Friday Stuff

I’m not familiar with Brendan Plank, but he presents AOC making a great speech on the stinking corrupt influence of unregulated dirty money in our government (as a lead-in to a congressional hearing), specifically on the SCOTUS (and Almost Silent Clarence Thomas and “Strip Search Sammy” Alito in particular...and by the way, when it comes to our Philistines in robes, this is good news I’ll admit, but the case was only shot down because the plaintiffs supposedly didn’t have “standing”; it SHOULD HAVE been shot down because the Comstock Act is hateful garbage)...



Update: Apparently, in making his argument to get rid of the ban on bump stocks, Thomas presented a diagram showing that the category of weapon covered by the ban wasn’t a “fully automatic” weapon of death and mass carnage (here).

Yep, perfectly normal behavior for a SCOTUS justice. Nothing to see here...

Update 6/21/24: And Thomas is the only SCOTUS justice who thinks domestic abusers should have guns - what a pitiable wretch this guy is (here).

...and Leeja Miller takes a look at what judges should and shouldn’t be doing...a lot of the Alito flag stuff is a rehash I realize, but the context is important IMO, including the background on Judge Aileen Cannon and the equally odious Matthew Kacsmaryk and his infatuation with the just-alluded-to Comstock Act (which, if congressional Democrats collectively had any brains, would have been rendered utterly null and void by now via federal legislation)...I’m actually shocked that Chuck Schumer tried to pass a bill to prevent “judge shopping,” but as usual, it was defeated by Senate Repugs and conservative judges and ignored by our Beltway courtier media...another reason to utterly despise the state of Alabama is that judicial complaints cannot be anonymous and they need to be notarized, and how the f*ck could something as preposterous as THAT be anything but a deterrent to filing a complaint (??!!) – also, the “Kids for Cash” scandal in Luzerne County, PA is a whole other sorry discussion; I once saw a documentary on that which was truly gut-wrenching...can’t recall the particulars at the moment unfortunately...important rehash of awful SCOTUS decisions starting at about 27:16 (NSFW/H)...



...and Beau lets us know what he thinks of the U.S. House’s vote to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt, which is beyond ridiculous; as noted here, the numbskulls who voted Yes were BIG MAD that Garland wouldn’t provide a recording of Biden being interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Hur, even though Garland made a transcript of the recording available...one of the guilty culprits supporting this nonsense is this guy, and to do something about Bri-Fi, click here...and as noted here, Gym Jordan, Andy Biggs and PA’s own Scott Perry voted to hold Garland in contempt even though they blew off a congressional subpoena also...



...and I know I’m late on commenting on what that numbskull Byron Donalds said about how Lyndon Johnson and the “welfare state” somehow made poverty worse for African Americans (GREAT point that most welfare recipients are white), but Chris Williamson on Rebel HQ pushes back a bit here.

And by the way, for actual proof that Donalds is nothing but a total assclown, I give you the following from here...

It was in the areas of civil rights and economic assistance that the Great Society was most effective. The Civil Rights Act (1964) made employment discrimination and segregation in public accommodations—on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin—illegal. This legislation was followed by the Voting Rights Act (1965), which guaranteed minority voter registration and voting by restricting the use of literacy tests and poll taxes. The Immigration and Nationality Services Act (1965) did away with the national origin quotas put in place in 1924; this law opened the door to waves of Asian and Latin American immigrants, a pattern still apparent in the early twenty-first century. The 1968 Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination in housing and granted constitutional protections to Native Americans living on reservations. Johnson’s so-called War on Poverty had its roots in the Economic Opportunity Act (1964), which established an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to manage a variety of “community action” programs. The OEO was never meant to deal with poverty by raising welfare payments or guaranteeing wages, but to help the poor help themselves through education, job training, and community development. The Job Corps, Project Head Start, the Model Cities Program, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, Upward Bound, and VISTA were the most important new programs designed to assist poor people.

Here’s the clip...



...and I have to admit that I was saddened to hear about the passing of longtime journo Howard Fineman, who ran the political coverage mostly for Newsweek but also worked for HuffPo towards the end...I always thought he was a pretty straight shooter on the topics that truly mattered...my condolences...



...and Jon Stewart had a great clip IMO about “corporate morality” when it comes to Pride Month (which June is)...as usual, he makes the point with humor that business doesn’t care about a damn thing except its bottom line (and just to try and piss off Candace Owens, I’ll go out of my way to shop at Target today...somewhat NSFW/H)...



...and speaking of corporations trying to hoodwink us, Eric Gardner of More Perfect Union tells us about what’s in “lunchables,” namely, unsafe levels of lead, sodium, and chemicals that could cause significant health issues for kids later in their lives (and yes, I’m sure Kraft Heinz can produce some data to refute that, but I’m skeptical of the nutritional value of this product all the same...and speaking of food, I thought this was important also)...



...and I think this is a pretty cool rockin’ newer tune to help us get to the weekend, so here goes.



Update: Sorry I neglected to mention this earlier.