Friday Stuff

Yesterday I led off with a Hispanic group hoping Trump doesn’t deport him or anyone he knows, and today I’d like to start with Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network bringing us the leader of Michigan’s “uncommitted” movement pleading to President Biden for help after this Michigan guy decided not to support Harris/Walz...and I know I was a little sympathetic to Muslims in Dearborn for not supporting Harris, but upon further consideration, yeah, they’re a bunch of damn morons given that 45 has said he would bulldoze Gaza...just keep stepping on that rake, dude (and yeah, those clips of Huckabee are pretty damn disgusting, but we knew what he’s all about, or should have anyway by now)...



...and Miss Beau tells us that it looks like John Thune will be the new Senate Majority Leader – about as much of a pro-business establishment Repug as you can get..pretty bad, but not as bad as Lex Luthor Scott, and yeah, I know we’re talking about degrees of awful...have to admit that I’m surprised that Thune is saying he won’t shoot down the filibuster, but we’ll see...



...and this CBS News report lets us know that Alex Jones’s Infowars has been bought by The Onion, which is thoroughly appropriate IMO, and I’m glad that the deal (which apparently was managed by the Sandy Hook families) includes a tie-in to ads for Everytown for Gun Safety...there are some folks who I think should be forced to live in some kind of a display for people to walk past and make a mockery of (if that makes sense), and Jones is pretty high on that list as far as yours truly is concerned...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report lets us know about a young woman upset that she apparently isn’t being supported by her family for her Trump vote...well, when you support a delusional authoritarian strongman for president, what else can you expect? And oh yeah, the Trump supporting Mexican woman thinks immigrants should enter our country the “right” way; as Figueredo says, our immigration system is broken, though it works for businesses who want to pay poverty wages to their workforce...a pretty depressing summation at about 21:00, but he’s probably right about trying to reach the MAGA chuds; not much chance if their own families can’t do that, so it’s a fool’s errand to expect that Dems can pull that off with some of these characters, to say nothing of “moderate” Republicans...NSFW/H...



...and John Oliver gives us his take on Trump’s re-election...yeah, anybody who says the Dems need to move to the center or should come out against trans rights is definitely working from the wingnut playbook and doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously (and that includes Tom Suozzi)...video goes over the looniness of Trump’s proposed cabinet nominees, including King Elon I of Xitter wanting to cut $2 trillion from the budget (truly bleak when I find myself agreeing with Larry Summers)...didn’t know about the PRESS Act, and yeah, that should have been passed already, but good luck with trying to get that done now (love to be wrong)...great news about Emma Curtis in ruby-red Kentucky elected as Lexington’s first transgender public official, as well as the pro-choice measures passing in seven states (also NSFW/H)...



...and I need a bit of a mellow newer tune to listen to as we rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, and I think this will suffice.

Thursday Stuff

David Pakman brings us the leader of Latinos for Trump who thinks “family oriented” Latinos won’t be deported...yes, you can chalk this up to cosmic stoo-pidity, but again, when there’s no competing message for this garbage, people are going to believe these fairy tales (I definitely don’t wish ill on anybody, but what else can you expect?)...



...and John Iadarola and Sharon Reed of The Damage Report inform us that the House voted down a bill to allow Trump to accuse a non-profit of supporting terrorism and giving them 90 days to respond or lose their 501c(3) status, referring to the applicable section in the tax code (and given that the appeal would go to Trump, they would likely lose anyway and go out of business in the scenarios John mentions) - would have been used to go after DEI and the BDS movement for sure...and as far as I’m concerned, a big reason we lost the way we did a week ago is because of the mentality behind 52 GODDAMN ALLEGED DEMOCRATS!! who voted for this garbage!...and I have to admit that I’m shocked that Thomas Massie did the right thing here, but he did...of course, Bri-Fi, being the good little lapdog that he is, went along with it...and sorry if this sounds mean, but Sharon Reed still adds just about nothing to these discussions...



Update 11/21/24: The bill was reintroduced and passed the House (as noted here) and will be stalled in the Senate...for now (and Bri-Fi, being the utter coward that he is, voted Yes again).

