Chapter 117: December 2018 – June 2019
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
– Robert F. Kennedy Sr., June 1966 (OTL)
…The 2018 California wildfire season one of the most destructive wildfire seasons in California history, resulting in two waves of fires in August and November of 2018 that were each worse than the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889. With over 20,000 structures damaged or destroyed in total, just under 1,000,000 acres, or almost 2% of the state’s roughly 100 million acres of land, were burned by the wildfires. …Combating the fires was an expensive and exhausting undertaking, with Cal Fire estimating that over $500million was spent on operations. A December 1, 2018 report on how the fires were successfully put out noted that quick and decisive action taken by the local, state and federal governments likely contributed to the fires’ low death toll of “roughly” 30 people…
– clickopedia.co.usa
LATVIA (FINALLY) DECRIMINALIZES HOMOSEXUALITY
– The Daily Telegraph, UK newspaper, 2/12/2018
HEALEY ENDS TRADITION BY SELECTING SPONGEBOB’S FOR OFFICIAL STATE DINNER
…Governor Maura Healey (D) today broke a 31-year tradition by not selecting Red Lobster to cater the upcoming gubernatorial inauguration festivities in Boston.
[1] Every Governor of Massachusetts since 1979 (Dukakis, Murphy, Dukakis again, and now Healey) has had Red Lobster, founded in 1968, cater the event, even during the seafood restaurant’s period of decline (1995-2003) following the 1994 death of its founder.
Due to the tradition, Red Lobster’s parent company, Darden Restaurants (which also owns Olive Garden), which is a part of General Mills, did not put in a large bid for the catering job. This allowed representatives of SpongeBob’s Undersea Cuisine to swoop in with a slightly smaller bid at the last minute. The selection is already receiving from controversy from members of the Massachusetts senate, with Republican politician Gabel Gómez claiming that “only a company with Bostonian roots should have this privilege”…
– The Boston Globe, 12/3/2018
JIM: Tasker.
TASKER, a type of Natural Audio Focus-Tracking Assistant (or Virtual Intelligence Personal Assistant (a “software agent”)): Yes, Jim?
JIM: Bring up the KB Toys site.
[chime sound]
JIM: Alright, let’s see here.
TASKER: Do you wish to add to your virtual shopping cart, Jim?
JIM: Yes, Tasker. For our son, put down um, uh…honey?!
MARTHA: What’s wrong now, Jim?
JIM: Nothin’s wrong. I just want to know if you remember the name of that new transformers toy.
MARTHA: Which one?
JIM: It’s the newest one, you know, the one from the movie posters. Blue, simple design, not too busy or cluttered.
MARTHA: Is it the one that turns into an electric sports car?
JIM: Yeah, an Opal Frosted. Man, they knew how to make cars back then.
MARTHA: “Back then”? It was 2001, Jim.
JIM: It’s been too long. Now do you remember the name or no?
MARTHA: No.
JIM: Shoot. I don’t want to scroll. Hey, wait. Tasker?
TASKER: Yes, Jim?
JIM: List characters from the most recent Transformers movie. I know he shows up in the beginning somewhere.
[chime sound]
TASKER: James Cameron’s Transformers Two: The Rise of Megatron, premièred July 4, 2018. Characters In order of appearance: unnamed astronaut 1, Soundwave, unnamed astronaut 2, Al Pacino in a cameo, Arch Jumper, Mr. Jumper, Bumblebee, Prowl, Netsword –
JIM: Netsword! That’s the one! I was thinking netshield because of his hood-chest thing but it didn’t sound right. So put that down, and for Carolyn, add the green diamond Jenna Doll, it should be 20 bucks?
TASKER: Jenna Doll with green diamond dress expression edition $24.95, Jenna Doll with green diamond dress classic edition $19.95.
JIM: Express version. Why not? It’s Christmas, and it’s only five bucks more.
MARTHA: Don’t forget to add that Thunderhoof toy for Josephine.
JIM: The what?
MARTHA: I think it’s one of the more, I want to say, athletic member of the MLP cast.
JIM: What’s MLP.
TASKER: My Little Pony
JIM: That cartoon show from the 1990s? I thought that went off the air years ago.
MARTHA: They brought it back last year, dear. It’s much edgier than it was in the ’90s.
JIM: Huh. Well, I suppose it has its followers, like all shows.
MARTHA: That’s one way of putting it.
JIM: What?
MARTHA: Never mind, hun. Just add the toy to the cart.
JIM: Right. Uh, what’s it called?
MARTHA: Thunderhoof, I think. She keeps calling it an action figure though.
JIM: She takes after me, that’s why.
MARTHA: Get real, Jim. In high school, your Star Wars collection was only three figures.
JIM: Three
mint-condition figures, Martha. And besides, you only had one action figure then. Compared to your lonely Leia figure, three is a lot.
MARTHA: Heh. Leia wasn’t the only “figure” I took care of back then. Remember?
JIM: Oh? Oh! Oh yeah, I remember. [chuckle] I remember a lot!
MARTHA: Good. So remember to add more Double-A batteries to the order.
JIM: Batteries?
MARTHA: For the toys.
JIM: Toys?!
MARTHA: The children’s Christmas toys, gutter-ball!
JIM: Oh, right! Right. Okay. And I’ll check the book section too, see if there’s anything there the kids might be interested in…
– transcript, Winger family security camera, 12/7/2018 (published with permission)
SMALLER TOY COMPANIES ARE LICENSING THEIR OWN I.P. TO “MAKE THEIR OWN NICHES”
…Toy licensing is a perpetually-evolving business, especially in today’s increasingly tech-savvy world. The quickening pace of today’s markets means that mimicking the latest brand or flavor-of-the-month from major companies like Hasbro, Mattel and MGA Entertainment may prove to be a poor business model for toy companies. This is especially true when the time between sudden consumer demand and sudden consumer disinterest is shorter than a toy company’s production period. To combat this pressure, many toy companies rejecting many-company trends to pursue their own paths at their own pace, rather than attempt impossible-to-achieve product turnout rates. Many of these smaller companies are capitalizing on the nation’s health economy to invest in research and development to build their own Intellectual Properties (IP), revive old IP brands, or even create all-new brands from scratch…
– toyreport.co.usa, 12/8/2018 e-article
“…In political news, the Attorney General of Wyoming, one of a handful of states to vote against the implementation Ranked Choice Voting for all future Presidential elections in last month’s National Initiative, and by the widest amount, has launched several legal court challenges to the initiative. The state’s attorney general department alleges that not only is the RCV implementation unconstitutional, but the National Initiative is as well. This litigation comes despite National Initiative supporters such as former Vice President Gravel spending the past several years pointing out that it is in fact constitutional for a national decisive to apply to all 52 states because we passed a constitutional amendment – the NIA – allowing for something like this to happen...”
– NBC News, 12/10/2018 broadcast
“This was the people’s choice, whether they like it or not. The Attorney General of Wyoming has every right to try and challenge it, but having the right to do something idiotic doesn’t make it any less idiotic.”
– Gov. Michael Gianaris (D-NY) to a reporter, 12/11/2018
Here we are Signature Tower in Nashville, Tennessee. The Signature Tower stands at exactly 1,000 feet tall, making it one of the tallest buildings in the US and
the tallest in Tennessee, and as you can see…
[camera pans up from front entrance façade to the top of the building]
…it’s pretty fudgin’ tall. So now let’s check it out and see just how tall.
[cut to entering lobby, then an edited exchange at the directory desk, and then the elevator’s interior]
Fancy.
[hovers finger over light-screen display, camera pans over to window as elevator lifts up]
Whoa. Would you look at that view. That’s nice, isn’t it? Man.
[cut to elevator door opening, then cut to walking down the hallway]
And here we are on the 68th floor, the top floor. We went right by the office space and roughly 600 condos that make up the building, because you need a security pass to visit those floors, so we’re instead heading straight to the observation posts.
[cut to several panoramic views of Nashville]
So this building was developed by a one Tony Giarratana in 2004 as part of a local jobs initiative to help bring businesses back to the area after lots of companies either left or moved out of the area during the SARS shutdowns. Yeah, so it was part of the post-SARS ‘boom’ thing that happened back then, because, at least in the South, places like Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, they were hit hard by the pandemic of 2002, 2003. Um, and the building was, uh, built by Giarratana Development, L.L.C. – I hope I’m pronouncing that right, L.L.C. – in 2008, and it finally opened in 2012.
[cut to more panoramic views]
Man, it’s really, really something, isn’t it? Man.
– partial transcript of video “Let’s Check It Out: The Tallest Building In The American South,” ourvids.co.can, uploaded 12/12/2018
WSJ INDEX UPDATE 2018: Sweden, Japan Lead World In Innovation; Russia, China Exit Top 10, Australia Edges Back into Top 10
The WSJ Index of Innovative Countries analyses two dozen criteria with equally weighted metrics – including R&D, GDP, spending habits, fiscal policy, political stability, education, patents, labor relations, environmentalism, manufacturing abilities, and technological progress – to sort and rank the world’s nations by order of most and least “innovative.”
According to its most recent update, South America failed to stand out, with not a single nation from that continent reaching the Top 20. Meanwhile, [] has greatly improved from its [date] standing. Similarly, under Australia’s new leadership, The Land Down Under shot up from #15 in 2017 back to #10, knocking Israel out of the Top 10. Several Middle Eastern nations made up the “teens” and “twenties” parts of the list, while the highest-ranking African nations were Egypt (at #50), Cote D’Ivoire (at #44) and South Africa (at #27)…
[snip]
1: Sweden
2: Japan
3: United Korea
4: United States
5: United Kingdom
6: Germany
7: Canada
8: Netherlands
9: Mexico
10: Australia
11: Israel
12: Singapore
13: Iceland
14: Oman
15: Ireland
16: Finland
17: Lebanon
18: Palestine
19: Denmark
20: Luxembourg
[show:
21-180]
– wsj.co.usa, 12/14/2018
BILLY CRYSTAL TO PLAY WELLSTONE IN UPCOMING DRAMA FILM ON THE FORMER PRESIDENT!
[pic:
imgur.com/Puq1oLE.png ]
Above: Wellstone (left) and Crystal (right)
– The Hollywood Reporter, 12/16/2018
SENATOR-ELECT SWANSON CALLS FOR GOP TO “BRACE” FOR R.C.V.
