We have two points of view on DACA today - Matt Taibbi [1] and Frank Rich [3] ......who knows, maybe both of them are right....
Seth Meyers [2] also has an excellent summary of the decision....
And no Irma stories.....yet. Read some news before your power goes out....
1/ The Trump decision on DACA has been universally loathed....but as Matt Taibbi says it may be a political win for Trump.....a story you will loathe....
Here is an unpopular observation about Donald Trump's latest assault on immigrants: It might work, politically.
Delivering the odious message through his feckless, oft-humiliated Justice Department subordinate, Jeff Sessions, Trump this week announced that the Department of Homeland Security would stop processing applications under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Begun under Barack Obama's administration in 2012, DACA allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive work permits and renewable exemptions from deportation.
Sessions delivered the news with anxious excitement, like he was finally getting to the fun part of being the designated organ grinder's monkey of the Trump administration. He insisted that he was only righting a wrong, undoing an executive branch dictum that Obama had forced down the throats of Congress years before.
2/ Seth Meyers with nine minutes - briefly on Trump and Irma, but mostly Trump and DACA.....excellent stuff, with some wonderful zingers....
On “Late Night,” Seth Meyers summed up another dizzying week in politics — one in which President Trump surprised even members of his own party by moving to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and by endorsing the Democrats’ plan for raising the debt ceiling.
“Trump is siding with Democrats and undercutting his own party. He’s like a hurricane, except he doesn’t follow any path.” — SETH MEYERS
3/ Frank Rich is pissed off......you can sense his loathing of Trump in his analysis of the weeks news......
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: Donald Trump’s DACA decision, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and Harvey recovery.
Administration officials worry that President Trump, reportedly looking for “a way out” of making a tough decision on DACA by kicking it to Congress, “might not fully grasp” what the end of the program could bring. This Congress has so far failed at all attempts to pass major legislation — is there a chance they can fix the program on Trump’s six-month deadline?
Trump’s “way out” on DACA was to send it to the Dead Letter Office, otherwise known as the GOP-majority Congress, which couldn’t even deliver on its signature seven-year-plus crusade to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Trump’s additional “way out” was to delegate the public announcement of his egregious decision to Jeff Sessions, who then refused to take questions from the press. Our president knows one meaning of the word pussy. His own cowardice exemplifies another.
Trump’s “way out” on DACA was to send it to the Dead Letter Office, otherwise known as the GOP-majority Congress, which couldn’t even deliver on its signature seven-year-plus crusade to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Trump’s additional “way out” was to delegate the public announcement of his egregious decision to Jeff Sessions, who then refused to take questions from the press. Our president knows one meaning of the word pussy. His own cowardice exemplifies another.
4/ Stephen Colbert forces Bernie Sanders to say something nice about Trump.....two surprisingly good minutes....
“Is there something nice you could say about President Trump?” Colbert asked.
“Uh…” Sanders struggled.
The Late Show host threw the Vermont Senator a bone by going first.
“He still has all of his teeth,” Colbert quipped.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/st
5/ Charles Blow in the Times with a column we all need to read. Blow is right - we have become overwhelmed by the constant lies.....
Once again: Donald Trump is a liar.
The Department of Justice confirmed in a Friday court filing what we all knew to be true: that Trump’s slanderous assertion on Twitter in March that President Barack Obama had Trump’s “ ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower” just before the election was in fact a total fabrication.
According to the filing, both the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice’s National Security Division “confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets.”
To some this lying may seem small, just another defect among many, but to me it is so much more. Honesty is the foundation of character. The truth is the common base from which all else is built.
And yet, this man feels completely unbound by it. He has no respect or reverence for it. For him, honesty is an option, one that he feels no compulsion to choose.
6/ An Australian commercial for lamb has caused a stir with the Hindu community down under.....don't know why, it offends just about everyone equally......two amusing minutes....
An advertisement promoting lamb has sparked controversy by depicting a number of religious gods and deities enjoying a chop around a dinner table.
On Monday, Meat and Livestock Australia released the ad showing a number of figures including Jesus, Ganesha, Aphrodite, L Ron Hubbard, an alien, Moses and a buddha sitting around an outdoor table.
After a discussion about religion, the athiest at the table raises her glass and says: "What about we toast to lamb, the meat we can all eat?"
