Friday Stuff

David Doel discusses the latest dustup over the alleged Nazi tattoo from Graham Platner, contrasting Platner with Janet Mills (recruited to run in the Maine Dem U.S. Senate primary by Chuck “What Do The Baileys Think?” Schumer...Mills I mean); it should be noted that Mills (as we learn in the clip) condemned moves in her state to divest from Israel (what’s a genocide between best buds like “Bibi” and Pumpkin Pol Pot, though Biden was also no better on this issue to be fair)...I can’t think of a word to describe how preposterous it is for anybody to get a case of the vapors over a Dem with a questionable tattoo (that he has already covered up by the way, as noted here) when you have BASICALLY AN ENTIRE POLITICAL PARTY ON THE OTHER SIDE EMBRACING PRETTY MUCH WHAT THE NAZIS STOOD FOR...also, I didn’t know much about Dem U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, but I definitely agree with his quote, as well as Ruben Gallego who also served of course, as did Platner...all I’ll say is that I don’t think you should decide whether or not to support Platner based on this kerfuffle...mildly NSFW/H...

...and David Pakman informs us that voters blame congressional Repugs for the shutdown by 50 to 43 percent (and that 43 percent is likely hard wired to reject ANYTHING having to do with Team D, facts and logic be damned...sounds like the blame hasn’t worked its way back to Bronzer Beelzebub yet, but give it time I say)...the most important number to me is the 72 percent approval (including among Repugs) for the ACA subsidies; I knew it was high, but I didn’t know exactly what it was...oh, and in case somebody thought that Senate Majority Leader John Thune was supposed to be the adult in the room, you can rest assured that he’s just another GOP liar...”Republicans don’t really understand the country that they broke” indeed...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about some monster named Valentina Gomez saying "let the fireworks begin" while Israel continues to bomb Gaza, claiming Hamas violated the cease fire agreement (which, as we know, is Israel's go-to excuse for carrying out wanton destruction...and of course, Gomez is a Repug running for Congress for TX-31); this definitely isn’t a “one off,” since she’s done this with Muslims, LGBTQ plus individuals and others...and “Bibi” doesn’t care about anything approximating “proportional response” now or ever, and I know Figueredo knows that...and oh yeah, it’s not surprising to see Mango Mussolini congratulating himself for this phony baloney “peace deal”...I didn’t know the IDF abducted a 16-year-old boy who’s also an American citizen; once again, I can recall a time when our alleged political leaders would be up in arms over something like that...”reality is debatable to fascists” indeed; hard to control the nauseous reaction looking at those maps at about 10:04...definitely NSFW/H...



...and this CBC report brings us the tale of two nurses who moved from this country to Canada to escape Dementia J. Trump; story is from correspondent Lyndsay Duncombe...sounds like about 140 health care workers (so far) have moved to Nanaimo, B.C., a scenic town with a lot of health issues including an opioid epidemic; I’d be interested in a follow-up report to find out if any decided to move back, but somehow I don’t think many of them will (probably best to maintain dual citizenship and not revoke your U.S. status)...



...and I know I’m a little behind on this (apologies), but I definitely wanted to include Jon Stewart’s earlier great bit on “The Daily Show” about the “No Kings” protests, with the idiotic carping from Fix Noise that you’d expect (can’t think of a word for the utter lack of reflection from The Roger Ailes BS Factory complaining about too many old white people)...we’re also reminded about all of the courtiers in industry sucking up to our Mad King, including Tim “Apple” (with said “whited sepulcher” in An Oval Office entertaining delusions of godhood)...mildly NSFW/H...



...and today marks what is basically the 80th anniversary of the United Nations (this is the day that the charter was implemented as noted here)...with that in mind, I tried to find a tune about such utterly non-Trumpian themes as peace and freedom and brotherhood, and I came across this number which I think is a bit timely – hope you find it somewhat inspirational.