…US Senator-elect Douglas Alastair Swanson (R-NV) is calling for his fellow anti-RCV Republicans to “brace” themselves for the changes that Ranked Choice Voting will have on the dynamics of future US Presidential elections… Swanson, b. 1959, served in the US Navy from 1977 to 1985 before entering business school. He operated a successful construction business, beginning in 1989, before serving as Governor of Nevada from 1995 to 2007, when he declined launching a US Presidential bid to instead join the boards of directors of two large construction companies…
– The Washington Post, 12/19/2018
THE NEW HOME ALONE REUNION MOVIE IS A DECENT TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
The highly-anticipated “Home Alone: The Reunion” reunites almost all of the original cast and crew of Home Alone (1990), Home Alone 2 (1992) and Home Alone (1993), including Brock Pierce as Kevin, Catherine O’Hara as Kate, and John Heard as Peter (to whom the film is dedicated, as he passed away soon after filming finished) and Daniel Stern as Marv, with Chris Columbus directing. Notably, Joe Pesci declined to come out of retirement to reprise the role.
The movie begins with Marv, now an old man, being released from prison for good behavior after the events of Home Alone 3. Going to a maglev station to head to Arizona, Marv accidently falls asleep on the wrong train and ends up back in Chicago, where Kevin spots him and comes to believe that Marv has returned to have his revenge. Meanwhile, Kate and Peter are organizing the family’s first Christmas together in years, but a multitude of family crises lead to Kevin being put in charge of the house while the rest of the adults head out to handle thing. With some help from his nieces, Kevin defends the old family homestead from real criminals just as Marv is arriving to try to make amends.
The result is a series of hilarious misevents with the kind of slapstick that made the first film such a classic. However, the film comes just short of recapturing the magic of the original trilogy, either purposely or intentionally, with some curious realism and self-awareness. For example, in one scene at a bar, where Marv is describing being electrocuted in the second film, the other bar patrons do not believe that Marv could have survived such events. In another scene, Kevin’s scenes don’t buy that a ten-year-old would have had the time to set up so many traps in just one evening.
On the other hand, the cinematography comes very close to recreating the “warmth” of early 1990s cameras. Scenes are wonderfully presented in a manner reflective of the feelings of the holiday season. Even background details are charming, such as the film-with-a-film “Angels With Filthy Souls” being shown to be going through a reboot via ads in the backgrounds of some scenes.
After the original trilogy concluded, the Home Alone franchise devolved into an anthology series following home invasion stories not otherwise connected to one another. The best of these non-Kevin installments is “Angels With Filthy Souls Part Four” (1998), presented as a sequel to three films that don’t actually exist. The rest, though, were less iconic: Home Alone 4 (1995) was set in Seattle, Home Alone 5 (1999) was set in Beverly Hills, Home Alone 6 (2001) took place in 1879 Chicago, and Home Alone: Lockdown (2009) occurs in Boston during the SARS quarantine period.
Thankfully, Home Alone: The Reunion focuses less on the tired premise and rehashed plot and more on the characters that millions of Americans enjoy watching every winter. With this fateful decision, the film manages to satisfy the nostalgic and entertain those unfamiliar with the McCallisters.
Plus, it’s violent, but not too violent. Just the right amount for today’s audiences and filmed in the humorous manner that only Chris Columbus can pull off.
Ultimate Rating: 4.5 stars out 5
– Tumbleweed Magazine, movie review section, 12/23/2018
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (franchise)
The
Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, also known as the
Elm Street franchise, consists of several horror/slasher films, novels and comic books. The franchise began with the 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street, created by Wes Craven. The franchise revolves around a fictional child killer named Freddy Krueger, who, after being burned alive by his victims’ vengeful parents, returns from the grave to terrorize and kill teenagers in their dreams. New Lina Cinema capitalized on the first film’s success, and has credited the franchise for the company’s expansion in size and success during the 1980s.
BACKGROUND
[snip]
FILMS
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – Freddy haunts, tortures and kills the teenagers of Springwood, Ohio to exact vengeance on the town where the parents of his victims murdered him.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) – Freddy attacks the Walsh children for their parent’s role in his death.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Survivors (1987) – Freddy gains the ability to possess bodies after they fall asleep, leading to exorcisms.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dreamcatcher (1988) – The most surreal of the films, Freddy’s would-be victims enter the dreamworld for most of the film to try and trap Freddy there.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Demons (1989) – Freddy’s remains are destroyed in an effort to sever his connections to the physical world, only for it to free him from being only able to haunt the dreams of people somehow connected to Springwood; now able to invade the dreams of anyone, the protagonists investigate Freddy’s origins and end up confronting demonic hellspawns in their efforts to finally destroy Freddy.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Land of Nightmares (1991) – Magic is heavily featured in first film of the franchise to not be directed by Wes Craven.
Elm Street: The Nightmare Child (1993) – Often considered the most disturbing of the Elm Street films, Krueger begins terrorizing the young children of the teenagers who survived the first film, who are reprised by the original cast.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Cosmic Dreamers (1996) – Often referred to as “Freddy In Space,” the teenagers learning to master their dream-travelling skills from previous films think they have trapped Freddy in a cosmic void. But as it turns out, they accidently sent him through a wormhole to the future. There, he invades the dreams of some of their descendants, who are cryogenically frozen onboard a “sleeper” ship heading out to a far-away colony.
Elm Street: Nightmare Realms (1999) – A sequel to Land of Nightmares that ignores the events of all the films after Land of Nightmares in an effort to reboot the franchise; characters travel into each other’s dreams in a convoluted plot.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy vs. Michael (2001) – A crossover with the Michael Myers character from the Halloween franchise, in which some of The Dreamworlders move in to the house where Michael previously lived, leading to Michael being pulled into the Dreamworld when he and Freddy strike at the same time.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy vs. Leatherface (2003) – Very similar to Freddy vs. Michael, Freddy does battle with the villains from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise in both the Dreamworld and in the real world via Freddy possessing people, including teenagers, law enforcement, and even Leatherface himself.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy vs. The Leprechaun (2005) – Often considered the worst of the Elm Street films, Freddy and the villain from the Leprechaun horror franchise fight for the souls of the Dreamworlders, using their wits, their sharp digits, and so many painful puns.
Tim Burton’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (2012) – An attempt to reboot the Elm Street franchise once again; the film received mixed reviews from critics and audiences.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Origins (2015) – A two-hour prequel to the original 1984 film that ignores all the films made after the original
A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Seventh Chapter (2020) – in preproduction as of December 2018
RECEPTION
While the first three films were popular, the increasingly over-the-top and convoluted storylines of the next several sequels began to weight down the franchise. The seventh film, featuring gory scenes and images of eviscerated people under the age of 10, led to it being banned in many places. Backlash to the film resulted in the next several Freddy films being much lighter in tone and subject matter. This culminated in Freddy vs. The Leprechaun, a film that received so much backlash from fans that it led to New Cinema taking the franchise in a much more tonally darker direction.
– clickopedia.co.usa, c. January 2019
HOUSEHOLDER WINS GOP HOUSE TOP SPOT
Washington, D.C. – US Rep. Larry Lee Householder (R-OH) was been elected to the position of Minority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. Householder, a libertarian-leaning politician with a moderate-to-conservative voting record in office since 2005, was seen as a “unifier” ahead of the vote. Householder won the race to succeed the retiring Speaker H. Dargan McMaster (R-SC) over just one challenger, the conservative populist Mike Pompeo (R-KS), in office since 2011. From the 204 Republicans in the House, Householder received 126 votes, while Pompeo received 77 votes, and another congressperson, the alleged LID (Liberal-In-Disguise) Dino Rossi (R-WA) voted for himself.
Pompeo made headlines in December 2016 for openly campaigning for a position in President Grammer’s cabinet. Pompeo reportedly tried to get a cabinet or cabinet-level position involved foreign affairs by “chumming it up” with Vice President Harley Davidson Brown (R-ID) during weekend luncheons and by attempting to meet often with other cabinet members. However, Grammer only offered him ambassadorships, allegedly due to Grammer viewing Pompeo’s congressional record and past comments as too hawkish for Grammar’s anti-interventionist policies. Pompeo declined the ambassadorship offers believing he would be “more helpful to the President” by stay in the House, Pompeo alleged in 2017…
– The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio newspaper, 1/3/2019
NEW U.S. LABOR SECRETARY SWORN IN TODAY
…David Alan Stockman (R-MI) was a US Representative from 1977 to 1999, during which time he once served as Chair of the House Budget Committee (1993-1995) and as used President Denton, Kemp, Iacocca and Dinger on economic issues. After losing re-election in 1998, he served as the White House’s OMB Director from 1999 to 2001. ...President Grammer selected Stockman to become the US’s newest Labor Secretary roughly 14 months after US Labor Secretary Steven Craig Gunderson (R-WI) resigned from the post in 2017 in order to successfully run for a US Senate seat. The department had been led by the “acting” Undersecretary since then…
– The Washington Post, 1/5/2019
RACE-BASED TAX EXEMPTIONS FALLS FLAT IN HOUSE DEBATES
…Only a handful of House Democrats are backing proposed GOP-conceived legislation to exempt slave descendants from income tax, with several Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Markey, expressing concerns that such legislation would lead to many perceiving the action as “racially-motivated favoritism.”
“It could do more harm than good by widening the divide already found between many communities,” says former Presidential candidate Gary Locke (D-WA). “So this proposal is essentially D.O.A.”
However, backers of the legislation believe that they can build up support for the legislation gradually. “We’ll probably have better luck in the upcoming presidential election cycle. Hopefully, many of the Democratic candidates will give this proposal a boost by endorsing it or, even better, running on it,” says US Rep. Troy Carter (D-LA)…
– The New York Times, 1/7/2019 [2]
…2018 saw an unprecedented acceleration in national climate pledges and successes. According to a January 2019 UN report, 2018 saw United Korea become the second Asian country (the first being Japan in 2016) to set a goal of producing net zero emissions by 2050. More prominently, Brazil committed to net zero by 2050 as well, as did Argentina, Norway and Czechoslovakia. Globally, 2018 saw countries that collectively producing roughly 40% of global carbon emissions had net-zero targets that were considered to be, at the very least, “somewhat credible” by most major international anti-GCD groups…
– Manjit S. Kang’s Combating Global Climate Disruption: An Agricultural Perspective, CRC Press, 2021
…Uncertainty over How R.C.V. would actually work come November 2020 continued to rise in early 2019. The Herring Network and rural radio programs flamed the fires of trepidation and suspicion, with the network inching very close to violating the FCC Fairness Doctrine and former US Senator Bo Gritz (R-ID) promoting on his radio show the claim that RCV would be used by the Democratic Party to “manipulate” and steal the 2020 election.
