cbsn.ws/34vR3qB

And you wonder why no one will confront him.

Lesley Stahl did a good job, better than any of the debate moderators, but still, Trump made mincemeat out of her. He started off soft and then went on attack and it was a tsunami of B.S., to the point where Lesley essentially had to put her hands over her head to protect herself from incoming.

They say Trump is gonna lose and vacate the office.

NOT IF YOU WATCH THIS INTERVIEW!

People believe it’s business as usual. That our country operates normally. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s start with the Supreme Court. People think it’s all about winning, that it’s a game and if you can get your candidate on the court you’ve succeeded.

That is patently untrue.

You see there is an issue of credibility. Do the people trust the Supreme Court? That’s now in question.

Read this:

“We Were Clerks at the Supreme Court. Its Legitimacy Is Now in Question. – Brazen politics in Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process threatens the court’s standing with the public.”: nyti.ms/3movqP9

And it’s not only the left asking this question:

“I Was Reagan’s Solicitor General. Here’s What Biden Should Do With the Court. – Joe Biden should be open to enlarging the number of justices. But first, he should see if the conservative majority overplays its hand.”: nyti.ms/3kzVlTI

And it’s not only the Supreme Court, but the lower courts, which have been packed with right wing loyalists after Obama’s picks were denied.

So, the question is, do you believe in the government?

To twist your head, it’s the right wing that professes it does not. Reagan famously succeeded by telling his constituents that the worst words they could hear were “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

Tell that to those infected by Covid-19, tell that to those feeling the effects of natural disasters. You want and need the government, which is supported by taxes, otherwise you end up with chaos.

Which is what we’ve got now.

So our Supreme Leader is in a fight for his electoral life. And he says as much. He tells Stahl that to lose is go to home to mommy. Why do those on the left believe he’s going to do this, why do they believe he’s going to accept electoral college defeat, especially after he has continually told us he won’t?

So what we’ve got is echo chambers. On the left and right. And the twain do not meet. Talk to your friends, they’ve abandoned those with different political opinions, polarization has filtered down this far. What makes people believe there is one unified set of facts, blasted on the news, that everybody pays attention to? Furthermore, Trump has discredited the news, Stahl even brings this up.

So, Trump is immediately disarming, telling Stahl he knows she’ll be fair, after she says she’s going to ask him tough questions. That’s how far we’ve fallen, we can’t even ask questions of our president without warning him, for fear of upsetting him. And then he starts to spew his alternative facts. Stahl remains calm throughout, because she’s afraid of media blowback. If she loses her cool in reaction to Trump it will be her fault, not his. But Trump doesn’t hesitate, he continues to push forward, like a bulldozer.

And then the switch is flipped.

Come on, you know when this happens, when you can see the light in someone’s eyes changing, when you can see the smoke start to come out of their ears. You know if you say one single thing, a conflagration, a battle will begin.

If you blow back, YOU’LL GET FIRED!

Because HR always aligns with the boss. And the Board too. If they don’t touch you, if the content is not sexual, they get away with it, under the rubric of life is hard, business is tough, and if you don’t stand up, if you don’t fight ferociously, the other guy will win. As for the rules and regulations…they don’t apply, especially when they control the judiciary.

And then Trump’s got his hackles up. He’s going full steam. He’s stating his malarkey like it’s true, and anyone who questions it is just dumb.

Come on, do you now understand what is happening in the White House, in the “Deep State”? It’s either Trump’s way or the highway. And even if you’re aligned with him you still might not evade excoriation. Like Bill Barr. Trump keeps telling him to prosecute innocent people.

And it’s not only the inside, it’s elected officials too. Vote to convict Trump at the impeachment trial and not only will you lose your seat in the next election, before that Trump will excommunicate you and double-down on you, you’ll be the endless victim of his scorn.

And politics is a team sport, and therefore all the Republicans have aligned with Trump and won’t say boo and…

The Democrats have no power. The Republicans control the Supreme Court, the White House, the Senate, and so many lower courts, which will approve the shenanigans of Republican-controlled legislatures, which are oftentimes that way because of gerrymandering.

