An e-mail from Krysten asked who was my least favorite actress? That's a good question. The first one that comes to mind is Michelle Williams.
I can't take her ugly. And she doesn't have to look like that, she could put on some make up and do something with her hair. She looks like
Helen Mirren's uglier and older sister. And her albino look doesn't just age her, it emphasizes that dowagers hump she has that just keeps getting worse with each passing year.
I don't like her bossy ways or her self-important attitude.
Most of all, I can't take her lousy acting. No one has been less deserving of Academy Award nominations or Emmy wins. She's just awful and hasn't delivered a real performance since Dick back in 1999. By the time she got to the box office bomb The Fabelmans she was so dull she came off comatose.
She's doing some more of that dull and 'genteel' acting in her upcoming series for FX and Hulu. I saw the first episode. Dull and duller. She leaves her husband because she has breast cancer and she wants to fulfill herself sexually. It's White Karen to the max.
Nicole Kidman does one interesting TV project after another.
I have not watched the one on Paramount+ -- Lioness -- because I'm not interested in it.
But I love Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Nine Perfect Stranger, Ex-Pats and The Last Anniversary.
She picks interesting projects and she delivers.
Michelle Williams just looks likek an elderly (and sexless) woman who walks through her roles.
Maybe because she was raised in a rich family? She just doesn't have any acting drive and her talents collapsed once she moved over to adult roles. She can't play gritty.
There is no To Die For in her resume. She really can't sing and she moves awkwardly.
Nicole is much more talented. As is Amanda Seyfried whose new Peacok show is great -- Long Bright River. They take chances and they stretch.
Since she became an adult, Michelle has shown about as much spark as someone in assisted living.
Friday, March 14, 2025. We're putting MSNBC on pause, Chump continues
his war on education, propaganda is not news coverage, and much more.
We're
starting with that CNN video for a number of reasons. First the
reaction -- negative reaction -- to US House Rep Chuck Edwards is news.
This is happening around the country and it is news.
Second, it's CNN.
Not MSNBC.
Lawrence
O'Donnell was off last night and won't be back until two Mondays from
now. Had he been on last night, we would have highlighted him if he'd
covered the above but we would have most likely highlighted him on
something.
You're not going to find MSNBC in today's snapshot. You won't find it later in the day up here.
Maybe back on Monday.
The community shapes this site and always has.
Too many of you are furious with MSNBC right now. I get it. I really do and we'll go into that in a moment.
11:30
pm EST is the last time we noted them. If I'd known the objection when
I was queuing up videos before the roundtable for the gina & krista
round-robin, that video would not have gone up here.
Let's go back to the CNN video.
A veteran is loudly calling out a US House Rep who is failing We The People.
If
you've missed it, House Conversion Queen Mike Johnson has insisted that
the people -- all these people -- showing up at rallies to demand that
their Congressional reps do their jobs and stop serving Musk and Chump
and start serving the people -- he's insisted these are paid agitators
and George Soros or someone else has paid them.
If
tomorrow we find out that the veteran in the video above was paid off
or was not who he presented as, we'd have every reason in the world to
be upset. Every reason.
That's not going to be the case with the veteran above. But if it had been, we'd have every right to be outraged.
A
number of you are outraged about a similar issue around protests and
you're sick of MSNBC trying to shove it down your throat while lying.
Yes, I agree with the community, it is lying.
When
the genocide in Gaza began (or this wave), we covered the protests and
supported the protesters on campuses across the country. Good for
American students for using their voices. We covered it here. We
bought in some of the activists that Ava and I met with on campuses for
roundtables.
And when the corporate media,
not just FOX "NEWS," would lie, we'd call them out. We're the only ones
that called out some of that garbage. We'd point out that this average
student, 'voice of the people' that was denouncing other students for
protesting was, in fact, a paid member of the right-wing media. FAIR
didn't do it. We did. It was a story of lies, a story of media bias and
a story of media conglomeration (the country's largest owner of
stations across the country broadcast the same lie filled 'report on
every station they owned for example).
Those
liars that we called out? They're still liars. They received money
from right-wing media and that wasn't disclosed in the 'reports' they
were featured in.
