…and with all the Dubya nostalgia going on (please), I would say that the these remarks by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reek more than just a little bit; if you have second thoughts, Madame Former Justice, do us all a favor and keep them to yourself, and pray that God is merciful…
…and underrated guitar legend Mick Ronson (here with Bowie during the “Ziggy Stardust” period) left us 20 years ago today.
I think John Fugelsang gives us the definitive Dubya “tribute” here…
...and I went back and forth between this and a George Jones video – nothing against Jones, but I think I’ve given enough space to entertainers who have passed on over the last week.
And you have the gall to call yourself a Democrat, Senator…
…and gosh, whaddaya know? A great big, heaping pile of Beltway villager conventional wisdom smelly enough to draw flies is defeated by…an Excel spreadsheet! Zoinks! (O'Donnell takes awhile to get to the point, but he makes it well)...
…and Chris Hayes tells us what all of the ridiculous Dubya fluffery over his library, or whatever, is really worth in the end (here)…
…as does Rachel Maddow, with a thoroughly apt comparison (by the way, her repartee with Richard Engle tonight over the correspondents dinner was priceless, with Engle asking if Maddow was going to “the prom”…no, she said – just working the cash bar, thank you)…
…and I have to admit that I wasn’t totally happy with the sound quality of Richie Havens’ performance of “Handsome Johnny” at Woodstock a few nights ago, so here’s another selection…
…and when it comes to any attempts at revisionist history concerning Former President Nutball, please keep in mind the single-word-title of this song.
…and I for one am tired of arguing with idiots about the reality of climate change, but continue to argue we must – sigh…
Update 4/26/13: Uh, Factcheck.org? Environmental policy is this country is set by the Environmental Protection Agency, not the U.S. Congress. And since the U.S. House in particular is extensively populated with climate change deniers, guess what? It pretty much was a referendum (and a particularly nonsensical one at that, as illustrated by the other clips in the video) on whether or not global warming is real. How about wondering why the U.S. House would offer such ridiculous legislation for an actual vote?
…and let me guess – the supposed Obama “scandal” is that, somehow, the “Boom Boom” brothers (who, despite their cowardly carnage, were otherwise pretty inept) weren’t intercepted earlier?
In response to this idiot Tom Cotton (even his name sounds Southern) featured in the clip below, I give you this…
…and based on this, it looks like it’s necessary to remind our elected officials that, yes, there are still millions of people out of work in this country, many for six months or longer (this clip is from 2010 I’ll admit, but sadly, it is still timely...at least Amy Klobuchar did the right thing, along with Elijah Cummings, John Delaney, and Chris Murphy)…
…and it sounds like I’m still in the 60s with this number – and I mean that as a compliment – but I’m not; still articulates how I feel a bit.
RIP Allan Arbus – a compilation of the best M*A*S*H clips of Dr. Sidney Freedman follows…
…and don’t worry – I’m not going to let go of this topic any time soon…
…and seriously now, are you really going to miss Max Baucus (here)? Seriously? ...
…oh, and in case anyone has forgotten about long-term structural unemployment, rest assured Dean Baker hasn’t, nor has Professor Krugman here (and even Kevin Hassett of AEI, to his credit – I think this clip is a few months old, but it definitely bears repeating)…
…and God bless Stephen Colbert who, as usual, mines comedy gold from utter dross (I got into this over here – God, I just wish that man would go away, and I don’t mean Colbert)…
…and RIP (God, they’re dropping like flies!) Christina Amphlett of the Divinyls.
…and on the subject of the Boston Marathon bombings, I thought Martin Bashir conducted an interesting interview with security consultant Robert McFadden here (makes a hell of a lot more sense to listen to McFadden than a nitwit like Lindsey Graham)…
Update 4/24/13: Also on the subject of the Boston Marathon bombing, I give you this (brilliant stuff).
…oh, and by the way, eat sh*t, Taranto (here…and he says he’s being “judicious”? Claiming Gabby Giffords couldn’t write 900 words because she’d been shot in the head? I don’t want to know the planet you must live on).
