Feds seized as many as 16 cell phones from Donald Trump's lawyer, who once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob.

Courtesy of The New York Post:  

Manhattan federal prosecutors seized as many as 16 cell phones when the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. 

Prosecutor Thomas McKay made the ​astonishing revelation wh​ile telling a judge ​Thursday ​that the feds are on track to hand over seized​ ​materials to Cohen’s lawyers by May 11. 

In explaining the process, McKay said the feds have already turned over the contents of four phones and one iPad. 

McKay said the feds will turn over the “remainder of the phones seized” on Friday — before adding that they have “about a dozen” left. 

Among the devices seized are two BlackBerrys, suggesting Cohen has been holding on to his electronics for many, many years. 

The startling revelation promptly attracted the attention of porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, who called Cohen’s phone hoarding “BIGLY bad.”

"Bigly bad" indeed. Because you KNOW that stored on those phones is information which will incriminate Donald Trump. Bigly!

Can you even imagine needing that many phones?

What could be the possible reason?

Wait, this next story might clear that up.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's embattled personal lawyer, once bragged that he was part of the Russian mob, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to The Journal, Cohen once told someone at a former friend's wedding that he belonged to the Russian mob.

Now the Business Insider article also contains a quote from a friend of Cohen's who doubts the veracity of this story, which brings me to this Rolling Stone's article:  

Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafiya. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)

So to be clear, the Feds found more than a dozen phones in Cohen's possession, who clearly has ties to the Russian mob, and whose only real client is Donald Trump. a man who is under investigation for Russian collusion during the election. 

Does anybody else see pieces falling onto place here?

Alec Baldwin returns to SNL to mock Trump's response to Charlottesville.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone: 

Alec Baldwin dusted off his Saturday Night Live Donald Trump impersonation on Thursday's Weekend Update: Summer Edition. He lampooned the president's controversial response to the Charlottesville tragedy, defensive Phoenix rally and bizarre choice to stare directly at the sun during the solar eclipse.

"How about that eclipse, folks, huh?" Trump said onstage during the mock rally, wearing sunglasses. "A lot of people don't know this, but you can damage your eyes while looking at an eclipse.

"After praising the mostly white crowd as "fantastic," Trump attempted to "set the record straight" by clarifying his widely criticized response to the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

"You have a group on one side that's very bad, neo-Nazis, and you had a group on the other side' – and then I didn't say a single word after that," he said.

Must keep our sense of humor.

It is what sustained me through eight years of George W. Bush and by gosh it will sustain me through the predicted year and a half of the Trump presidency. 

If there is any wish that unifies us all, this might be it.

The new cover of @RollingStone. pic.twitter.com/1aWLpBe3Rt

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 26, 2017

Just imagine.

The guy is almost as cool as Barack Obama, without having that extra pigment which seemed to drive the racists nuts.

Young, liberal, good looking, and smart.

And what do we get?

Life's not fair.

Rolling Stone Magazine: "It's Time to Demand Donald Trump's Resignation."

The article lists all of the reasons for this call, but I have a feeling you all know them by heart.

So instead I will share the last seven paragraphs with you:

There is only one sensible reaction to Trump's antics: for members of Congress and influential conservatives to demand he resign. 

You and I both know he's not leaving the White House willingly, or at least not anytime soon. But this is no longer anything approaching a close call. The things the president says and writes, in public, are more than enough evidence to declare him grossly unfit for a job as a tollbooth operator, let alone as the most powerful person in the world. 

Many of the Republicans defending him in Congress and on TV see his tweets and know he's crossed the line. They'll keep defending him; they're too afraid of primary elections in their own districts to take a strong line against Trump. 

But they should reconsider. Whatever is causing Trump to unravel, it's putting the rest of us in serious danger. The continued spectacle of the Russia investigation is only fueling his descent. Why wait for it to unfold further? The best-case scenario is dragging the nation through a prolonged impeachment ordeal. If not, we have to wait until 2021 to replace him with a responsible and decent human being – assuming he doesn't get us all killed by then. 

There's a better way. Start the discussion now. Call on Trump to step down. Hell, if you're a Republican, you end up with President Mike Pence, and you probably love Mike Pence. I can't stand the guy, but at least he won't start World War III with an ill-advised 4 a.m. tweet. 

