Monthly Archives: October 2019

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of the Islamic State, should have been sorta Good News for Trump but he managed to ruin that by (a) being on the golf course when it happened (b) faking a photo later of himself with the military leaders to look like he was seriously involved, (c) trying hard to take the same credit he argued should be denied to Obama for the death of bin Laden and (d) reviving his old claim that he predicted 9/11. He made that prediction, he claimed, in one of his books — you know, the ones written by others, the ones he probably never read. Those who've searched the books cannot find quite what he is claiming.

And Fred Kaplan explains why killing the ISIS leader is a big deal but not in the way Trump tried to make it out to be.

Today's First Runner-Up Bad News for Donald Trump
He was also greeted with boos and chants of "Lock him up!" at the World Series game he attended. I'm sure he heard it all as cheering and demands for "Four more years! Four more years!"

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump keeps claiming that his administration will eliminate AIDS within ten years and that the previous administration spent no money on this problem. As FactCheck.org notes, the previous administration spent about the same amount of money on it as this one and no one working on the problem thinks they can eliminate that awful disease. The real goal is just to make it not as common.

Bonus Link About Donald Trump
The Wall Street Journal is still apparently in the White House despite its "defense" of Trump which basically came down to "He's too inept to commit a high crime or misdemeanor." Gene Healy of the Cato Institute explains why that ineptness is even more reason to toss the guy outta office.

73 questions with Simone Biles. I think she actually answers about 55 of them but who cares? She's still amazing…

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
This may be more like bad news for acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney but his predecessor in the job, John Kelly, has been talking to the press. Kelly said, "I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man,' someone who won't tell you the truth — don't do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached." In other words, Trump doesn't know what he's doing and Mulvaney's been doing a bad job of reining him in.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
And of course, the Trump response to Kelly is the same one he has to anyone who suggests he's anything less than perfect and brilliant. He suggests the critic is an inept loser. And then White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said what she knew Trump would have wanted her to say — or maybe he told her what to say. She said, "I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President." Here's the article on both the Bad News and the Outrage.

Did you see any of the funeral of Congressman Elijah Cummings? I caught excerpts, including some moving and poetic speeches by folks I'd never heard of…and the two main attractions, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. I'm going to embed those two speeches below for anyone who wants to return to a day when leaders spoke with eloquence about values and things that always have and always will matter.

In events like this, your first thought is that politics should be forgotten…but politics were never forgotten for long during the life of Representative Cummings. And it's impossible to not compare the grace and selflessness of these two men, whatever their shortcomings, with you-know-who. Clinton's best line in there is "You can't run a free society if you have to hate everybody you disagree with."

• It's bad enough Rudy Giuliani keeps butt-dialing me but every time I answer, I have to hear him telling someone on the other end, "With me as your lawyer, you have nothing to worry about!"

I haven't had the TV on much the last few days. There's a lot of hard-to-avoid coverage of the wildfires that every now and then seem to pick a few days to pop up in different places and threaten lives and homes in California. The local news coverage is very good. In fact, it sometimes may be too good. I don't like seeing a news reporter, mike in hand, approach someone whose home has just been reduced to charcoal. In what might just be the worst moment in their lives, they don't need a newsperson putting them suddenly on live television and asking some slightly-more-tactful version of "How does it feel to lose everything you own?"

We can all imagine what that feels like. Leave those poor people alone.

On the other hand, the local stations have also been showing us scenes of great heroism…of hard-working fire fighters in heavy gear in heavier heat working to save people and property. One channel had some magnificent live shots of "super scooper" planes that would scoop up a load of water from a nearby body of H2O, fly over a burning area and dump its liquid cargo at precisely the right moment. Other planes were dropping fire retardant chemicals. I'm not sure if I cheered audibly for those pilots but I sure cheered inwardly.

None of this is anywhere near me but I have friends who might be threatened by this batch of blazes. Just thinking of people worrying about this makes me think that whatever we spend to prepare for these disasters, it ain't nearly enough.

From 1972: Don Rickles in his prime on The Dick Cavett Show…

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
The other day, we noted that when the Quinnipiac Poll asked voters if Congress should impeach Trump and remove him from office, the numbers had gone from 37% "Yes" and 57% "No" a month ago to 48% "Yes" and 46% "No." Trump probably dismissed that because it was Quinnipiac. He always cites the Rasmussen Poll which is widely considered a pro-Republican poll and which has been better for him than any other major poll. Well, his approval rating with Rasmussen a month ago was 53% Approve and 45% Disapprove…and now those numbers have just about reversed to 43% Approve and 56% Disapprove. That's gotta have been the cause of some yelling.

Today's Runner-Up Bad News for Donald Trump
Then there's this: "The House is legally engaged in an impeachment inquiry, a federal judge ruled on Friday, delivering a major victory to House Democrats and undercutting arguments by President Trump and Republicans that the investigation is a sham." Also: "The House Judiciary Committee is entitled to view secret grand jury evidence gathered by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, Judge Howell ruled in a 75-page opinion. Attorney General William P. Barr had withheld the material from lawmakers." So not a great day on that front.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Remember when Republicans used to scream about budget deficits and Trump said it would be a piece o'cake for someone with his financial genius to eradicate the deficit? Well, here's a headline from U.S.A. Today: "2019 US federal budget deficit surges to nearly $1 trillion, the highest in 7 years." That's pretty expensive cake.

