December 2015 – Brad and Britt

Do I have to write ALL of Trump’s insults, slurs, and lies in 2016, or just some of them?

Mr. Trump did a pretty good job himself in 2015 making the entire world a verbal free-fire zone, where your mouth operates unencumbered by your brain, simple decency, or financial considerations either personal or political. Each step plowed ground that would have eliminated anyone else in politics or gotten a normal person fired from their job. Acting as unrestrained as a 4-year-old child or the Clint Eastwood Gran Torino guy, his initial opening-statement slur against Mexicans… trashing John McCain’s service… attributing Megyn Kelly’s questioning him to menstruation… his ignorant, phony embrace of the Bible… irrationally attacking and mimicking a disabled reporter… lying about seeing Muslims in American on tv celebrating 9/11 then suggesting in various ways they be tracked, spied upon, rounded up and excluded from America…. those are just some A-list infractions that so far, at least, perversely strengthen a Freddy Krueger candidacy within the confines of the Republican Primary Dreamworld. Screen shot 2015-12-31 at 11.46.44 AM

Late in December, Mr. Trump, after a moment of deep, deep, self reflection: “If I don’t win, I’ll consider this a total and complete waste of time.” Want to know what a real waste of time is , Donald? Any broadcast of one of your early-evening, repetitive, self-absorbed, bragging about your polls, everyone else is a loser, hate-rallies around the country… “I saw love in that room. I see love everywhere I go….“This is great, I love it. I love it. I’ll tell you—you know, I missed—heh, heh. Thank you. Thank you.” … that will eventually end in disappointment for you and your followers. The only question remaining….are you and your minions willing to accept the inevitable?

Behold the insufferable sights and sounds of factless, free-association Trump boring into the worst instincts of racist, redneck, economically pissed and scared America under the guise of not being politically correct. As if that solves all. According to North Carolina journalist/blog guy Gary Pierce, “…those are the code words often used by Donald Trump’s supporters. Meaning what? Judging from what Trump says, it must mean, “We like it when he says things that offend people, like women, the handicapped, the poor, Hispanics, Muslims and anybody else we don’t like.” They long for the good old days before “political correctness,” when they could freely insult, belittle and make fun of anybody not like them. They fell in love when Trump claimed that President Obama wasn’t born in America. Which may be the most ignorant and bigoted strain in American politics today. Every age has its bigoted, know-nothing demagogues. George Wallace was the last to run for President. But even Wallace cloaked his bigotry as a fight against a too-powerful federal government. Trump’s ignorance and bigotry come raw. And his supporters like it raw.”

As the year ended and before the first real vote was cast anywhere, Trump declared himself the winner of the Republican nomination. This freed him up to not have to “waste his time” so much on small fry like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, enabling him to begin his general election campaign against Hillary Clinton. Threatening virtual proxy political assassination of Hillary via Bill, Trump made one of his very rare (sic) appearances on outside-the-beltway-favorite Fox & Friends December 28, declaring, “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!” He then cleverly inoculated himself from criticism when he responded this way to being asked if his affairs would be fair game: “Yes, they would be,” he said in response to a question about his personal “indiscretions” while speaking to reporters aboard his personal plane before a rally in Iowa….Trump didn’t go into specifics, and reporters didn’t follow up on the question,” reports CNN. How does that work? Trump brings up the past of a guy who isn’t even on the ballot as a legitimate character issue of the person actually running, but the chicken-s— press will be afraid to go there with him about his affairs, irrespective of his saying that would be ok, for fear of a Trumper Tantrum?

Can you see where this could all lead in 2016?

If the current trend holds, Trump will be out there brandishing, with pride, this famous tabloid cover Screen shot 2015-12-31 at 11.10.25 AM from 1990….. gaining him 3 more points in the polls…. and maybe a promise to keep on producing future White House babies into his seventies, like this list of old celebrities whose sperm still gets it done.

