Friday Stuff

Hasan Piker gives us another “Breakdown,” this time on the Gropenfuhrer lying about the PR death toll (good job to link this to what victims of Florence may face – love to be wrong, but what else can we expect from the insane, treasonous individual at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?)…



…and Seth Meyers chimes in a bit also on Generalissimo Trump and his lies about the catastrophe in Puerto Rico (and we have to make that “blue wave” happen, people, which I'm sure we all know by now, right?)…



…and Kyle K. gives us a great big reason to vote these clowns out of office, tied to the reality point of view here on the deficit (GREAT analysis about the shell game on this issue played by the Repugs and their corporate media lackeys…NSFW)…



…and David Pakman tells us about the school in Georgia (of course) that has sent out consent forms asking if it’s OK to paddle students on the butt (and yes, I think it works to link this to abortion and other issues, given the notion of “strict father morality” as David discusses…and yeah, I also lean towards being horrified that a third of the parents surveyed think this is OK…what country am I living in again?)…



…and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 9/10/14 (more or less – I know I’m off by a few days with this…I miss these FAIR TV segments, to be honest…if you find yourself wondering why we seem to be engaged in wars without end, I think this segment from Janine Jackson gives you some insight; namely, skewed “reporting” gives us a skewed narrative that we want a more “muscular” response to problems around the globe…I give Richard Engel a little more credit than most other media types, but I think he was caught in a bit of hyperbole here too…oh, and the next time you hear about Bill Kristol, the man who is PERPETUALLY WRONG about just about everything, jumping on the anti-Trump bandwagon (which is the correct thing to do of course, against character you might say), remember how he, along with the late Charles Krauthammer, were probably the biggest media cheerleaders for Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iraq)…



…and here’s a nice new tune to kick-start the weekend (hopefully a DRY one for as many of us as possible).

Thursday Stuff

Sam Bee gives us our marching orders for the upcoming elections (and sorry, but I don’t know what the “one more thing” was)…



…and Robert Reich tells us how to rebuild a progressive coalition (he’s mostly dead-on with all of this even though I’m not completely sold on universal basic income, but boy, is he right about #4 in particular)…



…and I thought this was a GREAT breakdown segment from Francis Maxwell about the whole Colin Kaepernick/Nike flap with exactly the right historical context (echoing that great moment with Beto O’Rourke recently)…



…and Pap and Farron Cousins tell us that the evidence is pretty damn overwhelming at this point that fracking causes earthquakes (oh, and if you want to blame Obama for fracking, go ahead, though Pap correctly lays the blame at about 4:00 or so…but just imagine the wingnut caterwauling if Obama tried to stop it…as usual, the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves)…



…and if you’re looking for climate-related news that’s actually good, you might want to check this out…



...and happy birthday to Fiona Apple.

Wednesday Stuff (updates)

Cenk, John Iadarola and Michael Shure tell us more horror stories of our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Dictator Wannabe, this time on the “tremendously big and tremendously wet” hurricane taking dead aim on the Carolinas and Georgia (and caught taking millions from FEMA to give to ICE…why should I be surprised at this point?)…



Update 9/13/18: At a certain point, I just can’t even…

He needs to be gone. NOW. He also needs to be imprisoned. Or locked in a rubber room. Or preferably, both.

Update 9/14/18: To help victims of Florence, click here.

…and Hasan Piker gives us another “Breakdown” on the Dallas police officer who apparently killed a black man in his home for doing absolutely nothing wrong (except answering the door without a gun drawn, as that soulless harpie Dana Loesch wanted, or so she said) – sounds like Life In These United States, Part The Infinity, as Charlie Pierce might say…

…and here’s some late-breaking news: Republican tax cuts aren’t worth squat, as Farron Cousins reminds us (actually, speaking of something as true as “water is wet”…and I think Cousins means “Peter” King...oh, but only the "one percent" are supposed to have a say in campaign finance matters...speaking of $$...according to Susan Collins and NBC News, as noted here)…



…and Bart Chilton and Mollye Barrows tell us that the whole flap with Colin Kaepernick has apparently been a boon for Nike (just means that the company knows who its customers are, which is true of any successful company, really)…



…and with another 9/11 anniversary in the rear view mirror, as it were, Kyle tells us about Jon Stewart and the 9/11 first responders trying to continue their health coverage (on Shep Smith’s Fox program – NSFW)…



…and we all hope and pray for the folks in the belt of Hurricane Florence (to assist if you can, please click here) – I’ve just had this tune on my mind a bit (no message or anything), so here it is.