Thursday Stuff

Belle of the Ranch tells us about the grocery problem faced by Bronzer Beelzebub...and an increase in “Go Fund Me” pages for groceries since we’re looking at the biggest price climb since the pandemic, huh?; Naaah, our economy isn’t doing the big swirl in the hopper – not much it isn’t...and it sounds like our regime of grifters and lowlifes knows that the tariff madness and ICE garbage are having an impact all over our economy, but the people in charge simply don’t care (and it does indeed sound like a good strategy to prepare as if we’re looking at a natural disaster, unfortunately)...



...and Tennessee Brando informs us that it looks like #47 was unsuccessful in trying to kill off another Vice President (i.e., the mishap at Camp Pendleton)...fortunately, CA guv Gavin Newsom had the foresight to close Interstate 5 near the base ahead of this nonsense so people didn’t get hurt (and when I say “nonsense,” I refer to the staged photo-op, not anything from our military)...I guess “couch boy” ended up OK, which is good; as much as I detest this regime (and despite what they want for us), I don’t encourage violence against any of them since that would be messed up, even for this motley collection of Homo sapiens...I didn’t think that the demonstration in honor of the Marine anniversary was timed to try and deflect attention from the “No Kings” protests, but that definitely makes sense...glad to hear Brando express concern about this Trumpist garbage somehow being normalized, which should NEVER happen (mildly NSFW/H)...



...and speaking of the recent “No Kings” protests. Robert Reich comments that he thinks “the sleeping giant is awakening” (hope so)...Reich goes over prior historical events (the McCarthyite witch hunts, Vietnam, Watergate) and attempts to draw a parallel to now...every circumstance and context is different, and in prior years we had corporate media on our side, but I believe we can no longer say that, unfortunately...



...and Farron Cousins tells us that the nomination of Paul “I Had A Bit Of A Nazi Streak” Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel was just pulled because U.S. Senate Repugs said this guy wouldn’t even make it out of a committee for a floor vote, so apparently his mom went and complained, but to the U.S. House, which can’t do a damn thing in response...womp womp (oh, but she was mad at House Dems Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia for sending out that letter about her son; cue the world’s tiniest violin)...



...also, in a date perhaps forgotten (though it shouldn’t be), today is the 42nd anniversary of the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 of our service personnel and 307 people in total (here)...being the pointy-headed lib that I am, I always believed that the invasion of Grenada that came soon afterwards was pretty much an attempt at a diversion by The Sainted Ronnie R (initial reporting by David Brinkley)...



...and Stephen Colbert gives us his “Tearing Down The House” monologue...yeah, I know it’s a joke, but I could actually do without some ridiculous drama once in a while from Our Demented Orange Toddler in An Oval Office...this tells us more on Our Sweaty Orange Boy’s demolition of the east wing of the White House (just take a second and try to contemplate the sense of entitlement on display from such horrific destruction and also try to imagine what would have happened if a Democratic president had done something like this...there would be calls for impeachment 24/7/365 from EVERYBODY)...and yep, a typically clueless move from Scott Bessent to say, “ssshhh, no pictures of our wanton destruction of the people’s house”...and I hope nobody out there was planning to visit any of our national parks while the shut down WHICH COULD BE ENDED IF REPUGS STARTED ACTING LIKE ADULTS AND STOOD UP TO DON THE CON AND PROTECTED OUR HEALTH CARE continues...oh, and as I just noted, another Nazi nominee from our collection of guttural lowlifes bowed out, and that would be the previously mentioned Paul Ingrassia...and the story of the woman in the penis costume in Alabama who was handcuffed and arrested is partly dumb but also hilarious...



Update 10/24/25: A related item for Bluesky folks is here.

Update 10/26/25: More on this is here.

...also, today would have been the 100th birthday of Johnny Carson, without whom Colbert and many others likely wouldn't have jobs (a fact they all acknowledge with gratitude...by the way, I hope you won't be shocked to learn that this was rehearsed)...



...and happy recent 85th birthday to Manfred Mann – hope it was a good one.

