Friday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about the recent failed town hall with Harriet Hagerman in Wyoming...I knew Hagerman was truly awful (the rep in the U.S. House voted in because Generalissimo Trump decided to sic his flying monkeys on Liz Cheney), but you’d have to go a looong way to find someone more entitled than she is, talking down to her constituents like she did (here), wondering why they cared about government so much or something...and as I watch AOC with her completely spot-on commentary, it reinforces once more what a fraud and utter coward @RepBrianFitz is for refusing to come out of his hidey hole and meet the people who (foolishly) put him in office (along with the fact that Bri-Fi was also too chicken to debate Ashley Ehasz in the campaign last year)...



...and what King Elon and Bronzer Beelzebub would do to Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security was front and center in the above clip of course, and with that in mind, Rachel Maddow tells us about “an effort to break the agency” administering Medicare/Social Security...looks like Elmo and Combover Caligula are trying to “reform” the claims process by trying to get claimants to verify their identity over the internet or (more likely) go to a claims processing office, which would create volumes more red tape and slow down the claims process, which is completely by design of course (75K to 85K in-person visitors per week, huh? And of course people working in these field offices are getting let go, making this even more of a clusterf*ck...yeah, this isn’t the wingnut “wet dream” of drowning this entitlement in the metaphorical bathtub, huh? Not much it isn’t...and Judd Legum, to his credit, is on this stuff)...



And by the way, with the prior clip in mind, I offer this...

...and returning to what’s going on in town halls, Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us that, apparently, there was a flare-up in Nebraska (and I get it that the Soros remark was tongue-in-cheek), with a lady talking about funding cuts to NIH to Repug rep Mike Flood, who of course is trying to tap dance as well as he can, though the crowd isn’t buying it...GREAT point by Sam that recessions follow on the heels of “balanced budgets” (and for this Flood guy to even utter the words “balanced budget” is an obscenity given that #47 and his minions want to extend those stinking 2017 tax cuts, which would add trillions to the debt...and one result of a search for “Kansas” and “Sam Brownback” is here)...



...and Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network informs us that it looks like “the land of the yellow rose” (and yeah, I think “laboratory of autocracy” fits, sadly) has had enough of #47 and President Elon, in particular when it comes to trying to gut the CHIPS Act...and it’s kind of telling to me also that our corporate media cousins aren’t giving all of this stuff the attention it deserves...I didn’t know that Texas delivered more wind energy than anyone else, but yeah, that’s even MORE of a reason to oppose this insanity from #47 (and of course, Cantaloupe Capone demonstrates that he doesn’t have the remotest idea of how wind energy really works, which shouldn’t be surprising)...and what a “godly” man this Robert Morris character is, another Trumpist lickspittle who’s been accused of child sex abuse (and to support Isaiah Martin, click here)...



...and Alec Opperman of More Perfect Union brings us the story of an auto dealer (allegedly) shutting off a vehicle when someone was driving because of a remote engine “kill switch” – a lady named Victoria Carter was driving with her kids in June of ‘21 when this took place...the clip profiles lawyer Lindsey Siegel, who was fired from the CFPB; Siegel was working on a case involving an outfit called USAuto Sales, which apparently is a loan servicer to low-income folks needing a vehicle to get to work and get their kids to and from school and for other needs; apparently, the vehicles were shut off using something called a starter interruption device when it appeared that loan repayment was due, and this appears to have happened while the vehicles were being driven on roads, highways, etc...well, the CFPB won a $32 million judgment against USAuto Sales, but because the CFPB was gutted by DOGE, it appears that the $$ may not get paid out...un-freaking believable (well, not really I guess, given this bunch in power now)...



...and Belle informs us of the hugely important Wisconsin Supreme Court contest coming up between Trumpist and Elon fanboy Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford (more here)...to help Crawford, click here...



...and maybe I’m a bit of a blue-eyed optimist I’ll admit to feature these tunes from Jesse Colin Young with all of the Trumpist insanity all about us, though maybe on the other hand, that may be the very reason why we need them now more than ever...I’ll conclude my tribute of sorts with these two selections.

