Friday Stuff

David Shuster of Rebel HQ discusses “Pam Blondi” getting fact-checked by Glenn Kirschner when she tries claiming that Judge James Boasberg, who ruled against our regime of grifters and bottom feeders, was biased (more here)...as Shuster says, the complaint against Boasberg is “a marvel of bureaucratic farce”...and yeah, that lunatic Emil Bove was confirmed, and I know we got into him about a week ago (and once again, Jessica Tarlov tries to explain economic reality to those hyenas on that joke of a TV network)...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about a Trump supporter in Alabama (Robby Robertson...almost sacrilegious to have that name, but oh well) who is mad his employees won’t show up for work because of ICE (and yeah, nice work by this Darwin award nominee to inadvertently admit he’s hiring illegals)...I totally share Cousins’ sense of outrage at the end (punishment for thee, but not for me from yet another Trumper – pathetic)...



...and Belle of the Ranch tells us about Dem U.S. Senate minority “leader” Chuck Schumer invoking some obscure U.S. Senate rule to try and get the Epstein files made public...I’m sure they’re being redacted at this moment; love to be wrong, but I honestly don’t see #47’s handlers being dumb enough not to cover up tracks where needed...and those are pretty damn decisive polling numbers among Dems and Repugs when it comes to releasing the files...that being said, I’d like to see congressional Dems doing a MUCH BETTER job of making the case for what policies they would support or try to enact if they were to regain power, and use social media effectively for a change to make their case (yeah I know...if I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring)...



...and Emma Vigeland, Matt Binder and Brandon Sutton (and Matt Lech) of The Majority Report give the recently departed Hulk Hogan the treatment he deserves IMO (an update is here)...I forgot about Hogan suing Gawker for Peter Thiel to put that site out of business...I’m glad Binder mentioned the story of Jesse Ventura trying to unionize the wrestlers and Hogan undercutting him on that, and it turned out that, at Wrestlemania 3 I think it was, Hogan got paid more than all of the other wrestlers combined (I totally believe Ventura on both of those matters)...I didn’t know about all of the problems with Hogan’s son and the auto accident that permanently disabled his son’s friend...ugh...as bad as the tape is with Hogan dropping the “n” word – and yeah, that’s bad all right – I think the accident is worse (tells you what would have happened to the Gropenfuhrer if all of those “Access Hollywood” tapes had been released – you can’t tell me that Pumpkin Pol Pot hasn’t tossed around the “N” word a time or two...NSFW/H)...



...and Desi Lydic of The Daily Show tells us that “Unsafe At Any Speed” Kristi Noem was in Argentina for some reason, making some soft focus clip of riding horses accompanied by some heroic-sounding muzak or something...and oh yeah, Lee Zeldin shows up for sh*ts and giggles; oh, ha ha, let’s destroy the environment presumably to teach a lesson to future generations, or something...and what would a look at this wretched cabinet of losers be without “Little Marco”? Oh, by the way, Trump is also going to destroy $10 million of birth control for overseas women THAT WAS ALREADY APPROVED BY CONGRESS AND #46!!! And I know you’re anxious to find out what “Polygraph Pete” Hegseth is up to, and it looks like he wants to run for governor of Tennessee, having done such a marvelous job of wrecking the DoD (nice work by Jordan Klepper also)...



...and I would guess that part of makes comedy so tough is that you have to dance on the knife edge a bit, always with the possibility that you could do a better job of offending than providing a laugh or two – that said, I think Mr. Newberger’s latest is effective at satirizing our ruling regime in the appropriate manner (here)...



...and speaking of satire, allow me to conclude my tribute to Tom Lehrer with these two numbers.

Thursday Stuff

John and Sharon Reed of The Damage Report let us know here that MAGA Mike Johnson recently lied on Bleat The Press that, “oh, we did try to send food to help those in Gaza in the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe, but Hamas stole all of it,” a claim that is such a bad joke that I’m not even going to try and research it...”Bibi” and Hamas should have been forced into negotiation by an international body led by this country LONG ago, which definitely will never happen with this bunch we have now...and somehow, I have a feeling that the death toll in that region is a hell of a lot more than the “official” total of 60,000...and boy, do I ever like John’s idea about banning U.S. military assistance to Israel by 1 month for every dead child in Gaza...and I know it’s occurred to John that EVERYTHING #47 thinks about is about him and no one else...



...and Rachel Maddow informs us that Our Ochre Abomination skimmed about $934 million from the money allocated to upgrade our nuclear safety to spiff up his Qatari jet...looks like our missile silos out west have fallen into disrepair since the ‘60s and we’ll need new ones (of course, we could also abolish a few, but good luck with that – kind of a relic from the “Dr. Strangelove” era that we still have as many of them as we do, so OF COURSE Combover Caligula is raiding those funds so his fancy schmancy jet will have gold inlay all over the place...and oh yeah, there’s also the matter of all of the air traffic personnel who got canned by King Elon at DOGE and the impact on air safety...and I’m sure Sean Duffy will fix everything...uh huh)...



