Thursday Stuff

This may be it for President Hopey Changey and his great speeches – if so, he sure exited with a memorable one (here); the wingnuts will always hate him of course, in no small part because Obama truly understands this country better than they ever will (and I'm sure the Dems had permission to use the music)…



…something amplified by Joe Biden earlier, particularly in this excerpt (here)…



…and I always respected Joe Crowley for a lot of reasons, but I REALLY respect him for this (Sam Seder is talking about “The Music Man” and Professor Harold Hill, by the way, which would fit The Donald if he had a benevolent molecule in his body, which of course he doesn’t)…



…and given that the Dem convention is wrapping up tonight, what do you say to a tune to help us get about the tough work of winning this damn election, and (dare I hope) taking back Congress?

Wednesday Stuff

I know the focus in Philly is quite rightly on the Democratic National Convention, but I thought this was a cautionary discussion Chris Hayes had with Howard Fineman and E.J. Dionne recently; I’d love to agree with the latter about Trump’s “ceiling,” but one of the truly scary aspects of all of this is that I don’t think we really know what that is – just means we have to work harder for HRC, that’s all…



…that being said, I should also say that this absolutely has to mean the end for this guy and his presidential hopes (and yes, I know there have been a slew of these moments already, but this has to be the proverbial last straw – more here)…



…and this starts with Sen. Al Franken talking about Michelle Obama’s speech, but it ends with Franken telling the media to do their damn jobs (“facts don’t seem to matter,” Mrs. Greenspan? Are you vying for the title of Grand Dame Of Our Beltway Courtier Media?)…



…and when I think about Trump (I try not to do that a lot, I'll admit), songs like this come to mind.

Tuesday Stuff

John Oliver does it again (NSFW)...



…and yeah, I guess I got trolled by Juilan Assange on some of the earlier Wikileaks stuff – not ashamed to admit if I made a mistake; I thought he had the wherewithal to know when he was getting played by Putin, but apparently he doesn’t (stuff like this from the Trump campaign shows a sophistication I didn’t expect I’ll admit, though I don’t think it shows sophistication to violate U.S. campaign finance law either…you would think that the quite-likely involvement of foreign actors in our election would infuriate the voters of this country…you would think)…



…and I thought this was a good commentary by Kyle Kulinski about what was probably the most memorable line of Michelle’s Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention last night (NSFW also – the last minute or so in particular is the true takeaway IMHO)…



…and a happy belated birthday to Chepito Areas of Santana – I hope the title of this song reflects the spirits of the country overall after Day 2 of the Dem convention as opposed to last week’s hatefest in Cleveland.

Monday Stuff

Kudos to Fareed Zakaria for this (and I don’t give a damn about his accent – actually, if you want to hear an extremely NSFW response to Coulter, click here)…



…and memo to our corporate media; any chance that you people are going to wake the hell up and confront “The Donald” over his failure to release his tax returns (here)?

Naah, didn’t think so (zzzzzz)…



…so yeah, maybe it’s time once more for some good old fashioned outrage, and Jon Stewart brings it, as they say, just in time (here)…



…and I don’t know if the rain making its way through these parts will bring much relief over the next day or so – hopefully it will.

Saturday Stuff

For the record, this is Cheri Bustos, Democratic Party U.S. House Member from Illinois.

Also, she is absolutely driving me nuts with solicitation Emails and phone calls (home and cell) to support her campaign for re-election.

Let’s see now, Cheri Bustos…why is that name familiar again?

Oh yeah, it’s because she partnered with our very own Mikey the Beloved in this “No Labels” idiocy over at least the last two years. You know…pretending to be a Sensible Centrist™ even though she is, in fact, a version of Republican Lite (more here).

So guess what, Cheri Bustos? I hope you lose your election. And stop asking me for money, because I’m not giving you a dime!

Yeah, that means one less Dem in a contest where we need all the Dems we can get, I know. But with “Democrats” like Bustos, we’d be better off with the wretched status quo we already have.

Back to the videos - and all I have to say in response to this is buen trabajo, Tim Kaine (in the clip below, Kaine joined the filibuster by Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut in favor of common sense gun reform - can't track down the rest of what Kaine said, but I think you can get the gist from the clip)...



...and kudos to the NBA for this (and Pat McCrory’s utterly predictable, and stupid, temper tantrum of a response is here)...



…and I think this utterly idiotic GMO labeling law is par for the course with this wretched Congress…



…and here’s something a little dreamy and ethereal in the spirit of the season.

Friday Stuff

In light of all of the nonsense from Cleveland this week, I thought I would provide this as a palate cleanser of sorts.