As for the right’s response? YOU DO IT TOO!

Don’t you get it, they’re playing offense 24/7, to the point that those on the left are always playing defense, according to the right’s agenda. And if you’re on the left and you stand up, you’re denigrated day in and day out, like AOC. The right made AOC a star, not the left.

You know Trump. You’ve encountered him numerous times over your life. The next door neighbor who is right even though they’re wrong, who continually calls the cops on you. The coworker who makes fun of you, gangs up with the other coworkers to ostracize you. In school, you can fight back physically, once you’re an adult you’re not supposed to. So what is there to do but throw your arms in the air and back away?

As for a fair fight… Who believes in fair in a world where the Houston Astros cheat and do not lose their title? Russia is banned from the Olympics so they hack the event, disrupting it. Fairness went out the window years ago. People cheat to get into college… It appears if you’re not cheating, you’re not winning.

And if you’ve got enough money, you can stand up to anybody, get the lawyers involved, bury the other team in paper. But the only people with enough money to do this are the same ones who are cheating.

As for the interviews with Biden and Harris…

Biden was benign. He made no news. He’s refraining from being aggressive for fear of losing votes. As for Harris, she was so phony that I had to turn her off, I stopped believing what she was saying, she certainly did not. But neither of them got heated, hot under the collar, they didn’t throw bombs at Trump and the right because they believe in decorum in a rigged society. It’s like having a baseball manager who never questions the calls, as the opponent is rampaging 24/7 and making the umpires uptight.

So, Trump loses.

Well, he can still win.

Read or listen to last week’s “Daily” podcast: nyti.ms/34rXo6y

You think so much is set in stone in the electoral process when it is not.

And let’s not forget, Nixon resigned because Republican senators told him to. No Republican senators stood up to Trump during the impeachment trial, are they gonna stand up to him when he declares victory after a “rigged” election?

Possibly, but I doubt it.

Trump has disrupted politics, employing a new game, a new style of play. And just like the record companies and the rest of those who lost out in the transition to digital on the internet, all those on the left are saying is it’s unfair and people should play by the rules. Meanwhile, the motto of Facebook has been “move fast and break things.” And Google told us it would “do no harm.” Yeah, right. And who won in the end, the historical powers or the disrupting techies? THE DISRUPTING TECHIES EVERY TIME! And if you beat one techie in court, usually years after the disruption, another techie popped up to take its place.

The left and the right don’t seem to agree on ANYTHING!

But Trump sets the agenda, he’s playing offense all the time, to the point where those on the left just respond and if you grow a set of balls you’re told to STFU, by the LEFT! To the point where Biden and Harris keep denying they’re progressives, both afraid of the s-word, i.e. socialism, they keep backpedaling while Trump and his cronies keep decreasing the area they can play in. It’s like a game of operation, and the left is deathly afraid of touching the outside rail and when it does, the right goes berserk!

I’m not trying to convince the right here, they’ve got their leader, who’s fighting damn hard for them.

But those on the left? THEY’RE WIMPS!

As for the media, it lionized Kristen Welker’s performance when it was truly lame, compared to Lesley Stahl she was a zero. Is that how far we’ve fallen, that maintaining order is a victory?

This is a death match. That’s what most of the public has not realized.

Furthermore, the right knows it doesn’t have the numbers so it has been rigging the game, with the aforementioned judges, gerrymandering and voter suppression. And all the left can say is…IT’S NOT FAIR!

We need not only a candidate, but an entire infrastructure to stand up to these bullies. Instead, we get lifelong pols who think they know better looking out for each other. Meanwhile, the right is running circles around them.

Be afraid, be very afraid. November 3rd is just the beginning. Wake up and see what you’re up against.

It’s positively mind-blowing.

I almost didn’t watch it, the “New York Times” gave it a bad review. That’s because they looked at it through the wrong lens, it’s not a movie, it’s PERFORMANCE ART!;

I’m not the biggest Borat fan, I’m not even the biggest Sacha Baron Cohen fan, but I was intrigued by the distribution plan of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” It’s free with Amazon Prime, which seemingly everybody in America has, or has access to. In other words, to use the term of the techies, Cohen has reduced the “friction” between his work and his audience. Talk to any true artist, it’s never about the money, sure, they want to get paid, but they’d sacrifice every dollar to reach more people, to have an impact upon society.

