Monday Stuff

I wish I had a nickel for every time I supported a Democrat, and they end up kicking me in the metaphorical teeth as noted here (still better than the Repugs, but at times like this, that’s like comparing two variations of pond scum - I supported the bailouts way back when because I thought stuff like this would accompany it along with real, honest-to-goodness underwater mortgage restructuring; I will NEVER make that mistake again)…



Update 4/2/13: Oh yeah, and there's this too.

Update 4/5/13: If the Repugs end up taking over all branches of our government again in 2016, it will be because of crap like this (h/t Atrios – if nothing else, it will give Hillary the platform to run as the “anti-Obama” Democrat).

…and I’m not sure if this song is aimed at them or me at this moment – April Fools indeed.

Sunday Stuff

I think it’s important to 1) not let Repug U.S. House Rep Don Young off the hook for his most recent idiocy (part of a sickening pattern as Think Progress tells us here) and 2) point out that, while there may be Republicans out there who actually want to do the right thing by “undocumented” workers, what may prevail is legislation in service of a more corporatist vision sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that keeps undocumented workers under foot along with the rest of us (of course, the Teahadists could have another hissy fit and end up scuttling reform altogether in the House)…

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…and I know this video is also hawking a web site too, but I still think it’s good, and apropos for today.

Happy Easter 2013

May you all have a happy and blessed Easter. If you don't observe anything, may you have a happy and blessed long weekend.

Saturday Stuff

This might be as good of a time to “mess with Texas” as we’ll ever get based on this clip…



…and RIP Phil Ramone (from this recording, among his legendary body of work).

Friday Stuff

I haven’t forgotten, Mr. President (here, and despite these bullying idiots)…



…and on that subject, I should tell you that I’m honestly not the biggest fan in the world of Jim Carrey; I know the guy is kind of “in your face” as a media presence, and I haven’t even seen the “Funny or Die” video yet; I don’t have a burning desire to do so, even though I usually put up “Funny or Die” clips when I can…believe it or not, I’m also a bit sympathetic to Charlton Heston because the guy is no longer here to defend himself, and he also once marched with Dr. King a LOOOOONG time ago…however, I’m putting this up because of the truly hilarious reactions to Carrey’s latest stunt from Fix Noise (for Sean Inanity to paint Carrey as “rich” is beyond parody since Inanity must pull in at least $2 mil a year)…



Update: Actually, I'm starting to like Carrey more and more (here).

...shifting gears a bit, I should note that our military presence in Vietnam officially ended on this day 40 years ago, as Rachel Maddow reminds us…

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…and Ed Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders bring us the latest in class warfare (here)…



Update 3/30/13: And speaking of Bernie Sanders, we have some work to do following up his excellent example, as noted here.

Update 3/31/13: And I'm definitely not an expert on the whole "Chained CPI" thing, but I still think it's important to note the following from here.

…and happy 70th birthday to Eric Idle (give it a few seconds – sorry, not doing “Bright Side o’ Life” on Good Friday)…



…and returning to this decade, I give you the following.

Thursday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

We never can afford to forget who is waging class warfare for real in this country; it's the bunch who are winning (here)…



…and as long as I’m trying to raise the outrage level, I might as well present this…



…and while I’ll admit that I’m WAAAY past all of the “OMIGOD, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS A MESS…HOW CAN IT EVER BE SAVED?” B.S., but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still enjoy a good laugh over it with Jon Stewart, as he provides here…



…and the Three Mile Island near-utter-disaster (though it was bad enough) took place 34 years ago today, giving rise to, among other things, this song.

Wednesday Stuff

This report from Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” about the Pussy Riot fiasco with Our Ol’ Buddy Vlad Putin (sure) was interesting...more power to these brave women, and anyone who supports them (video should play OK)…



…and I was sorry to hear about this – I wish her all the best.

Tuesday Stuff

I totally get that marriage equality is a human rights issue, but as far as straights are concerned, let’s not forget the following from here…



…and John Fugelsang had some good words on this issue (I thought) here…



…oh, and by the way, our global casino is still imploding; Billo thinks it’s due to those SHUTUP SHUTUP BAAAD SOCIALIST LIBERAL MEDIA BENGHAZI COVER UP!!! Democrats and their allies as part of the “global nanny state conspiracy”…what a maroon (here)…



…and I’m sure he was great tonight at the Academy of Music…hard to do the “night out” thing during the week due to family and job stuff, but that’s OK – next time (this is LOUD).

Monday Stuff

Fill ‘er up (here)…



…and Vanessa Waltz is my hero(oine) of the day for this (and once again, Governor Bully drops the ball – wonder if Matt Katz of the Philadelphia Inquirer will try to “fluff” Christie over this one?)…



…and oh yeah, the Senate Democrats managed to produce a budget without GOP obstruction – barely – thus robbing Mikey the Beloved and his pals of a thoroughly tired talking point, at long last…



…and I’m sorry, I don’t give a damn about White House tours or this in light of what we learn in this video, hosted by Michael Eric Dyson…

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...Thom Hartmann gives us an interesting history lesson here...



