Friday Stuff

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich reminds us that Mango Mussolini will try to take credit for the Biden economy, because of course...can’t tell you how exasperating it is to view all of this data and know that Biden still lost; tells you how insidious and omnipresent right-wing BS is in our media and what passes for political discourse...also, I would blame the absolute, cruel failure to give Biden credit for anything whatsoever on the economy, which depressed turnout and aided in registering Republican voters, which was off the charts last year in our beloved commonwealth, sadly...if you want to take #46 to task for Israel, fine, but that’s another discussion (and I’ve already spent a lot of time haranguing the Dems for finding a way to lose to our bulbous orange demagogue, so I’ll hold off on that for now)...



..and Jesse Dollemore gives us the latest on the utterly terrible D.C. helicopter/plane crash, which killed 67 people...I still can’t believe that we’re going to be looking at four more years of preposterous bullsh*t from this utterly lazy POS – yeah, Big Orange Cheetoh, the FAA was recruiting mentally disabled people or whatever under Biden, which is why THERE WERE EXACTLY NO HORRIBLE INCIDENTS OF THIS TYPE UNDER YOUR PREDECESSOR!!!...and yeah, if you have “common sense,” then I’m a freaking summa cum laude Ph.D. (and I definitely am NOT, for the record)...and this clueless meat sack said he wanted to rebuild the FAA, but he lost the election?? God, I’m already done with this ochre turd!! (slightly NSFW/H).

And by the way, as an astute YouTube commenter noted:

January 20 – Trump fires the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, the department in charge of flight safety
January 21 – Trump freezes hiring for air traffic controllers
January 22 – Trump disbands the Aviation Safety Advisory Committee
January 28 – Trump sends out a buyout/retirement demand to existing employees, removing experienced safety staff
January 29 – First American mid-air collision in 16 years.

Here is the Dollemore clip...



...and David Doel gives us more on issues with the FAA that led to this tragedy...and yes, this goes back to Biden and before, but really, it’s the fault of Congressional underfunding...and good job by Doel to point out YET AGAIN how our corporate media gives Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence cover, this time over #47’s ridiculous DEI charge...and I almost feel like I need to apologize for including more clips from this lying orange abomination (this report echoes info in the above list I know)...and suuure, privatization is supposedly the answer for air traffic controllers, right? Dear God (and that story about the San Carlos airport should be front page news everywhere)...again, if standards for air traffic controllers were allegedly so low under Obama and Biden, then HOW COME THERE WERE NO AIR DISASTERS UNTIL #47 CAME ALONG???!!! (NSFW/H)...



...given all this, what do we have in response from the “opposition” party? Well, Sam of The Majority Report gives us the latest on that (and by the way, “leader” Jeffries in the U.S. House, I was always taught that God helps those who help themselves)...and I don’t want to get started on Schumer, though part of me wants to...how about a little “fire in the belly,” Chuck?? And yeah, leading with “We didn’t defund the police”?? WHY ARE YOU STILL ECHOING BS REPUG TALKING POINTS???!!! TIME TO GO ON OFFENSE, YOU FREAKING COWARD!! At least J.B. Pritzker in Illinois is doing what he’s supposed to (NSFW/H also, though Sam’s outrage is commendable IMO)....



Update 2/1/25: I think it’s appropriate to call out Dems when they don’t stand up the way they should, but to be fair, there were those on the “D” team in the Senate who definitely did the right thing in recent hearings for #47’s garbage Cabinet nominees as noted here.

...and Farron Cousins of Ring of Fire tells us here about how, basically, the world is laughing at Cantaloupe Capone, still over his first administration (Cousins recorded this before the deadly air crash, it should be noted)...can’t possibly imagine what will be the result of this next ruinous term (and yeah, I also can’t imagine the tidal wave of garbage from Combover Caligula that has managed to get the “memory hole” treatment, and it is indeed curious that this is coming out only now as Cousins says...good to get in a plug for Ground News - media literacy should be taught in every school in this nation)...



...and RIP Marianne Faithfull, a true rock n’ roll survivor who was once linked romantically with Mick Jagger (I always thought the Rolling Stones tune “Wild Horses” was about Jagger and Faithfull, but apparently, I was wrong about that...it happens, what can I say?).



Update: For any resident of Northeast Philadelphia impacted by the plane disaster near Northeast Philadelphia Airport who may be in need of shelter, contact Samuel Fels High School; they are providing temporary assistance. Their number is 215-400-7100.

