The fallout from the insult to Puerto Rico and Latinos

An obscure comedian has managed to hijack the campaign of creepy Donald Trump in the final week of the election by giving a disgusting speech at the Nazi-style rally in Madison Square Garden. In his speech, he managed to insult Latinos in general and Puerto Ricans in particular.

Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” Hinchcliffe said to laughter inside the arena. He added: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

This was a bridge too far for even some Republicans, who generally have no problems with insulting people of color and minorities, because they realized that this could have serious blowback by undercutting their courting of the Hispanic vote and because of the large numbers of Puerto Ricans who live in the swing states.
[Read more…]

Why won’t they stand behind their own words?

I have written before of the work done by the comedy duo known as The Good Liars who are attending creepy Trump events and recording their interactions with his supporters, like the way that Jordan Klepper does for The Daily Show.

In a recent one, they ask Michele Morrow, a candidate for the position of North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, for her autograph. She is of course gratified until she is shown the document to be signed which is a social media post by her calling for the killing of Barack Obama.

Here are the tweets.

I am puzzled by her reaction. Why would she be willing to proudly make a public post and then embarrassingly try to escape signing it? That looks worse than if she had nonchalantly done so.

Lewis Black has had it with undecided voters

He thinks that if even at this late stage of the election process they still don’t know enough to make a choice, then perhaps they should do us all a favor and not vote at all.

There is a school of thought that says that the number of of truly undecided voters, those who follow politics and the election news and definitely plan to vote but are genuinely conflicted about whom to vote for, is vanishingly small and thus not worth bothering about and so there is point in expending much effort in trying to persuade them. Most of the so-called ‘undecideds’ are actually leaning towards one candidate or another but are not really engaged with the process and what they are undecided about is whether to bother to vote or not.

Nowadays, campaigns can use the public information that is gleaned from the internet to make fairly accurate assessments about the political leanings of pretty much everyone. So the so-called ‘ground game’, the effort to identify those people who likely lean towards your side and get them to the polls on or before election day, is where much of the campaigns’ efforts likely are or at least should be.

If Ayn Rand reviewed children’s films …

… Daniel M. Lovery imagines what the reviews might look like.

Here is one of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

An industrious young woman neglects to charge for her housekeeping services and is rightly exploited for her naïveté. She dies without ever having sought her own happiness as the highest moral aim. I did not finish watching this movie, finding it impossible to sympathize with the main character. —No stars.

And here is one of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

An excellent movie. The obviously unfit individuals are winnowed out through a series of entrepreneurial tests and, in the end, an enterprising young boy receives a factory. I believe more movies should be made about enterprising young boys who are given factories. —Three and a half stars. (Half a star off for the grandparents, who are sponging off the labor of Charlie and his mother. If Grandpa Joe can dance, Grandpa Joe can work.)

MAGAwoman explains how and why the weather is being manipulated

Jason Selvig who, along with Davram Stiefler, makes up the comedy duo The Good Liars talks to a woman attending a creepy Trump event and she explains how and why the government is intensifying the strength of hurricanes.

Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024)

The gifted singer, songwriter, and actor died on September 28th at the age of 88.

There have been many articles and tributes to him. He had a varied career and many of his songs were sung by others and became major hits.

Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxer, rugby star and football player in college; received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England; and flew helicopters as a captain in the U.S. Army but turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville.
…

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such country and rock ‘n’ roll standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

[Read more…]

Harper Steele and Will Ferrell talk to Seth Meyers

I reviewed the excellent documentary Will and Harper a couple of days ago about the cross-country journey taken by Will Ferrell and Harper Steel to see what Harper’s experience would be like now that she has transitioned.

The two of them were interviewed by Seth Meyers on his show where they discussed how the documentary came about and their experience making it. Meyers worked alongside the two of them on Saturday Night Live (and made a cameo appearance in the film) and it was really nice to see three funny people who seem to genuinely like each other bantering with one another.