Friday Stuff

Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report brings us the tale of Trump supporters cheering the deportation of a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer (life forms that are completely and utterly beneath my contempt)...and oh yeah, Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence won’t support the Equal Credit Opportunity Act which has existed since the ‘70s, which in essence means that he’s willing to discriminate against women economically of course...and yeah, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Combover Caligula is thumbing his nose at the SCOTUS, which told #47 to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a 9-0 ruling; shocking that our SCOTUS did the right thing IMO (#47 ignoring that by itself is worthy of impeachment as far as yours truly is concerned, though you could add a lot of other illegality such as DOGE wrecking our government without authorization and other court decisions Trump has lost...and oh yeah, add the threat to arrest SCOTUS justices too – hard for me to defend Thomas and Alito and those other 4 miscreants, but there’s a larger principle here)...and yeah, even that judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, knows how badly this lawless administration f*cked up by deporting the 2-year-old child and U.S. citizen without due process...and oh yeah, the mother and the child’s 11-year-old sister were also sent to Honduras without a hearing...and I’m pretty sure Tom Homan was selected for his job because he’s an utter mush mouth and his diction is terrible, which is another “FU” from our ruling cabal of liars, grifters and frauds (NSFW/H)...



...and Rachel Maddow informs us of the Gropenfuhrer telling U.S. citizen lawyers, teachers, etc. that they have a fixed amount of time to get out of the country (about 9 people so far apparently)...indeed, as Maddow says, we keep seeing stories about immigration in which U.S. citizens are involved, which is by design of course (echoes the Figueredo clip a bit)...”these guys don’t color inside the lines” indeed...and it looks like “I’ll Drink To That” Hegseth is just so pleased with himself for ending some “woke/DEI/divisive/whatever” Pentagon initiative allegedly from Biden, though it was in fact signed into law by Our Ochre Abomination and sponsored by DHS Secretary Kristi (“Unsafe At Any Speed”) Noem when she took up space in the U.S. House, and sponsored also by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate...and also there’s the matter of bringing back the Firefighters Cancer Registry that #47 sh*tcanned even though – oopsie! – he was responsible for it and bragged about it (of course) in his first term...also, there’s the matter of bringing back those at the CDC screening coal miners for black lung disease who were let go...I don’t know what’s worse: the cruelty or the stoo-pidity...



...and here is a bit of a snippet of some of yesterday’s May Day protests across the U.S. and around the world (more here, here and here)...



...oh, and Bronzer Beelzebub and “Bobby Brainworms” are also getting rid of funding for life-saving overdose prevention programs, affecting Narcan in particular...I guess they feel like they have to make that body count spike somehow (Brittany Page gives us the gory details...the humanity she displays in this clip is commendable IMO)...



...and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about House Joint Resolution 73, introduced in the Missouri state house by this nutball rep Brian Seitz (from Branson, of course), and yep, it’s another ridiculous anti-abortion bill; to her credit, Dem Rep Raychel Proudie calls it out for what it is...it sounds like the bill is an attempt to overturn a voter referendum ensuring abortion rights...and yep, “culture of life” shouldn’t be wingnut code language, but it is...”it’s not just offensive, it’s deadly” indeed...



...and I think these guys are coming to town in a couple of weeks (I’ve been pretty mellow with my musical selections, but I thought I’d give that a break for today).

Thursday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen tells us how Bronzer Beelzebub helped make sure conservative Pierre Poilievre would lose in the Canadian PM election to a liberal, and that would be Mark Carney, and on top of that, Poilievre lost his parliament seat also...of course, the conservatives in Canada were predicted to win, but #47’s antics turned the tide in favor of Carney and the libs (I can’t tell you how depressing it is to hear Carney talk about the era of the U.S. anchoring global trade being over, but I don’t blame him; he and our neighbors to the north have to take the lead for their own self-interest...slightly NSFW/H)....



Update 5/14/25: Nail. Hammer. Head.

...and Hunter Avallone of Occupy Democrats tells us that #47 wants to be Pope, I guess because he’s bored of playing *preznit (and why the $#@! would he be asked about who he thinks would be a good pope anyway...and getting cheered on by Huckleberry Graham...of course, Yambo acted like a petulant little baby when he was called out on that MS-13 business with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, showing once again how utterly divorced from reality Our Treasonous Orange Pustule truly is)...and oh yeah, “MAGA Mike” Johnson just tells us “hey, there’s going to be bumps in the road” for a new administration; I guess he took a break from watching p*rn with his son to tell us that...