Thursday Stuff

(I know we’re still finding out more about the DC plane/helicopter crash, which is terrible, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families of course...oh, and how about if we remember this while we’re at it? In other words, if this had happened under Biden, our fourth estate would be screaming for impeachment by now.)

Update 1: As predictable as flatulence after indigestion (here).

Update 2: I would say that our former transportation secretary would have insight into this (here).

Chris Hayes gives us a rundown here on the confusion caused by Dear Orange Leader and his cruel and idiotic spending freeze, which of course caused widespread confusion...yep, all of this madness (cutting funding for Meals on Wheels and veterans suicide prevention, for example) is indeed right out of Project 2025 as Hayes rightly says; this is Mango Mussolini trying to inflict maximum pain and hardship in an effort to make our entire government, to say nothing of our lapdog media and legal institutions, bend to his twisted, corrupt will...I know I linked to the HuffPo article about this yesterday...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen gives us an update on the spending freeze, with Jessica Tarlov of Fix Noise giving a reality check to those cackling hyenas on her network...and yeah, this Karoline Leavitt person sends out a tweet causing still more confusion, leading to a judge ruling to unblock the OMB freeze (do we all have whiplash yet from this insanity?)...I know I’ve criticized Dems for being pretty supine while all of this chaos is raging, but someone else who deserves credit for standing up IMO is AOC, and I didn’t want that to go unmentioned...



...and Jesse Dollemore informs us of a brand new lie from this seedy bunch of grifters running the executive branch (in the person of the aformentioned Trumpette Karoline Leavitt), and that has to do with $50 million of condoms to Gaza...seriously (great job by Jesse to not just debunk this latest nonsense, but also to talk about how lies from Trumpworld get propagated by the wingnut echo chamber, and leave it to “the old gray lady” to say, “oh, Leavitt was resolute in her talking points,” or some such nonsense, as if that justifies this madness...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and I don’t have much to add to this man’s incredibly (but appropriate IMO) NSFW/H commentary...

This gentleman is spot-fucking-on. 🎯🎯🎯👇 pic.twitter.com/uFXUARQWuN

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) January 30, 2025

...and I guess all of the Gropenfuhrer’s goofball Cabinet nominees have been confirmed by now, sadly, except “Brain Worms” RFK Jr. and “Tokyo Rose” Gabbard, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too late to push back against them anyway, as The Lincoln Project reminds us (and I'll cut Lincoln a little slack on the "competent mainstream conservatives" bit for now)...



...and I also guess this is another one of those songs I’m in the mood to hear at times like these (echoing the Lincoln Project clip) – I would ask the title of this tune to Trump supporters if I thought they were capable of coming up with an intelligent answer.

Wednesday Stuff

Emma V. and Matt Lech of The Majority Report inform us that Daily Wire nematode Michael Knowles wants to celebrate Trump’s mass deportations because he’s a sick, twisted SOB...I have to admit that I’ve never heard of anybody smiling and laughing when discussing the “trail of tears” before...and by the way, about that, who were the emigres? WE WERE! THE NATIVE AMERICANS WERE ALREADY HERE!!! (and yes, there I go with the ”all caps” again I know)...interesting, but sad, history, mentioning also the “Palmer raids,” “Operation Wetback” and Japanese internment during World War II (very mildly NSFW/H)...



Update 1/30/25: Uh huh.

...and changing the mood a bit here, Seth Meyers brings us up to speed on the Gropenfuhrer and his little hissy fit with Denmark/Colombia and purging the government watchdogs...and gosh, I never knew that trees were “wet” (#facepalm)...

....and as far as some of #47’s idiotic ramblings about the California wildfires are concerned, “people who actually live in trees” could not be reached for comment. #sadattemptathumoriknow

Here is the Meyers clip...



...and someone named Allan Piper brings us a list of Trump’s broken “day one” promises (hmmm...wonder if our utterly bought-and-paid-for courtier media would try putting together a report like this? And yes, I think I already know the answer)...I know it’s hard to wade through all of the nonsense from this numbskull (referring to #47 of course), but I honestly don’t think he has the authority to ban “sanctuary cities,” though that won’t stop him from trying of course...

