Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mona Chalabi: What's happened to Trump's popularity since the election? Not much (The Guardian)
Given Trump's record in his first year - the attempted ban on transgender Americans from the military, the travel ban targeting muslims, the threats to destroy North Korea, the insulting calls with bereaved widows, his comments about Charlottesville, federal felony charges against his top campaign aides (and so much more) - these numbers are remarkable. They show that despite his first year in office, Trump could be as likely to win an election on 8 November 2017 as he was on 8 November 2016.
Josh Marshall: "Get Real: Thoughts on Last Night's Anti-Trump Wave" (TPM)
Ralph Northam won by roughly 9 percentage points, a large margin in a state that Democrats have dominated at the state-wide level in the 21st century but seldom by large margins. But this most watched race was not the most significant or telling result of the night. The down-ballot results were far more telling. Democrats swept the state-wide races and ran the table in state legislative races, taking a 2-1 GOP majority in the state General Assembly to possibly taking control. (A series of recounts will decide the final result.)
Alice Ollstein: Republicans Shrug Off Tuesday's Rout, Vow To Keep Voting To Repeal Obamacare (TPM)
"Health care is the single largest issue of 2017," Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) told TPM. "There is more identification with that issue than any other single factor. We've seen in the last decade a real apathy with voters, thinking it doesn't make that much difference who they voted for. Now they see it does make a difference."
Louise Roug: It Only Took Trump One Year To Trash America's Global Reputation (Huffington Post)
"The rest of the world is shaking its head," one expert said.
Tom Danehy: Tom's mind grows ever more inquisitive with age (Tucson Weekly)
We're a year into the abomination know as the Trump presidency and I have yet to get a decent answer to this question: Why would any woman vote for Donald Trump? Well, I know why Melania Trump would vote for him, because he pays for all of her plastic surgery. But why would any other woman vote for him? Look, Hillary Clinton was a lousy candidate, but a woman could have voted for a different candidate. Or, a woman could have written in the name of her husband; you know, the guy who told her that she had to vote for Donald Trump, or else.
Eddie Deezen: The Curious Animosity of Fred and Ethel Mertz (Neatorama)
Frawley: "She's one of the finest gals to come out of Kansas, and I often wish she'd go back there. I don't know where she is now and she doesn't know where I am. That's exactly the way I like it." Vance: "I loathed William Frawley and the feeling was mutual. Whenever I received a new script, I raced through it, praying that there wasn't a scene where we had to be in bed together."
Simon Hattenstone: Carry on Screaming's Fenella Fielding on fighting with Kenneth Williams and bouncing back after bankruptcy (The Guardian)
She survived a violent upbringing to become the 60s' favourite comedy vamp. As she turns 90, the star remembers fending off Norman Wisdom, attempting suicide - and having two lovers for 20 years.
Watch Mark Cuban's easy guide to getting rich (Vanity Fair)
9 ideas.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
wrote:
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Chocolate
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE "VOTER FRAUD COMMISSION" IS A FRAUD!
"I'M A CONSERVATIVE."
ROY THE MOLESTER!
THE TURKEYS IN THE WILDERNESS.
WHEN THE COMMIES RUN THE NAZIS.
FUCK YEAH!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Found an unopened bag of Halloween candy. Better now than next July. : )
GLAAD Report
U.S. TV
The number of lesbian, gay and transgender characters on U.S. television shows have reached record highs, and campaign group GLAAD said on Thursday that their stories were more important than ever given moves in the United States to roll back LGBT acceptance.
In it annual report on diversity on the small screen, GLAAD found 329 regular and recurring LGBTQ characters across all broadcast, cable and streaming TV platforms, including the first asexual and non-binary characters.
GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis said TV was a critical place for the portrayal of LGBTQ characters and their lives.
"At a time when the Trump administration is trying to render LGBTQ people invisible, representing LGBTQ people in all of our diversity in scripted TV programs is an essential counterbalance that gives LGBTQ people stories to relate to," Ellis said in a statement.