1990… that’s before anyone ever heard of Bill and Hill around the country. In response to Trump playing I Love The Nineties, should we prepare for an update of the Clintons’ 1992 famous “60 Minutes” segment that addressed allegations that Bill had engaged in a 12-year extramarital affair Screen shot 2015-12-31 at 11.34.03 AM with Gennifer Flowers? “I’m not sitting here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” Hillary famously told Steve Kroft. “I’m sitting here because I love him and I respect him.”

Which brings us to the beginning of the new year and, so far, the biggest and best cheap shot on this subject Trump can hurl. He hasn’t done it as of December 31, but there’s plenty of time to get this one in: “Oh my God, did you see this thing with Bill Cosby? The women, the drugs, the arrest… the lying…. how can that wife of his hang around?…. probably the money… could be the sex!” (not even the slightest hint of irony there, of course)… “they should be locking this guy up for a thousand years, maybe two thousand…. but I gotta tell the truth….. don’t you think, when all is said and done, that they’ve gone after the wrong Bill C?… You’re smart…. you know what I’m sayin!” I don’t know what’s worse…. the idea that Trump really could say those things…. or that I’m thinking that way, too!

Review: Netflix Original “Making a Murderer”

When the podcast Serial debuted in 2014, it become a cultural touchstone. People who had never downloaded a podcast suddenly became absorbed in the discussion over Adnan’s guilt or innocence. It even spawned an SNL spoof. But, it also caught the attention of the big content creators, who asked themselves “How can we come up with our own version of Serial and capitalize on the public’s demand for this type of content?”

Enter Netflix. Making a Murderer centers around Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was wrongly convicted of rape in 1985 and spent 18 years of his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. A multitude of evidence existed that could have freed him at several points during his incarceration, but, he remained behind bars until DNA testing freed him on September 11, 2003

Steven quickly became somewhat of a celebrity and the poster boy for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Politicians couldn’t wait to have their pictures taken with Steven as they pushed legislation that would (allegedly) help people from being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Meanwhile, efforts to hold officials in Manitowoc County responsible for convicting Steven were fruitless. So, Steven filed a civil suit that would have made some officials in the county personally liable and put a price tag of $36 million on it

And then, they arrested him again

Did he or didn't he? — Did he or didn’t he?

When young Teresa Halbach goes missing after meeting with Steven, cops scour Steven’s properties and eventually come up with Teresa’s charred remains. After a ghastly confession (outlining hair-curling allegations of sexual violence and cold-blooded murder) from Steven’s nephew Brendan Dassey, both Steven and Brendan are put on trial and the media eats it up with gusto

And that’s all I am going to tell you. I want this series to unfold for you as it did for me. I think you’ll find it as surprising and satisfying as Serial. I would point your attention towards a couple of “stars” who appear throughout:

Delores Avery, Steven’s beleaguered mother, who reminds us that mothers will do anything for their children. She attempts to put on a brave face against insurmountable odds and becomes head cheerleader, co-counsel, psychiatrist, anchorwoman, and analyst for the effort to help her son. As she trudges along, it’s hard not to sympathize with this poor woman who is looking straight at a second conviction of her baby boy
Dean Strang, Steven’s attorney, who comes off as a man who believes deeply in a legal system that continues to disappoint him. As time goes on, he finds his faith in the system continually being challenged. At various times, towards the end of the series, he seems exasperated and unsure why he ever thought Steven might get a fair shake

Making a Murderer addresses a number of larger issues, such as the burden of the State when taking away the liberties of the individual. Have we made the burden of the State too great? Have we not? Do we have a system that is truly fair? Are the victims given proper consideration?

