Jayar, Cenk and Jackson White of TYT tell us about this crazy woman from Texas who came to NYC and assaulted a restaurant worker who asked for proof of vaccination...yeah, I’ve had enough of these clowns and their entitlement too (and boy, does Cenk nail this at the end)...
...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ tells us about this Bob Enyart character and the other right-wing radio idiots dying of COVID, along with some common sense remarks from Howard Stern (the “better angels” commentary from Shuster is good, though it does take a hell of a lot of patience dealing with these cretins...NSFW/H)...
...and in a related item, this Lincoln Project clip tells us about “Abbott’s Wall” (so much insanity with other Republican governors that it’s tempting to forget about what’s going on in “the land of the yellow rose”)...
...and Chris Hayes talks with Ro Khanna on climate hearings with oil companies the week of October 28th (including the snippet with that guttersnipe lobbyist Keith McCoy...background on Henry Waxman and ’94 hearings with those bastards in charge of the tobacco companies is here...)...
...and Jim Acosta reminds us that The Roger Ailes BS Factory is peddling lies for profit here (and Acosta mentions Republican U.S. House Rep Anthony Gonzalez, who decided not to seek another term because he’s had enough of the Trumpsist clowns threatening his family, pretty much)...
...and Joy Reid has her “Absolute Worst” here with Dan (“Democrat Party”) Patrick and Elise Stefanik, spouting the “Great Replacement” theory garbage from The Swanson TV Dinner Heir...
...and this Really American video reminds us once more of the treason of Repug U.S. House Rep Madison Cawthorn and the other performative clowns in his party...
...and like you I’m sure, I’ve seen performers destroy their guitars, but this is a first in that I’ve never seen anybody take out their aggression on a piano before.
(And by the way, happy recent 75th birthday to Tommy Lee Jones.)
Emma V. and the crew from The Majority Report tell us about this Grant Stinchfield character utterly losing it when one of our vets helping to get people out of Afghanistan shows the temerity to actually criticize Dear Leader Trump on this issue – God, is Stinchfield a snowflake or what ("lost his Stinch" - heh)...
...and maybe with Stinchfield and characters like him in mind, Beau gave us this great commentary on the media and people in entertainment (comedians mainly) voicing their opinions, with Beau pointing out that NOBODY is truly objective (“It’s hard to maintain objectivity and profitability” – damn straight!)...
...and this Now This clip tells us that the fencing has gone back up around the U.S. Capitol building in anticipation of another treasonous insurrection tomorrow (and one of these days, Mango Mussolini will be in jail for real I firmly believe, and that day can’t come soon enough, and this is one of a multitude of reasons why)...
...and Thom Hartmann brings us an interesting lesson on why health care isn’t a right in the U.S. and how that’s pretty much been “baked in,” if you will, since the 1940s (and leave it to the Germans to figure out why that’s wrong – I say that because the EU and Nordic countries overall pay more attention to quality-of-life stuff like this than we do in this country...the video is a little choppy...I’m pretty sure what Thom said was “12 former slave states refused to extend Medicaid”...more on Frederick Hoffman, who Thom discusses, is here, and this is a related topic)...
...and in a sane country, where people responsible for the deaths of thousands would be incarcerated, FL governor #DeathSantis might be housed somewhere with Combover Caligula while actual adults with brains would go about the business of fixing the COVID messes created by these two cretins, but alas, we are where we are...
...and in the latest Second Thought video, we learn more about how conservative our major political parties actually are (and the “ratchet effect”...not quite as despairing of the Dems as the narrator, and he doesn’t take into account the hold Trumpism now has on the ”party of Lincoln,” but he does make a lot of good points...I realize he’s coming at this as a Democratic socialist, which I think is fine, but as infuriating as the Dems are at times, they’re our best shot in this rigged political game)...
...and turning to sports, this More Perfect Union video tells us about minor league baseball players treated not much better than cattle – I’m sure the answer is a union, but good luck with that in our COVID-wracked economy...
Update 9/18/21: A related item is here (including our home team).
...and I’ve been hanging onto this selection since including it means that summer is all done for yours truly (sniff), but with the autumnal equinox coming up next week, I guess it’s time to move on until next year – c’est la vie.
I’m sure nobody really cares what former PA State Senator Scott “Stomp On Tom Wolf’s Face With Golf Cleats” Wagner (here) is up to, but it looks like he’s doing something typically pointless and stoo-pid as usual, with still more ridiculous billboards for drivers to have to cringe at while driving through Pennsyltucky (more here and here...he could have been our governor instead of Wolf, people, and we would have been in worse shape than Florida by now)...
...and speaking of “The Sunshine State,” Sam and Emma tell us that #DeathSantis stood by and said not a damn word as some FLA loon said the COVID vaccine changes your RNA...God, the idiocy never ends with these life forms...
...and Francesca and Jayar of The Damage Report give us their take on the stuff with Gen. Mark Milley from “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa (unintentionally hilarious to hear people blaming Gen. Milley instead of all of the Repug sycophants like the U.S. senator here who chose to do NOTHING while our Insane Clown *President posed a threat to the whole damn world...surprised by Lt. Col. Vindman’s criticism here, to be honest)...
