Friday Stuff

Xanderhal brings us the story of Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence trying to stage a birthday parade with about 6,600 or 7,000 soldiers, and that depends on the estimate, as well as all kinds of armaments, probably including tanks, missile launchers, etc., ”the most dictator-y thing ever” indeed...good point about how the parade in France is for the storming of the Bastille, and Bronzer Boy definitely doesn’t get that history I know (and wouldn’t appreciate it even if he did)...I didn’t notice how the red hat is a tipoff to Trump maintaining that he still won the election in ’20...and I’ll make a note in case Combover Caligula does indeed start talking about a “fourth term,” and if that happens I’ll give Xan credit for it...as I watched this clip, I found it impossible to NOT think of the parade at the end of “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (NSFW/H)...



Update 5/18/25: Good one by Jack Ohman here.

...and speaking of graft to benefit Dear Orange Leader (were we?), Thom Hartmann informs us of a Chinese company on TikTok with no revenue that just bragged about paying off Bronzer Beelzebub, claiming they were going to spend about $300 mil on “Dollar Trump” coins, which I believe is a “meme” coin, though I admit that I’m not an expert on this stuff...and OF COURSE, that beyond ridiculous tariff on China magically drops from 145 percent to 30 percent...didn’t we used to fight wars with countries over extortion like this?...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report inform us that Our Ochre Abomination just removed temporary protected status for Afghanistan refugees (people who risked their lives to help us during that forever war)...remember that this August when Repugs start screeching again about the anniversary of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in which 13 of our service people died (Trump basically tied Biden’s hands on the deal as noted here)...oh, but let’s give protected status to white South African farmers who are supposedly being persecuted and having their land taken from them (I know you’ll be absolutely shocked to hear that Pumpkin Pol Pot is LYING ONCE AGAIN – the reality perspective is here)...



...and I realize I’m a little behind on this, but I didn’t want to let it slip by...Kyle Kulinski tells us about “Bobby Brainworms” swimming in toxic sewage with his grand kids in Rock Creek in D.C. (I hope to God those kids don’t develop tumors later, but if that happens, remember this idiocy)..a minor point I know, but who the $#@! would name their kids Bobcat, Kick and Cassius? And I have to admit that I’ve never heard of “methylene blue”...also, good point about the anti-vaxxers taking other drug treatments that they’re apparently OK with...just a tad bit inconsistent on that one...and in a related story, kudos to Dem U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks for this (NSFW/H also)...



...and I thought this was a particularly good segment from John Oliver on the Alliance Defending Freedom...and why should we be surprised that a charter school in Oklahoma wants to teach religion and take public dough...and gee, you’d think the ADF and their fellow travelers would be taking a victory lap over Dobbs, but out of nowhere comes this spokesperson off-camera saying that, no, we’re not allowed to comment...what cowards (but “winsome” cowards for sure)...and I think “Christian love, Christian love, kill, kill, kill” is the best way to sum up these whited sepulchers of the ADF...and this clip tells me how the phrase “the homosexual agenda” originated, which I always wondered about, actually (cue the eye roll...)...didn’t know there were links from the ADF to “MAGA Mike” Johnson and Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett, but it fits the profile...and Kristen Waggoner is just Anita Bryant 2.0 without the orange juice...clip also gives us the story on the cake maker in Colorado who wouldn’t make a gay cake, as if that’s really that big of a thing, and the fact that his case made its way to the SCOTUS is way beyond pathetic, along with the woman who was supposedly asked to make a gay web site (spoiler alert: she wasn’t, but the SCOTUS took up her case anyway)...more on the American College of Pediatricians is here (NSFW/H as well...hope you have your head phones)...



...and Farron Cousins gives us more gory details on the ridiculous and pointless trade war from Cantaloupe Capone...we learn about Morgan McGarvey (the only Dem in the U.S. delegation from Kentucky) who is telling everyone his state/commonwealth will lose “tens of millions” with Canada over bourbon...and yes, Rand Paul made noises about trying to end the tariff war, but that was all (more is here)...



...and staying below that Mason-Dixon line, Tennessee Brando tells us about Repugs deciding to buckle down on town halls after the backlash they’ve quite rightly gotten...looks like Knox County, TN is going to have a Repug-only town hall (and I believe it already took place); I’d like to look down my nose at those folks over that, but in good conscience I can’t since, even though that’s an idiotic idea, that at least isn’t as bad as chicken Bri-Fi in PA-01 who won’t even come out of his hidey hole to meet his constituents in person...and I’ve heard nothing but good things about Gloria Johnson also...and yeah, I think we’re all sick of the “Dollar General Hillbilly Trumps” for sure (still another NSFW/H clip)...



