then go in, thinking this is too good to be true.
The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, "Come on in and let me pour one for you! What'll it be, gentlemen?" There's a fully stocked bar, so each of the men orders a martini.
In no time the bartender serves up four iced martinis shaken, not stirred and says, "That'll be 10 cents each, please." The four guys stare at the bartender for a moment, then at each other. They can't believe their good luck. They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis, and order another round.
Again, four excellent martinis are produced, with the bartender again saying, “That’s 40 cents, please." They pay the 40 cents, but their curiosity gets the better of them. They've each had two martinis and haven't even spent a dollar yet. Finally one of them says, "How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a dime apiece?"
"I'm a retired tailor from Phoenix," the bartender says, "and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the Lottery Jackpot for $125 million and decided to open this place. Every drink costs a dime. Wine, liquor, beer it's all the same."
"Wow! That's some story!" one of the men says. As the four of them sip at their martinis, they can't help noticing seven other people at the end of the bar who don't have any drinks in front of them and haven't ordered anything the whole time they've been there. Nodding at the seven at the end of the bar, one of the men asks the Bartender, "What's with them?"
The bartender says, “They’re retirees from Florida. They're waiting for Happy Hour when drinks are half-price, plus they have coupons."
Today's Vintage Dear Abby joke
Dear Abby,
My husband hasn't worked for the last 14 years. All he does is get dressed in the morning and hop in his fancy car to visit his cronies. I know he`s cheated on me many times with young girls who could be his grand daughters....
I know this because he brags about this to me. He smokes fancy cigars and drinks the most expensive Champagne day and night. We sleep in separate beds because he keeps telling me he knows I`m a lesbian and my varicose veins and fat behind turns him off.
Should I clobber him with my frying pan, or should I just leave him ? Your advice would be appreciated ....
Sincerely,
Mad as Hell
Dear Mad as Hell,
You don`t have to take that kind of treatment from any man. I suggest you pack your bags and move out ASAP!
Don't resort to clobbering him with the frying pan , and try to act more like a lady.
Remember ....... you`re running for President of the United States, so try acting like one.
Best of luck to you
Abby
Todays Will Rogers jokes
Never squat with your spurs on . . .Will Rogers , who died in a 1935 plane crash, was one of the greatest political sages t his country has ever known.Some of his sayings:1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.3. There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.5. Always drink upstream from the herd.6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.8. There are three kinds of men:The ones that learn by reading.The few who learn by observation.The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment .10. If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.The moral : When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.ABOUT GROWING OLDER...First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.Third ~ Some people try to turn back their odometers . Not me; I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it's such a nice change from being young.Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.Tenth ~ Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.And, finally ~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.
