by John Walters

ANOTHER DAY OF TRUMP

Remember, those Germans in 1933 did not have the advantage of a historical precedent (at least not a recent one) to examine and say to themselves, “Well, we don’t want to mistake the same mistake those suckers did.” So what’s your excuse, America ?

Axis of Evil

You know what they say: At the age of 21 you have the face you were born with. At the age of 50 you have the face you deserve. What do these pictures tell you?

Let’s review the playbook, shall we? The strategy, as an acronym, is actually the Spanish word for “more”: mas. As in MAS, as in Make America Scared.

Step 1: Terrify Americans by saying that radical Islamic Jihadists are out to kill us all. Do such men exist? Sure. So do hippos. Hippos kill more people in South Africa than sharks do annually, but you’ve never seen Hippo Week on The Discovery Channel, now have you (and HIV/AIDS kills even more, but again…).

Step 2: Hammer that point home because you can’t lose. If nothing happens, you take the credit for stopping it. If something does happen, say a “Muslim supremacist” walks into a Catholic church in, say, Quebec City, even better. Now you get to reiterate those racist, xenophobic themes that appeal to your ignorant base (the correlation between racism/xenophobia is not 100%, but it’s pretty high up there) and press for more control with executive orders that restrict freedoms, done under the guise of keeping you and me safe, but really it’s all about control. It’s like when your parents point to that one kid who had to get his stomach pumped as their excuse to never let you attend a party when you’re in high school (hey, he only got his stomach pumped; he didn’t die).

Step 3: Spy on people (YOU HAVE TO, RIGHT? For homeland security!) which will allow you to root out dissenters more quickly. Spend more on the military (your lobbyists, contractors and MIC are pleased, and they’ll kick that money back to senators and congressmen). Spend less on education—something has to suffer—which will allow more young people to grow up to be dumbass adults who again will think of Trump (and his successors) as daddy figures keeping us safe, which is an absolute croc of hoo ha.

Sorry for the language; this is getting real and I’m determined not to be one of those who was sorry I didn’t speak up before the bus drove over the cliff.

2. Brown Bear vs. The Board of Education*

*The judges will not accept “Heavens To Betsy”

By a vote of 51-50—Mike Pence broke the tie—the Senate ratified wholly unqualified Betsy Devos as the Secretary of Education. Her chief platform is to keep your children safe from grizzlies while at school. Grizzlies are also known as brown bears and methinks this administrations’s and Betsy’s chief aim is to keep your sweet li’l angels safe (and away from) brown creatures of all types while at school.

Two Republican senators—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine—broke party ranks and voted against Devos. Everyone else voted by party line.

 

republicans are the true snowflakes (they’re all white, they’re cold, and if you put enough of em together they’ll shut down public schools)

— Ben Wexler (@mrbenwexler) February 7, 2017

 

3. Attaker of the Killer Tomatoes

This is genius mischievousness by Steve Bannon. I salute you, sir. First, Fat Ass Trump tells a crowd at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, “And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”

Next, the White House puts out a list of 78 UNDERREPORTED (as opposed to UNREPORTED) terror attacks, which is quite comical because 1) they were not at all under-reported, 2) you won’t see the name of Dylann Roof of the Quebec white supremacist or any other non-Muslim assailant on that list and 3) the term “attacker” is misspelled 27 of the 78 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgQaTWOCTVc

(Cut to the 8:40 mark here)

Hey, we make mistakes here at MH almost daily, but I don’t have a White House staff. I have one pot of coffee and a blankie. I more than half believe Bannon put in those misspellings intentionally just to goad us.

The gist of it is, they’re lying. Again. They’re lying about the media not taking terrorism seriously, they’re lying about the media having an agenda, and they’re lying when they cherry-pick the attacks. If anyone is underreporting terrorism attacks, this White House document is, since if fails to mention, for instance, the attack at the Charleston church that left nine people dead.  The Washington Post had a good story here on how Bannon and Spicer are “working the refs.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_n4CVpkTGc

The true architect of the Bowling Green Massacre, Kellyanne Conway, took on CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday. It was civil. Kellyanne is very smart. She almost never loses her cool, but Jake had her on the ropes once or twice. The highlight comes right after the 22:00 mark.

