Sarah Palin is still getting speaking gigs thanks to Trig.

Courtesy of My Central Jersey: 

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican Party nominee for vice president, will speak at the 2018 New Jersey Right to Life (NJRTL) Banquet Dinner on April 20. 

The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency, 2 Albany St., New Brunswick. Speaker, teacher and author David Hajduk will serve as master of ceremonies. 

"We've actually been trying to get Sarah for a very long time," NJRTL Executive Director Marie Tasy said. "We are really excited that we are finally going to have Sarah come to New Jersey. She is an internationally sought speaker and a pro-life leader. We think her life experience is certainly one that people are very interested in." 

Tasy said Palin has a child with Down syndrome. 

"She does speak about her experiences when she found out she was carrying a child with Down syndrome," Tasy said. "I think it's certainly very impressive and inspirational to many women who face unexpected prenatal diagnosis and choose life. 

"She is a great example of a woman who obviously chose life for this child. It's a great example to other women. It's especially inspiring now and is such a contrast to what we're seeing in places like Iceland who have virtually exterminated all children with Down syndrome through abortion." 

Is still find this unbelievable.

It has been almost seven years since I wrote a post that offered definitive proof that Sarah Palin faked her 2008 pregnancy and birth, and STILL people refuse to accept that Sarah Palin is a ginormous fraud.

Man who knew that faking a pregnancy could be so lucrative?

I will leave you today with the powerful words of Emma Gonzalez, who was in that Florida school the day a man came in with an AR-15 and massacred 17 of her schoolmates.

I know it is hard to hear, but I urge you to listen to it in its entirety.

The raw emotion coming from this young woman is exactly what we should never forget as we call out Senators and Congresspeople and demand that they do something so that these victims in Florida become the LAST victims of school gun violence, and not simply the most recent.

For those who cannot get through with breaking down, here is a transcript:

We haven't already had a moment of silence in the House of Representatives, so I would like to have another one. Thank you. 

Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it's time for victims to be the change that we need to see. Since the time of the Founding Fathers and since they added the Second Amendment to the Constitution, our guns have developed at a rate that leaves me dizzy. The guns have changed but our laws have not. 

We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. In Florida, to buy a gun you do not need a permit, you do not need a gun license, and once you buy it you do not need to register it. You do not need a permit to carry a concealed rifle or shotgun. You can buy as many guns as you want at one time. 

I read something very powerful to me today. It was from the point of view of a teacher. And I quote: When adults tell me I have the right to own a gun, all I can hear is my right to own a gun outweighs your student's right to live. All I hear is mine, mine, mine, mine. 

Instead of worrying about our AP Gov chapter 16 test, we have to be studying our notes to make sure that our arguments based on politics and political history are watertight. The students at this school have been having debates on guns for what feels like our entire lives. AP Gov had about three debates this year. Some discussions on the subject even occurred during the shooting while students were hiding in the closets. The people involved right now, those who were there, those posting, those tweeting, those doing interviews and talking to people, are being listened to for what feels like the very first time on this topic that has come up over 1,000 times in the past four years alone. 

I found out today there's a website shootingtracker.com. Nothing in the title suggests that it is exclusively tracking the USA's shootings and yet does it need to address that? Because Australia had one mass shooting in 1999 in Port Arthur (and after the) massacre introduced gun safety, and it hasn't had one since. Japan has never had a mass shooting. Canada has had three and the UK had one and they both introduced gun control and yet here we are, with websites dedicated to reporting these tragedies so that they can be formulated into statistics for your convenience. 

I watched an interview this morning and noticed that one of the questions was, do you think your children will have to go through other school shooter drills? And our response is that our neighbors will not have to go through other school shooter drills. When we've had our say with the government -- and maybe the adults have gotten used to saying 'it is what it is,' but if us students have learned anything, it's that if you don't study, you will fail. And in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead, so it's time to start doing something. 