Thursday Stuff

I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 3/20/17...I know it’s hard to keep track of the mania surrounding Our Treasonous Orange Pustule and President Elon, but I think it’s instructive to take a look back at this item where Our Ochre Abomination put the word out that former President Obama allegedly put a tap on #47’s phone in Trump Tower, and when that nonsense blew up, Our Orange Man-Baby tried to blame British intelligence (Jake Tapper brought the reality perspective in this clip)...I never thought I’d be nostalgic for Sean Spicer, but I guess I am (more here)...



...and Jesse Dollemore brings us the story of “five dipsh*ts,” as he correctly IMO puts it, in Minnesota introducing a bill having to do with “Trump Derangement Syndrome”..these knuckleheads are Eric Lucero, Steve Drazkowski, Nathan Wesenberg, Justin Eichorn, and Glenn Gruenhagen, and a particularly disgusting update on Eichorn is here (why do I have a feeling that these guys would be in a remake of “Fargo” by the Coen Brothers?)...mildly NSFW/H...



...and Chris Hayes lets us know about “a dawning awareness that it’s time to fight back”...Hayes quite rightly takes "Leader" Schumer and the other 9 turncoat U.S. Senate Dems to task over voting for the “filthy” CR allowing Elmo and Bronzer Beelzebub to continue wrecking our government...and Hayes is right; the bulwark against fascism for sure is us...and I’d truly like to tell Pam Bondi what I think of her, but I don’t want these posts to get too virulent, as tempting as it is to do that; maybe I’ll just link to this instead (Hayes speaks with Faiz Shakir and Rebecca Traister...GREAT point by Shakir that there was basically no negotiation In Schumer’s cave-in, and Traister really nailed it in talking about the risks that the protestors are bravely taking on)...



...and echoing the Hayes clip, Kyle Kulinski also points out 100 anti-Tesla protests last weekend, and I’m sure that more indeed are planned, along with a massive boycott against Elmo and his bogus companies all over the world...an update is here...so of course the Ketamine addict is now all, “Oh, puh-LEEZE help me! I’m a poor, oppressed billionaire!” so he runs to the Gropenfuhrer for love and kisses...bleaugh! (NSFW/H)...



...and on the subject of folks rising up (and taking risks big time also), Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network presents the courageous people of Hungary protesting against dictator Viktor Orban as well as those in Serbia protesting Putin pal Aleksandar Vucic...

Trump and Elon Musk's worst nightmare is happening. People around the world are rising up against fascism and authoritarian autocrats. 🙌🙏💪👏👊👇 pic.twitter.com/YfA9IKdrly

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) March 19, 2025

...and this tune from Jesse Colin Young is apropos sadly, though as far as I'm concerned, that just means that we should redouble our efforts as much as we can.

Wednesday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore informs us here that self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau sez that Our Lord won’t return until #47’s policies are carried out...I have to admit that it’s been awhile since I did a “deep dive” into The Good Book, but I seem to recall a passage with Jesus more or less saying that those claiming to speak for the Almighty despite their public misdeeds will wish they’d never been born, or words to that effect...and why did I know that this Wallnau character would work in the attempted shooting in Butler, PA last year? I have a TON of questions about that day that likely will never be answered, along with the fact that I’ve never seen an alleged ear wound heal so quickly on a man in his 70s with health morbidities...



...and Chris Williamson of Rebel HQ tells us that it looks like that fool “Coach Tubs” is weighing in on what he thinks “hate speech” is...yep, the Alabama senator is out of his depth once again, which is kind of a “short wade into the kiddie pool”...and Tuberville can’t even pronounce “antisemitism”...clip is another update on Mahmoud Khalil and his imprisonment for apparently exercising his right to free speech on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza...and I think Chris Murphy, at this moment, is the only person in the U.S. Senate who actually gets what’s going on here...and of course leave it to Senator Foghorn Leghorn of Louisiana with his folksy BS act to get the story COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WRONG...



...and Farron Cousins tells us that Bernie, AOC and others are apparently drawing big crowds in town halls in red states...and I would say that there is nowhere for Dems to go but up with a polling approval rate of 29 freaking percent...and I almost don’t want to say this because I don’t want to jinx everything, but it sounds like new DNC head Ken Martin may actually be meeting the moment here – crossing my fingers and toes as I say that...and more on the special U.S. House elections this year is here (and psst...I don’t mean to be a Pollyanna, but here’s a crazy thought – if Dems could somehow win all three, THEY WOULD TAKE OVER THE U.S. HOUSE! And click here to help Gay Valimont and click here to help Josh Weil, both on 4/1)...