If nothing else, Making a Murderer will make you pony up a few extra bucks for a nice gift next Mother’s Day

Happiness is a Warm Gun carved from a 4.5 billion-year-old African meteorite…

You lucked out if you held back on buying winter clothing this Christmas because the weather was so warm. You saved your money and now can step in there and bid on an eternal, practical gift for yourself. An instant family heirloom/treasure that represents the very essence of our existence on Planet Earth. Screen shot 2015-12-29 at 10.04.52 AM The firearm maker Cabot announced on December 16th that it would construct a set of extraterrestrial pistols made from a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that was first discovered in the sub-Saharan part of Africa in 1838. Iowa Republican evangelical voters, for instance, will have to choose between the literal interpretation of the Bible that says the earth is around 6000 years old and the gun company that is touting scientific “facts” that date the meteorite just a bit older. In this case, you’ve got to go with Cabot. The integrity of gun manufacturers and their lobbying arm, the NRA, towers over anything else… the Bible included. That hurdle is settled.

From Cabot’s own PR release: “It’s both romantic and fascinating to imagine that this meteor traveled across the heavens for four billion years before landing on Earth and is now being transformed into Cabot pistols,” states company president and founder Rob Bianchin. Cabot will display a sampling of gun components made from meteorite at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the industry’s major trade show from Jan 19 to 22, 2016. The Big Bang Pistol Set will make their public debut during the NRA Annual Meeting and Convention in Louisville, KY, in May.

I’m not sure it could get any sexier than this as you add to your arsenal protecting you from Obama’s Confiscator Goonsquads and invading ISIS guys. You’ll feel so much better getting your brains blown out with this beauty than with a cheapo handgun…. if you order now we’ll send you a third SpaceAge Metal Monster free! The luxurious storage cases have been meticulously fashioned out of wood harvested from the desks at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut where 20 kids and 6 adults gave their lives in 2012 defending our precious Second Amendment rights. The cases are tastefully upholstered in authentically-bloodstained velour grabbed from seats in the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado where just a few months earlier 12 brave movie-going souls also died in defense of gun rights.

Forbes.com reminds us “A few years ago, another Cabot Guns pistol set, ‘The Left and the Right,’ featuring Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Piers Morgan, and Ted Nugent, made headlines.”

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Springtime for Hitler as “Mein Kampf” to be rereleased as “The Art of the Blitzkrieg”

I doubt the timing would ever be right for this 1925/26 not-so-feelgood best seller to reappear in Germany. The AP describes it this way:

“Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf” — or “My Struggle” — after he was jailed following the failed 1923 coup attempt known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Millions of copies were printed after the Nazis took power in 1933. The rambling tome set out Hitler’s ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-communist ideology for his National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi party, airing the idea of a war of conquest in eastern Europe.”

From a simple legal standpoint, the copyright law in Germany that allowed Bavaria to keep the book off the market for exactly 70 years after the author’s death expires beginning in 2016. Hitler committed suicide April 30, 1945.

Supposedly all the right things are being done to assure this printing does not somehow become an inspiration manual or instruction guide for 21st century ultranationalists, religious zealots, or, as I will show tremendous courage in saying, radical Islamic terrorists. Only a few thousand copies will be made.

AP: “The book should not be underestimated as a historical source and also as a key to understanding the history of National Socialism,” the director of the Munich institute, Andreas Wirsching, said ahead of the new edition’s mid-January publication. Among serious historians in Germany, you won’t find one who is against a commented edition and hasn’t been calling for one for years,” said Sven Felix Kellerhoff, a journalist with the daily Die Welt and a historian who has written about “Mein Kampf” himself. “That goes from conservatives to the left.”

This new print edition will have hundreds of extra pages of explanation and rebuttal of Hitler, from The Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. All proceeds go to charity. “Mein Kampf” has been available in the rest of the world all these years, so you would think that technically this isn’t such a big deal. I think it is.

While I hate to relate everything to Trump, he has shown that at this moment, a well-delivered, angry, blame everyone else/ultra-nationalist, let’s take back our country campaign of hate is fully capable of tapping into a segment of United States voters. So far, fully immune from fact-checkers who are easily dismissed, not to be believed members of “the enemy,” … the parallels of Trump’s appeal have gotten my attention. I don’t know about you. Let’s bring another guy into the mix, just for fun, via the Washington Post:

Perhaps nobody understands Donald Trump better than the guy who has played him on TV for the better part of a decade. Stephen Colbert isn’t afraid to acknowledge that he is hardly the first to compare Trump’s real-life persona to Colbert’s former arch-conservative Comedy Central character. But Colbert’s analysis of Trump is savvy even beyond that. “I’m not the first person to say this, but I completely agree that he’s my old character with $10 billion,” the former host of “The Colbert Report” and current host of the “Late Show” told CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an interview airing Sunday 12/27.