So here is the Trump 2020 campaign's advertisement attacking Democrats for not applauding Trump's crappy presidency.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“President Donald Trump asked Democrats to join him in standing up for America,” text at the bottom of the video —which superimposed “patriotic” music over a clip from the president’s speech — reads. 

“Instead, they just sat there, and sat there,” the chyron reads, “disrespecting our people, disrespecting our country.” 

The video highlights the faces of multiple Democrats in the audience, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the former of which Trump referred to in his Ohio “treasonous” speech.

Okay that is some truly deceptive editing going on here. 

I think they just matched up the words of the speech with images of the Democrats sitting down kind of willy nilly.

I think it sort of took balls to include that remark about the lowest black unemployment ever, since after that speech it went right back up again.

So to be clear kids, it is NOT unpatriotic to yell "you lie!," during a speech by a Democratic President, but completely traitorous to refuse to give a standing ovation to a Republican president.

The only time I will give this POS a standing ovation is while watching him hauled out of the White House in handcuffs, or during his funeral, whichever comes first.

Every day yet another reason to feel shame that this man is leading our country.

This man is our president pic.twitter.com/sqMS7uhN1W

— Todd Dracula (@ToddDracula) January 19, 2018

Courtesy of People:  

President Donald Trump flubbed a key word in his address to the March for Life rally on Friday, mistakenly telling anti-abortion protesters that it’s wrong for babies to be “born” in the ninth month of a pregnancy. 

“Right now, a number of state laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother’s womb in the ninth month. It is wrong. It has to change,” he said. 

As the Daily Beast pointed out, Trump’s prepared remarks showed that he meant to say “torn,” rather than “born,” in a reference to late-term abortion.

Come on, we know that if this HAD NOT been written out for him that he would have made even less sense.

But hey, let us not forget that according to a 10 minute cognitive test Donald Trump is like the smartest president ever!

House Republican to bring Bill Nye "The Science Guy" to Trump's State of the Union Address.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Celebrated children's TV show host and outspoken environmentalist Bill Nye "The Science Guy" will attend this year's State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., as guest of GOP Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma. 

“Bill Nye has been inspiring countless young people to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math since before we used STEM as an acronym. Our country needs these disciplines now more than ever," Bridenstine said in a statement. 

Nye has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, calling it the "anti-science movement."

It should also be noted that Bridenstine is Trump's pick to head NASA, though he ha not yet been confirmed. So doing this seems kind of like a big middle finger to Donald Trump.

I have already decided that I am going to boycott the speech personally, but I will be closely following it on Twitter, because the idea of Trump giving this speech in front of an audience with multiple sexual abuse survivors and Bill Nye in attendance just seems like it could make for some high comedy.

Sarah Palin gets another speaking gig. Really?

Courtesy of the Star-Telegram: 

Former vice-presidential candidate and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin will dine in Denton next month as the featured speaker at a Denton County Republican Party event. 

Palin will give an address at the party's annual Lincoln-Reagan dinner on Saturday, Feb. 10, according to a news release, which also calls Palin a "conservative icon." 

The ticketed event begins at 5 p.m. and will be at the Denton Embassy Suites hotel. It includes a meet-and-greet with local candidates and current GOP office-holders. individual tickets are listed at $125 on the party's web site.

It has been sometime since Palin has had a speaking gig, which makes me think that perhaps there were some recent unexpected expenses that were not covered in the Palin yearly budget.

You know, things like lawyer costs, replacing broken windows, medical bill for a badly beaten husband, that kind of thing.

In fact even in Texas they know about that most recent Palin kerfuffle: 

Other members of the Palin family have made more news than she has recently, though. Her son Track pleaded not guilty Monday to a felony assault charge in a a case involving a dispute with his father, Todd Palin, according to the Associated Press.

Yep, not going to be able to leave that behind.

Which of course means that Palin will not be taking any questions from the press during her visit. 

Well, maybe Fox News if they bother to cover the event.

