Monday Reading Assignments

As is usually the case, lots of good stuff today! Plus, as usually the case, the lame stream media will again ignore the stories, as they continue their dereliction of duty!

From ‘The Economic Collapse’:

THE CHART THAT PROVES THAT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS LYING TO YOU ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT!

Like we need a chart to prove that! Nevertheless, good stuff from the guys who are NOT afraid to tell you the truth!

Hot Air on the increasingly clueless and out of touch Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

MCCAIN: WHEN I BUCK GOP LEADERSHIP, I’M A MAVERICK; NOW I’M SUDDENLY AN “ANGRY OLD MAN”!

At least he got the “angry old man” part right! What the Senator fails to realize, he IS the GOP leadership!

LIVING THE HIGH LIFE 

Townhall’s Carol Platt Liebau on the continued excesses of the Obama White House…

Further proof that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is delusional….

PELOSI: OBAMA ‘VERY BIPARTISAN’ IN HIS APPROACH

The New York Post blows the lid off the TSA at Newark (EWR)…yet another example of what a joke our airport security is….

FORMER NEWARK AIRPORT TSA SCREENER SAYS THE JOB DOES LITTLE TO KEEP FLIERS SAFE

More…

TSA ALLOWS ‘BOMB’ TO SLIP PAST SECURITY CHECKPOINT IN NEWARK TWICE! – Matthew Klint @ Upgrd

And finally…..

Robert Bianco @ USA Today on your Monday tv viewing!….

What’s worth watching, and what might not be,  in prime time on Monday

The Bachelor, ABC 8pm ET/PT

“Tonight, if tradition holds, the Bachelor is going to make some young woman very happy — namely, the one he doesn’t pick who gets to be the nextBachelorette. Because clearly, considering the series’ romantic track record, the only reason any sensible person would take part in this nonsensical trash is for the opportunity to take part in it again as the star.

The Following, Fox 9pm ET/PT

Back in the ’60s there was a TV series called The F.B.I. that some felt was an egregiously shameless bureau recruiting tool masquerading as a show. Well, if TV amends needed to be made, The Following is bending over backwards to do so, because this makes FBI agents, who just let America’s worst serial killer escape from custody, look like the most bumbling, incompetent people on earth. We understand the bad guy has to elude his pursuers in shows like this, or else there’s no show. But this still-promising, often-frightening series has to find a way to keep its story running that does not constantly seem to depend on the heroes being 10 steps behind — because that’s already wearing thin.

Dallas. TNT 9pm ET/PT

TNT’s reboot marks that passing of J.R. Ewing — and Larry Hagman — with a funeral that will be attended by characters from both the new and the old shows. To say Hagman will be much missed by fans is to state the obvious, but his loss will also be keenly felt by TNT. It’s hard enough to watch this second-rate remake with him; watching it without him seems impossible.”

Irrelevancy on Parade…a.k.a. ‘The Oscars’

I like movies. I like the escapist atmosphere…..the untold story…the action and adventure. But, I’ve never been a fan of the ‘message’ aspect so often forced upon me. Not that the was case any more this year than in years past. Nevertheless, this year’s Academy Awards…oops! I’m sorry, ‘The Oscars'( an obvious attempt to up the cool factor!) was further evidence that lends itself to the question, “does anyone care, anymore?” That attitude is pervasive throughout the country, of course. About pretty much everything!

Unfortunately, the show just seemed rushed (though it dragged at times) and disjointed. Seth McFarlane’s gig as emcee was proved to be…well..just sort of ….rushed and disjointed…

I gave up after about a third of the way through the telecast, which allowed me to catch only one major award..Christoph Waltz’s win for best Supporting Actor in ‘Django Unchained’…a movie I could not possibly care less about seeing… From what I understand, it’s your cookie cutter Tarantino casting yet again..

Some observations….

A strange phenomena seemed to permeate this year’s get together…long, stringy hair…..

Another thing I did see that I questioned was Melissa McCarthy going for the ‘Adele’ look..what was that about?….

As I mentioned, the show was just sort of uneven…Let’s take a look at what one of my favorite columnists, USA Today’s Robert Bianco thought…shall we?…

‘SETH MCFARLANE’S OSCARS A SELF INDULGENT MIX

The host mixes a song about breasts with a vaudeville routine. And this is the Oscars?

“Oscars fans have seen a lot over the years, but this may be the first time they’ve ever seen a host use the awards to audition for his own variety show.

That was what Seth MacFarlane was doing on ABC’s Oscar broadcast Sunday, wasn’t it? Because it’s hard to imagine just what else he might have had in mind with that oddly awkward mix of monologue and music that opened the show and set the evening’s why-am-I-here? tone.

