Saturday Open Thread

Posted on July 29, 2017 by rikyrah

I hope you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

Some entertainment for you.
In the theaters now:

This is hilarious

Upcoming movies:

This entry was posted in Movies, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

36 Responses to Saturday Open Thread

  3. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    I know that we have no love for Country Last…but, him doing what he did, in the way that it did…

    well, it was a good thing in more ways than one.

    If he had voted no on the MTP, then the Turtle just could have kept on bringing up different bills.

    By voting yes on MTP…

    they brought up the bills, and they, one by one, got voted down.

    You can’t bring up the same bill once it’s been voted down.
    And, he’s blown his chance at reconciliation.
    Plus, we ate up a lot of time on the clock.

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      July 30, 2017 at 9:30 am

      Well, of course John McCain knew his strategy but the rest of us didn’t.

      In fact, I was listening to Elizabeth Warren on MSNBC right after the motion to proceed passed and she was beside herself. The GOP senators were determined to “pass something” and everyone was afraid they had the votes. McCain hasn’t exactly been in opposition to Trump, so we had every reason to fear that he would let some version of a repeal pass.

      But, if anyone besides McCain knew his strategy then it wouldn’t have worked.

      So, McCain has my respect on this one. His friend Ted Kennedy would be proud.

      Reply
  4. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    uh huh

    Generals Love Him. Top Democrats Despise Him. Can He Be President Anyway?

    Seth Moulton, the junior congressman from
    Massachusetts, has a war record that appeals to voters and makes
    opponents nervous.
    By MICHAEL KRUSE
    July 28, 2017

    On the morning of November 9, five hours after Hillary
    Clinton conceded, Seth Moulton’s closest political adviser called him
    with a suggestion.

    “You should run for president in 2020,” Scott Ferson told
    the 38-year-old, second-term congressman from the North Shore of
    Massachusetts—one of the least liberal areas of the famously liberal
    state.

    “That’s ridiculous,” Moulton said.

    Ridiculous? “Donald Trump was just elected president,” Ferson said.

    “Fair point,” Moulton said.

    Moulton has three degrees from Harvard, and he did four
    difficult, decorated tours as a Marine in Iraq. But he’s still a
    neophyte in the House of Representatives, and in politics. This is the
    first office of any kind he’s ever held. In the wake, though, of last
    fall’s terrain-altering election, Ferson detected an opening. “This,” he
    told me, “is a moment in time where he is the exact right person to run
    for president.”

    This conversation—reported here for the first time—is
    precisely the type of talk that’s currently causing disgusted
    eye-rolling among significantly more tenured Democrats in Massachusetts and Washington. They dismiss Moulton, albeit never for attribution, as gratingly ambitious, a grandstanding backbencher who has advocated for the ouster of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to make way for new, younger standard-bearers—like himself. They see Moulton’s message of country over party as not so much admirable as annoying. “It’s the supercilious, sanctimonious Oh, golly gee,” one longtime political observer of his district said of Moulton’s assertions of selflessness. Some of the opinions on Capitol Hill are even more scathing.

    “I don’t think I’ve seen a more opportunistic, duplicitous
    person serving in the House,” said a senior Democratic aide, blasting
    Moulton as somebody who talks bigger than he plays and who pillories
    Pelosi while almost always voting the same way. “He doesn’t do
    anything around here,” the aide said. Other members who are more
    supportive are reluctant to say so publicly—cautious about being seen as
    “giving him a bear hug,” as one Hill staffer put it, “while he’s
    knifing the leader.”

    Reply
  10. SouthernGirl2 says:
    July 29, 2017 at 11:31 am

    For your viewing pleasure this Saturday morning…..

    Stone Cold John McCain helps save Obamacare……… McCain voting no with Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestling audio in the background ….

    KILL IT, John McCain! KILL IT! KILL IT!

    STONE COLD… STONE COLD….STONE COLD

    Crying with Laughter

    Reply
  12. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 29, 2017 at 10:09 am

    One of the N.F.L.’s smartest players did the math and decided to retire after just three years in the league.

    John Urschel, an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens who received much publicity for his off-season pursuit of a doctorate in math at M.I.T., told the team on Thursday that he was hanging up his cleats at 26.

    Urschel’s agent, Jim Ivler, said Urschel was overwhelmed with interview requests but would not be speaking to the news media. On Twitter, Urschel wrote that “there is no big story here” and that the decision to retire was not an easy one to make, but “it was the right one for me.”

    He added that he planned to return to school full time in the fall, “to take courses that are only offered in the fall semester” and spend time with his fiancée, who is expecting their first child in December.