...and The Lincoln Project reminds us that Elmo gets billions of taxpayer dollars to send up rockets that keep exploding...and of course, he despises the FAA, the one governmental body that keeps us safe when flying, because it stands up to the person in charge of Nazi Twitter...



...and Tennessee Brando tells us that French Member of the European Parliament Raphael Glucksmann says that his country wants the Statue of Liberty back...yeah, this is obviously a showboating ploy, but as Brando says, did you ever imagine in your life that we’d be in a position where that would be a “thing”?...and Brando is right; this mess stopped being about “politics” a loooong time ago, and I know Brando is also spot-on when it comes to the ingrained hatred of “all things Democrat” below that Mason-Dixon line, facts and logic be damned...and yeah, go ahead and hate France if you want, which of course means that you also don’t care about their contribution to our victory over Great Britain during the Revolutionary War (and that also means that you’re aligned with this dimwitted harpie)...and yeah, I’m glad my parents didn’t live to see this disgusting spectacle either (mildly NSFW/H)...



...and I’ll plan to spend the rest of the week featuring the work of Jesse Colin Young, who just left us...the tributes I’ve read quite rightly noted the development of his music across genres besides pop, notably jazz, which I think is showcased in this number.

Tuesday Stuff

Thom Hartmann tells us about King Elon I putting $100 million into the political operation of Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence...also, more background on what I would call the “filthy CR” (as opposed to the “clean” one) – the ”filthy” one gives cover to these DOGE bastards allowing President Musk and his orange flunky to continue to wreak havoc on our government, economy...you name it...and I think Thom is wrong to say #47 is in violation of the Hatch Act since apparently that doesn’t cover presidents as we recently learned, but Cantaloupe Capone sure as hell IS in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution...



...and if there is one thing the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch absolutely HATES more than anything else on earth, it’s paying their fair share of taxes, and Andrew Rivera of More Perfect Union tells us about the biggest tax dodge in history...it’s basically an intricate scheme to avoid paying the estate tax, which the wingnuts have been after for years...and if there’s one thing I freaking hate, it’s these billionaire f*cks strutting around a stage like they’re rock stars, patting each other on the butt, when in reality they made bank off the labor of many, many workers, to say nothing of benefitting from infrastructure funded by our tax dollars (I think Steve Jobs was the first one of these life forms to do this putrid act, pretending like he’s Bono or something...of course, the vast majority of these characters are “nepo babies” anyway)...and I’d never heard of a GRAT until now; learn something new every day (Bob Lord, by the way, is a member of Patriotic Millionaires...kudos to him)...important history lesson also on the decades-long effort to repeal the estate tax from Chuck Collins, and David Cay Johnston has definitely done fine reporting on this also...



...and Chris Hayes brings us more on Trump lawlessness, leading with the absolutely criminal treatment of Mahmoud Khalil, and also trying to criminalize Habitat for Humanity for receiving EPA grants...heckuva job, all you numbskulls who made sure to inflict this misery on us last year...and leave it to that beyond-useless Trumpist lickspittle Lee Zeldin to manufacture some BS conspiracy from the right-wing online fever swamps that somehow funding clean energy was a Biden-esque giveaway to “far left groups”...and yeah, Ed Martin figures into this somehow, accusing the United Way and the New York Department of Taxation of some kind of criminal fraud...video gets cut at the end with Hayes almost in mid-sentence, oddly enough...



...and color me shocked (well, not really), but, according to Sam and Emma of The Majority Report, it looks like Repugs hate the stock market now, or at least this Rob Schmitt character on Newsmax believes that (I believe the market rebounded a bit yesterday, but so far, it’s down again today)...oh, so the Gropenfuhrer needed to tank the market so we could get a break from inflation? Really??!! Well, let’s see where we are a month or two from now on that, OK (and once more, inflation was declining under Biden, down to 2.9 percent as noted here, but good luck finding that out while that info was getting drowned out by right-wing BS)...and I don’t know how this Newsmax idiot thinks housing prices will actually go down WHEN THE PEOPLE WHO BASICALLY BUILD THE FREAKING HOUSES, TO SAY NOTHING OF PICKING OUR CROPS ALSO, ARE ALL GETTING DEPORTED!!!...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen brings us the story of a lawsuit from Bronzer Beelzebub against Marc Elias’s old law firm that was shut down by a federal judge from the bench...and I get it that Elias has to be circumspect about criticizing his own profession at about 4:57; sounds like lawyers generally are doing the right thing even if some “white shoe” firms aren’t...important indeed to note that Democracy Docket is on its own platform – definitely an open question as to how certain media and legal operations may react to this intolerant fascist era in which we find ourselves...