Update: More here (I almost don't want to even mention this).

...and Thom Hartmann lets us know that even Big Pharma didn’t want #47 to slap a 15% tariff on drugs coming from the EU, affecting 60% of our total pharmaceuticals (and I think Thom means a tax increase on working people, probably of about $19 billion – definitely NOT a cut)...and that includes Ozempic from Denmark; good luck trying to get a scrip for something over-prescribed like THAT one...”policy as punishment” indeed, including wrecking the EPA under that toady Lee Zeldin (and yeah, I think, as Thom says, this tariff madness is mostly about trying to make leaders grovel at Cantaloupe Capone’s feet – how disgustingly pathetic)...



...well, for something more positive, I should point out that yesterday was the 60th anniversary of signing Medicare and Medicaid into law (here), under current-at-that-time Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, with one-time Democratic President Harry Truman in attendance along with VP Hubert Humphrey (and nary a Repug in sight as far as I could tell)...



...and leave it to Mr. Newberger to keep the topic of the day front and center...



...and Tom Lehrer gave us the following number from the era noted in the Medicare/Medicaid clip – I don’t know if this is his most recognized tune or not, but I would guess that it’s on the “short list.”

Wednesday Stuff

For those of you keeping score at home, I’ll admit that my posting has gotten a little goofed up this week for a variety of reasons. I will try to restore some equilibrium at some point, but I can’t guarantee anything for now.

Turning to the videos, Farron Cousins informs us that the one issue where the Gropenfuhrer seemed to be polling not too badly was on immigration/deportations, but now it looks like those numbers are taking a nosedive too...I still can’t believe that he was EVER taken seriously on that, but that’s pretty much all over with, along with taking Our Ochre Abomination seriously on pretty much ANY issue (and there’s more here on the contradiction of the Trump-loving base vs. the federal programs they need that Dear Orange Leader and his pals want to utterly destroy)...



...and echoing the prior video somewhat, Kyle Kulinski tells us about torture reported at ICE facilities, with migrants shackled behind their backs and made to kneel down and eat “like dogs,” among myriad other abuses, such as forcing detainees onto a bus where they had to share a toilet that backed up and caused the bus to smell “like feces,” and making men and women share a toilet in view of each other...utterly monstrous evil typical of regimes this country used to fight against...and I definitely share Kyle’s observations on immigrants overall (NSFW/H)...



...and Brittany Page brings us the news of a lawsuit from some idiot in Texas who sued an abortion provider in California who sent medication abortion pills to his girlfriend who the Texas guy impregnated – the Texas guy is suing on behalf all current and future fathers of unborn children, and how much do you want to bet that the SCOTUS of Hangin’ Judge JR will find a way to take up this case in 3,2,1 (yet another typically devious way to enshrine “fetal personhood”)...of course, this Texas numbskull could try to garner support for more health care funding for pregnant women as well as more early childhood and pre-K funding as well as enhancing SNAP benefits and ensuring that Medicaid remains viable for poor families, but naaah...let’s set money on fire over nonsense like this instead...and this isn’t the main issue, but I think it needs to be pointed out; when Dems had congressional majorities (and a Dem president), they should have found a way to abolish the utterly wretched Comstock Act (and I’d heard of Jonathan Mitchell before, but I’ll admit that I didn’t know just how bad he truly was...typically low for a scumwaffle like Mitchell to encourage men to dime out their wives/girlfriends who’ve had abortions, all in pursuit of some kind of nationwide abortion ban...and a link to the National Network of Abortion Funds is here)...



...well, partly to keep my sanity and also party because there are plenty of people we’re ideologically opposed to who deserve humorous ridicule, I’ll include this clip of Jordan Klepper of The Daily Show telling us about Scott Jennings, who will likely be the Repug running to succeed that death eater in Kentucky Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao...yep, stoo-pidly combative and obnoxiously proud of his utter wrongness all right – looks like exactly the type who many of those troglodytes in that locality will want to reward with a six-year team in high office (love to be wrong)...



...and let’s take a trip across the country to Oklahoma, where the self-righteous wingnut hypocrisy is “as high as an elephant’s eye,” you might say; Mr. Newberger gives Ryan Walters the treatment he deserves over this...



...and that’s probably an apropos lead-in to this number from Tom Lehrer.

