1/. Sidney Blumenthal with a sad story on how Republicans have totally surrendered to Trump, and are
now pushing not just a false narrative on Jan. 6, but a nonsensical one.....
We are in another world folks.....
O
J Simpson decided he could make some “blood money”, as he called it, by writing a “hypothetical” book on the murders of his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman entitled If I Did It. When it was announced in 2006, the outrage was so overwhelming that the publisher, HarperCollins, owned by Rupert Murdoch, fired the editor, Judith Regan, and cancelled a scheduled Fox network special. The OJ book fiasco appeared to be a rare moment of Murdoch sensitivity, but he was concerned that the association besmirched his own reputation.
2/. Tom Tomorrow meets a Trumpie.....
3/. Boeing - they took one of the best engineering and safety based company
cultures and made it all financial.....and here we are.....
We often use the word “iconic” to describe companies such as Xerox, U.S. Steel and General Electric when we really mean “no longer great.” And Boeing no longer is.
That company’s already turbulent reputation suffered another joltthis month when a door plug — a fake door that replaces a real one in some airliner configurations — on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out at about 16,000 feet. The gaping hole in the fuselage terrified passengers, but the pilots calmly landed the aircraft. Max 9s with that configuration were grounded temporarily, and Congress demanded answers. Investigations have commenced into the 737 Max 9, a fairly new jet freighted with Boeing’s penchant for producing flawed aircraft.
4/. Hmmmm.....how billionaires really work to help us all......
5/. The Koch Companies are really evil.....
Asbestos victims, their families and attorneys are claiming a Koch Industries-owned company and its lawyers are using a controversial bankruptcy maneuver to avoid paying millions in compensation to its former employees.
Workers at Georgia-Pacific, a paper and building products company, have been locked in a years-long battle with a company over claims asbestos in its products caused fatal cancers.
6/. An SNL commercial for Alaska Airlines.....amusing.....
7/. I don't often agree with the Times' David Brooks, but he nails it in this column......
Sometimes in this job I have a kernel of a column idea that doesn’t pan out. But other times I begin looking into a topic and find a problem so massive that I can’t believe I’ve ever written about anything else. This latter experience happened as I looked into the growing bureaucratization of American life. It’s not only that growing bureaucracies cost a lot of money; they also enervate American society. They redistribute power from workers to rule makers, and in so doing sap initiative, discretion, creativity and drive.
8/. Yup, this is the way it's going.....
9/. You will probably remember most of these, if not all.....
For you political junkies - The 50 Worst Political Decisions Ever"....
But when politicians make dumb decisions, the results are quite a bit more serious. If the political ruling class had just a little more sense, we might live in a world where Al Gore was president, Sarah Palin never became a national figure, and Donald Trump remained nothing more than a crooked real estate developer and reality-show host. And since we’re headed into a wild political year where anything feels terrifyingly possible, we’ve assembled a list of the 50 dumbest political decisions of the past 50 years. https:/www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-lists/worst-decisions-american-politics-1974-2024-1234940313/
10/. An SNL skit - a woman's AA meeting is visited by a hot guy....very funny......
11/. A brief and unusually good overview of where we are today from Heather Cox Richardson.....
If you're not getting her daily newsletter, you should.....
Last night at a rally in New Hampshire, former president Trump repeatedly confused former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who is running against him for the Republican presidential nomination, with Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the former speaker of the House.
“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6th,” Trump told the audience. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people. Soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down.”
Quick note - if you read #9, they missed one........."deplorables!".....
12/. Weekend Update #1.....just OK....
WE #2 - Michael Che has some great lines.....
WE #3 - Che interviews Sen. Tim Scott.....very good and includes a great zinger....
13/. Interesting story from Jason Garcia on how insurance costs could be reduced that's workable.....
But has minimal chance of passing because of insurance company lobbyists....
Also - look at the list of bills that have passed the Florida House committees.....and you think we aren't corrupt?
Lawrence Mower of the Tampa Bay Times had a smart story last week, noting that Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature suddenly seems willing this session to expand public property insurance. For some people.
Within the span of about 48 hours last week, a Senate committee approved one billallowing the state’s public insurance company to sell policies to people who own homes worth up to $1 million (the current cutoff is $700,000). And a House committee approved another bill letting Citizens Property Insurance Corp. sell policies to condo buildings even if most of the units are rented out to vacationers
14/. Bill Maher is back with a "New Rule".....pretty good.....
15/. Local media is being destroyed by its new owners, hedge funds and among others, Sinclair Media.....really bad folks....
Paul Moore vividly remembers the Baltimore Sun in its heyday, not so long ago.
“More than 400 newsroom staff, six foreign bureaus and a 12-person Washington bureau,” Moore recalled. He was the Sun’s deputy managing editor (and, for a time, its public editor) until 2009. “We were a full-service newspaper, covering the country, the region and the world.” And winning multiple Pulitzer prizes for the quality of its aggressive, ambitious journalismThen came all manner of misfortune – a series of bad owners, the stunning downturn in newspaper economics and – just this week – the paper’s purchase by David D Smith, who runs Sinclair Inc, a Maryland-based media company that made itself infamous a few years ago when it ordered its local journalists in dozens of markets to repeat, word for word, the same rightwing “editorial” about fake news. The identical segments had a hostage-video vibe
.https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2024/jan/18/local-newspapers-media-chain-ownership-baltimore-sun-sinclair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
16/ Florida is blatantly corrupt....the trouble is nobody knows how they do it......
So if you read this from Jason Garcia at least you know.....lobbyists....