...and yeah, when it comes to the “party of Lincoln,” this damning video calls them out in unsparing terms which is totally deserved (timed a bit for this, and kudos to the brave women noted here)...
...also, RIP Norm MacDonald (I was hot and cold on him to be honest, but we need all the people who can make us laugh that we can get – sympathies to family and friends of course...and I realize I didn’t say anything about this legendary Philly funnyman who had a hard road at the end of his life too, but what a gift of laughter he gave to people as MacDonald did also)...
...and I like this newer tune, also dedicated to somebody who also departed too soon as noted here (sorry to be a bit maudlin...I'll try to be more upbeat next time).
(I know I was moving around videos a lot yesterday for anyone paying attention so I could get stuff featuring Larry Elder in CA, who we can now just call a failed Trumpist nut and nothing more as noted here – I’ll try not to move stuff around like that again in the future.)
Robert Reich tells us more about what’s going on with the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill...so damn many reasons to “fight like hell” for this against the usual corporate criminals and their bought-and-paid-for politicians, as Reich correctly points out...
...and John and Benjamin Dixon tell us about the statue of Robert E. Lee coming down in Richmond, VA and the subsequent wingnut caterwauling that followed, with Mango Mussolini crowing that Lee would have led us to military victory in Afghanistan, aided by Laura Ingraham’s historical revisionism of course...
And as far as Lee’s postwar legacy is concerned, I give you the following from here...
After the war, Lee did advise defeated southerners not to rise up against the North. Lee might have become a rebel once more, and urged the South to resume fighting—as many of his former comrades wanted him to. But even in this task Grant, in 1866, regarded his former rival as falling short, saying that Lee was “setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.”
Nor did Lee’s defeat lead to an embrace of racial egalitarianism. The war was not about slavery, Lee insisted later, but if it were about slavery, it was only out of Christian devotion that white southerners fought to keep black people enslaved. Lee told a New York Herald reporter, in the midst of arguing in favor of somehow removing black people from the South (“disposed of,” in his words), “that unless some humane course is adopted, based on wisdom and Christian principles, you do a gross wrong and injustice to the whole negro race in setting them free. And it is only this consideration that has led the wisdom, intelligence and Christianity of the South to support and defend the institution up to this time.”
...
Publicly, Lee argued against the enfranchisement of black Americans, and raged against Republican efforts to enforce racial equality in the South. Lee told Congress that black people lacked the intellectual capacity of white people and “could not vote intelligently,” and that granting them suffrage would “excite unfriendly feelings between the two races.” Lee explained that “the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power.” To the extent that Lee believed in reconciliation, it was among white people, and only on the precondition that black people would be denied political power and therefore the ability to shape their own fate.
...and boy, did I have issues with this recent column from former Dem PA lieutenant governor Mark Singel saying that departing U.S. Senate Repug Pat Toomey from our beloved commonwealth of PA deserves respect from both sides of the aisle, as it were, presumably because Toomey voted to convict Trump in the latter's second impeachment...talk about setting the bar low...so many reasons to take issue with this (including this, where Toomey defended Trump during his first impeachment), as well as Singel saying that Repug U.S. House Rep Dan Mueser (sp?) was a “credible candidate,” even though, as noted here, Meuser once said that the “liberal left” is a greater threat than ISIS.
Oh, and there’s this too of course...
Update 9/26/21: I should ask Singel if Toomey deserves "respect" for this also (more lying BS about Toomey's beloved "tax cuts").
Update 9/30/21: Toomey is a thoroughly worthless worm, but we knew that already didn't we? (here).
...and David Pakman reminds us here about Dubya’s 9/11 speech over the weekend where Number 43 found the proverbial nut linking the 9/11 attackers to the 1/6 domestic terrorists...and finding the nut ONLY ON THAT...
...and yeah, it looks like the wingnuts were apoplectic over AOC’s “Tax the Rich” dress at the recent Met Gala (yeah, don't you hate it when high-profile women make political statements through their clothing?)...
I have only this to say in response...
...and guitarist Ed King (of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Strawberry Alarm Clock – now there’s a combo!) would have been 72 yesterday.
(And just as a reminder for anybody in CA, today is the day to Vote NO on the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom...more here.)
Farron Cousins is here to give us the latest on the attempts to hide COVID data in FLA under Gov #DeathSantis, and quite rightly blaming the rest of Florida's utterly wretched Repug political contingent from that state – yeah, just don’t issue any updates when the news is particularly bad...
...and this Now This clip tells us about the Tennessee student testifying in favor of mandatory masking in schools...God, the adults are idiots, including that black-haired woman with the black-framed glasses who laughed when she heard the student mention that his grandmother had died from COVID...and believe me when I tell you that PA doesn’t have anything to brag about either...that guy yelling about child support was truly a wackadoodle too...
...and a lot of the reason why COVID is still raging out of control is because of total BS from wingnut media, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quite rightly took them to task in his country here...