...and I’m overdue for a newer tune, so let’s kick-start the weekend with this one, OK?

Thursday Stuff

Yasmin Khan of Rebel HQ discusses the Tesla brand of King Elon I going down the tubes...pretty hilarious IMO that owners of those godawful Tesla trucks can’t even trade in those wretched vehicles...and Elmo hiding inventory because people aren’t supporting his thoroughly toxic brand anymore? Color me (not) shocked...



...and Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network discusses Dem John Ewing Jr. winning the Omaha, Nebraska mayor’s race, defeating incumbent MAGA Repug mayor Jean Stothert, the longest serving incumbent Repug mayor in the country; this represents a 20-point swing, for those keeping score (shockingly classy concession speech by Stothert, I have to admit, even though she draped her campaign in trans bathroom nonsense, trying to protect girls’ sports, supposedly, etc. – that stuff isn’t going to play when people are losing their savings and their health care)...I think I included a clip of that knucklehead Mike Flood at a town hall once before acting like taxing the rich is anathema to Repugs (which we knew already)...and “Sainted Ronnie R” hagiography notwithstanding, I find myself in agreement with Repug Rep Don Bacon (though he’ll NEVER call out Diaper Donnie, amirite?)...(NSFW/H)...



...and sticking with the theme of the fake populism of Our Ochre Abomination, Robert Reich tells us about RFK, Jr. saying that #47 actually isn’t an oligarch...I think that brain worm Jr. has is working overtime...



...and if you’re going to talk about economic populism for real, then Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders needs to be part of that discussion, and he speaks with Chris Hayes here about how Repugs on Capitol Hill plan to reward the “one percent”...about $715 billion in cuts to Medicaid, meaning 13 million people could lose their health insurance as Sanders says, along with a $35 co-payment for doctor’s visits, which is a non-starter if you’re making $16K a year...and I knew it was a high number, but I honestly didn’t know that 75K people die without health insurance...good point about Medicaid funding nursing homes and visits to community health centers...and “Running Man” Brave Sir Josh Hawley and Rojo The Clown come down on this about in the way you’d expect (I’m also glad Hayes and Sanders mentioned the rallies; I mean, they’re great, but they should be used as a springboard for policy proposals...again, if the Dems as a party had a clue about messaging, that’s how they would follow up on the Bernie/AOC momentum).

(Oh, and by the way, when it comes to Medicaid and work requirements, as noted here, 92% of Medicaid enrollees already work or are unable to do so for reasons that qualified as exemptions under the prior Trump administration’s policies, such as having caregiving responsibilities, illness or disability, and attending school.)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about the recent exchange between Dem U.S. House Rep Tom Suozzi and Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff on the Joint Committee of Taxation...it seems that #47 promised no taxes on tips or overtime as well as removing taxes on Social Security benefits, but – oopsie! – it looks like that didn’t make its way into the “big, beautiful bill” for Bronzer Beelzebub...and Pumpkin Pol Pot oversaw a net loss of 178K manufacturing jobs in his prior term – just another example IMO of the stupendous incompetence of the @DNC that they couldn’t capitalize on that in the election last year...



...and kudos to Bruce Springsteen for this.



Update 5/17/25: Yeah, I think this says it...

And by the way, you won’t find tunes here by Taylor Swift only because I personally don’t care for her music. That doesn’t mean that I’m trying to diminish her success as a musician and a performer in any way (and an activist also, to her credit). And yes, I wish nothing but the best for her and Travis Kelce, though maybe a little more privately I’ll admit.

Wednesday Stuff

Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report informs us that Our Ochre Abomination staged a confrontation with Dem Maine Governor Janet Mills some time ago (as a reminder) over #47’s discriminatory anti-trans sports ban in schools, as Mike Figueredo tells us...sooo, Our Treasonous Orange Pustule wanted to let 170K Maine kids go hungry in order to punish TWO trans athletes? Yeah, that sounds about right for this regime...and OF COOUUURRSE, Mr. “Art Of The Deal” blinked and Gov. Mills will get the USDA funding for school kids that Mills and her state are legally entitled to (NSFW/H)...



Update: I pretty much don't bother anymore with the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, but probably the only writer I read at this point is Jamelle Bouie; he hit it out of the park today with this.