...and John and Viviana Vigil of The Damage Report give us a segment on Jon Stewart’s report on our ruinous first 100 days of Pumpkin Pol Pot and the tariff/trade insanity (and Scott Bessent is “roughly an LLC turned into barely human form” – nice one by John...and I want to disagree with Vigil’s whole “feels over reals” argument about politics, if you will, but in good conscience I can’t, which is a pathetic commentary on anybody who had anything to do with making sure we were inflicted with this contagion for four more years)...



...and I still find myself on Nazi Twitter from time to time for a brief period (partly so you don’t have to be there, dear reader), and while I was at that hellsite recently, I happened to come across this clip of a U.S. citizen living in Senegal who was trying to get passports for her and her son, which should have been pretty automatic, but in this Trumpist era, it definitely wasn’t, as she tells us (a cautionary lesson, sadly)...

These are the actions of a fascist authoritarian dictatorship. Something horrific is happening to American citizens. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/mfI4fqhsTK

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) April 27, 2025

...and oh yeah, this guy just passed on...I realize politics is full of stories of people who switched from one side to the other, usually from left to right (as in The Sainted Ronnie R), but David Horowitz was exceptionally bad IMO, as demonstrated in another really old TYT clip...you need to recall the whole “beer summit” thing under former President Obama to get the context of the discussion here, with Horowitz basically saying that blacks slit throats and get away with it, which is a particularly gonzo remark...Horowitz, back in the day, was, more than anyone else, the guy screaming “liberal bias” at college campuses whether it actually existed or not...I was always taught not to say anything bad about someone who has died, so I’ll just leave it at that...



...and I think this newer tune works also; sounds like a record for me too.

Wednesday Stuff

David Pakman informs us that Our Ochre Abomination is blinking a bit on his wretched tariffs because the CEOs who bankroll him are getting concerned about empty shelves in their stores because of a slowdown at out ports from goods that China isn't sending, which could have been foreseen by anyone with a functioning mental capacity...and yes, this is “panic management” and “crisis management” indeed...great point by Pakman that, if we’re roiled by some kind of external crisis such as a bird flu pandemic, then we’ll definitely be weaker and less able to deal with it than we were in the past...



...and Bells Of The Ranch lets us know that the numbers for the consumer confidence survey just came out for April, and they’re really bad...there are three indices...the consumer confidence index fell by 7.9 points; numbers for that and other indices are comparable to COVID and the ’08 recession, including the expectations index, which is now at 54.4, the lowest level since 2011 as Belle says (and I’m definitely not expecting the GDP numbers to be good, but we’ll see, and of course the market will crater again if the numbers are bad...and just remember that all of this is self-inflicted because of Cantaloupe Capone and his ridiculous mismanagement)...



...and Yasmin Khan of Rebel HQ brings us the story of Scots and Irish making their disdain for The Gropenfuhrer known...I honestly didn’t know the Irish had an affinity for the Palestinians, but that definitely makes sense (in the context of being victimized by an occupying power)...and it looks like Yambo’s golf course on the “emerald isle” was vandalized with body bags and a Palestinian flag, and a similar act took place on #47’s course in Scotland...works for me (and I don’t have a problem with Ireland’s elected leader meeting with Our Ochre Abomination – I get it that it’s part of “state craft”)...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about Illinois Dem Governor J. B. Pritzker going to New Hampshire to rally the troops...and Emma is right to call out THE ENTIRE FREAKING REPUBLICAN PARTY!; MAGA is just the latest iteration, bad as it is I’ll admit...Pritzker also called out our oligarchy and “do-nothing Democrats” for good measure...I’m pretty sure Pritzker kicked in about $56 mil to defeat Elmo/Brad Schimel and elect Susan Crawford in Wisconsin to the state supreme court; I would call that not just talking the talk, but walking the walk too (though that vote on the Illinois labor bill sounds disappointing)...yes, it is early for all of this and people will undoubtedly shift lanes, you might say, but this is some positive early stuff from Pritzker...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 4/27/15...I know that Cenk Uygur and TYT have pretty much gone “off the rails,” but in this clip from awhile ago, Cenk tells us about Pope Francis preparing a message for a Vatican conference that addressed the threat of climate change, and of course, Catholics who worship “Republican Jesus” got all in a snit over it...just because the insanity of you-know-who has pushed stories about this incredibly important issue out of the media spotlight, that doesn’t mean that the threat to our planet is any less urgent (and sorry to repeat myself, but this clip emphasizes again that the person who inherits the top spot in the Catholic hierarchy will have pretty big shoes to fill with Francis’s departure from this life)...



...and if I'm going to include this tune for April, I'd better hurry up, so here it is.

