Hmm, okay, so let's get this straight. Trump is happy to call a black NFL quarterback a "son of a bitch" and say that someone like that should be fired for exercising his 1st Amendment rights -- while also telling us that there are some very fine people who march with the Nazis and KKK. The more he speaks, the more I think that the whole "He's a white supremacist" narrative has a chance of building up steam...
It speaks volumes about how little Ann Coulter is thought of these days when she can call for "Death Squads" against immigrants, and pretty much no one cares. And yes, she did actually say that. You can read it here. Though you might want to wear protective eye gear so that your eye balls don't sear off. And maybe have a barf bag handy. It would be fascinating if a monumental mass of NFL players all protest Trump calling one of their members a "son of a bitch:and on Sunday kneel in support of their fellow-member. In fact, here's hoping that happens. The protest, to be clear, would not be against the Anthem or Flag, but of Trump. It's been pretty clear to me for a while that the GOP push for this insane TrumpCare bill -- that is opposed by pretty much every major health care organization and the insurance industry -- has nothing to do with health care. It's that by repealing the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of millions of dollars will be freed up, allowing Republicans to cut corporate taxes. And now come reports that big GOP donors are telling senators that is precisely what they want. Still waiting on Trump to finally at least mention the wildfires that devastated the Pacific Northwest. And it would be really nice if he made clear that he actually had serious concern and was taking action for Puerto Rico almost being wiped off the map. Never mind that it's a U.S. territory and 3.5 million American citizens live there. I've long-thought that the Republican push for repealing the Affordable Care Act is just bizarrely counterproductive for the GOP. It only has something like 12% support in the country. If Republicans do get this latest attempt passed (which has had far-more angry criticism from both the healthcare and insurance industries), there will be overwhelming outrage from the public, including from their base which may be hurt more than anyone. Joe Scarborough said something similar on his MSNBC show on Thursday. “Have that process, have those hearings, let the senators, let the congressmen hear who is going to be hurt by the bill, instead of just seeing this in stories six months after a bill passes. I promise you, Republicans, you’re the ones that are going to pay in the end. You think I’m being a son of a bitch right now? No, you should listen to me. What you’re doing is radical, and you will end up paying horribly in the end. I don’t know what pressure you think you are under right now (but) wait until you go back to your voters supporting this bill. It’s inhumane.” How quaint that Mr. Scarborough used the very same "son of a bitch," as Trump, though in his case without being stupid or a bully. I guess it's the phrase of the week. The best tweet of last night came from Teresa Kaepernick, mother of Colin, that quarterback who Trump slammed yesterday. She wrote, "Guess that makes me a proud bitch." By the way, this whole TrumpCare bill is a rock-and-a-hard place for Republicans. If the pass it with only 12% approval and throw 30 million people off healthcare, the public (including their base) will take it out on them. But if they don't pass it, their base will be furious that they did nothing. What they should have done is continue the bipartisan work that Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray were doing to fix issues in the Affordable Care Act. It would have pleased the public -- though upset their big donors. Between Trump calling for the firing of an ESPN host and also an NFL quarterback, it seems like he's going in the wrong direction with the whole job market thing. Maybe he just misses hosting The Apprentice. As for suggesting that the NFL quarterback should be fired, someone should tell Trump that thus far no team in the league has hired him. So, it's almost like he got his wish. And that's the news. Or as much of it as I can bear typing about at the moment...