...and John of The Damage Report lets us know that, more Trumpist BS notwithstanding, yeah, “MAGA Mike” Johnson and his fellow bootlickers in the U.S. House, including Bri-Fi, are indeed going to have to cut Medicaid to pay for more stinking tax cuts, which of course that nitwit Brian Kilmeade con-vee-niently forgets to mention, about the stinking tax cuts I mean (and Medicaid was expanded under the ACA - shocking that Kilmeade is actually right for a change - but that was pretty much paid for by the Feds, though red states largely refused the ACA expansion anyway)...good point by John to basically lay out the strategy from the “party of Lincoln,” which is to just cut Medicaid and dole out tax cuts as soon as possible to help deflect people from getting POed about it at town halls...not that people will be fooled, but that’s typical for these “R” cretins in power, to tell people to just shut up and get on board with our rotten policies...GREAT point by John and Luke Beasley that MAGA and the rest of the wingnuts will truly be turning the culture wars garbage “up to 11” next year to get people to vote against their own self-interest...look for a gay trans athlete leading a pro-Palestinian boycott illegally subscribed to Medicaid who, as it turns out, will be an “anchor baby” who was a DACA arrival to this country and was also a fentanyl mule with heart tattoos linked by #47 to Tren de Aragua and also charged in the abduction of a white female college student (a la Laken Riley), and every single MAGA YouTuber and social media influencer, to say nothing of Fix Noise, will be talking/posting about this person 24/7/365 (and no, I don’t want to see white female college students abducted and/or harmed in any way)...



...and Mehdi Hasan speaks with Democracy Now! on the first anniversary of starting his news site Zeteo, and also talking about Gaza...one of Hasan’s great points is how Palestinian voices are “iced out” from our oh-so-august-in-their-imaginations corporate media, including those Sunday morning programs that haven’t mentioned any of the starvation in that region...Hasan also talks about the torture (and yes, that’s what it is, as Hasan says) of imprisoned foreign students such as Rumeysa Ozturk (and just as a reminder, Ozturk was released pending a hearing, but she should never have been snatched and flown off to Louisiana without due process in the first place)...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us about Repug U.S. House rep Michael McCaul of Texas (of course) who says something pretty darn racist about his colleagues in the U.S. House...the starting point for McCaul’s disgusting words is Newark, NJ mayor Ras Baraka’s arrest and detainment by masked federal immigration police when he joined three Democratic congressmembers set to tour a newly reopened 1,000-bed Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility run by Geo Group (advocates say the facility lacks proper permits)...as always, a Repug NEVER EVER thinks the racism is about THEM...as Jesse says, the issue wasn’t “peacefully protesting”; the issue was (and is) the fact that sitting Congress people HAVE THE CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHT TO CONDUCT OVERSIGHT, and for McCaul to use the phrase “gang violence” in that ridiculous statement of his tells us what kind of a mental defective he truly is...and Tricia McLaughlin, quite simply, is a f*cking liar from a regime of liars and I don’t know what else needs to be said about that (NSFW/H also)...



...and I apologize for failing to note earlier that May 11th was National Twilight Zone Day...and yes, that’s really a thing; I present the following clip from this episode as a tribute...



...and that also gives me an excuse for this tune.

Tuesday Stuff

Today marks the 40th anniversary, believe it or not, of the bombing of the MOVE compound on 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia; a video interview with Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Craig McCoy and Kitty Caparella is here...like lots of others, I lived in Philadelphia at the time this happened...video has to do with the group’s first appearance in 1978 in Philadelphia leading to the confrontation in which Officer James Ramp was shot and killed...after the trial for what happened in the first confrontation, they moved to Osage Avenue...a lot of the clips I’ve found about the bombing feature Ramona Africa basically describing herself and the group as political prisoners, which is utter bullsh*t and I refuse to do anything to perpetuate that lie...MOVE did its best (worst?) to basically hold an entire neighborhood in West Philadelphia hostage, and all the people in that neighborhood were trying to do is live their lives...that being said, don’t think for a second that I’m trying to excuse the stupendous incompetence of the administration of Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode; I know that the building trades in this area offered to rebuild the homes destroyed in the ’85 fire gratis, but Goode said no and doled out the work to some of his campaign donors who utterly botched the job...there’s a lot more to say about this episode I know, and I got into some of that here (I wish I could embed the video at this site, but YouTube has decided that it’s age restricted for some reason, so...I'll be honest; if I ever decide to throw in the towel around here, it will likely be because of nonsense like that).

Turning to the typical news/political stuff, Belle of the Ranch tells us that Yambo is cutting veterans and rural programs under the guise of “DEI” (and that acronym does include programs for homeless vets, of course)...#47 got into a typical snit about the Digital Equity Act of 2021, which, as Belle says, is designed to increase internet use among “covered populations,” including vets, seniors, and those living in rural areas, including remote tele-health appointments for vets, and kids also of course trying to access courses online...and kudos to Dem U.S. Senator Patty Murray for writing the legislation the Act is based on and calling out the Gropenfuhrer for his typical idiocy on this subject...