...and returning to our own homeland, as it were, Robert Reich explains how the U.S. Senate filibuster actually violates the Constitution...
...and returning to the CA recall, here’s Repug Larry Elder saying he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act...
...and here’s Elder pre-emptively complaining about voter fraud – yeah, it’s as pathetic as it sounds for the reasons David Shuster explains...
...and Chris Hayes speaks with Dahlia Lithwick and Elie Mystal on Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett’s no-video-cameras speech over the weekend at the McConnell Center (wink, wink) where she said the SCOTUS shouldn’t be too partisan (wink, wink...Mystal in particular is fire here)...
It looks like David Doel found the clip of U.S. Senate “Democrat” Joe Manchin claiming last January that he didn’t care about the price tag of the infrastructure bill Congress is trying to pass, but now (big surprise), suddenly he cares about it (and Manchin’s sucking up to departing U.S. Senate Repug Roy Blunt is pretty disgusting also...Mehdi Hasan found this clip first as Doel notes...mildly NSFW/H)...
...and Rachel Maddow speaks with Dem State Rep Ilana Rubel of Idaho, which is basically preforming health care rationing at this point (“crisis standards of care” does indeed sound pretty extreme...and they just appointed this Trumpster Ryan Cole as the senior health care officer in the state - "needle rape," huh?...any remaining doubts at this point that the GOP is nothing but a death cult?)...
...and Brian Tyler Cohen brings us a clip of Chris Wallace of Fix Noise telling Stephen Colbert how Wallace deals with lying idiots from the “party of Lincoln” (I think Wallace speaks a bit with a forked tongue, you might say, here, but when going over prior clips of his interviews, he has done a lot of good work to be fair...also mildly NSFW/H)...
...and I’m sure one of the people Wallace refers to in the prior clip (when it comes to not putting up with crap) is Josh Mandel, currently seeking the Repug nomination for the U.S. Senate seat Rob Portman is vacating from Ohio (with Brett Erlich, Cenk and Caroline Johnson...Biden’s “gestapo” showing up at your door, and “you know what to do,” huh? What a freaking loon!)...
...and given that yesterday was the first full day of the new NFL season (which I know technically started last Thursday), it looks like “Maniac Megyn” is back to complain about that league's attempt at social justice outreach – I guess you could call it that (and of course, her take is bogus – big surprise I know)...
...and I don't know is there's some kind of a "replicas" thing going on in this clip or not, but it's definitely a good tune (once again, very mildly NSFW/H).
I knew this day would come, of course. As we all knew. And I honestly had no idea what I was going to say, or if anything should even be said at all.
But then I saw Episode 3 of Spike Lee’s documentary NYC Epicenters, which dealt with the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the events of September 11th, and a ton of memories and emotions came back to me (I know I’m hardly alone with that, and what I think and feel is no better or worse that what anyone else thinks and feels of course). In Lee’s fine documentary, we’re shown how 9/11/01 was truly a beautiful fall day in the east and in NYC in particular, and how people were living their lives as usual until about 8:46 AM. I remember listening to what transpired on my car radio while driving to my job in King of Prussia, and of course, not long after I got into the office, we were gathered into a conference room to make sure everyone could be accounted for (there were a few people traveling, but they made contact as soon as they found out what was happening, and their flights were grounded that day anyway of course). We were all told to go home shortly after that, and I remember driving east on the PA Turnpike and wondering If a plane was going to fall on me (as we found out later of course with Flight 93, it was on an easterly path parallel to where I was, likely heading for the Capitol).
Lee’s documentary is absolutely unsparing in its detail, showing all of the carnage, horror and trauma of individuals directly affected as well as family members and acquaintances. Being a first-class filmmaker, the bar should be set high anyway in terms of the level of storytelling (within the “guard rails,” if you will, of documentary filmmaking), and Lee clears that bar for sure as far as I’m concerned.
But as I watched the production, I couldn’t help but engage in a mental exercise of “what if.” Yes, there were untold stories of heroism and bravery performed by those who knew they faced certain death, in particular NYC firefighters, medics and police. Yes, there is much to be said about our resiliency as a country to rebuild and continually honor the sacrifices of all of those who died or had their lives irrevocably altered by the tragedies that have basically been burned into our consciousness.
The 9/11 cataclysm inspired all of that courage, and it probably would be impossible if any one of us were to spend the rest of our lives trying to somehow record all of it across individuals of all kinds of political orientations, races, ethnicities, gender identification and foreign ancestry (9/11 wasn’t just an attack on this country, though it was that first and foremost, but by virtue of all of the people impacted, we should never forget truly that it was an attack on the entire world).
But here is my problem, as I try to process all of this once more after all of these years; make no mistake that the 9/11 attacks also inspired a hell of a lot of fear (and the “what if” has to do with imagining a far different outcome, where, instead of what followed, we focused on THIS country instead and decided to curb our fevered dreams of “democracy building” and other overseas misadventures).
