1/ Frank Rich on the SOTU address by Trump, and the Virginia chaos.....great insights as usual....
Sad! Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/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, what to make of the State of the Union, the continuing blackface scandal in the Virginia statehouse, and a leaked accounting of Donald Trump’s “executive time.”
In the State of the Union, Donald Trump called for unity while taking many partisan shots. How do you determine the success of a speech like Trump’s?
Even looking at the 80-minute-plus laundry list from Trump’s point of view, the speech seems to have failed at every level.
2/ Sam Bee with five amusing minutes on the SOTU.....
3/ David Wallace -Wells in New York Magazine is cautiously optimistic on climate change action.....having read the article I stress the word cautious....
The Cautious Case for Climate Optimism
comfortable future for our planet probably means some giant carbon-sucking machines.
It’s not too late. In fact, it never will be. Whatever you may have read over the past year — as extreme weather brought a global heat wave and unprecedented wildfires burned through 1.6 million California acres and newspaper headlines declared, “Climate Change Is Here” — global warming is not binary. It is not a matter of “yes” or “no,” not a question of “fucked” or “not.” Instead, it is a problem that gets worse over time the longer we produce greenhouse gas, and can be made better if we choose to stop. Which means that no matter how hot it gets, no matter how fully climate change transforms the planet and the way we live on it, it will always be the case that the next decade could contain more warming, and more suffering, or less warming and less suffering. Just how much is up to us, and always will be.
http://nymag.com/
4/ Matt Taibbi on how the Senate demonstrates over and over it's incompetence and failure - this time on Syria.....
Excellent story, full of snarky comments too....
On the surface, it was a truly bipartisan defeat of Trump. A full 22 of those 68 yeas were Democrats.
But every Senate Democrat who’s even rumored to be running for president voted nay. The list included Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar and Jeff Merkley. Sherrod Brown did not vote.
Was it possible that their reluctance was connected to the fact that survey after survey shows the public has lost appetite for our Middle East wars, especially in Afghanista
5/ Did you notice Trump [or his speechwriters] used a lot of alliterations and almost rhyming sentences......Stephen Colbert had fun with that.....five minutes....
Stephen Colbert noted that President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night relied heavily on rhyme and alliteration.
At one point, Trump even seemed to issue a threat in verse.
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” he said as he faces investigations by congressional Democrats, New York prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, among others.
“I think that’s kinda cute,” Colbert shot back. “He threatened our democracy with a little poem.”
6/ Umair with a passionate case of why society would be much better off without billionaires....makes you think!
We’re beginning to have a long overdue debate these days: what’s the point of billionaires, anyways? Do societies need billionaires, or do billionaires need societies? Which one is more true? Whether we couch it in terms of higher tax rates or new kinds of taxes, like wealth taxes, or breaking up monopolies, or even widespread social collapse and degeneration— the underlying question remains.
There are essentially three positions that a thinking person — at this juncture in human history — should take when it comes to billionaires. One, a society shouldn’t have billionaires, period. Two, a society shouldn’t have billionaires while a single child or adult still lives in poverty. Three, a society shouldn’t have billionaires until everyone (and that means everyone) has something like a decent middle class life. Now, my three positions will either strike you as making eminent sense — or they’ll rankle, maybe even make you angry. So let’s think about them for a moment. What does a glimpse at the world today — and yesterday — tell us? We are — or at least I am — trying to learn, not just restate dead ideologies.
7/ Stephen Colbert with four minutes on Trump's incoherent NYT interview.....
Stephen Colbert mocked Donald Trump’s “mind-numbing” and rambling New York Timesinterview in a bonus Late Show mini-monologue.
The host first focused on Trump’s long-winded response to whether he would run for president again in 2020, which included tangents on health care and John McCain. “Here’s the bottom line: I love doing it, I don’t know if I should love doing it, but I love doing it,” Trump told the New York Times.
8/ A most interesting look at the Democratic field for 2020....I know, I know it's waaaaaaay too early but this is the deep thinker Benjamin Studebaker and he looks at the race from a class perspective....
His conclusions may surprise you.....
The Political Isolation of the Professional Class
by Benjamin Studebaker
In the old days, when the New Deal Coalition was just beginning to fray, the right made a distinction between the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor”. Deserving poor people worked hard, while the undeserving poor were drug addicts, welfare queens, and all the rest of it. This language was used to reform welfare to make it crueller and stingier, and it induced many people to think of the poor as takers, as scroungers, as people they didn’t want in their political movements. Today, a new distinction of the same kind is made between those with college degrees and those without them. You’re just supposed to go to college now, and if you don’t there must be something wrong with you, and in the eyes of many you don’t deserve a good life or a good job or healthcare. No, they demand that you go back to school. https://
9/ Facebook can be bad for your health.....a persuasive story from the Times....