Wednesday Stuff

David Pakman tells us about the most recent communication between juvenile Trumpist harpie Karoline Leavitt and Huffington Post reporter S.V. Date, who asked Leavitt a perfectly legitimate question about why the Gropenfuhrer and his boss were going to meet in Budapest, Hungary, land of fellow strongman Viktor Orban (where Putin said apparently in ’94 that he wouldn’t invade Ukraine), and Leavitt responded with “Your mom did” – so professional...and this clueless neophyte Leavitt apparently thinks Date is a “journal”...um, no – you’d be referring to a book, something I would venture to guess that you’ve never read (slightly NSFW/H)...



...also, David Shuster of Rebel HQ lets us know about ICE getting slapped with a $50 million lawsuit for throwing a 79-year-old man to the ground (car wash owner Rafie Ollah Shouhed...more here; bad that the man was hurt of course, but good for the lawsuit!)...and yeah, in addition to slamming this man onto the concrete, let’s just detain him for 11 hours for no good reason...oh, and let’s handcuff 11, 12, and 13-year-old kids also including little girls while we’re at it...and man, would I like to treat that woman getting onto the elevator yelling at those ICE bastards to a beverage of her choice (not because I have designs, I wish to emphasize, but only to show appreciation for her guts)...NSFW/H...



...and Rachel Maddow tells us that “MAGA Mike” Johnson is still keeping the U.S. House out of session to protect Cantaloupe Capone...must be nice to have a job where you can take at least five weeks of an unplanned vacation, all to avoid seating a Dem U.S. House rep in Arizona who would be the last signature on the discharge petition to make our cretinous ruling regime release the stinking Epstein files at long last (which I’m sure are redacted as hell by now...love to be wrong about that)...and oh yeah, military families and government workers are lining up at food pantries (but the Repugs definitely “support our troops”...sure they do)...additionally, it looks like Dementia J. Trump wants to furlough 80 percent of the workers tasked with keeping our nukes safe...also, we’re starting to get the numbers on healthcare premium increases as a result of the Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck (e.g., a family of four in Maine making $130K will face an approximate $16K increase annually in health insurance...it’s a similar story for families across the country...sounds like a good reason to shut everything down to fix this insanity)...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 10/26/07...this pertains to kids’ health care and is really aimed at Congress I realize, but I think it fits (also with this in mind) given that our legislative branch has decided to put any notion of integrity or guts in a blind trust in order to maintain fealty to Mango Mussolini...



...and I thought this was another timely bit from Mr. Newberger...



...and kudos to Kenny Loggins for this, which kind of brings to mind this tune for yours truly (I realize there’s kind of a “Cat’s In The Cradle” thing going on here – I’m trying to do a bit of a deeper dive into Loggins’s material and resist a more obvious selection...leave it to our ruling cabal of grifters and lowlifes to try and steal more intellectual property for propaganda purposes).

Tuesday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us about Dementia J. Trump murdering more people in another Venezuelan fishing boat...I’m old enough to remember when we would actually have congressional oversight hearings about carrying out extra-judicial killings of individuals living in foreign countries who were accused of trying to do harm (looks like our ruling regime has carried out the fourth such attack that we know of as well as one on a Colombian boat as noted here – 27 people murdered in 6 weeks as Kyle points out)...yep, the Gropenfuhrer is indeed “marrying” the War on Terra! Terra! Terra! Terra! with the war on drugs...I honestly don’t know if this garbage from Combover Caligula is a pretext to a ground invasion, which is horrifying, but that has to be considered unfortunately, and all for O-I-L (NSFW/H)...



...and Thom Hartmann lets us know that Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase recently said that he’s worried about a “market correction,” which is econ-speak for something really bad happening to the economy (and the fact that we’re in the fourth quarter when this often takes place is even more worrisome IMO)...Dimon’s concerns are apparently shared by the head of the IMF...in addition to the tech bubble Thom mentions under Clinton, we also had the housing bubble under Dubya, and we know what happened with that, right?...