Germany has an immigration problem that makes ours look like nothing. Far-right anti-immigration sentiment there and in much of Europe dwarfs our own. So, does the physical reappearance of the “Mein Kampf” in Germany really mean anything? I can only speculate that in an internet, soundbite, out-of-context world that did not exist in 1925, the worst of the worst of this book will get at least a bit of new attention. From who? The thousand-page refutation and explanation and fact-check is more likely than not to be ignored and scoffed at by those who again will use its vile themes for the unspeakable horrors of today.

Will Hoverboard be the Trump of Christmas gifts, 2015; will fact checks and warnings mean nothing?

Was buying a hoverboard for your kid for Christmas, 2015, the most problematic but irresistible and inevitable of all gifts? The excitement at the moment of discovery followed by danger, regret, and maybe even injury? Not being that bright but ultimately optimistic, I have been Screen shot 2015-12-26 at 9.10.53 AM assuming that will be the final trajectory of the Make America Great Again Crusade of Donald Trump. Danger. Regret. Injury. I could be wrong.

Because hoverboards can’t campaign and get out there to lie about how great and smart they are and how they are literally killing the competition, “Xboxes are weak, stupid losers….. I am outselling every other Christmas gift…. every survey agrees with me… Barbie has no stamina…. American Girl is low energy… pathetic” (notice the targeted attacks on veteran female dolls!)…. hoverboards may be subject to the laws of truth, experience, and the marketplace of bad products. There was no way to argue with the dangerous fires that were documented on both social and non-social media of exploding lithium battery-powered hoverboards. And rest assured that we’ve closed another loophole for ISIS trying to take down an airliner. Screen shot 2015-12-26 at 9.38.53 AM

Buyers remorse for politicians often takes years, sometimes decades to take hold. Think how long it took for your dad to admit voting for Nixon wasn’t such a hot idea after all; that he really was a crook. It’s taken years for some people to regret voting for George W. Bush or Barack Obama, for way too many reasons. Hoverboards however, are subject to instant analysis that should mean something…… Screen shot 2015-12-26 at 9.49.41 AM

…. but probably won’t Screen shot 2015-12-26 at 9.50.20 AM

… no… I mean it! Screen shot 2015-12-26 at 9.50.50 AM

The tiniest amount of thought that hoverboards, which don’t hover and look to me to be skateboards on steroids, would be a dangerous choice for a gift. The flying image of them from Back to The Future II was enough to overcome reality for many. In a painful analogy, the tiniest amount of thought that Donald Trump, who does hover endlessly, would be anything but dangerous as president, seems obvious to those of us on the outside looking at this. The image of Trump from reality tv has been enough to overcome reality for many, too.

—tweets gathered by Gizmodo—-

Ted, here’s what a REAL attack looks like on a little girl…. by your friend, Donald The Bully

I dare Ted Cruz and everyone who is fake offended by the cartoon of Ted and his “monkeys” to get on board and join me in publicly denouncing Donald Trump, The Man Who Cannot Shut His Mouth. Operators are Screen shot 2015-12-24 at 2.12.53 PM standing by to take the calls….

He had to go to Twitter to attack Hillary Clinton’s town hall moment the other day in Iowa where a fifth grader named Hanna Tandy asked if she could do anything about bullying. “I have heard people talking behind my back about not wanting to be near me because I have asthma.” Hillary hugged the girl and said, “I really do think we need more love and kindness in our country. I think we are not treating each other with the respect and the care that we should show toward each other…

And that’s why it’s important to stand up to bullies wherever they are, and why we shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency, because that is not who we are as Americans.” 600 people stood and applauded.