Bonus Trump Dump Link
Having trouble understanding what Trump did in "UkraineGate" (we could have done without that name) that's impeachable? Kevin Drum lays it out in a simple timeline.

My buddy Howard Storm has had one of the most amazing careers in show business as an actor, a writer, a stand-up comedian and most recently, a director. Anyone who could direct Robin Williams on Mork & Mindy for several seasons has to be a helluva director and that's just one of Howard's many credits. He's directed at least fifty different situation comedies including Everybody Loves Raymond, Major Dad, Laverne & Shirley, Rhoda and Too Close for Comfort. His acting credits go back to The Untouchables and he was seen in a couple of Woody Allen movies. (He was Woody's assistant on several.)

Anyone who comes to this blog because they like the way I tell show biz stories should rush to order Howard's autobiography, The Imperfect Storm: From Henry Street to Hollywood. When it comes to telling anecdotes from the entertainment industry, he's The Master, partly because he's a funny guy and partly because he's been everywhere, done everything, worked with everybody. And this book was written in collaboration with another pal o' mine, Steve Stoliar, who's pretty darned good with an anecdote himself.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Billy Crystal: "I've known Howard Storm for almost 40 years. I know him a lot better now. From the lower east side to the borscht belt, from the comedy clubs of the Village to the sound stages of Hollywood, this hilarious and touching book is like having an intimate conversation with a funny charming man who has seen almost everything and everyone from in front of and behind the camera."

You can order the paperback edition here and that's available now with a hardback coming out in a week or so. What I'd really like is a link to have Howard just read it to me across the table in a good delicatessen.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
So far, the Trump scandals have been curiously free of the sex kind but that may be changing. Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos has resurfaced with her claims that Trump sexually assaulted her in 2007 and she claims to have new evidence. In the meantime, a new book that lists many other such allegations is beginning to get some attention.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
The A.C.L.U. says that under Trump's policies, a lot more immigrant families were separated than has previously been acknowledged. Of all the shameful things done by this administration…well, I was going to say this was the worst but what's happened in the Syria/Turkey mess has probably topped it.

Bonus Trump Dump Link
Our man Fred Kaplan reminds us that there are fifty (count 'em — 50!) nukes in Turkey. As if the situation over there wasn't dangerous enough without them…

Major League Baseball should make a rule that before you throw out the ceremonial first pitch of a game, you have to do a backflip with a full twist…

Allen Varney saved you all from forcing me to write a post about Trump before I get around to the daily Trump Dump. He wrote…

Many years ago in The Comics Journal, editor Gary Groth listed as the greatest American comic book creators Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and Carl Barks. In a later issue he mentioned he'd only just barely omitted Jack Kirby. I imagine Kirby rates higher on your own list. Who would you propose as the great American comic book creators?

I have a bit of a problem with lists like that because I'm never quite sure of the criteria. For example, I often come across a lot of lists representing someone's views of the All-Time-Great Comic Book Artists and I'm never sure of the rules. Is the list a list of folks who drew adventure-type comics? Do folks who drew Archie or Casper even qualify for consideration? And how could they when the folks making up the lists don't know the names of most of the folks who drew Archie and Casper and can't tell those artists apart?

They often include Carl Barks but don't seem to know the names of anyone else who drew funny animal comics. Does MAD qualify once it moved from a comic book to a magazine? And so on. Most of these lists are more like the All-Time Great Comic Book Artists Who Came To Mind.

If you added in Mr. Kirby, Gary's list is fine by me. I'm assuming he's thinking of "comic book creators" as people who not only drew but had a lot, possibly everything, to do with the stories. What strikes me though is I'd have a hard time if you asked me to list the Top 5. Those four guys are easy picks. If I had to select one more, I'd come up with about fifty names and have trouble figuring out why this one should be in that fifth and not any of the other forty-nine.

I'd probably also cheat, ignore the "All-Time" aspect of it and confine my picks to folks who were in comics before I was, which means 1970. But that's if I did it and I won't. I'd piss off too many folks who are still around and have made it clear in subtle (and some not-so-subtle) ways that they think it's obvious — and maybe even widely-recognized, which it definitely isn't — that they're right up there with Kirby, Eisner, Kurtzman and Barks. I don't need that in my life.

I can't seem to come up with a good post today that isn't about Donald Trump. If you want to see this blog be about other things, send me an ASKme question.

From the 1936 movie Poor Little Rich Girl, Alice Faye and Jack Haley sing "You've Gotta Eat Your Spinach, Baby" with a rebuttal from Shirley Temple…

The song was also recorded (appropriately) by Mae Questel, the voice of Olive Oyl most of the time. I like her version better…

Duck Soup, The Bank Dick and Sons of the Desert. Those are (arguably) the funniest movie starring the Marx Brothers, the funniest movie starring W.C. Fields and the funniest movie starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy…who were (arguably) the three funniest acts to ever star in movies.