Tuesday Stuff

Rachel Maddow talks with Dem U.S. House Rep Jim Himes on the Gropenfuhrer trying to wreck the career of Bruce Ohr, along with many others as Himes correctly points out (individuals such as Ohr would receive a medal under the administration of anyone else except our Treasonous Orange Lunatic)…

…and by the way, Bri-Fi, you once worked for the FBI – don’t you have a desire to defend career professionals such as Ohr, Rod Rosenstein and Peter Strzok? Bueller?...



…and I don’t want to make a habit of embedding videos from Joe Scar, partly because he “rode the tire swing” with Trump too for a time, but he’s spot-on here about what the Gropenfuhrer has done except for the “defensive crouch” remark about Obama (not trying to totally absolve Number 44, but I only wish to point out all the active conflicts in which our military is involved, and Former President Hopey Changey is partly responsible for that – I don’t know how that constitutes a “defensive crouch”…it’s also funny to listen to Scarborough blame Obama for Trump, which I realize is what passes for conventional right-wing “wisdom”…God, David Ignatius is a pretentious, insufferable toad…how they can have a discussion like this and not acknowledge what we’re doing with the drone strikes around the world and restarting the nuclear arms race is darkly humorous I realize)…



…and some years, this day is less hard than others – it seems particularly difficult this year.

Monday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

Joe Scar and Nick Confessore of “the failing New York Times” talk to Dem Delaware U.S. Senator Chris Coons on The Brett Kavanaugh Utter Lies And Obfuscation Show (and #plaidshirtguy ROCKS, by the way…yeah, it should be plain by now that Generalissimo Trump wants Kavanaugh because of the Morrison decision about not limiting presidential power…typically hypocritical wingnut garbage for Kavanaugh to want to do away with a special prosecutor after he milked that grift to the max during the Clinton impeachment fiasco)…



…and Kyle of Secular Talk tells us about lawyer John Dowd telling the Gropenfuhrer not to testify before Mueller or else Number 45 will end up wearing an orange jumpsuit – oh, but it’s Obama’s fault that we’re stuck with Our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Child-President….riiiiiiight – and I share Kyle’s vision for 2020 at the moment, but we have miles to go (NSFW)…



…and Mike Papantonio and Mollye Barrows give us the latest on the PA grand jury report on the Catholic Church abuse scandal (again, from The Putin Network, but again, the reporting looks solid…and again, I take NO PLEASURE whatsoever in including this, but enough words to try and put things right, assuming that’s even possible – “actions speak louder than… - action NOW!”...stop acting like mobsters and TRY TO DO RIGHT by these people!)…



...and here is a good new song I'm including for no particular reason whatsoever (I'm not sure I've ever seen a station wagon in a video before).

Friday Stuff

Robert Reich tells us how to fight back against the Gropenfuhrer and his non-stop lies (and by the way, I’m pretty fed up at this point with media commentators of any stripe who say we should be “afraid” over all of this with Number 45 – what we should be is PISSED OFF and MOTIVATED TO VOTE in a few weeks AND MOBILIZED TO HELP OTHERS DO THE SAME)…



…and Pap and Farron Cousins tell us what kind of conditions Jeff Bezos’s employees have to deal with, to say nothing of the “goon squad” going after Bezos’s workers and anyone else who actually criticizes him – makes me feel bad every time I have to buy something from Amazon, to say nothing of reading the WaPo (and once again, I know this is from The Putin Network, but again, the reporting looks solid…and AWS is VERY profitable, by the way)…



