1/ Our lead story is John Oliver's show from Sunday night where he tries to make sense of the crazy week Trump had, calling it "Stupid Watergate".
It's a very good summary of the madness around this Administration and specifically how Fox News covered it, with some flat out belly laughs thrown in.....
Comedic reporting indeed.....an excellent 25 minutes....
John Oliver (like many others in the media) has not been impressed lately with the quality of Fox News’ coverage surrounding Donald Trump and Russia.
In the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, the comedian took the network to task, specifically singling out primetime hosts Jesse Watters and Tucker Carlson.
Oliver played a clip of Watters claiming on a recent episode of The Five that the Trump Russia story was a “boring scandal.”
“That is just ridiculous,” said Oliver. “There may be Americans hidden in plain view working on behalf of Russia is not boring, it’s literally a fucking Emmy nominated TV show,” (of course referring to the FX series The Americans)
Oliver then slammed Carlson, who he called “the villain from a direct-to-video Caddyshack sequel,” for suggesting that much of the Russia scandal and reportage was not what it seemed. He “tried to Jedi mind trick this scandal out of existence.”
More broadly, Oliver used the segment to recap the blizzard of Trump scandals and news coverage over the last week. He also said that Democrats and Trump haters shouldn’t hold out too much hope for impeachment as long as Republicans control the House and Senate.
“Can you even remember how this week began?” he asked at the top of the segment.
2/ Paul Krugman on Republicans and why they are not going to do anything about Trump.....
On Wednesday, Paul Ryan held a press conference just after the revelation that Donald Trump had pushed James Comey to kill the investigation into Michael Flynn — you know, the guy Trump appointed as national security adviser even though his team knew that Flynn’s highly suspicious foreign ties were under investigation.
Faced with questions about the Flynn scandal and the Comey firing, Ryan waved them away: “I don’t worry about things that are outside my control.”
This might sound like a reasonable philosophy — unless you realize that Ryan is speaker of the House of Representatives, a legislative body with the power to issue subpoenas, compel testimony and, yes, impeach the president. In fact, under the Constitution, Ryan and his congressional colleagues are effectively the only check on a rogue chief executive.
It has become painfully clear, however, that Republicans have no intention of exercising any real oversight over a president who is obviously emotionally unstable, seems to have cognitive issues and is doing a very good imitation of being an agent of a hostile foreign power.
3/ The SNL cold open with Alec Baldwin singing [!] "Hallelujah" with the rest of the cast.....the one you don't recognize is the Assistant Press Secretary Huckabee something......Uday and Qusay are great too! Three good minutes.....
Saturday Night Live kicked off their season finale by having Alec Baldwin revive his impression of Donald Trump for a lovely rendition of Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah.”
Baldwin started his rendition alone, though he was soon joined by the SNL cast as they assumed their impressions of Trump’s closest aides and advisers. At the end of the cold open, Baldwin might have referenced the increased pressure the White House has been facing over the investigations on Russia.
“I’m not giving up, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Baldwin-Trump concluded. “But I can’t speak for these people.”
Kate McKinnon had a similar cold open several months ago when she depicted Hillary Clinton playing the same song after the 2016 election ended.
4/ Bill Maher's opener with his bold prediction.....Trump won't make it a year.....don't agree with him, but nice to dream....
“Real Time” host Bill Maher was dizzy Friday night from all the explosive news that had broke the past week. The left-wing comedian could barely believe how careless and incompetent President Donald Trump has been in his short term.
“Every week it gets worse,” Maher said to open his monologue. “The news stories are coming so fast and frequently I need dramamine to watch CNN. I have breaking news fatigue. I was talking to my doctor today. I said, ‘Is drinking in the afternoon right for me?’ He said, ‘I’m way ahead of you.'”
Maher later brought up the news report that former FBI Director James Comey had apparently been keeping notes on his interactions with the president.
“According to the Comey memo,” Maher explained to his audience, “Trump meets with Comey and says to Comey, ‘You know, Flynn, he is involved with the Russians. Jesus Christ, he is a good guy. I hope you can just let this go.'”
“Hope you can let this go? Comey said, ‘You know I am a cop, right?'” Maher joked. “When Vice President Pence heard that he started scratching out ‘vice’ on his business cards.”
5/ Tom Tomorrow with another great cartoon....
6/ This is edgy, amusing and very fast......it's the history of the world in 20 minutes......you will either love it or hate it, but it's got a lot of facts and you will actually learn something - quickly!.....
Thankfully, you don’t have to be around for billions of years to understand how that happened and how you got here. In a new video, YouTube creator Bill Wurtz manages to capture the history of the world in a bizarre but highly entertaining 20 minutes.
Wurtz starts with a simple observation: “Hi. You’re on a rock, floating in space. Pretty cool, huh?” From there, he goes into a deep dive of world history: the formation of the universe; the development of our solar system and Earth; the evolution of species, including humans; the dawn of civilization; the creation of religions; wars; the explosion of technology — and the global population — in the past two centuries; and much, much more.
The video does not contain every single detail of world history. After all, that’s just not possible to capture in even 20 minutes. It doesn’t go too deep into, for example, how the Black Death ravaged Europe or how Genghis Khan’s empire killed so much of the world’s populati
7/ Gail Collins from the Times with a very amusing column.....Trump on his travels!
Donald Trump has gone abroad. Nine days. Five stops. Strange beds. Anything could happen.
