Epsteinphiles Vs. Distraction

CAUTION: this is a politically themed post.

It will mention Charlie Kirk.

If you wish to not deal with this, I will talk about Star Trek tomorrow, a personal post about what I did on Saturday follows on Wednesday and there will be a comic book themed post coming up on Thursday.

Or you may proceed with today's post at your own peril.

_________________________________________

The Jeffrey Epstein files are still a thing? Really?

Of course they are still a thing because Donald Trump keeps insisting they are not a thing.

Li'l Donnie insists the whole thing is a hoax.  

The woman abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell have taken exception to that description. 

Li'l Donnie's co-conspirators FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi insists they've released everything and there's nothing else there. 

Then a Congressional committee finds more stuff. Which appears to be not all the stuff. Gee, I am confused. Didn't Patel and Bondi say there was no more stuff? 

Trump can't get away from the Epstein Files and could really use a major distraction.

Like Charlie Kirk getting assassinated? Yeah, that might do it

You gotta admit the murder of right wing activist Charlie Kirk has sucked a lot of air out of the room what with snivelling sycophantic Trump stoolies running with Li'l Donnie's narrative that Kirk's death was the result of a left wing activist cabal. 

So far there is no evidence that the accused shooter Tyler Robinson was involved with any organization with all the evidence indicating he acted alone.

That didn't stop JD Vance and Stephen Miller from grabbing the late Charlie Kirk's podcast mircrophone and declaring it's a FACT that most political violence is instigated by the left.

When Jimmy Kimmel actually called that out in his monologue on Monday, he wound up being suspended by Disney/ABC. 

FCC chair (and Sopranos mafia wannabe) Brendan Carr called on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel for saying bad shit about Charlie Kirk or the broadcast licenses for the ABC network and it's affiliates would get yeeted.  A government agency telling a private entity to do something over an objection to something said is the very epitome of a First Amendment violation.  

There have been demands that Jimmy Kimmel needs to apologize to Charlie Kirk's family for what he said.

But Kimmel said nothing about Kirk or his movement or anything about his murder. 

What he did say was there were people trying to score political points for their own benefit and power from his murder.

Which I consider to be a FACT but let's be fair I suppose and call it an opinion which he still had every right to express.  

By all accounts, executives at ABC and Disney did not think what Kimmel said was really all that bad but had to act because the FCC was threatening the viability of the network and it's affiliates.  

Also in the wake of Carr's comments, employees of Disney and ABC began receiving death threats.  

ABC can fire Jimmy Kimmel if it wants but the government can't threaten ABC into firing Kimmel because those people in the government object.  Which is what Brendan Carr did. 

"Nice little network you have here. Shame if something... happened to it."  

And Pam Bondi has gone on record of getting the DOJ to come after other people who engage in "hate speech".

And Li'l Donnie is in a tizzy of a snit to start revoking licenses for all networks who say bad shit about him.  "Donald Trump is a fucking moron" is hate speech? I don't hate saying that it. I'm happy to express that FACT (or opinion if you must).   

Hey, Li'l Donnie, you don't like negative shit about you? Then STOP doing stupid, unethical, illegal shit! 

But you're too stupid to figure that out, huh? 

Meanwhile, the United States is on fire because people are trying to elevate Charlie Kirk to sainthood and to pillory Jimmy Kimmel as the devil that did him in? Or something? 

The MAGA heads themselves aren't sure. They're just mad and Kimmel is a convenient target. He said bad shit about Charlie Kirk! (No, he didn't!) Well, he's insulted Donald Trump a lot so there you go! 

Who knew Jimmy Kimmel of all people would be the crucial lynchpin in the fall of American Democracy.

And there's still the matter of those dang Epstein Files.

Damn it! I mentioned the Epstein Files.

Distraction!

Distraction!

Distraction!

Howzabout a jaunt to merry olde England, eh?

Donald Trump goes to the United Kingdom for a state visit with King Charles.  Now apparently the royal family rolled out a lavish and reverential visit with the orange man who would be king.

Except...

Unlike with other visiting heads of state, Trump did not get a public welcome by the Prime Minister. A low level foreign secretary was sent to greet Li'l Donnie when he got off the plane.

Where there was no red carpet.

Unlike other visiting heads of state, Trump did not get a public processional through the streets of London, instead shunted off with no fuss and no muss to Windsor Castle.