Tuesday Stuff

Thom Hartmann tells us that the “party of Lincoln” has managed to make the act of breathing a partisan issue; according to a new study from the American Lung Association, about 156 million Americans are breathing poisonous air...the Trumpers have cut funding on a collaboration between NOAA and Princeton to do climate modeling and forecasting as Thom tells us (more here), and I’m not even going to dignify the typically idiotic Trumpist excuse for this...and yes, the Bellotti decision in 1978 authored by Lewis Powell was the beginning of all of this madness letting corporations run amok, and yep, Lee Zeldin of the EPA will basically ask “how high?” when Trump tells him to jump on this issue...and of course, the “party of states rights” is going after EPA Superfund programs in New York and Vermont that allows those states to “claw back” funds from dirty energy companies for disaster cleanup from extreme weather...looks like coal plants will be exempted from regulations also, so now there’s more mercury in our air for our kids to breathe, and also #47 is rolling back vehicle emission standards, along with reducing EPA enforcement (and oh yeah, Musk and his merry band of incels are trying to gut the EPA itself)...it is indeed up to us to protest as our means allows, since, as Thom says, we can’t rely on most politicians and our bought-and-paid-for corporate media...



...and as far as the Trumpists themselves are concerned, Farron Cousins lets us know that they’re basically at each other’s throats, apparently (and oh yeah, let’s just throw Laura Loomer into this mix because of course...pass the popcorn)...



...and Sam Black of More Perfect Union tells us about Mack Trucks moving jobs to Mexico, where, as the report tells us, they can pay workers about a tenth of what they would make in this country (and oh yeah, they laid off about 350 workers at the plant in the Lehigh Valley, where they’d made the trucks since the company’s founding)...and of course, Big Orange Cheetoh and his lies (and his beyond-ridiculous tariffs) are part of this story...didn’t know Mack Trucks was now owned by Volvo, and of course the savings from paying Mexican workers lousy wages versus their U.S. counterparts will go right into stock dividends, buybacks, and other forms of executive compensation (and this indeed goes back to the ruinous NAFTA trade deal, and #47’s USMCA didn’t do a lot to help with this either...and oh yeah, the trucks made in Mexico are exempt from those ridiculous tariffs of course...a North American minimum wage sure makes sense to yours truly FWIW, but good luck with that I know)...



...and the one person decrying practices such as Volvo’s and other overseas carmakers more than anyone else has been Bernie Sanders, and in this clip, we hear from a few Republicans about why they came to a recent Bernie/AOC rally...we have more that unites us than that which divides us; welcome to the fight...



...and Scott Pelley of CBS and “60 Minutes” spoke out a couple of days ago about the departure of Bill Owens, one of the show’s executive producers who had a lot to do with maintaining the integrity of the show’s content...Pelley put his remarks in the context of the parent company, Paramount, currently trying to obtain a merger that needs the approval of Bronzer Beelzebub...kudos to Pelley for speaking out (and this show has definitely concocted some typical corporate media garbage, but it's done a lot of good work also to be fair)...



...and happy 92nd birthday to the incomparable Willie Nelson.

Monday Stuff

Leeja Miller brings us the story of #47 and ICE arresting a Wisconsin judge to send a message; she showed up with her lawyer for a hearing and was released, and the next hearing date is in mid-May – she wasn’t confined fortunately, but yeah, this is a typically outrageous Trumpist BS move...clip begins with a summary of recent Trump losses in court...once again, the Gropenfuhrer is trying to punish so-called “sanctuary cities,” and for those keeping score at home, the “sanctuary” movement sprung up in the ’80s in response to the immigration policies of The Sainted Ronnie R and is actually rooted in the Catholic faith, something that those “Republican Jesus” worshippers should be reminded of...glad to hear Miller point out that the beyond-ridiculous SAVE Act (which passed the House and was voted for by this guy) requires proof of citizenship to vote, which goes against the Constitution Repugs claim to love so much (and if you don’t want to believe me, then believe the Reagan-appointed judge who said that)...also, a New Hampshire judge came down against the efforts of our *preznit to force teachers to not say anything about DEI...and oh yeah, why am I not surprised to hear that the DHS of Dress-Up Kristi (“Unsafe At Any Speed” ) Noem basically doxxed Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife to the point where she had to flee to a safe house (the wife I mean)...and “Bobby Brainworms” wants an “Autism registry”? WHAAAA????...and oh yeah, I guess for sh*ts and giggles, Our Ruling Regime just defunded the National Prison R*pe Resource Center...and yeah, when it comes to DC legal stuff, you can just bet that Ed Martin will find his way into all of this awfulness, and he does so again here with trying to take over the DC bar oversight organization to try and engineer lawyerly consent for Mango Mussolini’s excesses (and if the @DNC could find its metaphorical butt with multiple sets of hands, they would actually listen to David Hogg and not just blow him off...and oh yeah, Carville needs to freaking vanish)...slightly NSFW/H...



