1/. An in-depth look at the man who could be running in 2024, Ron DeSantis from Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine.
It's a scary article and details how DeSantis has co opted all the Trumpy traits and made them worse....
This is a "must read" for Democrats...
In late February, as daily deaths from COVID-19 tallied in the thousands across the country, Florida governor Ron DeSantisannounced his latest effort to dismantle his state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Private businesses, he insisted, should stop requiring their employees to wear masks at work. Here was a perfectly selected message to build the brand he has established: Ron DeSantis, scourge of public-health bureaucrats, enemy of woke corporations, and friend of the little guy.
2/. At last - a really good SNL cold open - Fox and Friends host some interesting guests......7 good minutes....
3/. Coming soon - water wars in the West......the first of many stories to come......good one from the Guardian....
The ground in Cedar Valley is sinking and splintering. Fissures that snake through the region are a visible sign of Utah’s water woes, and the result of years spent overdrawing from an underground aquifer that supplies the area.
And yet Cedar City, at the heart of the valley, continues to grow. Visitors flock to nearby national parks such as Zion and Bryce Canyon, adding to the flow of new residents expected to move here in the coming years. Cedar City is already the most populous in Utah’s Iron county, and finding more water has become an existential quest.
4/. Ted Cruz is actually good for something.....the Daily Show tells us how.....one minute.....
5/. Florida is the ``Sunshine State", and in an alternate universe there was a law passed that every house built since 2001 [when Al Gore was President] had to have solar panels. Unfortunately we live under Republicans, so to protect their owners [the utility companies] they have just gutted the financial terms that solar panels use to feed back into the grid.
Just another blatant example of the corruption of our state...
In one of America’s sunniest states, a Republican-led Senate recently passed a bill that could hamper the growth of solar energy by removing a popular financial incentive among consumers.
Environmentalists are decrying the measure, arguing that the expansion of rooftop solar is a necessary step in the fight against the climate crisis. The bill was passed in Florida, as another extremely sunny state, California, considered a similar update to its solar policies.
“This is a bill that basically erases the only pro-solar policy in Florida,” said Heaven Campbell, state program director of the non-profit Solar United Neighbo
6/. This is amusing, but also not really.....it's "biting satire", to do with Amazon and black shoppers....
SNL skit, 2 minutes....
7/. An excellent point - Red States are using the Supreme Court decisions to allow bounty hunters to sue women who try
to have abortions....why haven't Blue states done the same for guns, abortion protesters, etc....Democrats unfortunately have no cojones.....
What if the Supreme Court approved a new kind of weapon in the culture wars but only one side used it? With Idaho last week becoming the second state to pass a bounty-style abortion ban, it seems this is exactly what’s happening. Red states are lining up to copy the framework of the law, while blue states stand by the wayside as abortion rights are dismantled.
8/. A rant from Umair on how Republicans are taking Putin's side in the war.....better than usual....
You’d think at this moment, this grave moment, there’d be a little thing, finally, called unity. A world war could erupt at any moment. War crimes and crimes against humanity are taking place on European soil again, at the hands of a despot, in an eerie shadow of the Holocaust. If that doesn’t unite us, then… https://eand.co/i-hate-to-
9/. Tom Tomorrow....very good....
10/. Two religion based Republican abortion bills make it clear that women's bodies are not their own....
‘By granting a patient’s parents, siblings, partners and in-laws the right to sue over her choices regarding her own body and life, the law implies that these parties have a particular interest in, or perhaps even ownership over, that woman.’ Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersI
f there was any doubt that Roe v Wade has been nullified, Idaho’s governor, Brad Little, put an end to it on Wednesday, when he signed SB1309, known officially as the Fetal Heartbeat Preborn Child Protection Act, into law. Like Texas’ SB8, Idaho’s new law bans all abortions after six weeks’ gestational age, in plain violation of Roe. But like SB8, the law may well be able to go into effect as scheduled next month, because it is enforced not through state action, but through private lawsuits.
11/. Have not seen this before....The Rock and others with "Bambi", an SNL skit....two minutes....
12/. Interesting story on Ron DeSantis and Florida's vaccination statistics.....it makes the point that a huge number of people vaccinated in Florida were visitors, so there is a gross undercount of full time residents who have been done.
In addition Florida has gone out of its way to muddy the numbers, to the point where I don't believe anything coming from Florida's government....do you?
This week, Chris Persaud of the Palm Beach Post reported out a devastating revelation about the impact of Ron DeSantis’s war on vaccines. The story has received barely any attention in the national press, even though it destroys the defense that DeSantis’s national supporters have made on behalf of his management of the coronavirus pandemic.
13/. "R" rated Senate hearings.....
14/ How corporate America continues to grind the poor into the dirt.....they're now after mobile home parks.....
GOLDEN, Colo. — When Sarah Clement moved to the Golden Hills mobile home park two years ago, she felt like she had won the lottery. After years of squeezing into one-bedroom apartments with her, her 7-year-old son finally settled into his own bedroom, his toys splayed out in the yard and his school just at the edge of the park.