…and kudos to Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. for this (telling us to get the hell out of the land where empires crumble), as Kyle K. tells us – I understand why Kyle is a little harsh on Nicholson, and he has a point, but at least the departing general is saying something (NSFW)…



…and it looks like we have Round 2 of Hasan Piker and screaming wingnut car guy Graham Allen, this time over Nike and Colin Kaepernick (I swear, they must be lovin’ all of the free publicity from these goofballs like Allen)…



…and I give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 9/8/16 (I watch this and I feel sick – Former President Hopey Changey believed that the voters would see Generalissimo Trump for what he is – even more timely as far as I’m concerned given this week’s mania…we keep saying how unprecedented each week is, and yeah, I think we should pretty much retire that expression, because ALL OF THIS is unprecedented…heckuva job, Trumpsters, Hillary Haters, the “Bernie or Bust” crowd and everybody who didn’t bother to vote at all…and yes, we also need full auditing of votes everywhere which we don’t have because I think a hell of a lot of people were disenfranchised, but somebody like Greg Palast would know more about that than me…and by the way, it’s totally accidental that I included this on the day when Number 44 also gave us this)…



…and happy 88th birthday to legendary jazz tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

Thursday Stuff

I know it’s not exactly an original observation to say that we’ve been in 25th Amendment territory for a little while now with Generalissimo Trump, but I would say that the events of the last day or so in particular have put a bit of an exclamation point on that…of course, don’t expect this scandalous cadre of thoroughly compromised lickspittles running our executive and legislative branches of government to do much of anything about it; if we needed more of a reminder about the importance of the November election, I would say this is it (NSFW mainly at the very end)…



…and I like Jimmy Kimmel’s theory about the author of the New York Times Op-Ed – sure would fit…



…and Cenk and Ana of TYT give Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh the treatment he deserves, but Jeff Flake to me has no guts whatsoever – he gets zero points from yours truly…



…and Farron Cousins tells us more idiocy (to say nothing of fraud) involving Repug U.S. House Rep John Culberson of TX, who blames climate change for his own corruption (the trifecta of “duuh,” apparently)…



…and RIP Burt Reynolds – I always thought this award was thoroughly deserved for “Boogie Nights”…no idea what his politics were, if he had any, and I don’t care (“The old Stradivarius plays better than the new ones.”…nice touch - and I thought this was a nice tribute)…



…and I don’t think it’s time for torches and pitchforks yet, but what do you say to a little peaceful civic disorder?

Wednesday Stuff

As Seth Meyers tells us here, it looks like The Judge Brett Kavanaugh Utter Lies And Obfuscation Show is well underway in the Senate (and I thought this comparatively late development was particularly stoo-pid) – there’s no way these proceedings should be going on in a “democracy” that wasn’t otherwise utterly bought and paid for by the one percent…in a twisted way, though, Kavanaugh is exactly what we should expect from our treasonous ruling cabal of criminals and other bottom-feeders in that he’s a thoroughly unrepentant liar (to say nothing of a lowdown piece of sh*t for this)…



…and Trevor Noah weighs in on the most recent boycotts (yeah, I think it’s hilarious to see the wingnuts burning the Nike shoes over the Colin Kaepernick ad…and for what it’s worth, I’ll only buy Nike sneakers from now on…as well as the umbrage over the Neil Armstrong film, but here’s a crazy suggestion I know…while I DEFINITELY would not have invited Steve Bannon to ANYTHING, why not just allow him to come anyway? It would be an opportunity to "rip him a new one," you might say. Yes, his positions are thoroughly wrong and indefensible and there’s NO WAY I would find myself in agreement with him, but wouldn’t our side have looked a little more mature if we’d done that instead of telling him not to show up?)