But one thing that they said often was that these student protests were being led by non-students and/or foreigners.
The
charge is often made. And it's made because no one wants someone
sticking their nose in our country's business. So if it's a foreigner
leading this, then it is a lot different.
I've
denounced this here for the whole week -- we're talking about the
Syrian-born Palestinian activist who, turns out, pretty much led,
organized and spoke for the Columbia University-based protests.
In
the CNN video above, we hear what the veterans is saying. And, sure,
we applaud him partly because we agree with him. But we also applaud
him because of the integrity he's bringing to his remarks.
If
FOX "NEWS" does an expose Sunday morning revealing that the veteran
isn't who we've been led to believe he was, we're going to feel ripped
off.
(Again, that's not going to happen. The man's a veteran and he wasn't paid by anyone.)
So a lot of you are angry about the Syrian-born activist and, again, I get it.
It helps out FOX "NEWS" and that's bad enough. But we also got lied to and that's equally bad.
The problem you're having with MSNBC is that they won't shut up about it.
Excuse me, they don't cover what we're talking about.
They
cover the Syrian-born activist as a martyr and a noble person and
they're not doing coverage -- as Keesha pointed out in last night's
roundtable, "They are putting their thumbs on the scales and
misinforming to shape our opinions." She's exactly right.
MSNBC
has yet to grapple with the fact that the US-led campus protests were
not all US-led and that the activist in question makes us all look like
fools because we defended against the charges that this was a foreign
influenced movement.
MSNBC doesn't want to inform you of that.
They do want to try to tell you what to think.
And, here's the thing, they're not succeeding.
Syrian-born is a liar. And a lot of us feel betrayed.
They
are trying to create a news story -- there has been no news there since
he was arrested, it's now a matter for the courts. But MSNBC has
decided to stake their brand on this bulls**t.
You're
doing the right thing when they start doing that and you turn off the
TV or change the channel. I spoke with a friend in management and
they're also getting a lot of complaints about this coverage -- as they
should be. But turning off the TV or changing the channel will send a
much stronger message.
Again, there's no
story there. There was no reason, for example, for Chris Hayes to cover
it last night -- I didn't watch, I only became aware during last
night's round table.
There are no new developments and MSNBC isn't being honest.
We defended those students, we defended the movement and now Syrian-born is making FOX "NEWS" look like the truth teller.
So,
yes, I get the anger. And when Lawrence comes back, we'll highlight
him. Other than that, I'm going to have wait on the community's
decisions.
I also heard -- and agree --
during the roundtable that the attack on school breakfasts and lunches
is 100% more important than any one person -- certainly more than the
Syrian-born activist. This is going to take place in over forty states
if the administration gets away with it. Over forty states. And, as
we've noted this week, this is going to mean that farmers are going to
be struggling even more because the cuts are going to harm them. But
they're also going to harm our country's children.
A
growling stomach? You can't learn on that. If a child is going
hungry, their basic needs aren't being met and, yes, it does effect
education.
Now you may be the biggest sack of
s**t MAGA idiot. But I would think even that person who hates the world
and thinks all adults are welfare cheats would have the brains not to
blame a child. We're supposed to protect the children. We're adults.
That's our job. And cutting the food program is not protecting them.
Again, you may hate their parents for example if you're MAGA but I think
you'd have to agree that the children themselves haven't done anything
wrong. The gutting that's going on right now is appalling and inhumane
and destroying the economy. That's across the board.
But
the attacks on children's meals -- like the attacks on science -- are
much worse because they will do long lasting damage and, again, we're
the adults, we're supposed to protect the children.
In the roundtable, a number of you made clear that MSNBC isn't interested in this story.
They're
flooding the zone on the Syrian-born activist but America's children
apparently don't have enough disposable income to interest MSNBC so
they'll instead bore us all with another story about the Syrian-Born
activist.
We need to take back at least one
house of Congress in the mid-terms -- I want both. And MSNBC's coverage
isn't helping with that.
The protests were
divisive. Actions can be. Didn't bother me. Didn't bother me that we
lost some readers (and about 40 community members) by covering the
protests.