And here’s Whoopi Goldberg (who’s far smarter than Trump and far more qualified to sit in the White House) and The View gals taking on Trump. Actually better than most CNN panels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boKSMfEgYDQ

4. The REAL Bowling Green Massacre

Turns out, yeah, Kellyanne Conway “misspoke” (no, Kellyanne, you lied; you said it three times, hoping no one would catch up to you; granted, we’ve all been working overtime catching up to the lies), but there really was a Bowling Green Massacre, nearly 400 years ago. In 1643, in lower Manhattan (the Bowling Green stop is the last stop on the 6 train today), the Dutch slaughtered 30 Lenape tribesmen, and then another 80 nearby in New Jersey, because the natives would not pay them tribute. Imagine that, homelanders being slaughtered by undocumented immigrants….who were white Europeans.

5. Coma Karma

Hey, remember last week when we told you about Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian critic of Vladimir Putin who had been poisoned two years ago but was returning to Moscow (he lives with his wife and kids in Virginia now) to screen a film on Boris Nemtsov, who had been gunned down outside the Kremlin? Yeah, him.

Well, in the few days since he returned to mother Russia, Kara-Murza, 35, has somewhat inconveniently fallen into a near-death coma (as 35 year-olds so often do), perhaps due to an unknown poison. Hey, there are a lot of killers out there. What, you think we’re so innocent?

Reserves

Police sketch of man suspected of stealing Tom Brady‘s jersey after Super Bowl LI. Seriously, though, you needed a media credential to enter that locker room. Hence, the only real suspects are media members, Patriot staff or, most intriguing of all, fellow Patriot players. Can you imagine if a teammate lifted it? This should be solvable. Someone had to have seen it.

Cool Super Bowl Note That May Matter Only To Me (Is that how Peter King Does It?): After the Pats won, I saw a story about how Tom Brady’s ex, Bridget Moynahan, had tweeted out congratulations (classy). I’d met her once. Then I saw an item about her having gotten married a couple of years ago. When I saw the groom’s name, it sounded familiar. So I looked him up, and the face that I hadn’t seen in 30 years, well, it looked familiar. So I checked with a mutual friend of Bridget’s and mine. Turns out I was his basketball coach at a summer camp in 1987. He was the best player we had in camp and, at the age of 15, more mature than most of us counselors. A great young man (I’m glad I could have such a positive effect on him 🙂 )

Helen Mirren Award Winner

Christie Brinkley, age 63, posing for this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. How do I know I’m not a millennial? Because I think that Brinkley, even now, looks way better than Kate Upton (never got the Kate obsession).

Buck Toothed Ghost Shark

 

Scientists (those who have not been run out of town) have discovered a new species of “buck toothed ghost shark,” or so they claim. Ghost sharks are sharks whose species predate dinosaurs but are still in existence today. Most of them live at depths far below where man ever ventures. Cool beans. But, really, not a very complimentary profile.

Music 101

To Sir With Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8-M_wg8AI4

It’s a movie, and it’s a song. It’s also been covered by Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe, the cast of Glee, and most recently two female cast members from Saturday Night Live. This is Lulu, who also sang it in the role of Babs in the 1967 film starring Sidney Poitier (the antecedent to Dead Poets’ Society, in a sense). The song hit No. 1 in the autumn of 1967 and remained there for five weeks, and if you read this site at all, you know that any song that made it to No. 1 from 1966 to 1969 is almost certainly a classic. I think it’s the contrast between the poignant verse and then that kickin’ drumbeat during the chorus myself.

Always loved Merchant’s and Stipe’s version, too (sung in tribute to Bill Clinton at his ’93 inaugural; don’t smirk), but that’s because Natalie has the voice of angel.

Remote Patrol

No Country For Old Men

IFC 5:15 p.m.

Or as I call it, A Series of Unfortunate Events (sans Limony Snicket). We are all just a product of the choices we make, kid. I think that’s what author Cormac McCarthy was trying to say here. This Coen brothers film won four Oscars, including Best Picture, and it deserved them.