Man swims with sixteen Golden retrievers

Paradise must be like this....

Remember when Trump made fun of Marco Rubio for drinking water?

Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a choker! Mr. Meltdown.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2016

Feb 25, 2016.
____________

But last night during the debate, it was the low-energy, no-stamina Trump who was having a "meltdown." 

Sept. 26, 2016.

Donald Trump is winning the water drinking battle against Hillary Clinton 5 - 0 #debatenight #debates pic.twitter.com/Wu83kpCXvy

— Nick Tan (@TheTanDiaries) September 27, 2016

Here's Donald Trump talking about 'the cyber' at last night's debate

#Trump may be going nuts before our eyes Who is "somebody on their bed who weighs 400 pounds."

— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) September 27, 2016

Trump: the cyber security enemies are Russia, China, and Chris Christie on a bed #debatenight pic.twitter.com/Q28B47z7kk

— Ryan Fecteau (@RyanFecteau) September 27, 2016

_______________

Lester Holt, Moderator: Our next segment is called securing America. We want to start with a 21st century war happening every day in this country, our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are being stolen. So my question is who's behind it and how do we fight it?

Donald Trump: I do want to say that I was just endorsed and more are coming next week, it will be over 200 admirals. Many of them are here, admirals and generals endorsed me to lead this country. That just happened. And many more are coming. And I'm very proud of it. In addition, I was just endorsed by the ICE. So when Secretary Clinton talks about I'll take the admirals and generals any day over the political hacks.

Look at the mess that we're in. Look at the mess that we're in. As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. I don't know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC.

She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don't know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don't know, because the truth is, under President Obama we've lost control of things that we used to have control over. We came in with an internet, we came up with the internet.

And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the internet, they're beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a, it is a huge problem. 

I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly do-able. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester and certainly cyber is one of them.

Did Donald Trump decide to run for president on that night in April 2011 when he was humiliated by the nation's first Black president?

“Donald dreads humiliation and he dreads shame, and this is why he often attempts to humiliate and shame other people,” author Michael D’Antonio tells FRONTLINE. “This is a burning, personal need that he has to redeem himself from being humiliated by the first black president,” D’Antonio adds in the final moment of the film’s opening sequence. [via PBS.org]

Frontline's "The Choice 2016" premieres Tues., Sept. 27 at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST on PBS and online. Check your local PBS listings.

Just how stupid are Trump supporters? This stupid.

__________________

Jordan Klepper Gets His Mind Blown by Trump Supporters’ Conspiracy Theories

Here’s a clip from last night’s Daily Show, where correspondent Jordan Klepper heads to Donald Trump rallies in Ohio and Wisconsin to learn about some of the many Hillary Clinton and President Obama conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believe in despite having no facts to prove their case — an approach that worked out for them after they called out Clinton’s coughing fits for weeks before news broke that she had pneumonia.

After interviewing a bunch of Trump fans, Klepper learns that Clinton might have AIDS and uses a body double, President Obama is a Muslim terrorist responsible for 9/11, and the media doesn’t portray Trump’s many black supporters.

So what sources do these Trump fans use to find these facts, Klepper asks?

“Um, just Facebook or Twitter. Everything.”

“So you’ll look at facts and bullshit and you’ll put it all together?”

“Exactly.”

Via the Daily Show, Sept. 20, 2016.

A monkey with a machine gun

In the October issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows, the magazine's national correspondent, has some tips on what to look for in the upcoming Clinton/Trump debates.

____________

When I asked [former Maryland Governor Martin] O’Malley how he would be preparing to debate Trump if he’d won the nomination, he said, "I’d start by thinking of him as a monkey with a machine gun." By that he meant an adversary who is all the more dangerous because you can’t predict which direction he’ll be facing when he pulls the trigger.

_______________

In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, told me shortly before Trump won the GOP nomination. “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks. The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position.”

In her book My Life With the Chimpanzees, Goodall told the story of “Mike,” a chimp who maintained his dominance by kicking a series of kerosene cans ahead of him as he moved down a road, creating confusion and noise that made his rivals flee and cower. She told me she would be thinking of Mike as she watched the upcoming debates.