    Urschel’s decision came two days after the release of a study in which all but one of 111 brains of former N.F.L. players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.

    Baltimore Sun and ESPN, citing anonymous sources with the Ravens, said his retirement was related to the study.

    Above excerpt is from article at this link:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/sports/football/john-urschel-baltimore-ravens-retires-nfl-cte-study.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=21&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F27%2Fsports%2Ffootball%2Fjohn-urschel-baltimore-ravens-retires-nfl-cte-study.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&mtrref=www.nytimes.com

    Reply
  14. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 29, 2017 at 10:01 am

    “THE ATTITUDES OF THE COMMUNITIES THE POLICE OFFICERS WORK IN HAVE A PROFOUND INFLUENCE ON THEIR ATTITUDES, BEHAVIOR, AND INSTINCTIVE REACTIONS.”
    https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/891085865237204992

    Reply
  15. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 8:37 am

    Silverman at BJ said that these two FBI guys made sure to get into this story…in order to get it to the eyes of Bobby Three Sticks.

    ……………..

    “Everyone thinks he was whacked”

    The US government ruled Mikhail Lesin’s death an accident, but
    multiple intelligence and law enforcement officials suspect it was a
    Russian hit. The government is withholding information so today BuzzFeed
    News has filed a lawsuit to pry the records loose.

    ………….

    Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was murdered in Washington,
    DC, on the eve of a planned meeting with the US Justice Department,
    according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US government’s official explanation of his death.

    Mikhail Lesin’s battered body was discovered in his Dupont Circle hotel room on the morning of Nov. 5, 2015, with blunt-force injuries to the head, neck, and torso. After an almost yearlong “comprehensive investigation,” a federal prosecutor announced last October that Lesin died alone in his room due to a series of drunken falls “after days of excessive consumption of alcohol.” His death was ruled an “accident,” and prosecutors closed the case.

    But the two FBI agents — as well as a third agent and a serving US
    intelligence officer — said Lesin was actually bludgeoned to death. None of these officials were directly involved in the government’s
    investigation, but they said they learned about it from colleagues who
    were.

    “Lesin was beaten to death,” one of the FBI agents said. “I
    would implore you to say as much. There seems to be an effort here to cover up that fact for reasons I can’t get into.”

    He continued: “What I can tell you is that there isn’t a single
    person inside the bureau who believes this guy got drunk, fell down, and died. Everyone thinks he was whacked and that Putin or the Kremlin were behind it.”

    In another previously unreported revelation, the two
    FBI agents said it was the Department of Justice that paid for the hotel
    room where Lesin died. DOJ officials had invited the Russian to
    Washington to interview him about the inner workings of RT, the
    Kremlin-funded network that Lesin founded, they said.

    But Lesin never made it to the interview. He died the night before it was scheduled to take place.

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 8:30 am

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – New revelations that Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) spent years enrolling unknowing borrowers in costly auto insurance has put the bank under new pressure to answer for a months-long scandal over sales practices that have harmed millions of Americans.

    The latest news that 800,000 Wells Fargo auto borrowers were improperly charged for insurance rattled investors yet again, and sent its stock down 2.6 percent on Friday.

    Shareholders, analysts, lawmakers and consumer advocates demanded answers about how the situation manifested, and why Wells Fargo did not disclose the problems sooner, given existing turmoil over phony deposit and credit card accounts opened in customers’ names without their permission.

    “This is a full-blown scandal — again,” said New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who oversees public pension funds that hold roughly 11.6 million Wells Fargo shares. “It’s unbelievable, outrageous, sad, and yet quintessential Wells Fargo. This isn’t just a corporate debacle. It’s caused real human harm.”
    Stringer called on the bank to install a new independent chair and “immediately” disclose more information.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wells-fargo-accounts-autos-exclusive-idUSKBN1AD29N

    Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 8:21 am

    POLITICS 07/28/2017 04:21 pm ET
    If You Come At Sen. Lisa Murkowski, You Best Not Miss
    Ryan Zinke just threatened a senator with enormous power over his agency.
    By Chris D’Angelo

    WASHINGTON — With a couple of phone calls to Alaska’s Republican delegation, the Trump administration apparently thought it could bully Sen. Lisa Murkowski into supporting her party’s attempt to repeal Obamacare.

    The approach was both rookie and reckless, according to former Interior officials. In the end, the Alaska senator stood her ground, joining two other Republican senators in defeating a “skinny” repeal of the Affordable Care Act early Friday morning.

    The issue began when Murkowski voted Tuesday against a measure to begin debate on a health care bill. President Donald Trump used Twitter the next day to voice his dissatisfaction, saying Murkowski “really let the Republicans, and our country, down.”