Now about Oprah Winfrey's Golden Globe speech...

Now that was a powerful speech!

If you are someplace where you cannot watch the video, USA Today has the full transcript here. (However it should be noted that Oprah's delivery is half the magic.)

There is now talk about an Oprah Winfrey presidential run in 2020.

I am certainly not ready to jump on that bandwagon, but I have to say that if my two choices were Tangerine Hitler, and one of the most beloved figures in America, that would not be a hard choice to make at all.

Oprah Winfrey is more compassionate, more intelligent, and simply more competent than Donald Trump has ever been in his entire life.

Donald Trump's FBI schizophrenia.

Trump, just before he makes remarks at the FBI National Academy graduation, says this to reporters: "It's a shame what's happened with the FBI... The level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad."pic.twitter.com/5KDcRkHv7Q

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 15, 2017

Courtesy of The Hill: 

President Trump on Friday tore into the FBI just hours before speaking at the agency’s training academy. 

“It’s a shame what's happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI; it’ll be bigger and better than ever,” Trump told reporters. 

The president doubled down on his criticism of the nation’s top law enforcement agency before leaving the White House for the FBI’s campus in Quantico, Va., where he spoke to law enforcement leaders graduating from a training program. 

Trump said revelations about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and text messages from a top agent that were critical of him were “really, really disgraceful.” 

“You have a lot of very angry people who are seeing it,” the president said. "It's a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that."

By the way when Donald Trump says that "a lot of people are very angry" those people are really just the voices in his head.

They are also the same "people" who were finding "amazing" things about Barack Obama's birth certificate in Hawaii.

Now those statements above were straight from the orange tinted anus mouth of Trump in the morning, but later in the day he was singing a different tune.

Courtesy of Time Magazine: 

President Trump praised FBI agents as “great, great people” and “heroes for all of us” at a graduation less than an hour after criticizing the agency to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. 

In a speech to the FBI National Academy’s graduating class, Trump argued that America should do more to protect and respect law enforcement officials, even calling for the death penalty for people who harm them. 

“Deliver a message to your fellow officers — the President of the United States has your back 100 percent,” he said.

I try not to watch Trump in real time, and tend to wait until later and watch journalists reporting on what he said.

However this morning I actually watched both of these exchanges as they were happening, and during that speech to the  FBI graduates by jaw just went slack.

It quite literally made me doubt what I had heard earlier today.

The man is either completely schizophrenic, or the comments to the reporters on the White House lawn are his actual opinions, and the shit he spewed in front of the graduates are words written for him by his speech writers to make him seem presidential, that he just reads off robotically like an episode of the Apprentice.

You decide.

Barack Obama finally brings up Hitler while talking about his fears for the future of America.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Former President Obama issued a stark warning against growing nativism in the U.S. and throughout the world at the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, invoking growing complacency and the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. 

Obama told the forum's audience during a question and answer session that the danger at hand was "grow(ing) complacent," according to newspaper Crain's Chicago Business. 

"We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly," Obama said. 

"That's what happened in Germany in the 1930s which, despite the democracy of the Weimar Republic and centuries of high-level cultural and scientific achievements, Adolph Hitler rose to dominate," he continued. 

"Sixty million people died. ... So, you've got to pay attention. And vote."

Even if he did not mention him by name, we all know who Obama was talking about.

And it is time that he started to openly recognize what most of us have been talking about all along.

Donald Trump is a fascist and if not removed from office he will destroy this country.

We need people like Barack Obama and other leaders to start saying that openly and often.

Here is video of his speech.

Barack Obama says that if he'd watched Fox New he would not have voted for himself either.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi, Obama took shots at the network, which is widely criticized for its negative coverage of Democrats. 

In discussing social media and traditional media outlets, Obama said that networks like Fox News have created “information silos,” where different groups of people are getting different information based on what they consume. 

“Those who watch Fox News and those who read The New York Times occupy completely different realities,” he said. 