And that fear was cruelly exploited for the most crass political reasons imaginable. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now; when George W. Bush stood on the rubble with that bullhorn, I thought to myself, “This guy shares absolutely none of my beliefs and comes from the complete wrong side of the political tracks, if you will, but could it be that somehow he could rise to this moment and make the right political decisions to lead us out of this mess?”
Well, for a time (after we went into Afghanistan), I thought, OK, we’ve driven out the Taliban (for now), even though I thought then as now that the right course was to get bin Laden, al Qaeda and that whole bunch of criminals, bring them to an international court, and then let that be it for the military part of this. Oh, and I would have given our “dear friends” the Saudis about 72 hours to turn over the entire rotten network of anyone who had anything to do whatsoever with 15 of the 19 hijackers, or else we would turn their whole country to glass. And I don’t give a shit about their oil or the geopolitical implications.
And after that, I would have done the most thorough internal forensic audit of sorts about how exactly the 9/11 hijackers were able to do what they did and take every imaginable precaution to make sure it NEVER, EVER happened again (Richard Clarke, the chief of counter terrorism who was held over from the Clinton Administration, was basically yelling his head off that an attack was coming, particularly after the infamous “bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.” memo). PA Senator Arlen Specter once said that 9/11, first and foremost, was an intelligence failure, and I think that gets to the heart of all this.
Another thing (and I honestly don’t say this lightly): if the findings of the 9/11 Commission had honestly demonstrated negligence on the part of the Bush Administration, to say nothing of actual culpability, then Bush and Cheney should have resigned (or at least, an election would have been called for to elect new leadership, and preferably bipartisan to demonstrate the endurance of our political institutions).
But we know what happened. We were engulfed in 9/11 hero worship “porn,” if you will, leading up to the 2004 presidential election and 9/11 fetishism, culminating in the Republican National Convention, where the mere mention of that date was manufactured into an applause line. Of everything I despise that took place since the attacks, that may have been what enrages me the most. We lost 17 people from Bucks Country, PA....we don’t need any goddamn reminders from ANYBODY on how significant that is or how it affects the core of our being (something else I’ve said before and I’ll say again – I used to see Don Havlish in McCaffrey’s Supermarket, and he was one of the nicest people you’d ever meet...all they found was a femur).
And that political betrayal was used by the Republican Party to build on the fear generated by the attacks (and you wouldn’t be a human being if you didn’t have that emotion...the question is what do you do with it; do you do something courageous and positive, or do you wait to be led by someone into potentially the next calamity?). And that fear was supported and nurtured of course by media sympathetic to the Republican Party and refined into a weapon to be used against other opponents, including our first African American president, immigrants, those opposing the corporate criminals behind the 2008 Great Recession, “big government” intrusions (perceived as such anyway) into our health care decisions, LGBTQ individuals, women, minorities, and as we’ve seen over the last year, proven science against the worst pandemic this country has seen in over 100 years which has now killed well over 600,000 people. And now, that weapon has been so thoroughly refined that we, as a country, find ourselves in pitched battles with each other over issues that surely would have led to the defeat of this country in other crises we faced, in particularly the Civil War and World War II.
And yes, as far as I’m concerned, that was built on the fear generated by our vulnerability after the 9/11 attacks (on the 10th anniversary, I said that the bad guys won, and once more, this is what I was talking about...a related item is here).
As far as I’m concerned, individuals with a conscience would have known how to respond after the 9/11 attacks (yeah, maybe they still would have made mistakes, but they wouldn’t have made them out of hubris). But of course, we had the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney instead (and all of the other cretins of that regime). And we may be living with the results of their awful decisions for the rest of our lives.
So let us pause, reflect and remember of course. That’s only right. But let us also resolve to use our courage, intellect and free will and the brains God gave us to act as responsible citizens in our democracy and hold our leaders to account when they don’t act in our interests, as well as those of our families and loved ones.
When people say, “remember 9/11,” it is my fervent hope that, one day, THAT is what they are actually talking about (and I thought this was a good commentary from Will Bunch...more important stuff is here).
This Now This clip shows Dem U.S. House Rep AOC speaking out against Repug Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his monstrous anti-abortion law, which (as noted yesterday) is being challenged by the Biden DOJ and AG Merrick Garland (from the same fetid ideological pit of right-wing garbage as former Repug U.S. Senator from Missouri Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” here)...
...and I have to admit that I didn’t know that the Department of Education apparently has its own civil rights division, which is notifying some states that their prohibitions on masks are restricting access from students with disabilities (for public schools I believe)...Sam, Emma and Nomiki Konst of The Majority Report tell us more...
...and sticking with education, this More Perfect Union clip tells us about the effort to get rid of progressive school board members in Prince George County, MD (and no, I’m not letting the Dems off the hook for this one - more here)...
...and this clip from The Damage Report with John and Ben Dixon tells us that Kellyanne Conjob, Spicer and others from the Trump regime got kicked off some military advisory boards now overseen by the Biden Administration, and the subsequent whining and caterwauling from the usual suspects that followed – womp womp...