And it’s funny how not a single musical artist has had an impact politically in the twenty first century. Boomers keep expecting “Eve of Destruction,” of “For What It’s Worth,” but they’re never gonna come. One can analyze the scene, the vapidity, the commerciality, but that is missing the main point…NO MUSICAL ARTIST CAN REACH EVERYBODY!

But somehow Borat can.

I love a good stupid movie. My favorite is “Stripes.” Which has a similar sensibility to “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” as in it questions authority while laughing at it and those watching are in on the joke. But “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”? It’s commenting on the America we live in today, in a way no one in the media seems to be able to do other than Cohen himself.

In this same twenty first century, the only people allowed to speak truth are cartoon characters. Look at “South Park,” never mind “The Simpsons” and so many others. They tackle taboos, they say what real human beings cannot.

And the “South Park” twins ended up going to Broadway with “The Book of Mormon.” And you’d think that Mormons would hate it, but they love it! Just like right wingers will love “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” And they’ll also get a dose of truth, many doses of truth, that cannot be denied.

As for Rudy Giuliani, this film should put the nail in his coffin. And it’s not about him tucking in his shirt, but what he says earlier, about Trump and China and the coronavirus. He repeats right wing tropes, like the virus was created in a lab and Trump is doing such a great job, and you’re stunned. You always thought Rudy was smart, but now his cover has been blown, he’s nearly as insane as Trump himself! Until he became president I too bought the party line, that Trump was intelligent, but we now all know that is untrue. Furthermore, Rudy is so sleazy, hitting on the female interviewer, smiling, baring his teeth as if getting ready to devour her like the Big Bad Wolf, that your stomach turns. This is who this guy really is? And you realize yup, it’s him, just like it’s everybody else in this road trip of a film.

It starts out stupidly in Kazakhstan. But then as the film unspools, when Borat gets to America and starts interacting with people, you gradually get stunned. At first you think it’s just one gullible person, and then you realize all these people are gullible!

The anti-Semitism. Getting the bakery employee to write hatred on the cake without blinking.

You start to squirm with every progressive set-up. You wonder how Cohen did this, and you wonder about the consequences. Like the debutante ball and that time of the moon. No one just laughs out loud or tells Borat to get out immediately other than when he enters a ballroom to give his daughter to Pence. But by piercing the bubble of this conservative nonsense it makes Pence and his followers look like nincompoops. It’s amazing what people will say if they believe they’re in a bubble, that the real world and the media are excluded. As for the anti-Covid rally, getting the assembled multitude to shout hatred…right there you see the perils of groupthink.

So, Sacha Baron Cohen just disrupted the movie business. They thought it would be the too long and not good enough Scorsese film “The Irishman.” And then maybe “Mulan” on the Disney Channel. But the truth is “The Irishman” was an endurance test and it turned out that “Mulan” was also far from stellar and it was on Disney+ and…

This is like “The Sopranos” on HBO.

First we had “Dream On.” Then even “Sex and the City.” But when HBO aired “The Sopranos,” not only did we realize the show was better than anything on the big screen, in theatres, but it made a joke of all the network fare. Yes, you can credit HBO for changing television, and our entire nation’s consciousness. You see then the other pay channels had to create original programming to compete with HBO. And then Netflix came along with an open checkbook and suddenly we were living in the heyday of television. Sure, there are too many shows to watch, over four or five hundred per year at the last count, but the truth is…MOST ARE NOT WORTH WATCHING! We no longer live in a three network world. Television resembles the music business. The label releases a bunch of product just hoping ONE album/artist/track hits. And if it does, it covers all the dreck financially. And the audience is drawn to hits. And hits often take time to grow, the perfect example being “Breaking Bad,” which was on TV for years but didn’t break through until it was on demand on Netflix.

So we’re all looking for something to watch.

And we’re all listening to our friends, the scuttlebutt. We may not watch all the way through, but we’ll give recommendations a chance.