Give this to MacFarlane: He threw everything he had at it. He dressed up like The Flying Nun. He played with sock puppets. He radiated charm, if not cool. And, of course, he told jokes, a tad nervously, perhaps, but he did manage to land a fair number of them. He even got Tommy Lee Jones to laugh at a joke about getting Tommy Lee Jones to laugh, which has to count for something. Oh, and he sang and danced. A lot.

He started with a number about seeing stars’ breasts in movies that was meant to represent the kind of “wild, crazy and tasteless” stunt folks were supposedly afraid the man behind Family Guy might do, and was, unfortunately, less wild, crazy or tasteless than it needed to be. He then moved into more standard production numbers that fell somewhere in between Billy Crystal’s Oscars classics and something you might have seen on The Andy Williams Show. It’s as if he saw the Oscar assignment as his last, best chance to revive vaudeville.

What MacFarlane seemed to forget was that the job at hand involved more than just performing, and was about more than just his performance. One longed for him to drop the meta-jokes about the fear that he’d be an inappropriate host and get on with the job of actually hosting, which means keeping the train running, making your guests comfortable, and making the evening more about them than you.

Awash in self-indulgence, neither he nor his 3-hour-and-35-minute show ever seemed to hit a comfortable, confident stride, which is a shame, because the broadcast had a lot of entertainment to offer. Indeed, as with the Grammys, the awards themselves sometimes seemed to be an afterthought. Heaven knows the show seemed to be in no particular hurry to get to them.

Instead, we got a rousing performance from Shirley Bassey in an otherwise truncated and sadly Bondless salute to James Bond. There was a long tribute to current movie musicals that reminded people of how well Jennifer Hudson sings, while convincing anyone who skipped Les Misérables that they were right to do so.

We got to see a surprise appearance by Michelle Obama, and a rare appearance by Adele, always a welcome event even if the Skyfall theme can’t lay a finger onGoldfinger. And to cap the evening, there was an even rarer TV appearance by Barbra Streisand, a coup so impressive you wonder why the show rushed away from it to a commercial without letting us see the audience’s reaction.

To be fair, putting on the Oscars is no easy task, and hosting it has become nearly impossible. We want the show to move along while occasionally moving us. We want the host to be funny while maintaining some sense of the occasion. In neither case did we fully get our wish.

Still, if MacFarlane’s act was often flat and self-conscious, he did at least put obvious thought and effort into it. That’s more than can be said for, say, James Franco, just in case MacFarlane really is worried that the “Worst Host Ever” joke headline he put on screen might actually come true. “Best ever” may be out of reach, too. But hey, there’s always that shot at The Seth MacFarlane Show.”

From Hit Fix:

“The career of Seth MacFarlane has often seemed like a battle for supremacy between Frat Boy Seth and Old-Time Hollywood Seth, and every time it seems the former has won, the latter will slip an extended recreation of “Shipoopi” from “The Music Man” into an episode of “Family Guy.” He makes his money on dick and fart jokes and ’80s reference humor, but you get the sense sometimes that he’d be happier singing showtunes….”

Some of the other stuff courtesy of Celebitchy:

“*We spent too much time, collectively, looking at Anne Hathaway’s nips.

*LOVE Shirly Bassey. Her voice sounded really good for “Goldfinger”.

*I liked the musical interlude with Les Miserables, Jennifer Hudson and CatherineZeta-Jones. I thought J-Hud was the weakest link – she seemed to be scream-singing. Do you think of any of them used pre-records? Allegedly, Oscar producers didn’t want anyone to “pull a Beyonce”.

*The Avengers men sucked at presenting. Too many sausages.

*Liam Neeson looked good, y’all.

*Creepy CGI on “Ted” presenting with Mark Wahlberg.

*I really want to see Best Documentary winner Searching for Sugar Man. That looks so good!

*Seth’s half-joke about Harvey Weinstein was incredible.

*OMG ADELE WAS THE BEST THING EVER THE END. I loved that she wasn’t necessarily surprised when she won, but she was still moved to tears.

*Quentin Tarantino winning his second Oscar was amazing! I also love that now we know that Quentin and Charlize Theron are neighbors.

*Jennifer Lawrence falling up the stairs! That poor girl. That stupid Dior dress.

*Ang Lee is such a beautiful soul – for real. I loved that he won his second Oscar!!

*MOBAMA! I love Michelle Obama, but it seemed a little bit weird that she had a live feed to the Oscars.

*Ben Affleck’s Best Picture acceptance speech was rife with awkward moments which seemed to include subtext of how awful his marriage used to be and how he and Jennifer Garner had to “work” at it.