...and sticking with more ridiculous nonsense from our ruling regime of grifters, liars and frauds, Rachel Maddow tells us that Pumpkin Pol Pot just fired the 3 Dem commissioners on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is INCREDIBLY FREAKING ILLEGAL...I mean, it’s not like a pesky little detail like THAT ever stopped Bronzer Beelzebub before, I realize...and kudos to Dem commissioner Mary Boyle in particular for speaking out...



...and I realize that, given our thoroughly corrupt ruling cabal, we have to consider degrees of illegality...the prior clip discussed something that, while bad, doesn’t call the Constitution into question, but Jesse Dollemore tells us about something WAY worse from #47’s “Goebbels mini-me,” which is the threat to suspend habeas corpus, and of course, being the execrable pissant he is, Stephen Miller sneaks in another lie about Biden flying illegals into the country....



...and Farron Cousins tells us that Cantaloupe Capone’s trade war has caused our deficit to explode, up to 11.2%...and Belle also pointed out that this administration of liars, grifters and frauds doesn’t understand the difference between a trade deficit and a budget deficit (she didn’t say that in today’s clip, but in a prior one)...



...and Tennessee Brando echoes the part a bit about our ruling regime trying to dispense with due process, and of course they also want to keep oppressing women, including this Dusty Deevers character in Oklahoma (of course) who wants to prosecute women who take abortion pills...don’t know if this will make a difference in trying to keep this Bryan Logan nut case out of the Oklahoma house, but I’ll take a shot anyway (and this guttersnipe wants to enforce an abortion ban from 1910??)...NSFW/H...



...and happy 75th birthday to Stevie Wonder; even though it was written for Tricky Dick, this tune has been on my mind lately for obvious reasons I guess.

Monday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen talks about Mango Mussolini getting a a luxury 747 jumbo jet from Qatar for about $400 mil...I know I’ve said this before and I apologize for repeating myself, but I think it matters; we’re just not even going to bother with acknowledging the emoluments clause and just go straight to the full-blown graft and corruption, huh? And of course, if spokes-liar Karoline Leavitt actually told the truth, she would either disintegrate before our eyes or turn into a pillar of salt...and oh yeah, I temporarily forgot about the crypto currency scam from Off Brand Erdogan – more impeachment evidence as far as yours truly is concerned...oh, but the jet is pretty much going to be “laundered” through the Air Force first? Typical for a criminal enterprise (here)...



...and Belle of the Ranch informs us that #47’s tariff tantrum apparently will now extend to Hollywood (a particularly good call on the T-shirt)...lots of good common-sense questions about how the $#@! you would apply a tariff to a movie playing in a theater in this country that was made overseas...a ton of movies are made offshore because of lower production costs; that’s not an endorsement, but a statement of economic reality, which plainly evades the Gropenfuhrer and his cabal of grifters and lowlifes (and yep, it does indeed look like our ruling “Turd Reich” thinks a trade deficit is the same thing as a budget deficit)...



...and sticking with movies, Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about the Rev. Caleb Lines, who gave a sermon about our ruling regime (timed for 5/4 and all the “May The Fourth Be With You” business), drawing an actually correct analogy between “Star Wars” with Emperor Palpatine and what’s going on now...Ojeda also draws a parallel to Julius Caesar and how he consolidated power in ancient Rome, which is spot-on also IMO...”If Caesar was the blueprint, Donald Trump is the remix” indeed...



...and Chris Hayes gives us an update on Tufts university student Rümeysa Öztürk (judge ruled that she should be returned to Vermont for a hearing – she was released on bail, fortunately) as well as Trumpers going after other legitimate protests such as the one at Columbia University and NYU, along with UT-Austin (with Trumpist guttersnipe Eric Adams trying to intervene on behalf of our ruling regime)...Hayes says this is the closest thing he’s seen to McCarthyism in his lifetime, and I would agree (and I hope Ozturk and other detainees sue Bronzer Beelzebub’s sorry ass)...



...oh, and this just in – apparently, Cantaloupe Capone had a recent call with Pope Leo XIV (hey, we have to try and find humor somehow, right?)...



...and this song was recorded by Wilson Pickett along with Steve Cropper, “Duck” Dunn and Al Jackson 60 years ago today at the Lorraine Motel, where MLK would be assassinated not quite three years later.