The GLAAD report found that LGBTQ regulars on the main U.S. broadcast channels in TV shows like "Riverdale," "Empire" "Designated Survivor" made up 6.5 percent of all characters, making the highest percentage in 22 years of GLAAD tracking.
U.S. TV
Efforts End
Vaquita Porpoises
Experts said Wednesday they have suspended a program to capture and enclose the few remaining vaquita porpoises in Mexico's Gulf of California, after the one they managed to catch died quickly in captivity.
Lorenzo Rojas, the lead scientist in the effort, described what may be the last close contact between humans and the world's smallest porpoise, of which less than 30 remain. Rojas said he doubts there will be enough of the elusive porpoises left next year to even make an attempt to capture any.
"She was adapting, but in a few seconds something triggered in her brain and she just started swimming faster, incredibly fast, like she wanted to fly away from where it was, with no perception of the space, inside where she was," Rojas said of the adult female captured over the weekend.
That vaquita had been taken to a floating pen on the sea where experts had hoped to protect her, but the animal began to act oddly in obvious stress. The only other vaquita captured, a calf, had also quickly shown signs of distress and was quickly released weeks ago.
The experts tried to do the same with the adult female, but it was too late.
Vaquita Porpoises
Cut and Recast
All the Money in the World
Just days after Ridley Scott pulled his upcoming biographical drama All the Money in the World from AFI Fest - where it was set to close the festival - due to the mounting allegations of sexual misconduct against Kevin Spacey, it's been announced that the actor is being cut from the project all together. According to Deadline, Kevin Spacey's scenes as J. Paul Gettywill be removed from the already-completed film, with Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer stepping in to play the oil tycoon during reshoots, which will reportedly begin immediately.
Despite the recasting and reshoots, Scott is reportedly determined to keep the film on track for its previously announced December 22nd release date. FYI, that is *43* days away.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the legendary filmmaker "unilaterally" made the decision to remove Spacey from the project, only notifying Sony - whose subsidiary TriStar Pictures is distributing the film - of the decision on Wednesday. It was also revealed that Plummer was Scott's first choice to play J. Paul Getty, but Spacey won the role after Sony executives wanted a bigger name attached to the project.
All the Money in the World follows the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and his grandfather's infamous refusal to pay the ransom.
While it's not known exactly how much of the film is going to have to be reshot - Spacey reportedly worked eight to ten days on the film - it appears stars Michelle Williams and Mark Whalberg will be returning to film with Plummer. The Hollywood Reporter also revealed that visual effects house MPC is working with Scott to complete the film within its timeframe.
All the Money in the World
Accused By 5 Women
Louis C.K.
Comedian Louis C.K. has been accused of sexual misconduct in a New York Times expose detailing allegations that he repeatedly asked women he encountered in work-related environments to watch him masturbate.
Comedians Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov are among the women who detail what they describe as a disturbing encounters with C.K. Goodman and Wolov said they were shocked when he invited them to his hotel room during the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., in 2002 and allegedly stripped naked and began to masturbate.
Allegations of sexual misconduct against the stand up comedian and TV star have been swirling for some time. In March 2012, Gawker published a blind item that detailed an alleged incident at the Aspen Comedy Festival a few years prior. C.K. was not named explicitly in the piece, but it claimed that "our nation's most hilarious stand-up comic and critically cherished sitcom auteur" invited two female comedians to his hotel room and proceeded to block the door with his body while he forced them to watch him masturbate. Speculation surfaced on Reddit and social media that the item referred to C.K. Comedian Doug Stanhope, a friend of C.K.'s, later claimed the story was about him.
