Trump's Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is loudly booed during commencement speech at historically black university.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Drawing shouts of "Liar!" and "Just go," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos powered through her commencement address Wednesday at a historically black university, even as many of the graduating students turned their backs to her in protest. 

"Let's choose to hear one another out," DeVos said, reading her prepared text in a measured tone despite continuing waves of boos, catcalls and scattered applause at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. 

As the crowd kept trying to shout her down, university president Edison Jackson briefly took over the microphone to sternly lecture the class of 2017. 

"If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you. Choose which way you want to go," Jackson warned. 

DeVos alienated many African-Americans in February when she described historically black colleges as "real pioneers when it comes to school choice." After a storm of criticism, she acknowledged that these colleges were "born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism."

Look I am one who typically does not believe in publicly disrespecting people, or shouting over them when they are trying to speak, however the fact is that Donald Trump chose the people he chose to undermine and even damage the agencies that they now lead, and there is nothing to respect about that.

Betsy DeVos is criminally unfit for her job, and the damage she can do to the Department of Education, and the students who are still in the system is incalculable.

In light of that, she should expect to get booed and shouted down in virtually EVERY university, high school, and kindergarten class that she visits.

Donald Trump tells CPAC audience that he is the president they have been waiting for, while some wave Russian flags in response.

Courtesy of Washington Post:  

President Trump declared himself among friends as he delivered a campaign-style speech Friday at an annual gathering of conservative activists, where he told the crowd that the movement he built during his campaign represents the future of the Republican Party. 

“Now you finally have a president, finally,” Trump said, later promising that “the forgotten men and women of America will be forgotten no more.” 

With his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor in Maryland, Trump became the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan to address the group during his first year in office. After taking the stage to Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the U.S.A.," Trump pledged to return often. 

The wide-ranging speech amounted to a victory lap for Trump and chance to recount his campaign promises as well as thank a wing of the party with which he has not always been in sync.

“The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that put and will put its own citizens first,” Trump said, prompting the crowd to chant: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

You know it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump sees himself less as a president, than he does the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And this is how some in the audience responded to his all about me speech.

Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017

A section of people in the back of #CPAC2017 waving Russian flags -- a staffer just came and demanded they all be handed over. pic.twitter.com/mZVoVUqudn

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) February 24, 2017

No joke, someone has been handing out Russian flags that say #Trump on them. And people are waving them.#CPAC2017 pic.twitter.com/CDZS5oEqyL

— Maya Shwayder (@MayaErgas) February 24, 2017

#CPAC pic.twitter.com/Hb8JUxVfIm

— Ali Rogin (@AliABCNews) February 24, 2017

Okay this might be my favorite thing to ever happen at CPAC.

Not that there is a lot of competition for that title. 

Compared to President Obama he simply never measures up.

Trump's first network interview as POTUS drew 7.5 m viewers while Obama's drew 17m, but that was because of all those illegal viewers.

— Elizabeth Drew (@ElizabethDrewOH) January 27, 2017

The really funny thing about this is that you just KNOW it drives Trump crazy that he keeps falling short.

Mike Pence gets booed by the audience while attending "Hamilton." Donald Trump blames cast, demands apology.

Here's Pence getting booed as he gets to his seats at Hamilton pic.twitter.com/IRQG68x1sB

— David K (@dkipke12) November 19, 2016

As you can hear this is the reaction of audience members, and done of their own accord.

In fact the curtains are closed and the show has not yet started.

However thin skinned Donald Trump thought that this was the fault of the cast members and sent off this tweet in response.

Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing.This should not happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016

The Theater must always be a safe and special place.The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016

Blaming the cast for the actions of the audience, before a show even starts?

Overreact much?

Actually the cast showed remarkable restraint, and at the end of the show the lead actor Brandon Victor Dixon had this message for Mike Pence: 

“We have a guest in the audience this evening. Vice President-elect Pence I see you walking out, but I hope you will hear us just a few more moments. There’s nothing to boo here ladies and gentlemen. We have a message for you sir. We hope that you will hear us out. I encourage everyone to pull out your phones and tweet because this message needs to be spread far and wide. 

Vice President-elect Pence we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton, an American Musical. We really do. We sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, out children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us. We truly thank you for sharing in this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men, women of different colors, creeds and orientations and we truly hope that you heard our message sir, because you all represent all of us."

Not sure how that gets translated into being rude in the eyes of Donald Trump, but if this is how he responds to everything I think our first new war will be starting less than a week after his inauguration. 