A bill in the Florida Legislature meant to stop working Floridians from securing higher pay or better benefits was given to lawmakers by a big-business lobbying group that represents major employers like Publix Super Markets, Bank of America and Walt Disney World, according to emails obtained in a public-records request.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce may not be working alone. The emails suggest the business group had help writing the wages-and-benefits bill from a billionaire-backed think tank called the Foundation for Government Accountability — the same organization that wrote a separate proposal moving through Tallahassee this session that would weaken Florida’s child-labor laws. https://jasongarcia.substack.com/p/records-show-a-big-business-lobbying?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=687064&post_id=140940605&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2cwgv&utm_medium=email
17/. Part of the reason Florida is so corrupt....
18/. This is interesting - a tour of the Rivian plant in Illinois with the CEO.....
And note that the new electric Amazon vans are Rivians you see being built in this video.....
19/. Over 60? You need power! And there's a test.....
If you want to stay healthy as you age, experts say you have to keep moving with a mix of cardio, strength and balance training. But there’s another critical element, one that doesn’t get as much attention. It’s what gives you the ability to toss a heavy trash
bag into a can or lift a suitcase into an overhead compartment.
It’s called power, and it’s never too early (or late) to start building it.
Experts define power as the ability to apply force rapidly — using fast-twitch muscle fibers in short, explosive bursts. Strength allows you to lower into a chair, power gets you back up. If you trip and stumble, power allows you to quickly recover and avoid a fall. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/well/move/strength-30-second-power-test-aging.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
20/. An AI version of Ron DeSantis prepping himself for a debate.....just like a robot....from the Daily Show....
21/. So I put this groaner on FB.....
22/. Which triggered a memory of the song and the movie, which was great.
So here's Prince with "Purple Rain", which includes one of the best guitar
solos ever.....
Today's golf joke....
John, who lived in the north of England, decided to go golfing in Scotland with his buddy, Shawn.
So they loaded up John's minivan and headed north.
After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible storm.
So they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who answered the door if they could spend the night.
“I realize it's terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to myself, but I'm recently widowed,” she explained, “and I'm afraid the neighbours will talk if I let you stay in my house.” “Don't worry,” John said. “We'll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if the weather breaks, we'll be gone at first light.”
The lady agreed, and the two men found their way to the barn and settled in for the night.
Come morning, the weather had cleared, and they got on their way.
They enjoyed a great weekend of golf. But about nine months later, John got an unexpected letter from an attorney.
It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it was from the attorney of that attractive widow he had met on the golf weekend.
He dropped in on his friend Shawn and asked, “Shawn, do you remember that good-looking widow from the farm we stayed at on our golf holiday in Scotland about 9 months ago?'
“Yes, I do,” said Shawn
“Did you, er… happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house and pay her a visit?”
“Well, um… yes,” Shawn said, a little embarrassed about being found out, “I have to admit that I did.”
“And did you happen to give her my name instead of telling her your name?”
Shawn's face turned beet red and he said, “Yeah, look… I'm sorry, buddy. I'm afraid I did. Why do you ask?”
“She just died and left me everything.”
(And you thought the ending would be different, didn't you; you’re smiling, aren’t you?)
Senior Joke....
An 80 year old went for his annual checkup...and the Doctor said "Friend, for your age, you're in the best shape I've seen."
The old fella replied, "Yep. It comes from clean living. I know for sure that I live a good, clean, spiritual life."
The Doctor asked him, "What makes you say that?"
The old man replied, "If I didn't live a good, clean life, the Lord wouldn't turn the bathroom lights on for me every time I get up in the middle of the night."
The Doc was concerned, "You mean, when you get up in the night to go to the bathroom, the Lord himself turns the light on for you?"
"Yep," the old man said, "whenever I get up to go to the bathroom, the Lord turns the light on for me."
Well, the Doctor didn't say anything else, but when Sadie the old man's wife came in for her check-up, he felt he had to let her know what her husband said.
"Your husband's in fine physical shape, but I'm worried about his mental condition.
He told me that every night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, the Lord turns the light on for him. "
"He What?" She cried. "He said that every night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, the Lord turns the light on for him."
"AHA!!" She exclaimed.......... "So he's the one who's been peeing in the fridge!"
Today's pet lover joke....
A dog lover, whose dog was a female and "in heat', agreed to look after her neighbor`s male dog while the neighbors were on vacation.
She had a large house and believed that she could keep the two dogs apart.
However, that night, as she was drifting off to sleep she heard awful howling and moaning sounds, rushed downstairs and found the dogs locked together, in obvious pain and unable to disengage, as so frequently happens when dogs mate.
Unable to separate them, and perplexed as to what to do next, although it was late, she called the vet, who answered in a very grumpy voice. Having explained the problem to him, the vet said, "Hang up the phone and place it down alongside the dogs.
I will then call you back and the noise of the ringing will make the male lose his erection and he will be able to withdraw."
"Do you think that will work?" she asked.
"Just worked on me," he replied.
Today's Israeli joke
The coach had put together the perfect team for the Chicago Bears.
The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback.
He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he couldn't find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl win.
Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in the West Bank .
In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Israeli soldier with a truly incredible arm.
He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away. KABOOM!
He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney.
KA-BLOOEY!
Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph.
BULLS-EYE!
"I've got to get this guy!" Coach said to himself. "He has the perfect arm!"
So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football.
And the Bears go on to win the Super Bowl.
The young man is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.
"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"
"I don't want to talk to you, the old woman says."You are not my son!"
"I don't think you understand, Mother," the young man pleads. "I've won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."
"No! Let me tell you!" his mother retorts.
"At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble.
Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!"
The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says,...
"I will never forgive you for making us move to Chicago !!!!