It would take enormous, sustained pressure from both sides of the aisle to convince Trump to resign the presidency. It's possible it would never work. The delicate bubble of ego that Trump keeps overinflated around himself never allows errors to reach his muddled mind. Stepping down would be admitting a failure on an enormous scale, and admitting failure is the one thing Trump won't do. 

But whether you're a liberal or a conservative or somewhere in between, if you care about your country – really care about the greatness of America – it's clear Trump can no longer be president. And urging him to step down now is the only option we have to get him out quickly.

I also don't think that Trump will leave willingly, however it is probably a very good time for Republicans to start making this request, if for no other reason than to say they were on the right side of history when Trump is eventually dragged kicking and screaming from the White House. 

Those who defend Trump to the bitter end, may find that bitter end also includes their political careers.

Springsteen cover band pulls out of inauguration, citing concern over disrespecting The Boss.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone: 

If the B-Street Band pledge allegiance to anyone, it's Springsteen, who has repeatedly voiced his anger and disgust at the president-elect. (Forte half-jokingly said of the B-Street Band last week, "I don't even know if they have any politics.") Out of respect for their musical inspiration, they've decided to pull out of this week's event.

"We felt that we had to make it known that we didn't want to seem disrespectful, in any way, shape or form, to Bruce and his music and his band," Forte says. "I don't want to upset them. We owe everything to him and our gratitude and respect to the band is imperative above all else. It became clear to us that this wasn't working and we just had to do what we thought was the right thing to do and that was to pull out." 

The group had played the gala twice before to little controversy for President Obama and signed a contract for this year's gig in 2013, long before the presidential nominees were decided. But this year was different. 

"As time went by, the complexity of the situation became real immense and intense," Forte tells Rolling Stone. "The band was caught in a hurricane. We didn't see this coming, of course."

Well hey all is not yet lost, they still have Lee Greenwood, Toby Keith, a Rockette or two, Jon Voight, 3 Doors Down, and that America's Got Talent runner up.

Sounds kind of like the lineup for a county fair in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Of course it really doesn't make any difference, nobody is going to be watching anyhow.

John Oliver explains how Donald Trump can be a hero.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone: 

With Donald Trump struggling in the polls, John Oliver sees three options for the controversial GOP nominee: He can eventually lose – a "disastrous" option since "his entire brand is built around not doing that." He can eventually win – an even worse outcome because that would involve "living in government housing, conversing with fully clothed women and traveling in a plane that doesn't even have his name on it." This leaves what Oliver considers a more noble, revolutionary third option: dropping out. 

"Simply drop out and tell America this entire candidacy was a stunt, a satire designed to expose the flaws in the system," Oliver told the Republican. "And the thing is, you could actually make a fairly decent case for that. Because, although your campaign was the political equivalent of a bigoted clown's blazing funeral pyre, you have accidentally made upwards of four good points in your campaign."

Oliver then goes on to lay out those four good points:

1: The political system is broken.

2: The media focuses too much on controversy and not enough on substance.

3: Politicians will do anything to appease their base.

4: And finally that American voters are easily duped.

I know this video is almost a week old now, but that is only because it took me that long to actually watch it.

I started to receive it in the comments section and in e-mails after I posted this video of Oliver taking on charter schools on Tuesday.

At the time I thought well since I just posted one John Oliver video I probably should not post another one, that is just lazy.

But then I finally watched it yesterday and I thought "Holy crap! This is genius!"

And that is why you find it posted this evening.

Not only that it absolutely reflects what I have been secretly hoping for myself almost since the moment I realized that Donald Trump was going to win the GOP nomination.

And Oliver is right, if Trump were to do this he would go down in history as a legend.

Sure the Republicans might hate him, but really they would only have themselves to blame.

I say go for it, and if he does I swear that I will even sit down and watch every episode of "The Apprentice."

Man calls into C-Span and confirms that Trump supporters heard his 2nd Amendment comment as a call to arms if Hillary is elected.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A C-SPAN caller from Michigan proved on Wednesday that even Trump supporters could interpret the GOP nominee’s comments about using the Second Amendment to stop Hillary as a call to gun violence. 