…and I now give you words to live by.

Saturday Stuff

As you watch this video (here), know that the Repugs have tried to repeal “Obama Care” 54 times (here)…



…and if you watch Fix Noise and take it seriously, as far as I’m concerned, you’re too stoo-pid for words (here, and here too)…



…changing the mood big time, Martin Bashir brings the outrage against Congress (the House in particular...big surprise I know) and the NRA (here) – much more like this (and this is pretty despicable too, and probably illegal)…



…and sometimes I honestly wonder If the utterly heartless swine responsible for this legislative travesty believe in the concepts named in the title of this song.

Thursday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

Yeah, I would say that Billo doesn’t have a prayer on this one (and he tells us that he went to Catholic elementary school, so he doesn’t have an excuse)…

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…and from the sacred to the profane, I give you Lee Camp here (NSFW)…



…and this proves that Boehner, Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and company want to gut entitlements but keep up their debt smokescreen anyway, and even a single-celled organism knows how stoo-pid Sean Inanity and Rand Paul are, and it also proves that the Repugs are all over the place with their valued “messaging” (I must tell you, though, that I’m sick of all of this hand-wringing over whether or not the Repugs will suddenly somehow become sane – they’re sinking; stand back and don’t lift a finger to help them)…



…and given this, I felt like hearing this song once more.

Wednesday Stuff

Nice to see some good old fashioned indignation from Rachel Maddow on behalf of our veterans (would be even better to see this on a bipartisan basis from our phony baloney politicians, instead of a tree-hugging liberal like Maddow and her pinko network, MSNBC – snark…yep, keep up that outrage over the cancelled White House tours and ignore everybody else, Repugs)…

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…and as long as she noted the “revisionist history” of Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent-Adventure in Iraq (more on Rummy's "tweet" here)…

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…and let’s not forget about the sequester – seriously, let’s not forget…



…and RIP Bobbie Smith of The Spinners.

Tuesday Stuff

I really hadn’t planned to say anything about this today given that I wanted to devote everything else to mark the grim anniversary of we-all-know-what (also noted here), but I have to given the fact that Harry Reid has said here that he won’t bring Dianne Feinstein’s renewal of the assault weapons ban up for a vote in the Senate.

To which I say, why the hell not?

We know Harry Reid can’t get any Repug votes. They’ve totally gone over as the comforters of the already-comfortable “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch. I don’t see how anyone can blame Reid for that.

But what I can (and I DO) blame him for is not making the effort to hold a vote to get these cretins on the record, establishing once and for all that these craven shills are totally at the disposal of their puppet masters dispensing their weapons of death and carnage. F*ck Senate protocol! (and yes, I really said that).

Michael Moore is on Piers Morgan as I type this, and one of the things he said is that at least the Repugs have the courage of their awful convictions. That’s more than I can ever say for Harry Reid and his admittedly good ones (this video reminds us what's at stake, in case we've somehow forgotten, notwithstanding our idiot politicians...and please spare me the whole "HE SAID 'FULLY AUTOMATIC' - BOY IS HE DUMB!" stuff...a semi-automatic will kill you just as dead, and that's all Adam Lanza needed to slaughter 20 school children and 6 adult teachers with 5 30-round clips in about five minutes)…



…and by the way, the spiritual godfather of this blog (something that would probably make him laugh if he cared enough) would have been 85 today (here) – the credo of his most famous character (I guess) is included in this clip…



…and as someone must (and Rachel Maddow is definitely someone up to the task), we are reminded indeed of what happened 10 years ago today (and those who plied their craft to foul ends in service of the war are noted here, including Mr. Suck-On-This…the Iraq stuff starts at about 11:10, but the rest of this, including Vietnam and Nixon – which I’d more or less heard before – is pretty darned interesting too...I didn't see the follow-up piece with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson)…

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Update 3/20/13: And by the way, it took a lot to get a laugh out of this, but here is an example (h/t Atrios).

…and the following is offered without comment.

Monday Stuff

This is more attention than, truth be told, I feel like paying to NBA basketball, but I feel like I have to comment on the news that the career of Sixers marquee center Andrew Bynum has apparently ended, as noted here, before it ever began (the guy commenting in the video below turned out to be smarter than anyone in the Sixers’ supposed brain trust).

So the Sixers trade Andre Iguodala, former first-round pick Nik Vucevik plus some other guy, plus some other first-round picks (not sure, but I think they did) for a guy who won’t play a minute this season and probably not ever for this team.

You want to know part of the reason why this train wreck happened? Philly sports talk radio, that’s why, particularly WIP. Those morning nitwits made a career out of attacking Iguodala and could barely contain their glee when it was traded. Yes, it was unrealistic to expect Iguodala to lead that team the way another player with those same initials did previously. But is that Iguodala’s fault?