But outside the realm of reactionary extremism, there were some legitimate issues with the system Americans had voted to adopt.
Firstly, the referendum did not specify if there were limits on how many candidates could be ranked. For example, in New York City, primary and special-election voters have the choice to rank up to five candidates, but no more than five, even if more than five candidates are on the ballot. This meant that a state legislature could limit the number of candidates that voters could rank on that state’s Presidential ballot to no more than just two candidates. The likelihood of some states doing just this was matched by the foreboding specifics of historic precedence. In the 2017 race for Mayor of Minneapolis, for instance, 31 candidates ran, but voters could rank only their three favorites. Critics observed how this was a major flaw in the city’s ranked-choice system, as many ballots were exhausted before the final round, resulting in the ultimate victor doing so with a majority of the final round of votes but a plurality of all votes cast.
This was the second major issue, that RCV elections has the ability to produce “plurality winners” just like the Electoral College did in 2008 and 2012.
Let’s say 10% of ballots are exhausted by the time of the final vote tally between the top two vote-getters. That means that if 100 originally cast a vote, the final round includes 90 of those ballots. The winner can have a majority of the remaining ballots with just 46 votes, thus winning the election, while still falling short of the 51-vote majority based on the total votes cast. A large number of candidates can lead to more ballot exhaustion.
Proponents argue that ranked-choice winners still receive a majority more often than not, and that the average percentage of ballots exhausted is comparable to the percentage of voters who would not show up for a runoff election scheduled after the initial election. Furthermore, under first-past-the-post systems previously established in places like New York City,
one could win a special election with a very low share of the vote, if there were many candidates. In primaries, the first-place finisher could win with just 40% of the vote. As Tumbleweed Media previously reported, “according to an analysis done by Common Cause, just 35% of multi-candidate primaries in the city’s last three pre-RCV election cycles were won by a candidate that had won a majority of the vote. Furthermore, in that same time period, about roughly 30% of multi-candidate primaries for City Council were won with less than 50% of the vote.” Nevertheless, anti-RCV sources repeatedly pointed to exhausted ballots in the weeks and months following the nation’s first NI.
Thirdly, under RCV, a candidate can achieve a majority before there are only two left, but counting still continues. This person has already technically already won, but completing the rounds of vote counting ensures that the most number of people will have their votes count in the final round. Critics of RCV alleged that this “extraneous” process takes up too much time, delaying the election’s results by hours, if not days on some occasions, and thus having the potential to “severely disrupt and negatively impact the stock market and America’s foreign relations by shrouding the election winner in hours of uncertainty.”
And fourthly, THN and other sites repeatedly wondered if undecided voters would rank their candidates – randomly, in the order they appear on the ballot, et cetera. To answer this, supporters of RCV turned to citywide elections of the past, and suggested that undecided voters would lean to the former, rather than the latter, but anti-RCV talking heads continued to assert that there was an apparent lack of research on this point…
– Pat Sheffield and Rachel Joy Scott-Ireland’s Voices And Votes: The History of the National Initiative Amendment, Tumbleweed Publications, 2021 [3]
PIRRO CONFIRMS ENDING JUDGE JEANINE
…the 67-year-old former Circuit Judge announced that she wanted to “enjoy [her] retirement” after nearly 13 years of overseeing arbitration cases on The Herring Network…
– The Hollywood Reporter, 1/19/2019
...Courtroom TV began in the late 1940s with fictional drama shows based on real-life cases. The rise of Reality TV programs in the 1980s eclipsing with the real-world drama of the Lukens Hush Money Scandal of the late 1980s, though, led to the rise of arbitration-based reality court shows. These new programs differed from their predecessors by using legitimate judges and lawyers and covering actual lawsuits, rather than using actors or recreations. These shows included The People’s Real Court (a spinoff of The People’s Court), Tough Justice, Throw the Book, and Court Justice, but the most popular of them all was Judge Judy, hosted by Judy Sheindlin (Assistant US Attorney General under US President Carol Bellamy, 1991-1993) upon its premier in 1994.
Pirro won the Republican nomination for Westchester County’s US Congressional seat in 2004, but lost in the general election by a margin of 14%; she began working in television soon after, appearing on TON and KNN as a “counterpoint” contributor. Believing Judge Judy had a “liberal bias,” Pirro began working with THS. In 2006, the conservative-leaning network began to broadcast “Judge Jeanine,” which was promoted as an “alternative” to Judge Judy, and hosted by Pirro…
– clickopedia.co.usa/Jeanine_Pirro
CIRCUIT COURT REJECTS CASE, INHIBITING ATTEMPT TO THROW OUT NIA RESULTS
…Efforts led by the Attorney General of Wyoming to take the pro-RCV results of last year’s National Initiative to court have taken a debilitating hit. The NIA’s results confirmed that a clear majority of voters approved of changing presidential elections so they are determined by a nationally-held Ranked Choice Voting election, also known as an Instant Runoff Voting election, with the Electoral College serving as a backup…
…Meanwhile, North Carolina’s majority-Republican state legislature continues to process a recount in response to far-right political action groups claiming that the state did not “legitimately” vote in favor of implementing Ranked-choice voting in last November’s National Initiative. This result is highly unlikely to overturn the state’s results or even find evidence of wrongdoing…
– The Washington Post, 1/22/2019
Co-Anchor Julie BIDWELL: “Now, could someone, for instance, put down their preferred candidate in second place and leave the first place spot blank as, like, some kind of protest?”
Guest Panelist and former NRC Communications Director Matt GORMAN: “You can, but if your candidate doesn’t win enough votes in the first round, he could be eliminated in the first round, rendering your ballot moot.”
Co-Anchor Hans VON SPAKOVSKY: “Now that point right there is the tragic thing about this new system. They’re called exhausted ballots. It can actually be a major problem next year because if you don’t vote for a major candidate, then you’re not involved in the final round of voting.”
Contributor Karl ROVE: “Yes, which is probably why the elitists of the country supported this thing from the get-go. It suppresses all the minor parties, like the Liberty party, the Values party, even the Bigfooters! For the first time ever, people voting for President will only have two major choices, or no choice at all, in the final election night results. That’s not democracy! I’m telling you, Americans got scammed on this!”
– THN, 1/23/2019 broadcast
“…and in the world of entertainment, the noted gun smuggler known as ‘Tommy Gun Thompson’ is reportedly in talks with Paramount Pictures to negotiate and finalize a movie deal based on Thompson’s best-selling autobiography…”
– TumbleweedTV, 1/24/2019 broadcast
JOHN MAHONEY IS DEAD: “Frasier” Actor Was 78
[pic:
imgur.com/lhU7wuG.png ]
Above: Mahoney with Kelsey Grammer during the filming of “Frasier”
– The Hollywood Reporter, 1/25/2019
PRESIDENT PAYS TRIBUTE TO “FRASIER” CO-STAR
Washington, D.C. – Yesterday evening, we learned the saddening news that veteran stage and screen actor John Mahoney passed away yesterday morning from the effects of throat cancer at the age of 78. The actor was most famous for his role as Frasier Crane's dad Martin on the popular sitcom “Frasier.” Mahoney played the role alongside Kelsey Grammer for eleven years, from 1993-2004, before Grammer launched his political career.
While those that worked with Mahoney were paying tribute to the star ontech yesterday, Grammer made no official comment. However, this is not surprising, given that the President is known for paying his respects for the recently-deceased in official press briefings instead of through ontech social media posts.
Following this precedence, the President made a short but poignant comment on Mahoney’s passing at today’s White House Press Briefing. Leaving the subject until the end of the meeting, President Grammer appeared somber as the topic arrived, confirmed a report that he had spoken with Mahoney “two days ago” and with a deep sigh, cast his eyes downward, and simply noted, “He was my father. I loved him.”
[4] Grammer then briefly paused, possibly holding back tears, and then politely concluded the meeting. Mahoney and Grammer had a deep friendship that stayed strong even after Grammer moved into political office and Mahoney’s health declined, with Mahoney attending both of Grammer’s Presidential inaugurations and the two men visiting and vidcalling each other frequently, according to a 2018 report by entertainment.co.usa…
– entertainment.co.usa, 1/26/2019
JOSEPH A. BUTTIGIEG
(May 20, 1947 – January 27, 2019)
St. Louis, MO – With his family by his side, Joseph A. “Joe” Buttigieg of Chesterfield, age 71, passed away peacefully on Sunday, January 27, at Memorial Hospital after an undisclosed illness. Joseph was born in Hamrun, Malta to Maria Concetta Portelli and Joseph Buttigieg, the eldest of eight siblings. After earning a Bachelors and a Masters degrees from the University of Malta and a B.Phil in Oxford, UK, Joseph moved to the US to earn a doctorate at NYU in 1976, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1979. In 1976, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he met Donna Campbell. They were married on September 14, 1979, and in 1980 moved to St. Louis. Joseph then served on the faculty of St. Louis University as a professor of English from 1980 until he retired in 2017.
Joseph was an accomplished writer, publishing numerous treatises on a plethora of topics. Along with articles, essays, and textbooks, Joseph also wrote nonfiction books on Italian thinkers and extensively annotated translations of Italian books.
All who knew Joe will remember him as a brilliant and energetic man with a passion for academia. His wife Donna, daughters Maria and Bella (b. 1980 and 1982, respectively) remember him as a loving father and husband fond of travel and loyal to friends and family…
– The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri newspaper, obituaries section, 1/28/2019 [5]
To: Mahmoud
From: Ledington
Update: Sales Team shows another good year of growth. Improvement most likely attributed to improving sanitation standards (upcoming report: investing in hiring one additional custodian for every outlet in 2017 has improved customer satisfaction 50% and sales 25%!)
More at tomorrow’s in-place meeting.