And you want to watch “Borat” to be PART OF THE DISCUSSION! I only lament we’re in the Covid era, otherwise “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” would be the topic of discussion in the office for at least a week. Those left out would immediately watch it, just to render an opinion. That’s what we want to do. That’s one of the reasons I watched it today, I wanted to be up to date. Meanwhile, there’s not much I need to be up to date on these days, other than the news.

And Rachel Maddow and the rest of MSNBC have spent four years with a serious tone trying to take Trump down, and it hasn’t worked. But this stupid “Borat” movie will have more impact than any of the anchors’ bloviating, more impact than last night’s debate, because when you see the insanity in action you just cannot defend it, you’re forced to wake up.

That’s right, there’s a right wing bubble, trying to keep people from the truth, demonizing everyone who is not inside it. But Cohen pierces that bubble with the tiniest of pinpricks, over and over and over again. And ultimately it’s simple, you let people be who they are and you can’t help but laugh at them, they incriminate themselves, and you question your own beliefs.

The plastic surgeon who talks about Jewish noses. Who doesn’t take offense. Irrelevant of his beliefs, this is how we’ve gotten here, no one speaks up. And then when black people speak up those on the right refuse to address the issue, talking about law and order as opposed to systemic racism. Then again, Tucker Carlson says racism is history in America. Tell that to a black teenager in a hoodie walking through an upscale mall or the streets of Beverly Hills.

This film is jaw-dropping. Like I said, not at first. But the cumulative effect ends up being overwhelming. Cohen does not relent, he keeps on upping the ante, keeps exposing right wing tropes for what they are. How are you gonna defend the viewpoints in this movie? You can’t, you can just do your best to ignore it. But the younger generations will eat “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” up and watch it over and over again. And as they recite its elements their parents will watch it too.

Never underestimate the impact of art. I truly believe we can credit MTV with demystifying and destigmatizing homosexuality as well as interracial relationships. When you see it on the screen and all of the tropes are proven untrue, it has an impact.

Then again, we’ve still got a long way to go. James “The Amazing” Randi just died and even though he did his best, there are still clairvoyants and other fakers ripping off the public.

But Randi never reached everybody. Oh, he reached a lot of people on “Johnny Carson,” but “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is not here and gone, rather it will live on, on demand, on Prime Video. That’s the world we live in, one of on demand, if I can’t watch it when I want to, I wont. Make it inconvenient and I’m out. This is what the older generation does not get about the youth. This is how the youth have learned to live in a world with so much incoming, whereas so many elders have just punted, thrown their arms in the air and said it’s too overwhelming.

And, ultimately “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is overwhelming. It overwhelms your senses. At first it’s just intellectually funny, but then you can’t resist laughing out loud, sometimes hysterically. And almost all comedies are uneven, you can’t review them through the lens of a drama, just like you can’t send a rock fan to review a hip-hop show.

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is a bullseye. Watch it NOW!

It would be funny if it weren’t so scary.

Tonight’s debate won’t affect the election whatsoever. The truth is there are very few undecideds and millions have already voted. BUT, Joe Biden finally looked presidential, even though it took him 18 months to get here. You could see his brain working, you didn’t judge him for his stutter. His heart was in the right place. However I must admit he faded about an hour in, when he went on a mental hejira about his daughter the social worker when the question was about race. Then again, Biden regained his stride thereafter. Bottom line, I’ve got no doubt he can run the country. Donald Trump?

We’ve got a crisis in information in the United States. The Republicans even said there were “alternative facts.” We’ve got no baseline, we’ve never been here before, and I’m fearful if Trump loses, his voters won’t accept it, isn’t that what he’s been preparing them for?

I point to Brandy Zadrozny’s NBC article:

“For Trump’s ‘rigged’ election claims, an online megaphone awaits – A sizable online network built around the president is poised to amplify claims about a rigged election, adding reach and enthusiasm to otherwise evidence-free allegations.”: nbcnews.to/2J13bb7

All Democrats should read this. I was optimistic on Sunday, for the first time in four years, it appeared the Democrats had this, that Joe would win, the tsunami was starting, and then…

Trump is not going to give up. And the only person who says he will is a Republican, Ross Douthat, in the “New York Times”:

“There Will Be No Trump Coup – A final pre-election case for understanding the president a a noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat.”: nyti.ms/3dNMH1h

Be afraid, be very afraid, especially when you become aware of Tucker Carlson’s takedown of Brandy Zadrozny last night.