*Worst of the Oscars: Kristen Stewart. Everything about her presentation.

*Best of the Oscars: Jennifer Lawrence’s fall & then her gracious & sweet recovery; Charlize and Channing dancing, Little Q Wallis’s cutaways.”

I gotta disagree with the take on the Jennifer Hudson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, since it appeared the latter was lip syncing….

And finally….Deadline’s Nikki Finke sums it up perfectly:

“This is the cruise ship edition of the Oscars… Carnival Cruise… Without power…”

Love it!….

Living the Litany of Lies that IS Barack Obama

Last week, in Tampa, we were told the truth. You can disagree on particulars and how it was presented. But you cannot deny what we, as a nation, know. Barack Obama is a failure. A failure with no remorse. No humility.

This week the Democrats get together in Charlotte. I read one story indicating the nomination vote would be unanimous. As if they were validating some communist party chairman. Hey! If the shoe fits….

You are going to be subjected to 3 days of garbage and lies. Three days of the blind leading the blind. The ignorant and the blissfully unconcerned. Speaking of concern, that’s what MOST Americans likely have as an initial reaction to this President. Especially the business community. Mitt Romney can restore confidence and some certainty to the marketplace. Barack Obama fosters UNCERTAINTY. It really is that simple!

What is there to celebrate about this President? Healthcare reform?…I don’t think so! ‘Obamacare’ is complex, costly, and will be poorly implemented. Immigration reform?..a waiver for the children if illegals is hardly a resolution. Granted, the Republicans have failed to offer their own, but Barack Obama, given the opportunity, would issue blanket amnesty if he could. Welfare reform? Give me a break! If you call making it easier to AVOID looking for work ‘welfare reform’, then Obama is your man! Energy reform?..No way! Restricting drilling…halting the Keystone pipeline…advancing Brazil’s efforts…that is not a recipe for energy independence! The same can be said for the millions wasted on so called ‘green energy’ efforts! It was money thrown away at the cost of the American taxpayer.

Barack Obama has virtually ignored ANY and ALL efforts to reduce the national debt. In fact, it will reach a new milestone this week, as Democrats heap praise on this DISASTER of a President. Unemployment reached record levels on his watch. So much for his ‘laser like focus on jobs’!

It’s so ridiculous!…It’s also so sad. The fact that millions in this nation are even CONSIDERING awarding this man with a second term is beyond imagination! They have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to reality. Their collective heads have been in the sand for four years…probably longer!

Should he be elected, will Mitt Romney be able to turn things around?…Who knows?…It will not be easy. But, at least he brings a sense of moving back to a direction with a chance of success. Barack Obama does not. By any means! The Democrats in Congress have done absolutely NOTHING to address REAL problems. The Republicans have made an effort. Half hearted, maybe. But with the Democrats in charge of the Senate, (where Harry Reid (D-NV) has YET to allow a budget to be voted on) the chance of substantive reform is practically non existent.

“We don’t want to hear about your problems..We don’t see any problems…We don’t want to talk about your problems…we’re here to support Barack Obama…and that’s it!”

So..as you watch…or maybe I should say ‘WHY would you watch?’ the idiocy in Charlotte, think about what you see in your every day life. Nearly every American is or knows someone affected by the economic malaise President Obama has supported. You can believe the rhetoric spouted  or you can vote this fall to reflect that reality. Think about it!

MORE READING:

689 REASONS TO DEFEAT BARACK OBAMA – National Review Online

DEMS: WE’RE DEFINITELY BETTER OFF, KIND OF – Townhall

THEY REALLY, REALLY LIKE OBAMA, BUT NOT SURE THEY’LL BACK HIM – The Washington Times

THE DEMOCRATS’ ENTHUSIASM GAP AND IT’S PERILS – Powerline

Two for Tuesday, plus a TV bonus!

A couple of interesting pieces today…..

Have you noticed how most pictures of President Obama show a man who seems…well…pretty miserable?…I suppose with as confrontational as his Presidency has been, it’s to be expected. That being said, he does not offer the slightest bit of consideration for his actions and their consequences in the real world….

National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson offers a great critique. The final line sums it up perfectly…

“With President Obama there is neither a reality or a standard, just words that so often have no connection to the real world, past or present.”

You can read more here:

OBAMA IN NEVER-NEVER LAND … A slavish regard for truth is no match for inspired mythology

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The guys at The End of the American Dream blog have a spot on take about what we’re rapidly becoming in this country. The horrible shootings in Wisconsin this past weekend are further evidence that the nation many of us grew up in may be lost forever.