_______________

On his “Talking Points Memo” site early this year, the political writer Josh Marshall argued that Trump’s debate and campaign approach was best understood as embodying what he called the “bitch-slap theory of politics.”
[...]
The essential purpose of any encounter is not to “solve problems” or “advance an agenda” or anything else C‑span-worthy. Instead the constant goal is to humiliate a foe. Humiliation is the central concept here: inflicting it on others, avoiding it oneself. Midway through the Republican-primary debate cycle, I finally saw the 2007 video of a WWE pro-wrestling showdown whose climax was Donald Trump shaving the head of rival promoter Vince McMahon after Trump’s wrestler beat McMahon’s in a match. You wouldn’t need Jane Goodall or Sigmund Freud to see in this spectacle every ritual of dominance, emasculation, ridicule, and humiliation—even with all allowances made for the phony melodrama on which pro wrestling is built. Once I had seen that video, it replayed in my mind every time Trump stepped onto a debate stage.

Thoughts about stupidity and 'angry dummies'

____________

"But the crowd at Miami Beach City Hall was not only against pesticides. When a representative from the British bio-tech company Oxitec told the commission that his company could reduce the local population of the culprit Aedes aegypti by more than 90 percent using genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes, it was as if he had suggested sacrificing small children. A swarm of sexually inadequate bugs sounded better to me than getting bombarded with pesticides, but this crowd was apparently wanting an organic, grass-fed, free-ranging, no GMO, chemical-free alternative.
[...]
"Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez said, unhappily, that at the moment, spraying was the only realistic weapon that could stanch the Zika outbreak. She said, 'Someone has to be the grownup here.' 

"The crowd, howling in derision, disagreed." —Zika spraying spawns an epidemic of conspiracy theories, by Fred Grimm, Miami Herald

All these #Zika protestors with their degrees from the University of Facebook and Twitter https://t.co/KMVp9VAzOu

— Alfred Spellman (@AlfredSpellman) September 15, 2016

"When Dr. Peggy Honein, chief of the birth defects branch of the CDC, informed the protesters Wednesday morning via teleconference that Zika can cause microcephaly, one shouted back, 'So can pesticides!' The link between pesticides and microcephaly has been debunked but a popular anti-vaccine website continues to promote the false association." —What’s Worse: The Zika Virus or the Anti-Zika Spray?, by Samantha Allen

"We’re creating a world of dummies. Angry dummies who feel they have the right, the authority and the need not only to comment on everything, but to make sure their voice is heard above the rest, and to drag down any opposing views through personal attacks, loud repetition and confrontation." —Anti-Intellectualism and the "Dumbing Down" of America, by Ray Williams

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” —Donald Trump, when asked who he consults with on foreign policy matters.

“I think that [Hillary Clinton's] bodyguards should drop all weapons. I think they should disarm. Immediately. Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away, O.K. It’ll be very dangerous.”—Donald Trump speaking in Miami, Sept. 17, 2016

Samantha Bee: Donald Trump is a 'serial con artist who hasn't got the attention span to read a fortune cookie much less a f**king intelligence briefing.'

Samantha Bee was born in Canada. So why do some Canadians seem to have a better understanding of the American media's failings than that of most Americans? Here are some answers and analysis you won't see on CNN.

"Oh, come on Matt. Do you really think there’s an email smoking gun that the inspector general, a House committee, the FBI, and 18 months of non-stop news coverage couldn’t find that will be magically uncovered by seven minutes of questions from a human Splenda, whose crowning journalistic triumph is having no idea where the f— he is?”

"The problem is news organizations are simply not equipped to cover a candidate whose entire being is a lie.

"Maintaining the image of fairness requires [the media] to portray Hillary and Trump as equally flawed candidates, even though they know that's incorrect. On the one hand you have the most breathtakingly, unqualified, ignoramus to of heave his spray-tanned bulk within striking distance of office. A race-baiting bully who, according to two carefully researched biographies, is a tax cheating, investor swindling, dictator loving, pathologically lying, attorneys general bribing, philandering, mobbed up, narcissistic serial con artist who hasn't got the attention span to read a fortune cookie much less a f***ing intelligence briefing.

"But on the other hand, Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail server. See? Perfectly even."

Did Donald Trump Bribe Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi?

Stephen Colbert breaks it down....





Meanwhile....Three Florida Newspapers Just Demanded A Criminal Investigation of Trump

Florida’s three largest newspapers – the Miami Herald, the Tampa Bay Times and the Orlando Sentinel – just called for a federal investigation of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s payoff to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, which forced the Republican nominee to pay an IRS fine and re-ignited media coverage of the Trump University scam and cover up. To date, 827 Floridians have joined the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against Donald Trump.