“Number one, Mr. Trump was not threatening assassination of Hillary,” Greg said. “But what he was implying and could happen is if Hillary got her way and did do away with Second Amendment rights (That's actually a false statement.), there are a lot of us who are gun owners who are going to object to that very strongly.” 

“And since we do have firearms, it might if it comes down to it be us having to defend our rights with those guns, just as the revolutionaries did in the Revolutionary War.” 

Greg said that he hoped “it never will come down to that.” 

“And I would point out that [Trump] said right afterwards that would be a horrible day when that happened,” Greg declared.

There have been a lot of people coming to Trump's defense and suggesting that what he said was taken out of context or that it was a joke, but none of that really matters.

What matters is how it was heard by the folks most likely to put those words into action.

Here was what Rolling Stone Magazine had to say about it:

But it's really irrelevant what Trump actually meant, because enough people will hear Trump's comments and think he's calling for people to take up arms against Clinton, her judges or both. Though most of the people hearing that call may claim he was joking, given what we know about people taking up arms in this country, there will undoubtedly be some people who think he was serious and consider the possibility. 

In other words, what Trump just did is engage in so-called stochastic terrorism. This is an obscure and non-legal term that has been occasionally discussed in the academic world for the past decade and a half, and it applies with precision here. Stochastic terrorism, as described by a blogger who summarized the concept several years back, means using language and other forms of communication "to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable."

Exactly.

If heaven forbid somebody were to actually make an attempt on Hillary's life right now, that would absolutely be blamed on this statement, whether fairly or unfairly.

Just like what happened to Sarah Palin after Gabby Giffords was shot.

However the underlying concern here is that the words spoken by Presidents, and presidential candidates, are heard all over the country. By the sane, the relatively sane, and those not even in the same ballpark as sane.

That means they have to choose their words with exceptional care, and as we know even when they do that they are misunderstood and mischaracterized by the media.

Simply put Donald Trump is somebody who NEVER seems to choose his words with care, and this last inflammatory statement is just the latest in a never ending stream of inflammatory statements.

All of that should have taken Trump out of the running for the Republican nomination, but since it failed to accomplish that back then it is up to the general election voters to stop him before one of his inflammatory statements causes the economy to crash, destroys diplomatic relations with our allies, or starts a potential nuclear war.

And if you think any of that is hyperbole, you have not been paying enough attention.

Rolling Stone magazine endorses Hillary Clinton and, more importantly, explains why.

Here is an excerpt courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

I've been watching the debates and town halls for the past two months, and Sanders' righteousness knocks me out. My heart is with him. He has brought the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations to the ballot box. 

But it is not enough to be a candidate of anger. Anger is not a plan; it is not a reason to wield power; it is not a reason for hope. Anger is too narrow to motivate a majority of voters, and it does not make a case for the ability and experience to govern. I believe that extreme economic inequality, the vast redistribution of wealth to the top one percent — indeed, to the top one percent of the one percent — is the defining issue of our times. Within that issue, almost all issues of social injustice can be seen, none more so than climate change, which can be boiled down to the rights of mankind against the oligarchy that owns oil, coal and vast holdings of dirty energy, and those who profit from their use. 

Hillary Clinton has an impressive command of policy, the details, trade-offs and how it gets done. It's easy to blame billionaires for everything, but quite another to know what to do about it. During his 25 years in Congress, Sanders has stuck to uncompromising ideals, but his outsider stance has not attracted supporters among the Democrats. Paul Krugman writes that the Sanders movement has a "contempt for compromise." 

Every time Sanders is challenged on how he plans to get his agenda through Congress and past the special interests, he responds that the "political revolution" that sweeps him into office will somehow be the magical instrument of the monumental changes he describes. This is a vague, deeply disingenuous idea that ignores the reality of modern America. With the narrow power base and limited political alliances that Sanders had built in his years as the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, how does he possibly have a chance of fighting such entrenched power? 

I have been to the revolution before. It ain't happening. 

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is one of the most qualified candidates for the presidency in modern times, as was Al Gore. We cannot forget what happened when Gore lost and George W. Bush was elected and became arguably one of the worst presidents in American history. The votes cast for the fantasy of Ralph Nader were enough to cost Gore the presidency. Imagine what a similar calculation would do to this country if a "protest vote" were to put the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court all in the hands of the extreme right wing that now controls the Republican Party. 