Ms. Clement loved the friendliness of her neighbors and getting to watch the sun rise over the scrubby mesa to her east and set behind the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the west. And living there was affordable on her salary as an athletic trainer: After purchasing the manufactured home, the rent for the plot it sits on was just $625 a month.
But just six months after she moved in, the plot of land and all of the stability and
comfort that came with it seemed suddenly ripped out from under her.
15/. Bill Maher on how Republicans running for office in 2022 are the craziest yet.....a pretty good 7 minutes.....
16/. I love AOC.....and in this one she's right....
Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks President Biden got played by Senator Joe Manchin — and that the president’s nostalgia for a bygone era of backroom dealmaking could prove disastrous for Democrats in the midterms.
Sitting in her campaign office, she says this matter-of-factly, as if bucking the explicit orders of her party’s leaders — up to and including the president of the United States — is not that big of a deal. But it is.
17/. Weekend Update #1 - Will Smith and Chris Rock.....
Weekend Update #2 - Amazon Union formed ....
18/. Remember the Petersons? She fell down the stairs and died, and there was a sensational trial with controversy galore.
This new series from HBO looks really good.....Colin Firth and Toni Collette are the stars...
It was four or five in the morning, the set had reverted to its bloody basics, and Toni Collette was tasked to die—again. She’d already acted out several ways that her character, Kathleen Peterson, could have met her grisly demise, but returning to the scene of the crime (or accident) for another freshly devised scenario struck her anew. “It just became so surreal,” she recalls. “This woman died. We don’t know how she died, but there’s a big responsibility that comes with bringing a truthful quality not only to that experience, but to her life.”
19/. The Guardian loves this documentary......
Iseem to have spent most of 2022 ragging on all the terrible true-crime shows that have suddenly flooded streaming services, so it is only right that I should use this space to point out ones that are actually good. So allow me to present Netflix’s Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King.
Trust No One tells the story of QuadrigaCX, a cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed spectacularly without warning. Quadriga’s founder – an amiable goofball named Gerald Cotten – died without warning in India, and his death blocked people from accessing their money, which totalled hundreds of millions of dollars. Investors were angry, lives were ruined and so much was left unclear that a wealth of wayward theories about Cotten erupted. Was he murdered? Did he steal the money and fake his own death? Is he out there now, surgically altered and living on a private island?
20/ Interesting movie....
Danish-born Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier’s existential tragicomedy opened to rave reviews in Cannes last year and has since garnered international awards recognition, including Oscar nominations for original screenplay (with regular co-writer Eskil Vogt) and international feature film. Described by Trier as “a coming-of-age film for grownups who feel like they still haven’t grown up”, it continues the director’s cinematic love affair with the Norwegian capital, previously explored in Reprise and Oslo, August 31st, with which this forms a loose trilogy. Blending melancholy wistfulness with unruly energy and piercing humour, it’s a down-to-earth tale of love and death, boosted by a brilliantly believable central performance and elevated by fantastical moments of hallucinogenic horror and ecstatic joy.
Today's video - a classic from the Johnny Carson show - Steve Martin with "The Great Flydini".....it builds nicely....
Today's mental health joke....
Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while
they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly
jumped into the deep end.
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled
him out.
they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly
jumped into the deep end.
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled
him out.
When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic
act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as
she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news
and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were
able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the
life of the person you love... I have concluded that your act displays
sound mindedness.
The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe
belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.'
Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry..
How soon can I go home?'
act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as
she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news
and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were
able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the
life of the person you love... I have concluded that your act displays
sound mindedness.
The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe
belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.'
Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry..
How soon can I go home?'
Today's zen jokes
1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.
2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.
4. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
5. Always remember that you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
7. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.
9. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
12. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
13. Some days you’re the bug; some days you’re the windshield.
14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.
17. Duct tape is like ‘The Force’. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
19. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.
20. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
Today's nun joke
John was sitting outside his local pub one day, enjoying a quiet pint and generally feeling good about himself, when a nun suddenly appears at his
table and started decrying the evils of drink.
“You should be ashamed of yourself young man! Drinking is a sin! Alcohol is the blood of the devil!”
Now John gets pretty annoyed about this and goes on the offensive.
“How do you know this, Sister?”
“My Mother Superior told me so.”
“But have you ever had a drink yourself? How can you be sure that what you are saying is right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course, I have never taken alcohol myself!”
“Then let me buy you a drink. If you still believe afterwards that it is evil I will give up drink for life.”
“How could I, a Nun, sit outside this public house drinking?!”
“I’ll get the barman to put it in a teacup for you, then no one will ever know.”
The Nun reluctantly agrees, so John goes inside to the bar.
“Another pint for me, and a triple vodka on the rocks”, then he lowers his voice and says to the barman “and could you put the vodka in a teacup?”
“Oh no! It’s not that Nun again is it?”
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