A follow-up piece by Gawker in May 2015 described an interaction another comic claims to have had with C.K. earlier that same year. The unnamed male comic, identified in the piece as Jason, shared email correspondence he claims came from C.K. when Jason had emailed him to ask C.K. to "please stop sexually assaulting female comics." The email address that appears to be C.K. responded that he wished to reach Jason by phone. Jason went on to claim that C.K. did in fact call him, describing the alleged conversation as C.K. "sizing me up" to "find out what I had heard." Jason said the conversation stemmed from an incident in 2014 when C.K. was alleged to have approached a female friend of Jason's at a comedy club from behind, grabbed her by the neck, and whispered in her ear, "I'm going to f-k you."
Louis C.K.
Poll Indicates
T-rump
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Crooked) will get crushed by any Democrat running against him in the 2020 presidential election, a poll released Thursday indicated. Asked whether they would vote for Trump or a hypothetical Democratic candidate in the next election, just 36 percent in the Politico/Morning Consult poll said they would vote to give the president a second term. That compared with 46 percent who indicated they would vote for Trump's Democratic opponent, whoever that may be. A further 18 percent said they remained undecided.
The poll, conducted on the eve of the anniversary of the 2016 election, offers further bad news for Trump: Eight percent of those who voted for him a year ago said they would support a Democrat in 2020. In contrast, three percent of those who voted for Hillary Clinton in November 2016 said they would switch to casting their ballot for Trump come the next vote for president.
Indeed, Democrats appear to be more steadfast in backing someone from their own party than Republicans when it comes to Trump. Eighty-four percent of Democrats said they would vote for the candidate from their own party in 2020, compared with 74 percent who said they would support the current Republican president.
Among independents, there is a similarly clear gulf. Thirty percent said they would vote for Trump, while 40 percent stated that a Democrat would get their backing.
The results should not be surprising, given Trump has faced record low approval ratings for a president so early into his time in office. His current approval rating with Gallup stands at 38 percent, with 55 percent disapproving of the Republican's job as president.
T-rump
Resilient Or Just Numb?
Americans
There is a melody to national tragedy, to national grieving. It starts with shock, segues to fear and anger, crescendos with memorials and tributes, then codas into vows to never forget. The notes are similar from one rendition to the next, but the tempo, the distance from beginning to end, is never exactly the same. And it's the rhythm, the speed, that's the true measure of a country's psyche.
Lately, Americans have been playing a quickened, shortened tune.
We were transfixed for months after Oklahoma City and 9/11, for weeks after the Boston Marathon, and more like days after San Bernadino. We watched the Columbine memorial services live, knew the faces of the Newtown children, but probably can't name the victims of Sutherland Springs. The nation paid the family of each 9/11 victim $3.1 million; those injured in Orlando and Las Vegas started GoFundMe accounts, and many struggle to pay their medical bills.
And in lower Manhattan, not far from the 9/11 Memorial, the Guardian described the scene on Halloween this way: "Within hours of Tuesday's Home Depot truck attack more than a million New Yorkers poured back on to the streets for the annual Halloween parade, and countless thousands of other kids and their parent-minders were out trick-or-treating in their neighborhoods. By Wednesday morning, nearby schools that had been in lockdown during the attack were open for business. …"
The popular word for this insta-back-to-normal phenomenon is "resilience," and it is used with pride. "This was a cowardly act of terror," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted less than 24 hours after the attack. "It was intended to break our spirit. But New Yorkers are resilient. We will be undeterred."
Resilience, though, is a symptom: a muscle that develops with overuse, a coping mechanism that hews close to various degrees of resignation.
Americans
Named Chief Of Staff Of An Energy Department Office
Eric's Brother-In-Law
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) has hired his son's brother-in-law to oversee an Energy Department office that apparently is dismantling some of former President Barack Obama's climate change initiatives.
Lara Trump's brother, Kyle Yunaska, has been named chief of staff of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, Environmental & Energy Publishing reported on Wednesday. Lara Trump is married to Eric Trump, the president's third child.