– KFC internal memo, KFC HQ in Florence, KY, 1/29/2019
RUSSIA-ERITREA SCANDAL: Nikolayev-Appointed Review Board Claims Nikolayev Is Not Guilty Of Any Wrongdoing
– The Chicago Tribune, 2/1/2019
RUSSIA IN TURMOIL: Moscow Police Clash With Protestors Demanding A “Real” Probe Into The Russia-Ertirea Scandal
– bbc.co.uk./world_news, 2/2/2019 news e-alert
…By 2019, Europe’s economy was overall back on its feet from the results of the Great European Recession of 2013. Soon, western businesses turned their attention to the increasingly prominent palm oil production competition occurring between two longtime-dominant producers and palm oil plant industry giants – Indonesia and Gabon. The palm oil plant is native to Gabon and some surrounding areas, and favorable weather patterns, coupled with both nations enjoying a stable government during much of the 2000s and 2010s decades, led to palm oil production booming to its best years in decades. 2018 alone beat several production records for the two nations, according to a February 2019 report. This success led to Gabon and Indonesia received more worldwide attention, but it also led to a rise in tension between the two nations, as each sought to dominate the other in the industry…
– clickopedia.co.usa/history_of_Gabon
TOP TEN HOTEL CHAINS
[Selected Subdivision: Economy, Midscale, {
Upscale}, Luxury]
1 > Hilton Inn < (open)
2 > Embassy < (open)
3 > Sheraton < (open)
4 < Howard Johnson’s > (close)
[snip]
Fun Fact: This multi-industry Howard Johnson Company brand is also known for its chain of roughly 100 restaurants of the same name being found across the US, down from its apex of 1,000 restaurants in the 1970s. For continuing the chain’s existence, we may be able to thank restaurant entrepreneur John Y. Brown Jr. for investing in the restaurant chain when HJC entered dire financial straits after with the recession of 1978. Brown became further involved in HJC in 1984, after Brown lost a bid for public office. Brown’s work during this era allowed the restaurants to rebound, leading to them still being around today.
Most comparative prices:
Diodendro (the arguably classier alternative to
Double Tree) and the midscale-class
Oasis Inns. See locations
here.
5 > Best Western < (open)
6 > Four Seasons < (open)
7 > Aloft Hotels < (open)
8 > La Quinta < (open)
9 > Quality < (open)
10 > Destination < (open)
– triptips.co.usa, c. February 2019
…Australia has officially become the sixth country in the world to completely legalize the sale and use of all forms of cannabis …The other nations with such laws are Uruguay, Hungary, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. …In the United States, the sale and use of recreational and medical cannabis is legal in nearly half of their states, but was decriminalized at the federal level in 2006…
– BBC World News, 10/2/2019 broadcast
…We can now confirm reports that two African-American teenagers were shot and killed by Chicago police earlier today in what is being described by eyewitnesses as ‘a non-criminal incident,’…
– KNN Breaking News, 2/11/2019 broadcast
POLICE CHIEF: Cops Who Shot Teens Will Be Investigated, But Adds “They Were In a Tough Spot”
– The Chicago Tribune, 2/12/2019
America in 1776: Die, Brit!
America in The 1800s: Die, Indian!
America in The 1900s: Die, druggie!
America Now: Die, robot!
Always America All The Time: die, Black!
– divisive lafpic that went fervid in late February 2019; first posted ontech 2/13/2019
“After days of protests over Chicago PD refusing to release the bodycam footage until the completion of ‘proper procedure,’ as they put it, Governor Giannoulias convinced them to change the policy and release the two videos, one from each cop. It was an attempt to show the Governor’s upholding of the ideals of transparency and accountability in government. But it resulted in renewed calls for police precinct reform. So soon after the videos were released on the 16th, those chaotic images of two jumpy fair-skinned officers firing into two scared and visibly confused teens ignited outrage. The fury was not just ontech, but out in the real world, with peaceful protests, student sit-ins, and picketing boiling out into violent skirmishes with community security forces in the days and even weeks that followed.”
– former employee of Governor Giannoulias’ office, 2022 KNN interview
“Yes, we are launching an investigation into the conduct of those officers.”
– Sharon Fairley, state Attorney General (D-IL), 2/20/2019 press meeting
…With the US’s Corporate Tax Rate currently set to 20%, the Republican-led Senate has just, effectively, ‘killed’ a bill passed in the Democratic-led House to raise said tax rate to 25%...”
– CBS Evening News, 2/21/2019 broadcast
EXPERTS WARN SOCIAL SECURITY WILL RUN OUT OF MONEY IN THE YEAR 2070: “We Can Fix It Now, Or 50 Years From Now, When It’ll Be Catastrophically Worse.”
…“President Grammer has got to be bolder on this front, and begin the process of gradually weaning Americans off of this luxury before it is insolvent,” suggests billionaire businessman and entrepreneur Harold Hamm…
– The Wall Street Journal, 2/22/2019
WESLEY STUDI BECOMES THE FIRST CHEROKEE TO WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD
…David Fincher secured another Oscar, this time for directing the psychological romantic thriller “The Matterhorn Murders” starring Eleanor Bron and Tom Frost. Tom Kenny won an Oscar for his supporting role in that same film, marking his first nomination for an Oscar win in nearly 20 years and his first win overall. Tom Kenny rose to fame in the early 1990s after portraying Buddy Holly in an Emmy Award-winning miniseries in the spring of 1990…
– The Los Angeles Times, 2/24/2019
MOTHER-POST: Which John Candy film is the best?
Growing up, my favorite movies were ones with John Candy, even ones where he has just a small role like Home Alone. While his filmography is not without a few duds (Delirious, anyone?), pretty much all of his films were either hilarious, touching or both. Uncle Buck has got to be the best example of this, but I think his funniest is The Great Outdoors, where he starred alongside the gone-too-soon legend Dan Aykroyd. It’s close, but I think Uncle Buck’s his best film. Any thoughts?
>REPLY 1:
I liked his performance in Uncle Buck Returns (2014), the often-overlooked sequel to the classic ’80s original, with all of the original cast. Wasn’t it one of his last films?
>REPLY 1 to REPLY 1:
It was, and you can really tell that he was on the decline. He was very mellow, kind of toned down, and it think that was because his weight kept fluctuating I don’t think the character was supposed to be like that. His health was slowly going out the door.
>REPLY 1 to REPLY 1 to REPLY 1:
It’s even worse in that movie he made right after his third heart attack. It was only a supporting role, but he looked like a wreck in that one. It’s very sad.
>REPLY 2:
My favorite one is Bartholemew vs. Neff, 1993. Sylvester Stallone (Jack Neff) and John Candy (S. Stuyvesant Bartholomew IV) as rival neighbors in a star-studded action-dramedy.
[6] Awesome movie, good stuff!
>REPLY 3:
I have to say Uncle Buck
>REPLY 4:
The Great Outdoors, definitely – it’s got so many great scenes!
>REPLY 5:
Only The Lonely – his first real “serious” role; he should have won an award for it!
>REPLY 1 to REPLY 5:
Nah, he shoulda won an Oscar for Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He gave such an emotional and stellar performance in that one!
>REPLY 6:
I agree, Uncle Buck was his best role. I’ve got a soft spot for it. But I’ve also got a soft spot for Who’s Harry Crumb? Part Two (1998). It was better than the first and it’s a good movie to put on from time to time, like most of his movies, but Splash is also my Number 1 favorite. But that’s just a personal preference.
>REPLY 7:
Great Outdoors is the best John Candy film and I will fight whoever wants to fight me on this
>REPLY 8:
Pocahontas, where he voiced Tom the Turkey
>REPLY 9:
Iacocca, that dramatic psikological thriller from 2011. Weird movie, but his role as CIA Director Studeman was pretty good.
>REPLY 1 to REPLY 9:
I like Candy because he was able to make people laugh. I respect him because he was able to laugh at himself. His honestly and warm charm won people over. I’ve never met someone who hated him. He usually stuck to comedy while others like Belushi and Farley worked tirelessly to be taken seriously, taking all these serious roles, but ironically, Candy was taken seriously without needing to be in any dramas. The fact that he was in a few dramatic roles just shows how talented the man was, and the fact that he didn’t make it the main focus of his career just shows how humble he was about those talents.
>REPLY 10:
It’s only been five months, but I’m still glad to see that so many people remember him. He made so many smile. RIP, JC 1950-2018
>REPLY 1 to REPLY 10:
JC’s with JC now, laughing it up with Aykroyd and Radner. Peace, y’all.
– euphoria.co.usa, a public pop-culture news-sharing and chat-forum-hosting netsite, 2/25/2019
…The White House was elated by the Treasury Department’s February 28 confirmation that, for the first time in 21 years, the US had a national surplus ($32billion, versus a federal budget of $4.9trillion) instead of an evenly balanced budget. Because the Balanced Budget Amendment’s wording is ambiguous as to what to do with budget surpluses, multiple groups began lobbying for federal funds almost immediately. Cabinet members that had previously dealt with small budgets in order to keep the feds in the red were calling in favors from previous times, quick to remind the President of times in 2013 and 2014, and even 2017 and 2018, when budget cutbacks needed.
Meanwhile, the President personally wanted to put the money into Social Security. Vice President Brown contrasted this idea with the suggestion, “How about we just give the money to the people? It’s
their tax money, isn’t it? So let’s just Pull a New Jersey and start sending out little checks. Everyone gets a few hundred bucks, one-time-only deal.”…
– historian Jane Mackaman’s What Principles Endure: An Examination of The Grammer Presidency, Vintage E-Books, 2022
DALLAIRE WINS P.L. LEADERSHIP RACE
…former diplomat Romeo Dallaire (QC) won over initial favorite France Chretien Desmarais (QC), with Helen Joanne Leadbeater (ON), Peter Stoffer (NS), Niki Ashton (MB), Christy Clark (BC) and Pierre Ducasse (QC) all failing to gather much momentum after the first round of voting…
– The Toronto Star, 3/3/2019
…By March, more market activities indicated economic woe for Russia. The nation’s consumers were spending less, which was hurting company cash flows. Talk of several large telecommunications companies in the NDRR laying off workers began to pick up.
In Moscow, President Nikolayev warned, “we should advise them to not do that. Laying off their workforce will contribute to the uptick in the unemployment rate and contribute even more so to the drop in consumer spending. Lower productivity is the problem, so tell them,” he ordered his labor advisors, “to raise production and temporarily drop prices on unnecessary items in order to incentivize people to spend money on them.”
“Why not drop the prices of basic commodities?” One of the advisors reportedly asked nervously.
The President eyed the speaker, and answered slyly, “People need basics, so they’re willing to pay for them. But they can go without extraneous frills.”