The advertisement has been slammed as "disrespecful" to Hindu religion as their god Lord Ganesha does not eat meat.
7/ Fascinating story from Bloomberg about the Kushner Companies who hold billions in New York real estate, and how they are perilously close to bankrupt......Jared must be sweating.....
Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.
The family, once one of the largest landlords on the East Coast, sold thousands of apartments to finance its purchase of the tower in 2007 and has borrowed extensively for other purchases. They are walking away from a Brooklyn hotel once considered central to their plans for an office hub. From other properties, they are extracting cash, including tens of millions in borrowed funds from the recently acquired former New York Times building. What’s more, their partner in the Fifth Avenue building, Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steve Roth, has stood aside, allowing the Kushners to pursue financing on their own.
8/ No FEMA, no National Guard, no money, no hope.....horrifying pictures of the catastrophic flooding in South Asia....
Heavy monsoon rains of historic proportions have slammed Nepal, Bangladesh, and India for weeks, leading to what international rescue and aid organizations say is the worst flooding in decades.
Nearly 1,400 people have been killed by the flooding and landslides in the three countries so far, while millions continue to be displaced from their homes. Torrential monsoon rains have destroyed tens of thousands of houses, schools, and hospitals, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The agency estimates that almost 41 million people have been affected in three countries.
9/ You are on a flight - the safety video comes on and you switch off your brain because they are so boring......but some airlines are trying to get your attention, and here are five flight safety videos for you.
My opinion - the British Airways one is the best, but the French one is the most stylish [of course]....
In the never-ending battle to get passengers to pay attention to flight safety rules, airlines have increasingly attempted to bring humor, creativity and style to their in-flight videos.
The latest comes from British Airways, who on Tuesday released a six-minute short featuring some of the country’s best-known actors and comedians, including Ian McKellen, Gordon Ramsay, Thandie Newton and Rowan Atkinson — all being “directed” in screen tests by the actor and writer Asim Chaudhry.
10/ "Prosperity Christianity" is the doctrine of not only Joel Osteen but also of Trump and the Republican Party.....if you are poor it's your fault....
Good story from Sarah Posner in Rolling Stone....
Last Friday, hours before Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, Houston's most famous pastor tweeted out a teaser for his latest podcast, "The God Who Goes Before You." In a video excerpt embedded in the tweet, televangelist Joel Osteen, the city's wealthiest ecclesiastical son, is seen preaching in the altar of his 16,000-seat capacity Lakewood Church, formerly the Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets once played basketball. "Many sports champions have been crowned there," Osteen said when the church took over the property in 2005. "We believe we can crown champions in life."
That's the heart of Osteen's notoriously saccharine version of a theology known as the prosperity gospel: You, too, can be a champion – like Osteen, who's worth a reported $40 million and lives in a $10 million mansion in Houston's River Oaks neighborhood. Just trust God.
11/ Stephen Colbert on Steve Bannon's interview with CBS.....four very good minutes....
12/ Hillary Clinton's ideas and her new book evicerated by Benjamin Studebaker, one of our favourite bloggers.....
Hillary Clinton Still Doesn’t Get It
by Benjamin Studebaker
A few excerpts have leaked from Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book, What Happened. They contain a series of attacks on Bernie Sanders and his supporters. You can find lots of people criticizing Clinton for re-litigating the primaries, but today I want to draw attention to just how bad Clinton’s arguments are.
Let’s start with Clinton’s abs-and-ponies metaphor:
There are two key things that stick out to me here. Let’s take them one at a time.
1. Congress wasn’t going to support Clinton’s proposals either.
13/ Above and Beyond with Zoe Johnston - "Alchemy", a beautiful song, great photography and incredible acting but it has to be one of the saddest music vids ever made.....
14/ I have watched three episodes of this, and it's just like this review.....
Why 'Twin Peaks: The Return' Was the Most Groundbreaking TV Series Ever
David Lynch and Mark Frost's 25-years-later murder mystery was not only a masterpiece – it may have permanently changed the medium
When some phrases pass through the prism of Twin Peaks, you can never hear them the same way again. "Damn good coffee" is one; "Gotta light?" is another. We'll submit a third candidate, one that the just-concluded third season of David Lynch and Mark Frost's supernatural murder-mystery masterpiece has marked for permanent retirement from the critical vocabulary: "Like nothing else on television." The TV landscape remains full of singular, spectacular shows, Peak TV fatigue be damned. But just as the original Twin Peaks inspired visionary showrunners from David Chase to Damon Lindelof to create the New Golden Age, the show's revived third season may have leapfrogged them all. What we just witnessed was unmatched in the medium's history.