...and with the focus on the Texas garbage anti-abortion law, it’s a temptation I know to lose track of the Texas garbage anti-voting law, but fortunately, Rachel Maddow reports on that here and interviews attorney Marc Elias who is fighting this legislation and similar awfulness across the country...
...and this great Second Thought video explodes the mythology a bit when it comes to “the self-made billionaire”...
...and Thom Hartmann reminds us that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Attica prison riot, and he discusses our ongoing legacy of oppressing people of color and those in high crime neighborhoods as well as some in our corrections system – not saying they shouldn’t be punished as prescribed by a sentence handed down by a judge in a court of law, but just arguing for a little sanity for those who’ve done their time and want to/are able to make a good faith effort to start over...the ’71 riot was the subject of a great HBO movie called Against The Wall...
...and I know I’m overdue again for a new tune, and I hope this will suffice; hang around for the big finish, OK?
Chris Hayes tells us that U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy isn’t going to be conducting a 1/6 investigation despite what he said to the contrary (yeah, I know – shocking!) and apparently today was a doc deadline request that may or may not have been met; I’m betting on the latter, but we’ll see (and of course, this tells us more about the antics McCarthy and his playmates have been up to)...
...and Biden AG Merrick Garland announced here that the DOJ is going to sue the “lone star state” over its Taliban-esque abortion ban, which is in clear violation of Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which Garland explains), as well as basic human decency (gee, you'd think that violation of precedent would have been noticed by Strip Search Sammy Alito, "I Like Beer" Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett)...
...and David Pakman tells us that the AZ life form who coughed on people while in a Nebraska supermarket has been fired from her job with SAP...good!...
...and Farron Cousins tells us that, according to the U.S. Treasury, the top 1% get out of paying about $163 billion every year in taxes, and apparently it’s legal (other estimates put the amount at about $1 trillion – Jesus wept)...
...and Beau tells us about our media’s alleged surprise over the Taliban taking over in Afghanistan (very tongue-in-cheek, I have to admit...note the “sarcasm” on his shirt)...
...and 65 years ago today (as noted here), Elvis Presley made his debut on the Ed Sullivan TV Show, though he didn't perform this number I'll admit.
Ben Carollo of Rebel HQ tells us that Fix Noise is leading the charge against Antifa and “fascism,” which (if they were being honest, which they’re not of course) are diametrically opposed, and the fact that the video with the schoolteacher came from those guttersnipes at Project Veritas confirms that those making the accusations are dealing from the very bottom of the intellectual barrel, if you will...
...and Ana and Cenk remind us that we “celebrated” Labor Day by cutting extended unemployment benefits (and of course, Fix Noise features this whining business owner who apparently had to be dragged kicking and screaming into paying workers a non-starvation wage)...
...and this Now This clip tells us more on the California recall election next Tuesday (critical that we get a big turnout to VOTE NO...more here)...
...and John and Francesca tell us about right-wing radio loudmouths dying of COVID after denying its existence (I’d have to be a ghoul to take pleasure in that, and I don’t, though it bothers me even more to think about those who foolishly listened to this idiots and got sick also)...
...and keeping somewhat with the theme of mortality, I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History,” and we’re taking another short trip back a year ago, to when Farron Cousins quite rightly took this Trump garbage life form named Francis Brennan to task for trying to ridicule then-presidential nominee Joe Biden over his visit to Brandywine Cemetery in Wilmington, DE, where Biden paid his respects to his first wife, son and daughter (very mildly NSFW/H but for a very good reason...truly no bottom to the evil of these life forms...and to give an example of how this garbage from characters like Brennan ends up seeping into the cycle of “legitimate” news organizations, I give you this from over the weekend by Peter Baker of “the old gray lady,” with Baker criticizing Biden for apparently grieving inappropriately, as if there’s an “appropriate” way to do that...if Baker were any kind of a legitimate news professional, to say anything of an actual human being capable of decency and compassion, he would have already apologized by now)...
...and while the “shadow docket” of the SCOTUS basically allows Roe v. Wade to be overturned by those troglodytes in Texas, the country on their southern border basically legalized abortion (Mexico enters the 21st century from a health care perspective while we continue our march to the dark ages)...
...and given the Texas garbage between harassing women and their health care decisions as well as restricting voting, I couldn't help but include this clip once more (from this great movie)...
...and I know this is another “oldie but goodie” that I’ve had on this site in the past, but I think it’s apropos to bring it back again for now...hope everybody has a happy #StarTrekDay.
And gee, you mean those aren't the real Dallas Cowboy cheerleader uniforms (here)? No duuuh!
That being said, I believe this hard-hitting Don Winslow video brings the appropriate level of outrage (and kudos to AG Merrick Garland for this)...
...and Jim Acosta tells us what Gohmert, MTG, Cawthorn and those other idiots (goaded on by The Swanson TV Dinner Heir) have been up to lately (yep, I think “human manure spreader” nails it...here)...
...and Joy Reid tells us that U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been threatening the telcos over cooperating with the commission looking into the 1/6 insurrection (more on his nonsensical behavior as well as that of his party is here)...