I love this line, " I have been to the revolution before. It ain't happening."

I love it partly because it reflects the argument I made to my daughter just the other night, and also because it is undeniably true.

I think a lot of us here well remember the revolutions from the past that perhaps we also supported with all of our hearts, only to have those hearts broken as once again the revolution fizzled out with only minor changes taking hold.

The thing you learn over time is that change is slow and incremental. We are always moving toward progress, but it never comes as quickly as we want.

That is not to say that Bernie Sanders will not have an impact, he will. Just like the Occupy Wall Street protesters had an impact even though many have labeled the movement a failure.

However OWS helped give rise to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Though on a more unfortunate note there are those who think they also paved the way for Donald Trump.

However as Jann Wenner so eloquently says this is not the time for a revolution.

Instead it's the time to make sure we hold onto the White House, and increase our numbers in Congress.

And let's face it, the person with the momentum to do that is not Bernie Sanders, it's Hillary Clinton.

P.S. Make sure to click the link at the top to read the entire Rolling Stone article. There is a lot there, and I only shared a relatively small sample.

Donald Trump on Carly Fiorina: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?"

This comes courtesy of a quite revealing Rolling Stone piece on Trump.

At one point Trump is sitting back watching a Fox News segment: 

When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump's momentum, Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. "Look at that face!" he cries. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" 

Now I will admit that some of Fiorina's plastic surgery seems a little ill advised, and sometimes, to be honest, kind of distracting.

But that is her choice, and says nothing about her ability to run the country.

Also unlike certain others we could mention Fiorina is not attempting to use her looks to attract attention, or deflect criticism.

Besides has the Donald looked in a mirror lately?

Yeah I think he better hope that the voters are not nearly as shallow as he clearly seems to be.

It should be noted that later Trump attempted a little damage control by claiming that when he said "Look at that face" he was really talking about her persona.

Man, Trump is really courting that low intellect vote isn't he?

Well inviting Donald Trump to do that interview finally got Sarah Palin the attention that she so craves. It wasn't good attention, but it WAS attention.

Okay well as you know I sat through this entire thing last night and live blogged until my eyes started to bleed.

So I think all of you know what I thought. (Oh yeah, you know.)

However I thought you might enjoy hearing what others thought.

Salon had this to say: 

On Friday’s episode of a program whose title isn’t the least bit ironic, “On Point with Sarah Palin,” the former Alaskan governor and failed vice presidential candidate conducted an interview with Donald Trump in which the pair of strong American patriots did little more than whine about the unfairness of it all.

Gawker titled their coverage as "Loser Interviews Hater" which should give you some impression of their opinion. Here's my favorite line from the article: 

In one of the most simultaneously bleak and fawning ten minutes of television I have ever seen, former candidate for Vice President of the United States and current off-brand Fox News (OAN) personality Sarah Palin interviewed everyone’s favorite screaming steamed carrot, Donald Trump.

it really does not get much better than that does it?

NBC News characterized the interview as "lobbing softballs," while Rolling Stone called out Palin for "gushing." (Yeah, I'll bet she was!)

The Daily Beast lobbed perhaps one of the worst insults of all: 

On her fledgling, and embarrassingly low-tech, network, Sarah Palin interviewed Donald Trump, and managed a feat no journalist has yet. She made it boring.

Boring? Oh yeah, that's gonna leave a mark. 

All in all everybody was either underwhelmed or overcome with nausea. (That last one was my camp.)

However perhaps the worst blow of all is that over at the Sea O'Pea, as of this post, there are only two comments under the Trump interview.

Ouch!

To close out our day here is the last interview that President Obama will give on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Click infectious smile to play video.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

President Barack Obama joined Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for the seventh and final time Tuesday, and the president, with 18 months left in his term, sat down for an episode-long discussion with the host whose two weeks away from ending his own tenure. Obama's first order of business on The Daily Show was alerting the audience that he's issuing an executive order stating that Stewart can't leave the show. However, "it's being challenged in the courts." 

After wondering whether the president was suffering from "Senioritis," Stewart first asked Obama why many of his significant endeavors – universal health care, the Iran nuclear deal – have happened with just one year left in his presidency. 

