The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two houses:
the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment.
Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, and only rarely to a third-party or as independents.
Banksy is back — this time with a deranged theme park mocking Disneyland
Dismaland is a temporary art project organized by street artist Banksy, constructed in the seaside resort town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. The secretive pop-up exhibition at the Tropicana, a disused lido, is “a sinister twist on Disneyland” that opened during the weekend of 21 August 2015. Banksy has described it as a “family theme park unsuitable for children“.
Banksy created ten new works and funded the construction of the exhibition himself. The show features 58 artists of the 60 Banksy originally invited to participate, and is scheduled to run until 27 September 2015, for 36 days, with 4,000 tickets available for purchase per day.
Now a perennial tradition, like the Super Bowl Halftime Show or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, elusive artist Banksy is back with his latest spectacle — a dystopic “bemusement park,” aptly titled “Dismaland.”
Likely you’ve already seen pictures of its dilapidated castle and polluted waterways, staffed by glum employees whose uniforms read “dismal” across the backs. The human condition is very sad indeed.
Nearly two years ago I wrote about Banksy’s immensely popular month-long residency in New York City, during which he produced a new work each day for one month in the five boroughs.
I concluded then by saying:
“Banksy’s popularity endures simply because he’s preaching to the choir. There’s an insatiable demand for his brand and people are happy getting what they want. They also like feeling smart, and his overwrought images continue to be rooted in the same, familiar liberal values that people are all too eager to agree with.”
Banksy’s now ubiquitous anti-consumerist and anti-authoritarian tropes are fully exhausted in this most recent packaging and Dismaland is, quite literally, art about nothing.
Consumerism is bad, Disney is evil, advertising is dishonest — we got it.
Banksy is a pseudonymous British graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.
His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humor with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy’s work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris.
Banksy says that he was inspired by “3D”, a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of Massive Attack, an English musical group.
Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces.
Banksy has been secretly assembling his own Disneyland-inspired creation in this West Country seaside town, and it’s not exactly the happiest place on Earth.
Dismaland, which opened to the public Saturday, August 22, 2015, and sits on the 2.5 acre site of the Tropicana lido, is the shadowy artist’s first “bemusement park,” and it’s packed full of subversive artworks.
We are all very much aware of the controversy that has been generated in view of the fact that the “donald” will not curb the avalanche of insults that drip from his surly, arrogant, egocentric mouth.
I’m no McCain fan yet, if anything, I sincerely honor his status as a POW.
A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, PW, P/W, WP, PsW, enemy prisoner of war (EPW) or “missing-captured”) is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict.
The earliest recorded usage of the phrase is dated 1660.
Donald Trump attack on John McCain war record is ‘new low in US politics’
Donald Trump attacked the Arizona senator John McCain on Saturday, July 18, for being shot down while a navy pilot during the Vietnam war.
Trump, who has been in a war of words with the 2008 Republican nominee, jibed of McCain:
“He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured?
I like people who weren’t captured.”
McCain was held prisoner by North Vietnam for five and a half years, and repeatedly tortured. Trump received several student deferments from Vietnam while in college. After graduating, he received a medical deferment.
Born and raised by underpaid public school teachers in Sanford, Fla., Andy Marlette graduated from the University of Florida and became staff editorial cartoonist at the Pensacola News Journal in 2007.
Marlette received a priceless editorial cartoon education while living with his uncle and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette in Hillsborough, N.C.
Doug’s tragic death in July of 2007 made evermore poignant the elder Marlette’s fierce and faithful devotion to the art form of editorial cartooning as a cornerstone of American free speech. With this in mind, Andy works daily to learn and uphold the disciplines and values passed on to him by his late uncle.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
Christopher James “Chris” Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who has served as the 55th Governor of New Jersey since January 2010.
Born in Newark in 1962, Christie volunteered for the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Thomas Kean when he was 15. A 1984 graduate of the University of Delaware, Christie earned a J.D. at Seton Hall University School of Law.