He pointed specifically to Fox News, saying that the network portrays him “in weird ways.” 

“If I watch Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me,” he said. “I would watch it and say who is that guy? This character Barack was portrayed in weird ways. It is all edited and shaped. ... The point is, you get multiple realities.”

This is absolutely dead on. The President Obama as presented by Fox News seemed to have absolutely no similarity to the one that existed in the real world.

And that is also true of their characterization of Hillary Clinton, who in their eyes appeared to be a cold hearted criminal, incapable of telling the truth.

Fox New is of course Donald Trump's cable news outlet of choice, because they are essentially Trump TV these days, and before that they worked as a propaganda arm of the Republican party.

I actually do not think that Fox News should be allowed to call itself a "news" outlet or to be invited to cover political events as journalists.

In fact the only reason they should be invited to the White House Correspondent's Dinner is to park the cars and bring drinks to the actual reporters who show up for the celebration.

I'll just leave this here.

"They don't have water? That's OK.": Trump gets parched during his televised remarks on his Asia trip pic.twitter.com/ybNOHm6iLJ

— POLITICO (@politico) November 15, 2017

And this too.

More than a tweet, there's also a video of Trump mocking Rubio's SOTU water moment. pic.twitter.com/dkKyrOIUGO

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2017

I think yesterday was one of Marco Rubio's favorite days.

Hillary Clinton commenting on the fact that Fox News seems to think that she is the President.

@HillaryClinton’s comments tonight about @FoxNews trying to impeach her 😂 pic.twitter.com/ti3e28R4HY

— Dylan 💫 (@dylxn_t) October 29, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story:

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee spoke at a dinner for the Human Rights Campaign held in Washington, D.C., where she took a few shots at the cable news network that has breathlessly been promoting fake scandals about her all week — while the Trump White House braces for arrests on Monday. 

“It does strike me that in the last few days at least, Fox News seems to think that’s where I live, in the White House,” Clinton told the crowd. “Because they spend a disproportionate amount of their time talking about impeaching me.” 

“So, look, if they want to make a trade, I’d be more than willing,” she quipped. “I would have much preferred to have come to the dinner tonight from a slightly closer residence.” 

Now this idea that Fox News thinks that Hillary is the president, and needs to be impeached, may seem ridiculous, but then there is this.

Lewandowski: "The speculation is so insane right now. What we should be focusing on is the continued lies of the Clinton administration." pic.twitter.com/QgdZkNhmBo

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 28, 2017

I'm sorry WHOSE administration?

It is almost like Fox News, and even members of the Trump campaign, actually wanted Hillary to win so they could spend the next four years beating her up.

And even though she didn't win they see no real reason to change their plans.

Donald Trump demonstrates primitive speaking skills even by the standards of an illiterate indigenous people.

Linguist John McWhorter

Courtesy of Trump Impeachment:  

Brian Williams interviewed linguistics professor John McWorter on the 11th Hour. McWhorter elaborated on Trump’s deficiency as a communicator. 

Williams: “What is the linguistics definition of this president?” 

McWhorter: “Donald Trump is unadorned. Linguistically, he is unadorned. This is the basics, this is what language was undoubtedly like when it first emerged among people who didn’t have writing and were first getting their verbal sea legs. This is where it started and so in that way as in so many others Donald Trump is an original.” 

Williams: “That would mean that education and schooling has had no effect on his use of language. He’s quick to remind us that he went to the best schools.” 

McWhorter: “And he learned nothing in them. He speaks like someone who has paid no attention to one of the goals of education, which is refine our natural, inborn proclivities of speech, which are great for casual circumstances, but he uses those same ways of speaking in what most of us used to consider formal and important circumstances.” 

Williams: “I think in your line of work they call it a ‘tag’ when something is added at the end of a sentence. The tradition is that often he will tag a sentence with ‘believe me, believe me,’ an enforcer, something he thought was lacking in the original sentence.” 

