Friday Musical Interlude - Chris Stapleton

Chris Stapleton's version of Tennessee Whiskey.

Friday Musical Interlude - Gimme Chocolate

This should get your attention.  From 2014, Japanese Heavy Metal/J-Pop band BabyMetal performing Gimme Chocolate.  It's strange but catchy and it will definitely keep your attention.

Media wants to gatekeep president Trump's speech.

I didn't want to get too far into the media reaction to president Trump's speech but there is some scary stuff that they were suggesting as is summarized well in this video, which is otherwise primarily focused on fact-checking Chuck Schumer.

The whole video is great and offers some wonderful debunking of Schumer and his twin wicked-witch-looking response last night.  It's worth watching entirely but the first roughly 2 minutes focus on the media reaction that is tantamount to wanting the power of overt censorship.

It's interesting that Chris Cuomo is willing to say president Trump is not speaking propaganda.  I guess his feud with Don Lemon is his primary cause these days.  But in fighting that battle he has resorted to occasionally spitting facts.

But the rest of the media, deciding to be gatekeepers on what the president wants to say to the people of America is vile. It's also ironic that they want to be gatekeepers on speech (and really, thought) but do not want the president to be a gatekeeper on immigration.  The latter is Constitutional, the former is not, and more importantly it is unethical and immoral.

President Trump's televised address

Last night the president made a televised address and if I recall correctly this is the first time he's done it (I'm not including his State of The Nation speeches to congress).  Given the government partial shutdown over the impasse on the border wall, the administration must have felt there was some urgency to address the issue and share the president's side of the story. Otherwise the president could have remained with Twitter as the primary source of his arguments.

I've maintained that the president should be doing this type of address more often.  Yes, it's scripted which is not his forte.  It's also true that it gives the Democrats a last word rebuttal and the networks a chance to claim he's lying again (and yes that happened).  But it is an opportunity for the president to talk, unfiltered and uninterrupted by the media (I'm looking at you Fake Jim Acosta), and at 9 or so minutes, highly focused and specific.  It's a golden opportunity that's been underutilized by the president so far.

Maybe the president was holding this in reserve and had always planned on shifting the battlefront in order to keep Democrats and the media off balance.  That would be a smart reason for holding off.  You can see that when you see the response by Pelosi and Schumer who looked like a pair of aliens just discovering life on earth in their response.  Or perhaps, the president felt that by holding addresses in abeyance that when he does it, it carries added weight resulting from the rarity of it's use.  Both are good reasons, and even if it was just a preference for Twitter, the timeliness of the change serves both those points and does so in regards to probably his signature campaign issue.

Here's the president's address:

And how did the Democrats respond? With lies and a cringe-worthy lack of charisma and empathetic engagement.

I know a lot of people looking at that were thinking of the painting American Gothic, but in a comic vein, I see it more as this:

Sunday verse

Nancy Pelosi's own border consists of underlings

The guy who set up the GoFundMe page for the public to provide private, non-governmental funding for a border wall went to collect a buck from Nancy Pelosi who jokingly said she'd accept a buck for the wall.

Ironicaly, he ran into a gatekeeper, because Nancy Pelosi just can't allow anyone coming into her office, she has to choose who is allowed in to speak to her. That's hilarious.

In case you missed the irony, she's using a wall of associates to block entry.  Apparently Nancy Pelosi is irony impaired. 

Saturday Learning Series - a take down of Bird Box

Netflix recent hit Bird Box is apparently a woke movie about, among other things, race.  Youtuber Black Pilled takes it apart.

I already watched this movie and despite definitely noticing most of what Black Pilled mentions, I managed to set it aside and focus on the story, and for the most enjoy it.  But it is getting increasingly harder to do so with movies of late.  Honestly I don't want watching a movie to be a chore but it is approaching that point.  At some point I expect to retreat into computer gaming until they come for that full force as well.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Nancy Pelosi, majority leader of the House; ugh.

The Patreon Exodus is going into high gear.

Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson today announced they are leaving Patreon for politically motivated censorship, effective January 15th, 2019.  This is a major decision for both men.  Wherever they end up, and others who have been barred from the Patreon platform whom you might follow, follow them there.

If you have your own Patreon account, I urge you to cancel it as I have, as well.