Governor Christie called for a century of American innovation and continued his attack on President Obama on Monday, saying that an outmoded education system and the president’s weak foreign policy, specifically with China, are among the large threats to achieving that goal.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
Stephen Tyrone Colbert (born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, media critic, and television host. From 2005 to 2014, he was the host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrayed a caricatured version of conservative political pundits. It was announced on April 10, 2014, that Colbert had been chosen to succeed David Letterman as the host of the Late Show on CBS after Letterman’s retirement in May 2015.
Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theater when he met Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57.
Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. His work as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s news-parody series The Daily Show first introduced him to a wide audience.
6 most absurd things the Christian right has blamed on gays
Evangelicals point to homosexuality as a cause for everything from autism to tornadoes — and they’re getting worse
EVAN MCMURRY, ALTERNET
We have displeased the Lord and the earth is going to answer,” so-called prophet Cindy Jacobs warned in advance of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act last summer.
If this warning sounds familiar, it should: right wingers have a long history of blaming everything from earthquakes to recession to climate change on the advance of gay marriage, and they’re only getting more ridiculous.
Autism and Tornados
Climate Change
9/11
2008 Economic Collapse
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Sandy
Oh, m’gosh …. and I am sure there are and will be plenty calamities occurring in this world that will be blamed by the “gays”. More to come.
In the space of just four days, likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has come full circle on whether he would have made the decision invade Iraq in 2003 as his brother, then President George W. Bush, did.
“If we’re all supposed to answer hypotheticals,” Bush said at a town hall meeting in Tempe, Arizona, today. “I would not, have engaged, I would not have gone into Iraq.”
Jeb Bush Suggests Asking ‘Hypothetical‘ Questions About Iraq ‘Does a Disservice’ to Dead American Soldiers
**Jeb Bush: 3 Days, 4 Different Answers About Iraq**
Jeb Bush: In Hindsight, Not Sure Whether He Would Have Invaded Iraq in ’03
But over the last few days he has sought to refine that answer.
In an interview on The Sean Hannity radio show on Tuesday he acknowledged: “I interpreted the question wrong, I guess” and added “I don’t know what that decision would have been. That’s a hypothetical.”
And Wednesday, at a town hall meeting in Nevada, he said this: “The problem with hypotheticals is two-fold.
One, when I was governor I got to — I felt it a duty, I didn’t have to — to call all the family members of people who lost their lives and I don’t remember the total number but it was easily over 100.
And I felt it a duty to do that because I admired the sacrifice of their families. And I admired the men and women — mostly men — that made the ultimate sacrifice.
So, going back in time and talking about hypotheticals — what would have happened what could have happened, I think, does a disservice for them.”
But speaking to reporters after the event he hinted at the position he took today: “Of course, given the power of looking back and having that — of course anybody would have made different decisions. There’s no denying that.”
Oh, Jeb …. accept it. You have no clue. You are just a mouth piece for those behind you that tell you what to do.
I often wonder … do people like this think that the public has no recall, that we forget things as easily as they retract their statements? And even if we did, don’t they know that today everything is recorded and we can see/hear the interaction to our heart’s delight?
Please, you made a mistake and keep making it worse by attempting to fix it.
Born and raised by underpaid public school teachers in Sanford, Fla., Andy Marlette graduated from the University of Florida and became staff editorial cartoonist at the Pensacola News Journal in 2007.
Marlette received a priceless editorial cartoon education while living with his uncle and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette in Hillsborough, N.C.
Doug’s tragic death in July of 2007 made evermore poignant the elder Marlette’s fierce and faithful devotion to the art form of editorial cartooning as a cornerstone of American free speech. With this in mind, Andy works daily to learn and uphold the disciplines and values passed on to him by his late uncle.
The Tea Party favorite chose a location to announce his quest for the presidency that has, so far as I can ascertain, never been chosen before in our nation’s history — a religious institution that, according to it’s own description, offers “a world-class Christian education” for the purpose of “training champions for Christ”.
Cruz embarked on his march to the White House before a crowd of some 10,000 students at Liberty University — a number that would have been terribly impressive for such an event were it not for the fact that attendance was compulsory — where the Senator would spent the first part of his speech extolling the virtues of Jesus Christ and the importance the Christian faith played in keeping his family together.
