Clio Chang and Ryan Grim describe the delicate maneuvering that went into the Senate vote against US involvement in the war in Yemen and what happened in the House. In both cases we saw people like Bernie Sanders and progressive forces in the Democratic party push a reluctant party leadership to support the moves, while liberal groups for various reasons tended to sit on the sidelines or provide only lukewarm support.
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Sometime ago, I wrote about the mercurial rise within about a year of the QAnon phenomenon, one of the more bizarre political developments of the internet age, that says that Donald Trump is a genius who is cleverly drawing his enemies out into the open before he and his allies in the military suddenly swoop and arrest all of them. The evildoers include “the global banking elite, death squads operating on orders from Hillary Clinton, deep-state intelligence operatives, and Pizzagate-style pedophile rings.”
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Lucian K. Truscott IV has some harsh words for the outgoing secretary of defense Jim Mattis, touted as the ‘Last Adult in The Room’, just like all the other high-ranking military officers that the media automatically endows with sterling qualities simply by virtue of their office. Truscott says like the other three generals that Donald Trump once had and have now left, Mattis was a toady who went along with pretty much all Trump’s hare-brained ideas, resigning only because his feelings were hurt that he was not consulted about the Syria withdrawal.
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One of the things that I disliked about winter was having to get up in the morning when it was still dark outside. Now that I am retired, I go to bed late and get up late, well after the sun has come up. Add to that the ability to stay indoors on really cold, snowy, and windy days and that has made winter a lot more tolerable, though I still don’t like it.
If there is one athlete in professional sports who is untouchable, that is LeBron James. He is increasingly using that power to speak out in harsh terms against the power structure in professional football and to support the protests of people like Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid who have been punished by NFL owners for their kneeling protest against police brutality, an issue that Donald Trump exploits whenever he needs a distraction from his own problems.
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Donald Trump took pretty much everyone by surprise with his statement that he wanted to pull US troops out of Syria. Why did he do it? Why does he do anything? Trying to figure out what is going on that swirling confusion of rage, narcissism, insecurity, envy, vindictiveness, pettiness, and racism that constitutes his mind is a mug’s game. Not only is it difficult but before one can even start to make sense, he has moved on to yet another confounding statement or action. This time, it is his decision to reverse course and trigger a government shutdown that went into effect at midnight.
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What Meyers does not address is that the stock market has been on a steep decline since the beginning of this month, dropping below the levels of October 2017. Trump and the high wealth class he represents care more about the stock market than anything else and this is likely to cause him (and them) the greatest concern.
People either love or hate this film, with very few falling into the lukewarm category. I personally love it. I was blown away when I saw it when it first came out 50 years ago and watched it again a few days ago, perhaps for the third or maybe the fourth time, It as always risky to watch a film or read a book that one loved a long time ago when one was much younger because of concerns as to how well it would stand up. I watched it this time with a more critical eye and found that it stands up incredibly well and is as engrossing as ever. I enjoyed it so much that the next day I watched it all over again, this time with a commentary by actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood who play the laconic astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, who discuss what it was like working with legendary director Stanley Kubrick and how some of the effects were produced. They say that he was meticulous in his preparation for filming but gave very little direction on how they should play the scenes.
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As we approach the end of the year, the news that is dominating is the possibility of yet another government shutdown, starting at midnight tonight unless Congress passes a funding bill to keep it open. There has been a lot of posturing on this, with Donald trump demanding $5 billion for the wall and Democrats saying that was not going to happen. The high point was the very public and testy exchange between Trump and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer where they goaded him into impulsively taking responsibility for any shutdown, saying that he would be proud to do so.
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In their efforts to flog the tired old ‘War on Christmas’ trope, Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the person vying to be the worst person on it, reached new lows, combining immigrant-bashing with gender stridency. Stephen Colbert tries to understand the silliness.
Carlson’s show has already lost more than 20 advertising sponsors following his remarks.
Cue the right-wing outrage over ‘censorship’. These ardent supporters of capitalism and the market don’t seem to quite get that businesses protect their brand image, and not wanting to be associated with someone as odious as Carlson is a business decision.