1/ Frank Rich on the resurgence of Joe Biden...
Only an act of God can stop Biden from getting the Democratic nomination. Photo: Ronen Tivony / Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via 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 the fallout from Super Tuesday means for Democrats — and for Republicans.
With Joe Biden’s victory in the South Carolina primary and his showing on Super Tuesday, the Democratic field has collapsed into a two-person race. How does that change what this primary means for Democrats, and for the GOP?
So many 2020 assumptions, including my own, have been upended since the South Carolina results came in last Saturday that it’s not easy to pick the most significant. But if I had to pick one, it would not be that Biden showed you can triumph without money or a “ground game,” or that a $500 million-plus outlay could buy Mike Bloomberg nothing more than a 72-vote victory over Tulsi Gabbard in American Samoa. It would be this: Democrats and Republicans alike underestimated the independence and power of African-American voters.
2/ The SNL coronavirus cold open, one of their best for a while, with a surprise guest!
A pretty good 7 minutes....one of their better ones....
3/ Andrew Sullivan on the Democratic race....keep in the back of your mind he hates Bernie, but he makes some good points....
Party guy. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
It may be fleeting but I sensed a small, distinctive undercurrent of normalcy this week in our political system. A long-weakened party, faced with an insistent and ascendant insurgency from its populist wing, actually gathered itself together and acted in collective self-defense. What the Republicans were incapable of doing in 2016, the Democrats are attempting in 2020. As the GOP has dissolved into a crass husk of a media organization, dedicated to a cult figure, there’s life in the rickety, old Democratic Party structure after all.
4/ Trump is winning his war to destroy the Government....
when donald trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.
The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.
After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.
5/ The Weekend Update lads with four minutes of jokes.....
6/ Amazing, amazing ad.....30 seconds...
7/ OMG....the crises keep coming, and this is a new one [plastics] that doesn't seem to have a realistic solution. The villains here are
of course oil, gas and the giant food companies combining to destroy our health and oceans.....
A most depressing article from Rolling Stone....
Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the paper’s publication last year, Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: “We are consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Udall says.
https://www.rollingstone.com/
8/ An SNL musical number "On The Couch", surprisingly good, three minutes...
9/ Bill Maher lectures Democrats who are rejecting billionaires money....I agree - take the money
and screw them like Obama did....
10/ We [normal people of America] are so toast. After the real estate crash of 2008 hedge funds and REIT's bought up tens of thousands of bankrupt homes and are now renting them, and needless to say they are rapacious landlords with fees and executions galore.....it's just wrong....
Excellent story from the NYT Magazine...
Chad Ellingwood wasn’t really in the market for a home in the summer of 2006. But when his best friend came across an intriguing listing in Woodland Hills — a bedroom community in Los Angeles County’s San Fernando Valley — the two men decided to visit on a whim.
Entering the property beneath the canopy of a grand deodar, Ellingwood, a big man with a gentle presence, felt as if he had been transported to a ranch house in Northern California, much like one he often visited as a child, all old growth and overgrown greenery — olive trees, citrus trees, sycamores and redwoods. He and his friend meandered past a pond to an inviting teal house built in 1958, “a whimsical masterpiece,” Ellingwood told me. Inside there was a “captain’s quarters” — a room designed to look like the hull of a boat with a built-in water bed and drawers — and numerous stained-glass windows that the couple who owned it had made themselves.
11/ The wonderful Sam Bee on Super Tuesday and more.....a very good seven minutes...
12/ Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian climate scientist, who tries to explain our
warming crisis to evangelicals in language they understand....[very short words?]
As an atmospheric scientist, Katharine Hayhoe understands the realities of climate change more deeply than most. As an evangelical Christian atmospheric scientist, she understands her religious brethren — and their propensity to doubt man-made climate change — probably better than anyone. So she’s made it her mission to help them see the light.
For her, science and faith have never been at odds: “I grew up with the idea that science was the coolest thing you could study. Every summer my dad would have a project for us: wildflowers of Ontario, bird calls, learning about fractals.”
13/ Bad Lip Reading does the SOTU 2020....an amusing five minutes...
14/ If you read the Umair articles and scoff at his despair for the working class, read these statistics and apologise....
One of the Times's excellent interactive stories.....
When the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton first published their research on “deaths of despair” five years ago, they focused on middle-aged whites. So many white working-class Americans in their 40s and 50s were dying of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse that the overall mortality rate for the age group was no longer falling – a rare and shocking pattern in a modern society.
But as Case and Deaton continued digging into the data, it became clear that the grim trends didn’t apply only to middle-aged whites. Up and down the age spectrum, deaths of despair have been surging for people without a four-year college degree:
15/ The velvet rope economy.....why our elites have no idea how real people live, and don't care.....
A $1,000 seat at Yankee Stadium, in the first few rows along the baseline, is known as a Legends ticket. Holders bypass the long lines of fans waiting to enter the park by conventional means, whisked in by security guards who greet them like family. They enjoy a private dining room and concierge access, and they are separated from lesser fans by a concrete moat.
It has been a long time since sporting events were essentially communal experiences, and it’s no secret that the industry caters to the wealthy.
16/ The Beatles from 1962 to 1970 in four minutes....a musical history, cleverly done and brings back lots of memories....
Todays video - approved by the NRA......a hunter gets a surprise......