Also, I’ll admit that I’m a little biased when it comes to The New Yorker magazine, and I mean that in a good way. I’ve never read writing that comes anywhere close to the quality of their journalism, but we had to drop our subscription because it became too expensive. If you’re going to deprive yourself and not subscribe over the Bannon flap…well then, as far as I’m concerned (as somebody might have said in an earlier decade), the terrorists have already won (slightly NSFW)…



…and apparently the true cost of the Gropenfuhrer’s typically wrong-headed trade war is coming due to all of us, and it sounds like it’s about $6 billion – MAGA! MAGA! MAGA!...



…and speaking of money, I know I’ve beaten the proverbial drum over last December’s tax con job by the “party of Lincoln” in the past, and I’ll continue to do so (including this clown – to do something about it, click here)…



…and of all of the outrages from the occupant of An Oval Office, I know it’s sometimes easy to forget about Puerto Rico, though we shouldn’t of course – this by itself would typically be enough to relegate the person responsible to the electoral sewage farm at a minimum, to say nothing of actual prosecution…



…and happy belated 70th birthday to drummer Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad.

Monday Stuff

The following video gives us some background on the history of Labor Day and its violent beginning (rights were never GIVEN to us, people, without a fight)…



…and this video marked protests by fast food workers timed for the 50th anniversary of the Memphis municipal workers sanitation strike (if the national Democratic Party had any spine, a $15-an-hour minimum wage would be a plank in the party platform)…



…as noted here, though, the “fight for $15” protests have been going on for about four years (and kudos to Gov. Wolf for this – to reward good behavior, click here, and to do more, click here)…



…and this tells us about the origins of the teacher’s protests (more here), giving some insight into what it takes to carry that load in Oklahoma in particular (and I thought this was noteworthy also)…



Update: More here (and here)...

…and Robert Reich provides more background (more food for thought on this is here and here, and this, unfortunately, is sadly appropriate IMHO)….



...and here is a song for the occasion.

Friday Stuff

Rachel Maddow tells us about Generalissimo Trump canceling automatic pay raises (COLAs) for federal workers in January (don’t know if this affects anyone in PA-01 or not…what say you in response, Bri-Fi?)…

(Also, I’m not sure how I lucked out to get this video from MSNBC’s site, but I’ll take what I can get - unavailable on Chrome as usual, though...sorry.)…



…and how con-vee-nient for congressional Repugs to put together a list of all of Generalissimo Trump’s scandals that they refuse to investigate, as Lawrence O’Donnell explains (with Dem U.S. House Rep Eric Swalwell – no end to the “inside out” head games like this from the “party of Lincoln”)…



…and the first clip had to do with money matters of course, and so does this…Kyle K. discusses the Fix Noise talking heads playing up how great the economy supposedly is (and yeah, we know what that nematode Stuart Varney is also – “What’s the word ‘struggle’ really mean?” What a POS…try losing your job as a bought-and-paid-for corporate media sycophant and maybe you’ll find out – and I’m not aware of an economic slump under Clinton by the way – NSFW…)…



…and Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins talk about Monsanto trying to poison us again with Glyphosate – looks like General Mills has been sued over it (and it looks like we’d better stay away from Cheerios and baby food for awhile too)…



…and no, this definitely does not fill me with confidence about our voting machines…



…and for anybody who thinks Mike Pence would be an improvement, think again (reminds me of Greg Stillson in “The Dead Zone,” and believe me when I tell you that I want to be wrong)…



…and I’m going to try and squeeze in two final summer selections – what would this time of year be like without The Beach Boys?...



…and what would a Friday be like without Mr. S.?

Thursday Stuff

Kyle K. tells us of a drone base we’re planning to build in Niger at the expense of our crumbling infrastructure – the pic is of the bridge collapse at FIU in June that killed 4 people...and no, I assure you that I’m not trying to make a humorous point here (NSFW)…



…and Cenk and Ana comment on the latest moment of racist garbage in this country with Repug FLA gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis (and no, that remark wasn’t an accident…also, Cenk nailed it in his commentary about how DeSantis did it to generate outrage among his beloved Repug “base,” who apparently will accept any garbage foisted on them)…



…and Rachel Maddow tells us that there’s nothing to see here, just the preznit releasing secret security clearance applications by Democrats running for elective office, which happens to be illegal – not that this demented, treasonous lunatic in An Oval Office cares of course…yeah, this administration isn’t mobbed up and propped up by Putin much, is it? And of course, leave it to Mr.-Puppy-Dog-Eyes-With-The-Shiv to run with this private, personal information to attack Democrats…



Update 8/31/18: More here...