Tuesday Stuff

Apparently, Combover Caligula went off on windmills again when he was visiting his golf course in Scotland, with taxpayers footing the bill of course (here)...you may be shocked to hear me say that he has a tiny bit...and I truly mean, a tiny bit...of a point when he gripes about the cost and impact of winding down wind energy projects (disposing of equipment, determining environmental impact...more data is here, and the appropriate push-back is here), but here’s the thing...you never, EVER hear that from ANY politician (definitely not any Repug politician) when it comes to dirty energy, mainly oil and gas...trying to determine impacts such as illness to people living nearby a dirty energy facility (more here) as well as environmental impact on fracking and mountaintop removal, etc. – I would most definitely say that determining the cost and impact of oil and gas exploration is MUCH WORSE than the equivalent for renewable energy...I think this clip puts #47’s latest idiocy in the context it deserves (I can't believe we have 3½ more years of this...ugh!)...



..and Leeja Miller tells us how Only Billionaires Benefit from AI along with their plan to criminalize homelessness...she starts with a recap of the Skydance/Paramount merger...I may have said earlier something about CBS wanting Paramount to stream its content and that was behind it – if I did, just spank my butt and call me Charlie because that wasn’t the main driver of the merger; basically, Paramount, the parent company of CBS, is doing all it can to let itself be consumed by Skydance, which is why Paramount put out the word to CBS to can Stephen Colbert when he started joking about it (hmmm, that pesky First Amendment is still a thing as far as I know)...and yes, David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle (one percent plutocrats both) is behind Skydance in case you were wondering...wasn’t aware of the role that Open AI and Ellison the Elder played in also trying to curry favor with our ruling regime...and I’m sorry to say this, but if I were a resident of Abilene, Texas, I would do all I could to get the hell out since Open AI development is coming whether they like it or not (while #47 and this bunch get rid of those pesky “government regs” that basically keep us safe and maintain our quality of life in order to build these humongous data centers)...oh, and see how seamlessly crypto ended up in this report with this Michael Kratsios guy, with ties to Peter Thiel of course? Typical for this bunch of grifters...and David Sacks (with ties to Thiel and Apartheid Clyde) is another one of these numbskulls yelling about “woke ideology” on college campuses; this report to me is more evidence that the characters in this video are prepping “Couch Boy” for the big chair in case Mango Mussolini doesn’t make it through his term, and no, I’m not wishing ill on anybody...and this is yet ANOTHER example of government funding used for R&D that has led this country to a position of dominance that will be sh*tcanned by these “free market” zealots and that will likely lead to us losing out to other countries, most notably China of course...among the many, many great points here is the cruel stoo-pidity behind non-compete agreements...and I know Brittany Page previously hit on the efforts of the Gropenfuhrer to basically imprison the homeless, but I think it needs to be mentioned again, especially since it ties back (along with damn near everything else) to Project 2025 in attacking cities...Miller cranks off near the end, but I think her take is definitely spot-on; she’s made a lot of good videos, but IMO this is one of her best – definitely connects the dots in a big way...NSFW/H...



...and Yasmin Khan of Rebel HQ informs us that it looks like not just the MAGA humans don’t know what to do, but neither do their “bots” (powered by AI of course) with about 400 of them exposed on Nazi Twitter by researchers at Clemson and others apparently (with the “bots” as confused as the humans behind the accounts)...didn’t know these accounts originated around last year’s elections, but that sure figures...if nothing else, this provides a good example of how to use social media to drive messaging, albeit in a conflicting way and with devious intent, a lesson those clueless election losers at the @DNC could profit from (and oh yeah, Mark Zuckerberg is doing what he can to encourage this madness...big surprise I know...and speaking of lessons to be learned by the @DNC, they should memorize every word of this)...



Update 8/4/25: There are times when I thought the @DNC found a way to monetize losing elections. Well, I was wrong, but the linked article from here comes pretty close to that as far as I'm concerned.

...and tying back a bit to the Leeja Miller video, this clip from More Perfect Union lets us know about a man living near a Bitcoin mine outside of Dallas (Granbury, TX) who says that “his life is hell” from excessive noise (and sadly, he has a lot of company in that regard)...the outfit guilty of this is called Marathon Digital Holdings from Flori-DUUH!...driving up energy costs, damaging the water supply – yep, this is another consequence IMO of the pernicious influence of Citizens United and opening the money spigot so politicians can feed on it at will...and oh yeah, in addition to the damage to the nearby residents from noise pollution, there’s increased energy costs as well, to say nothing of manipulating electricity and taking water (ah, but the shareholders live happily ever after, don’t they? And oh yeah, so does “Cancun” Cruz)...and I realize we’re talking about a location that’s pretty much bedrock Republican, and I certainly will never understand that...I can guess how that came about, though...but I would never say these folks should be denied relief because of that (these people obviously are getting their information from Fix Noise and other right-wing media, and probably from the pulpit too, but again, they deserve not to live like this)...