The rumors of impending major economic issues renewed Nikolayev’s interest in taking on the “strongman” persona that he believed his country had been lacking on the world stage for years. Contemplating his next move amid market concerns and opposition investigations into the actions of Russian military personnel in Eritrea, the President observed a troubling pattern in Russian history. “We were in shambles in the 1940s, but we got ourselves together and picked ourselves up in the 1950s and 1960s. And we were roaring, soaring, in the 1970s, only to collapse and be in shambles again the 1980s. But we got ourselves together and picked ourselves up again in the 1990s and 2000s, and now we were roaring and soaring in the 2010s…”
– Hanspeter Kriesi and Takis S. Pappas’ In The Shadow of The Great European Recession, ECPR Press, 2021
TEXAS U SCHOOL OF LAW DEAN RETIRES
…The Dean of the University of Texas School of Law finally stepped down today to begin her retirement. Sarah Weddington, 74, had led the school for roughly 14 years. Prior to entering a career of academia, Weddington served as a progressive Democrat in the US House of Representatives from 1981 to 1985. After losing re-election in 1984, Weddington declined running for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1986, then unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in 1988. Weddington then worked as legal advisor on women’s rights for the US Justice Department under President Bellamy before joining the staff of the U of Texas School of Law in 1993…
– houstonchronicle.co.usa, 3/7/2019 [7]
NO GAS CARS FOR YOU! Governor Healey Signs Controversial Order Banning Gas Car Sales In Massachusetts By 2030
…oil companies are outraged at this new oppressive action, with former the former CEO of Chevron saying earlier today that “this kind of thing should be illegal. It violates the constitutional right to private enterprise to say you can’t sell something. Let the people decide if they want electric cars. Don’t make it their only option! The President’s Justice Department has address egregious action immediately.”…
– The Wall Street Journal, 3/9/2019
BROWN’S LATEST “HARLEYISM” POLARIZES THE TECHNET (AGAIN)
…at a private fundraiser, the Vice President of the United States gave a speech in which he reiterated his opposition to the IRS and his proposal of abolishing it. During the speech, a hot mic caught him joke, “The difference between the IRS and a whore is that a whore will quit screwing you after you’re dead.”
[H1] The comment has brought about a storm of disapproving comments ontech, mostly from people who believe the comment either is offensive to women, is offensive to sex workers, is inappropriate, is rhetoric unbecoming of the Vice President of the US, or all four. Supporters of Brown, however, are coming to the Vice President’s defense once more, and are again using the rebuttal “it’s just a joke”…
– usarightnow.co.usa, 3/10/2019
“As an American, I often choose
to vigorously exercise my God-given right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Lots of people have got a problem with that, but it’s ironic because they’re exercise the same right to free speech that I have to tell me I shouldn’t exercise it.
As a former stand-up comic and stag party master-of-ceremonies, I am certain of my God-given talent to make people laugh and therefore classify Harleyisms to be good, both good and positive, not to mention outrageous.
Because here’s the thing, people – telling jokes is a great ice-breaker, and the laughter you hear in the tape shows that I wasn’t alone in thinking that my jab at the IRS was funny. And that’s the thing I wanted to say – I was not insulting any ladies-of-the-evening or whatever they want to be called. I was not going after them, I was going after the IRS. Anyone with a sense of humor would understand that.”
– US Vice President Harley Davidson Brown (R-ID)’s 3/12/2019 “apology,” Washington DC press meeting [9]
…TON’s answer to the UK’s Pop Idol was American Idol, which reached peak popularity during the SARS pandemic of 2002-2004. This was due to the fact, similar to animation and voice acting, the show’s production format was not significantly impacted by safezoning measures. The same was true to Jeopardy and many other game shows where the judges stood opposite from contestants. …CBS’s NCIS, ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, and CBS’s survivor dominated the post-SARS TV scene, with ABC’s Grey Anatomy, and the USA Network’s Get A Clue finishing off the decade.
American television at the start of the 2010s saw TumbleweedTV’s Undercover Health Inspector top the charts, while NBC’s Louisville Medical siphoned viewers away from other medical dramas. The TV show Child’s Play was considered an “innovative” game-changer upon its premier in the mid-2010s, and joined CBS’s Blue Bloods in being dominating the programming scene in the late 2010s. Concurrently, NBC’s America’s Got Talent competed against America’s Funniest Home Videos, but failed to pull in enough viewers, resulting in its cancellation in March 2019…
– usarightnow.co.usa/pop-culture, 2021 e-article
NASCAR, TON REACH LANDMARK DEAL
…ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series in November, NASCAR and The Overmyer Network (TON) have agreed to an extended and expanded contract in order to sanction an agreement with all tracks…
– nascar.co.usa/news, 3/18/2019
Maria de Lourdes Hinojosa Ojeda (b. 1961) is a Mexican-American news anchor and journalist. She has been the host and producer of the bilingual radio program Latino USA on NPR since 1992, and has headed TV programs on CBS, NPR, and KNN. Hinojosa’s coverage of the “recreadrug wars” in South America and Central America (and, later, Mexico), during the 1980s and 1990s propelled her career and made her a well-known figure in Mexico. The rise in fame from the coverage has led to her often being considered one of the most influential Hispanic women in media in both the US and Mexico since the late 1990s. After hosting her own news segment on Telemundo from 2008 to 2018, she was selected to be co-anchor of TON’s most-watched program, TON Nighttime News, in March 2018…
– clickopedia.co.usa, c. March 2019
…In Olympia, the capital of Washington state, Governor Novoselic was fuming over his own party’s difficulty in reaching an internal quorum during a recent fiscal crisis. His comments, the most critical of several choice words that he had shared about his own party yet, sparked rumors that he was considering running for re-election not on a Democratic ticket, but as a proposed “Libertarian Grange” nominee. Uncertainty over Novoselic’s political future was soon compounded by Kurt Cobain expressing interest in running for President in a March 2019 Tumbleweed Media interview, saying “If I did [run], it’d be on a mental wellness platform, and I’d maybe ask Krist if he wanted to be my running mate.”…
– Marianne Halperin’s Uncharted Waters: Dynamics and Destiny in The 2020 Election, Penguin publishing, 2021
JERRY LITTON, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, IS DEAD AT 81
…The Litton family’s spokesperson did not specify the former Vice President’s cause of death, only mentioning that it was “related” to recent hospital visits. Those visits had led to speculation that Litton was suffering either from a return of cancer, or from the long-term effects of SARS. Litton survived cancer in 1995 and again in 2008, and had tested positive for SARS in early 2003 but had seemingly recovered…
– The Washington Post, 3/28/2019
[pic:
imgur.com/Cb1fVud.png ]
– clickopedia.co.usa
“Eritrea could learn something from the Yemens. South Yemen, which is farther north than North Yemen and should be called East Yemen, and North Yemen, which should be called West Yemen, given how they are on the map, are divided, but they are stronger because of it. Sure, the occasional war breaks out over where their borderlines should be, but once that’s finally settled the fighting should stop. But what I want to say is that the non-communist Yemen, North Yemen, got rudimentary free markets in the post-SARS era, so it’s a decentralized version of its former self, and it’s only benefited its government and its people. And their people are able to vote on which communists are elected to their congress, The Supreme People’s Council, thanks to an Election Board that almost always accepted the people’s choices. Almost always. But still, they’re better off than Eritrea’s dictatorship, which has neither basic free markets nor free elections! Meanwhile, North Yemen, the one near Djibouti, makes profit as a transportation hub for ships passing through the Red Sea. Eritrea’s dictatorship could also pick up on some of that trade cash cow if some explained the profitability of international commerce to their leader.”
– contributor Bill Kristol, KNN segment on the Russia-Eritrea Scandal, 3/30/2019 broadcast
CHIEF JUSTICE CHAIKA ORDERS PROSECUTOR-GENERAL RELEASE DETAILS OF CONTROVERSIAL REVIEW BOARD
– The Motherland Times, Russian newspaper, 4/4/2019
GRAMMER ANNOUNCES PLAN TO PLACE REMAINING SURPLUS INTO SOCIAL SECURITY
…Cabinet and cabinet-level departments of the federal government received slices of the surplus pie after weeks of members of Grammer’s cabinet reportedly meeting repeatedly with the President. The remaining $15billion left of the $32billion surplus from late February will be allotted to the OASDI program, invested into Social Security to extent its “depletion date” feared by conservative analysts and pundits, including SBA Administrator Dave Ramsey (R-TN). The exact distribution will be laid out in the congressional budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which congress has scheduled to be released in June of this year...
– The New York Times, 4/5/2019
…Republicans in congress locked horns with another country in April 2019 when US Senator Mae Beavers called for denying Iraq “Most Favored Nation” Status due to “their history of cultural, ethnic, and religious controversies.” Iraqi Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani called the proposal “hypocritical,” saying “every nation on Earth would be justified in doing the same to America on the exact same grounds!”
In international economic relations and international politics, most favored nation (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must nominally receive equal trade advantages as the "most favored nation" by the country granting such treatment (trade advantages include low tariffs or high import quotas). In effect, a country that has been accorded MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status by the promising country. [10]
In order to avoid accusations of favoritism within the Middle East from sprouting up, Grammer vidcalled al-Shahristani and apologized for the Senator’s “unprofessional” remarks, even though Beavers herself never apologized for voicing her “isolationist” proposal…
– historian Jane Mackaman’s What Principles Endure: An Examination of The Grammer Presidency, Vintage E-Books, 2022
FRESHMAN CONGRESSMAN BACKS “FREER” US-JAPAN TRADE
…Clyde Kusatsu (b. 1948, D-CA), former National VP of thru SAG-AFTRA L.A. Local from 2013 to 2018, is a former actor and trade union leader of Japanese descent who believes that Japan “can and will” play fairly if granted more tariff-free trade options…
– The San Francisco Chronicle, 4/12/2019
GRAMMER VETOES MAJOR SPENDING BILL!
…Democrats in the Senate managed to scrape away enough GOP votes to pass the bill, only for the President to buck Congress’ effort to turn it into national law. “The President’s veto will very likely not be overridden; we just don’t have enough votes for it,” explains US Senate Minority Whip William Tong (D-CT). “Grammer claims that the veto is to stand up for libertarianism, but it’s clear that he is actually just doing this to oppose and obstruct the actions and progress of the Democratic party, similarly to how former Speaker McMaster used to.”…
– The Washington Post, 4/14/2019
Prosecutor-General Launches Probe Into Chief Justice Chaika’s Former Business Connections
…the announcement comes just two days after the Prosecutor-General released a copy of the report made by the justice department’s controversial review board earlier this year. The cop instead is controversial for omitting multiple paragraphs, which the Kremlin spokesperson stated was due to said passages containing “classified contents and other sensitive” information…
– The Motherland Times, Russian newspaper, 4/17/2019
T.G.T. IDENTITY REVEALED!
