Take on the Free Internet

Seeing a sign for Free Internet is great but when you see on at Pudong airport you are not sure how free the free is. The internet in China isn't exactly the same as the internet in the rest of the world as you feel every last work is read, dissected and scrutinized. I was at this airport once and made the mistake of logging onto the free WiFi, within twenty minutes my phone battery was drained, the phone felt like it had been stuck in the oven and all my naked selfies I like to take after I shower were missing

Sucks for those hackers

Take on the greatest leader of all time.

Wait, President bone spur would run into a burning building, to pull out dying kids while fighting off an armed terrorist while giving mouth to mouth to an old lady who has fallen and can't get up? He is not just the greatest president, he might actually be the greatest person to have ever lived and we have been spending the last 13 months doing nothing but unfairly criticizing him for a litany of false accusations. This man is the epitome of hope, he is a living walking breathing Mother Theresa, but with better hair. This is a man who has dedicated his life to service, to helping others, to standing up for those who can't and yet you snowflakes find time to attack him on every unverified conversation and you wonder why this country is falling apart. It certainly is not because of a lack of leadership on top but rather a lack of respect down below, no army has ever won a war with subordination and we as a country of morals and ethics should look in the mirror before attacking a man who would risk his life by running unarmed into this school. If we want to star healing, the first thing might be to stop stabbing our leader in the back every chance you have.
You people disgust me

Take on the tone deaf times

We don't often do this but you get a double dip of TOR today if for no other reason than to condemn the NYT for their incredibly tasteless decision to pair a photo of troops carrying a casket along with the headline "warmer days are ahead, so if it's a little cold out, enjoy the warmth inside with a good read". Calling this tone deaf is an insult to people with no musical pitch, this is pure insult and whoever copywriter let this one pass should be sent across the street from the Times headquarters and shoved upon a random NJ transit bus to some random piece of suburban hell.

Take on poor breathing conditions

Nothing is better than waking up to take in a beautiful new day and realize you can't see the sky because of micron sized particles of soot. This is typical in China and although there have been government mandates to try to clean up the air, it isn't exactly working or at least not very quickly.

Even if I've been here a dozen or more times it is still shocking every time you sneeze and your tissue has black crap in it, you never quite get use to it. What is worse is the look of the faces of the people who live here, their faces are weathered like the lungs of a chain smoker or a catcher's glove that's been left out in the rain for too long. They tell me the air is pretty good today, we may even get some blue sky but I believe that at this point gray is the new blue.

Take on the awful China Eastern movie selection

Sent from my iPhoneThey are is really nothing worse than getting onto a 14 hour flight and checking out the movie selection and feeling like I just logged into the free amazon movie collection.

The options are more than miserable with choices of

Goodbye
Home again
Gifted
Paper planes
Loving Vincent
Murder on the Orient express
The boy who wants to live
The lost brother
Their finest
Stronger

I haven't heard of any of these and even the previews make them sound worse than having to listen to the 400 pound Chinese guy snoring next to me.

Great way to start!!!

Take on too much corporate credit

Corporate America has been getting a lot of credit for their response to the NRA and I've seen commentators discuss how hitting the NRA where it hurts might finally take its chokehold off of American sensibility
The issue is that all these corporations who have come out have only taken away discounts for NRA members, these are very insignificant in the big picture. They may affect some individual people as the discounts being pulled away are almost exclusively for travel related things (Delta, Hertz, Enterprise, United etc.) but doesn't actually directly affect the NRA coffers.
The ones that have more sting are the cities who will not host their events or the credit card companies who will not issue them credit but those are few and far between.

So until you see a blanket promise across industries to stop donating to the NRA directly, all financial companies refuse to use them to launder their money and tons of cities refuse to host their events, it's all a bit blah. And the cities have to be southern, midwestern or mountain western ones, NYC saying they won't host an NRA event is isn't exactly groundbreaking

Take on Trump charging Trump rent

The RNC is still paying The Trump Company $37,000 in rent per month which is about the least surprising thing we heard all week. Of course they are paying him rent because why wouldn't they be set up on 5th Avenue in NYC. I'm not sure what is standard but we're still a few years from the next election and keeping this place rented seems kind of nuts because they likely don't have more than a dozen people. The entire first Trump campaign prided itself on how lean they kept which considering their belly on their leader is kind of funny. But I know what NYC office space costs and this seems high for a half a dozen people which I wouldn't care about if they were renting space in some random space but when they are writing the checks to Trump Inc....

