Red Carpet and MeToo
It’s that time of year again. Seems like every week there’s a televised awards show, and with each one, an additional preshow for red carpet fashion coverage. On some networks (E!), the red carpet coverage is longer than the actual telecast. Then, the following day, as if all the preshow coverage wasn’t enough, many networks, local and national, troll out more panels to discuss who wore who and how it looked. Is all of this necessary? And in the era of #MeToo, why is it still okay to comment on how celebrities, mostly women, look?
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Sensible Gun Control
The quickest way to get meaningful gun control would be to allow anyone to open-carry guns anywhere—airports, schools, churches, and especially in all government buildings and offices. If guns were allowed in the Capitol, White House, and Supreme Court, we’d have reasonable gun control tomorrow.
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Bothsidesism
Part of me wants to turn off all television news and live a happily ignorant existence. Another part of me needs to scream. At Chris Matthews. At Chris Cuomo. At Chris Hayes. It’s not the name Chris that bothers me. My confirmation name is Chris. No, it’s how the Chrises and others in the television news business are once again doing their best to sway and blow another election for Democrats.
After the terrorist murders in Pittsburgh, almost every news show had on good ol’ folksy John Kasich. He’s been making the rounds. What he says in all of these appearances is appealing: we need to have more empathy, stop putting up walls, reach out to others, and Trump is incapable of being a unifier. All of it sounds good. Common sense. But just as he criticizes Trump in one breath, he then invokes bothsidesism in another.
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The Rhetoric Blame Game
False equivalency strikes again.
Yesterday pipe bombs were sent to political opponents and vocal critics of Donald Trump. Specifically, the targets of the bombs were people he has called out by name at his cult shows.
Today the media has bent over backwards to show how both sides need to cool down on the rhetoric. For example, CBS This Morning showed several clips in an attempt at being “fair.” One clip was an interview with a Trump supporter—it looked like she was in the lobby of his rally last night—who said both sides need to take a step back. This was followed by another clip of past Trump cult shows (aka rallies) where he whipped up the flock into frenzied chants of “lock her up.” Then, to be “fair,” CBS showed a clip of Eric Holder saying, “when they go low, we kick them.”
How are these things even remotely equivalent?
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Water Maine Break
Maine Senator Susan Collins has said she won’t support a Supreme Court nominee hostile to Roe v. Wade.
DON’T BELIEVE HER!
She voted for Neil Gorsuch. She voted for Samuel Alito. She voted for John Roberts. Each are hostile to Roe v. Wade (among many other freedoms and protections we take for granted). What I think she is trying to do is limit calls, demonstrations, and pressure from her constituents.
Remember last year when she voted for the tax reform bill because she said she had received an “ironclad” promise from Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence to pass legislation to stabilize ObamaCare premiums. When’s that vote happening? She was lied to. She was betrayed. And now I’m sure she will be offered an “ironclad” promise again in return for a vote to confirm a Supreme Court pick. She will believe their lies again. She will cave in again. And she (and the country) will be betrayed again.
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Brandi Carlile: Hold Out Your Hand
It’s rare for every song on any given album to be a hit. There is often a miss or clunker among the bunch. Not so with Brandi Carlile’s “By The Way, I Forgive You.” I have been listening to this album over and over since its release. To say that I just can’t get enough would be an understatement. And it has caused me to revisit her entire discography with greater enthusiasm and appreciation. For the past couple of months, it’s been all Brandi Carlile in my ears. So when I saw the video for Hold Out Your Hand, I knew I had to share it, especially because of her support for the March For Our Lives cause and movement.
Here’s the video, and a couple of photos of Danny and me at the NYC March (below).
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