...and here’s a bit of what I guess you could call Gen Z angst...kind of wraps it up quick I would say.

Monday Stuff

David Shuster of Rebel HQ talks about Trumpette Karoline Leavitt doing another pratfall when she's asked if the tariffs from her boss will cause a recession...and while I have myriad criticisms of Senate Dem “leader” Chuck Schumer, calling him a “Palestinian” (which isn’t even a valid criticism as far as I’m concerned, but consider the source) isn’t one of them (I realize we’re fully into this new timeline where, apparently, we’re not supposed to laugh in the face of the POTUS and not call him a stoo-pid POS)...”somebody drew a straight line through the U.S. and Canada many, many decades ago”...terrifying in a way to realize that probably about 77 million people last year said, “yeah, he’s the guy I want for president”...and I’m sure more people are trying to escape from here every day...



...and Kyle Kulinski discusses a “poll implosion” for Combover Caligula and King Elon I...Kyle goes over a bunch of data here about how quickly the “honeymoon” has soured for Bronzer Beelzebub, especially on the economy and also on foreign policy with picking these stoo-pid fights with Canada and Mexico...and I think a 39 percent approval rating on the economy is still way too damn high, but yeah, it remains a pretty sad number (and the number is even lower on foreign policy)...(NSFW/H)...



...and Farron Cousins lets us know about “MAGA Mike” Johnson getting trashed by his own voters mainly because of proposed cuts to Medicaid (1 in 4 of Johnson’s constituents need it) and SNAP, otherwise known as food stamps (1 in 5 of his constituents need that), according to an NBC News report (wonder why it took this mess to get people to wake the hell up, but alas, we are where we are)...



...and Leeja Miller brings us the following; our democracy is fragile, indeed...she presents a recap of how our allies are turning on us, and rightly so, over our beyond-ridiculous tariffs, along with King Elon’s plummeting values of his crappy Tesla vehicles...have to admit that I didn’t know that the prez was exempt from the Hatch Act, though there are other ways to hold our chief executive to account...and yes, it does appear that the primary means of enforcing ethics and legality in the Oval Office are under the purview of the executive, and it’s up to Congress to carry forward on impeachment of course, but after Combover Caligula, maybe we ought to find a way to redesign that arrangement, and no, I don’t know how exactly at the moment...also, I know Sam Seder, to his credit, had that roundtable with all of these wingnuts, but to be honest, I don’t want to validate the opinions of these numbskulls by commenting on their moronic observations (definitely not a comment on Seder)...and yeah, as far as I’m concerned, so much of our current misery can indeed be traced back to Citizens United, as Miller states at about 16:07, not just because of equating money with speech to a greater degree than ever before, but also because of the type of people who ended up in government and how they governed, basically, by ignoring everyone else who wasn’t a millionaire like they are...”The American dream is truly the ultimate cult” indeed...NSFW/H also...



...and John Russell of More Perfect Union visits America’s poorest counties in West Virginia devastated by flooding (and of course, there’s a media blackout...I’m genuinely sorry these people are dealing with all of this misery, and on the one hand, I cannot for the life of me understand why they would vote for ANY Republican, but on the other hand, this state was allegedly represented by Joe Manchin in the U.S. Senate, and he obviously didn’t do jack sh*t for them)...and of course, Our Ochre Abomination blames FEMA but has no proposed solution, for these people or anyone else who isn’t part of the “one percent” (and leave it to Cantaloupe Capone to approve emergency relief for only 4 of the 13 affected counties)...yeah, leave it also to the states to solve this, even though there’s $0 in West Virginia’s emergency management fund – what a cunning plan! (mildly NSFW/H as well)...



...and Happy St. Patrick's Day, lest I forget to mention that.