"There's no doubt that you get better as you go along. It's like any other job," Obama said, acknowledging Stewart's own role as Daily Show host. "But what I do think has happened is a lot of the work we did early starts bearing fruit later. And it just so happened that over the last couple months that people are seeing some of the work that we started way back when I first came in." 

I like the idea that Obama planted the seeds of his most recent victories back when the Republicans were working overtime to block everything he did, and that these things simply skated right past their goalie Mitch McConnell.

I have to say that I thought this was less like an interview, than it was a conversation between two old friends.

And I also take heart with the fact that the President has stated on television, for everybody to hear, that he is working to keep Stewart on the show, and as we have seen fairly recently the man is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Besides if Jon Snow can be resurrected from the dead, then why can't Jon Stewart?

Nice way to end our day. President Obama singing "Amazing Grace."

Courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

President Obama attended Rev. Clementa Pinckney's funeral in Charleston, South Carolina on Friday and delivered a moving version of "Amazing Grace" in the middle of his touching eulogy. 

Rev. Pinckney was a state senator and one of the nine victims of the tragic shooting that occurred in the church where his funeral took place. "If we can find that grace, anything is possible," Obama stated to the congregation. "If we can tap that grace, everything can change." 

After a moment of solemn silence, Obama began singing "Amazing Grace" a cappella before the choir, attendees and musicians joined in for the performance. Afterwards, the president stated that each of the victims had "found that grace," naming all nine individually. "May God continue to shed his grace on the United States of America," he concluded. 

The President has some pipes. 

He could use a little more practice to help his singing, but damn when the man speaks......

Even for a die hard Atheist like me, I found that quite touching. 

Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article on Bernie Sanders is a must read.

In my opinion the entire article is a revelation, but this part stuck with me: 

Many of the battles he brought me along to witness, he lost. And no normal politician would be comfortable with the optics of bringing a Rolling Stone reporter to a Rules Committee hearing. 

But Sanders genuinely, sincerely, does not care about optics. He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the heating-oil aid program for the poor. 

This is why his entrance into the 2016 presidential race is a great thing and not a mere footnote to the inevitable coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. If the press is smart enough to grasp it, his entrance into the race makes for a profound storyline that could force all of us to ask some very uncomfortable questions. 

You know it is articles like this which makes me wish that Bernie Sanders could actually win the nomination over Hillary Clinton and defeat Jeb Bush in the general.

But the truth is he can't.

He is probably the perfect candidate, at the perfect time, but he is hampered by an incredibly imperfect election system.

Michael Moore responds to attacks over his "American Sniper" tweet.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

"Here's the truth they can't or won't report: I'm the one who has supported these troops - much more than the bloviators on Fox News," Moore writes before listing the many ways they're misinformed in their opinion of him. When Moore's father passed away, he asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Veterans for Peace. The filmmaker also refuses to do business with vendors that don't hire vets, sits on the Advisory Board of the Pvt. Bradley (Chelsea) Manning Support Network and has donated thousands of dollars to "help veterans and wounded warriors." 

There's also this: "From the Dept. of Irony: I only hire Navy SEALS and ex-special forces for when I need security - such as this week, when so-called supporters of those SEALs want me harmed," Moore said. 

While Moore's remarks on director Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, a film that Matt Taibbi called "almost too dumb to criticize," is what started this whole ordeal, Moore is still showing the film at the movie theatre he programs in Manistee, MI. "Not because I like it, but because, unlike the other side, I'm not a censor," Moore wrote. "I trust smart people and people of good heart will know what to do. You can't have a conversation about what Clint Eastwood is up to if you haven't seen what it is he's up to." Also of note: A vet serves as that theater's projectionist. 

"In the end, the thing I'm most proud of for what I've done for the troops was sticking my neck out 12 years ago to become a leading opponent to Bush and the war. I tried to save more lives than a sniper ever could hope to – by preventing us from going to war in the first place," Moore wrote. "So, Fox News and the other lazy media -- quit making shit up about me! You look ridiculous." 

So Moore not only hires vets any time that he can, he also donates money to veterans organizations.

Kin of makes me wonder just how many times that Palin has donated money to the veterans?