...and oh yeah, it looks like Cantaloupe Capone is coming up with creative new ways to try and get rid of the taint of Jeffrey Epstein, apparently to no avail (and leave it to Mr. Newberger to give this the treatment it deserves)...



...and as far as I’m concerned, anyone who has written or performed a song parody over the last 50-60 years owes a debt to Tom Lehrer (and I may have to do a penance for this one 😊...and to be serious for a minute about faith matters, it looks like "Republican Jesus" has struck again in Portland as noted here).

Monday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen brings us more on Jeffrey Epstein co-collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell and her lawyer meeting with DOJ attorney Todd Blanche (who has a tie to Emil Bove of course, who I discussed on Friday)...I realize this report doesn’t tell us about a quid pro quo, but the fact that ANYONE is talking about a pardon for Maxwell is beyond reprehensible (and I’m sure the condition for a pardon is her absolving Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence)...and Cohen is right; the point of all of this media fluffery and obfuscation is to COMPLETELY BURY the Epstein file (some think the file doesn’t actually exist, but I’m inclined to believe that it does) - NSFW/H...



...and Josh Johnson of The Daily Show tells us about Epstein (in a 2010 deposition) pleading not just the fifth, but the sixth and 14th amendments (?) also to get out of answering a question about the Gropenfuhrer and underage girls...and to be serious for a minute, it cracks me up in a way that Trump supporters were apparently OK with DOGE destroying our government, including killing US AID and sentencing millions in starving countries to death, along with siding with “Bibi” and his carnage in Gaza (and no, I don’t give Biden a pass on that either), along with ICE deporting everyone they decide to profile, especially if they’re students (leading to the “brain drain” Kyle K., among others, mentioned last week), endangering our nuclear stockpile, making our airspace more dangerous from firing air traffic controllers, blowing up scientific research, effectively destroying Medicaid and gutting the CFPB, and on and on...no, the #1 reason these life forms decided to contact their elected representatives was over the likely association their god-king-ruler has with a dead pedophile (and the “Ozempstein” bit is clever also)...



...and Chris Hayes speaks with Sam Seder about the latest episode of “South Park” and you-know-who – yep, unfortunately “nascent authoritarianism” does seems to fit, in the context of Columbia University and U of P caving to try and appease our demented orange toddler of a *preznit...good point by Sam about the self-censorship, particularly on cell phones for people flying in and out; way beyond pathetic that we’ve reached that point...another good point about the Smothers Brothers and Nixon getting THEIR show cancelled back in the day...



...and Brittany Page tells us about Cantaloupe Capone signing an executive order to criminalize homelessness, with 220 similar bills already passed in states...I’m old enough to remember that homelessness in this country hit a big spike after The Sainted Ronnie R decided to close institutions that treated people with mental illness, including Byberry in these parts (here), so this is finding a typically demented way for the “party of Lincoln” to more or less close that circle...and it looks like “the Cicero Institute” is another one of these wingnut think tanks that sprung up like festering mold in a garbage can as more or less a result of the truly infamous Powell Memo...once again, a Republican tries to spook suburbanites with more tales of “oh, those baaad street people in (insert blue big city name here)...they’re homeless EXCLUSIVELY because of their behavior, and we’re the ‘right’ people living in our McMansions, so we’re absolved from caring or doing anything to help whatsoever, even if it means paying a pittance more in state or federal taxes to house these people”...as Page notes, drug use prevention efforts to help the homeless are going to get blown up pretty much by the destruction of Medicaid in the Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck...when Page breaks down the numbers of what Pumpkin Pol Pot is planning to spend on detention versus homelessness, it’s pretty damn plain that the latter isn’t a priority for this bunch ($170 billion in detention versus about $12.8 billion in new housing – you can do the math on that as well as I can...more here)...



Update: Actually, the Cicero Institute was formed in 2016 and has ties to Peter Thiel, so it’s more or less a “grandchild” when it comes to their relationship to the Powell Memo...more direct offspring, if you will, would be the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, to be precise.

...and I’ve been jonesin’ for a newer tune for a little while now, and I think this will do the trick nicely...



...and dusting off the memory banks, I can tell you that, at an early age, there were certain people who informed my sensibility when it comes to news, politics and the world in general, and one of them (for better or worse) was Tom Lehrer, who I’ve dubbed as the funniest math professor of all time (he famously said he couldn’t do satire any more after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 because he correctly surmised that nothing could be more absurd than that)...I know I’ve gone overboard lately with the tributes when it comes to Brian Wilson and Ozzy Osbourne, but Lehrer deserves that treatment also, beginning with this number...RIP.