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Last night, I watched a wonderful little film on DVD that was released earlier this year, Wakefield. It stars Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner, based on a fascinating short story by E.L. Doctorow (who wrote Ragtime and Billy Bathgate). Cranston is really the core of the story though and he gives a gem of a performance. Basically it’s about a man having what could best be described as a massive midlife crisis and runs away from his family – except he hides in the attic of their coach house garage and watches his wife and two kids from there. (There’s more, but that’s the focus of the story, told entirely from his perspective.) To give full credit to Garner, she gives a very good performance as her character has to range from anger at her husband not getting back to her, concern at his disappearance, the challenge of having to take new responsibility for the family, deciding whether to move on with her life and more, -- most of it done in a sort of "pantomime" since Cranston can't hear much of what she's saying. Though Cranston still is the omnipresence in everything. A major challenge of the film is to take such an unbelievable premise -- a husband living in the family's garage for such a long period and not only not being discovered, but simply surviving -- and make us accept it. And the film pulls it off, coming up with a thoughtful, well-crafted development. I'm sure this was a hurdle in the Doctorow short story, as well, although in that literary form so much is left to the reader's imagination that I suspect a great deal of the gaps are filled in. A movie is more literal, so the demands of making this "real" are likely higher. And that makes it all the more impressive how successful the effort is. The movie was written & directed by Robin Swicord who wrote the screenplays for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Matilda, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Little Women, among others, and both wrote and directed The Jane Austen Book Club. (She also wrote a charming little film, Shag, that oddly enough I wrote the presskit for back in my dark days in PR.) By the way, among her other credits, she co-produced Matilda, Little Women and the actress (and writer) Zoe Kazan. Because of the psychologically claustrophobic nature of the story -- even though a lot of it does not take place in the garage attic -- this is a difficult film to capture properly in a trailer. But I thought they did a solid job, given the inherent hurdles. Since Republican officials keep trying to hit back at Jimmy Kimmel, he keeps responded. And last night had his third terrific monologue on the TrumpCare bill, written by senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy. My only disappointment is that he taped earlier in the evening. That's because later in the night -- are you ready? -- the MedicAid Directors of ALL 50 STATES (!!) came out against the TrumpCare bill. All of them. Red states and Blue states. Every single one. Yes, even Alabama. And Arkansas. And South Carolina -- Lindsey Graham's home state. And Louisiana -- Bill Cassidy's home state. Every last state in the union. They are ALL AGAINST the TrumpCare bill. All 50 states. Honestly, I didn't think you could get all 50 states to agree on anything, including liking puppies. But -- in case the import of this wasn't clear, to repeat -- the MedicAid Directors of all 50 states announced they were ALL against the TrumpCare bill. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's sure would seem to make it much harder to justify and defend. Not that most Republican senators will try. And of course, this doesn't count pretty much all the major healthcare organizations and insurance industry being against it. But then, what do they know...? By the way, I'm being polite when I say "pretty much all." Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eugene Robinson was on MSNBC last night and said he had spent the day trying to track down healthcare organizations who were for the bill -- and he couldn't find one. Which brings us back to Jimmy Kimmel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUH0KQ1qMiw This is decidedly off-beat, but fascinating. It's a parody music video from India. From what I've read, Kangana Ranaut is one of the leading actresses in the Bollywood movie industry. And AIB (short of All India Bakchod) is a popular comedy troupe. Together they teamed up for what they've called "The Bollywood Diva Song." As you may know -- or not -- movies made in Bollywood are know for having big musical productions that break out for no apparent reason. (One of my favorite Indian movies, Lagaan, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2001 is a wonderfully fun and dramatic epic story during the days of English rule, that's a sort of cross between Romeo and Juliet and Rocky. But even it too has a couple of these lavish musical numbers -- for no apparent reason.) Basically, "The Bollywood Diva Song" is done in that style, preceded by a scene that sets up it, and is a pretty blunt and scathing indictment of sexism in the Bollywood Industry. It's all cheery with smiles all around -- but the lyrics are not only outspoken, but even a bit crude and scatological in part. Making this all the more shocking is how prurient Indian films are, with (as I recall) men and women not even being allowed to kiss on screen. So, when you hear words like, "...because I have a vagina," I can only imagine the response back in India, and wonder if there's been any backlash to Kangana Ranaut -- or if's been applauded. My suggestion is to click on the CC button at the bottom of the media player for Close Captioning. For some seasons, a little bit of the video is already captioned in English, so there will be an overlap of English on English for parts of the song, but most of it isn't, so it's best to leave it on and just accept the "double-English" for that section. I'll have more on this later, after my teeth and fingers get unclenched -- on Rosh Hashanah of all days. But there was an article today, “America’s Jews are Driving America’s Wars” in an online publication. However, what has gotten all the attention is not the article itself, but that it was retweeted and supported by, of all people, Valerie Plame. I did a check to see if maybe her account had been hacked, but unfortunately I came across the article about it all in The Hill, where she goes into more detail. As you might guess, the response to her (and the original article) has been...er, significant.
Hopefully I'll get to this tomorrow. But there are already so many other stories piling up -- like one about Ann Coulter. To be clear, I rarely write about her anymore since she seems to just want attention, but once in a while she oversteps even her own screechy bounds, and calling for death squads against immigrants is one of those. Yes, seriously. And also some very good, pointed comments by Joe Scarborough about the latest TrumpCare bill that echo what I've been saying about all these GOP efforts for a while. And it's not even noon yet, so we'll see what else crops up by the end of the day for down the line. But eventually I'll get to these things... Mark Evanier had a really nice piece the other day about going to a restaurant with entertainment where he saw a fine band that was fronted by...Dick Van Dyke! He writes about the evening, and then links to a 22-minute video of some of the performance.
For 91 years old, Van Dyke does an absolutely charming, fun job. And given that this is only 22 minutes of the act, which is plenty long enough, that's impressive all on its own. (I spent a lot of time the last decade visiting my folks in an independent living residence where almost all of the people there were 80 and over. And many over 90. Believe me, what Dick Van Dyke does here is hats-off kind of stuff...) You can check out the article and then the link to the video here. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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