Now that the convention idiocy is over and the “party of Lincoln” has proclaimed Donald Trump as its standard-bearer, Republicans all over the place are saying, “oh, Trump doesn’t represent me…how in Heaven’s name did we get to the point where he is our nominee for President,” clutching their metaphorical pearls all the while and looking for their also-metaphorical fainting couch.

(In a similar vein, I give you this today from the eternally wretched Christine Flowers, concocting yet another unintentionally hilarious diatribe which is truly all we can expect from philly.com’s conservative quota hire columnist.)

Do you want to know how you got to the point where “Fergus Laing” is actually your nominee for president, Republicans? Do you want to know who is really to blame?

Try looking in the goddamn mirror!

Every time you demonize and ridicule someone without any basis in actual fact, or at least without any evidence that will stand up to what you might call “the cold light of day”…every time you demonize and ridicule someone merely because they belong to a particular race, gender, or other demographic that takes issue with what you might call your political point of view…every time you repeat baseless charges over and over and over again against your opposition when they have been thoroughly or utterly disproven or, perhaps, not even proven to begin with…every time you demonize a political member of the opposition for all of the reasons I noted previously in this paragraph without any provable, corroborated facts or evidence…every time you demagogue against those who are most vulnerable in our society, again without facts or evidence…every time you demagogue against someone trying to address the most vital issues we face, such as matters of war and peace, the economy (and, as a part of that, issues pertaining to what you might call economic and social justice), and the future survivability of this planet (and, in the process, argue with proven principles of math, science, and, pretty much, plain common sense)…when you do any or all of that, do you know what you also do?

You perpetuate the forces that ultimately gave us Donald J. Trump as the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States, that’s what you do.

So spare me your pitiable mea culpas, because, now, it is up to Democrats to try and clean up the mess you created but, not surprisingly, couldn’t find the political will to fix yourselves.

Now for some videos – and it looks like, based on this, Laura Ingraham gave away the game, as they say…



…and yeah, it sounds like Bill Maher captured what went on in Cleveland this week pretty well (here)…



…and I thought this was some great perspective on “The Donald” from filmmaker Ken Burns, speaking with Christiane Amanpour (and of course, the inevitable wingnut outrage followed here)…



…and our neighbors to the north are paying attention (as is the rest of the world, as noted here – dear Lord)…



…also, I cannot possibly imagine why Fix Noise didn’t want their viewers to see this (here – removing my tongue from my cheek)…

…and it seems like Republicans can’t get through a week, or even days sometimes, without infringing on a musician’s work without getting permission, which, in this case, I’m sure they’d never get anyway (I think the following tune, were it to be allowed by the estate, would be more appropriate).

Thursday Stuff

I would call this progress of a sort...



…and maybe throwing Al Baldasaro’s sorry ass in prison for about ten years would send the right message (here)…



...and here is the latest in the annals of "Crooked Trump"...



…and “one more night” of this mess in Cleveland – luckily, the adults will be coming to Philly next week.

Wednesday Stuff

Awww, poor “Governor Bully,” in response to this (naah – just kidding…more here and here)…

…and this is funny stuff from Stephen Colbert, bringing back his “Comedy Central” character a bit, but the very last sentence is about as tongue-in-cheek as you’re going to get (here)…



…and Trump’s veep nominee gets the Samantha Bee treatment here (NSFW)…



...and no "milestone" or "message" music tonight - just a cool new tune.

Tuesday Stuff

It looks like time is drawing short for Roger (“Voldemort”) Ailes in light of this (a day that has been a long time in coming)…

...and golly, it looks like the latest trophy wife of "The Donald" sure put her I'm-sure-elegantly-pedicured foot in it big time (here)...



…and Kyle Kulinski tells us about the latest in the annals of “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Repug Party nonsense, particularly regarding Trump VP nominee Mike Pence (NSFW)…



…and I know people are going to be having fun with the latest idiocy that transpires from Cleveland (not a shot at the city, mind you – we hosted these characters in 2000, after all), and it’s going to be hard to pick and choose of all of what I would call “hate porn” in an effort to find what is most despicable (the grieving Benghazi mother who deserves our prayers, respect and support but who was allowed by life forms almost too despicable for words to rant in a public forum against HRC, along with all of the calls for Former Secretary of State Clinton to be imprisoned or worse, etc.), but right now, this might be the lowest of the low (a lot of competition, I’ll admit) – if Freddie Mercury were still with us, he might offer this as a response.