...and Thom Hartmann tells us that #DeathSantis is punishing 2 FL school districts by withholding funds for trying to enforce a mask mandate (and God, is this ever scary – in a sane country, he would have been removed from office by now, by force if necessary)...
...and just when you think the gun makers can’t possibly sink any lower, they find a way to do that, with Remington, which was sued by the parents of the kids murdered in Sandy Hook, looking into the school records of the dead kids...yeah, I guess some of them were disciplinary problems and deserved to be shot point blank in the face, huh?...
...and going back to the Don Winslow clip, I had this tune from Todd in mind after this item (good one by "the divine miss M").
...and workers at Oracle Park in San Francisco threatened to strike over violation of COVID safety protocols (and on the eve of a series between the Giants and the Dodgers, as luck would have it)...
...and this More Perfect Union clip tells us that Mastercard is targeting sex workers; just stop being puritanical a-holes and let everybody do their jobs, OK (and why do I have a feeling that this was triggered a bit by the garbage in Texas, with emboldened corporate wingnuts feeling like they can throw their metaphorical weight around)...
...and here's a tune that I think fits pretty well for the holiday.
Update 3: I always wondered if there was another reason why conservatives hated Hollywood and the TV and movie industry so much, aside from the fact that many of them are failed actors/comedians/screenwriters or people successful in their craft who have a grudge anyway (frequently making jokes when celebrity marriages go down the drain, as if that’s any of their business anyway – just got finished reading this great book about Brando, who had a lot of personal issues but was very committed to the American Indian of course along with the NAACP and UNICEF). And I think this post gives us some insight into this, which tells us pretty much how Actor’s Equity was founded in 1919 (featuring the courageous example of Fred Astaire)...really a heroic story as far as I’m concerned (and probably a pretty huge “axe to grind” as far as the wingnuts are concerned).
John I. and Jackson White of The Damage Report give us their take on the SCOTUS “shadow” ruling to let that utterly horrible Texas abortion law stand...aside from the perpetrators themselves, there are so many other people to blame IMO for this, notably Susan Collins (who I’m sure is “disappointed” even though she trusted “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh to NOT rule the way he did, which of course was the act of an utter fool, and that goes for both of them), and Di Fi for team “D” in the Senate isn’t much better, trusting Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett who also was a perpetrator in this vile act, which really should have surprised exactly NOBODY...yeah I know Hillary Clinton wasn’t exactly the favorite person of a lot of people, including yours truly, but I voted for her because the choice was between her and a lying, narcissistic maniac, and she did warn everybody that the SCOTUS was on the ballot, particularly in ’16, and now look where we are...
...and keeping with “Cult 45,” don’t look now, but the outpatients in support of Combover Caligula are apparently trying for a do-over of their little 1/6 escapade, this time on 9/18 for some reason...people need to go to jail for a loooong time, and I don’t just mean the life forms who staged the attack, but anyone in our government who supported them in any way whatsoever...
...and speaking of the attempt to destroy our democracy last January, Farron Cousins tells us that fundraising groups for Our Orange Pestilence sent $4.3 mil to organizers of the 1/6 insurrection (and yeah, I think it’s interesting how bullet-necklace Katrina Pierson has apparently disappeared, given that her name has surfaced in this clip)...
...and Sam, Emma V. and the crew from The Majority Report tell us that the “chicken littles” are having a field day over the release of the latest Social Security Trustee Report (just get rid of the damn cap on earnings subject to Social Security withholding, and yeah, the funding issue is pretty much solved – and yes, pearl-clutching over this and attempts to tighten the grip of austerity are pretty much what you can bank on from the “R” party and the usual corporate media suspects when Dems are in charge...interesting lead-in on this with Sam – pretty educational...video ends at about 10:00)...
...and the other half of the retirement entitlement that we pay into is Medicare of course, and Harry Reid speaks about why a dental plan should be included (I thought that was already covered – shows what I know...turns out the usual corporate criminals are fighting it...just another example of “American exceptionalism” I guess where our seniors have to gum their cat food because the alleged greatest country on earth somehow doesn’t have enough $$ to take care of the people who need it the most...U-S-A! U-S-A!...snark mode off)...
...and I just wanted to note the recent passing of NBC network newsman Lloyd Dobyns...there was a time when I, like many of you I’m sure, watched network newscasts before they were taken over by the dreaded “cables” and people like Dobyns, Linda Ellerbee, Ray Gandolf and others would present the news, discuss it and interpret it a bit in a manner befitting reasonable and thoughtful adults who just want to be informed on matters affecting their country and the world...Dobyns was part of that breed of newscaster, which is missed and sorely needed now...
...and I don’t know if I’m going to be posting over the weekend or not – this is really a seat-of-the-pants kind of operation, and I can’t guarantee a whole lot – but in case I don’t, I want to make sure that Beau got the last word with this great commentary where he responds to what sounds like a “keyboard commando” taking him to task over some recent commentary on Afghanistan, and Beau gives this character the treatment he deserves, with his restraint speaking volumes as opposed to the pointless bombast of the person who cranked out such a cowardly screed...