Read the following for explanation:

“NBC News says Fox News’ Tucker Carlson ‘dangerously and dishonestly targeted’ its reporter: bit.ly/3ohR758

And in case you don’t trust “USA Today,” you should know this story was everywhere:

“NBC News, Colleagues Defend Reporter After Tucker Carlson Segment Attacking Her Work”: bit.ly/3jolfYU

Mediaite is seen as neutral, but it all doesn’t matter, because this story is not going to enter the right wing news bubble. That’s right, there’s a whole spectrum of Americans who are getting false news and are voting for Donald Trump.

Even worse is social media. Mark Zuckerberg is Donald Trump’s biggest supporter. Sheryl Sandberg is complicit. We lionized the techies at the turn of the century, but that era is over, we need to shine a light on these billionaires and hold them responsible for their failure to act, the utilization of their platforms, oftentimes by outside agitators, i.e. Russia and Iran and China, to distort our elections. In 2008 we didn’t put the perpetrators of the crisis, i.e. the bankers, in jail. As a result, the public lost faith in our government. Threaten Zuckerberg with jail and things will change. Kind of like the car companies, they bitched and moaned and lobbied against increased mileage rules, and then somehow they met them like magic. All that Zuckerberg says he can’t do, he can, but he doesn’t want to, because of the money involved.

Money. That was Trump’s answer to the side effects of living near polluting plants. The people working in those areas get paid handsomely.

Money doesn’t solve everything. And it can’t be our number one priority. Biden got this right and Trump did not.

Until we realign our nation around truth, we’re doomed. Come on, look at all the tech we depend upon, the net, our smartphones, our computers…do you think the engineers who create them have different views on the facts? Of course not, science and math delineate truth. Then again, we’ve got an administration that throws science overboard.

But the points don’t matter, tonight was a demonstration of the right’s agenda, working the refs.

Let me explain this. When you see a coach or a manager yell at an official, they don’t expect the call to change, they just want to inhibit the official from ruling against them in the future. Kristen Welker was so afraid of crossing Trump, of getting blowback from his constituency, that she refused to ask the hard questions and make him respond. It’s like she learned nothing from the initial debate. Savannah Guthrie pushed back and…we saw the real Trump, we got some truth. Same deal with Lesley Stahl. Of course they’ve been excoriated by the right, but if you’re worried about blowback, get out of the arena, the right is not making nice, why should the left?

And at first Trump learned from the last debate, he held himself in check. But it couldn’t’ last, he slowly lost control. But the unfortunate thing about this is he ended up controlling the discussion, with more time, and by yelling and hammering the same points… It was Welker’s job to stop this. She blew it.

And it was like a stump speech. About halfway through Trump didn’t bother to answer the questions, he just hammered his talking points, about fracking, Biden’s “finances,” and the imminent doom if Biden wins.

That’s what the right is professing, doom in the future. As if the future isn’t going to arrive, as if we haven’t learned over the last thirty years of tumult with tech that what is here today is oftentimes gone tomorrow. We can’t jet back to the past, and it wasn’t that good to begin with. And, AND, I was stunned that Joe threw the long ball, said yes, he was going to get rid of fossil fuels. Whew, in an election cycle where everybody is running away from anything that might be held against them, Joe’s honesty was refreshing.

And Joe found a way out of the court-packing controversy, by kicking it to a commission. He said he would weigh in before the election, and you know Joe would stand by what he says, unlike the Republicans who wouldn’t even consider Merrick Garland and McConnell refusing to even talk about helping out the American public with a relief bill before the election. The Republicans don’t care about the rules, they’re just a starting point, they stretch them and continue to do so unless they’re called out on it, and if they get the votes they’ve got no problem breaking the conventions.

