[ Posted Friday, December 22nd, 2017 – 18:52 UTC ]
Sadly, for the first time, we really have to explain our title. It used to be rather self-evident, but then it's been more than a year since The McLaughlin Group went off the air, after the death of host John McLaughlin.
The show was a political chatfest and ran for decades. Regulars such as Clarence Page and Pat Buchanan used to face off every week on all sorts of subjects, but at the end of the year they put on two special awards shows.
Long ago, we decide to write our own suggestions in an homage (which is so much nicer than "in a blatant ripoff of their bit," don't you think?). We've done so for over a decade now (there's a list of links to all of these at the end of this article, for anyone interested in past awards given).
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[ Posted Thursday, December 21st, 2017 – 23:05 UTC ]
When is Christmas? And why?
These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.
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[ Posted Friday, December 1st, 2017 – 19:35 UTC ]
This morning, Donald Trump's first National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, pled guilty to charges of lying to the F.B.I. He is now the highest-ranking Trump aide to be targeted by Robert Mueller, and also the highest-ranking person to have flipped on Trump. Flynn is still at risk of being prosecuted for other charges as well, including lying about his foreign lobbying on government forms. But he's now apparently cut a deal with the prosecution to possibly avoid further charges and also reportedly to avoid charges for his son.
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[ Posted Friday, November 17th, 2017 – 18:24 UTC ]
America is in the midst of a gigantic sea-change on how accusations of sexual misconduct are viewed. That much seems certain. You could say it began with the Access Hollywood tape during Donald Trump's campaign, or you could argue it began with the end of Harvey Weinstein's Hollywood career. Notably, the "Me Too" movement has actually been around for a decade, but it really caught fire this year in a big way. But no matter the origins of the shift, America now views accusations of sexual misconduct in a much different light than before.
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[ Posted Thursday, November 16th, 2017 – 19:33 UTC ]
After writing two columns on sexual misconduct and politics within the past seven days, I never thought I'd be writing about it again so soon. But today's breaking news pretty much precludes any other political discussion, even on a day when the House passed a real stinkeroo of a tax bill. Because on a purely political level, things just got a lot more complicated for Democrats with today's accusation against Senator Al Franken.
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[ Posted Monday, October 30th, 2017 – 18:23 UTC ]
As that learned philosopher Alice Cooper once said, welcome to my nightmare. Nightmares, actually, since (as usual) we have one terrifying tale of fright for the right, and one spine-tingling scare story for the left, just to be even-handed.
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 19th, 2017 – 17:18 UTC ]
The problem with Trump's use of Rocket Man is that it isn't particularly insulting. It actually sounds pretty cool, in a retro 1950s-sci-fi kind of way. Elton John and Bernie Taupin didn't write the song until 1972, and Taupin admitted being influenced by a 1970 song of the same name by the band Pearls Before Swine. But both songs were inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury ("The Rocket Man," from the book The Illustrated Man), which is about as retro 1950s-sci-fi as you can get.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017 – 16:52 UTC ]
Maybe we all just misheard him. Maybe it was his outer-borough accent. Maybe what candidate Donald Trump really said was:
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[ Posted Friday, August 18th, 2017 – 17:39 UTC ]
Welcome back to Friday Talking Points! Let's see... anything big happen in the two weeks while we were away?
We're kidding, of course. The flood of sewage from Donald Trump's mouth was so pervasive, it was downright impossible to ignore it from anywhere on the planet. So last week we watched in fear as Trump got in a shoving match with Kim Jong Un, and this week we remained agape while Trump told us what he really feels about people who march with swastikas while screaming about Jews -- that they're "very fine people."
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 15th, 2017 – 15:05 UTC ]
We haven't had one of these for awhile, but at this point I think everyone could use a distraction. The contest's rules are simple: pick the day when General John Kelly will exit his job as White House chief of staff. Bonus points are possible if you correctly pick the method of his exit (fired in a Trump rage, got so disgusted he had to go, caught in a compromising position with Russians/prostitutes/Ryan Lizza, etc.).
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