It was news and I still applaud the American students on campuses who spoke out -- the Americans.
But the b.s. that soon overtook everything cost us the election. And now we live in horror each day.
So,
I hear you, you're not in the mood for MSNBC and their ignoring of real
stories that impact the American people and could impact the mid-terms
to instead do another whine about Syrian-born.
We got enough propaganda on him before he was arrested. We don't need anymore.
Repeating
from last night, a permanent resident? That's a status and it doesn't
mean it can't be revoked. You're getting liars telling you all sorts of
things there. My favorite is: It has to be proven in court!
Where the f**k have you lived since 9/11?
That's why community members are so angry at MSNBC, they're doing propaganda.
The
courts have bent over backwards to take the government's word on
terrorism. Over and over since 9/11 -- and they weren't all that
reluctant prior to that.
There's also the
reality that he may in fact be part of terrorism. I don't know. I
don't know him. I thought Columbia's protests were being led by
American students at Columbia. He's duped the public once already so,
no, I'm not staking my word on his claims.
They
also don't seem to understand immigration. You can't lie on
paperwork. If you do, you can lose a visa or a green card. That's
reality. Reality is also that most of us will lie on a form.
Especially if it's a lengthy form. And it might be a lie of omission,
it might be you short handing something, but it happens all the time.
And that's their out -- the government's out -- when they want to revoke
whatever they granted to a foreigner.
We
have serious issues to address in this country. We all have to figure
out what they are and cover what we need to cover -- what we feel we
need to cover.
MSNBC could argue that this is
the story that they feel that they need to cover. Fine. But they need
to accept the fact that viewers are already tuning out on them and that
will only increase as more air time is wasted on this non-story.
Non-story!!! He could be deported!!!
He
could be. Hasn't happened yet. The only news was that he was taken
into custody over the weekend and the plan is to deport him. That
headline has been more than conveyed. You're no longer doing news,
you're doing propaganda for his defense attorney.
And you're doing that while you're ignoring American children.
In
the mid-terms, other than a few freaks, no one's going to basing their
vote on what happened to the Syrian-born activist. What Chump's doing
to America's children? That's going to be an issue. The measles
outbreak that continues to spread because we have anti-science fools in
Chump's administration? That's going to be an issue.
I said this last night in the roundtable but let me repeat it here:
I
do not live in front of the TV. I do not know every thing that is said
or done on MSNBC. I do leave the TV on these days because I'm a
Nielsen viewer but I really am not a TV person. So I was not aware that
this non-story -- it's a headline at this point -- about one person was
taking up so much TV real estate on MSNBC. I understand the anger I'm
hearing [in the roundtable] and this matter's addressed. We'll put a
halt on including MSNBC for the time being except for Lawrence
O'Donnell. We'll continue to asses this as a community.
So, again, my apologies. It was my ignorance completely. And I am sorry.
This is an important topic so the time above was not wasted but let's wrap up with a few other things. Aimee Picchi (CBS NEWS) reports:
The
U.S. Department of Agriculture is cutting two federal programs that
provided about $1 billion in funding to schools and food banks to buy
food directly from local farms, ranchers and producers, part of what the
agency said was a decision to "return to long-term, fiscally
responsible initiatives."
The
move cancels about $660 million in funding this year for the Local Food
for Schools program, which is active in 40 U.S. states, as well as about
$420 million for a second program called the Local Food Purchase
Assistance Cooperative Agreement, which helps food banks and other local
groups provide food to their communities.
The
decision comes as the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department
of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, say they are slashing federal
spending to reduce government waste. The USDA programs were funded
through the agency's Commodity Credit Corporation, a Depression-era fund
created to buy products directly from farmers.
I
have no idea why this isn't getting more coverage. We noted it this week. This an attack on America's children. This will
impact so many and it's bread-and-butter issue so you'd think
politicians and news outlets would be running with this story. It's
also impacting farmers:
One
farmer in Massachusetts told CBS News Boston that she was concerned the
funding cut could hurt her business. Katie Carlson, president of
Carlson Orchards in Harvard, Massachusetts, said the Worcester Regional
Food Hub, which connects school districts with food from local farmers
through the USDA program, had been a reliable customer.