...and I absolutely have to get in a little bit of “Friday with Frank” here as we near the official end of summer (sniff)...but again, fall is great too, so let’s look forward to that also, OK?
Sam, Emma, Matt and Nomiki Konst tell us about another loony PA Repug (in the wake of Steve Lynch yesterday) using air quotes for “pandemic” (some life form named Teddy Daniels..and I guess it shouldn’t surprise me to see The Swanson TV Dinner Heir saying that “the left” wants to kill people who don’t get vaccinated, but yeah, that breaks the stoo-pid meter yet again...and you KNOW Tucker is vaccinated, but of course he’s waaay too much of a coward to be honest about it)...
...and keeping with the theme of Repugs Behaving Badly (which covers a lot here, I know), David Doel tells us about Chloe Mrozak, who faked a COVID vaccination card for her Hawaii trip and was nabbed when she misspelled Moderna (subbing the “o” with an “a”)...womp womp...and I don’t think her potential punishment here is excessive; throw the metaphorical book at these people...
...and speaking of throwing the book at people, I think we’re long past the point of arresting members of the “party of Lincoln” for sedition, and as far as I’m concerned, Madison Cawthorn goes to the top of that sorry list with Greene, Boebert, Banks, Biggs, Gohmert, and others for this recent outburst (David Pakman tells us more)...
...and John and Jayar of The Damage Report tell us about the latest wingnut lie related to our pullout at long last from Afghanistan, and that is the claim that we left behind $83 billion in military equipment (Beau had a great video a week or so ago with some context around the weapons we supposedly left behind that I put up here) – and here is another wingnut lie related to our departure from that war-torn country...
...and believe it or not, Our Pumpkin Pestilence of a former U.S. “president” actually got something right on the economy...
...and happy 70th birthday to Mik Kaminski of ELO.
Gee, I wonder how many of the wingnuts out there crowing about the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan are going to have a word to say in opposition to what the SCOTUS and “balls and strikes” Hangin’ Judge JR decided to NOT DO, namely, respect SCOTUS precedent and overturn Texas’s utterly ridiculous abortion ban...and again, the High Court took the utterly cowardly route of doing NOT A DAMN THING, which (as noted in this CNN clip) signals their intentions on Roe louder than anything else (more here and here)...
...and this Now This video tells us about right-wing nut job Steve Lynch, running for Northampton county executive (in Central Bucks County, PA, in these parts), yelling that he wants school board members to be forcibly removed over mask mandates in schools (more here)...
...and this TYT clip with Ana and Cenk tells us about the anti-masker in Santa Monica, CA threatening “civil war” over mask mandates (more here...yeah, I think Cenk is on to something with the link to failed comedians, which provides an opening to take some thoroughly deserved shots at that nematode Jimmy Dore)...
...and with the outrage of the prior clips in mind, I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 8/31/09, with “The Pap Attack” going after Lex Luthor Scott and Columbia HCA (I think that's who Mike Papantonio is referring to when he says Columbia HSC...and I would say that Pap was prescient here about employers getting health-related information about prospective hires for insurance coverage reasons...and I’d seriously like for somebody to find out who’s financing the anti-mask, anti-vax a-holes like the ones in the Lynch video and the life form in Santa Monica, CA...probably the same ones who financed the Teahadists when Scott was head of Columbia HCA)...
...and this Rebel HQ video with Alyssa Bernadino tells us about the destruction from Hurricane Ida in NOLA, about 16 years to the day of Katrina’s awful impact (and again, since we’re talking about poor people affected, cue the stories about looters...if Ida had hit in, say, Newport Beach, Rhode Island, the theme of the media coverage would be about people’s self-sufficiency instead...to help, click here)...
Update 9/3/21: On the subject of climate, I can't think of a pit in hell deep enough for Bill Hemmer of Fix Noise for this (and Prof. Krugman nails it again here - behind the pay wall; sorry).
...and Farron Cousins tells us about that shrieking harpie Maria Bartiromo yelling at Kevin McCarthy to use the 25th Amendment to get rid of Biden (umm, the 25th Amendment has to be invoked by the VP and the cabinet, and the Senate later if it gets that far, which, as Cousins notes, won’t happen with the Dems in charge of everything except the SCOTUS as previously noted)...
...and Robert Reich runs the numbers a bit on the scam of billionaire philanthropy (and yes, that’s pretty much what it is for the reasons Reich points out)...
...and even though the rain is pouring down in these parts, I think this tune still applies as we wind down this time of year...the fall can still be pretty cool of course, so let's not get too down about it, OK?
Rachel Maddow presents this history lesson of the countries that have tried and failed to impose their will in Afghanistan, and of course now you can add the U.S. to that list (when it aired last night, this segment contained an NBC News clip from ’89 when Russia departed, but that clip is missing here)...
...and we’ve seen plenty of “war heads” prattling on about the U.S. departure from Afghanistan at long last (including Richard Engel, who I honestly thought was better than this), but I haven’t seen much of Dem U.S. House Rep Barbara Lee of California, the ONE PERSON who was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ALL ALONG...here is a reminder of just how well she “nailed it” way back when (and onevoicepac.og is kaput, by the way)...