“Do you remember when America was a place where you could attend a public gathering without having to worry if a sociopath was going to set off a bomb or start wildly shooting people?…”

Read more here:

 

Completely Surrounded By Psychopaths & Sociopaths As We Approach the Edge of Societal Collapse

 

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TV TONIGHT: SIDNEY POITIER SALUTE, ‘NCIS’ – Robert Bianco @ USA Today

•TCM‘s Summer Under the Stars continues with a salute to the first black man to win a best-actor Oscar, Sidney Poitier.

TCM isn’t showing the film that won him that award,Lilies of the Field, but it does have two of his best in prime time: A Raisin in the Sun (8 ET/5 PT) and To Sir, With Love (10:15 ET/7:15 PT).

Poor Dinozzo. It’s bad enough he has to suffer through an encounter with his ex-fiancée (Entourage‘s Perrey Reeves) on this repeat of TV’s most popular scripted show, NCIS (CBS, 8 ET/PT).

What’s worse, he has to work with her to solve a murder connected to a secret society of real-life superheroes. Don’t you hate when that happens?

•Elsewhere on the strained-visit front, Mike has to deal with his dad (Robert Forster) in ABC’s Last Man Standing (8:30 ET/PT).

Forster, of course, is always a welcome presence; Dad, apparently not so much.

•The only new scripted outing on the broadcast networks tonight comes from CW’s Canadian import The L.A. Complex (9 ET/PT).

We have enough mediocre teen soaps of our own — the last thing we need is to borrow some from other countries.

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“More than this or that policy or political philosophy…”…plus TV Time!

 

“ An Obama win will be a validation of every anti-democracy critic going back to ancient Greece…”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?….A very thought provoking piece from FrontPageMag today….

Will Democracy’s Critics Be Proven Right This November?

This year’s presidential election will be about something more than this or that policy or political philosophy. The larger issue at stake is the viability of democracy itself. An Obama win will be a validation of every anti-democracy critic going back to ancient Greece.

We are so used to using the word “democracy” as a feel-good term denoting a self-evident good that we forget the traditional problems political philosophers identified with popular rule. In ancient Athens, critics like Socrates, Plato, and Thucydides attacked the assumption that ordinary people––“an audience of mere dunces and weaklings,” as Socrates called the Athenian Assembly––had enough intelligence or understanding to make life-and-death decisions affecting the state. Lacking that knowledge, they were vulnerable to ambitious demagogues who manipulated the voters with deceptive, emotional rhetoric and promises of state money. Thus rather than considering what policy or action served the long-term interests of the state as a whole, critics of Athenian democracy charged, the citizens selfishly used their political power to advance their own interests, which required the redistribution of property and wealth, and the reduction of freedom in order to achieve the equality of all.

The dangers of this tendency of democracy were famously expressed by the Greek historian Polybius: “For the mob,” Polybius wrote, “habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honors, produces a reign of mere violence.” Fearing such an outcome, the founders of the American Republic created our mixed government of balanced powers that limited the direct influence citizens could wield on politicians.

Fast-forward 200 years to this year’s presidential campaign. Obama and the Democrats, abetted by their media lackeys, are waging a pseudo-populist campaign characterized by gross deceptions, brazen lies, and rhetorical spin worthy of the ancient Sophists. Start with Obama himself. He was elected in part because of his compelling personal story that seemingly transcended the political and racial divides of American society. Now we know that most of that story was fabricated, persons in his past were invented, memories of racial oppression were made up, and his centrist politics were mere camouflage for his progressive ideology. Meanwhile his actual life remains murky. We still don’t know what his true relationship was with terrorist Bill Ayers or the racist rabble-rouser Jeremiah Wright. We still don’t have many specifics about his health or his university career, information the spaniel press has shown no interest in obtaining even as they hector Mitt Romney to release all his tax returns, something few in Congress have any intention of doing.

Aping their boss’s tactics of deception, Obama’s political henchmen are going after Mitt Romney with slander and innuendo and “frank character assassination,” as Ross Douthat put it. Mitt Romney “isn’t just wrong on specific policies or too right-wing in general,” Douthat continues. “He’s part Scrooge, part Gordon Gekko; an un-American, Asia-loving outsourcer; a tax avoider and possibly a white-collar felon.” The complement to this toxic cloud of lies and invective is the crude populist appeals that exploit class envy and promises of income redistribution, aimed at the cohort of American voters that “have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors.” Hence the rhetoric of “fair share” and “you didn’t build that” and “spread the wealth around,” even though Obama’s call to raise marginal tax rates on the “rich” would yield $80 billion next year, a mere 8% of Obama’s projected 2013 budget deficit of $977 billion.