...and Rachel Maddow brings us a rundown on the first 100 days of Bronzer Beelzebub, which actually were worse than we could have imagined somehow, marked by incompetent screwups starting with trying to freeze all federal grants, then listing the wrong person in charge of the FBI, and then accidentally listing the names of a whole bunch of recent CIA hires, and also not allowing the postal service to accept mail from China...oh, and on top of that, there was Elmo sacking a whole bunch of people at the agency handling our nuclear security before they had to try and rehire them, then misstating DOGE savings which were $8 million instead of $8 billion, and also trying to rehire fired agriculture workers handling our response to bird flu, then realizing we needed a COVID testing program after all after trying to end it, then reinstating legal aid for migrant children, and after that reversing a cut to a program helping the 9/11 first responders...and oh yeah, let’s not forget Elmo’s “what did you do last week” Email, and trying to cut cancer treatment and burial services for veterans, and the next day Elmo tried to eliminate prevention measures to combat the Ebola virus, then reversing course after putting hires for veterans’ crisis lines on hold, then Elmo deleting more alleged billions in savings, then walking back a direction from Yambo to fire thousands of federal employees, then having his GSA trying to un-sell 443 federal properties, then pausing tariffs on some products from Canada and Mexico, then scrapping cuts to Social Security phone services, then accidentally revealing a bunch of private info including Social Security numbers when releasing files related to the JFK assassination (this included Trump’s lawyer)...the whole thing with Jeffrey Goldberg getting looped into the Houthi attack plans came the following week, then accidentally sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, then those ridiculous tariffs including the one against an island with no people but only penguins, then Bobby Brainworms accidentally firing US health staff and then trying to get them back, then revealing the 400% math blunder in Bronzer Beelzebub’s tariff calculations, then the National Park Service restoring the webpage devoted to the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, then reversing DOGE cuts to a Florida manatee refuge, then accidentally cutting funding to some life-saving UN food programs, then the sudden reversal on tariffs for every country except China, then blaming a “mistake” for setting off a confrontation with Harvard, then reversing course and deciding to fund after all critical weather data centers, and then we learn that Elmo’s choice to head the IRS lasted for 72 hours, and I think that brings us up to date on the f*ckups for now...



...and as a bit of an add-on to the Maddow clip, Chris Hayes tells us about Our Ochre Abomination and King Elmo gutting the NIH Women’s Health Initiative, started by Bernadine Healy under Poppy Bush...the initiative has had all kinds of practical benefits for studying the health of post-menopausal women, so yeah, our ruinous executive regime decided it had to go for more tax cuts and a trillion dollar defense budget...and yep, $10 million annually isn’t even chump change when compared against the entire U.S. budget...as Hayes says, chronic disease prevention is the point of this research (a concept that apparently was too difficult for King Elmo and his henchman to grasp)...



...and Robert Reich asks Is There A Cure for Trumpism...I’m not sure exactly what you can do when it comes to deep-seated racism, but there sure as hell is a lot to do about declining wages (are you paying attention, @DNC?)...Reich once again does a fine job connecting the dots on how the economic gains have gone to the cretinous rich bastards who have funneled some of that back into politics and using our institutions to formulate consent for right-wing BS policies (and yes, this does indeed go back to the infamous Powell Memo)...



...and apparently, you-know-who went to the funeral for Pope Francis and embarrassed this country once again (here)...Cantaloupe Capone deserves ridicule just about all of the time, but for this occasion of the passing of the vicar of Christ, I’d like to focus instead on the voluminous good works of our late pontiff and highlight this one in particular, where he consoled a young boy named Emanuel whose father had just died – we don’t know of course who will follow in the footsteps of Francis, but he definitely has big shoes to fill (in case the captions are hard to read, what the boy asked Francis was whether or not the boy’s father who had passed was in Heaven because the father wasn’t a practicing Catholic even though the father made sure all of his children were baptized, and Francis said in essence that he was)...



...and RIP sessions musician David Briggs, who, as the New York Times tells us, had a lot to do with establishing the Muscle Shoals, Alabama recording studio as a hub for R&B performers and groups...he performed on a whole bunch of tunes by pre-eminent artists back in the day, including this number.