McWhorter: “Um, hmm. It’s that he’s reinforcing ...what we’re always doing is checking to see that the other person understands what we’re saying, that they’re in the same boat that we are, so that’s what ‘you know’ is, that’s what ‘LOL’ is in texting, but once again, he’s not doing it in texting, he’s doing it in formal circumstances. What that means is that he never leaves the realm of the casual when he speaks, which is unlike — even in indigenous societies, where there is no such thing as reading or writing yet, there’s always a high way of talking and a low way of talking; the Chief just doesn’t get up and run his mouth. Ours does.

Great, we have a guy in the most important political office on the planet who communicates worse than an indigenous tribe deep in the jungles of South America. 

That's so comforting.

Personally I cannot even bear to listen to Trump for more than a minute or so at a time.

Hearing him reminds of all of those hours spent transcribing Sarah Palin speeches and interviews during which at one point I literally checked to see if my ears had started bleeding.

It is hard to imagine that there are even six American voters who listened to Trump speak and thought, "Well he sounds like the leader we need in this country," much less almost sixty three million of them.

Steven Bannon tells audience of California Republicans that "There has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush's."

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Steve Bannon has depicted former President George W Bush as bumbling and inept, faulting him for presiding over a “destructive” presidency during his time in the White House. 

The former White House adviser delivered a retort to a speech Bush gave in New York during the week in which the 43rd president denounced bigotry in Trump-era American politics and warned that the rise of “nativism”, isolationism and conspiracy theories have clouded the nation’s true identity. 

Bannon, speaking to a capacity crowd at a California Republican party convention on Friday night, said Bush had embarrassed himself, didn’t know what he was talking about, and had no idea whether “he is coming or going, just like it was when he was president”. 

“There has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s,” Bannon added, as boos could be heard in the crowd at the mention of Bush’s name.

Well here's the thing.

I USED to be in total agreement with that last statement, but that was before Bannon's bromantic partner Donald Trump took office.

I mean as of yet Trump has not started an unnecessary war that killed hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, that's true.

Nor has he crashed the economy. Yet.

But I have high hopes that he will soon do FAR more damage than George Bush managed to do even after eight years in office.

And by "high hopes" I mean I live in abject fear of what he might do next.

Besides let's be clear, Bannon is not attacking George Bush for what he did during his presidency.

He is attacking George Bush for daring to criticize his his former boss, and White House slumber party partner.

Uncle Gryphen knows just what you need, here is a little Barack Obama to soothe your troubled brow.

I swear after the last nine months the man's voice is like a soothing balm for the soul.

And the hopefulness in his voice.....I had almost forgotten how good that sounds.

Here is how GQ Magazine described it: 

Yesterday President Barack Obama re-emerged on the scene like Han Solo coming back at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope. Okay, maybe that's overstating it a little, but what can I say, we've been severely lacking in hope and here we have Mr. Hope himself back on the national political scene campaigning and reminding us what it was like to have an actual honest-to-God adult speaking to Americans. He campaigned for Democrats in both New Jersey and Virginia and in the process threw some political elbows at his successor and the depressing state of the American political landscape. You know how when you used to wake up and check Twitter, it was kind of fun, but now it just feels like someone spitting directly into your face first thing in the morning? Yeah, these speeches were the first things in a while that don't make me feel that way.

Exactly!

In the first part of this speech you can hear the crowd shouting "Four more years!"

And just for a minute did you not find yourself wishing that such a thing were possible?

Three men arrested after one of them opens fire at group protesting speech by white supremacist. Update!

Photo courtesy of Raw Story

Courtesy of ABC Ten News: 

A Texas man who fired a shot at a group of protesters after Thursday's Richard Spencer speech at the University of Florida and the two men who encouraged him to open fire have been charged with attempted homicide, Gainesville police said. 

