Friday Stuff

(For what it's worth, I was able to post for all five days this week, but that will probably be the exception going forward and not the rule.)

Lawrence O’Donnell informs us that Trumpette short-time spokes-liar Karoline Leavitt is at it again, telling us to ignore reality and give her boss credit for our supposedly booming economy (sorry to mention her on consecutive days)...according to a USA Today survey in June, 30 percent of those polled said they use a credit card to pay for groceries and other essentials, and if that isn’t a blaring siren, I don’t know what is (along with the destruction of needed services such as Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, etc.)...I know Nicholas Kristof is kind of hit-and-miss when it comes to reporting, but when he’s on the mark he really nails it IMO, as he does here meeting with people victimized by our end stage capitalist economy, including Latoya Foster in Pine Bluff, Arkansas...more on “The Other America” by Michael Harrington is here...



...and I’ll turn to TYT once more for the story of sailors on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln deployed in the Gulf apparently trying to throw themselves overboard...in addition to the ridiculous over-extension of the deployment of our military, some are also racked with guilt over the bombing of civilians; wonder when we’re going to hear about this on Fix Noise? I would guess at half past never...I realize Cenk Uygur is being tongue-in-cheek asking why Israel doesn’t help out our military, but even though there’s likely no practical way to do that, he has a point (oh, riiiight – I forgot about this)...I didn’t know about the suicides by our cyber personnel, on top of all of this misery...I would respectfully remind everyone that one of the first things our utterly lawless regime did when they seized power in ’25 was to fire scores of our senior military officers overseeing our service branches, which rated hardly a mention in our beyond useless corporate media, and I would argue that we now get sucking up to Israel at the expense of our own safety as a result...I remembered the ’83 bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut (which we responded to by attacking Grenada), but I’d forgotten about Israel bombing the U.S.S. Liberty...good commentary IMO from Elliot Morgan also...additionally, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln was where Dubya had his “Mission Accomplished” moment – a bit tangential I know, but just pointing that out...



...and in today’s chapter of “gee, how can our rotten regime find a new way to piss off another one of our allies?”, this report from CBC News lets us know that 60,000 Canadians have signed a petition to expel Pete Hoekstra as U.S. ambassador to Canada...maybe it wasn’t a good idea for Hoekstra to retweet that “51st State” garbage, huh?...



...and I stumbled across this clip a day or so ago...it looks like Arkansas farmers are having a particularly tough time along with farmers across the country...energy costs from #47’s war of choice in Iran along with Ukraine/Russia are ultimately eating into whatever profitability they’re eking out (not much it seems), along with impact from those stinking tariffs...I would also include the effects of the climate crisis as a factor affecting how successful a season our farmers have (though I’m not an expert on farm policy I admit)...I realize no political party is blameless on this issue, but I cannot imagine why anybody would think Republicans, particularly in Arkansas, give a damn about them...more here (and you KNOW how they voted two years ago, right?)...



...and speaking of hard labor, Mr. Newberger gives Not Your Father’s Republican Party the shot they deserve over their obedience to Our Ochre Abomination...



...and here’s some good news – we’ve got a fall recording to look forward to from this guy ("Hippies, Thugs and Heroes")...here is the first single.