The excitement at the Republican convention is almost palpable. If the word "palpable" meant something completely different.

I have to admit that even I nave been a little surprised by the lack of enthusiasm inside the convention building.

It is almost like the people who are showing up feel obligated to be there, but once inside can barely bring themselves to clap or cheer for the majority of the folks up on stage.

But if Trump inspires so little enthusiasm among the Republicans then who is it that helped him to win the nomination?

If you have about 30 minutes the BBC might provide that answer in a rather terrifying documentary called "Trump's Angry America."

So 2016 becomes the first election season when one candidate calls another candidate a pu**y. Thanks Donald Trump. (NSFW language.)

Look I'm not even going to disagree with Trump, and that lady in the audience's, assertion taht Ted Cruz is a pussy.

I actually think that a large number of the GOP candidates are a few testosterone points shy of a real man.

However hearing that said from a podium by a man who claims to want to hold the most important job in the world? Yeah, that's a little hard to digest.

And by the way since there is little doubt that the toughest candidate in this race actually HAS a vagina, perhaps we need to find a different word to describe weakness.

You know perhaps a word like "Jeb!" Yeah that works.

Once the king of talk radio Rush Limbaugh now finds fewer and fewer radio stations willing to host his hateful rants.

Is ANYBODY listening anymore?

Courtesy of Media Matters: 

The good news for Rush Limbaugh: One month after being notified he was getting dumped by his Boston talk radio host station, the talker has a new AM home in the city. 

The bad news: The station currently boasts a 0.6 rating, trails four non-commercial stations in the market, and becomes yet another big-city, cellar-dwelling outpost that Limbaugh is forced to call home. 

The station, WKOX, is the type of "bottom-rung" affiliate that Limbaugh was rarely associated with during his halcyon days as the king of talk radio. But those days seem to be dwindling as the Boston fall from grace has previously played out for Limbaugh in places like Los Angeles and Indianapolis. In each instance, Limbaugh exited a prosperous, longtime radio home and was forced to settle for an also-ran outlet with miniscule ratings. 

Limbaugh's ongoing major market woes can be traced to his 2012 on-air meltdown over Sandra Fluke, where he castigated and insulted the graduate student for three days on his program, calling her a "slut" and suggesting she post videos of herself having sex on the Internet. (Fluke's sin in the eyes of Limbaugh was testifying before Congress in favor of contraception mandates for health care insurance.) 

The astonishing Limbaugh monologues sparked an unprecedented advertiser exodus, which means selling his show has become a major lift for the affiliate stations that pay a hefty fee for the right to carry his program. The Wall Street Journal has reported on the millions of dollars in advertising revenue that Limbaugh's host stations lose because of the talker's stigma on Madison Avenue. 

The still-unfolding repercussions? Some key stations want out of their Limbaugh deals. And when those deals are up, nobody else is stepping forward to ink new contracts with Rush.

You know I remember when it seemed that Limbaugh was omnipresent in the news each day.

Hell even the President called him out as partly responsible for Washington gridlock.

So to see how far he has fallen, and to realize how muhc farther he is about to fall, is incredibly satisfying.

As far as I'm concerned the faster he is off the air, the better it is for the country.

Oh and he can take Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck with him.

School principal causes mass exodus after calling people rude and singling out black people during valedictorian speech. Update!

If you found this a little confusing here is some background courtesy of The Grio:  

Friday, the founder of TNT Academy in Lilburn Georgia shocked students and parents alike when she made racist comments towards her black graduates. 

In the past students have alleged that the school, and it’s founder Nancy Gordeuk hold disparaging views towards people of color, and at yesterday’s graduation ceremony they unexpectedly received validation. 

The confusion initially started when Gordeuk accidentally ended the ceremony without allowing the valedictorian to make their speech. When she became aware of her mistake, she asked all the graduating seniors to come back inside the hall for the final speech.

In response to the fact that people were now very restless, thinking the ceremony over, and had started to move around and talk to one another, Principal Nancy Gordeuk lost her cool and started channeling her inner Michael Richards.

Gordeuk has since apologized, but it just goes to show how deeply ingrained racism can be.

Personally I feel sorry for the students graduating who now have this last hurtful memory of their high school experience.

Update: Damn the principal did blame this on the devil didn't she?

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

“A terrible mistake on my part of the graduation ceremony on Friday night,” Gordeuk wrote, according to WXIA in Atlanta. “The devil was in the house and came out from my mouth. I deeply apologize for my racist comment and hope that forgiveness in in your hearts.”