…with Tommy Gun Thompson working on a movie deal, it was inevitable that his beans would be spilled! It turns out that criminal-turned-collaborator T.G.T. is neither a Tommy nor a Thomspon; the notorious gun smuggler was born Matthew Bevan Cox on July 7, 1969 in Florida
[11]. Thompson/Cox began his life of crime as a manipulator of documentation. FBI documents leaked ontech shows that he was suspected of committing bank fraud, ID theft, and passport fraud, and was about to be put under surveillance when he seemingly disappeared in 1992. Thompson/Cox did not describe his early life in his best-selling autobiography, instead describing how he entered the gun smuggling game in 1992 at age 23, because “my post-college income, working as an insurance agent, was low, and the job itself was boring.” Thompson/Cox claims that this led to him becoming a travel agent, and eventually made contact with the criminal underworld amid ongoing drug smuggling in Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico during this time period... It is currently unknown how these revelations will impact film production going forward…
– The Los Angeles Times, 4/19/2019
IN HORIZON’S BLUE
Premiered: April 20, 2019
Genre(s): sci-fi/fantasy/horror/hidden history/action
Directed by: Uwe Boll
Written by: Norman Morrill and Uwe Boll
Produced by: Dean Heyde and Uwe Boll
Cast:
A. J. Clutterbuck as Richard Schirmacher
Gotz Otto as Capt. Alfred Ritscher
Raoul Bova as Ernst Hermann
Vincent Ricotta as Hans
Michael Cullen as Schultz
Peta Sergeant as Herzog
See Full List Here
Synopsis:
Believing the “Hollow Earth” theory is real, Hitler sends out a team of explorers to search Antarctica for an opening to the subterranean world described in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “Vril.” Reaching Queen Maud Land in 1939, the team, led by Capt. Alfred Ritscher (loosely based on the real person), quickly lays a claim to “New Swabia” and begin survey flights of the surrounding areas.
That evening, Ritscher explains to his First Mate, Richard Schirmacher (also loosely based on the real person) that their mission is based on reports of children with green skin coming from a sunless land being documented in Woolpit, England and Banjos, Spain
[12]. Through a flashback, he explains how he was part of a secret team of Nazis who visited the site of the latter sighting during the Spanish Civil War, and discovered a cave containing a map of tunnel networks indicating large openings at the Earth’s poles. From this, Hitler and other Nazis hypothesized that earthquakes are really the shockwaves of “excavation bombs” going off during the construction of such tunnels. Schirmacher is hesitant to agree with this theory.
The film jumps to 1942, where the two men and a team of others are now on an undocumented second voyage to New Swabia at the height of World War Two. On one unspecified day, one of the survey planes is lost and the team follow the trail made by its leaking fuel line. They follow it to a large tunnel in the group that the team spelunkers down and uncover a long dark tunnel. Continuing further downward into the tunnel, they team, led by its speleology experts, find the remains of the plane and pilot, but Ritscher, believing this is indeed the entrance to the Hollow Earth that they are looking for, forces the team, almost at gunpoint, to continue to travel into the tunnel.
After a montage showing the length and depth of the tunnel, and that it has taken the crew days to traverse it, the men are growing concerned of the passage becoming smaller and smaller. One of the team members, Ernst Hermann, panics and attempts a mutiny, leading to he and Schirmacher fighting over a shotgun that is accidently fired. Ricocheting off the rocks, the bullet causes the ground beneath them to give way, causing them to fall down a great distance before entering what seems to be a dead end. Furious, Ritscher angrily pushes on a rock that falls back, revealing light behind it. The team crawls through the narrow opening and enter a subterranean world with a small bright orb in its “sky,” which Ritscher dubs a “mini-sun.”
Exploring the vegetation, the men soon come across the fresh corpse of a human-like creature twice their size and wearing a militaristic uniform. Climbing a nearby ledge for a better view of what sounds like a battle raging on in the distance, they discover that this world is dominated by 12-foot-tall demon-like humanoid creatures of uncertain origin in the middle of a very destructive war, with steampunk-like aerial and land-based vessels firing upon one another and large mushroom-shaped explosions going off in the far distance.
Horrified by the thought that if the team, and their entrance into the hollow earth are discovered by these giants, they will break out and take over the surface world. With Hermann’s help, Schirmacher mutinies again Ritscher (who believes that the seemingly-emotionless “Man-Gods” and the Nazis will rule the surface “and the galaxy…together”), knocking him unconscious and returning to the tunnel with a large technologically-advanced device pulled from the corpse of the soldier giant. The film cuts to a larger section of the tunnel, where Schirmacher detonates one of the giant’s explosives in order to seal in the entrance. In doing so, the device is destroyed and the team is almost killed as the explosion is larger than they expected it to be.
Upon reaching the surface, Ritscher swears he will have Schirmacher hung for treason upon their return to Berlin. The subsequent skirmish causes a rockslide that buries the entrance to the tunnel. When the team finally arrives in Europe, they discover that it is 1945 and must seek asylum in Spain as the allies seek out remaining Nazis. They conclude that time must “run faster” the subterranean world, as they believed that they had only been gone for three months, not three years. Nevertheless, with the war lost, along with seemingly all evidence of the subterranean world being gone as well, Ritscher threatens to “somehow” have Schirmacher put on trial on fabricated allegations of sabotage, but the rest of the team comes to Schirmacher’s defense, and the captain finally relents, though not after a one-on-one shootout.
The film ends with Schirmacher attending Ritscher’s funeral in 1963. A sliver of the technologically-advanced device, the only piece not lost during the trip, is placed on his tombstone. The device fragment begins to glow like it had before just before the screen cuts to black and the end credits roll.
Reception:
The film was heavily criticized for its historical, geographical, and scientific inaccuracies. The film also inaccurately portrayed major aspects of the Vril and Hollow Earth ideas. Critics panned the “nonsensical plot” and confusing ending, and criticized the poor acting and CRI effects. Critics and audiences complained about the film spending too much time in poorly-lit caves and tunnels, and not enough time exploring the land of the giants, with Richard Roeper remarking “this is not even interesting enough of a film to be one of those movies that is ‘dumb but in a good way’” and calling its plot “a poorly-researched hodgepodge of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.” Audiences complained that the film was “a letdown even by Boll standards,” and criticized the character’s actions as “nonsensical,” especially “the protagonists just agreeing to travel back to Berlin with the captain they just mutinied against because they think they can win him over during the trip - a trip we don’t even get to see,” as one top-liked ontech reviewer put it. The film was considered a box office bomb, with the production studio reportedly losing “millions” on its release.
Trivia Facts:
Trivia Fact No. 1:
The film has developed a very small cult following among white supremacists, leading to the film being banned in Germany and even its director distancing himself from the project, calling the movie “the only mistake I’ve ever made.”
– mediarchives.co.usa
MICHAEL CHE (Weekend Update co-host): “US Treasury Secretary Gary Johnson today praised President Grammer’s vetoing of a bill to expand the Endangered Species Act, with a bizarre ramble on T.O.N. about the importance of keeping nature both alone and in line, and about how certain animals are simply destined to die. For more on this, here’s Secretary Gary Johnson!”
Richard ROXBURGH (guest star, portraying GARY JOHNSON): “Hey, [pant] great to [pant] be here.”
CHE: “Oh, you okay? You sound out of breath.”
ROXBURGH: “Well, I did [pant] run all the way [pant] here from D.C., Michael.”
CHE: “Right, because you’re a health nut.”
ROXBURGH: “No, because I refuse to take public transportation.” [during pause for laughter, takes gulp from a Beachrat Energy drink. “Yeah, that’s the stuff. Now don’t get me wrong, Michael, I do love to cycle and run. Why do you think I don’t have any eyebrows? I’m more aerodynamic without them! But the maglev trains of the eastern seaboard are a slippery slope. First it’s trains on only one rail, then it’ll be cyclists on only one bicycle. Then all cyclist will have to share. And sharing isn’t libertarian!”
CHE: “Well, then how about backing the expanding of the Endangered Species Act to protect the libertarianism of animals? Animals don’t pay taxes, thus animals are libertarian.”
ROXBURGH: “Because maximum government means minimum freedom, Michael. Regulations don’t make people responsible, it just takes people super-good at getting around red tape. We can’t let environmental oppression happen, because if it does, both humans and animals will suffer the consequences of excessive government intervention.”
CHE: “But Gary, species may die without proper protection.”
ROXBURGH: “No protection?”
CHE: “Nope, none.”
ROXBURGH: “Then here’s the answer – arm the animals. Strap knives to the wings of geese. Wire pistols to the antlers of deer. That should keep their homes and themselves protected from hunters and developers. And it'll be a boost to gun sellers, too! That’s what you call libertarianism! Whoo! I am so pumped up!”
MICHAEL CHE (Weekend Update co-host): “That guy’s been hanging out with Harley Brown for too long.”
– transcript segment, “Weekend Update” sketch, SNL, Saturday 4/27/2019
[pic:
imgur.com/LYKbvYA.png ]
– thumbnail for a video covering the 2017 Pinnacle-Sirena Collision and the then-ongoing legal proceedings stemming from it, uploaded to ourvids.co.can by The Technet Historian, 28/4/2019
TOP TEN FAST FOOD FRIES, RANKED
The burger accompaniments known as fries has always been a welcomed addition to pretty much any meal, or even as the center of attention of one’s taste buds. However, their versatile use in dishes, diverse ways of being made, and wide array of complimentary condiments make for not all fries being equal. But, after analyzing the fries of the top ten fast food chains that sell them – from Arby’s to Zantigo – we can confidently present the following ranking list:
1 – McDonald’s – Sometimes, you just can’t beat the classics; this fast food giant’s Shoestring Fries have become the iconic go-to image of what any fry looks like; but decades-long brand recognition does not trick people into thinking these are delicious; it’s the real deal here.
2 – Arby’s – The chain’s glorious Curly Fries may be too fancy for some squares, with their heavenly internal fluff and coat of orangey spice; well, that’s just their loss and everyone else’s gain.