…also, Bill de Blasio and David Hogg are seeking to register young voters on “Morning Joe” (Hogg partly reinforces what Cenk Uygur said about unlikely voters)…



…and I give you the latest installment of “This Day in Doomsy History” (more or less) from 8/29/08…this may be the cheekiest selection I’ve ever made, just to let you know in advance…we quite rightly are honoring the late Sen. John McCain’s life and career of service to our country this week (here), and that’s as it should be – I had a lot of disagreements with him, but I don’t think we should lose sight of his accomplishments either…well, like all of us, he had his foibles also, some of which are noted in this clip about the “million dollar parking lot” in Arizona, as well as the time when he lost count of his houses, both of which received notoriety when he ran for president that year against his fellow U.S. Senator Barack Obama (gosh, this makes me actually nostalgic for the days when we argued about whether or not governors made better presidents than senators, as opposed to now…sigh)…



…and I dedicate this song to Ron DeSantis (and I don’t mean to impugn any simians out there by doing so).

Wednesday Stuff

I thought this was a great report by Rachel Maddow on Bruce Ohr and the cowardly, idiot Repugs in Congress going after him for working with Mueller…



…and Ana and Brett Erlich of TYT talk about the student loan ombudsman on his way out of the CFPB and taking some well-deserved shots at Mick Mulvaney as he departed…



…and here’s some reality from the CBC on the true scope of the horrific tragedy in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria (more here)…



…and Kyle discusses Duncan Hunter and the best way to get back at atrocities like him, which is to run a good candidate in opposition, and it looks like Ammar Campa Najjar may have come along at the right time…NSFW…



…and I know I’ve been leading off with Farron Cousins a few times, so I think I’d better give someone else a chance (apparently, the Gropenfuhrer is mad at Google for the search results; anyone who voted for this delusional treasonous narcissist should be made to wear something like a scarlet letter in public and beg for forgiveness)……



…and here’s another summer selection as I keep working down my list of tunes (and God, somehow this song is now 50 years old!).

Tuesday Stuff

It looks like the Gropenfuhrer was set up for a photo-op with a bunch of young kids, maybe pre-school or an early-grade elementary school, and all he had to do was color the American flag and he couldn’t even get that right – really says something about not just him but his handlers that he was able to screw up something as easy as this…



…and speaking of the kids, I noted in passing yesterday that they've started going back to school – yep, Heaven forbid that our legislators actually try to address the problem staring them in the face, though I’m sure they’ll never end up having to look down the barrel of a gun like these kids might have to…love to be wrong about that (and kudos to some of the school personnel trying to come up with creative solutions while the “party of Lincoln” continues to cower in fear of losing NRA blood money in the form of campaign donations)…



…and from the ridiculous to the even-more-ridiculous we go, with Trumpster Kelli Ward in AZ saying that John McCain timed the announcement that he was ending his cancer treatment in order to hurt her campaign – she should be disowned from anyone who would allow her to enter public life of any kind ever again, but I’m sure she won’t be (clip ends at about 2:34)…



…well, how about if I make this post a lot more uplifting and point out that today marks the 55th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (and speaking of McCain once more, I give you this in a related item)…



…and to another "blast from the past" we go…I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 8/28/11, in which FDR reminds us of the importance of Social Security, which (and make no damn mistake about this, people) the Repugs MOST DEFINITELY WILL GUT if they somehow manage to hold onto congressional power after the fall elections, with this Steve Stivers character being the latest to give away the proverbial game, as noted here – “our plain duty” indeed…



…and I’m continuing with my summer tune wrapup with this great cover, even though James drops an “F” part of the way through, just so you know.