...and Yasmin Khan of Rebel HQ lets us know about Our Treasonous Orange Pustule recently holding some “roundtable” with pretend wingnut “journalists” where #47 continues to lie about an “insurrection” underway in Portland (I guess the “insurrection” is led by dancing blow-up toys including a bunch of inflatable frogs)...and as usual, it takes a court of law to hold Pumpkin Pol Pot accountable...also, it looks like Our Cretinous Ruling Regime is adding more than its share of AI slop to keep as many people misinformed as possible...and for the record, we’ve given $21.7 billion in aid to Israel since Hamas’s disgusting, murderous attack on Israeli civilians, an amount which is beyond all possible reason and explanation IMO given Israel’s most recent destruction in Gaza; also, this report informs us of just how much Israel is pretty much ignoring the cease fire agreement supposedly in place...we also hear once more about “I’ll Drink To That” Hegseth’s attempt to get journalists to only report on news approved by the Defense Department, which only the pretend “news” network OAN has agreed to...by the way, the headline for this Rebel HQ video is “Republicans Terrified as Trump is Duped By Fox News,” and if you can find evidence of that claim in this clip, please let me know...



...and Jake Cimperman of More Perfect Union tells us how the truly die-hard fans of the Buffalo Bills football team are going to get priced out of seats in the new stadium (oh, excuse me – I forgot that we’re discussing the oh-so-august-in-their-imaginations NFL, so we’re not talking about sets per se, but slots to potentially purchase seats one day through what’s called a “personal seat license”)...yes, inasmuch as I follow any Philly sports team, I do indeed follow The Birds, but I’m definitely sympathetic to Buffalo also (unless they play us, of course)...I would never imagine buying Eagles season tickets even if I could because I would likely need to take out another mortgage to do it...interesting tale of the Pegula family that owns the team, NY Governor Kathy Hochul, and a bunch of public dough thrown around in backroom deals, but again, the working class fans are getting left out in the cold (and since we’re talking about Buffalo, I DO MEAN cold!)...and not even a veterans’ discount, huh? Just no end to the rapacious greed of these one percent bastards...

...and Stephen Colbert tells us that Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence held a big soiree for everybody dishing out dough for that ridiculous White House ballroom...and yeah, many people have said, “Sir, your design for the arch is brilliant! No one has ever thought of that!” (snark mode off)...and yeah, that sure is some scary footage of Chicago that’s really from red states, amirite?...also glad to see the young Republican a-holes get cuffed again...



Update: More here.

...and today is the 60th anniversary of the recording of this song by the Fab Four (in about three takes, apparently).

Monday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore informs us that some self-proclaimed prophet lady named Kim Robinson claimed she saw Charlie Kirk riding horses on a ranch with Jesus or something along with puppies, skiing and rollercoasters in Heaven...I think somebody has had one too many servings of sacramental wine, if you catch my drift...and apparently this pink-haired Kat Kerr person is cut from the same wretched cloth, if you will (and she’s promoting a web site also because of course)...



...and in case you were wondering what kind of response we’d get from Mango Mussolini to the “No Kings” protests, Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about it, which is about what you can expect from this ketchup-throwing-tantrum child in An Oval Office...oh, and along comes bootlicker “MAGA Mike” to criticize Obama for closing the mall in DC during the 2013 shutdown; um, I don’t recall that SEVEN MILLION people protested President Obama, and there were A HELL OF A LOT OF OTHER PROTESTS besides the one in DC yesterday aimed mainly at the Gropenfuhrer (and this tells us about our corporate media apparently being afraid to call out poop when it is plainly obvious...NSFW/H)...