This Is Your Brain Off Facebook
Planning on quitting the social platform? A major new study offers a glimpse of what unplugging might do for your life. (Spoiler: It’s not so bad.)
10/ The Times with a summary of extreme weather and our future.....good story...
In Chicago, officials warned about the risk of almost instant frostbite on what could be the city’s coldest day ever. Warming centers opened around the Midwest. And schools and universities closed throughout the region as rare polar winds streamed down from the Arctic.
At the same time, on the other side of the planet, wildfires raged in Australia’s record-breaking heat. Soaring air-conditioner use overloaded electrical grids and caused widespread power failures. The authorities slowed and canceled trams to save power. Labor leaderscalled for laws that would require businesses to close when temperatures reached hazardous levels: nearly 116 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47 Celsius, as was the case last week in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
This is weather in the age of extremes. It comes on top of multiple extremes, all kinds, in all kinds of places.
11/ A story on the "Bud Knight" Super Bowl commercial and the brave [for Budweiser] tie-in with Game Of Thrones.....
The commercial shows a king and a queen at a jousting event, merrily drinking Bud Lights and cheering on the Bud Knight. Moments later, however, the knight gets knocked off his horse by Gregor Clegane, the huge and notoriously violent fighter from Game of Thrones, who goes by the nickname the Mountain.
The Mountain is one of Game of Thrones’ most terrifying characters — after the Whites, of course. He is a loyal servant of House Lannister and has an ongoing feud with his brother, Sandor Clegane, who goes by the nickname the Hound. The last time Game of Thrones audiences saw the Mountain, he was living a half-dead, zombie-like existence and was serving as Queen Cersei Lannister’s private bodyguard.
12/ And a listing of the best and worst Super Bowl commercials.....see if you agree....
Sure, the Super Bowl is kind of about football. But there’s plenty of fun for non-sports fans, too: namely, the halftime show and the commercials. From big-name talent to tear-jerking moments, this year’s crop of videos doesn’t disappoint, even if they are just trying to get you to buy their products. Here are the best — and worst — ads from the Super Bowl LIII.
An oldies joke
Every night after dinner, Harold goes to a secluded garden behind the Center to sit and ponder his accomplishments and long life.
One evening, Mildred, age 87, wanders into the garden. They begin to chat and before they know it, several hours have passed.
After a short lull in their conversation, Harold turns to Mildred and asks, “Do you know what I miss most of all?”
She asks, “What?”
“Sex!!” he replies.
Mildred exclaims, “Why you old fart. You couldn't get it up if I held a gun to your head!”
“I know,” Harold says, “but it would be nice if a woman could just hold it for a while.”
“Well, I can oblige,” says Mildred, who unzips his trousers, removes his manhood and proceeds to hold it. Afterward, they agree to meet secretly each night in the garden where they would sit and talk and Mildred would hold Harold's manhood.
Then one night Harold didn't show up at their usual meeting place. Alarmed, Mildred decided to find Harold and make sure he was O.K.
She walked around the Old Folks Home where she found him sitting by the pool with Ethel, another female resident, who was holding Harold's manhood!
Furious, Mildred yelled, “You two-timing son-of-a-bitch! What does Ethel have that I don't have?”
Old Harold smiled happily and replied, “Parkinson's.”
Todays redneck joke
Ma was in the kitchen fiddling around when she hollers out , " Pa ! You need to go out and fix the outhouse !"Pa replies , " There ain't nuthin wrong with the outhouse ."Ma yells back , " Yes there is , now git out there and fix it ."So Pa mosies out to the outhouse , looks around and yells back , " Ma ! There ain't nuthin wrong with the outhouse !"Ma replies , " Stick yur head in the hole !"Pa yells back , " I ain't stickin my head in that hole !"Ma says , " Ya have to stick yur head in the hole to see what to fix ."So with that , Pa sticks his head in the hole , looks around and yells back , " Ma ! There ain't nuthin wrong with this outhouse !"Ma hollers back , " Now take your head out of the hole !"Pa proceeds to pull his head out of the hole , then starts yelling , " Ma ! Help ! My beard is stuck in the cracks in the toilet seat !"To which Ma replies , " Hurts , don't it ?"