Monday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

Yeah, I know some of this stuff may be a little too “inside baseball,” but I still think it shows that not everyone is singing “Kumbaya” in Cleveland (here)…



…and speaking of the all-but-named Democratic Party nominee, I have only three words for this video: Nail. Hammer. Head. (here)…



...also, David Pakman tells us about recent shootings in this country we may not have heard about (telling that, while overall violent crime is down in this country, shootings are up)...



…and happy belated 70th (!) birthday to Linda Ronstadt; all those years I spent holding up her poster with one hand – smile.

Friday Stuff

God, hasn’t France suffered enough already? To help, click here…



…and I honestly was going to ignore this – naah, sorry, I can’t (kudos to Kyle for keeping it clean)…



…and hey, as long as “The Donald” just gave us fresh, new ammunition (here)…



…and speaking of Trump’s new veep nominee, Rachel Maddow brought us this report earlier in the week on how it can be a fruitless exercise to try and run against the “number 2” on the ticket…



…and I agree with South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott on nothing, but kudos to him for this…



…and while making a lot of money isn’t a crime I know, it could be if you use the influence it buys to screw over everybody else…lots of ways that our senatorial mistake from PA has done that which I’ll try to present over the coming weeks and months; in the meantime, to help Katie McGinty, click here…



Update 7/18/16: Actually, this should go a long way towards telling us how awful a senator Toomey truly is.

…and what, are we actually supposed to think that Stuart Varney ISN’T a scumbag because he has an English accent? (NSFW)...



…and Harry Chapin left us 35 years ago tomorrow – among his other accomplishments, he also was a tireless advocate against hunger and poverty in this country…to say his voice is still needed is a huge understatement.

Thursday Stuff

Fine – let everybody shoot each other; no never mind to me…



…and it looks like Indiana Governor Mike Pence may be the VP for “Fergus Laing,” though it isn’t official of course (dag, all those Mickey D’s meals “Governor Bully” got for Trump for nothing, apparently); I thought this was an informative segment about Pence’s most recent moment in the spotlight (don’t think his “freeze” was a big a deal as that awful law he signed)…



Update 7/15/16: And speaking of Pence, does anyone remember this besides me?

…and isn’t this just precious? Sam Seder tells us that Jeb Bush blames the Pope for losing the South Carolina Republican primary and shooting down his presidential hopes; naaah, didn’t have anything to do with his brother’s utterly failed, ruinous presidency…not much (NSFW)…



...and it looks like Dale Hansen has done it again here - kudos...



…and as damn awful as this is, and it is that, I’d love to see Governor Bully take time from waiting on “The Donald” to try and explain this, assuming he gives a crap, which I’m sure he doesn’t of course…



…and I think this is a really cool tune from an exceptional musical family (that twangy axe in the background can only mean the "Bob Dylan of Britain").

Wednesday Stuff

As I watch this about the so-called Chilcot Report, I keep hoping for something like that in THIS country (yeah, I know – keep hoping)…



…and like it or not, it’s time for another installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 7/13/11, with the Foxies doing what they do best, and that is to smear anybody who points out that they’re nothing but the media wing of Not Your Father’s Republican Party, though, based on this, it looks like their “dark Lord” has some actual honest-to-goodness legal stuff going on; couldn’t happen to a more deserving scumbag (more here and here)...



...and Elijah Cummings does a first-class job here IMHO of taking apart more wingnut nonsense...



…and I’m falling behind a bit on my summer songs, so here comes another one.

Tuesday Stuff

We all know what Rudy 9iu11ani is as well as the other “Foxies” (and what a sad epitaph for Wayne Rogers, by the way), but in spite of that, I thought this was a good discussion Chris Hayes conducted with Heather McGhee and Eugene O’Donnell – great job by McGhee to tie police tactics to trying to generate revenue strangled by austerity, by the way…



…and by the way, Rachel Maddow tells us how “Fergus Laing” is resurrecting some of the very worst of the Nixon years (oh goody – just kidding; how truly pathetic)…



…and this tells us about Rep. David Jolly’s bill to limit the amount of time congressional candidates spend on fundraising; an “A” for effort on this one…



…and all the best to Joe Perry of Aerosmith (here).

Monday Stuff

Kudos to John Fugelsang for this (more here)...

...also, Rev. Al talks to Marc Morial of the National Urban League about the aftermath of the most recent headline-making gun violence in this country…



…and aside from the Hillary Email stuff which never was a “thing” in the first place IMHO, I think Larry Wilmore is spot-on here…



…and also while we were away, Elie Wiesel left us – so many reasons to honor his life and accomplishments, but this one stands out in particular (and of course “The Sainted Ronnie R” went to Bitburg anyway - have to crank the volume a bit)…



...and when it comes to the recent violence in Minnesota and Louisiana, I had this song very much in mind.

