I’m not exactly sure why I stopped paying attention to Seth Meyers’s bits for a while, but please allow me to make amends a bit for that and include this recent “Closer Look” segment (and gee, whaddaya know? It looks like Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence really can’t bring down grocery prices after all, huh? Well, like P.T. Barnum once said, a sucker is indeed born every minute...and remind me NEVER again to subscribe to Time Magazine...and after Trump "rang the bell," the Dow declined about 100 points as noted here)...
...on the other hand, I MAY subscribe to Vanity Fair (heh)...
...and I thought this lady on TikTok made some great points about MAGA and the evangelical crazies out there (citations for what she says are here, here and here)...
This is MAGA, y'all — a fascist movement of the most depraved, morally bankrupt degenerates our country has ever seen. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/vkhpvV2DEA
...and Thom Hartmann lets us know that King Elon I is looking for a little return on his investment in Cantaloupe Capone, and the Xitter nut job wants to find a way to sabotage government investigators looking into crashes involving his “self-driving” Tesla vehicles...and Biden’s SEC charged Cantor Fitzgerald with violating laws related to regulatory disclosures; I honestly didn’t know they were still in business after getting pretty much wiped out since they were in one of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11...and boy, is Thom ever right about the level of corruption from our incoming gang of miscreants and bottom feeders...and yeah, abolishing bank regulators also, including the CFPB; I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, you might say, but I can DEFINITELY see an ’08 recession coming again, this time on steroids...not sure what Thom is talking about with his “COSA” reference...
...and Robert Reich gives us a terrific lesson IMO on what Dems need to do in light of the wreckage of the just-ended campaign season...and yes, the answer is to embrace economic populism, which Biden did to a large degree, and all of that will come crashing to a halt very shortly unfortunately...
David Pakman tells us that Trump border czar Tom Homan may be getting ready to try and deploy red state national guard units to blue states to try and get rid of immigrants and others apparently deemed to be undesirable in order to manufacture a crisis...as bad as this is, and it is that, I can definitely get behind Pakman’s recommendations at the end of this clip (once again, heckuva job, all you numbskulls who decided to return Bronzer Beelzebub to power because of paying a few cents extra for stuff at the supermarket and OMIGOD THE SCARY BROWN PEOPLE INVADING OUR BORDER!!!...which, by the way, isn't freaking "open")...
...and John and Francesca of The Damage Report bring us the news that Repug U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds very correctly mentioned the whole “advice and consent” thing concerning the nom of Kash Patel to run the FBI (and yeah, Patel isn’t in the cult, having written a damn KIDS BOOK celebrating Mango Mussolini...not much he isn’t), so OF COURSE MAGA has to attack Rounds, who is a doctrinaire conservative of course...a bit of a scary “truth bomb” from Francesca about going after those deemed to be “political dissidents,” but I think she’s completely right (which is horrifying I know)...
...and I honestly don’t know who this gentleman is, but I think he gives us an appropriate response to our would-be authoritarian...our African American brothers and sisters might say at times like these to “stay woke,” and I think that advice would serve us all...
As billionaire elites continue their assault against working class Americans, there is going to be a reckoning — and I'm here for it. 🙌💪👏👊👇 pic.twitter.com/ti64evp6ea
...and Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network brings a clip of Dem U.S, House rep Jared Moskowitz laying into the Repug idiots running the House for putting up a tweet that Dem reps were absent from a hearing on our Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a typical lie...also, Rep Gregory Meeks brings some reality to the discussion about our Afghan exit, and kudos to Dem Rep. Gerry Connolly for putting the ruinous Doha agreement with the Taliban in the proper context (an agreement reached by Trump without the participation of the government in Afghanistan, as Connolly noted)...I also didn’t know that MAGA Mike Johnson was dragging his feet on Biden’s supplemental appropriation request for more aid for the victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, but yeah, that isn’t surprising either, and yeah, leave it to the incredibly misnamed Bob Good to piss all over the funding request to help these people in need (invoking “middle America” and “coastal elites”? And this guy is “proud” of refusing to do his job? What a POS! And yeah, this “DOGE” committee run by Marjorie Train Wreck Greene will be a joke, but there should be no question about Dems participating on it...kind of comes with the job description, don’t you think? And yes, #45/47 respects our military...sure he does)...