Indeed, Obama’s naked appeal to class envy ignores any number of facts about our tax system. His mantra about “fairness” ignores just how progressive tax rates already are. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 20% of income earners make 50% of the nation’s income but pay nearly 70% of all federal taxes, including payroll taxes. Everybody else earns 50% of income, but pay 30% of taxes. This is why the U.S. tax system is the most progressive of the world’s industrialized nations. If this system is unfair, it’s because nearly half of taxpayers pay no federal income tax. The “rich” are already paying more than their “fair share.”

And let’s not forget what’s obscured by Obama’s class-warfare rhetoric: the simple fact that the economic disaster waiting down the road is not the lack of revenue, but the explosion of spending on entitlements. According to the Heritage Foundation, by 2050 spending on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare will reach 19% of GDP, an amount that would devour all federal tax revenue at current rates. Given the popularity of Obama’s call to raise taxes on the “rich,” however, these fact-deficient appeals suggest that many voters either don’t understand those facts or don’t care, as long as their own interests are served.

Since Obama has worsened our economic troubles by increasing both budget deficits and entitlement spending––under his watch, the number of Americans living in households receiving government aid has jumped to 50%–– his only reelection strategy is to ignore economic fact. Instead, he must play on the irrational emotions of class envy, and make veiled promises to give even more money to the “takers” by filching it from the “makers.” Such behavior validates the criticisms of democracy from antiquity to the American founders. They had the example of ancient Athens, where by the mid-4^thcentury B.C. every citizen was receiving state money almost every day of the year, and state funds were directed toward “public festivals and sacrifices,” as the historian Theopompus said, instead of national defense. How similar to our country today, where defense spending is facing a $1 trillion reduction over the next decade, even as Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion, without any assurance that it will reduce costs or improve health care.

So are we Americans the “mob” or “dunces and weaklings” of democracy’s critics? Some data seem to suggest at least many of us are. By all historical indicators, given the sorry state of the economy Obama should be heading for McGovern-like disaster, losing to Romney in November by 5%. Yet polls show Obama virtually even with Romney, and his “likability” numbers are 20 points higher than Romney’s. Could it be that, like the Athenian Assembly in Thucydides, nearly half of our citizens––those millions benefitting from federal largesse at some level––are motivated by their own short-term self-interests no matter how damaging to our national future, and manipulated by appeals to irrational class hatred, class-envy, and unworkable utopian visions of cost-free equality and affluence?

We’ll see in November. Meanwhile there are other signs that enough Americans are not “dunces and weaklings.” The continuing influence of the Tea Party, recently evident in the surprise nomination of Ted Cruz to run for the Senate in Texas, suggests that this truly populist movement for fiscal sanity and traditional virtues will be as effective in November as it was in the 2010 midterm elections. The mass demonstrations in support of Chick-fil-A executive Dan Cathy’s First Amendment rights are another sign that a critical mass of Americans are sick of the totalitarian arrogance of progressives and eager to fire the Progressive-in-Chief. Perhaps these are portents of a renewed vigor and virtue among the American people that will prove democracy’s critics wrong.

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It’s been quite some time since we checked in with my favorite media/entertainment critic, Robert Bianco @ USA Today…

CRITIC’S CORNER MONDAY: OLYMPICS, ‘LONGMIRE’

NBC’S prime time Summer Olympics (8ET/PT) program begins its second week tonight, as the focus begins to shift to track and field coverage.

But don’t panic, gymnastics and diving fans. There are still a few events left for NBC to add into the taped mix.

• A&E has a four-episode run of its surprisingly successful big-sky-cop series Longmire (8 ET/PT).

It’s not a bad series, but you can’t help feeling you’re watching a lower-budger, lesser-cast version of a CBS procedural.

• CBS’ Two Broke Girls (8:30 ET/PT) repeats the two episodes that introduced Jennifer Coolidge’s Sophie to the show.

She doesn’t quite make up for the general weakness of the supporting cast, but she does help. And if you don’t want to watch the Olympics, the show is certainly a huge improvement over its competitors on ABC and FOX.

 

 

• You might not know it, but the movie The Green Lantern (HBO, 9 ET/PT) has a significant TV connection.

It was written by Political Animals‘ Greg Berlanti, who has the superhero series Arrow coming this fall on CW.

And it’s one of Sheldon’s favorite targets of derision onThe Big Bang Theory.

 

Enjoy!

 

Monday Mayhem and TV Time!

I’m wondering if Barack Obama ever has the thought, “Damn…what have I done?…this is not how it’s supposed to be!..things are really f**ked up!”….Nahhh…probably not….more than likely, as far as he’s concerned, things are EXACTLY how they’re supposed to be!