So, we’ve got a system that’s unfair. That’s right, the Dakotas each get two senators but Puerto Rico and D.C. can’t become states.

As for the Supreme Court…

“Since 1969, Democratic presidents have appointed 4 Supreme Court justices, Republicans have appointed 15 (4 of them by presidents who lost the popular vote). bit.ly/3ktu7OA

Now the right is squirming. I’m not writing this for the right, their beliefs are set in stone. They hearken back to the Constitution except when it’s not to their advantage. Come on, the world has changed in my lifetime, never mind 200+ years. Who could imagine gays getting married? Oh, that’s right, the Pope says it’s cool but the Republicans do not? Is your head spinning yet?

And the right said we could not talk about Amy Coney Barrett’s religion when we weren’t. The Democrats chose not to. BUT WHY NOT? I mean it affects us all. And no one can have it all. You can’t have seven kids and be a Supreme Court Justice without something suffering.

As for those kids… That’s another talking point on Fox, how we should be able to drive Suburbans and other gas-guzzlers to transport large families, just because we’re Americans… WHAT ABOUT THE GREATER GOOD? WHAT ABOUT SACRIFICING FOR ALL?

You’re on your own in America today. Except if you’re in a red state where you get a disproportionate number of federal dollars.

But none of this gets traction, because it’s never even talked about in the right wing bubble, no way.

The Democrats believe in a social safety net. The Republicans believe in tropes like the bogey men, if the government spends even a single dollar someone undeserving will get it and waste it… Like the subsidized oil companies? As for dollars, why do the hedge funders get taxed at capital gains rates? Why do so many huge corporations pay no taxes?

But we’re constantly told that we have to be patient, that the wheels of change turn slowly. Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the quality of life in these United States drops.

We’re heading for riots in the street no matter who wins.

But the right isn’t even analyzing the left’s positions, it’s just demonizing those on the other side.

So, Trump felt by bullying everybody tonight he could gain votes. But the truth is we’ve seen this movie before, and we still don’t have the tax returns and we still don’t have the health plan and so much of what he said he was gonna fix he did not.

But it’s even worse. He’s been looting the country for himself and his cronies. Not that anybody on the right cares about this, hey, ain’t that the Republican philosophy, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, money is everything?

And the hopefully losing Lindsey Graham is complicit, as well as so many of the other two-faced Republican politicians who hated Donald Trump until they loved him.

Meanwhile, in California the Republicans put up their own ballot boxes, and when told, under the law, to take them down, they would not!

Yes, talk to me about election integrity.

These are the same weasels who got rid of the Voting Rights Act and then made it harder for people of color and other minorities to register, never mind vote. Come on, try and convince people it’s worth seven hours in line to vote, that’s not easy.

And don’t bring up the flaws of the left, they exist, but enough with the false equivalencies. The left has got no Fox News, the left has got no Limbaugh or Breitbart, the left is not trying to kidnap and kill Gretchen Whitmer…

So, it becomes a contest of who can yell louder while falsehoods are spread willy-nilly.

Meanwhile, the quality of life for most Americans ain’t so good, so they’re susceptible to con men and pie in the sky fantasies.

So, even if the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House, we’ve still got a long way to go, we haven’t had a semblance of economic equality since at least 1980, and that’s forty years ago!

So, I’ll make it very simple. Vote Biden. That’s your assignment. No excuses. Don’t tell people to vote, tell them to VOTE BIDEN! What, are you afraid of the blowback, you’re just as bad as the politicians and the media, do not let people inhibit you, you’ve got to stand up for what is right.

And what we’re standing up for here is Democracy, that’s right, with a big “D.”

It’s very simple.

And our only hope of getting the Orange Menace to cave is to be winning from start to finish, from November 3rd until the end of the count. And even then, he still might not accept it.

It’s no longer business as usual. If you’re not paying attention, you’re gonna lose out.

Time for the Democrats to get out front, to take this to the wire.

I can only hope and pray.

Ah, that’s right, that’s just b.s. It didn’t stop Covid and it won’t elect Biden. He’s the best we’ve got, we’ve got a binary system, no excuses, you need to VOTE BIDEN!