Instead of the more public Buckingham Palace.  

And unlike other visiting heads of state, Trump was not afforded an opportunity to speak to Parliament.  

The royals fawned all over Li'l Donnie and he ate it all up like the egomaniacal narcissist he is without noticing he was not getting a more public welcome.

Due to the likelihood of not getting one. People in the U.K. fucking hate Donald Trump. 

Expressed through unfurling a giant banner of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein as well as projecting a image of the two men on the side of Windsor Castle.

Crap! I mentioned Epstein!  

Can we get a distraction?

How about Charlie Kirk's funeral? 

Yeah, that might work.

Donald Trump along with JD Vance and other Trump syncophants and 60,000+ mourners gathered at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix for a memorial to their dearly departed white Christian nationalist. 

You might think being a white Christian nationalist is bad thing and you would be right.

This was 60,000+ people who think being a white Christian nationalist is a good thing and they're sad and angry their young acolyte is dead and wondering how to make liberals pay for that.

Like who else can Trump get fired besides Jimmy Kimmel.

Or how to keep those Epstein Files hidden....

Damn it! I mention Epstein again. 

Distraction?

Nope, we're done!

I'm Tired!

I  had a busy day yesterday.

I attended the Greensboro Pride event with Rosie the Dog along with her emotional support humans Dean and Jan.

And other things occupied my day, causing me to miss my precious Saturday afternoon nap.

You know what?

I'm tired.

Remember to be good to one another.

Let's try this another day. 

Songs For Saturday Redux: U2 LIVE!

I do not have the spoons to pull together a Movie Time post for Saturday.

Instead of doing a banana post (which is when I got nothing), I went back into the archives for a classic Songs For Saturday post from September 23, 2023.

It's U2 LIVE!  

  

Apropos of nothing in particular, today's Songs For Saturday will spotlight not only the music of U2 but LIVE performances by the greatest rock band ever.   

For a BBC Special, U2 is back up by an orchestra at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London for "With Or Without You"

U2 goes acoustic for "Ordinary Love" on the stage of The Tonight Show where they are joined by Questlove and the Roots.

Wrapping up today's playlist is a young U2 in live performance of "Gloria" from June 1983 at Denver’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.  

Your Friday Video Link: Bohemian Blitz!

Your Friday Video Link is Bohemiam Rhapsody.

By a flash mob in Paris.

This is pretty awesome, dudes! 

This first came to my attention by way of Tik Tok via son Dean and friend Jan. Jan shared it with me and as I was watching it, I thought, "You know who would enjoy this? Dean and Jan!"

So I shared it with them totally forgetting how I came to see this in the first place.

Mark Evanier also posted this on his blog as well.

More Bohemiam Rhapsody?

Yes, why not! 

Bring on the Muppets!

Even MORE Bohemiam Rhapsody?

Yes, please!

Bring on the Wayne's World!

Is this the real thing?

Is this just another variation?

Real thing, bros!

Thd official remastered Bohemiam Rhapsody by Queen!

Thanks for dropping by and remember to be good to one another. 

Kimmel Kaput?

So ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live over remarks Jimmy made in Monday's monologue about the recent murder of a certain conservative activist.

Here is what Jimmy Kimmel said:  “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

What Kimmel was addressing was the rush by Republicans to  blame “the radical left” in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing despite having limited information about the suspected shooter and motive at the time.

Kimmel then went on to mock Donald Trump's response to a question about Kirk's death to babble about the White House ballroom nobody wants.

A conservative commentator posted online that ″@jimmykimmel is explicitly stating that MAGA killed Charlie Kirk and is victim blaming the assassination on Charlie’s movement."

Explicitly? Really?

MAGA heads have been twisting themselves into knots to blame Kirk's horrible murder on some kind of vast left wing liberal agenda instead of the one guy who comes from what appears to be a conservative family.  

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a Donald Trump stooge and MAGA loyalist, accused Kimmel of misleading viewers about the ideology of the suspected shooter. Kimmel's remarks were about how others are misleading people about the shooter's ideology.  

JD Vance took the reigns of Charlie Kirk's podcast to declare it's a fact that most political violence is instigated by the left when in fact the evidence points to the opposite has laid out in an extensive report by the Department of Justice.

A report that was pulled from the DOJ website last week. 

Well, ain't that the coinky dink?