tale on Trump's taking on the NRA

Trump went against the NRA this morning with his tweet

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

this was an encouraging tweet since he at least indicated an improved background check, an age raise and the end of bump-stocks.     I've seen many people say this is a bit of an empty promise since nobody is really going to rally for bump-stocks and the age raise to 21 is pretty uncontroversial in the same way that the NBA players association was happy to add the one-year NCAA minimum since it doesn't really affect any people presently in the NBA.  The background check improvement is encouraging but until it becomes universal background check including the gun-show loophole (basically any private sale) it's a chomp without much bite.    It also didn't address any kind of assault weapon ban and didn't even mention the word 'gun' so I can see how people are dissapointed

But with all that was missing I see it differently.   We've seen inaction after Las Vegas, after Sandy Hook, after Virginia Tech.. if this is action, even if it's minimal, we have to take it.    We have to start grabbing our country back, even if the steps are incremental. 

And I know this can come across as a victory for Trump.. but really if it keeps the guns out of some people and eliminates bump-stocks, it's a battle I hope he wins.  And actually, I think the chances of a republican passing comprehensive gun reform is much more likely than a democrat, but hoping for Trump to be sensible might be asking a bit too much

Take on TrumpDating

Want to meet likeminded people? Feel that your "conservative" views aren't being taken seriously? Feel like the snowflakes in the liberal press are on a witch hunt for your Dear Leader!? We have the website for you. Discover love, romance and friendship -as long as it's heterosexual- on TrumpDating.com

I'm not sure if this is run by the same people selling Trump Wine, Trump Steaks and Trump Access but it seems that there is a market for this. There are so many forgotten people, ones living paycheck to paycheck, ones who go on African Safari's for exotic game, ones who feel Jesus speaks to them through Trump, ones who think coal is making a comeback, ones who think we should have AR-15s, ones who answer questions about Russian interference with "But Hillary". Ones who feel that as a blue collar, truck driving, church going American there is nobody who understands them like a NYC billionaire, on his third marriage with a trail of affairs in his wake, who refuses to knock Putin, who disparages minorities and who lives in a penthouse as far away from the riffraff as possible.

Sadly though, their male model has been convicted of having sex with an underage girl which I have to think is a no-no on the website. I think they just removed him and added Roy Moore instead

Take on Groundhog Day

Trump is agitated this morning, he's been binge watching Fox&Friends and hate tweeting to his heart's content.  

But today's 8:38 was a doozy when he claimed to have been tougher on Russia than Obama

My first thought was echoed online 

What facts?  Obama imposed sanctions. Trump refuses to. Trump has never said one bad thing about Putin or Russia. WTF is he talking about?

But then I remember, this is all part of the game.  just like that..he will turn the news cycle on its head and we will all forget about Porter, Kelly, The Schiff memo, the EPA etc.  

Trump is like living through Groundhog Day.   Everyday is a blank slate and nobody remembers what happened yesterday 

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Take on Tucker

I kind of feel bad for Tucker Carlson because the poor guy always looks so constipated. I'm not quite sure if he doesn't get enough fiber in his diet or if he should be drinking more water but every time I turn on FoxNews the guy looks like he is trying desperately to push out a gigantic hard turd and I'm not talking about a Bernie Goldberg. It must be hard to constantly manufacture new outrage, the last time I saw more than a few minutes he was saying that the Nunes memos were going to make the Pentagon papers look like a pimple on Bill O'Reilly's gigantic white ass. So I guess in part he was true as it referred to O'Reilly's gigantic white ass but the Nunes memo was the white head on top of that pimple

Somebody get this guy some prunes

Take on the Russian curling doping scandal

Wait, the Russians competing under an Olympic flag because of doping got caught for doping again and this time it's for curling. I'm not sure what athletic prowess benefits a curling player but I'm assuming whatever it is, it's something that improves with steroids because otherwise this would be even dumber.
The Russians are a completely crooked bunch, they cheat at curling and our president doubts they tried to influence our election?!?? Open your eyes..what the heck is wrong with you people

Take on Trump’s stupid thumbs up thing

There really is nothing more worse than when Donald Trump does that stupid Thumbs Up thing and when he does it at the most inappropriate times is when you just cringe. His tweet today with his "our entire nation w/one heavy heart continues to pray for the victims & their families in Parkland, FL. To teachers, law enforcement..." is so obviously not actually written by him but the stupid sh!t eating grin certainly is.