Could be a win. The bar is so stupendously low these days that if Trump makes it clear he knows what country he’s in, it’ll be a triumph.
We will stop now to beat back our sudden fear that our president will not know what country he’s in. After all, one stop on the trip is Belgium, which he once referred to as “a beautiful city.”
Trump is looking for a change of conversation, so we will try not to point out that while visiting both Saudi Arabia and Israel is a welcome gesture, Richard Nixon tried the same thing in 1974, and nobody was distracted.
But the news just keeps on coming. While the president was in the air, we learned that he told Russian officials visiting the Oval Office that he had fired F.B.I. Director James Comey because Comey put him under “great pressure because of Russia.”
8/ Oh Lordy.....
9/ An amazingly cool piece from the Times showing how the Antarctic is changing......graphics are a "wow".....story is, as usual, depressing for the human race....
THE ACCELERATION is making some scientists fear that Antarctica’s ice sheet may have entered the early stages of an unstoppable disintegration.
Because the collapse of vulnerable parts of the ice sheet could raise the sea level dramatically, the continued existence of the world’s great coastal cities — Miami, New York, Shanghai and many more — is tied to Antarctica’s fate.
Four New York Times journalists joined a Columbia University team in Antarctica late last year to fly across the world’s largest chunk of floating ice in an American military cargo plane loaded with the latest scientific gear.
10/ Seth Meyers with his show opener......some pretty good jokes, and Meyers loses it a couple of times.....rare!
Interesting four minutes...
Meyers also expressed amusement at Trump’s admission.
“Dude, nobody said you did. It’s like if your wife said, ‘Are you having an affair?’ and you said, ‘I am not sleeping with Jenna.’”
“Dude, nobody said you did. It’s like if your wife said, ‘Are you having an affair?’ and you said, ‘I am not sleeping with Jenna.’”
11/ You may have seen Andrew Sullivan on TV shows like Bill Maher, and he writes a column for New York magazine every week. He's a rare bird - a gay conservative, but really intelligent.....
In this column he discusses Trump as a cult leader.....very good and quite insightful.
How does this end?
I left D.C. Wednesday for a trip to Oxford, Mississippi, for a talk. The previous night I’d watched slack-jawed as the latest Trump saga unfolded on cable news, switching back from Fox to MSNBC and CNN. As has happened so often in the last few months, it was becoming a blur. What did we now know? The president had kept Mike Flynn on staff many days after learning he was a security risk. Trump had asked FBI Director Comey to give him his personal loyalty, then fired him because he was frustrated that the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government was continuing. Trump then lied repeatedly about this — and sent senior staffers out there to lie as well. He threatened the FBI director with alleged “tapes” of their conversations. We also discovered that Trump had carelessly betrayed a critical ISIS source while bragging to foreign minister Lavrov and Russian ambassador Kislyak in the Oval Office. We were entering, it seemed to me, the Caligula phase of the collapse of the American republic. Pretty soon Trump would be announcing that the new FBI director would be a horse.
Todays misspeak jokes
Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back...
Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did....
Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did....
FIRST TESTIMONY:
I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly,
I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly,
‘How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?'
I turned around and walked back out and never went back
My husband didn't say a word...he knew better.
I turned around and walked back out and never went back
My husband didn't say a word...he knew better.
SECOND TESTIMONY:
I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls.
I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls.
I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using.
After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen
who work at the store. He asked if he could help me.
Without thinking, I looked at him and said,
Without thinking, I looked at him and said,
‘I think I like playing with men's balls'
THIRD TESTIMONY:
My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts.
As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help.
As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help.
I replied, ' No, I'm just looking at your nuts.'
My sister started to laugh hysterically.
The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away.
To this day, my sister has never let me forget.
My sister started to laugh hysterically.
The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away.
To this day, my sister has never let me forget.
FOURTH TESTIMONY:
Have you ever asked your child a question too many times?
My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly.
Have you ever asked your child a question too many times?
My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly.
One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch, in between errands it was very busy,
with a full dining room.
While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean.
The realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while. I asked him if he needed to go,
The realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while. I asked him if he needed to go,
and he said ‘No’... I kept thinking ‘Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don't have
any clothes with me.' Then I said, ‘Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?'
'No,' he replied.
I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse.
'No,' he replied.
I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse.
Soooooo, I asked one more time, 'Danny did you have an accident?
This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over, spread his cheeks and yelled
‘SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!'
While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing,
While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing,
he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down.
An old couple made me feel better, thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!
An old couple made me feel better, thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST TESTIMONY :
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks.
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks.
What happens when you predict snow but don't get any!
We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed
and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked:
'So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?'
'So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?'
Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!
Todays pilot joke
During a commercial airline flight an Air Force Pilotwas seated next to a young mother with a baby in her arms.When the baby began crying during the descent for landing,the mother began nursing the infant as discreetly as possible.The pilot pretended not to notice and, upon disembarking,he gallantly offered his assistance to help with the various baby-related items.When the young mother expressed her gratitude, the pilot responded,"You have a beautiful baby... and he sure was hungry!"Somewhat embarrassed, the mother explained that her pediatrician saidthat the time spent on the breast would help alleviate the pressure in the baby's ears.
The Pilot sadly shook his head, and in true pilot fashion exclaimed,"And all these years, I've been chewing gum."
