Tag: People I Do Not Want to Piss Off

I’ve Seen This Play Before, and I Know Who Will Prevail


Do not pick a fight with this guy

It appears that the Mayor of Danbury, Connecticut is VERY angry about a recent bit that John Oliver did on juries.

Specifically, he’s angry that John Oliver had the throw-away line, “F%$# Danbury,” when he was discussing disparities in jury selections, and highlighted specific circumstances in Hartford and New Britain, Connecticut where the residents of those cities (about ⅔ of the minority population in those judicial districts) were excluded.

The Mayor of Danbury will not allow this to stand, and so will rename the local sewage treatment plant after the comedian, because, and this is a quote, “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”

I get that the Mayor of Danbury is offended, but I’ve seen what Oliver did to killer coal baron Bob Murray (Also here), and you ain’t gonna win this fight.

Picking a fight with John Oliver is like wrestling with a pig, you both get dirty, and the pig loves:

Officials in Danbury, Connecticut, say they will name their sewage plant after the comedian John Oliver, in retaliation for an expletive-filled rant about the city on his HBO show.

Mayor Mark Boughton announced the move on his Facebook page.

“We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant,” the Republican mayor said. “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”

In a recent episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the British-born comic explored racial disparities in the jury selection process, citing problems in Hartford and New Britain.

“If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut,” he said, “why not forget Danbury? Because, and this is true, f%$# Danbury!”

Noting Danbury’s “charming railway museum” and its “historic Hearthstone Castle”, he said: “Danbury, Connecticut can eat my whole ass.”

Oliver added that he knew “exactly three things about Danbury. USA Today ranked it the second-best city to live in 2015, it was once the center of the American hat industry and if you’re from there, you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver, children included, f%$# you.”

(%$# Mine)

I know very little about Danbury.  I’ve never been there, even when I was living in Connecticut, though I might have driven through it on the way to New York City, but I do know this:  Don’t pick a fight with John Oliver.

You have introduced yourself as a world of hurt.

The Joy of Reading a Bad Review

I have only a passing knowledge of the Amazon TV show Transparent, and even less knowledge of its showrunner, Jill Soloway, still, when I came across this review of her memoir, She Wants It, I realized that I had stumbled on a gem, one one that might make Rex Reed, master of the snarky review gasp in awe.

Also, unlike Reed, Andrea Long Chu actually gets into the weeds of the book, and not how Soloway looks, or dresses, etc., which to my mind puts her a pretty big step above Reed.

She demolishes the recollections of a narcissistic asshole on their own terms:

As a lightweight behind-the-scenes look at a critically acclaimed television series, Jill Soloway’s new memoir She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy is just south of worth purchasing at the airport. As a book about desire, power, or toppling the patriarchy, it is incompetent, defensive, and astonishingly clueless.

This is a story about someone who responds to criticisms of her TV show by taking “a glamping writers’ retreat” to El Capitan: “We had a shaman come. She did magic incantations as we lay on the floor of a yurt.” It is an unwitting portrait of a rich Los Angeles creative type with a child’s knack for exploiting the sympathies of others, a person whose deep fear of doing the wrong thing was regularly outmatched by an even deeper distaste for doing the right thing. The nicest thing that can be said of this oblivious, self-absorbed, unimportant book is that it proves, once and for all, that trans people are fully, regrettably human.

Those are the first two paragraphs, and it goes on to skewer Peter Thiel (who I should note is literally a vampire who wants to use the blood of the young to extend his lifespan) in only 7 words, along with lambasting former Transparent star Jeffrey Tambour, Louie C.K., and Lena Dunham

Still she conclusively shows, with Soloway’s own words, that they are not as much of a self absorbed asshole as Soloway is.

This is beautiful, and I know two thing for sure:

  1. I never want to be on the bad side of Andrea Long Chu.
  2. If I ever need a speech writer, I want her.

 There are tears of joy pouring down my face.

Oh No He Didn’t!

John Oliver was covering the coal industry, and its rather silly PR efforts on his show, and a famously litigious coal company CEO sent a cease and desist to prevent the show from mocking him. Much hilarity ensues:

This past weekend on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, he took on the issue of “coal” and some politicians’ obsession with coal jobs as the only true “American” jobs. The whole segment is interesting, but obviously not the kind of thing we’d normally write up. What we do frequently write about, however, is censorious threats, often from wealthy execs, designed to try to silence people from commenting on issues regarding those doing the threatening. And, it appears that’s exactly what happened with coal exec Bob Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, when he found out that John Oliver was doing a segment that included some bits about Murray.

I recommend watching the whole thing, but the parts about Murray include a brief bit around 4:45 in the video and then a much longer section starting around 12:30 in the video, where Oliver notes:

I’m going to need to be careful here, because when we contacted Murray Energy for this piece, they sent us a letter instructing us to “cease and desist from any effort to defame, harass, or otherwise injure Mr. Murray or Murray Energy” and telling us that “failure to do so will result in immediate litigation…”

This is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and John Oliver decides to put the spurs to Mr. Murray.

He goes full talking squirrel (just watch the video) on Robert Murray’s flabby white ass:

Righteous!

I Couldn’t Watch This Last Night

Last night Trevor Noah had right wing conservative Tomi Lahren.

It was a very polite conversation, and since Lahren is basically a blond shapley Rush Limbaugh without the charm, I got frustrated with the genial tenor, and watched Alton Brown macerate squashes or suchlike.

Today, I read glowing reviews of how thoroughly he destroyed her.

He really did. It kind of sneaks up on you, it’s like watching Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, setting the witness at ease before making them confess to murder.

The first 5 minutes are hard, but it is worth it.

M

Elizabeth Warren Gets Added to My List of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off


Oh, Snap

Wells Fargo has been coercing low level employees to create accounts without customer’s knowledge.

Wells has fired over 5000 low level employees over the criminogenic environment created by upper management.

They mandated cross-selling 8 accounts per customer when the industry norm is less than 3 accounts per customer

The manager of the division, Carrie Tolstedt, was allowed to retire with a $125 million wet kiss from the bank.

Well, the CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, was called before the Senate Banking Committee, and Elizabeth Warren gutted him like an overfed mackerel:

The Senate Banking Committee conducted a hearing Tuesday about the massive scandal currently engulfing Wells Fargo. The word “fraud” was used repeatedly by senators on both sides of the aisle when describing the bank’s creation of millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts for existing customers.

………

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren—a longtime advocate for more stringent regulation of Wall Street—tore into Stumpf, describing the unauthorized accounts as a “massive, years long scam.” She asked Stumpf what he has done to take responsibility for his bank’s actions. “You have said repeatedly, ‘I am accountable,'” she said. “But what have you done to actually hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned?”

Stumpf avoided answering the question directly, prompting Warren to repeat her question, her voice rising, at least three times.

Warren proceeded to pummel Stumpf with more questions. “Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam was going on?” she asked. Stumpf evaded the question several times. (Stumpf said earlier in the hearing that he earned $19.3 million last year.) Finally, an exasperated Warren said, “I’ll take that as a ‘no.'”

She then asked if he’d fired any members of his senior management. Stumpf initially began by describing the firing of regional branch managers, but Warren stopped him, emphasizing that her question was not about low-level leadership but about the people at the top. Again, Stumpf’s answer was no.

She then went on to note that Stumpf had earned an additional $200 million in stock options from the stock appreciation largely driven by their absurdly high cross-selling numbers.

She really took the bark off that asshole, and it is a true thing of beauty.

Watch ……… the ……… Video.