...and yep, you guessed it - time for more seasonal tunes.
Anthony Vincent Gallo of Occupy Democrats brings us a video of Louisiana’s U.S. senatorial mistake Cornpone Kennedy trying to give U.S. Army Gen. Randy Manner a hard time over the latter’s praise of fellow Gen. Mark Milley for standing up to Cantaloupe Capone...like many of you I’m sure, I still have vivid memories of people all over our beloved commonwealth of PA who couldn’t wait to slap yellow “Support The Troops” ribbon decals on their vehicles in the runup to Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iraq (leave it to #43 to invade the wrong country after the worst terrorist attack on our soil)...the reason I mention that is because, back then, you wouldn’t DARE imagine even questioning the military, but my, how the worm has turned (and yes, our military should get the benefit of the doubt because of their sacrifice, but they’re not infallible either, which Gen. Manner readily admits here, even though a certain Oxford transplant to the bayou thinks he knows it all...what a pitiable life form Kennedy is, and more proof is here)...
...and Jesse Dollemore lets us know here that CNN’s Scott Jennings is apparently happy that Daniel Penny is free, which means that Jennings believes that murder is OK, in the case of Jordan Neely anyway (more here - another lifetime ago when I rode the Philly subway a lot, one of the first things you learned was that you got up and moved to another seat or another spot on the El or a train if someone was acting nuts, and NEVER make eye contact...also, let a transit cop know what's going on)...and good for Garrison Hayes for talking to folks about Kamala Harris, even if the guy on the horse was an idiot...because of Trump, people like “horse guy” can just say straight up that someone who isn’t “cis” or binary should just get back in the damn closet where they belong; I’ll give you a little insight into something, and apologies if I’m repeating myself...earlier this year, we were able to take a really nice trip to London, and you know part of what we saw? Women wearing a hijab, and other women walking around holding hands, and a guy walking around St. James Park with his arm draped around the shoulder of another guy. And do you want to know what happened? Absolutely nothing, because NOBODY GAVE A SH*T BECAUSE EVERYBODY MINDED THEIR OWN DAMN BUSINESS, THAT’S WHAT!...Jesse also needs to be careful and say that this Luigi Mangione guy is the “alleged” killer of Brian Thompson, and I respectfully disagree with Jesse on the Hunter Biden pardon; I think that decision was mainly driven by the prospect of loopy Kash Patel potentially taking over this country’s most powerful law enforcement agency (and Patel making it pretty damn plain he would go after Biden Jr. for no good reason IMO), so I’m good with it (more here)...
Update: For everyone praising the Penny verdict, I just have the following question; what would your reaction be if Jordan Neely were white and Penny were black?
Take your time – I’ll wait.
...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History,” and this time we’re going to take a quick jaunt back a year ago to this clip from Chris Hayes listing the accomplishments of the Biden Administration (more here)...funny how you’re not hearing much about gas or the price of eggs now, isn’t it (and as I noted at the time, the baby formula shortage had more to do with a market monopoly of that that anything else as noted here)? Gee, it’s kind of like those yammering on constantly about that may not have been serious all along, and just wanted their guy to win, facts and logic be damned, huh? And yes, I’m never going to stop vilifying the @DNC for completely falling down on waging the messaging war; not saying that would have guaranteed a Harris/Walz victory, but at least they would have gone down with a fight (instead of all of this “weird” stuff and trying to make the campaign about “joy”...to be honest, when I heard about that, I had a feeling we were in trouble)...
