“If you feel it, it is true”

John Oliver reviewed the Republican convention and was astounded, as many of us were, at how the party has entered into a fact-free world. It recalls how a member of the Bush administration (suspected to be Karl Rove) derided those of us he described as being part of the “reality-based community”, saying “That’s not the way the world really works anymore, We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”. Of course that was rubbish then and this belief that raw power could achieve anything led to hubris on an enormous scale and has got the nation stuck in one unwinnable war after another,
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Distorting the meaning of the ‘black lives matter’ slogan

Seth Meyers looks at some of the reactions to the Dallas shootings. Note that the police in Dallas patrolling the demonstration prior to the shooting were not in riot gear but were dressed in shirt sleeves and even shorts, because that police department was one of the leaders in trying to foster better police-community relations.
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Film review: Boom Bust Boom (2015)

The housing related financial crisis caused devastation on a major scale and sent many people into homelessness and ruin. As a result, it has spawned a number of excellent films, both documentary (Requiem for the American Dream (2015), Inside Job (2010)) and feature (The Big Short (2015), Margin Call (2011)) that have sought to understand the causes and pin the blame.
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What the US gave up when it achieved independence

Today is independence day in the US. John Oliver takes a moment to remind Americans what they gave up when they broke their bonds with England. I can do without almost everything he lists but the one thing that I regret not being able to find in the US are the savory pastries. In the US, pastries tend to be very sticky and sweet, like doughnuts and Danishes.
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George Will is now available for offers

Right wing columnist and Fox News commentator George Will has left the Republican party because of their choice of Donald Trump as presidential nominee. He has also urged that people not provide him with any financial support and that they should work to ensure his defeat at the general election in November, brace themselves for four more years of a Democratic presidency, and seek to return to power with a more acceptable nominee in 2020.
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Samantha Bee on the Brexit vote

While her clip was as funny as it usually is, she also shows the young woman who says that she regrets her vote to leave the EU because she did not realize the consequences and that if she had to do it again, she would vote to remain. Bee also shows the interview with the man who said that although he wanted the UK to remain in the EU, he voted to leave as a protest vote because he thought that the Remain vote would win.
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