Monday Stuff

Farron Cousins of Ring of Fire tells us what the Trumpsters might do (or not do, actually) when the walls start closing in on their hero; Cousins also tells us why he doesn’t debunk the latest conservative idiots (and speaking as someone who once had the time to do this at this site, I can definitely relate to this commentary)…



…and gee, I’m sure glad this Alabama pastor didn’t get “political” (I was waiting for this asshat to start singing “The Girl From Ipanema” or “Besame Mucho”…and no, Kyle, not all religions are like this - NSFW)…



…also, Cenk and Ana tell us about Trump’s media acolytes on TV (yeah, we know what Matt Schlapp is, as well as “Dersh”)…



…and Robert Reich tells us about congressional Repugs shielding the Gropenfuhrer, including this guy – to do something about it, click here…



…oh, and by the way, we just had another mass shooting, this time in Jacksonville, and with that in mind, Ali Velshi tells us about Florida’s ridiculous gun laws (more senseless carnage and destruction while it's time not to "politicize" the gun debate again...and yeah, also time for more “thoughts and prayers” from Lex Luthor Scott)…



…and I know I need to keep working on my summer tunes – kind of a drag to still be doing this while kids are going back to school, I know.

Saturday Stuff

Like many others, I had a lot of disagreements with U.S. Senator John McCain (here), but among his many notable accomplishments, he saved the Affordable Care Law (at least for the time being, despite the garbage being perpetrated against it by Generalissimo Trump and his band of lapdog congressional Republicans). As noted in the clip below, he also spoke out eloquently against torture (with a perspective on this unique to anyone else in public life), and he also worked on campaign finance reform with former Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold.

Oh, and somehow I’m sure you will NEVER, EVER hear a Republican candidate for president or anything else speak so eloquently against his Democratic opponent (again, as noted in the clip) – RIP…



…and Kyle K. tells us about more Drudgico BS about how the Dems should continue looking for that mythical centrist “middle” and stay away from Medicare for All – oh really? How about a 70 percent approval for something that is supposedly unpopular, as noted here (NSFW)?...



…and yes, I’ll admit that these are words and not actions, but coming from Pope Francis, I believe the words matter, though yes, there needs to be more follow-up (on the abuse scandal and the PA grand jury report of course)…



…and in addition to John McCain, RIP to guitarist Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd (the subject of another great Showtime documentary).

Friday Stuff

Robert Reich presents some recommendations for our corporate courtier media when covering Generalissimo Trump (yeah, good luck with that, I know, but kudos to Reich for speaking out on this and other matters of course)…



…and speaking of the “fourth estate,” Kyle responds to Jake Tapper on Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “Medicare For All” (NSFW – I think Kyle goes off the rails a bit especially at the end…I have no problem with showing some respect to John McCain which I alluded to in previous posts…but Kyle is absolutely right about Tapper’s ridiculous framing of the discussion about health care spending, along with NOBODY pointing out how STOO-PID it is for us to keep spending on defense as we do while our infrastructure continues to crumble)…



…and Farron Cousins sez that Rudy! was on the receiving end of a screaming match from the Gropenfuhrer about Uday Jr. and his involvement in all of the Trumpian criminality since America’s Mayor didn’t take the AG job instead of “immunity gnome” Jeff Sessions, with Trump thinking that Jr. would have “skated” with Rudy instead – everybody got that? (GREAT point at the end by Cousins that, if our Tiny Handed, Orange Lunatic had just decided not to run for president, he would have been a whole lot better off)…



…and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us that the current resident of An Oval Office is apparently warming to the idea of putting Erik Prince in charge of the Afghan War, which, let’s not forget, is still going on (and I’m not going to say what my reaction would be to a Dem saying the garbage Prince said - US military was “a litany of death and failure,” huh? Not really a privatization, but a rationalization, huh? – because I honestly think no Dem would have said anything that horrific)…sure, watch the Repugs privatize the profit and socialize the risk as usual…what could go wrong?)…



