January 21, 2018


News and Views


WE NEED NEW HOUSE AND SENATE RULES WHICH SAY THAT NO EXTRANEOUS MATERIAL MAY BE ATTACHED TO ANOTHER BILL. STRICTLY ONE SUBJECT AT A TIME. THAT ESPECIALLY SHOULD BE TRUE OF BUDGET BILLS. THIS ISN’T JUST UNETHICAL, IT’S D#!^#D SILLY.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/graham-rips-into-white-houses-stephen-miller/
By ALAN HE CBS NEWS January 21, 2018, 5:41 PM
Graham rips into White House's Stephen Miller

Video – Face the Nation

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham criticized White House staffer Stephen Miller on Sunday, the second day of the federal government shutdown, depicting him as an obstacle to reaching an immigration deal.

"As long as Steven Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration we are going nowhere," Graham told reporters. "He's been an outlier for years."

Miller, a key senior policy adviser to President Trump, is an immigration hardliner who helped scuttle a 2013 immigration compromise during his time as a staffer to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Graham is a key member of a bipartisan group of senators trying to reach a deal to resolve the shutdown and a member of one of the smaller bipartisan groups trying to find an acceptable compromise on DACA, the program that allowed undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country. Senate Democrats are filibustering a short-term government-funding bill over the impasse over DACA.

"I talked with the president. His heart is right on this issue," Graham said of Mr. Trump's stance on immigration, but continued saying, "I think he's got a good understanding of what will sell and every time we have a proposal it is only yanked back by staff members."

His comments reflected frustration over his now-infamous meeting with Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and the president two weeks ago about a potential immigration deal. Both senators were under the impression that the were going to have a private meeting with Mr. Trump, only to be joined by immigration hardliners including Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, both of whom helped turn the President against the Graham/Durbin proposal.

Graham's criticism of the staffer is unusual because under ordinary circumstances members do not usually name-check* White House aids. Indeed, Republican Senators often bristled when asked to react to controversial comments made by former Mr. Trump adviser Steve Bannon during his time at the White House.

On the other hand, Democrats have been less shy about calling out controversial White House staffers like Bannon. And Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, during the run up to his feud with Mr. Trump, also called out White House staffers.

On Sunday, Graham made clear that his criticism didn't extend to John Kelly, the White House chief of staff. He tweeted, "President Trump has expressed a desire to have border security with compassion on immigration. #winningcombination. General Kelly is tough but reasonable. Some other staff in the White House hold extreme and unrealistic views. They hold us back from getting a solution."

Graham then told reporters Kelly, "has brought order to chaos in the White House," joking, "I don't know what medal you could give him but he has really created a process at the White House that is far more orderly."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


NAME-CHECK* -- THIS MAY BE TOTALLY FAMILIAR TO EVERYBODY BUT ME, BUT I DOUBT IT, AT LEAST IF YOU ARE OVER 60 YEARS OF AGE; SO I AM INCLUDING A DEFINITION HERE.

HTTPS://WWW.COLLINSDICTIONARY.COM/US/DICTIONARY/ENGLISH/NAMECHECK

COUNTABLE NOUN –

[“UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS” ARE AMORPHOUS, INCORPOREAL, GASEOUS, MINUTE, OR OTHERWISE NOT GIVEN TO COUNTING – SUCH AS “JOY,” OR “EFFORT,” ETC.]

If someone GETS A NAMECHECK in something such as an article or interview, THEIR NAME IS MENTIONED IN IT.
She has had many credits and name-checks in American Vogue. [+ in]

Namecheck is also a verb.
Several bands HAVE NAMECHECKED Lee Hazelwood in interviews. [VERB noun]
COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers

Trends of 'namecheck'
USED RARELY. NAMECHECK IS IN THE LOWER 50% OF COMMONLY USED WORDS in the Collins dictionary