“Hmmm…this sh*t ain’t workin’ out….gotta come up with some new strategy…someone..or something new to blame…”

Unfortunately, millions of American voters will probably fail to realize how this “do nothing” President has orchestrated a gigantic scam for the past three plus years when they enter the voting booth. Nevertheless, there’s some good stuff out there this morning!

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), not one to shy away from telling it like it is, slammed Mr. Obama as “the most divisive figure in modern American history”. ( MARCO RUBIO SLAMS PRESIDENT OBAMA AT SOUTH CAROLINA FUNDRAISER – The Daily Caller) He’s right. President Obama has based his re-election campaign and excused his term in office by pitting American against American…blaming this group for that group’s woes…and wallowing in fear mongering and pure fabrication to warrant another four years in office.

Whoa! Where did THIS come from?….Former CNN host, Campbell Brown, took it to the President in an opinion piece in. (OBAMA: STOP CONDESCENDING TO WOMEN!)…of all places!…The New York Times!….Condescension, fake praise, tired…just a few descriptive words used referring to Mr. Obama’s recent speech at the Barnard graduation ceremony. This, again, points to what Sen. Rubio refers to. The President used the occasion to pander to women voters. Brown’s piece calls the Obama campaign’s fictional “Julia” ” a silly and embarrassing caricature based on the assumption that women look to government at every meaningful phase of their lives for help.” Right on target!!

Absolutely LOVE this piece from The American Dream blog…one of my favorite daily go-tos!…Some great points to ponder, considering the direction in which this country is currently heading. Some local radio p. s. announcements I’ve heard advise listeners to be prepared for natural disasters….of course, you could read other events into that, as well!…because government help and the like may not be able to get to you for several days. Do you think most Americans heed this advice?..I’d say that’s a big NO!…..So we have THE TOP 50 EXCUSES FOR NOT PREPPING

a couple of examples:

9. “Wal-Mart Will Always Be There”

20. “Prepping Is For Crazy People”

I ESPECIALLY love this one:

47. “If There Really Was A Good Reason To Prepare They Would Tell Us About It On The News”

THAT says it all right there!….

Check out the others at the link!

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CRITIC’S CORNER MONDAY: ‘HOUSE’, ‘NINJA WARRIOR’ – Robert Bianco @ USA Today

Hugh Laurie

Fox’s House (8 ET/PT) ends its series run with a one-hour retrospective followed by one last medical mystery.

The series has run long past its best years (and its best ensemble), but it deserves credit for ushering in an era of strong dramas at Fox and for introducing America to a great and now much-copied character.

Perhaps best of all, it gave us a chance to spend an hour each week with Hugh Laurie, in an indelible, career-changing performance.

Bacharach (l) and David

•Burt Bacharach and Hal David receive the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at a specialIn Performance at the White House (PBS, 9 ET/PT, times may vary).

Those performing include Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow,Mike Myers, Lyle Lovett and Michael Feinstein.

• Fans of the G4 series American Ninja Warrior (NBC, 9 ET/PT), take note. It’s moving to NBC tonight for the Southwest Regional Finals.

• ABC’s The Bachelorette (9 ET/PT) goes husband-hunting in a two-hour special tonight, bringing her two hours closer to, well, probably nothing.

But you never know. Well, yeah, you sort of do.

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Critic’s Corner Weekend – Robert Bianco @ USA Today

Been a while, but I thought it time to return to one of my favorite, astute media critics, USA Today’s Robert Bianco!

Weekend Critic’s Corner: ‘Grimm,’ ‘Harry’s,’

‘Jesse Stone’

David Giuntoli and Bitsie Tulloch

One of NBC‘s happiest ratings surprises exits tonight as Grimm (9 ET/PT) hits its first-season finale. The episode finds Nick searching for some long-hidden coins while fighting what looks like a losing battle to keep his Grimm-ness hidden from Juliette.

‘Battleship’s’ Van Peebles (l)

•Question: What is Syfy’s American Battleship(Saturday, 9 ET/PT) about? Answer: It’s about cashing in on the big-screen release with a similar name, which in Syfy’s world is really all it has to be about. (Note: Syfy has since updated the title to American Warships)

Jagger

Saturday Night Live (NBC, 11:30 ET/PT) ends its season with a musical legend — and one of the coolest people on earth — as host: Mick Jagger.

He may seem like an odd choice to head up a comedy show, but he’s Mick Jagger, and that’s reason enough to give him a shot.

Valley (l), Bates (c), and Smart (r)

•Jean Smart joins star Kathy Bates Sunday on a Harry’s Law (NBC, Sunday, 8 ET/PT) episode that brings thisDavid Kelley legal drama to an end. Yes, it was higher-rated than many series NBC renewed, but it committed what appears to be the one unforgivable sin in broadcast TV: It attracted an older audience.