...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report presents Ben Wikler talking with Jon Stewart, with Wikler trying to get the nod as DNC chairman (again, can’t find the words to communicate how useless of an organization that is as far as I’m concerned)...as Emma says, Wikler had a lot to do with fighting Hosni Mubarak Walker and Act 10 in Wisconsin, and just as importantly, Wikler definitely understands the importance of down-ballot races and their impact on a statewide level and how that can lead to awful stuff like supercharged gerrymandering (and yeah, I think Wikler understands the messaging issues faced by the DNC also, as Stewart mentions)...If Emma wants to criticize Biden and Di-Fi for geriatric deference (or whatever that was about the New Hampshire primary), fine, but I think bringing RBG into that discussion is a bit of a stretch...I didn’t know Jaime Harrison was a lobbyist before he ended up as DNC chair, but that sure fits his profile, and Tom Perez didn’t exactly light up the genius meter either...I’m not sure I agree with their criticism of Obama here, though I think it should be noted that #44 hasn’t done that well as a campaigner for other Dem pols, though I also believe that needs to be chalked up a bit to other people’s racism to be honest...
...and after having inflicted all of this verbosity in this post, I'll now shut up and present these seasonal selections.
Farron Cousins lets us know here that beyond-useless Trump-lickspittle Andy Biggs wants to shut down government until Trump is sworn in...and by the way, Planned Parenthood is funded by Medicaid reimbursements and grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, so when this clueless asshat says he doesn’t want to fund PP, he’s basically talking about shutting down that program and that agency also, which of course is also part of the wingnut “hit list”...
...and it looks like someone has been charged in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson; I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but that quote about Thompson having empathy and trying to improve access to care or whatever is unbelievable BS when you look at the percentage of claims UHC denied under Thompson’s watch...also, I certainly don’t have any insight into the shooter’s motivation (beyond what we’re finding out), but this business about writing “delay” and “deny” on the bullet casings is something that I think was intended to trip up law enforcement, though I have a feeling it won’t work – if someone was screwed over by UHC denying their claim for health care, I don’t think they’d go to the trouble to write words on the bullets; they would just commit a random act of horrific violence...I think health care should be based on need also along with David Doel; clip points out how life expectancy in this country falls below that of other industrialized nations...clip also does a good job of pointing out the popularity of Medicare and Social Security along with Medicaid, as well as the ACA...
...and following up on Doel’s clip a bit, Sean Morrow of More Perfect Union discusses the $1 trillion private health insurance scam in this country, against the backdrop of seeking care for his mom...yet another example of how utterly useless Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) is, and a great big raspberry goes out to Aetna also...I knew that Medicare Parts A&B are actually better value (in terms of dollars going to actual care instead of administrative costs) than Part C, and yes, I also knew about that ridiculous recording from The Sainted Ronnie R way back when, but I’d forgotten to be honest that he made it legal for Medicare to contract with private insurance companies, which led to Medicare Advantage in 1996 (slightly NSFW/H)...
...and Ayman Mohyeldin and Rachel Maddow discuss the documentary “Separated” by Errol Morris, based on the book by Jacob Soboroff (have to catch up with the doc, to be honest)...more on Lee Gelernt is here (and if 4,000-4,500 kids were separated under Trump I, just imagine how many more times that will happen under Trump II unfortunately)...
John and Sharon Reed of The Damage Report inform us of #45/47’s lily-white cabinet picks, except for HUD, which seems to be a thing for some reason with Trump since he did that also for Ben Carson...and good for John to point out the fact that some anonymous southern Republican apparently doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to blame his party for its racism and instead tries some jujitsu move or something to try and blame “the left” instead...
...and Jesse Dollemore gives us a clip of more lies and propaganda from Mango Mussolini about immigrants and what he and his bunch of scurrilous bottom feeders plan to do when it comes to kicking out individuals here legally and illegally, including kids under protected status...I realize it’s a mind-numbing exercise to try and refute the lies that Our Treasonous Orange Nightmare continues to spew constantly, but concerning #47’s claim that Biden/Harris let in either 13-15,000 violent criminals, the reality perspective is here (and by the way, as noted here, Trump released more migrants with criminal records than Biden)...
...and David Pakman tells us that Trump has nominated anti-vaxxer David Weldon to run the CDC, with potential future outbreaks looming...Weldon previously went off against the MMR vaccine and Gardasil to prevent HPV which could lead to cervical cancer (once again, take a bow, all you numbskulls who voted for this because you had to pay a few cents extra for gas or a carton of eggs)...