Saturday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

“Secular Talk” tells us of Bernie Sanders’s recent Op-Ed in the New York Times (NSFW…don’t quite despair in HRC as Kyle does…don’t know how you can consider HRC to be the same as Trump when it comes to the corporate nonsense, though I admit that he makes good points…”ya’ gotta go left” – damn correct on that)…



…and with that in mind, I give you the following recent great words from Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the TPP…



…and oh yeah – anybody out there beside me remember Zika? Fortunately, Harry Reid did here…



…and I hope you’re in the mood for some great live (more or less) music, because here it comes (not sure what's up with the letterbox formatting in Chrome and IE on the laptop, but it sounds fine and all is OK on the smartphone, so there you are).

Friday Stuff

It’s getting to the point where the shootings are going on in this country faster than I can comment on them, though I’ll admit that I don’t have anything particularly brilliant to say on any of them.

I’m sure Dem Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton is right to say that race played a role in the shooting death of Philando Castile, a resident of that state, particularly when, as noted here, Castile had a license to carry and notified the police officer about it, but was shot anyway when apparently reaching for identification to present to the officer (noted here – and yes, the sound of crickets from the NRA over this speaks volumes about that organization as far as I’m concerned). However, I’m not sure that Dayton should have been so quick to point that out before all of the facts were in.

(And yes, this video is graphic, particularly up to about 1:48 – NSFW of course)...



Update 8/11/17: ZOMG, the NRA FINALLY has something to say on this from their shrieking harpie Dana Loesch here (and of course, they're wrong, since they can never be right on this anyway).

And as for Alton Sterling, it apparently remains an open question whether or not he struggled with police after he was told to lie on the ground before the police shot him, though, to me, it’s telling that the cops removed the surveillance video of the encounter even though they had no warrant and the owner of the store where the shooting occurred, Abdullah Muflahi, did not consent to them removing it (here)...



Of course, none of this is justification for the shooting of the Dallas police officers at the protests over the Castile and Sterling shootings (here)...



And with all of this in mind, maybe it isn’t too bad of an idea to think about this (clip ends kind of suddenly)…



I’m sorry I don’t have anything better to say about any of this. I just wish we were better in this country at building bridges instead of walls (yeah, I know – corny, dopey liberal sentiment, but it’s all I got). And oh yeah, as far as I’m concerned, the NRA has blood on its hands for this, among other gun-related atrocities in this country too numerous to mention.

Maybe this isn’t too bad of a time for those so inclined to pray for tolerance and understanding on all sides (and by the way, I’m not trying to imply any equivalency here, since we overwhelmingly have an issue with African Americans shot by police as opposed to whites). And yes, I know this is coming from someone fortunate enough to be white and living in an area where the cops leave us alone and, when they do interact with us, they treat us with respect and we try our best to reciprocate.

But trying to talk to one another is preferable to trying to shoot each other. Right?

Thursday Stuff

Even for Archbishop Chucky, this is utterly ridiculous (you can consider the following video as a response - meanwhile, the spaces in those pews on Sunday will only get bigger)...



…oh, and let’s not forget that Pat “No Corporate Tax” Toomey is still defending the Senate seat that he paid for won in 2010 – to help him fail at that task, click here…



…and this is almost too appalling for mere words from yours truly (NSFW)…



…and I give you today’s regional weather forecast.

Wednesday Stuff

It looks like “Bush’s poodle” will skate on Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iraq after all, at least for now (more here, here and here)…



...and while the apology stuff from Pope Frank is nice, it would be even better to see it followed up with substantive policy changes in Church doctrine...

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…and Thom Hartmann tells us that Sen. Elizabeth Warren has kept up the proverbial drum beat, as it were, against Comcast and other corporate miscreants ("If you want less government regulation, reduce the need for it" indeed)…



…and I’m glad to see this guy finally enjoying the fruits of newfound stardom after a lot of long, hard years.

Tuesday Stuff

(Hello, test, test – is this thing still on?...)

OK, I’m going to try and rev this up again, though I may end up doing so in fits and starts – to begin, It looks like, while I was off, the Supremes struck down Texas’s ridiculous anti-abortion law, which can only be positive and hopefully will be replicated across other states (explained by David Pakman)…



…and I could do without the Holy Spirit crack, but otherwise, kudos to Bill Maher for this “laboratories of democracy” segment of “New Rules”…



…and speaking of California, Joy Reid tells us that they, and their Dem governor, remain progressive on guns…



…and while I was out, former Elvis guitarist Scotty Moore left us – RIP (and on a related note, I’m currently reading this great book).