Tom Selleck

And speaking of: Tom Selleck stars again as Jesse Stone in Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (CBS, Sunday, 9 ET/PT). This may be his last turn in the role, so if you’re a Stone fan, get him while you can.

Bianco is right on target with the sin of the “older tv audience”!…..Enjoy!

Wacky Wednesday…and More!….

"I am going to do everything in my power to make sure the United States is nothing more than a shell of its former self..once I'm through with it.."

Hard to believe some polls continue to trumpet President Obama’s lead for the 2012 election. In the meantime, THIS President proceeds down his destructive road. Of course, if we had an electorate that actually took the time to learn the TRUTH about him, you would see a drastic turn around. Day after day after day, there are examples of the destructive policies of the Obama administration. Unfortunately, it seems as if fewer Americans are willing to face the truth. The truth they don’t want to face.

This headline from End of the American Dream blog stands out:

BARACK OBAMA: I HAVE A “MORAL OBLIGATION” TO NEUTER AMERICA

It’s a frightening expose on how Mr. Obama hopes to limit this nation’s nuclear military capabilities, while the Russians and Chinese have adopted a different philosophy!

We also have Fed chief, Ben Bernanke ADMITTING the unemployment numbers don’t seem to jive with the REAL state of the U.S. economy!….Gee! Imagine that!

"As I've said before...I don't have a clue about how this stuff works..."

BERNANKE: OBAMA UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS ‘OUT OF SYNC’ – The American Thinker

The other big news is, of course, Obamcare’s day(s) in court…the Supreme Court, that is…. Though I don’t see a complete repudiation of it, simply because the court probably doesn’t want to exacerbate the divide on its merits, the Administration’s case is not going exactly as planned. Thomas Sowell takes the time to skewer this costly, ill conceived, piece of unpopular legislation!

OBAMACARE MANDATES JUSTIFIED BY ‘ INTERSTATE COMMERCE’ ? – National Review Online

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CRITIC’S CORNER WEDNESDAY: ‘IDOL’, ‘WHITNEY’, ‘CHELSEA’ – Robert Bianco @ USA Today

It’s always risky to praise American Idol (Fox, tonight, 8 ET/PT) too early in the season, because the show has had the habit the past few years of getting weaker as it goes along.

Still, it seems only fair to compliment the judges —Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez— for finally becoming at least a little judgmental.

It would be better if they apologized less and stopped twisting themselves into knots to present every rebuke as constructive criticism/mentoring.

Oh, and it would be nice if Jackson decided whether he was for or against oversinging. (Should he need help, “against” is the right choice.)

That said, they’re doing a far better job than they did last season, with Lopez in particular often sensibly on point.

Let’s hope it’s a trend and not an aberration.

•NBC‘s Whitney (8 ET/PT) and Are You There, Chelsea? (8:30 ET/PT) have made it to the end of their first seasons, which is no doubt a surprise to those who didn’t think they’d make it to the end of their first month.

Then again, to judge from the excruciating Best Friends Forever, which takes over Chelsea‘s spot next week, it’s not as if NBC had anything better waiting in the wings.

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Timely and timeless advice…funnies…and your weekend TV!…

I heard some EXCELLENT advice this morning…which should be directed to EVERY VOTER IN THE COUNTRY! It’s simple and accurate…Sure you can argue specifics and particulars on it, but the premise CANNOT be denied:

REPUBLICANS WANT TO GROW THE ECONOMY. DEMOCRATS WANT TO GROW DEPENDENCE ON GOVERNMENT, THUS GOVERNMENT ITSELF. PERIOD.

YOU KNOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE IS TRUE!!!!

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WEEKEND CRITIC’S CORNER: ‘FRINGE’, ‘THE GOOD WIFE’, ‘LUCK’ – Robert Bianco @ USA Today

 

 

•Fox’s fabulous sci-fi adventure Fringe (Fox, 9 ET/PT) returns Friday for the first of eight new episodes, as Peter and crew tackle a killer who’s trying to obliterate love.

With renewal decisions looming in our own ratings-centered universe, Fringe fans should be rooting for love to prevail.

 

 

The always terrific Julianna Margulies gets an especially strong, Emmy-contender showcase in Sunday’s excellent edition of The Good Wife (CBS, 9 ET/PT).

Entertaining subplots swirl, but the meat of the episode focuses on Alicia’s appointment to a blue-ribbon panel (led by an effectively smarmy Matthew Perry) that takes her into waters more turbulent and muddy than she first imagines.

With top-rate work all around, the outing is a good reminder of how good Margulies is, and why her show still ranks as broadcast’s best drama.