The next morning, reality tv star, WWE participant… a guy who knows fake… or at least he thinks he does, verbally vomited once more on Twitter.

The Des Moines Register picks it up from here: Hannah’s mother, Lexie Tandy, read Trump’s tweet Wednesday afternoon in the kitchen of the family farmhouse. She wished Trump would clarify his meaning, which seemed to be that the interaction between her daughter and Clinton had been set up. It absolutely wasn’t, she said. No one asked Hannah to ask the question, Tandy said. In fact, the family didn’t know she would take the microphone. Lexie Tandy didn’t even attend the event, because she had no idea her daughter would wind up in the spotlight for a moment that she will remember for a lifetime. Tandy said Trump’s tweet was an attempt to rip into Clinton, not her daughter. But he implied that Hannah was involved in something untoward, she said. “I don’t want to get in a big match-up with Donald Trump, but let me tell you, I will be in one if he makes comments about my daughter. She’s 10. She’s just a little girl,” Tandy said.

Hillary Hate could make Obama Hate look small-time at the rate things are going, as Trump has already nominated himself and is threatening general election opponent Hillary to shut up about everything or else he’ll have to go to Defshlong 1, the highest level of Trumpinsanity. His superhuman abilities to distinguish between reality, fantasy, and scripted shows notwithstanding, he should apologize to Hannah Tandy for accusing her of being a shill. Is it at all surprising that a guy who’s lived a staged, phony-baloney, publicity-seeking, non-stop photo-op for 40 years would not know reality from fakery in this Campaign of The Great, Angry, Racist Backlash he’s waging? Remember, this is a guy who sticks with the TV Myth of the Marching Muslims in Jersey on September 11, 2001.

This spiked Washington Post cartoon should be retitled, “Schlong in a Box” for SNL, 2016!

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The Fake Outrage Machine is running at 110% on this one. Ted finds it soooooooo offensive and damaging to his kids that he’s amplifying it, copying it, and sending it around to his Base of Morons. “I’m sickened … I knew I’d be facing attacks from day one of my campaign, but I never expected anything like this…This is an emergency — all hands on deck.” His pain will be salved when they send him money to “help me fight back”….. that’s the definition of chutzpah (another Yiddish word for well-known Yiddish expert Donald Trump to misuse some day, only to redefine it when you call him on it.) Most of the news coverage I see on this story simplifies down to the cartoon’s artist Ann Telnaes crossing “the line” and “using” the children inappropriately…. first and foremost attacking and making fun of the kids to make adult Ted Cruz look like an opportunistic jerk. The social media explosion was immediate and the Washington Post’s editor killed it, agreeing that the old “children are off-limits” unwritten rule MUST be applied. Talk about your Political Correctness and Intentional Misinterpretation/Victim Syndrome…..jeesh… I’ve barely seen it mentioned that the clear intent of the cartoon was to tweek Cruz for using his kids like trained monkeys in the leaden video he put out a few days ago where he reads famous Christmas lyrics to his kids and wife in front of the fire…. the words are changed to all be anti-Demokrat/Obama in the fake Christmas Album parody ad, seen here, along with comments from respected media critics Marco Rubio and Donald Trump …. The cartoon is hardly an “attack” on Cruz’s kids…. and I’d be willing to bet that 97% of the Conservative Outrage is made up of people who don’t even know the backstory or the point of the drawing. Not that they would care, as they write their checks to Ted’s Crusade. I’m surprised no one has yet played the race card on this, imagining the anger that would have occurred had the Obama daughters been depicted as monkeys…. as if there is no difference between black and white people drawn as monkeys…. and as if President Obama and Michelle haven’t been subject to that and worse for 8+ years. There is no equivalence. The crosscurrents of hypocrisy here are breathtaking…..