And gee Moore's response was so well reasoned. Especially compared to, you know, this:

Michale Moore1 - Michael Moore detractors 0.

I don't think that the Rolling Stone review of American Sniper is going to make the conservatives very happy.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone: 

The really dangerous part of this film is that it turns into a referendum on the character of a single soldier. It's an unwinnable argument in either direction. We end up talking about Chris Kyle and his dilemmas, and not about the Rumsfelds and Cheneys and other officials up the chain who put Kyle and his high-powered rifle on rooftops in Iraq and asked him to shoot women and children. 

They're the real villains in this movie, but the controversy has mostly been over just how much of a "hero" Chris Kyle really was. One Academy member wondered to a reporter if Kyle (who in real life was killed by a fellow troubled vet in an eerie commentary on the violence in our society that might have made a more interesting movie) was a "psychopath." Michael Moore absorbed a ton of criticism when he tweeted that "My uncle [was] killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards …" 

And plenty of other commentators, comparing Kyle's book (where he remorselessly brags about killing "savages") to the film (where he is portrayed as a more rounded figure who struggled, if not verbally then at least visually, with the nature of his work), have pointed out that real-life Kyle was kind of a dick compared to movie-Kyle. 

(The most disturbing passage in the book to me was the one where Kyle talked about being competitive with other snipers, and how when one in particular began to threaten his "legendary" number, Kyle "all of the sudden" seemed to have "every stinkin' bad guy in the city running across my scope." As in, wink wink, my luck suddenly changed when the sniper-race got close, get it? It's super-ugly stuff). 

The thing is, it always looks bad when you criticize a soldier for doing what he's told. It's equally dangerous to be seduced by the pathos and drama of the individual solider's experience, because most wars are about something much larger than that, too. 

Deifying a man who made sure to kill more people in order to protect his reputation as the most lethal sniper in the military. Just things conservatives do.

However to be serious if you actively engage in a contest where each point on the scoreboard signifies the end of a human life, you, in no way, deserve to wear the mantle of hero.

From all I can tell Kyle was a psychopath who found a legally supported, and celebrated, outlet for his murderous instincts.

Is anybody else having Jeremy Morlock flashbacks?

Cause I am.

What everybody is talking about, the Newsroom's college rape storyline.

Courtesy of The Independent: 

The Newsroom has been accused of having a “women problem” before, but now Aaron Sorkin has come under fire for a rape storyline that implies male perpetrators are to be believed over female victims. 

The latest episode has been criticised for its portrayal of female rape victims after TV news producer Don Keefer said he felt morally obligated to believe the man’s side of the story because he had not yet been convicted of rape. 

The episode’ storyline followed a Princeton student who starts a website allowing women on campus to out their rapists after the city justice system failed to prosecute two fraternity members who she claimed raped her. 

The student is tracked down by the fictional news network ACN for a debate with her alleged attacker live on air. Don had also interviewed the man she claims raped her and when she asks him who he believes, the producer says he felt obliged to take the man’s side over hers.

This received quite a lot of backlash from all corners.

Including from a writer on the show who claims her misgivings about the segment were ignored, and that she was "kicked out" of the writer's room.

Sorkin himself responds here.

Actress Olivia Munn, who plays the character Sloan Sabbith on the show, also weighed in:  

“…The reality is that Sorkin writes things so that they can be talked about, and so we show both sides of it,” she said. “I think it was important to show what it’s like for women to be a rape victim, want to speak out, and then have somebody come in and say, ‘Hey don’t do that. That’s going to be bad for you.’ 

“Sorkin wasn’t saying ‘Don’t do that,'” Munn said. “He was saying ‘This is what happens.'” 

Personally I liked the episode. Partly because it left me conflicted, and not sure whose side I should take in the exchange between the Don Keefer character and the college student.

But that to me is the mark of great television.

I don't often watch shows that make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. I watch shows that make me think, piss me off, or make me grieve for the loss of a character that I have, against my better judgement, grown attached to. (Still miss you Beth.)

I think the show did everything that I would expect it would do with such a controversial subject.

And in the light of the Rolling Stone campus rape scandal, it could not have been more timely.

John Fogerty has some opinions on the Republicans claiming that his song "Fortunate Son" was inappropriate for a Veteran's Day concert.