THIS WHOLE IDEA OF GETTING MY NEWS FROM FACEBOOK OR TWITTER SEEMS ILLOGICAL TO ME, BECAUSE THEIR PURPOSE IS OPINION USUALLY. IF I SEE A NEWS ARTICLE ON FACEBOOK I LOOK AT THE HEADING TO SEE IF IT IS CBS, NBC, NPR, NYT, WASHINGTON POST, OR OTHER VALID NEWS SOURCE. IF THE STORY IS INTERESTING BUT SEEMS UNLIKELY I WILL GO TO A WELL-KNOWN FACT CHECKING SOURCE, OR TO GOOGLE FOR SOME OTHER ARTICLES ON THE SAME SUBJECT. THAT ISN’T 100% INFALLIBLE, BUT IT’S BETTER THAN TUNING TO “TRUMP TV,” ESPECIALLY GIVEN HIS DEFINITION OF FAKE NEWS – ANYTHING THAT DISCREDITS HIS NAME. THAT’S A SIMPLE, BUT VERY BASIC, THING TO DO, IT SEEMS TO ME, AND IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-edelman-trust-barometer-survey-richard-edelman-interview/
CBS NEWS January 21, 2018, 10:00 PM
People trust platforms less, trust journalism more, study says

A new study shows that people's trust in media platforms where they find news is down, but trust in publishers and journalists are on the rise. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer surveyed residents in 28 countries and found that most people consider the term "media" a combination of platforms where they find news. You can read the full report here.

How fake news becomes a popular, trending topic

Twenty-two of the 28 countries expressed distrust in media, and in the U.S., the public's trust in media sources dropped 5 percent from 2017. But a closer look at the numbers found that the public's trust in journalism has risen 5 percentage points while trust dropped 2 points for social and search platforms.

Facebook punts identification of trustworthy news to users
180121-cbsn-social-platforms.jpg
Edelman identified the following as social media platforms: Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter CBSN

The report also asked participants to define "media in general." At least 89 percent said "journalists," while 48 percent said "social," 40 percent said "brands" and 25 percent said "search."

180121-cbsn-publishers.jpg
A look at publishers that were indicated in the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer report. CBSN

Richard Edelman, the company's president and CEO, said on CBSN that trust in the media has declined because "people are looking for objectivity and seeing opinions, and on social and search, they're seeing such of a difference of opinion that they can't get [anything] fact-based." He said, "people are living in their own sort of thought bubble" and have their own set of media whether they are Republican or Democrats.

180121-cbsn-richard-edelman.jpg
Richard Edelman CBSN

Edelman also explained the rise of trust in journalism versus the decline of trust in search and social media platforms. "About half the people in the United States are still involved in mainstream media, but the other half are totally relying on search and social -- and that means what their friends are experiencing or whatever somebody posts," he said. "The lack of a center here is really the problem and everybody is going with reinforcing their own views."

The survey also found that 63 percent of people said the average person doesn't know how to distinguish good journalism from rumors and falsehoods, and 59 percent said that it's becoming harder to tell if news was produced by a respected news outlet. And nearly 7 in 10 of those surveyed said they were worried about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.

The report comes as Facebook and Twitter investigate Russia's attempt to disrupt the U.S. 2016 presidential election on their respective platforms. Last week, Twitter admitted that Russian propaganda was more widespread than initially reported, and that it had shut down 3,814 Russian-linked accounts.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


JORDAN PEELE WAS KNOWN TO ME BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW ONLY AS THE STRAIGHT MAN IN THE KEY AND PEELE SKITS SHOWING PRESIDENT OBAMA AS A VERY RESTRAINED, CONTEMPLATIVE AND RESPONSIBLE LEADER TYPE, MUCH AS OBAMA APPEARS WHEN HE ISN’T LAUGHING. HE IS PAIRED WITH A WILD AND TOTALLY ZANY PARTNER, LUTHER, WHO IS DESCRIBED AS OBAMA’S “ANGER INTERPRETER. THE EFFECT IS HYSTERICALLY FUNNY.

THIS MOVIE OF HIS, THOUGH, LOOKS TO ME TO BE SOMETHING THAT I MIGHT FIND TOO SHOCKING TO WATCH, BECAUSE WHEN I LOOKED AT THE TRAILER, IT SEEMS THAT HIS LOVE INTEREST IS PART OF A FAMILY WHO ARE DOING SOMETHING VERY, VERY STRANGE AND THREATENING, AND HIS LADY FRIEND IS NOT ON HIS SIDE. CANNIBALISM, PERHAPS? I’M GOING TO TRY TO WATCH IT TONIGHT IF I CAN FIND IT ON YOUTUBE, UNLESS IT REALLY DOES TOTALLY “FREAK ME OUT.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jordan-peele-on-get-out-trump-race-and-art/
SUNDAY MORNING
January 21, 2018

When they call for "The Envelope, Please..." at the Oscars, fans could be rooting for novice director Jordan Peele. We'll know for sure when nominations are announced on Tuesday. Peele's new movie has created quite a stir, as Tracy Smith shows us:

To filmmaker Jordan Peele, a stroll on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" at Universal Studios is a little slice of horror heaven.