"We
know that this time of year we can count on the Worcester Food Hub,"
Carlson said. "They may not be huge orders every week, but we know that
they're coming to take something every week, so if that were to all of a
sudden drop off [...] It's just not, not good."
So
children and farmers will suffer in order for Convicted Felon Donald
Chump to deliver tax breaks to his wealthy and crooked friends. That's
our nation priority when trash occupies the White House: Tax breaks for
the wealthy and attack the working class and America's future. In news
of Chump's other attacks on education, ABC NEWS reports:
The
Department of Education's far-reaching layoffs have decimated a small
statistical agency considered to be the "authoritative and trusted
source" of information on the education system in the United States,
four former employees familiar with the situation told ABC News.
Since
the 1860s, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has
collected and analyzed data on education across the country, which has
been used by policymakers and the public to measure academic success,
teacher productivity and crime and safety in schools, among other
topics.
It issues a congressionally mandated
test called the National Assessment of Education Progress -- better
known as the "Nation's Report Card" -- which, since 1969, has been
considered the gold standard of testing to compare the academic
performance and progress of students across all 50 states in math and
reading across several grades.
Since 1860 . . . But, of course, idiot Chump knows better.
Chump
declares war on education because, as a deeply stupid person, he's
always railed against the notion that people could improve their lives
via education. So he attacks and attacks and attacks. Another
example, Erin Hudson and Sophie Alexander (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reports:
The US Department of Education’s sweeping cuts Tuesday included staff that oversee schools’ efforts to help millions of students learn English.
Employees
from the Office of English Language Acquisition, or OELA, are being
eliminated as part of the Education Department’s reduction in force this
week, according to the American Federation of Government Employees
Local 252, the union representing the agency’s employees. The wider
Education Department cuts aim to eliminate half of its more than 4,000
employees. A spokesperson for the department said OELA’s work will
continue in another division.
[. . .]
At
least a dozen OELA staff were cut including those who worked on the
Title III program, which provides federal funding for states to improve
education for students learning English, as well as the National
Professional Development Program and the Native American and Alaska
Native Children in School program, which train teachers to support those
students, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not
to be named and a document seen by Bloomberg.
The
National Council of Urban Indian Health issued a press release deeming
“federal layoffs targeting essential tribal programs … catastrophic for
Indian Country.”
“DEI requires
context,” said Tempe Chief Diversity Officer Velicia McMillan Humes.
“You have to understand that this is addressing a greater, longer,
pervasive issue.”
Diversity training began with
affirmative action after President John F. Kennedy signed an executive
order in 1961 that required federal contractors to create equal
employment for all.
“You have to learn how to
create strategies to engage individuals who don’t feel safe or
comfortable or don’t feel like they’ll be heard,” Humes said. “But the
first thing we need to do is recognize that we have played a role in
that inequity.”
President
Donald Trump and his administration appear to be ramping up plans to
abolish the Department of Education, a long-promised move that has
prompted as much alarm as it has uncertainty.
The
Department of Education has been around in some form since the mid-19th
century, with its current cabinet-level form being created when a law
passed by Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter spun it off from
the broader Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1979. Over
the decades, it's frequently come under fire from conservative
lawmakers, including from President Ronald Reagan, Carter's successor,
but the calls have usually been for it to be stripped back, not shut
down outright.
This pushback
was supercharged, however, when Trump pledged during his 2024 campaign
to do just that: shutter the department completely. That threat took
another step forward in early March, when Trump's former Small Business
Administration head Linda McMahon (yes, that Linda McMahon)
was sworn in as the new secretary of education and quickly sent a memo
to department workers claiming that they would be carrying out its
"final mission." Recent reports also indicate the Trump administration
was working on an executive order directing the secretary to prepare for
the end of the department, and on March 11 it was announced that half
of its staff was being cut as part the planned shutdown.
Senator Patty Murray's office issued the following regarding Chump's attacks on education:
Murray: “Families want help to get students’ math
and reading scores up and ensure their kids can thrive—instead, Donald
Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the Department of Education and
robbing our students and teachers of the resources and support they
need.”