Tyler Tenbrink, 28, fired the shot, after he and two brothers in a silver Jeep shouted obscenities, threats and chants about Hitler at the protesters, who were at a bust stop on SW Archer Road, police said. Tenbrink has also been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. 

According to the arrest report, William Fears, 30, and Colton Fears, 28, both of Pasadena, Texas, shouted "I'm going to f****** kill you," "kill them" and "shoot them," before Tenbrink fired the shot, which missed and hit a nearby building. 

Police said that as the Jeep sped off, one of the protesters was able to get the license plate and reported it to investigators, who relayed it to law enforcement in the area. An off-duty deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office spotted the Jeep with the matching Texas tag around 9 p.m. on I-75 about 20 miles north of Gainesville.

Well good for that guy for having the presence of mind to get the license plate number after being forced to dodge bullets. 


According to police, just before 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the men in the Jeep stopped to argue with the group of protesters on Southwest Archer Road and one of the passengers yelled "Hail Hitler" and other chants. 

The protesters argued back and one of them hit the rear window of the Jeep with a baton, according to the arrest report. 

The Jeep then pulled about 10 feet away, stopped again and Tenbrink got out and pulled a handgun on the protesters as the Fears brothers egged him on, police said. 

At least two of the three have shown connections to extremist groups, according to Gainesville police.

Two of the men are being held on a million dollar bond, while the shooter is held on a 3 million dollar bond.

Hey, maybe Donald Trump will post their bond? After all he is the one who helped bring these cockroaches out into the light. 

Just another reminder that racists, and apparently wannabe Nazis, are no longer bothering to hide in shame, and are instead taking to the streets to fight for their right to be complete assholes.

Just like their hero.

This is the country we live in now, whether we like it or not.

Update: Apparently this Colton Fear fellow was interviewed by CNN:

Colt Fears, a 28-year-old wearing a pin he described as "an S.S. thing," came to Gainesville from Houston to support Spencer. He said he agrees with about 75% of what Spencer says, but said he thinks Spencer sometimes "beats around the bush." 

"He won't address that our entire Hollywood media is run by the Zionist media. He won't address that. There's certain things he won't talk about that people in our movement want him to talk about," Fears said.

Oh yeah, he seems like a sweetheart.

(Thanks to the constant reader who sent me that CNN link. Can't do this without you guys. )

John McCain speaks out against Donald Trump without ever actually mentioning his name.

Courtesy of The Hill:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted “half-baked, spurious nationalism” in the United States in an emotional speech Monday night after receiving the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal. 

“To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history,” McCain said in the speech. 

The Arizona senator said “we live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil” and said Americans “are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad.” 

“We have done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did,” McCain said. 

“We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause, and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don’t. We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent.”

As you all know I am loathe to give John McCain too much credit.

After all it was his decision to pluck Sarah Palin out of the worlds of Wasilla and plop her onto the national stage that led to much of what is happening to our country today. 

However having said that it should be noted that McCain seems to be determined to repair at least some of the damage caused by his unfortunate choices.

Maye its the brain cancer, and his impending mortality, but he is finally starting to sound like the guy everybody loved during his days on the Straight Talk Express.

Since my last post was about the leader we should have had, this one will be about the one we sadly had to let slip away.

Barack Obama at the Invictus Games with Prince Harry. 

Greeting the players

Being awesome

He brought his buddy Biden along as well

But don't think that all Obama is doing is showing up for photo ops, nothing could be further from the truth.

He is also still blowing people away with his words.

Courtesy of Thompson Citizen: 

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that closing borders won't create future jobs because what's changing industries like manufacturing are automation and artificial intelligence. 

Obama told a Toronto luncheon on Friday that the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy happened over the course of 150 years, but that the technological revolution is happening in 20 years. He said it's hard for governments to catch up to the pace of disruption. 

Obama said over the next 25 years, advanced economies will have to confront the fact that there is not going to be enough high-paying full-time work as we traditionally conceive it. 