"Are you kinda geeking out a little bit?" asked Smith.

"I'm totally geeking out!" he laughed. "I feel like I'm standing in the same place that the great directors stood. And it's just the coolest thing!"

Right now, the coolest thing in Hollywood might be Jordan Peele himself -- the man who wrote and directed last year's suspense juggernaut, "Get Out."

get-out-director-jordan-peele-getty-gabriel-universal.jpg
Writer-director Jordan Peele with Betty Gabriel on the set of "Get Out." UNIVERSAL PICTURES

It soared with critics and audiences alike … a ticket-selling monster that cost less than $5 million to make, and earned more than $250 million at the box office.

And here's something even more staggering: it's the first movie Peele ever directed.

The way his film was received, he said, was "Unreal."

The movie is a sharp look at race relations … a tense thriller with some much-needed comic relief. Daniel Kaluuya is Chris, a New York photographer who goes to visit his white girlfriend's family upstate. They all seem well-meaning at first, but Chris soon realizes they're anything but:

Get Out (2017) - Get Out of Here Scene (4/10) | Movieclips by Movieclips on YouTube

"The point is that, you know, at the end of the film everyone's cheering Chris on, no matter who you are," said Peele. "And so I felt, like, something about that would make for a better conversation about race after the film than before it."

"And you feel like that's happened?" asked Smith.

"Yeah, I've seen that happen. Where it's awkward to talk about race, it's less awkward to talk about the film 'Get Out.'"

Smith asked, "I know you talked about how important it is that people are having conversations now. That's one of the cool thing you like to hear. This is also a time when there are lawmakers who aren't going to attend the State of the Union because they think our president's a racist. Where are we?"

"You know, the president is a racist, which is very sad," Peele said. "I'm disheartened by policies that are xenophobic and sexist, and there are many strides backwards every day.

"So what I am encouraged by is that the movie 'Get Out' has been heard and received, and that I'm seeing many other examples of art and film and television that are expressing these pains, frustrations, love in new ways, and that they're being received, and heard."

These conversations about race are something Peel has been pondering his whole life.

His mother, Lucinda (who is white), raised him on her own, encouraging his creativity with homemade Halloween costumes and lots and lots of movies.

His dad (who was black) left the picture early on.

"It's no accident my art is exploring what the African American identity is and means," Peele said. "Not having my father around to guide me in what that means, I think, left me with a lot to question and explore."

His first chance to really explore that was "Key & Peele," the sketch comedy show Peele created with Keegan-Michael Key. They found new ways to talk and joke about race, in bits like this one where Peele played President Obama and Key his "anger translator," Luther:

Key & Peele - Obama's Anger Translator - Meet Luther - Uncensored by Comedy Central on YouTube

Smith said, "Your Obama is one of your most memorable impressions."

"Well, now, are trying to get me to do it?" Peele said.

"Yes, actually. Thank you!"

"I don't need much prompting. I'm a ham. In my heart, I'm a ham," he laughed. "As long as it makes people laugh, I will shamelessly try to -- and it also feels so cool to be Obama. So much cooler than Jordan Peele!"

"Key & Peele" ended after five seasons. And while Peele won't say it's gone forever, he's got other priorities now.

When asked if it's true he won't be in front of the camera again, Peele laughed: "Yeah. That's the idea. Daniel Day Lewis and I are both out!"

"How can you say that?" asked Smith.

"Well, you know, acting is just nowhere near as fun for me as directing."

Peele signed a deal with Universal to make his next movie, and he's partnered with CBS All Access to produce a new "Twilight Zone" series. And he's busy at home, too. He and his wife, actress Chelsea Peretti ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine"), welcomed a baby boy last summer.