Take on the AirForce One decent

An otherwise innocuous video of Trump coming off of AirForce One caught my eye today because it shows you all you need to know about him (https://twitter.com/abc/status/964630941174870016)

I was watching because earlier reports said that the press Corp was removed from the plane when Melania arrived and shouting could be heard.  We know these two don't like each other much and he's gotten himself in nothing but trouble over the last few months as stories of one affair after another has taken center stage

So I was watching the video to see if there was any obvious tension, hand slapping, ass grabbing or whatever 

For a second he looks like he is going to be a gentleman and let's her go first but immediately they kind of jostle to get in front.  

His insatiable need to get all the press and be first throws any thought of chivalry out the door and he's shoulder to shoulder with her by the third step down.    Within ten steps Trump completely cuts her off and forces her to stumble but he hardly reacts, he just wants to make sure he gets down first

my five year old and three year old do the same thing 

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Take on the @NYDailyNews ad algorithm

The algorithm for ad placement is broken, I cannot say it any other way

I was reading a story this morning about the Florida gunman and right smack in the middle of the article was an ad for SlideBelts. I have no idea what this thing is but it looks like the kind of thing Rambo would wear....and more importantly something I have no interest in wearing.

I get that in reading an article about gun violence but that doesn't mean I'm looking for an inspector gadget belt to protect myself, quite the contrary and when I'm reading about one of the most somber moments in a year, I think I'd rather see an ad for 1800 Flowers or better yet, none at all

Take on the sham fight

There was a story of a military fight between some paid Russian mercenaries and the US after the Russians tried to storm a base in Syria.   It got a bit of press because there were mass Russian casualties but not enough press for the right reasons..it's a gigantic sham 

This reminds me of two decades ago when I was doing some white collar boxing.  Basically a way to get into shape for a bunch of corporate nerds but we were doing it at a legit boxing gym.  

At one point they put on a showcase, basically a method to make money for the gym and show off their 'professional' fighters (guys making like $500-$1000 per fight).  They put me up against another white collar guy in the heavyweight division (I was a slob back then).  Gave us three rounds but we're instructed that I would win the second round and half of the third and the other guy would win the first and the other half of the third, so it ended in a draw 

we threw a few punches, I ate some leather, I didn't land much, did a lot of holding and grabbing and at the end the audience probably left disappointed but at least the appearance was a heavyweight fight.  It was all a -poorly- choreographed show and the audience was none the wiser. 

That's what's happening with these quasi fights in Syria.  Putin sends in some paid mercenaries to cause trouble, the US takes them out.   Trump looks like he is aggressive, Putin wipes his hands clean because this was the equivalent of Blackwater and everybody moves on with only the cost of a few hundred dead Russians.  So everybody wins 

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Take on Blue Apron for the poor

Call it Blue Apron for the poor

The new budget includes a program which would replace half of the food stamps that recipients get with boxes of healthy food delivered to their house. The idea is admirable but, like most things admirable taken on my Big Government, probably a disaster.

this will create a huge new federal government division to try to handle this something I'd think republicans aren't keen on and I'm not sure where taking choice away from Americans ever finds it's way into conservative lexicon.


Then lobbyists for every food group in the country will be descending upon Washington to get their bag of Doritos added to the list, the healthy part will be history in a week.


But if it were to be run right (actual healthy food, delivered quickly) it will lead to less food being consumed by poor Americans. Think about that healthy lunch your mom made you in middle school. Wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, lean turkey, an apple and some dried nuts. This entire brown bag ended up in the trash

Imagine if Michelle Obama had tried this, they may have tried to execute her for treason

Take on the official portraits

Barack and Michelle Obama's official portraits were revealed today and to call them terrible would be an understatement. Michelle's looks more like black Ellen than it does her and Obama and his weird bush reminds us of Sean Spicer hiding in his.