You can raise money off of this: Screen shot 2015-12-23 at 2.51.24 PM …. and this one, too! Screen shot 2015-12-23 at 3.19.40 PM

“The only schlongs obnoxious enough to get more attention than Trump in 2015 belonged to ISIS”–AP

Trump responded to the injustice of his not getting the prize and the attention: “You’ve got to be kidding, AP. You’re a bunch of losers…. no one knows who you really are. Do you have names? Wow… a WIRE service. Your parents must be proud. Big in 1943. Today? Nothing. You must have been sitting around with your SCHLONGS in your hands being stupid enough…. and I can’t emphasize this enough how stupid these people are, to NOT pick Donald J. Trump as the Top Story of 2015. Maybe you didn’t want to be forced to pick me this year and NEXT year too. If Putin did have a few journalists knocked off, and I’m not saying he did, I can see why he had good reason. These people are idiots. Possibly even dumber than Hillary or Jeb, neither of whom have high energy or stamina.”

Odell Beckham, Jr. and the Art of the Meltdown

Around Labor Day, I was telling anyone who would listen that New York Giants Wide Receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. was THE pick if you were drafting first in your fantasy league. Despite missing the first four games of his rookie year, he KILLED IT for me during his rookie season and helped propel me to the only fantasy championship I’ve ever had. Plus, he made the SICKEST grabs

Year two has been trying for Beckham and the G-Men. The NFC East has been dreadful (only the AFC South can compete for sheer lousiness). The Giants are only competitve because the Redskins, Cowboys, and Eagles are so terrible (only Dallas has been eliminated from the playoffs going into the last two weeks of the season)

So, week 15’s matchup between the Giants and undefeated Carolina Panthers in New Jersey was being hyped to the MOON. Beckham’s matchup against Carolina Corner Josh Norman was highlighted, as Norman is considered, by some, to be the best CB in football. Plus, the Giants are fighting for their playoff lives and the Panthers are surging toward perfection

Then, Odell Beckham lost his damn mind

Beckham incurred THREE (3) personal fouls, including 2 on the SAME drive in the 3rd quarter. Not sure how many one needs to get in the NFL before the officials figure out you’re there to hurt people instead of playing football. The NFL responded by suspending Beckham for one game, making him the only offensive player to receive a suspension for “targeting” (using one’s helmet to target an opponent’s head, intentionally)

But, I’d like to back up for one moment. Before the game even started, a practice squad player for the Panthers (since identified as Marcus Ball) used a baseball bat as a prop in a stunt that made Beckham feel threatened. First of all, if a player who isn’t even on the main roster can make number one receiver in football go absolutely nuts, he should be signed IMMEDIATELY to the main roster of some team. I don’t recall Jerry Rice, Tim Brown, Lynn Swann, Randy Moss, or Michael Irvin ever feeling threatened by anything a practice squad player ever did

By the way, this is where the NFL is totally like the WWE. Meet Sting

One of the biggest stars in the history of WCW. He used the bat because he was outnumbered. It was his equalizer. But, we knew he wasn’t actually going to use it on anyone because wrestling ISN’T REAL. Odell Beckham, Jr. should have watched wrestling. He would have known a practice squad player wasn’t going to beat him with a bat

In truth, Beckham’s meltdown wasn’t the worst

And, at least, he didn’t bring the crowd into it

But, in the end, the NFL did the right thing. And, Commissioner Goodell (who has been criticized for his decision-making), should get some credit for taking action against a star player who was ready to do his thing in an important game in prime time on Sunday night. Goodell should also suspend the gutless refs who let the situation on-the-field get out-of-hand

I would also expect a strict ban on baseball bats during pregame

B&B Podcast 12/21/15

Still time for you to get great deals on your Christmas gift AND help out B and B by shopping at BradandBrittAmazon.com. Lil’ Rush deplores what happened with Hillary and Odell Beckham, Jr, B and B discuss Beckham’s meltdown and Tom Brady’s mysterious business partner, price of gas is down, Bernie supporters go NUTS! Follow us on twitter: @BradandBritt facebook: fb.com/BradandBrittShow