 

It’s the end of the road for Luck (HBO, Sunday, 9 ET/PT), a series done in by its inability to keep horses safe and, one suspects, its inability to gain an audience.

Ratings matter less at HBO than at other outlets, but it would be incredibly naive to think they don’t matter at all. If we’re lucky, the cast and creator David Milch will be back on TV soon.

 

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Disenchantment….and your Tuesday TV!

Great piece from ‘The New York Post’….highlighted by ‘The Godfather’ today!….

by Charles Gasparino

Bam’s angry adviser

Back when he agreed to advise the Obama administration on economics, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told friends that he thought it would be good for GE and good for the country. A life-long Republican, Immelt said he believed he could at the very least moderate the president’s distinctly anti-business instincts.

That was three years ago; these days Immelt is telling friends something quite different.

Sure, GE has managed to feast on federal subsidies, particularly the “green-energy” giveaways that are Obamanomics’ hallmark.

But Immelt doesn’t think he’s had anywhere near as much luck moderating the president’s fat-cat-bashing, left-leaning economic agenda of taxing businesses and entrepreneurs to pay for government bloat.

Friends describe Immelt as privately dismayed that, even after three years on the job, President Obama hasn’t moved to the center, but instead further left. The GE CEO, I’m told, is appalled by everything from the president’s class-warfare rhetoric to his continued belief that big government is the key to economic salvation.

Or, as one friend recently put it to me, “Jeff thought he could make a difference, and now realizes he couldn’t.”

Immelt’s conversion from public Obama supporter to a private detractor is important: It shows how even businessmen who feast off his subsidies worry about his overall economic agenda and its long-term impact on the economy.

Don’t expect Immelt to say anything publicly about the downside of president’s economic agenda anytime soon: He’s still serving as what is considered the top outside economic adviser to the White House. (A GE spokesman insists that the reports I’m sharing here about Immelt’s private criticism of Obama are “ludicrous.”)

GE has too much to lose for Immelt to publicly ’fess up to his disdain. The president now routinely talks up his desire to tax businesses that create jobs overseas, and GE overseas expansion is well-documented. Nor does the company want to put all its green subsidies at risk.

And of course the last thing Immelt or his shareholders need is for the president to turn his class-warfare fire on them, as he did to his erstwhile pals in the banking business.

Yet friends report that Immelt’s displeasure with the president’s economic policies is real and palpable in private settings.

Back in 2008, the GE boss gave both to GOP presidential nominee John McCain and, in the Democratic primaries, to Hillary Clinton; he’s said that he voted for McCain. But GE as a whole was one of candidate Obama’s top donors. As noted, Immelt joined the new president’s team, first as a member of Obama’s Economic Advisory Recovery Board and later as head of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Yet even as Immelt continues to dispense advice to the president, friends tell me, he’s privately rooting for Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination and defeat Obama in the fall.

A GE spokesman says simply, “Mr. Immelt has not decided to support Gov. Romney.” OK — but the GE “community” sure has. In 2008, GE execs (who often take their giving cues from the guy at the top) gave over five times more to Obama than to McCain. This time around, GE executives have raised nearly twice as much for Romney as for Obama, and Romney isn’t even the nominee yet.

I’m told a clue to Immelt’s disenchantment with the president can be found in GE’s annual letter to shareholders, in which the CEO laments, “We live in a tough era in which the public discourse, in general, is negative . . . American companies, particularly big companies, are vilified,” when “we need to work together to find a better way.”

Sure doesn’t sound like an Obama booster to me.

Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.

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CRITIC’S CORNER TUESDAY – ‘THE RIVER’, ‘JUSTIFIED’, 

•Fans have one last chance to travel down The River (ABC, 9 ET/PT), as this ratings-troubled series reaches its first-year conclusion.

Tonight, an unknown killer stalks the crew, though chances are they’re in more danger from a known killer: cancellation.

There are many things to praise in Justified (FX, 10 ET/PT), but this week, let’s go with this: Does any TV hour have better dialogue?

And for that matter, does any star deliver his lines with a more enjoyable, perplexed-by-stupidity wit, laced with an undertone of menace, than Timothy Olyphant?

Tonight, Olyphant’s Raylan struggles to keep Dickie Bennett (a delightfully squirrely turn by Jeremy Davies) in prison, all while his battle with Quarles (Neal McDonough, a master of menace himself) comes closer to its boiling point.

Meanwhile, the election for sheriff takes a turn that proves once again that Boyd Crowder, played by the fabulous Walton Goggins, is not a man to underestimate.

Alternately humorous and horrifying, and littered with clever, well-earned twists, this is just a great, jampacked hour of TV from one of the medium’s best series.

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