But this is about as bad as it gets for the Obama's. Their official portraits are sort of funky. The No Drama Obama thing was so perfectly executed that we basically turned one of the greatest orators of our time into something as bland as a ham and cheese sandwich. And still the GOP found flaws, Michelle had bare arms, Barack wore that tan suit and ate that burger with mustard, his outreach during the beer summit was lame, he spent too much time at home and not enough on the hill, his NCAA picks were chalk and her organic garden was basically treasonous.
That's what they had on him...

Take on the Trojan Horse

Every time he says or does something outrageous, the media goes nuts, CNN puts on experts to see how he can survive and why he said what he did and everybody spends the next two days in a totally frenzy.   But this isn't some odd thing, it's by design. 

Trump just uses the rope-a-dope and waits for the Democrats, the moderates, the media, the sensible world etc to to punch themselves out.  Something they will do within a matter of days.   

The more I think about it, the more the GOP has perfectly used Trump...they let him get out there and make outlandish comments and use that as cover to constantly, slowly, move the line.   He blazes a trail, sets a few houses on fire and the GOP retreats a bit, but not all the way.  They just constantly make progress behind him.   The Democrats are way too busy trying to fight the dragon than to realize that they've lost major land already. 

There will be huge casualties for the GOP in November and likely more in 2020 but by then we may live in a very different country

Trump has gotten the tax cuts that the GOP has been promising for years through, he's gotten one SCOTUS and may get another not to mention many lower court justices, he's pulled back regulation, he's neutered the EPA, he's pushed back on clean energy and is getting approvals for more off shore drilling, his Secretary or Education may get some of those voucher programs, choice is under attack, the military complex is growing will be on high alert for the foreseeable future and earmarks will likely be back.  

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Take on the Times story of the intelligence agency interest in info pawned by Russians

Trump reference a NY Times article this morning which alleged that Us intelligence agency had paid $100,000 to a Russian who was offering information on Trump
Reading the article, they were, apparently, looking for different information but that really isn't the story here. The story also isn't that Trump may in fact be tied up with Russians. The story here is that for the first time in a year, he forgot the "failing" part in front of NY Times
The man is starting to lose it

Take on Trump’s intelligence briefings

The. Washington post had a bombshell article today showing that Trump, unlike his predecessors, doesn't actually read he intelligence briefings prepared for him daily. This is despite the fact they have dumbed down the binder of information to a single page with bullet points, charts and a paint by number map. This has to be the least bombshell bombshell ever, this is like one of those snaps you threw on the concrete as a kid. Everybody knows that he has no actual intellectual curiosity, has no attention span and is likely not able to read

Thank god he's leading our country

Take on the Fab 5

There really is no picture that describes year 1 of the Trump presidency better than the one from a last summer. This was taken in that 9 day period when the Mooch was running things and the photo is like a real live Reservoir Dogs

You have Corey who was fired before he got into the White House, Omarosa who looks like she ate Reince Priebus, The Mooch who needs no introductions, Gorka who is a complete maniacal lunatic and the man of the hour who beat not just one wife but two of them (and likely a girlfriend too). I'm convinced that Hope Hicks is going through some serious Stockholm syndrome right about now.
The question is who is the fatter slob, Gorka, Omarosa or Porter??



If these are what Trump meant by the best people, I'd hate to see who he would turn down for the job

Take on the Bitcoin coin

There is something I don't get about Bitcoin. Ok there is a lot I don't get like why would anybody think this is a good investment, why would this ever be a good thing for our economy and why is the entire thing run by a Japanese underlord

But the real question is that every newscast or article about Bitcoin shows these coins with an uppercase B on them. Isn't this a virtual currency? So there aren't any actual coins and there isn't an actual design to a coin that doesn't exist, right?
It's as if we are talking about a great song and thy keep showing a picture of a bird. It's as if the entire media wants people to believe this has some actual intrinsic value like gold when in actuality it is the exact opposite of gold because gold is an actual physical thing and BitCoin is a complete mirage

Take on Trump’s stupid parade

We don't have the money to pay for health care, we can't seem to get the 40,000 homeless veterans off the streets and we have to find ways to cut entitlements but having a big North Korea type military parade is what we should do?!? I don't care what side of the aisle you are on or who you voted for, this entire idea is a gigantic cluster. It's going to cost millions, it's going to cause logistical headaches and it's totally unnecessary. We already have the largest military in the world, this is like LeBron James throwing a party to showcase his talent over a bunch of high-school kids.