...and if you really want a gut-punch over this issue, this Second Thought video gives us an idea of how we should have spent the $$$ in Afghanistan (might be the most controversial video he’s produced with a lot of tough stuff, but I can’t help but think he’s fundamentally right)...
...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report bring us this clip of Jake Tapper speaking with Dem U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut on why exactly we needed to get the hell out (and if Tapper had taken his question a little further about regimes with human rights abuses and mentioned Saudi Arabia as one of those culprits, I would have been pretty damn shocked, but I know he has his orders, you might say)...
...and returning to this country, David Pakman tells us about Ty Garbin, one of the life forms who threatened to kidnap Dem MI Guv Gretchen Witmer, who got 6 yrs. on a plea (others are involved and are apparently going to trial, and no doubt they’re looking at longer sentences...good!)...
...and this More Perfect Union video tells us about nurses in Worcester walking out in protest of more corporate slavery from Tenet Health...
...and keeping with the theme of labor solidarity, John and Francesca tell us about Starbucks workers in New York trying to unionize (timely with the upcoming holiday, I should note...more here - Howard Schultz is the "Venti douchebag"...well played, Francesca!)...
(Because of course it wouldn't be a Trump-loving crowd without a misspelled sign...)
David Pakman, just back from his vacation, thinks there’s no bringing back the Trumpists to the reality-based community, and unfortunately he may be right (this includes the bit with Cult 45 in Alabama booing Dear Leader who had the temerity to suggest getting vaccinated...great idea by Pakman to make the anti-vaxxers pay more $$ for hospitalization if they don't get the shot)...
...and Emma and Matt of The Majority Report tell us that The Sunshine State apparently has to siphon water to take care of anti-vaxxers with COVID, leading to a water shortage (another dastardly lib plot revealed, no doubt - removing my tongue from my cheek...NSFW/H)...
...and I have to pinch myself, but apparently #DeathSantis isn’t doing too well with Florida voters over his terrible COVID response (Farron Cousins tells us more – and get a load of this)...
...and Francesca, Cenk and Jordan Uhl tell us that the Neocons are jonesing for MOOOAAAARRRRR WAAAAARRRRR in the aftermath of our pullout from Afghanistan (big surprise I know...NOT! And I know this clip is a little behind the news cycle, but I stil think it has a lot of important stuff)...
..and RIP legendary TV actor and kickass liberal Ed Asner (one of my favorite Asner anecdotes is here)...
...and RIP also Ron Bushy of Iron Butterfly – the Rolling Stone obit has the video for the full 17:03 version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, so feel free to enjoy if you so choose...this might be my backup selection for most favorite tune from the band (I know it seems to be turning into "dead musician Monday" around here...just the luck of the draw I guess).
Joy Reid speaks with Dr. Esther Choo and pundit Charlie Sykes on Repug Guv’s Abbott in Texas, #DeathSantis in FLA and Kristi Noem in South Dakota and their COVID respone, or lack thereof (and I’m not really criticizing Sykes, but boy, talk about setting a low bar for Noem...gee, how nice that she’s not going to get in the way of letting businesses do the right thing, but Sykes is correct to point out just how crazy #DeathSantis is in response)...
Update: And you can just lump these 3 characters in with the others noted here of course.
...and Chris Hayes tells us about cops pushing back against vaccine mandates (yeah, pretty much no excuse for that as far as I’m concerned...could do without the "listen up" comment, though)...
...and David Doel brings us a moment of clarity from James Carville on Biden and Afghanistan...and kudos to Biden for this...and by the way, the reason for the compressed timeframe on the evacuees is because Trump originally wanted everyone out by last Christmas, and then last May (here), but Biden pushed for August 31st, and also because Baby Goebbels spiked the visa application process for Afghan refugees so they couldn’t get out earlier – I think Doel’s analysis of the timeframe for the pullout is wrong...
...and I have to admit that I may have gone back and forth on this musical selection more than any other as long as I’ve been working on this dumb blog, for whatever that’s worth, but I’m going to include it even though I most definitely do not agree with the sentiment...here is a 19:00-or-so clip of Eric Clapton talking about his experience getting the two AstraZeneca COVID shots (AZ is approved in the UK) and his opposition to a vaccine mandate...I would say that (as Clapton admits in the recording) his diagnosis of both emphysema and peripheral neuropathy make him an exceptional case (here)...if Clapton has decided to make friends with anti-vaxxer Robin Monotti, that’s his choice, but it doesn’t give him the right to tell people to basically distrust all proven science in the face of a global pandemic – he should take a tour of a COVID ward or two to get an idea of the best way to look out for his kids and grand-kids...I believe he’s in earnest about that, but it doesn’t give him the right to take exactly the wrong lesson from all of this either.
Update 12/19/21: OK, Clapton has now officially lost me with this total dick move (and supporting Greg Abbott too? F-you, "slow hand!"...more here).