…and Hasan Piker does his best to debunk more wingnut horror stories of alleged white genocide (and, if it has anything whatsoever to do with perceived white oppression, you can be sure that Tucker Carlson is ALL OVER IT, PEOPLE!)…



…and yes, I know this story comes from The Putin Network and he’s only too happy to win propaganda points against us, but again, the reporting looks pretty solid (on the subject of the US prison inmate strike)…



…and I couldn’t let the week come to an end politically without including this clip from Dem Texas U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke answering a question about the NFL protests – yep, he hit a walk off grand slam, as it were, as far as I’m concerned (for God’s sake, Texas, PLEEEEEAAAASSSEEE vote him in and send Ted Cruz packing!)…

…and tomorrow marks what would have been the 100th birthday of legendary American pianist and composer Leonard Bernstein – I think this is an appropriate tribute from “West Side Story,” which he was integrally involved with along with Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (proof once more that art transcends boundaries including language).

Thursday Stuff

Farron Cousins reminds us that, as far as deficit “hawks” are concerned, the red ink only matters when Democrats are in charge, because of course their ultimate goal is unending tax cuts for the 1 percent, war without end and gutting the social safety net…



…which is the perfect transition to this item about Bri-Fi in PA-01 (and by the way, the latest Repug garbage in Bucks County, where political campaigns are supposed to be “honorable” according to that conservative mouthpiece masquerading as an almost-daily newspaper, is that you can’t trust Scott Wallace around kids – I didn’t think this gang would EVER go any lower than questioning former rep Patrick Murphy’s military service or one-time candidate Ginny Schrader’s support for Israel given her Jewish husband, but it shows how wrong you can be I guess – I had more to say about this here)…



…and all Congressional Repugs are bad as far as I’m concerned, but some have endorsed our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Wannabe Dictator more than others, and Lou Barletta is “all in,” you might say – to help Bob Casey, click here…



…and I’ve devoted space here defending Nancy Pelosi’s admittedly fine record of legislative accomplishment when she was House Speaker, but she just stuck a pin in that metaphorical balloon by totally caving on the question of impeaching the Gropenfuhrer with her utterly lame answer to that question, as Cenk and Ana tell us (referencing the 1999 clip of Huckleberry Graham in high dudgeon over Number 42 – and I couldn’t tell you anything about the Joe Crowley story...also, I’m not 100 percent certain of this, but I believe Lawrence O’Donnell was the one who unearthed the Graham clip – if so, kudos to him)…



…and wow, it looks like Walking Clothing Allowance (as Charlie Pierce calls her) sure is outraged about the admittedly tragic murder of Mollie Tibbetts, and of course it's all the fault of dastardly libs like yours truly (oh, and about the suspect being “illegal,” I give you this - more Tomi Lahren hilarity is here)…



...and here's another summer selection, as I work my way down the list on the way to Labor Day (trying not to think about it...)

Wednesday Stuff

Welcome to the GOP “Grand Old Crime Blotter” post…to begin, Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen flipping on his former boss and implicating the Gropenfuhrer for authorizing a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels (again, if this were a Dem, this person would have been tried, impeached and sentenced to prison by now, with our corporate media and everyone else wringing their hands about how awful it is, and it would be that…but isn’t it great for ratings too??!!)…



…and next, Ali Velshi tells us about the Paul Manafort convictions (not sure why we need a damn split screen with 7 people, but Velshi is right of course when he says in essence that, in a normal world, people would resign over this, though of course we’re not IN a “normal” world, even though this doesn’t directly tie Generalissimo Trump to Russia…yet)…



…and I’ll bet Repug U.S. House Rep Duncan Hunter is thinking that he’s one lucky SOB given that the indictment of both he and his wife for misuse of campaign funds wasn’t even the biggest news story yesterday (and as noted here in an update, Hunter bought a pair of Hawaii shorts and said later to claim them as golf balls for the Wounded Warrior Project…nice)…



Update 8/23/18: Way too damn funny - pass the popcorn...