"You'll still see auto companies doing pretty well and you'll see us manufacturing the goods that we use in the United States or Canada, but you'll walk through those factories and they'll be empty because they'll be run by robots and AI," Obama said. 

"The biggest challenge that we face in terms of maintaining good manufacturing jobs in our countries come from automation, and that is going to accelerate."

After the speech at the $1,000 a plate gathering attendees were asked their impression of the former American President:

"He still has this incredible optimism about Canada, the U.S., the world, in spite of how challenging our times are right now. It's very good for us to hear that," Glenda Rissman said. 

Sharing a similar sentiment, Cynthia Dale said her "first takeaway is how inspiring it was and how ludicrously humble he is. He's so humble about what he did and what he continues to do."

One group of Canadian high school kids even skipped school to see him:

A group of high school students skipped class to see the former president. 

It was "an experience you can't get in school," Abby Mcclellan said. 

Ava De Pagter said she loves just "what he stands for; everyone should be equal. No matter the race or gender."

Yes, he is in fact one of a kind. 

And we were blessed that we had him for as long as we did.

Sarah Palin's pick for Alabama's next Senator pulled out a freaking gun on stage last night. No, really!

Courtesy of CBS News: 

Wearing a white cowboy hat and leather vest at a Monday night rally, Moore repeated the conservative Christian themes he has used his entire public career. He also lashed out at attack ads run against him in the race, including one suggesting he was weak on gun rights. "I believe in the Second Amendment," Moore said as he pulled a handgun from his pocket.

This guy was literally cosplaying as a cowboy and whipped out his little metal penis extender in a room full of people.

Thankfully it did not appear to be fully erect or there could have been a premature assassination.

Here is some video of the event just so you can recognize the sheer absurdity of the moment. (Metal penis makes an appearance around the 2:00 mark.)

Well, no wonder Sarah Palin supports this guy.

I bet when he gets drunk he slaps the shit out of his wife as well. That would undoubtedly make him an honorary member of the Palin clan. 

There was also this exchange during an interview with Vox.

This is an amazing exchange https://t.co/ZlPNOLuEdA pic.twitter.com/CLDpCgvXA1

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) September 26, 2017

Oh yeah, this guy's a gem.

A pep talk from Barack Obama.

Courtesy of CNBC: 

When the going gets rough, a pep talk from former president Barack Obama may come in handy.

A day after president Donald Trump's downcast speech on terrorism and political adversaries during the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), Obama discussed the power of optimism at the inaugural Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Goalkeepers" event.

.......

"Your response has to be to reject cynicism and reject pessimism and push forward, with a certain infectious and relentless optimism," he says. "Not blind optimism, not one that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but that hard-earned optimism, that's rooted in the stories of very real progress that have occurred throughout human history." 

"We have to reject the notion that we're suddenly gripped by forces that we cannot control," Obama says. "We've got to embrace the longer and more optimistic view of history and the part that we play in it." But how can anyone be optimistic under those conditions, you may ask? Obama wants you to consider this: "By just about every measure, America is better — and the world is better — than it was 50 years ago, 30 years ago or even 10 years ago." 

"I know that statement doesn't jibe with the steady stream of bad news and cynicism that we're fed through television and Twitter," Obama says. 

"Each new generation stands on the successes of the previous generation," he says, bending "that arc of history in the direction of more freedom and more opportunity and more justice." 

"I have great faith in you," he says, "and I'm certain that if you keep pushing forward, then America and the world are going to be just fine."

Look I know this is supposed to make us feel better, and it is SO nice to hear such optimism again, but really all it is doing is making me miss our former President more than ever. 

However of course he is right, we desperately need to maintain a positive outlook and work for the kind of progress that his administration worked so hard to achieve.

So I am going to do my part, and keep pushing those progressive values in the hope that all of this will eventually blow over and we will once again get back on the right track to a better tomorrow.

You know what, I guess I DO feel better.