Smith asked, "I know it's cliché, but do you say, 'I'm gonna be that dad that I never had'?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Really, I want to be the type of dad that my mom was, you know?" he laughed.

No doubt Mom's proud. Peele and "Get Out" were nominated for two Director's Guild Awards … and the Oscar buzz is building. But suspense is something Jordan Peele seems well-equipped to handle.

He said, "Honestly, there's no award that will ever compare to the feeling that I've been able to give people a movie that they needed. I mean, it's just so unbelievable."

"That's better than any award?"

"Oh, 100%, 100%."

"But the awards would be nice," Smith offered.

"The awards would be nice, 'cause then I can be, like, 'See? I told you!'" he laughed.

"Get Out" available on Blu-ray and DVD, and via iTunes
"Key & Peele" (Comedy Central)
Follow @JordanPeele on Twitter
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peele
Jordan Peele
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jordan Haworth Peele[1] (born February 21, 1979)[2] is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and director. He initially became known for starring in the Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele and for his five seasons as a cast member on Mad TV. In 2014, he also had a recurring role in the first season of the FX anthology series Fargo, based on the 1996 film of the same name.[3]

Peele had a career breakthrough in 2017 with his solo directorial debut, the horror film Get Out, which was released on February 24, 2017, to critical acclaim and box-office success; it later became one of the most profitable films of 2017.[4] For his work on Get Out, Peele received numerous accolades, including the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award at the 2017 Gotham Independent Film Awards and nominations for a DGA Award and BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay.[5]


WATCH THE MOVIE TRAILER:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2017/mar/01/get-out-trailer-for-jordan-peeles-comedy-horror-video



TRUMP SHUT DOWN OR SCHUMER SHUTDOWN? NEITHER. IT SHOULD BE RENAMED THE TRUMP SHUT UP. THAT HAS A BETTER SOUND ENTIRELY. TWO ARTICLES ON ANOTHER STALEMATE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-why-this-is-the-trump-shutdown/
Commentary: Why this is the "Trump shutdown"
By LYNDA TRAN CBS NEWS January 20, 2018, 3:38 PM

Donald Trump was supposed to celebrate the first anniversary of his inauguration Saturday with an glitzy fundraiser gala in Mar-a-Lago -- with donations starting at $100,000 per couple. Instead, it's the government shutdown that's sure to be the image that endures, a fact that has not escaped the president.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown

6:33 AM - Jan 20, 2018
50,325 50,325 Replies 30,256 30,256 Retweets 118,955 118,955 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
With the dreaded shutdown now underway, the big questions are, what happens next? Who takes the fallout -- the Party in power or the Democrats? We'll see how it plays out in the coming weeks and months, but the anniversary optics are a pretty big sign.

Negotiations slow on Capitol Hill as shutdown continues - live updates
Government shutdown: Who's affected and what's next?

A Washington Post-ABC poll heading into the Senate vote Friday night showed Americans would blame Republicans more than Democrats for a shutdown by a margin of 20 points. That shouldn't be a surprise -- with Republicans in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, it's hard to see how this isn't their fault.

Trump tweets on shutdown, says Democrats wanted to give him a "nice present"
Donald Trump of yore certainly would have blamed the president. This is what he said in 2011, when a shutdown threatened: "I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed," he told NBC News. He went on to say, "If there is a shutdown I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together."


But there are real policy reasons, too, for arguing that it's the GOP who takes the fall. Republicans have been betting that they can haggle over programs Americans really like -- the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Republicans allowed CHIP funding to lapse on September 30, over the intense objections of Democrats concerned about the 9 million children who depend on the program for their health care. Since its inception in 1997, CHIP has only ever experienced a funding lapse for a period of a few weeks in 2007. That's because lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have agreed that supporting health insurance for needy children is a no-brainer. Now, Democrats are pointing out that at any point since September, GOP leadership could have put a clean CHIP funding bill to the floor and averted the crisis they're trying to pin on Democrats.

And how long have they had to deal with DACA? The president rescinded the Obama-era executive order on Sept. 5 and challenged Congress to come up with a legislative fix. Then, he rejected a bipartisan bill to resolve DACA and other immigration concerns that exploded into a sideshow with his "sh*thole countries" reference to African nations. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking for those 700,000 DREAMers brought to the U.S. as children, who don't know any other lives but the lives they've built here. Republicans do nothing for them at their peril.