Meanwhile, Li'l Donnie was doing his happy dance, posting online “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”

Well, Li'l Donnie is experiencing premature adulation over Kimmel's demise.  His show has been suspended, not cancelled as of yet. 

But who knows how this will shake out.  We've seen corporate entities knuckle under to the bullying of Donald Trump and his sycophants (looking at you, Paramount) and I think ABC/Disney might get weak kneed if Trump and his cronies continue to have a tizzy of a snit over this. 

Will Jimmy Kimmel be forced to apologize to get back on the air?

Apologize for what, exactly? Kimmel said nothing bad about Charlie Kirk or about his murder but merely expressed an opinion about those who would manipulate the situation for political gain. 

If Kimmel is asked to apologize for expressing an opinion, well, ain't we all totally fucked? 

Robert Redford

 

Robert Redford passed away yesterday at the age 89.

He left behind a legacy of altruism, generosity and of course a list of great movie roles.

One of those movies was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Below is my favorite scene from that movie.

I really need to re-watch this movie sometime and do a Movie Time blog post about it.

Robert Redford films I have done posts about include

The Sting

Inside Daisy Clover

The Hot Rock

Other Robert Redford films I have seen (but have not done a blog post about) include Sneakers, Barefoot in the Park, Out of Africa and The Natural.   

Hell, Redford even served his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Redford used his success in movies to help other filmmakers. He created the Sundance Film Festival, which became the country's largest festival for independent films. 

Redford supported environmentalism, Native American rights, LGBTQ+ rights and the arts.

As an actor, Redford had an effortless charm that guided his performances, as a villain or a hero or a broken man in search of redemption. 

Such as the character of Roy Hobbs in The Natural.

I remember seeing The Natural in the theater and the climatic scene where Roy Hobbs makes his final home run was simply epic.

Yeah, it's a scene might seem hokey to some because it's been parodied and homaged a ton of times.  But this was the real deal and it was awesome.

Let's end this post with Robert Redford rounding the bases on last time.

You were fantastic and you will be missed. 

Blog Bidness: Community Guidelines

 If you came to the blog yesterday, there were some obstacles to reading the Tuesday TV Touchbase.

There was a notification that the post was in violation of Blogger's Community Guidelines.  

There was an option to read or not read the offending material and if you opted to say yes, then what you got was a standard issue edition of my weekly Tuesday TV Touchbase, this time sharing my thoughts on the 2025 Emmys, Only Murders In the Building and the surprise bonus episode of Game Changer.  

What about the post was in violation of Blogger's Community Guidelines? Well, your guess is as good as mine. 

The violation warning sends me to a read out about Blogger's Community Guidelines and but nothing specific as to what exactly about the post was worthy of such concern.

Here are some of the items in Blogger's Community Guidelines that a person could get dinged for.  

• Adult Content
• Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
• Dangerous and Illegal Activities
• Harassment, Bullying, and Threats
• Hate Speech
• Impersonation and Misrepresentation of Identit
• Misleading Conten
• Non-Consensual Explicit Imagery (NCEI)
• Violent Organizations and Movements
• Unauthorized Images of Minors
• Violence and Gore

I am reasonbly sure none of that applies to my humble recount of stuff I happened to watch on television.  

OK, I did say I was not impressed with Nate Bargatze as host of the Emmys. Does that count as "hate speech"?

Yes, the topic of murder, a "dangerous and illegal activity" comes up but hey, that comes with the territory when talking about Only Murders In the Building.  

And I referenced the title of the Game Changer episode ("Samalamadingdong!") and does that sound like "adult content"? 

Someone reported this content to be reviewed by Blogger to verify it violates Community Guidelines. If it does, what could happen then?  

• Put the blog or post behind a sensitive content warning interstitial
• Unpublish the post, making it only available to the blog author
• Delete the offending content, post or blog
• Disable the author's access to their Blogger account
• Disable the author's access to their Google account
• Report the user to law enforcement

Nate Bargatze has powerful friends.

But seriously folks...

It does occur to me that the report for violating Community Guidelines may have nothing to do with the actual Tuesday TV Touchbase post.

Perhaps I'm dealing with some harrassment in response to the previous day's post about Charlie Kirk?

Did I hurt the feelings of someone who objected to my post against murder but also against hate and fear mongering?

Am I being paranoid? Probably but the adage goes, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're NOT being followed."  

Or I simply incurred the wrath of the Nate Bargatze fan club.