So I am sure you all remember that Bruce Springsteen, and a number of talented musicians, played the song "Fortunate One" during the Concert of Valor at the National Mall in Washington D.C. and that Right Wing literally lost their minds over it.

So in a recent Rolling Stone interview John Fogerty, who wrote the song, was asked about that response:  

"'Fortunate Son' is a song I wrote during the Vietnam War over 45 years ago," Fogerty said in a statement. "As an American and a songwriter, I am proud that the song still has resonance. I do believe that its meaning gets misinterpreted and even usurped by various factions wishing to make their own case. What a great country we have that a song like this can be performed in a setting like Concert for Valor. 

"Years ago, an ultraconservative administration tried to paint anyone who questioned its policies as 'un-American,'" he continues. "That same administration shamefully ignored and mistreated the soldiers returning from Vietnam. As a man who was drafted and served his country during those times, I have ultimate respect for the men and women who protect us today and demand that they receive the respect that they deserve." 

What the conservative mouthpieces either failed, or refused to understand, is that the song is VERY supportive of the soldiers themselves. Who the song was criticizing were the politicians who start these wars and then send American sons (And now daughters) to die in countries that THEIR children will only ever visit in times of peace.

Both John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen are American institutions, and I would put their patriotism up against anyone. Especially some conservative jackass sitting on his fat ass, sipping Fox newsroom coffee, and faking outrage in order to rile up the paint chip eaters.

Fogerty goes on to point out that he recently performed "Fortunate One" at "A Salute to the Troops: In Performance at the White House" just last week. A performance by the way that was broadcast on PBS.

And guess which song he played? That's right.

And the outrage from the Right Wing?

Only this.

Paul Krugman, not always the President's biggest supporter, decides that Obama is pretty damn impressive after all.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue. 

And I wasn't wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions. 

But now the shoe is on the other foot: Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn't deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it's working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it's much more effective than you'd think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy. 

During the entire article Krugman seems to pay his respect to the President's achievements almost grudgingly, as if it is causing him actual physical discomfort to have to admit just how well the President has done in the face of almost overwhelming opposition.

But in the end Krugman sums it up like this:

Am I damning with faint praise? Not at all. This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don't care about the fact that Obama hasn't lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn't quite say, a big deal.

In my opinion Krugman is going to have a lot of company in the years to come from Obama critics, who will have to admit that in retrospect the President's achievement are not only impressive, but  taken as whole, almost superhuman.

There is nothing rooty tooty or fresh and fruity about this IHOP. Though apparently you will find plenty of nuts.

"Prophet" Mike Bickle

I have been hearing references to this International House of Prayer (IHOP) for some time now, but I have not really spent any time reading about it because I figured these Evangelical types are pretty much throwing themselves against the rubber walls of the same metaphorical looney bin.

I may have to rethink that.

Talking Points Memo recently did a piece on the church that is, in a word, "chilling."

Here is just an excerpt: 

Through IHOP and its associated church, Forerunner Christian Fellowship, Bickle claims to be cultivating an elite class of “forerunners,” or people who “represent God and his interests,” and who “prepare the people to respond rightly to Jesus by making known God's plans so the people can make sense of what will happen before it actually happens.” His vision of the end-times, which is central to his teaching, maintains that these “redeemed” people will be raptured just as Jesus begins his “royal procession” into Jerusalem. Bickle believes they will return to earth as “resurrected saints” who will “possess supernatural abilities.” When Jesus rules as “King over all dominions and spheres of society,” these resurrected saints will rule with him, “as kings and priests.”

Essentially Bickle sells a certain spiritual snake oil that suggests that Jesus needs his followers to prepare the planet for His return, and that by doing that they will in turn be granted super powers.

You know, because there is nothing crazy about that.

Rolling Stone also wrote about the church earlier this year while covering the death of a young woman at the hands of one of the church's "apostles:"

This is IHOP's most alluring tenet: God needs IHOPers to effect the Tribulation and bring Christ back to Earth. "The church causes the Great Tribulation," Bickle has preached. Before founding IHOP, he argued that "God intends us to be like gods. God has conceived in his heart of a plan to make a race of men that would live like gods on Earth." Bickle sometimes affects to know God as he would a peer. "I heard what I call the internal audible voice of the Lord," he has said. He claims that he visited heaven one night at 2:16 a.m., and the Lord charged him with preparing for an End Times ministry and seated him in a golden chariot that lifted off into the empyrean. At IHOP, where prophetic experiences are endemic, the mortal and divine commingle liberally. 