Todays golf joke
Tiger Woods & Stevie Wonder are in a bar...
Tiger says Stevie, "How's the singing career going?"
Stevie replies, "Not too bad. How's the golf?"
Woods replies, "I've had some problems with my swing,
but I think I've got that right, now."
Stevie: "I always find that when my swing goes wrong,
I need to stop playing for a while and not think about it.
Then, the next time I play, it seems to be all right."
Incredulous, Tiger says, "You play GOLF?"
Stevie: "Yes, I've been playing for years."
Tiger: "But -- you're blind! How can you play golf if you can't see?"
Stevie: "Well, I get my caddy to stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him. Then, when I get to where the ball lands, the caddy moves to the green or farther down the fairway and again I play the ball towards his voice."
"But, how do you putt" asks Tiger.
"Well", says Stevie, "I get my caddy to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and I just play the ball towards his voice."
Tiger: "What's your handicap?"
Stevie: "Well, actually -- I'm a scratch golfer."
Woods says to Stevie, "We've got to play a round sometime."
Stevie: "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, and never play for less than $10,000 a hole. Is that a problem?"
Woods thinks about it and says, "I can afford that; OK,
I'm game for that . . . $10,000 a hole is fine with me.
When would you like to play?"
Stevie: "Pick a night."
Tiger says Stevie, "How's the singing career going?"
Stevie replies, "Not too bad. How's the golf?"
Woods replies, "I've had some problems with my swing,
but I think I've got that right, now."
Stevie: "I always find that when my swing goes wrong,
I need to stop playing for a while and not think about it.
Then, the next time I play, it seems to be all right."
Incredulous, Tiger says, "You play GOLF?"
Stevie: "Yes, I've been playing for years."
Tiger: "But -- you're blind! How can you play golf if you can't see?"
Stevie: "Well, I get my caddy to stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him. Then, when I get to where the ball lands, the caddy moves to the green or farther down the fairway and again I play the ball towards his voice."
"But, how do you putt" asks Tiger.
"Well", says Stevie, "I get my caddy to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and I just play the ball towards his voice."
Tiger: "What's your handicap?"
Stevie: "Well, actually -- I'm a scratch golfer."
Woods says to Stevie, "We've got to play a round sometime."
Stevie: "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, and never play for less than $10,000 a hole. Is that a problem?"
Woods thinks about it and says, "I can afford that; OK,
I'm game for that . . . $10,000 a hole is fine with me.
When would you like to play?"
Stevie: "Pick a night."
Todays cop joke
A farmer got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding, and the trooper started to lecture the farmer about his speed, and began to throw his weight around to try to make the farmer uncomfortable.
Finally, the trooper got around to writing out the ticket, and as he was doing that he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head.
The farmer said, "Having some problems with circle flies there, are ya?" The trooper stopped writing the ticket and said, "Well yeah, if that's what they are, but I never heard of circle flies."
So the farmer says, "Well, circle flies are common on farms. See, they're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling around the back end of a horse."
The trooper says, "Oh," and goes back to writing the ticket. Then after a minute he stops and says, "Hey...wait a minute, are you trying to call me a horse's ass?"
The farmer says, "Oh no, officer. I have too much respect for law enforcement and police officers to even think about calling you a horse's ass."
The trooper says, "Well, that's a good thing," and goes back to writing the ticket.
After a long pause, the farmer says, "Hard to fool them flies, though. . . "
Finally, the trooper got around to writing out the ticket, and as he was doing that he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head.
The farmer said, "Having some problems with circle flies there, are ya?" The trooper stopped writing the ticket and said, "Well yeah, if that's what they are, but I never heard of circle flies."
So the farmer says, "Well, circle flies are common on farms. See, they're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling around the back end of a horse."
The trooper says, "Oh," and goes back to writing the ticket. Then after a minute he stops and says, "Hey...wait a minute, are you trying to call me a horse's ass?"
The farmer says, "Oh no, officer. I have too much respect for law enforcement and police officers to even think about calling you a horse's ass."
The trooper says, "Well, that's a good thing," and goes back to writing the ticket.
After a long pause, the farmer says, "Hard to fool them flies, though. . . "
Todays Irish joke
John Bradford, a Dublin University student, was on the side of the road hitch-hiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a big storm.
The night was rolling on and no car went by. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him.
Suddenly, he saw a car slowly coming towards him and it stopped. John, desperate for shelter and without thinking about it, got into the car and closed the door....
Only to realize there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine wasn't on. The car started moving slowly. John looked at the road ahead and saw a curve approaching. Scared, he started to pray, begging for his life.
Then, just before the car hit the curve, a hand appeared out of nowhere through the window, and turned the wheel. John, paralysed with terror, watched as the hand came through the window, but never touched or harmed him.
Shortly thereafter, John saw the lights of a pub appear down the road, so, gathering strength, he jumped out of the car and ran to it..
Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and started telling everybody about the horrible experience he had just had.
A silence enveloped the pub when everybody realized he was crying...
And wasn't drunk.
Suddenly, the door opened, and two other people walked in from the dark and stormy night. They, like John, were also soaked and out of breath.
Looking around, and seeing John Bradford sobbing at the bar, one said to the other....
'Look Paddy....there's that fooking idiot that got in the car while we were pushing it!'