…and Farron Cousins tells us about Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Rogers of Alabama, who, as it turns out, was the one really behind all of the recent “Space Force” idiocy…



…and Mike Malloy wonders what it would take to get Trump out (Don’t we all at this point?), as well as the little 6-year-old boy in dreadlocks showing up at the “Christian” school who was apparently turned away (very NSFW)…



…and I’m not sure that I’ve ever included this summer song before, or at least this version of it – hope you like it (from '65, I believe).

Tuesday Stuff

I wish I could agree with the sentiment that the PA election for governor is “over” (and in favor of the Dem incumbent Tom Wolf, I hasten to add), but I know it definitely isn’t, and I was reminded of that when I heard about this from our fat-headed Repug nominee, as well as this – in response, to help Wolf, click here…



Update 8/22/18: Yep, Wagner and Lou Barletta are each doing their best (worst?) to see who can "out-Trump" the other (here).

…and Chris Hayes discusses the remark about Don McGahn supposedly being a “rat” (takes one to know one, doesn’t it, Generalissimo Trump?) – and yeah, before we consider McGahn to be such a supposedly heroic figure (with McGahn doing all this because he doesn’t want to end up “in the slam,” let’s not forget), let’s also think about all of the radical right nut jobs McGahn is helping to put on our courts, to say nothing of his role to try and get Brett Kavanaugh to join The Supremes – the clip from “The Sopranos” is the perfect context, by the way…



…and Mike Papantonio tells us that the potential merger between Tribune Media and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group won’t go through – womp womp (yes, this is more from The Putin Network, but the reporting looks pretty solid to me)…



...and I know I'm falling behind on my summer tunes again - here is a bit of a "guilty pleasure" I guess (may have to crank the volume a bit).

Monday Stuff

I cannot even imagine what future generations will think of this time of utter madness in our political discourse, which, as Farron Cousins describes, has degenerated into a lower farce than I could have ever predicted (more here)…



…and I know of course that, when we’re talking about our Treasonous Orange Dictator, we’re talking about someone who’s pretty damn far from any semblance of rationality, but I thought this was a particularly stupid moment even for him recently (and yeah, naming the defense authorization bill after John McCain is a bit much I’ll admit, but of course leave it to the Gropenfuhrer to flub even THAT attempt at a tribute to someone who actually deserves it as far as I’m concerned)…



…and I’m going to try and make the subject matter of this post a hell of a lot more honorable and decent by now paying tribute for former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – RIP…



…and staying with world stuff, I would say that this Danish politician gave a pretty good “clap back” to Fix Noise humanoid Trish Regan, who happened to be completely and utterly wrong about Denmark…



…and Bill Maher’s comments on the Catholic Church and last week’s horrific PA grand jury report were typically idiotic and ridiculous (yes, we get it that you think religion is a phony product, and the comparison to Jiffy Lube doesn’t even merit a response – let’s move on), but I think Jennifer Granholm, the Axios reporter and (shockingly) Charlie Sykes were correct, though we could do without the enema reference…Sykes is right, though, that this is a “reformation” moment for sure…and this is positive, but the time for words is over – only action now…and by the way, Maher was also complaining that Dems and their spokespeople or whatever aren’t on the cable news shows the way Rudy 9iu11ani is concerning Trump, Russia and Mueller, to which I have at least two responses: 1) Have you seen MSNBC lately, though I’ll grant you the point that that network definitely is not “liberal,” and 2) If “America’s Mayor” is going to make this much of an ass of himself, isn’t it best to stay the hell out of his way?…



(And this is why it is hard for anyone to believe that the Church will EVER clean up their own wretched mess, to say nothing of this…if the priests were all gay, they would just date each other and that would be that, you assclown.)

…and I was happy to hear about this from The Eagles (the band, that is, not our Super Bowl champs – ahhhh, it never gets old), which gives me an excuse for this great selection from their top-rated recording.