I honestly don’t know what else we could have expected out of Generalissimo Trump on Afghanistan (here); I believe it was Rick Wilson who said that our preznit had the attention span of a gnat on meth – Dear Leader pretty much has struck out on everything he’s made a half-hearted attempt to do, and I would say that he’s keeping that string intact…
…and Rachel Maddow tells us about the hissy fit staged on Instagram by the wife of Steve Mnuchin, sandwiched in between a truly sobering reminder about this country and our ongoing involvement noted above (more here)…
…and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now talks with the descendants of Stonewall Jackson who want the Confederate statues taken down, particularly those of their great, great grandfather...
…the "the old gray lady" goes from #45 back to Reagan on related issues to see how race and tolerance were handled by prior presidents (re, Charalottesville of course...I’m glad they saved the Obama clip for the end, but there must have been something from #42 – surprised it wasn’t included)…
…oh, and by the way, just a minor detail I know, but it turns out that the Gropenfuhrer’s vacations are bankrupting the Secret Service…
...and here's a summer tune I definitely don't want to forget.
…and I don’t touch on world stuff too often unless something bad happens, I know (I used to devote more time to that stuff in the early days, before my for-profit activities just about totally took over), but I thought this was interesting, particularly since we just travelled “across the pond” about a year ago – it looks like the chimes of Big Ben will fall silent until 2021 due to repairs…
…and be careful if you decide to watch the eclipse, people (more here and here...I think we’re about halfway through at this point in my neck of the woods).
I have a question – am I supposed to be in mourning for this guy?
Because, just to let you know, I’m not.
Yes, give Jerry Lewis credit for raising $2.6 billion to fight Muscular Dystrophy, a truly mind-boggling sum, as noted here.
But as far as I’m concerned, he wasn’t funny. This business about him supposedly being some kind of a comedy god is some of the most preposterous nonsense I’ve ever heard. And yes, I get it that humor is completely subjective – there are people out there who will never get Monty Python, for example, and that doesn’t mean that my sense of humor is better than theirs. It just means that they’re different, that’s all.
Here is how I look at it, though: Pratfalls? Mugging for the camera? Any idiot can do that.
Jerry Lewis criticized President Obama and praised Donald Trump in an interview on World Over with Raymond Arroyo; the iconic comedian also slammed the Syrian refugee program, telling Arroyo “refugees should stay where the hell they are.”
“No one has worked harder for the human condition than I have, but they’re not part of the human condition,” Lewis continued. “If 11 guys in the group of 10,000 are ISIS, how can I take the chance? I don’t want to lose another Frenchman or another Englishman. That bothers me.”
“No one has worked harder for the human condition than I have”? Really? Throughout all of recorded history?
More than, say, Mother Teresa? Jonas Salk? Gregor Mendel? Saint Augustine?
And refugees “should stay where the hell they are”? Gee, it’s a good thing nobody took that advice prior to, say, the Industrial Revolution, or else many millions including your humble narrator probably wouldn’t be here. Oh, but they’re “not part of the human condition,” so why bother, right?
And according to World Nut Daily (here), Lewis said that President Obama was a “failed leader.”
What a clown. And I don’t mean that in terms of the comedic arts…
…but here is somebody who just left us REALLY worthy of tribute as far as I’m concerned; RIP Dick Gregory (I may feature another clip or two with him this week)…
…and on a more positive note, kudos to everyone in Boston who stood tall yesterday (here – good one by comedian George Wallace)…
Boston PD Commissioner William Evans: We had 40,000 people "standing tall against bigotry and hatred in our city, and that's a good feeling" pic.twitter.com/g7NBoLxieR
Well, I suppose that this will give Steve Bannon the opportunity for more quality time with his meth lab (I also think a notable observation is here)…
…oh, and did you hear about Generalissimo Trump cutting funding for an anti-Nazi program that was funded by President Obama here (so of course it must be destroyed as far as the Orange Maniac is concerned)…
..and yeah, it looks like our Problem Child in Chief is actually thinking about pardoning truly awful immigrant-bashing AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio (the Phoenix brown shirt gathering rally is supposed to be Monday...this commentary doesn't include the latest "double-down" on Trump's original awful words; sorry, but there's only so much I can do about the timing)…
…and I’m behind on my summer and 1967 tunes, but I don’t know how THIS isn’t appropriate for the occasion of Bannon's departure.
We stand with the brave people in Spain recovering from the Barcelona attack staged by terrorist cowards (updates are here...and apparently there is now some kind of craziness going on now in Finland, believe it or not - hopes and prayers for the best there too)…
And now, let’s return to the US of A.