Out today is Steven King's "It".......decent review by Rolling Stone....
Expect all the bleak summer chatter about the dying box office to fade with the opening of It, a crowdpleasing frightfest bound for box-office paydirt. For weeks now, the trailers for the film version of Stephen King's terror classic have been cranking us up to lose our shit. That evil clown Pennywise, a spectacularly scary Bill Skarsgard (Alexander's brother), is the stuff of nightmares. The full-length movie, however, can't match the trailers for sustained terror – it runs a punishing two hours and 15 minutes (and it's only half of the novel). But Itworks enough of the time to deliver on the promise of bad dreams.
Directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama), from a script by Chase Palmer, Gary Dauberman and Cary Fukunaga (True Detective: Season One – the good season) the film is based on King's 1986 novel which became a highly rated ABC miniseries in 1990 and featured Tim Curry as the nasty piece of business known as Pennywise. An R-rated movie, with its spray of gore and f-bombs, usually beats the pants off a safe network series anytime. And when Pennywise bites off a kid's arm, it's a cruncher. You'll scream bloody murder.
Which brings us to the plot.
"It" trailer......wow!
Todays psychic joke
A father put his 3 year old daughter to bed, told her a story and listened to her prayers
which ended by saying, "God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy, God bless Grandma
and goodbye Grandpa."
The father asked, 'Why did you say goodbye Grandpa?'
The little girl said, "I don't know Daddy, it just seemed like the right
thing to do."
The next day Grandpa died.The father thought it was a strange coincidence.
A few months later the father put the girl to bed and listened to her
prayers which went like this, "God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy
The father asked, 'Why did you say goodbye Grandpa?'
The little girl said, "I don't know Daddy, it just seemed like the right
thing to do."
The next day Grandpa died.The father thought it was a strange coincidence.
A few months later the father put the girl to bed and listened to her
prayers which went like this, "God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy
and goodbye Grandma."
The next day the grandmother died.
Thought the father; "This kid is in contact with the other side."
Several weeks later when the girl was going to bed the Dad heard her say,
"God bless Mummy and goodbye Daddy."
He practically went into shock. He couldn't sleep all night and got up at
the crack of dawn to go to his office.
The next day the grandmother died.
Thought the father; "This kid is in contact with the other side."
Several weeks later when the girl was going to bed the Dad heard her say,
"God bless Mummy and goodbye Daddy."
He practically went into shock. He couldn't sleep all night and got up at
the crack of dawn to go to his office.
He was nervous as a cat all day, had lunch and watched the clock.
He figured if he could get by until midnight he would be okay.
He felt safe in the office, so instead of going home at the end of the day
he stayed there, drinking coffee, looking at his watch and jumping at every
sound.
Finally midnight arrived; he breathed a sigh of relief and went home.
When he got home his wife said, "I've never seen you work so late. What's
the matter?"
He said, "I don't want to talk about it, I've just spent the worst day of my
life."
She said, "You think you had a bad day; you'll never believe what happened
to me. This morning my golf pro dropped dead in the middle of my lesson!"
He figured if he could get by until midnight he would be okay.
He felt safe in the office, so instead of going home at the end of the day
he stayed there, drinking coffee, looking at his watch and jumping at every
sound.
Finally midnight arrived; he breathed a sigh of relief and went home.
When he got home his wife said, "I've never seen you work so late. What's
the matter?"
He said, "I don't want to talk about it, I've just spent the worst day of my
life."
She said, "You think you had a bad day; you'll never believe what happened
to me. This morning my golf pro dropped dead in the middle of my lesson!"
Todays senior joke
I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes (he is 76).
We decided to grab a bite at the food court.
I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him.
The teenager had spiked hair in all different colors - green, red, purple, orange, and blue.
My dad kept staring at her.
The teenager kept looking and would find my dad staring every time.
When the teenager had had enough, she sarcastically asked:
"What's the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?"
Knowing my Dad, I quickly swallowed my food so that I wouldn't
choke on his response; I knew it'd be good!
In classic style he responded without batting an eyelid ....
"Got stoned once and had sex with a parrot.
I was just wondering if you might be my kid."
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