3 – Chick-fil-A – Their circular Waffle Fries pair up nicely with pretty much anything, and the ridged texture allow them to retain much of whatever you dunk them into, be it a dip, sauce, condiment or even smoothie.
4 – Zantigo – This taco chain’s classic and beloved Nacho Fries are known for being hard to resist; plowing through a biodegradable cup of these is a common side effect of eating here.
5 – Whataburger – Their Whatafries go great with the chain’s beefy burger, but the simple and savory sticks compliment any item on their menu.
6 – Culver’s – Crinkle Cuts are distinguishable from other fries with the unique seasoning blend infused into them, allowing them to taste great with the chain’s cheese curds, frozen custard, and other concoctions.
7 – KFC – Secret Recipe fries, offered alongside Secret Recipe Potato Wedges and the much older Classic Potato Wedges, were not part of Colonel Sanders’ original design for the menu but are a welcomed addition to it, even by “purist” KFC fans; introduced only a year ago, it turns out that applying The Colonel’s classic 11 Secret Herbs and Spices to fries is a brilliant idea – probably the company’s best ideas in years.
8 – White Castle – This chains Crinkle-Cuts, while similar to Culver’s fries, differ in regards to quality control; you can always rely on White Castle to serve up these servings of deep fried goodness, but them almost always serving up a least one underdone fry in each serving bumps them down on this list.
9 – Popeyes – One can’t go wrong with Cajun Fries, the somewhat-spicy pepper-flecked sheen of orangey culinary transcendence sold at this chain.
10 – Wendy’s – This “sister” of KFC sells perfectly pleasant “Thick Cut” Fries that harness the power of sea salt to offer delightful dining delicacies, but their reputation for fries with some flimsiness to them puts them at a disadvantage when compared to those on the rest of this list.
– thriller.co.usa, 4/29/2019
…Governor Flores today reversed former Governor Randy Quaid’s 2016 state law denying heating and air conditioning to confirmed sexual predators serving time in Nevada jails…
– KELY (1230 kHz) news/talk AM radio, Ely, Nevada, 4/30/2019 broadcast
RICHARD GREEN LUGAR DIES AT 87
…the longtime US Senator and 1988 Republican nominee for Vice President passed away from complications of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy…
– The Washington Post, 5/1/2019
SURVEY: KFC Customer Base Is “Diverse,” “Bipartisan”
[pic:
imgur.com/6nTk7wf.png ]
…both Democrats and Republicans sink their teeth or dentures into the soft birds at KFC…
– usarightnow.co.usa, 5/4/2019
PROJECT DAYBREAK
(released in the U.K. as DIMENSIONAL HUSKS)
Premiered: May 7, 2019
Genre(s): action/sci-fi/time-travel/philosophy/dramedy
Directed by: Lee Toland Krieger
Written by: Salvador Paskowitz and David X. Cohen
Produced by: Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Mark Canton
Cast: See Full List Here
Synopsis:
Guy Vernon (Mandy Patinkin) is a scientist in an intense rivalry with fellow scientist Petros Andros (Lee Evans) at an unnamed university. Andros may be promoted after his latest work wins several accolades and awards. Enraged and fueled by their bitter rivalry, and after years of research and testing, Vernon unlocks the secret to time travel and immediately uses it to go back in time to split up his rival’s parents so that his rival is never born. However, when he travels back to the present, he has a new rival (Vivica A. Fox) who is of different gender, ethnicity, appearance and background, but has the exact same personality, morals and ideas as his rival in the original timeline. He tries to alter the timeline again by travelling back through time again and splitting up this new rival’s parents, only for another rival (Jim Gaffigan) to have taken Andros’ place in this third timeline. Similarly, but not fully focused on, his assistant (Maddie Blaustein) keeps trying to show him something important.
After several more trips back through time, Vernon speculates about the nature of fate and destiny, as each time he travels back into time he tries to make it so he doesn’t have a rival, only for Divine Intervention to always course-correct history, probably because his rivalry is what drove him to discover time travel in the first place. He speculates further that his rival exists in some form or another because “we are all destined to be born, in one body or another. Just because you remove the mortal husk doesn’t mean you remove the soul from coming into existence.” On another trip back into time, Vernon kills his rival at the age 20. But when he returns to the present, his rival is twenty years younger, which Vernon then speculates is because “the soul just inhabited a newer newly-formed husk.” The trip after this exhausts him, prompting him to retire for the day. Returning home, he discover that his friendly neighbor (Jane Lynch) now despises him, because in this new timeline, she has three children instead of two, with the new third child being Vernon’s rival.
Vernon returns to his office the next day, defeated, and determined to resign from the university in disgrace for tampering with time travel and predetermination. However, before he can do so, his assistant finally manages to reveal to him evidence she discovered proving that his rival had plagiarized his latest work, which is what his assistants across the timelines kept discovering and trying to show him the whole time (it was never explicitly shown if his assistant was a different person each time, due to their face being obscured or the camera not focusing on them until this point in the film). Vernon presents this evidence to the school, leading to his rival (the last version being portrayed by Steve Buschemi) being fired.
Reception:
The film experienced a modest performance at the box office and received lukewarm-to-positive reviews from critics, with its witty writing often being singled out for its ability to successfully balance sci-fi elements with philosophical contemplation. It currently has a cult following that is “small, but growing.”
– mediarchives.co.usa
“…With bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition, congress has struck down a proposed bill to lower the National Minimum Drinking Age from 22 to 18. The drinking age, established in the 1980s under President Denton, has in recent years been scrutinized heavily by libertarian Republicans such as Senator Rand Paul of North Carolina, who have in the past proposed removing the national limit altogether and letting drinking ages be established at the state level. This latest bill to lower the NMDA, however, was introduced by Democrats who argued that its limit was 22 is no longer necessary, in light of the rise in semi-self-driving cars and historic drops in drunk-driving incidents due to a rise in public transportation use in many urban areas. However, the combination of progressive Democrats, libertarian Republicans, and pro-States Rights Republicans were unable to convince other lawmakers, especially many in the GOP who credit the NMDA for the slight drop in alcohol-related incidents on college campuses across the US over the past three decades..”
– CBS Evening News, 5/11/2019 broadcast
AMERICAN PIE SELLS FOR $2.1M
…Don McLean is the singer-songwriter best known for his 1971 hit single “American Pie,” an 8.5-minute folk rock song with abstract lyrics of unspecified meaning. Considered an iconic song of the era, the original manuscript for it, containing the lyrics and sheet music, was sold today at Christie’s New York for a whopping $2.1m. …Most believe McLean’s single concerns the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation at the turn of the 1960s decade, with the deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valence and The Big Bopper in a plane crash working almost as a prelude to the chaos and innocence lost in The Cuba War of the 1960s and the shoutnik movement that was born out of it. However, the song also touches on the music scene of the rest of the 1960s and on the Ms. Arkansas Scandal’s subsequent 1970 Arkwave. For example, the lyrics describing a Queen checkmating a King may refer to the Ms. Arkansas Scandal being described at the time as upending male dominance in American society, and the line refering to “dirt under the board” may be a reference to the social movement exposing acts of sexual pestering…
– usarightnow.co.usa, 5/15/2019
NASA CONTRACT WITH GLENN HORIZONS SPARKS DIVERSE REACTIONS IN INDUSTRY; Allies, Rivals Seek Further Details
…the exclusive $3.5billion contract to help NASA return to the front of the space industry with the planned launch of a “Lunar Bot Hub” was finalized after NASA Director J. Preston Bezos and the private space company negotiated contract specifics for weeks, after Glenn Horizons won an intense bidding process...
– popularscience.co.usa, 5/19/2019
WALESA BECOMES POLAND’S NEW PRESIDENT
…Poland’s President-elect Jaroslaw Leszek Walesa (b. 1976), a “pragmatic” politician of the Solidarity Party was sworn into office today. …On May 2, Walesa won the race to succeed the increasingly unpopular incumbent President Krystyna Bochenck of the Civility Party. Walesa’s final challenger was Jerzy Szmajdzinski (b. 1954) of the Democratic Left Alliance, after all other candidates failing to achieve more than 4% of the total national vote…
– The Daily Telegraph, 5/23/2019
[pic:
imgur.com/en6EdTR.png ]
– actor/writer/comedian/producer/filmmaker Bagel Pizzazz announcing the formation of Liberty Bell Studios, an independent film company, 5/25/2019 (Pizzazz was criticized for using an outdated 50-star flag at the announcement); Liberty Bell Studios, formed in response to the problems Pizzazz and others had with “the fakeness and greediness” of Hollywood, was established as a means of supporting independent actors and filmmakers, but would develop a distribution partnership with the larger Tumbleweed Media company in early 2021
JAPAN’S TAKUMA SATO WINS INDY 500; US’s Alex Rossi Comes In Second, France’s Simon Pagenaud In Third
– The Indianapolis Star, 5/26/2019
THE FUTURE IS NOW: The First 3D-Printed Car Enters Production!
…the expensive European sports car will not exactly be dominating American highways systems any time soon, but the feat nevertheless demonstrates the limitless capabilities of this technology…
– popularmechanics.co.usa/news, 5/28/2019
…In May 2019, after roughly five years at the helm, Director Bezos informed the President of his decision to leave NASA to take over as the head of Star Vapor, a space company co-founded by Martin Eberhard, a years-long ally of his. Bezos explained that this position would give him a greater ability to influence the private sector aspect of the future of space travel. Grammer was reluctant to see him. Bezos had helped restore the reputation of the Administration after the controversial McAfee years, and had successfully overseen numerous programs and projects. But ultimately, Grammer accepted Bezos’ decision, and anticipated Bezos’ resignation, which was not announced until roughly two months later, allowing ample time for the administration to search for a suitable and qualified replacement…
– researcher R. Cargill Hall’s Impact: The History of NASA, Dover Publications, 2018 edition
Merchant’s New Hit “Summer Conditions” Reaches No. 1 On The US Billboard Hot 100
…Natalie Merchant was a prominent member of the Riot Grrrl scene of the early-to-mid 1990s
[13], composing and singing several hits in the alt-rock genre. Though active in music since 1981, she was best known for a string of hits released in the mid-to-late 1990s, and for being a major part of the American efforts to replicate the UK’s “The Scene That Compliments Itself” music scene. Later she branched out into pop rock, “bubble,” and even folk rock with songs like “These are the days,” bringing in new fans and followers...