...and Miss Beau gives us an update on the Syrian rebels and their takeover of that country, forcing the despot al-Assad to flee to Russia...I honestly didn’t know the extent to which we carried out military operations to degrade “IS,” and I’m betting a hell of a lot of people didn’t either (something else Biden will apparently get no credit for)...looks like we’re adopting a bit of a “wait and see” attitude, and I can only guess how Trump will mess this up when he gets the chance...
Jesse Dollemore comments on Mr. and Mrs. Scar’s freakout over their trip to Mar-a-Lago to “bend the knee”...I didn’t think it was possible for Scar to be more of a petulant assh*le than he was during the years when Bill Clinton was president (a good era for yours truly – the economy was great, though I admit that all wasn’t because of #42 – and we actually had DISPOSABLE FREAKING INCOME! WHAT A CONCEPT!...rant mode off), but Scar indeed proved me wrong...until this self-entitled POS gets to the point where he has to live paycheck to paycheck and work multiple jobs, then spare me your indignation (slightly NSFW/H)...
...and Chris Hayes brings us the news that Combover Caligula is assembling a billionaire cabinet, which should surprise exactly no one, and he benefitted from a quarter of a billion invested in the prior campaign from King Elmo...and $40 million to oust Sherrod Brown, huh? Yeah, that figures for these bottom feeders all right...I have to admit that I didn’t know how odious the role of these crypto magnates was in the last election cycle; yeah, it looks like we’ll face another 2008 economic crash, this time on steroids, and Trumpist lackeys in the Senate are apparently getting ready to fork over a hell of a lot of our hard-earned dough to these crypto pirates...oh, and by the way, Bitcoin is a good resource for criminal cartels as Hayes points out...did anybody out there vote for this, because I sure as hell didn’t (and more on the utterly craven Cynthia Lummis bill is here)...also, it appears that there’s a companion bill in the House as noted here, because of course there is, given that it benefits the rich, and 71 idiot Dems voted for it along with Bri-Fi, naturally, as noted here (more here)...
...and when it comes to our two major political parties in this country, I thought this man on Tik Tok made some common sense points; again, it’s hard for me to properly convey my disgust with those perpetual election losers at the @DNC because they weren’t able to communicate the basic truths in the just-ended campaign that this man (like most of the rest of us) figured out long ago...
Every fucking time a Republican enters the White House after a Democrat, bad shit happens. Therefore, no one should be surprised when the worst president in U.S. history takes office and obliterates everything Biden hands him — including an economy that is the envy of the world. pic.twitter.com/3UuecZVLEN
...and this More Perfect Union clip tells us that it looks like workers at a Whole Foods store in Philly have an upcoming unionization vote; kudos to them – not surprised to hear about the Amazon-style BS that has infiltrated the place unfortunately; conditions at the fulfillment center sound absolutely Dickensian, and this Jason Buechel sounds like a typical predatory capitalist pretending to be “woke” or something...announcer definitely needs to speak up (mildly NSFW/H)...
Farron Cousins lets us know that #45/47 is about to bring back Peter Navarro as one of his economic advisors, which is a pretty clear sign that Mango Mussolini intends to enact those ridiculous tariffs of his, and it looks like auto workers will be one of the first to get hit with the backfire (as shown in the cartoon)...didn’t know that half of our auto parts come from Canada and Mexico, but yeah, that figures too (and great point by Cousins that cars are assembled in this country with parts from elsewhere)...
...and this gentleman (again, hat tip to Bill Madden on Xitter for this) gives the best explanation I’ve heard to date on why those ridiculous tariffs are NOT going to bring back manufacturing to this country...the Cousins clip has to do mainly with Canada and Mexico, but this pertains to China (NSFW/H)...
One of the most informative explanations of what Trump's tariffs are going to do to America that you'll ever hear. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/UZ6jpbkzP2
...and whenever I get into holiday mode like this, I often end up forgetting the 12/7 birthday of the incomparable Tom Waits, so please allow me to make amends for that now...happy 75th...