I’ll tell you what – to cap off this week, you might say, I’m going to present what Generalissimo Trump said about Charlottesville, with its utterly unedited and un-redacted egomania and horror.
“Pivot”? “The day he became presidential”? What, are you corporate media fools mainlining anti-freeze or something?
It’s all here, people. The rude petulance…”excuse me, excuse me”…the charges of “fake news” (for anyone who still thinks the Gropenfuhrer said that as just a dog whistle to his base, the answer to the questions is YES, HE REALLY BELIEVES THAT!), the assumption that he and he alone knows what “many sides” were protesting about…that he and he alone knows the history…it’s all here.
Oh, and by the way, it’s not like we weren’t warned about this, because THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DURING THE CAMPAIGN! And if our utterly bought-and-paid-for corporate media had been DOING THEIR DAMN JOBS INSTEAD OF CARING ONLY ABOUT RATINGS AND ZOMG HILLZ EMAILS! BENGHAZI!!!, they would have communicated to everyone that TRUMP HAS ONLY EVER BEEN HELD TO ACCOUNT IN A COURT OF LAW, AND WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT HE TRULY IS.
What an utter abomination. What a disgrace...
…and in response, Farron Cousins of Ring of Fire points out that Shep Smith of Fix Noise recently couldn’t find a single Repug to come on his program and defend our liar in chief…
…and yeah, I think it’s time to turn to K.O. once more on this stuff (and kudos to the Detroit Red Wings and the Tiki Torch company of course)…
…and Lawrence O’Donnell tells us about President Impulse Control Issue Egomaniac’s performance on the Barcelona attack, including his particularly ridiculous lie about Gen. Pershing and the blood-soaked bullets…
…and as Rachel Maddow tells us, there is no equivocation whatsoever when it comes to tolerance and respect among its members as articulated by the U.S. military, separating themselves in truly rare fashion from the Gropenfuhrer…
…and in case our petulant idiot president decides once more that trying to stage a lovely little war could be a diversion to take attention away from this stuff, some adult in his administration ought to watch and briefly summarize this video for him from 8/17/07, quoting Deadeye Dick Cheney warning against invading Iraq…the problem is that Cheney said this in the 90s of course but went ahead and did it anyway during the next decade – and yeah, this is another installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less)…
…and you can count the family of Johnny Cash among the people criticizing the appropriation of their images or what you would call intellectual property I guess by the Charlottesville lunatics and other radical right fringes (here) – makes me recall this tune (video is great despite the presence of Kid Rock).
I give you this NYT video about Charlottesville (and sorry, President Lincoln’s memory, but any time these clowns want to secede, I’ll help them – that means no more Social Security, disability payments unless they qualify for Medicaid – which probably would be cut anyway – they have to raise and pay for their own army, their own clean air and water, take care of their own air space for flying planes, infrastructure, etc., etc., etc.)…
…and any non-violent push-back, in whatever form, can only be positive at this point as far as I’m concerned…
…including this (and I’m not going to be snotty and say it’s a “Johnny Reb” issue, because, though I don’t have any statistics on this, I’m sure there are plenty of them “above the Mason-Dixon line” too)…
...and Rachel Maddow tells us that the Russian political disinformation campaign against Democrats has never really ended, by the way…
…and Lawrence O’Donnell reminds us that, prior to #45, presidents who managed to ascend to the White House with a minority of votes tried to build coalitions while in office, but of course, forget about any of that with our Impulse Control Issue Nazi Sympathizer In Chief…
…and I think Green Day pretty much calls all of this here.
Update: And by the way, I’m seeing some usage out there of the term “Alt-left.” To me, it’s utterly vile and repugnant for ANYONE who shares ANY kind of common political cause with Democrats/liberals/progressives/whatever to throw around language that connotes any feigned linkage whatsoever with the white nationalist crazies of this country (more here) – I detest the term “Alt-right” because I think it tries to sanitize those monsters – I have to admit that I’m a bit flabbergasted that anyone on our side would see a benefit of any kind to a term like that.
Do I think people like David Sirota need to get a grip once in a while? Yeah, but I’m not trying to invalidate his points (nor that of people like Kyle Kulinski, who, potty mouth and all, backs up his arguments).
Yeah, I can see the shouting matches right now:
“OH YEAH, YOU ALT-LEFT BERNIE LOVER?”
“OH YEAH, YOU CORPORATE DEMOCRAT?”
Oh for sure, I can SO DEFINITELY see us building an enduring, governing majority for all time if we keep having the equivalent of a political “food fight” like this. I can DEFINITELY see the voters of this country trusting the Democratic Party while we continue to rip ourselves apart over this childish spat!