And isn’t the language just too precious about how all Giffords did was “appeal to emotion”? “Now you just run along, sweetie, and make sure my dinner is ready on time”…
If you want to make up your own mind on this, dear reader, as opposed to listening to Taranto and this other scumbag, please do so by reading the Op-Ed yourself from here…
…and in a related story, Jeff Flake to me is one of the lowest life forms on the planet for this (and this...yeah, I know I'm overdoing it with the name-calling - when it comes to the fact that the NRA owns our federal government, I think that's called for)…
Update 5/18/13: And Flake continues to sink even lower (here).
…and John Fugelsang drew an interesting comparison IMHO between the NRA “leadership” and the “God Hates Fags” bunch here…
Update 4/23/13: And please tell me again how the NRA is supposedly a friend of law enforcement (here).
…and RIP Richie Havens, performing a song partly about guns which, sadly for our times, still resonates (volume fades at bit at the end).
This has nothing whatsoever to do with anything in the news, and it’s definitely NSFW, but to be honest, I’m already starting to get sick of the media idiocy over whether or not the terrorist in Boston still living needs to be Mirandized or not (What is there to think about here? Hello??) and whether or not the FBI was doing what they were supposed to do up to the attacks and whether we should now send our flying death robots to Chechnya or not (umm, let's do a bit more investigation first, OK?), so I need a diversion – ugh…
(By the way, kudos to our law enforcement agencies for this...I'm sure this clown is shocked that a bunch of supposedly chicken liberals decided to get out of the way and let the cops do the job they're trained to do.)
If stuff like this is what it takes to kick 46 of our U.S. Senators in the ass, then so be it…
…including this moron (here) – Earth to Ted Cruz: Manchin-Toomey specifically (and stupidly) prohibits the creation of a federal gun registry (anyone who voted for this assclown should not be allowed to procreate)…
Update 4/20/13: And here is more "double standard" BS from Cruz and his fellow Repug in the U.S. House, Bill Flores.
…and John Fugelsang chimed in with what I thought were some appropriate words here…
…and in a related vein, kudos to Sir Paul for this (appropriate I guess since I started the week with a Beatle tune – kind of describes how I feel I suppose).
As a Roman Catholic, I must tell you that I know a thing or two about guilt (insert your own punch line here), so I definitely give Joe Scar props for inflicting some of it here on those 46 cretins in the U.S. Senate who voted against the wishes of 90 percent of this country on Toomey-Manchin (and if you think Scar is wrong, read the comments to this video on YouTube and try not to lose your lunch)…
…and as noted here, at least one of them is thoroughly unrepentant (and another class move by Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao is here)…
…and Chris Hayes takes CNN to task for some of its utterly wretched reporting on the Boston Marathon tragedy here, though they had a lot of company (fortunately, there has been progress, as noted here…and by the way, the Ricin guy is apparently an Elvis impersonator, seriously - finally found the link)…
Yes, this is the fault of the Repugs who utterly caved to the gun lobby, as usual, but this is also the fault of Harry Reid, who wouldn’t change the filibuster rules.
I’ll admit that Toomey-Manchin had problems, particularly that stupid wording about making a federal gun registry illegal, but 90 percent of the country wanted it, as President Obama tells us. Except for the cowardice of the senators in “the world’s greatest deliberative body” who opposed it, it would be on its way to becoming law.
Though the primary opponents were Republicans, four Democrats opposed it also (with their support, it would have passed). All who opposed it should be voted out of office, and I don’t care what party they belong to (here)…
Update 1 4/18/13: I don't care if he pitches for our team or not - Papelbon is still an idiot for this.
Update 2 4/18/13: Yep, no problem with letting terrorists and other mental defectives have all the guns they want, but boy, you’d damn well better whip the fear of God into these two law-abiding women whose only alleged offense was to communicate the feelings of the vast majority of this nation (here).
So Americans have become “complacent” about terrorism, Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao (here)?
You mean, like this American…
…or this one…
…or this one…
…or this one, you morally bankrupt, sanctimonious, delusional windbag (and that’s the nice version of what I really wanted to say)…
…though, as noted here, the Senate Minority Leader truly is representative of his political party (kudos to Joe Madison for mentioning the Fairness Doctrine and media consolidation)…
…oh, and I was wondering what happened to this idiot – Carton basically got run out of town by the Philadelphia Flyers and Ed Snider for “reporting” on allegations that former Flyer Eric Lindros was pals with reputed mobster Joey Merlino…all kinds of stupid were on display in that sorry episode…
On the subject of the explosions at the Boston Marathon, the AP is reporting from here that a third explosion took place at the JFK Library, and the reported casualty count to date is two dead and over 100 injured (prayers/sympathies to all).