Time for a Mad King Don broken promise summary and we’re only 3 days in. pic.twitter.com/zWh6xZlYrq

— 𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 (@politicsusa46) January 22, 2025

...and echoing the Meyers clip a bit, Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about Trump getting put in his place by a Danish politician...I didn’t know that Lisa Murkowski co-authored the statement about Greenland, but it makes sense; I’ve had lots of disagreements with Murkowski, but she comes from a family of political fighters and she’s nobody’s fool, unlike #47...and yeah, all of Cantaloupe Capone’s chaos is a distraction for the benefit mainly of our lapdog corporate media and his lemming followers while he rewards himself and the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch...



Oh, and by the way, this may be a good time for a public service announcement.

I vaguely recall hearing about an alleged opposition political party in this country that has a storied history of standing up for the majority of people by providing relative income and health security in old age, support of human rights, investments in 21st-century technology, ensuring women’s right to bodily autonomy, advocating for common sense gun laws, paying some degree of attention to the climate crisis, trying to enact a measure of student loan relief...you know, stuff like that. I think the first letter of that party is a “D,” I believe. I think it’s necessary to remind people of the existence of this party because they sure have been freaking quiet lately (with the commendable exceptions of Rashida Tlaib and Jasmine Crockett). Gee, it sure would be nice if they would say or try to do something to push back against all of this insanity, wouldn’t it (here)?

(OK, to be fair, this is progress, but I have to admit that I don’t know what’s worse: Fetterman siding with the Repugs against the ICC to burnish the PA senator’s “everything Israel does is right” bona fides, or the fact that Manchinema may actually have been right after all to preserve the filibuster.)

Update 2/6/25: And yeah, I think this says it (and that is an absolutely STAGGERING disapproval number from Hispanics).

...and well, at least SOMEBODY ELSE is showing a spine (and in our corporate media no less), and as luck would have it, he’s likely going to be leaving us for at least a little while, and that’s Jim Acosta of CNN, who decided that enough was enough (you can also include Professor Krugman, and I realize I didn’t mention anything about him washing his hands, you might say, of “the old gray lady”)...as we learn from here, Acosta was basically assigned to the graveyard shift for his anti-Trump advocacy, and in response, he walked (Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network tells us about it)...



...and I’ve kind of punted on this clip over the last few days from VoteVets, reminding a certain orange *preznit to do right by the Afghan interpreters who helped our troops during the war and who, as a result, risked their lives and continue to face reprisal in their war-torn country...



...and Monday marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Allies during World War II...sorry I neglected to mention that earlier (here)...an elderly lady recalls the horrors of the Nazis from her experience...she also discusses details getting published in the media based on eyewitness accounts of escaping survivors near the end of that war...I don’t really have anything to add except to take note of this tragic lesson of history (more here)...



...and yesterday 1/28 marked the 40th anniversary of the recording of “We Are The World,” which raised about $80 million for African famine relief...maybe it was all a little “self congratulatory” I’ll admit, but I think we should take to heart the overall positive accomplishment of the whole thing (as opposed to now I suppose, where online trolls would be tempted to utterly denigrate such an effort if it took place today...I’d love to be wrong about that).

Tuesday Stuff

John Iadarola and Yasmin Khan of The Damage Report tell us about Bo-Bo Boebert defending pardons for the 1/6 insurrectionists and offering them tours because of course (I think they proved already that they know where the building entrances are, seeing as how they tried to utterly destroy them...and rest assured that, even though those life forms in Colorado sent her back to Congress, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop referring to Boebert's past misdeeds)...and boy, is John’s question at the end spot-on (and I thought Yasmin Khan provided some pretty clear-eyed commentary also, especially about cops having “qualified immunity”...if she and her fiancée are still trying to get out of Texas, I wish them good luck)...



...and if I say something about that vaping, groping harpie from Colorado, then I guess I’m almost legally obligated to include something about Marjorie Trailer Trash Greene...Richard Ojeda informs us that Dem congresswoman Rashida Tlaib went after that biological mistake from the peach state, and unsurprisingly, the issue was immigrants (and yep, I had a feeling this was over that horrible Laken Riley bill that Bri-Fi and WAY TOO MANY GODDAMN CHICKEN DEMS supported, and I was right...I got into that here)...”it’s not about justice, it’s about power” indeed, along with pointing out that Our Lord didn’t preach “blessed are the snitches” as Ojeda rightly says...and by the way, does it even do any good any more to note that Bronzer Beelzebub and his pals killed the Lankford/Murphy bill in the Senate that gave the “R” team everything they wanted on this issue? (Ojeda has had a lot of good commentaries, but this may be his best IMO)...