Two points
- the military is never going to showcase any new weapons, stuff that are being made in dark labs at Lockheed. So whatever we will see will be relics of the Cold War and a bunch of crappy scud missiles

- if I were Kim Jung Un, I'd attack the US the second this parade starts because all of our crap is going to be on a parade route in DC instead of where is should be.

Take on the market collapse

Trump should thank his lucky stars that the State of the Union was last week and not this week. Since with the marker in a tailspin and more than a trillion of the 8 trillion dollar disappeared in 8 days with today being the worse single point loss in Wall Streets long history. It's obviously a weird number to quote since the total market is now 25,000 so a 1175 loss is statistically smaller than it would have been on a market cap of 10,000 or whatever. But Trump has embraced WallStreet and never given his predecessor an ounce of credit for it but I have to bet that Obama will be getting the blame for old Donnie when he wakes up tomorrow

I'm afraid to look at my 401k today and that was the only good thing this president had going for him.

Take on Little Donny

I don't think that there will anything more gratifying than when Little Don gets sent to federal penitentiary for lying to the FBI, treason and just being a complete snarky jerk.
Today he came out and called the Nunes memo "sweet revenge". I read the memo and it had a bunch of a Revenge of the Nerds feel but not sure there was much more revenge. What it will hopefully do is eventually bring down the slimy weasel Nunes and show him to be the anti American traitor that he is.

Hope these guys bring plenty of Vaseline

Take on the Father of the Year

I would happily have sent $1000 to the GoFundMe campaign of the dad who lunges after Larry Nassar and bundled it with a Father of the Year shirt, had he been charge with a crime. I know there is a certain level of decorum we're suppose to have, but had that been me standing up there speaking for my three daughters and there wouldn't have been a deputy strong enough to keep my rage down and there isn't one second where I'd feel anything but pride in having done it. The only solace this father -and the other parents of all the 250 some odd kids- should have is that in prison the one group that aren't looked upon very fondly are the kid touchers. I'm sure the warden will find a way to room with Biff and turn the light down and the music up

That's unless this loser doesn't take the easy way out.

Take on Trump’s really bad week.

Trump (and America)really had a bad week

First we get the report that although the economy added 200k jobs and wages grew, the black unemployment numbers rose.  I don't usually dig too deeply into those but Trump was the one trumpeting his achievement for the last week for it to just blow up in his face.    

All week, in anticipation of the Nunes memo, the market was a lead zeppelin with big drops on Monday and Tuesday and then a huge 666 point  drop today. 

Add to that the fact the Numes memo was a dud, and actually showed the fisa was started after George Papadapolous not because of the Steele dossier.   So much for Hannity's proclamation that this was the biggest deal since watergate 

And of course the news of Rick Gates' entire legal team resigning en masse which left him with only one guy, one who specializes in plea deals.  Something tells me old Ricky flipped on Don

You just know Mueller is foaming ar the mouth right now to bring the hammer 


Then you realize that this was all just one week... living in the world of Trump is like moving from one black-hole to another since there is a bend of time-space. A week feels like a year, a year feels like a decade and four years of this guy is going to fill up history books. 

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Taken on the Failing Times

I like The NY Times but their recent desire to come across as fair to a fault is really sickening. They have in-depth Exposé about nazis, articles about what it's like in Trump Country, an entire editorial and opinion page dedicated to letters from supporters etc. But now it's bleeding into their normal newsfeed also.

Their Twitter feed had a headline today "President Trump boasted incorrectly that his State of the Union address drew the highest number of viewers in history". They way they frame it, Trump made an honest mistake when, in fact, he stated something so asinine in its boastfulness that it can only be seen as irresponsible. The sad thing for Trump is that when me makes these grandiose statements, they always can so easily be proven as false, he somehow makes himself look even dumber.

But the way the Times has approached this is like the kid who kisses up to the bulky hoping the bully won't shove him in the locker again. But we all know it's just a matter of time when Trump comes back with a Failing New York Times tweet and the entire press room goes into cardiac arrest while the editorial department feigns outrage.