Americans overwhelmingly support the DREAMers. The latest CBS News poll shows that a whopping 87 percent of the public wants a DACA fix. While Americans were split on whether DACA alone merited a shutdown, the high level of support for DREAMers is just going to keep putting pressure on Republicans to act before Mar. 5, when the phasing out of DACA is otherwise set to begin.

So, let's consider where Republicans have spent their legislative time: they jammed through a massive corporate tax cut at the end of 2017 in spite of persistent public disapproval. Look for Democrats to hammer the GOP over its failure to pay the government's bills weeks after a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway engineered by Republicans for months.

After he signed the bill, Mr. Trump himself proclaimed to a roomful of rich donors, "You all just got a lot little richer." That was already destined to be a pretty popular ad for Democrats. But now, with the shutdown, they've got the tagline, too. President Trump now plans to join his high-dollar confab via videoconference Saturday night instead of in person. Happy anniversary.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-how-the-trump-schumer-negotiations-played-out/
CBS NEWS January 20, 2018, 1:36 AM
Government shutdown: How the Trump-Schumer negotiations played out
Reporting by Nancy Cordes

This timetable of the day leading to the government shutdown was provided to CBS News by a person familiar with the negotiations.

At about 10:45 a.m. Friday, President Trump called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and they had a good, positive conversation about preventing a government shutdown. Both at this point believed they were not far apart, and neither wanted to see a shutdown.

The two also wanted to work toward a big deal. Schumer suggested that Republican leaders would not move without the president's backing, which Mr. Trump acknowledged.


They agreed to meet to talk about a deal. Schumer had lunch with the president at the White House, in the small dining room off the Oval Office. He said later that they had had a long and substantive discussion, a good meeting -- one in which he had even put a border wall funding request on the table, which has been anathema to Democrats. This went beyond what was contained in the Durbin-Graham compromise. Schumer also agreed to the full Defense Authorization budget and expenditures, which was far above the White House request.

Schumer recommended a brief continuing resolution to fund the government for just a few days, and the president agreed that this was a good idea.

The president said he would talk to Republicans and they'd continue their discussions in the afternoon. Then, a few hours later, the president called Schumer and said that he heard that congressional Democrats and Republicans had agreed on a three-week continuing resolution.

Schumer told the president that it was the first he had heard of that timeframe, and he told the president it couldn't be done. The president said he thought there was already an agreement, even though he had favored the brief continuing resolution he and Schumer had discussed at lunch. He then instructed Schumer to work it out with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Later, the president called Schumer again and reviewed the objections of his chief of staff, John Kelly, and Congressional Republicans to portions of their immigration discussion. They agreed to keep working.

In the afternoon, Schumer also spoke on the phone with McConnell, who told Schumer that he needed to work it out with the president.

After that, Kelly called Schumer later and complained that the outline that Schumer and President Trump had discussed was too liberal. Even discussion of the full border request would not be enough to keep the president negotiating with Democrats.

Though discussions on the Senate floor wore on through the night, the parties could not come to an agreement. There were, however, Democrats who sided with the Republicans in supporting the spending bill, and Republicans who sided with Democrats in opposing it. The bill required a 3/5 majority -- 60 votes -- and it failed 50-49.

In a statement after midnight, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders accused Schumer and Senate Democrats of putting politics "above national security, military families, vulnerable children and our country's ability to serve all Americans." She went on to say, "We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands. This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators."

McConnell echoed the White House sentiment, referring to the shutdown as a "cynical decision by Senate Democrats to shove aside millions of Americans for the sake of irresponsible political games."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


THIS 60 MINUTES INTERVIEW IS LONGER THAN I WANT TO PUT IN HERE, BUT I DO SUGGEST YOUR READING IT AND WATCHING THE INTERVIEW.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-le-carre-ex-british-spys-double-life-as-a-famous-author-1/
Ex-British spy on leading a "double life" as a famous author
Jan 21, 2018
Steve Kroft CORRESPONDENT

John le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell, an ex-spy for Britain’s famed MI6, whose page-turner spy thrillers have made him one of the most successful authors of the past 60 years ....