The vanguard of God's End Times army, according to Bickle, will be made up of young people, or "forerunners," seers specially attuned to the will of the Lord, "the best of all the generations that have ever been seen on the face of the Earth." For seven years of Tribulation, they will battle the Antichrist. When Christ returns, he will slaughter by sword in a single day the unsaved, and his warriors will rule heaven and Earth forevermore. 

Let's get this straight. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, is coming back to hack all of the non-believers into pieces?

Boy that sure doesn't sound good for my people now does it? Or Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists, or pretty much anybody not attending this church.

Damn, that is a lot of slaying for one day. I wonder if his arm would get tired?

Speaking of getting tired check out how attending the church seems to have affected this young intern.

Apparently this young woman is undergoing some supernaturally induced Braxton Hick contractions, or else multiple orgasms, I can't tell which. And clearly this is not considered in any way odd, or troubling to the congregants in attendance.

There are a lot of Evangelical and Charismatic churches out there, but it seems to me that this one is promoting a special kind of crazy.

It always amazes me that this kind of thing is still happening in the most powerful nation on earth in 2014.  Actually I am both amazed, and deeply deeply troubled.

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has some choice words to day about Sarah Palin's free speech hypocrisy.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone: 

Sarah Palin, ably staying in character in her new role as a professional media ambulance-chaser, was one of the first to rush to Robertson's defense. She posted a photo of herself with the Robertsons and tweeted the following: 

"Free speech is endangered species; those "intolerants" hatin' & taking on Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing personal opinion take on us all" 

Conservatives have always had trouble grasping the difference between public censorship and private enterprise. With a few exceptions, like whistleblower laws and National Labor Relations Board protections against being fired for off-site discussions about work conditions (exceptions that, in almost every case, conservatives bitterly opposed), there is no legal or constitutional right to free speech on private property. 

You can be fired for calling your boss a dick, and you can just as easily be let go by a profit-seeking media company for imperiling its relationship with advertisers. And incidentally, this is the way true conservatives, and especially true hardcore speech advocates, have always wanted it. 

Could you imagine the uproar if someone passed a law saying that Martin Bashir couldn't be bounced from a broadcast job for saying Sarah Palin was a good candidate to have feces shoved in her mouth? Now that would be censorship. 

Remember, nobody heard a peep from Sarah Palin about free speech after that episode.

Yeah funny how tight lipped she was about free speech and the 1st Amendment while MSNBC was flooded with calls for Bashir's head. 

Palin's inability to grasp the difference between a first-amendment violation and corporate calculation is amazing because she literally just published a book on the subject. Her newly-released War-on-Christmas diatribe, Good Tidings and Great Joy, is all about the efforts by evil Jesus-hating atheists to sue the Christmas out of our public lives. (It's one of the funniest things ever written, by the way. I would write a review but I don't think I could make it all the way to the end without a cardiac episode). 

In writing this new book, Palin presumably spent the whole of the last year or so staring right at the issue of what may be said on private property versus what may be said on public property – the difference between putting up a nativity scene in front of a courthouse and putting one up on your lawn. Yet as this latest controversy shows, the underlying issue is still a total blur to her. 

Of course, Palin has a long history of getting things not just wrong, but exactly wrong. In the book, for instance, she describes buying her husband Todd "a nice, needed powerful gun" in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings and resulting anti-gun fervor. She described this warm act as a "small act of civil disobedience" that was "fun." 

Essential EVERYTHING that Sarah Palin says, tweets, or has written for her in a book or on Facebook, is in some way objectionable. However since she has no actual employer to kick her to the curb, there is rarely a noticeable consequence.

Though considering the dismal sales of this most recent book perhaps she finally is being censored by the only people left who even care about what she says, the rapidly dwindling, pathetically slow learning, Palin-bots.

Sarah Palin will NEVER stop saying ignorant things. The only question is how soon will she be saying them to an empty room?