Friday, September 25, 2015

Friday Stuff

Bye bye, Orange Man – in addition to the fact that his own internal polling among Republicans was pretty lousy (so why exactly are they tired of him now after continually sending him back every two years, I wonder?), I think this is a pretty clear indication that the inmates running the asylum of the U.S. House intend to try to shut down the government again…love to be wrong.

When thinking of the appropriate sendoff for quite possibly the very worst of the charlatans on Capitol Hill (definitely a club you don’t want to be part of), this video came to mind just about immediately…



…and once again, Shep Smith of Fix Noise goes off script, this time concerning the Pope – kudos to him (here)…



...though, as great as it is that the Pope is here, this story, sadly and tragically, needs to be kept front and center also...



…and I said last night that Rachel Maddow was back in a good groove again – this segment proves it (bye bye to you too, Raymond Burke, you whited sepulcher)…



...and switching away from the Pope for a minute, I have to admit that I’m particularly fed up with all of the garbage out there concerning Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held in captivity by the Taliban for five years, and fortunately, Lawrence O’Donnell apparently is too – the hell with Trump, who doesn’t possess anything remotely like a moral compass anyway; what about those who take Trump seriously



…and I’ve been trying to come up with a musical selection for the Pope’s visit to the City of Brotherly Love (basically, except for anything related to the Holy Father’s visit, Philadelphia is basically closed until about Monday afternoon), and I settled on this.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Thursday Stuff

Calling for the abolition of the death penalty was commendable of course, but I hope our corporate media doesn’t forget to note (though they probably will) what Pope Francis said in the last minute of this clip about how the U.S. is still making a killing, literally and figuratively, selling arms throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East (more here)…



(Oh, and I wonder where those supposedly fine, upstanding Catholics Antonin Scalia and “Strip Search Sammy” Alito were for the Pope’s address? I realize that it’s not a sin if they didn’t attend, but for all of their moralistic harrumphing, you would think they would have been there. Or was it that, because of the supposedly liberal leanings of the Pontiff, they came down with a case of the “Pope Frankie Flu”?)

Update 9/25/15: I thought this was some typically interesting information from Charles Pierce; I'm sure the Pope's text omission Pierce notes was accidental, but dag, wouldn't it have been awesome if it had made it into the speech.

...and Rachel Maddow (who, fortunately for all of us, seems to have found her groove, as it were, once again) had this interesting report last night in advance of the Pope's address to Congress ("Yes We Vatican" - clever)...



...and I give you "This Day In Doomsy History" once more from 9/24/10, with Jon Stewart delivering a GREAT debunking of U.S. House Republican claims that "oh baby, I've changed...really" - of course, what's really depressing to think about while watching this clip is that, because of typical lethargy from a majority of Democratic voters in off-year elections, the Repugs won the House anyway...

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...and RIP Ben Cauley of The Bar-Kays.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Wednesday Stuff

RIP Yogi Berra - if you ever want to get an idea of just how good a player he was and how important he was to those championship New York Yankees teams, look up the "Ken Burns: Baseball" series and try to view the segment called "My Man," where Yankees manager Casey Stengel (no stranger to malapropisms either) talked about Berra - this video features many of his highlights (more here)...



…and yeah, I think Cenk nailed this on the Pope a little while ago - typical for thw wingnuts…



…and I probably should have found a way to include this yesterday, but we learn about Fr. Greg Boyle helping ex-cons register to vote in California in the following video; once again, Al Jazeera America reports a story ignored by our corporate media…



…and I’m in the mood for something a little different musically…something in red, maybe?

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Tuesday Stuff

If this clip doesn’t provide evidence that, overwhelmingly, Pope Francis is on the right track, then I don’t know what will (witness the "welcome" that awaits you from the usual conservative suspects, Your Holiness...to be honest, I don't know who's funnier - Alex Jones or Greg Gutfeld)…



...and Hillary Clinton is back with another clever campaign ad IMHO based on that ridiculous second Republican "debate" - as long as they keep giving us the ammunition...



...and I haven't been happy with Rachel Maddow lately, but this is some really nice reporting on that bogus "veterans" group that The Donald ended up publicizing; apparently the person behind it broke California law too - looks like you might be on your way to the gray bar hotel, you creep...



…and kudos to Chris Hayes for actually practicing journalism in response to more Repug idiocy, this time from Carly Fiorina, who apparently thinks that she can lie with impunity also…



…and by the way, today is National Voter Registration Day (more here)…



…and a belated happy 30th anniversary to Farm Aid, with a clip from the original concert with Glen, Waylon, Johnny and Willie.

Monday, September 21, 2015

Monday Stuff

Yes I know, he's really just an entertainer when you get down to it and you could argue whether or not he should be held to the same standard as a journalist, but I'm sorry...I thought this was a really repellent moment from Bill Maher, though he did make up for it a little with this (and I'll overlook the remark about religion...NSFW of course)...



(Actually, I had a talk with the teenaged one about the Irving, Texas thing, and he pointed out that Ahmed Mohammed probably would have been treated this way regardless of his ethnicity because the school apparently had a zero-tolerance policy, and also the boy was warned to put the briefcase away and he didn't do it. I'll admit that there may be more to this than meets the eye, but I'm tired of listening to Maher lecture liberals about political correctness, as if that's anywhere near the pressing issue that Maher thinks it is relative to the other real, honest-to-goodness issues we really have to deal with in this country.)

…and changing topics - I’ll admit that I’m biased on this subject, but I think those women on “The View” (Including Joy Behar, who I thought had more sense) were idiots to attack Miss Colorado for appearing in her scrubs in that pageant and talking the way she did about her patients – I don’t think there was anything wrong with that, and I think Kelley Johnson should be commended for it, actually…



…and “Who will you make peace with?” is a great question – I have a couple of candidates – TBD…



…and how about a tune for the occasion?