...and Alec Opperman of More Perfect Union tells us about the games CVS is playing with staffing and endangering people’s lives in the process...and why am I not surprised to hear that likely the biggest root cause of the problem is insurance companies not reimbursing independent pharmacies to the same extent as the chains...PBM stands for Pharmacy Benefit Manager, by the way, and yes, they have a lot to do with deciding drug reimbursements...and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find out that CVS has the largest PBM in the business, and that would be Caremark...shocked that the state of Ohio did the right thing here, but credit where it’s due (and more on the Pharmacies Fight Back Act is here)...



...and yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Karen Silkwood in a road accident; she was on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter to discuss the goings-on at the Kerr-McGee plutonium manufacturing facility in Oklahoma...Silkwood is mentioned in this tune by Gil Scott-Heron about the dangers of nuclear power.

Wednesday Stuff

David Doel takes a fairly deep dive into what happened about eight days ago... interesting that every governing party in the world lost vote share when running for election this year, which is the first time this has ever happened apparently...great point about Biden being hurt by programs ending that he initiated, which he really didn’t have much control over (thank Manchinema among others for refusing to kill the filibuster and allowing the plans on this list to expire; I’m sure that will help those two cash in now for cushy gigs at some wingnut foundation or some such group of rich miscreants)...the two issues that did in Harris according to this were immigration and the economy – I know I’ve already gone off on the Dems and messaging, but I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the times that Harris/Walz mentioned that Trump killed the Lankford bill in the Senate, which would have addressed a lot of the immigration issues; the economy would have required more imagination I know, and even that might not have worked, but the effort definitely could have been better of course...and I don’t care what anybody says; Putin told Jill Stein to stick her face in Rashida Tlaib’s district in order to get the Muslim vote over Israel/Gaza and take it from Harris; yes, I saw some lefties online screaming about allegedly dumb voters in Tlaib’s district, but what the hell do you expect from them when their population is getting slaughtered in Gaza and the Dem prez ticket offers essentially nothing? At least the progressive measures that passed in Missouri and Alaska are encouraging; let’s see how long it takes for the Repugs to roll them back...and yeah, it’s unbelievable that the Harris people brought on Tony West, with all of the likely negative consequences – I think Doel is spot-on there – but that is indeed what happened...I think Doel is a little too hard on Biden here about the programs ending as already noted, but if he wants to argue that Biden could have fought harder for them, then maybe I’ll go along with that...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about would-be Trump staffers fighting, and he’s only been president-elect for a week...yeah, I know the Dems and the Harris campaign lost the narrative (and they might have lost on the economy even if they’d bothered to get the messaging right), but heckuva job, all you Trump voters, for inflicting this on us...



...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report brings us a clip from a French leftist that offers a bit of encouragement, telling us “you will make it”...I hope to God she’s right...



...and RIP jazz alto sax legend Lou Donaldson.

Monday Stuff

(By the way, I may be cutting back on posting generally for a lot of reasons. I pretty much beat my brains out during the election, and that is something I just can’t keep doing anymore. If there are any developments in particular to affect that, I’ll let you know. I also plan to cut back on the Trump/Vance snark, mainly becuase I think it's boring and repetitive at this point.)

And by the way, I don't know who this gentleman is, but I definitely want to include his perspective on last week's carnage (NSFW/H)...

He summed it up like few could. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/76B4fPudCd

— ✭ 🅑🅤🅑🅑🅐 ✭ (@BubbatheOG) November 8, 2024

...and I thought this was a pretty interesting commentary from Miss Beau...of course, Trump is going to claim credit for some recent stock market rallies, which means you also have to give Biden credit for the stock market increases prior to the election (which won’t happen of course – when has Biden gotten credit for anything?)...and yeah, good point about bond yields going up, meaning that the loan is riskier, and the future economy is in question, as she says...



...and John and Brett Erlich of The Damage Report give us some insight into the seamy characters taking their victory lap over last Tuesday’s atrocity...yeah, Nick Fuentes of course, somebody named Evan Kilgore, and on and on...



...and Bernie Sanders (anybody remember him?) speaks with Dana Bash on CNN about continuing the fight...I don’t think the @DNC can find its own metaphorical butt with multiple sets of hands, but if they could, they would pay more attention to what Sanders has to say and act accordingly...



...and I’m going to let Tennessee Brando have the last word for now, including a clip of the response from Eric Swalwell (slightly NSFW/H)...



...and happy birthday to Marshall Crenshaw.