...and Ojeda talks about creeping authoritarianism (actually, at this point, it may be at a full gallop, tragically), and Thom Hartmann does here also, informing us that “seize the media first” is pretty much right out of the authoritarian playbook...didn’t know that half the country gets their news from social media, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised (explains even more how badly the Dems fell down on that in the last election)...and yep, I also think we need a new phrase to go after these one percent bastards; I mean, we need a lot more than that, but that’s a start anyway (and I think calling them “the morbidly rich” works also)...have to admit that I didn’t know about the “two Santa Claus” theory from The Sainted Ronnie R...



...and in keeping with the dictatorial theme of Dear Orange Leader, Jesse Dollemore brings us the tale of Trumpist lickspittles basically interrogating applicants for administration jobs about when their supposed “MAGA revelation” took place...yep, anybody paying attention to this stuff surely knows at this point what Jesse is emphasizing; namely, that #47 has always wanted nothing but to be a dictator and to make sure those catering to him align with his interests and definitely not what is best for the country...



...and I guess we should take whatever humor we can get when we can get it; Ronny Chieng of The Daily Show lets us know about Our Ochre Abomination trying to end birthright citizenship and getting slapped down by that “bleeding heart” Reaganite judge...



...and as we rearrange the deck chairs while in the path of the proverbial iceberg, I thought it would be worthwhile to enjoy a newer tune while we still can (very slightly NSFW/H for a second).

Monday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen and election lawyer Marc Elias talk about Our Ochre Abomination firing 17 inspectors general (or more, tragically), and as Elias points out, what Trump did is illegal of course for reasons Elias notes, though I’m sure Cantaloupe Capone will appeal this to the SCOTUS, who will just say “no prob” and that will be it – love to be wrong...didn’t think about a connection to Pete Hegseth, but sadly, that makes sense (as well as the utter cowardice of the “party of Lincoln” in response)...oh, and on the subject of cowardice, yep, our legacy media is culpable as Cohen says, but more food for thought on that (namely, the near-total absence of protest from the “D” team) is here...and yes, I get Elias’s point that the Dems don’t have power, but that doesn’t mean they have to be silent either...they lose votes not because people actually like Republicans, but because they don’t have a clue about what Dems stand for BECAUSE THEY’RE MISSING IN ACTION AT TIMES LIKE THESE!...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report discuss a recent column by someone named Hamilton Nolan who employes the term “gangster style fascism,” which I believe is completely apt unfortunately; yeah, Dems will get pilloried in attack ads in response when it comes time to run for re-election, BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU DO!!!...I’m presenting the clip of Bishop Budde’s wonderful words again, and it’s important indeed to note the reaction of the couch f*cker and his wife (and I think I mentioned the idiocy with that asshat Mike Collins before also)...the real “chef’s kiss” as far as yours truly is concerned was that typically juvenile post on Truth Septic...and boy, did I get flashbacks to growing up R.C. myself when I heard the phrase “we’ll talk about it in the car on the way home”...



...and Chris Hayes discusses Bronzer Beelzebub going to CA to meet Gavin Newsom over the LA wildfires...#47 wants to kill FEMA of course, which is right out of Project 2025 (Hayes speaks with Dem U.S. House Rep Robert Garcia, who echoes the fact that Project 2025 is indeed here)...and also, by the way, #47 made noises about trying to withhold aid from California if that state didn’t put voter ID in place – hmmm, trying to withhold aid to seek political favors...why does that ring a bell? Oh yeah...it’s because THAT’S WHAT HE TRIED TO DO WITH ZELENSKYY IN UKRAINE! WHICH WAS THE REASON FOR THE FIRST DAMN IMPEACHMENT!!! (and sorry about going crazy with the all caps, but I think it's warranted)...



...and on the one hand, I’m sorry for this lady, but on the other hand, WERE YOU F*CKING ASLEEP WHEN PEOPLE LIKE YOURS TRULY WERE WARNING ABOUT WHAT A THREAT THIS GUY WAS???!! (sorry – there I go with the “all caps” again)...

“Us Latinos voted for Trump and thought he would keep his word. Now we’re afraid to go to work” pic.twitter.com/n3enS0IhgN

— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) January 25, 2025

...and a response to the above clip is here...

IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

If you know an undocumented immigrant who is currently living in fear, please be sure to pass on this important information. pic.twitter.com/iQ76GXMmMW

— 𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 (@politicsusa46) January 25, 2025

...and this song has been on my mind recently, probably for reasons that are painfully obvious.