As chief of staff, Yunaska will advise Executive Director Sean Cunningham and his deputy Carol Battershell, according to the Energy Department website. But here's where it gets interesting: Under Obama, the Energy Policy and Systems Analysis office oversaw initiatives to fight climate change, but it's unclear if that approach will continue. In his prior job as a lobbyist, Cunningham reportedly helped develop a directive to subsidize coal and nuclear power.
Yunaska was promoted into his new role from his original post as assistant to the secretary on the "beachhead" team of temporary political appointees in the Energy Department, which he joined in February.
On a personal level, Yunaska graduated from East Carolina University in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in management and physics. He later got a master's in finance from the same school in 2009. After graduation, he worked for Vail Resorts from 2010 to 2011, worked as an accounting manager for the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health from 2012 to 2014, and was a tax analyst for Georgetown University in 2014.
Eric's Brother-In-Law
Controversial Weedkiller
EU
With a deadline just weeks away, the European Union failed Thursday to break a hardening stalemate on whether to renew the licence for the widely-used weedkiller glyphosate, which critics fear causes cancer.
The European Commission said it fell short of the majority needed to renew the license for five years when it expires December 15, as only half of the 28 member states voted for its proposal.
"Given that a qualified majority could not be reached ... the result of the vote is 'no opinion,'" said the commission, the EU's executive and regulatory arm.
The latest result was hailed by environmental campaigners, including those who rallied outside EU headquarters to mock US agro-food giant Monsanto, the maker of the best-selling glyphosate product Roundup.
Thursday's vote failed to pass when experts from nine countries, including France, Belgium and Italy opposed renewal and experts from another five countries abstained.
EU
Trump Slammed As 'Gross'
'Morning Joe'
The hosts of "Morning Joe" have added to their long-running feud with President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Buffoon), labeling him "gross" for promoting his golf course during a speech in South Korea.
Presenters Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski suggested Trump's decision to plug the course during his address to the South Korean government would put off voters and was "unbecoming."
"Republicans, myself included, criticized the Clintons for turning public service into a money-making machine after Bill Clinton left the White House," Scarborough said on Wednesday after Trump mentioned his Bedminster golf club in his Tuesday address to the South Korean government while discussing golfer Park Sung-Hyun's win in the U.S. Women's Open.
"Donald Trump is doing it now. It is unbecoming. That's the sort of garbage that makes moderate voters, Republicans, go, 'You know what, I'm going to stand in line for a very long time. I'm going to send that guy a message,'" he added.
"The word is gross," Brzezinski responded, prompting Scarborough to echo: "It's gross."
'Morning Joe'
In Memory
John Hillerman
John Hillerman, who played stuffed-shirt Higgins to Tom Selleck's freewheeling detective Thomas Magnum in the 1980s TV series "Magnum, P.I." has died, his nephew said Thursday. Hillerman was 84.
Hillerman, who had been in declining health, died Thursday of natural causes at his home in Houston, nephew Chris Tritico said.
Besides playing manager of the Hawaiian estate that Magnum used as home base, Hillerman was known for his 1970s roles as arrogant radio show detective Simon Brimmer on the "Ellery Queen" series and the difficult boss on the sitcom "One Day at a Time."
As for that quasi-British accent that Hillerman used on "Magnum" and elsewhere, his nephew said that was honed during several decades of playing varied roles on the New York stage before he turned to TV and movies.
Hillerman used something closer to his own voice in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles," playing Howard Johnson, one of the comic Western's many Johnsons. He appeared in a number of TV series, including "Valerie," ''The Love Boat" and "The Betty White Show," and in films including "The Last Picture Show" and "High Plains Drifter."
His last credits included 1996's "A Very Brady Sequel" and an early '90s appearance on "Murder, She Wrote."
Hillerman's survivors include a sister, Jo Ann Tritico, and seven nieces and nephews including Chris Tritico, a Houston attorney.
At his request no services will be held, Chris Tritico said.
John Hillerman
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