Do the DNC and the DCCC perpetually piss me off with their RIDICULOUS fundraising Emails, even those from Nancy Pelosi with the subject line of “Not A Request For Money,” then you open it, take a brief survey, answer when they ask what you’ll do in the next election, and then – SURPRISE! – they DO IN FACT ASK FOR MONEY? Is the Pope from Argentina?
That being said, can’t we for God’s sake just sit down in a room and try to hash this all out like grownups? And yes, I side more against the corporate Dems to be sure, but that doesn’t mean that either side has a monopoly on virtue.
As I and others who are much smarter than I am on this stuff have pointed out, the Republican Party and movement conservatism was flat on his metaphorical back in 1964 after Lyndon Johnson was re-elected. For a lot of reasons and through different underhanded means IMHO (mainly the Repugs becoming experts in exploiting our divisions – thanks, Tricky Dick Nixon!), the other side took 16 years to re-emerge, but they did so in 1980 and ushered in the utterly ruinous conservative ascendancy which continues its sordid abominations to our utter detriment to this day, with no foreseeable end in sight.
In fewer words – if they can pull this off, then we can too.
I just don’t want to see us piss away the opportunity of a lifetime, that’s all.
(To be fair to Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison, I should note that our Impulse Control Issue Nazi Sympathizer In Chief "picked up his marbles and went home" concerning his supposed manufacturing council partly because Morrison did the right thing and walked, as noted here, so kudos to her - and in a related vein, I give you this.)
And with that in mind, Joy Reid talks with Jon Meacham and Charlie Pierce about the latest missteps from the Gropenfuhrer on Charlottesville; yep, #45 is trying to suck up to the guys with the tiki torches again (and I think Pierce is particularly spot-on at the very end, even though Barbara Fields annoyed the hell out of me during The Civil War series…but maybe it’s just me)…
…and Sam Seder tells us about Charlottesville rally organizer Jason Kessler running away when confronted (and yeah, I get it that Kessler had every right to his utterly repugnant free speech as those protesting had, but seriously, what does he expect when he routinely spouts hateful garbage like this every chance he gets?)…
(Oh, and by the way, in my neck of the woods, there’s now an outcry about tearing down a statue of Frank Rizzo - here. My response, for whatever it’s worth, is this: yes, the “nightstick in the cummerbund” is definitely an image from my youth, but where do you draw the line with this stuff? Did Frank Rizzo have any role in an armed insurrection against this country?)
Update 8/18/17: Never an excuse for this; if you want to try to take down the statue, do it the right way (petition, signatures, online campaign, etc.)...
…and for anyone out there who still needs to be reminded about how horrible the Gropenfuhrer’s latest pratfall really was (maybe one or two people I guess), I give you this…
A Fox News contributor broke down in tears after President Trump failed to condemn white supremacists pic.twitter.com/vqtsJff2x3
…also, Thom Hartmann talks with Lee Fang of The Intercept about all of the “glibertarians” out there trying to impose their crass, disgusting “world order” elsewhere in this hemisphere and on other continents; kudos to Fang for reporting on something that, as nearly as I can determine, is totally ignored by the news networks with initials for names…
…and Elvis “left the building” for real 40 years ago today – I thought this was a good tune for the occasion (still recall Geraldo Rivera, believe it or not, reporting on all of the prescribed drugs Presley took – a shocker for that time, though I suppose the reaction was more of a shrug when something similar was learned later about Michael Jackson)…
…however, it’s really best I think to hear from the artist himself (the one-time Sam Phillips protégé, I mean - with all of the craziness going on with Generalissimo Trump, I couldn't help but think of this tune).
Lawrence O’Donnell put the recent events in Charlottesville into the context they deserve here (and apparently, Generalissimo Trump was all "hugs and kisses" with his “alt-right” base again today – here)…
…and I’m glad K.O. pretty much let his disgust be apparent to everyone…
…and Seth Meyers adds some effective commentary also IMHO, especially about the whole “tiki torch” thing…
…and what a shame that HRC didn’t warn us about all of this last year while WAAAYYYY too many on the left were screaming about “corporate Democrats” (not saying that’s OK, but just asking for a little perspective, in particular from people like David Sirota* who I basically respect but keeps railing about that and then bitches when people on Twitter get in his face about it…oh, and by the way, she DID warn us)…
*-If you want to bitch on Twitter about Merck CEO Ken Frazier and high drug prices, please don’t do it when Frazier actually does something good like leaving Trump’s bogus council of whatev…