...and did you hear the news that Cantaloupe Capone and “Dr.” (Trillion Dollars Added To The Economy) Oz want the elderly to work until we’re dead...we’ve known that Repugs want to raise the retirement age, but it looks like “Dr. Crudité” is making that pretty damn plain now, along with forcing older Americans with disabilities to work because they want us to go back to Dickensian days of people pleading in the streets for loose change along with “work houses,” all in the name of trying to keep the economy going, which we hear about at this wingnut gathering at the Aspen Institute...Georgia is held up as a supposed example of Medicaid reform and the wonder of “work requirements,” with administrative costs blowing past the money spent on stuff like, y’know, ACTUAL PATIENT CARE!...I knew there was a disparity in life span between the wealthy and those with little means, but I didn’t know it was nine years...it’s almost funny to read how our ruling regime thinks that “desk work” is some kind of a panacea for people on disability to put their noses back to the grindstone, completely ignoring the fact that such work is highly specialized and those jobs don’t just fall from the trees, you might say...important to mention that people don’t retire on a disability benefit unless they have no other choice because they’ll ALWAYS make less money on disability than working full time...so many reasons to detest “Dr.” Oz, but pretty much ignoring that quote from Hubert Humphrey is just another example of how twisted Oz really is...



...and Farron Cousins lets us know that Don The Con would make the student loan crisis so much worse by selling off the federally subsidized debt to private investors instead of sending that dough back to the federal government (yep, here comes yet another private equity scam, trying to monetize something the feds did much better for comparatively little cost, and our glorious financial captains of industry can indeed do whatever the hell they want with that debt as Cousins notes, including seizing more of our assets)...yes, Biden provided some student debt relief, but I recall that the SCOTUS of Hangin’ Judge JR threw a monkey wrench, you might say, into all of that (here)...we’re talking about $1.6 trillion in student loan debt owed by 45 million people as Cousins points out...



...and I thought Mr. Newberger did a typically good job here of responding to the latest Trumpian nonsense...



...and I also thought this newer tune was a good choice to help us ease into the week – hope you agree.

Sunday Stuff

Time to get to yesterday’s “No Kings” protests in this country and across the world; organizers estimate that about seven million people did participate...first, we have reports from Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago, as well as rural Virginia (and more B.S. from “MAGA Mike”...yep, just keep believing that, you brown-nosing guttersnipe)...with Robert Weissman...



...next, we go to Minneapolis, MN...



...and onto South Florida...



...continuing, we go to Boston (not surprising that they absolutely killed it; Boston mayor Michelle Wu is interviewed...my only objection is the note from this Sue McConnell person saying the federal government “has been shut down by the Democrats” – for someone who’s supposed to be a political analyst, that’s an incredibly misinformed statement...Democrats control absolutely nothing in the federal government)...



...and we can't forget NYC (also San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C. – and once more, “MAGA Mike” Johnson is completely and utterly full of sh*t)...



...and onto Pittsburgh we go, with a report from KDKA...



...and we can't forget Philly of course (and the two-word response from the Trump regime to the protests apparently was “Who cares?”...a typically tone-deaf attitude)......



...we now go to Chattanooga, TN (and the anchor says the protests are holding “public leaders” accountable? Uh, don’t you mean the Big Bronzer Baby in the White House?)...



...also, there were protests in Charlotte and Waxhaw, NC (they don’t mention the dictator-style parade on Trump’s 79th birthday last June)...



...we definitely can't forget about Chicago either (good stuff from Mayor Brandon Johnson at Grant Park)...



...next we go to Portland, Oregon (which, as we know, has been in the news lately)...



...and onto Bozeman, MT...



...also there was a protest in Lafayette, LA (MAGA Mike’s home state)...



...and to San Diego (in support once more of Prop 50)...



...and this covers protests starting in Florida, NYC, Charlotte, NC, Hollywood, FL, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and LA, as well as Berlin and Paris...



...we now go to North Texas, including Dallas, Plano, Arlington and Frisco...



...and staying in the “lone star state,” Dem U.S. House Rep Greg Casar speaks to a crowd in Austin...



...and returning to our nation’s capital, I give you the following from Dem U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut...



...and I think this is an apropos tune to commemorate yesterday’s fight for our democracy.



Update 1: For Bluesky folks here...

Update 2: Another Bluesky update from this country here...

Update 10/20/25: Oh, and by the way, Senator “We’re all going to die” dumped on the No Kings protests on Saturday (here); here’s a portion of what took place at her state capitol in Des Moines.