You know you really have to hand it to Satan. After all we know he must have a busy schedule, what with tempting people into sin and all, and yet he takes the time out of his day to sabotage a simple alternative school graduation.

What a guy!

The problem with calling out Fox News hosts on their lies it that it makes them that much more attractive to their audiences.

See? I win.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The media keeps piling on Bill O’Reilly, and so do viewers. Amid mounting criticism of his past “war zone” recollections, the Fox News firebrand delivered his highest ratings of the year, Nielsen Media data shows. Last Monday night’s edition of “The O’Reilly Factor,” in which the television-show host addressed some of the criticism lodged against him last week by Mother Jones magazine, averaged 3.3 million viewers, up 14 percent from 2.9 million the previous Monday. 

This is not the first time a controversy has helped boost O’Reilly’s audience. In 2004, his audience rose 30 percent amid allegations that he sexually harassed a colleague, CBS News reported at the time. 

Viewership of news programming is notoriously unpredictable and typically fluctuates with specific news events. But for much of this week, O’Reilly himself was the news -- the target of one attack after another from media outlets and former colleagues who accused him of embellishing or flat-out lying about his role in past news events. 

Judging by Fox News’ prime-time ratings since the Mother Jones story broke, it appears either more people are tuning in to “hate-watch” the host or his core audience is responding to the controversy with a collective shrug. O’Reilly averaged 2.9 million viewers Tuesday and 3.1 million Wednesday, the most recent days for which data is available. Wednesday, he attracted 705,000 viewers in the demographic range between 25 and 54 years old that is highly prized by advertisers, a 24 percent increase from the same day the previous week, as Variety reported.

I guess when your audience is made up of ideologues who only want their fears, prejudices, and conspiracy theories backed up, being caught telling multiple lies is not that big of a deal.

However, and I still think this is an important point, destroying the credibility of Fox News and its hosts ultimately helps in spreading actual news without fear that an alternate version will vie for acceptance by the viewing public.

Remember much of the Fox News demographic is inching closer to death every single day, and the younger views, much as the above article indicates, really seem to watch Fox more out of morbid curiosity rather than with any expectation of seeing any actual news.

Let's put aside politics for a bit to enjoy something truly sweet.

Courtesy of the YouTube page:  

Swiss/German girl duo BOY, performing "Little Numbers" at their first-ever Brooklyn show. In this emotional performance, Swiss singer Valeska Steiner, is surprised to hear the whole audience sing along, being that its their American debut.

Like probably the majority of you I had never heard of this band, but  after watching the emotional reaction from the lead singer to the realization that her music had made an impact on this American audience I became an instant fan.

It also reminded me of this video of the amazing Adele being brought to tears by the audience singing along to "Someone Like You."

You know some days it just feels we don't have enough music and sweetness in our lives.

P.S. To learn more about the band called Boy, click here.

At CPAC Donald Trump gives an inspiring speech to a room full of empty chairs. I heard they were moved by the experience.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

Behold, the scene at Donald Trump's CPAC speech this morning in the main ballroom. Empty seats were everywhere, although it's not entirely Trump's fault. He was given an 8:45 a.m. speaking slot, the very first of the day. Many CPAC attendees aren't even out of bed yet. Still, Trump was invited not because of his conservative bona fides (he's donated more money over the years to Democrats than to Republicans), but because he's supposedly a crowd-pleasing draw. 

The speech itself was mildly received. There were a few moments of scattered clapping, some chuckling. The biggest applause came when Trump suggested, once again, that we "take" Iraq's oil and use the proceeds to pay a million dollars each to the families of the American soldiers who died in the war. Trump meandered from topic to topic, but the one unifying theme of the speech was the greatness of Trump. "I've made over $8 billion," he declared at one point, for some reason. Referring to a country club he just bought, Trump said, "I'm going to fix it. I'm going to make it incredible." 

"He would have had five more minutes to talk if he had stopped putting 'I' and 'me' in there and came up with some solutions instead of promoting himself," a man in the audience told us afterwards.

Okay, wow! I wonder why, if Trump was supposed to be such a big draw, they gave him the  breakfast shift?

After all don't forget that Trump and Palin were added to the schedule specifically to sell tickets and bring in the crowds.

Gee Palin speaks tomorrow, if this is the best Trump can do, I can hardly wait to see how many empty chairs she disappoints.