ICYMI:
Ahead of Confirmation Vote, Senator Murray Blasts Linda McMahon’s
Nomination: “We Cannot Have a Secretary of Education Who Doesn’t Believe
in Having a Secretary of Education”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following
statement on President Trump’s mass firings at the Department of
Education.
“Families want help to get students’ math and reading scores
up and ensure their kids can thrive—instead, Donald Trump is taking a
wrecking ball to the Department of Education and robbing our students
and teachers of the resources and support they need, so that Republicans
can pay for more massive tax cuts for billionaires.
“Donald Trump and Linda McMahon know they can’t abolish the
Department of Education on their own but they understand that if you gut
it to its very core and fire all the people who run programs that help
students, families, and teachers, you might end up with a similar,
ruinous result.
“Ultimately, what they want to do is clear: fire the people
who help our kids and gut funding for our students, teachers, and
schools. This is about breaking government for working families—and
enriching billionaires like themselves in the process.
“Students, families, and teachers in every part of the
country will pay the price for Trump’s slash and burn campaign to
destroy public education in America. When you rip tax dollars from
public schools, it is working and middle class families who suffer. When
you fire the people who hold predatory for-profit colleges accountable
and who help students get financial aid, it is students who pay the
price for years to come.
“Fewer teachers, less accountability, less resources for
students, and more chaos—it’s the last thing students and schools need,
but it’s exactly what Trump is delivering.”
Senator Murray has been calling out the Trump administration’s
devastating plans to worsen public education in America. She’s pressed
the Trump administration on its plans to shutter the Department, blasted its dismantling of its research arm, and forcefullyopposed Linda McMahon’s nomination and plans to execute Trump’s disastrous agenda.
Senator Murray has championed students and families at every stage of
her career—fighting to help ensure every child in America can get a
high-quality public education. Among other things, Senator Murray
negotiated the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), landmark
legislation that she got signed into law, replacing the broken No Child
Left Behind Act. As a longtime appropriator, she has successfully fought
to boost funding to support students and invest in our nation’s K-12
schools, and she has secured significant increases
to the Pell Grant so that it goes further for students pursuing a
higher education. Senator Murray also successfully negotiated the FAFSA
Simplification Act, bipartisan legislation to reform the financial aid
application process, simplify the FAFSA form for students and parents,
and significantly expand eligibility for federal aid.
In March 2020, Senator Murray introduced the Supporting Students in Response to Coronavirus Act
to support students as COVID-19 spread, and she proceeded to work
across the aisle to deliver resources to schools to support students in
the CARES Act in March 2020 and in December 2020 through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental AppropriationsAct (CRRSAA). In March 2021, Senator Murray helped secure
critical resources for K-12 schools in the American Rescue Plan, which
was passed without any Republican votes. She also worked to require a
portion of the resources are specifically used to address learning
loss—and has pushed
to ensure the resources are being used effectively to help students get
back on track. In the years since, Senator Murray has fought to renew
federal investments in our schools, ensure resources are used
effectively and consistent with federal laws, and successfully defeated
House Republicans’ efforts to gut federal educational funding as Chair
of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the 118th Congress.
Tesla
has lost so much value in such a short period of time that JPMorgan
analysts said they couldn't think of another comparable moment in
automotive history.
"We
struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the
automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so
quickly," they wrote, adding that the closest example was when Japanese
and Korean car brands lost sales amid "diplomatic disputes" with China
in 2012 and 2017, respectively.
The JPMorgan
analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday that those historical cases were
"confined to a single market, whereas the decline in Tesla sales in 2025
is not specific to any one nation or geography."
JPMorgan
analysts cut their price target on Tesla by about 41% from $230.58 to
$135, lowering guidance on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter of
2025 to about 355,000 — an 8% year-over-year decrease from the first
quarter of 2024.
From December to Wednesday
after trading hours, Tesla lost nearly 49% of its market cap, seeing its
peak value of $1.54 trillion from the end of last year fall to about
$777 billion.
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