Hell, I didn’t think anything could be worse than the Charles Barkley trade for Jeff Ruland, Cliff Robinson and Roy Hinson, as well as giving up the Number One overall pick. But at least Ruland, Robinson and Hinson played.

And as long as I’m at it, the other professional sports team playing games that count right now deserve a dishonorable mention as well. If the people running the orange-and-black had any brains either, they’d be having the biggest fire sale in the world right now and try to stockpile draft picks in order to rebuild the team (to say nothing of cutting ticket prices).

That’s what the hated Rangers did about 5-6 years ago. And yes, they missed the playoffs a few times, but they’re contending now with a solid core, and we’ll see how far they go, though I’ll admit they’re still long shots (hell, the Islanders are ahead of the Flyers right now – that’s what they did too).

We’ll see what it will take for the “Stepford” sports fans in this city to stop forking over the dough to put asses in the seats and watch all this mess, assuming that ever happens of course…



…turning back to political stuff, I give you more nonsense in “The Breeding Ground for Bad Government,” as The Eternal Molly Ivins once called the “land of the yellow rose”…

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…and 50 years ago today, a very important Supreme Court ruling was handed down, as noted here (I’ll plan to say more about this later – this was the basis for the terrific TV movie “Gideon’s Trumpet” starring Henry Fonda)…



…and I thought this was a nifty little retro tune.

Sunday Stuff

Yeah, the political demise of Scott Brown is a few news cycles old, but I still think it’s instructive (the "full Palin" - heh)…

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…and once more, for a few more hours, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Friday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

Gee, I wonder if the CPAC crazies want to reconsider blowing off Governor Bully in light of this…



…I also should probably include this (and by the way, an utter pox on the Teahadist idiots who voted Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, another Republican from whom arrogance oozes out of every pore of his body)…

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…and nothing like a good Friday rant (NSFW – from here)…



…and yes, this is wonky stuff, but it’s important as hell (and since when did “daughter of Breitbart” S.E. Cupp somehow emerge as a Beltway media star?)…

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…and happy 70th birthday to Sly Stone, wishing him all the best...



…and happy St. Patrick’s Day on Sunday, by the way (also NSFW).

Wednesday Stuff

OMIGOD Paul Ryan is SO SERIOUS, isn’t he, according to the Beltway punditocracy (here, and thank God for Alan Grayson)…



…and here is some actual, honest-to-goodness good news on guns from Bill Press of Current TV…



…and Senator Elizabeth Warren does it again here – more power to her…

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…and best wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis (here).

Tuesday Stuff

Just a bit of a Freudian slip from Mr.-Puppy-Dog-Eyes-With-The-Shiv, huh (here)…



…and now it looks Chucky and Davey “think it would be fun to run a newspaper,” as a movie character once said (here – and by the way, trying to destroy Social Security is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg with these two foul creatures)…



…and can you think of a word to describe the irony of Daddy Fred going over to Russia to help “Uncle Joe” and then coming back to the US of A preaching the gospel of anti-communism?...



…and Rachel Maddow and the one and only Rush Holt of New Jersey explain to us just how ridiculous our energy policy (or what passes for it) truly is…

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…and I second, third, fourth and fifth what John F. says here about Former Commander Codpiece…



…on a wholly other (and much more pleasant) note, happy 65th birthday to JT (once met brother Hugh years ago at The Outermost Inn - good dude).

Monday Stuff

As I watched this, I wondered if junior and high school kids in other countries are going to study (if they're not already), in their social studies textbooks, the importance of, say, prevailing wage law and strong private-sector unions as a means to achieve genuine income equality and a just standard of living, as opposed to those poor saps in the United States who kissed it all away by electing primarily Republicans (and I don’t totally absolve myself on that either – it took me awhile to figure out how rigged the game truly is)…

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…and let’s not forget how big a role this plays too…not sure if this is as pathetic as the Dems caving on FISA in 2008, but if not, it’s pretty darned close…



Update 3/12/13: And by the way, in a related story as they say, I meant to link to this earlier.

…and I don’t know who these guys are, but I thought this was a fairly cogent commentary on the whole North Korea/South Korea thing (here), which I’ll admit is a bit disquieting (and former New York Ranger Derek Boogaard, he of the untimely death, once beat the hell out of former Flyer Todd Fedoruk in a hockey fight – just sayin’)…



…and now that I think of it, maybe I should have used this for International Women’s Day instead.

Sunday Stuff

Kudos to Lawrence O’Donnell for speaking truth to stoo-pid here – I got tired of all of these articles trying to create this fantasy that Rand Paul is some kind of “glibertarian” moderate, as opposed to the hare-brained loon that he actually is...

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…and not only did I fail to acknowledge International Women’s Day yesterday, but I also failed to acknowledge Black History Month in February – please allow me to make up both at once here.