    On Wednesday night, the Alaska Dispatch News first reported that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had phoned Murkowski and fellow Alaskan Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) following Tuesday’s vote. Zinke delivered a “troubling message,” indicating that Murkowski’s defection could jeopardize future Alaska projects, in particular those involving energy extraction, Sullivan told the paper.

    In other words, Zinke wanted Murkowski to fall in line ― or else.

    But what Zinke and Trump apparently failed to consider before issuing the apparent threat is that government is a two-way street — and Murkowski has a great deal of influence. As chairwoman of both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Murkowski has oversight over the Interior department and its funding. That puts her in a unique position to either advance or obstruct the administration’s energy priorities.

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 8:14 am

    Jul. 28, 2017 at 7:41 PM
    The Party Establishment Wing Of Trumpworld Collapses

    By Perry Bacon Jr.

    ………………………

    So what the hell is happening in the Trump administration? (Yes, beyond the volatile president.) Earlier this year, I wrote that there were at least eight power centers in Trumpworld and that they would compete with one another for influence. One of my assumptions in writing that article was that Trump, with little experience in Washington or in government and lacking a well-defined policy vision, would be fairly malleable — which might give his advisers more influence than advisers had under previous presidents.

    I was wrong, to some extent. It’s still not clear that Trump has defined views on, say, U.S. policy in North Africa or how health care marketplaces should work. But six months into the administration, some of his preferences have become clear: He seems to trust family members and his associates from New York more than people with long experience in policy or politics, even on matters of policy and politics. He does not share the deep wariness about Russia and Vladimir Putin that is held by both Democratic and Republican leaders in Washington. His favorite kinds of policies appear to be ones that reverse something former President Barack Obama did. And he seems to have no intention of courting traditional Beltway constituencies like the D.C. press corps, the foreign policy establishment or even GOP congressional leaders.

    Those four preferences don’t mesh well with the skills, connections and credentials that some of the key people in his administration bring to the table. As a result, those aides are at times either marginalized or pushed out.

    This isn’t just a Beltway story of who is up and who is down. It matters. The people who aren’t in sync with Trump on his core preferences could lose their ability to set policy in areas where the president does not have strong views. So let’s revisit our eight power centers.

    Reply
  19. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 8:11 am

    Jul. 28, 2017 at 4:33 PM
    McConnell Overreached On Health Care And Paid The Price

    By Nate Silver

    What happened in the Senate early Friday morning was a rarely seen political event of the sort last observed in September 2008, when a financial bailout vote unexpectedly failed on the House floor. Republican leadership thought they’d lined up the 50 votes necessary to pass a “skinny repeal” health care bill in the Senate. They had only 49.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has had plenty of failures, along with plenty of successes. But it’s rare for Senate or House leadership to send votes to the floor unless they know the outcomes ahead of time and even more unusual for them to fail in such embarrassing fashion.

    All of this drama obscures a more important point, however: Republicans have not yet come all that close to passing the health care bill they wanted. And they didn’t come that close Thursday night. True, the Senate was just one vote short of approving “skinny repeal.” But even if the Senate had approved the bill, they still had a long way to go in a process whose outcome was highly uncertain.

    Many Republicans who voted for “skinny repeal” didn’t like it on its own terms — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called it a “disaster,” for instance — but instead viewed it as a vehicle to open up negotiations with the House on a more sweeping bill. But there’s no indication that a more comprehensive measure cooked up in those negotiations could have passed the Senate. Instead, McConnell had repeatedly failed to secure enough support for the Senate’s original health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act; a vote to advance that bill failed 43-57 on Tuesday, with nine Republican defections.

    If the House and Senate were unable to agree on a compromise, the House could have voted on “skinny repeal,” which — having already been approved by the Senate — would have gone to the president’s desk. The terms of the legislation, officially called the Health Care Freedom Act, included the provision to defund Planned Parenthood and other “goodies” that seemed designed to win over conservative votes in the House.

    Reply
  20. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 29, 2017 at 6:44 am

    In order to explain why she posts so much “Black stuff,” Crystal Johnson tweets this great interview video of Nina Simone:

    https://twitter.com/Crystal1Johnson/status/891030336406147072

    Reply
  21. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    July 29, 2017 at 6:39 am

    Good Morning, Rikyrah and Everyone :)

    Novelist Chester Himes was born on this day in 1909 in Jefferson City, Missouri.

    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J1C_6s25j08/hqdefault.jpg

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    July 29, 2017 at 6:25 am

    Good Morning,Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

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