On CNN, Former Dem U.S. House Rep Jane Harman went on Jake Tapper and mentioned al Qaeda – way too early to go there and thoroughly irresponsible on her part…
Update: The JFK thing was a fire - unrelated...
…returning to more mundane politics, Robert Greenwald quite rightly holds Number 44’s feet to the fire on the issue of prosecuting whistleblowers (here)…
…and Bill Maher tells this country to give peace a chance, as somebody once sang (here)…
…and speaking of his old band, I hope you all get your refunds.
…and oh yeah, how’s that new GOP “rebranding” effort going?
Well, this is what they did on the issue of fair pay for women, and this is what they did on the issue of marriage equality. Next up…race relations.
And from what Jon Stewart tells us, they’re not doing such a hot job on that front either (here)…
…and when it comes to “broad appeal to the electorate” – I’ll let Rachel Maddow give you the rest of the gory details (and I think MSNBC really needs to re-think the lead-in to that prison show)…
…and I thought this was an interesting report (based on this) on why pot should be, at the least, decriminalized (China is even making our drugs for us, people, along with just about everything else)…
…and gee, I wonder if Matt Katz and the Philadelphia Inquirer know about this from their beloved “Governor Bully” (and to help Barbara Buono, click here)…
…and I thought this was some interesting commentary on the economy from Jared Bernstein…
How many more indeed (this ad was featured on the Rachel Maddow Show this evening)…
Update: And boy, is our corporate media spinning the whole alleged storyline of “gosh, those ‘moderate’ Democrats and supposedly ‘moderate’ Repugs are sure in a bind or whatever about voting in favor of common-sense gun legislation favored by just about everyone in this country who doesn’t live inside the stinking Beltway political-media-industrial complex,” kind of like this (And this was a particularly repugnant example – h/t Atrios).
…and oh yeah, did you hear the one about how Hitler supposedly confiscated everyone’s guns once Nazi Germany rose to power? Too funny…
…and speaking of TRMS, she tells us, among other things, how our infamous governor in our beloved commonwealth is giving us a bad name once again (I wish Allyson Schwartz all the best – she’ll need it all and more, even against Corbett; keep tilting at those windmills)…
I thought this was some clear-eyed commentary on the passing of Margaret Thatcher (and I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Russell Brand, but I thought this was interesting also)…
…and John Fugelsang has some timely thoughts on Confederate History Month – yes, I’m serious…
…and it looks like Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao is showing his true colors again (and there’s no comparison to the alleged brouhaha over his wife’s ethnicity – none; Jack Conway overplayed the “values” stuff against Rand Paul and lost…McConnell deserves nothing less than the same fate)…
Based on this story, it looks like 14 U.S. Senators (possibly 15) are refusing to let gun control legislation introduced by Harry Reid even come up for a vote in “the world’s greatest deliberative body” (please).
I honestly don’t know what else I can do at this point except to try and shame these bastards as my limited means allows, so here they are:
P.S. – I would have added “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey to the list, but it looks like, based on this, he’s coming around a bit on universal background checks – or so he says.
A notable female politician who left us today will probably get most of the headlines, but here is another courageous woman who deserves a mention also…
…and here is more on “chained CPI” (and why it’s such an awful idea) from Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who continues to impress…
…and it’s actually kind of sickening to watch this report, good as it is, and realize that, this corporate “person,” as Willard Mitt Romney infamously referred to it, really can’t be touched…
…and I guess I should observe some respectful silence in light of this, but I would be able to just write her off as a leader who made some truly awful decisions and leave it at that if it weren’t for the fact that she shamelessly and slavishly heaped praise on The Sainted Ronnie R the way she did (h/t Wonkette for jogging my memory on this great song).
Bill Maher says here what has been on my mind for some time about the “glibertarians” (here, and God, was Stephen Moore a real flaming a-hole on that episode – fortunately, it was his mistake to try and scrap with Sen. Bernie Sanders - NSFW)…
…and here’s something a little mellow for a sunny spring Sunday.