– tumbleweed.co.usa/music/news, 6/1/2019
“Never stop fighting for what you believe in. Take every avenue for change that there is. Support unions; confront and challenge or coordinate with legislators; march with the marginalized communities; donate to and volunteer for positive and pragmatic organizations; encouraging others to read literature that will open their minds, open their hearts and open their ears to your views.”
– Janie Fine, Harvard University commencement speech, 6/3/2019
Greg KELLY (Co-Host): “Just us now for the in-studio analysis we have Minister Mark Burns. Hello, Mark, how are you?”
Minister J. Mark BURNS (guest): “I’m already. I’m doing better than American values are doing in Maine, at least.”
KELLY: “Yes, what
do you think of Maine Governor Dill’s efforts to have religious organizations pay taxes the same way that non-religious groups do?”
BURNS: “I think it’s a sad sign of what’s happening in places across the country and that this sort of thing could have been nipped in the bud years ago. I used to work with the late, great Billy McCormack, who ran for President in 1988, when it appeared that America had lost its moral compass. He was good friends with a man named Pat Robertson, who operated many Christian organizations and was a prominent member of McCormack’s presidential campaign’s inner circle.
[14] And Robertson and I agree that this all began in the early 1990s, and that only by electing truly Christian people to public offices can we fight back against this anti-Christianity tide.”
– THN, 6/7/2019 broadcast
“I’ve been involved in efforts to restore the middle-class to its former glory for years now, and I’ve seen so many ideas and projects to make it happens during my work with labor unions across this great country of ours, especially in the Midwest and in the suburbs. Take malls, for example. Across the country, they are being repurposed into churches, office complexes, hotels, apartments, even ‘malltels’ – motels inside of functioning malls. They’re being turned into affordable housing units, indoor sports centers, edutainment centers, R&D testing centers, factories, warehouses, production facilities, art galleries, theater complexes. We can do that all here in Ohio. Or we could just demolish them. But guess what? The people have a say in the matter. They have a choice. They can control what gets done for their communities. They can do that by voicing their opinion. And in an election, your vote is your voice. So vote, vote, vote!”
– Andrew Yang (D-OH), speech excerpt, 6/10/2019 rally
15 June 2019: On this day in history, the US’s NASA launches the space probe
Examiner to study solar wind in an effort to discover how such streams of charged particles work in space and how they may relate to space travel in the future; being massive in size (16m long, 5.3m wide, and almost exactly 15,000kg heavy), it is the largest non-manned object that NASA has ever launched into space.
– onthisdayinhistory.co.uk
[pic:
imgur.com/r8nxznt.png ]
– US President Kelsey Grammer, temporarily returning to the clean-shaven look, smiles while looking upward to the probe Examiner being launched, Cape Canaveral, Florida, 6/15/2019
…as the 2020 election neared, the undeclared Democratic candidates for President were often quick to chime in on the issues of the day, from the legalization of all recreational drugs, to tighter FDA inspections for food production, to police precinct reform and Justice Departments investigating in-field police misconduct. The strength and pull of foreign policy bona fides took a back burner as these domestic issues garnered more news coverage during the summer of 2019...
– Marianne Halperin’s Uncharted Waters: Dynamics and Destiny in The 2020 Election, Penguin publishing, 2021
“When I got into politics, I was initially very frustrated by how everyone wanted me to go pussyfooting around, tiptoeing around like everybody was fragile, like nobody’s ever heard of colorful language before. But soon I realized that you can still be your honest self while still making yourself look good, you know, look professional. So I was careful not to swear in front of children and to not say, for example, Jewish jokes in front of Jewish people. And the same thing for other groups too. I figured that, well, people probably don’t say mean things about bikers to their faces because it ticks us off; that’s probably what I had been doing to a lot of people, tickin’ them off. Now I usually never mean to do that, but too often people take things the wrong way. My Harleyisms aren’t for everyone. But, more to the point, the things, I think the constant talk about my personality is distracting people from knowing what great things I have done for my state and for my country, for the great achievements that I have accomplished during my life, in Korea, in Boise, and in Washington. So when I make my presidential candidacy official in a short while, I want you to all to know that I am going to focus on the issues, and avoid efforts by the liberal media leaders to goad me into making off-the-cuff Harleyisms and gaffing things up.”
– Harley Davidson Brown (R-ID), private meeting with major Republican donors, 1 Observatory Circle, 6/21/2019
“…charges will be brought against the two police officers who shot and killed two 17-year-old high school students back in February…”
– CBS Evening News, 6/25/2019 broadcast
…After two years of finding the best location, hiring the best contractors, and performing additional duties (or, more often than not, handing them over to his assistants, Don broke ground on “the future site of the Trump Megatower.” Found in Fairfield, Connecticut, Don wanted to expand into an area between New York City and Boston, where high-end urban dwellers could escape to upscale apartments, hotel rooms, and offices with a lovely view of the shoreline. Furthermore, with The Trump Organization’s newest real estate project being planned to cap out at exactly 700 feet, Trump MEGA-Tower will be the tallest building in Connecticut, surpassing the state’s City Place I, which is only 537 feet tall. “This is just one of those things where Don knows he can’t run with the big dogs, so he’s setting this up so he can at least be a big fish in a small pond,” ranted Don’s ex-wife Sarah…
– Kate Bohner’s The Art of The Don: The Unofficial Biography of Donald Trump, Times Books, 2020 edition
President Grammer’s Approval Ratings:
APPROVE: 53%
DISAPPROVE: 41%
UNCERTAIN: 6%
Vice President Brown’s Approval Ratings:
DISAPPROVE: 46%
APPROVE: 43%
UNCERTAIN: 11%
– Gallup, 6/28/2019 poll
NIKOLAYEV SCANDAL BOMBSHELL LANDS WITH A BANG!: Eritrea’s Former National Security Advisor Alleges Nikolayev And Ephrem “Were In Full Control Of The Situation”
– The New York Post, 6/30/2019
SOURCE(S)/NOTE(S)
[1] I based this idea on the fact that Massachusetts’ Legal Sea Foods (a fish market founded 1950 and that expanded into a casual dining seafood restaurant in 1968) has been serving their clam chowder at every Presidential inauguration to represent Massachusetts since 1981 in OTL (and since 1977 ITTL)!
[2] based on the last chapter’s poll’s results.
[3] Italicized lines were pulled from here:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/arti...ed-choice-voting-will-work-new-york-city.html
[4] Grammer’s OTL comment:
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/08/john-mahoney-kelsey-grammer-frasier-dead/
[5] Some phrases and partial parts of passages were politely pulled from his OTL obituary:
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/s...?n=joseph-a-buttigieg&pid=191400113&fhid=7050
[6] Previously mentioned in Chapter 67.
[7] Weddington was previously mentioned in 1969 and 1984.
[8] OTL joke from the “Harleyisms” page of his 2014 website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210119015916/http://www.governorharley.com/default.htm
[9] Italicized parts are OTL quotes pulled from here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201112035531/https://www.governorharley.com/harleyism.htm
[10] Entire italicized paragraph pulled from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation
[11] This guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cox
[12] Both OTL claims:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit and
http://anomalyinfo.com/Stories/1887-august-green-children-banjos
[13] Yeah, I definitely could have and should have mentioned her way back in the 1990s chapters.
[14] So, yeah, Pat’s less prominent here.
Also,
@PNWKing:
“I suspect
Lando Sanders is Steve Jobs, just based on the clue that he was adopted, as Steve was” – Steve was born in 1955; it’s been stated that Lando was born in 1959; two of Lando’s children are adopted, he himself was not.
Rebecca
Sugar – would they still be born in 1987, 55 years after TTL’s POD?
Lily
Singh – would they still be born in 1988, 56 years after TTL’s POD?
Rachel
Scott – mentioned briefly in Chapter 115 (she’s the co-author of one of the “sources,” a book on the US’s NIA)
Rupert
Murdoch – mentioned before in the 1990s chapters as having a feud with Robert Maxwell until the latter’s death several years later than in OTL; Murdoch’s influence is mostly confined to Australia, NZ, Canada and the UK, due to the US restoring the FCC Fairness Doctrine during the 2000s.
Lewis
Black – politically-involved comedian/writer, similar to OTL; he was a third-party candidate for governor of Florida in November 2018 (he was on list of gubernatorial election results in the Chapter 116)
Carly
Simon – pretty much the same as in OTL; were there any specific songs you were interesting in knowing about?
Adam
Schlesinger – award-winning songwriter and record producer involved in the alt-rock, razor rock, reeflex rock and “bubble” scenes of the 1980s and 1990s; he’s not as prominent as he was then, but he’s still active and successful in the music scene behind the scenes.
Gene
Shalit – still a film critic and book critic on NBC from 1970 to 2010, pretty much like in OTL
Siskel and
Ebert – very similar to OTL, with Siskel getting a slightly earlier diagnosis of cancer and living lost enough to help Ebert through the early months of his own cancer problems upon being diagnosed in late 2001. Siskel passed away in mid-2002 but from the cancer, not from SARS as some initial reports claimed. Due to America having UHC ITTL, Ebert’s June 2006 happens a bit earlier and is done in a way that does not cause a carotid artery to burst, and so he does not lose his voice until 2011, from other complications, and he passes away in 2015, age 73, shortly after reviewing the third Trump-Wiseau film and giving it his last “two thumbs down.”
And
@Ogrebear:
Iacocca wanted to be buried in his home state, similarly to how RFK wanted to be buried in Massachusetts IOTL.
NRA leadership never got taken over by radicals ITTL, and so they still focus much of their time on gun safety here.
According to my research, the neighboring states and Canada were not as severely impacted by the heat wave as Chicago was; it was bad, but for The Windy City it was worse.
The 1995 Mutant basically had a bunch of “unknowns” in the cast along with 1990s staples such as Edward Norton, Matt Frewer, Geena Davis, Ken Wahl, Angela Bassett, Robert Davi, and Harley Jane Kozak.
Yes, Turner-Kennedy Broadcasting purchased the rights to Count Duckula among other shows in competition with T.O.N.
Since the Colonel’s been dead for five years at this point: archival footage of Colonel Sanders is shown on a TV monitor near the beginning of the film, along with a photoshopped image showing the main character shaking his hand.
Thank you for the comments, they’re very much appreciated; better late than never I guess!
The Next Chapter’s E.T.A.: May 30 at the very latest!