Frank Del Vecchio has written a book

Unless you live in Miami Beach and regularly attend city commission meetings, you've probably never heard of Frank Del Vecchio.

At first glance he might seem like just another retiree with nothing better to do than show up at city commission chambers and claim two minutes of speaking time on the "issue of the day" .... no matter how mundane.

But Del Vecchio is a little more complicated than that: He's a retired attorney and self-described "activist" who lives on the southern tip of Miami Beach. 

A little over a year ago, Del Vecchio managed to rankle Philip Levine, Miami Beach's notoriously thin-skinned mayor, by sending out an email blast to friends that  called Levine "unethical."

Now Del Vecchio has written a book that explores the roots of his activism. 

In an email to his friends, Del Vecchio writes: "As a young Navy pilot on weekend leave, I witnessed the demolition of my childhood Boston neighborhood and the cruel displacement of its immigrant community. I decided to go to law school and learn how the levers of power work. The memoir is the story of a street kid growing up in the Depression/World War II years, attending college on a Navy scholarship, flying off aircraft carriers, then law school and activism in the politics of Boston and Washington, D.C. in the turbulent 60s."


I asked Del Vecchio to send me a few excerpts from his book.

Here's one that's titled "Hot Cat Pilot."

Available on amazon.com

My self-image was a fearless street kid. As a Naval Aviator I had found the perfect stage on which to play that role. On the Roosevelt, I volunteered to be the “hot cat” pilot.

The hot cat pilot was the first line of defense for our Fast Carrier Task Force - Carrier Division Two, Sixth Fleet. At night, when most of the crew, exhausted by daytime flight operations, were sacked out below decks, the hot cat pilot was entrusted to protect the carrier and all the ships in the task force. He sat in a fully armed interceptor that was positioned on the steam catapult, plugged in to the auxiliary power unit (APU), all systems activated, ready for the launch order. The instruments were illuminated in a soft red glow that preserved his night vision. The carrier deck was dark and quiet except for the starboard green running light and red to port. The bow spray sometimes churned up luminescent sea creatures.

I was in my element. I wore a red bandana around my neck, ready to perform, to play a role, to show off. That was me – the eager kid in the classroom always shooting up his hand before the teacher even finished asking the question, the youngster wearing a straw hat and twirling a walking stick, singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas” at a Settlement House talent night. Now, the only eyes that were on me were those of the Captain on the bridge, and the flight deck sailors ready to fire up the Demon’s Allison J71 turbojet engine.

Voices

via Vanguardia, Saltillo, Mexico.
(Click image to enlarge)

_________

Miami Herald, Sept. 4, 2016.

via the Miami Herald: A purple-haired grandma lives in a tree house. Now she’s told it has to come down. By David Smiley.

“When I am up in my tree house in thunder, lightning and rain, I am in heaven. There’s nothing nicer, more spiritual, more wonderful.” - Shawnee Chasser

_________
via the New York Times: Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun. By Justin Gillis.

“I remember lying in bed at night thinking, ‘I hope this isn’t real.’ I hope other data comes in that contradicts it. It took me several years to get my head around it and say, ‘Oh, God, it is real.’”
[...]
“We’re putting enough heat in the ocean to send water over us, no question.” Ultimately, we give up and we leave. That’s how the story ends.” - Dr. Philip Stoddard, Mayor of South Miami

_________
via the Miami Herald: Live-at-home son of Miami-Dade police major gets boot camp for drug dealing. By David Ovalle.

The son of a Miami-Dade police major is being sent to a jail boot camp program as punishment for dealing drugs while living at his father’s home.

The sentence was handed down Friday, four months after detectives arrested Tyler Palmer, 20. Detectives said they found stashes of marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines and psychedelic mushrooms inside his bedroom.

“Judge Eig obviously gave the defendant a big break,” said Miami-Dade prosecutor Adam Korn. “I hope he makes the most of it.”

_________
via the New Yorker: Trump and the Truth. By David Remnick.

"Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, does not so much struggle with the truth as strangle it altogether. He lies to avoid. He lies to inflame. He lies to promote and to preen. Sometimes he seems to lie just for the hell of it. He traffics in conspiracy theories that he cannot possibly believe and in grotesque promises that he cannot possibly fulfill. When found out, he changes the subject—or lies larger."

_________

Meme by Sean Drake.