John Oliver

"One of the things that made Spotlight so powerful is the knowledge that the newspaper industry today is in big trouble."-- John Oliver, on this week's Last Week Tonightby KenAnother dazzling and indispensable report by the Last Week Tonight team. You'd think they would be smart enough not to set the bar so high, in terms of both the subjects they tackle and the sensibleness of their coverage, forcing themselves to have to keep rising to it.

One more time --We first looked at this clip in the July 27 post "If the campaign is going to be a 'feelings' fight, is the handwriting on the wall?""What is truly revealing is [Antonio Sabato Jr.'s] implication that believing something to be true is the same as its being true. Because if anything, that was the theme of the Republican Convention this week.

This morning, New York's Richard Hanna became the first Republican congressman to publicly announce he's actually voting for Hillary Clinton, telling his constituents that Trump is "unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country." It's politically safe for him; he's retiring in January.

"What is truly revealing is [Antonio Sabato Jr.'s] implication that believing something to be true is the same as its being true. Because if anything, that was the theme of the Republican Convention this week. It was a four-day exercise in emphasizing feelings over facts."-- John Oliver, on last Sunday's Last Week Tonightby KenIs it possible for one and the same person to be the one who talks a would-be jumper out onto the ledge and the one who gives him the hope he needs to come back down from it?

Tomorrow the British are voting in a referendum to determine whether or not to leave the E.U. Leaving-- Brexit-- is being pushed by UKIP, the neo-fascist party and by Brits who wished they lived in America so they could vote for Trump. The feeling is mutual. Trump recently told Fox News "I don’t think anybody should listen to me because I haven’t really focused on it very much but my inclination would be to get out." Until one of the wing-nuts stabbed to death Jo Cox, a Labour Member of Parliament, it looked like they were going for Brexit.

The big headline over the weekend is how all these polls came out showing that the electorate is pretty surly and taking it out on Trump and Clinton, both of whom they dislike. More and more Americans are becoming familiar with the term "lesser of two evils." The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, for example, shows them as the "two most unpopular presidential nominees in history."

Florida politics is a case study in campaign finance corruptionIf you like conservative spoiled rich kid Patrick Murphy-- and apparently voters along Florida's Treasure Coast do-- there's no reason why you wouldn't like conservative spoiled rich kid Randy Perkins, the newly-minted "Democrat" who's running for the congressional seat Murphy is giving u

Yesterday, by a margin of 241-173, the House passed an innocuously-named bill by Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger, the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act (H.R. 2666). President Obama had already declared he will veto it if it ever gets to his desk and 173 Democrats voted against it. All 236 Republicans plus 5 Democratic corporate whores who crossed the aisle for this one, backed it.

Heading into Confederate Super-Tuesday today CNN showed Herr Trumpf with more support than the 2 junior senators and the confused Ohio governor combined (49-37%). One polling question asked how likely would voters be to back Trumpf in the general election. 48% of registered Republicans said they would either "probably not" (13%) or "definitely not" (35%) support Herr Trumpf.

John Oliver tells us all about the "Thurmond Rule" -- andshows us Miss Mitch calling it "this rule that doesn't exist""If the President has trouble doing nothing, we will be more than happy to show him how it is done."-- Senate Majority Leader "Miss Mitch" McConnell, asquoted this morning by the