So, in addition to being an idiot conservative U.S. Senate Republican, #RussianRonJohnson of Wisconsin is also a traitor to our country (as noted here, though, he has a lot of dishonorable company...click here to do something about RoJo)...
...and this clip from the German TV service DW features Canadian journalist Olha Klymenko (heroically taking care of her father) talking about the Russian shelling around Mariupol, which has become pretty much a hellscape thanks to Vlad The Butcher...
...and Chris Hayes discusses the speech from Arnold Schwarzenegger talking mainly to Russians and soldiers from that country – definitely helpful, and props to him for his effort...
...and Ana and Cenk of TYT discuss Putin’s latest twisted speech on the war...lots of good commentary here IMO including the four scenarios mentioned at the end, and the last one especially is indeed the stuff of nightmares...
...and Ari Melber “brings the receipts” on conservatives now trying to “walk back” their past praise of Vlad The Butcher (repeating the clip of the dead Ukraine bodies in the hospital basement from the DW segment I know)...
...and RIP one-hit wonder Timmy Thomas, singing a song with a title that is pretty much universal, especially now.
Farron Cousins tells us that Mango Mussolini egged on his great unwashed followers in South Carolina (kindred spirits with the woman in the pic I’m sure) to lay down and die over critical race theory...yep, every bit as cringingly stoo-pid as it sounds (along with the fact that he’ll be hiding in his limo nursing a McRib and a Coke while these life forms stage more violence...I’ve been putting off including anything on this for the whole week, but I guess I can’t avoid it anymore)...
...and continuing with the category of wingnut misbehavior, I give you this from More Perfect Union about activists banning books and doxing teachers in Texas (nice – kudos to the kids starting the banned book club, which should be a shame on those trying to restrict the kids from learning about the world, assuming those culprits were capable of understanding shame)...
...and I thought this was a GREAT report from Chris Hayes on how the Syrian refugee crisis started by Putin of course set off an immigration crisis which fueled a right-wing backlash in Europe and the UK, with that scenario from Syria getting played out again in Ukraine, tragically...
...and I think Beau once again nailed it here on the topic of Putin eventually having to deal with “hit and run” unconventional warfare, potentially within Russia’s borders (though I’m sure we don’t want to see that against any more innocent civilians than have been harmed already, with Ukraine staging the sort of attacks our military faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as Beau says, when you take everything from a people getting attacked, what other way can they fight back?) ...
...and Ben Carollo discusses the windfall tax bill on oil companies proposed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna...
...and John and Francesca talk about “Curtsy Kyrsten” losing support from Democratic backers, but they’re absolutely right in that Sinema has made the calculation that her new friends in the “party of Lincoln” will come and bail her out...will she be right? Dear God, I hope not – she’s absolutely toxic to her Dem base at this point...she may make it running as an independent, but if she thinks she’s going to make it running as a Republican, she’s more naïve and idiotic than I imagined...
...and I know I’m just a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but I have to admit that I screwed up by failing to note the passing of one time PA Dem U.S. Senatorial candidate Lynn Yeakel in January (she ran against “Snarlin’ Arlen” Specter before he became a Dem again...we’ll have to see if Sinema follows the Specter playbook on that, switching parties I mean...more here)...
...also, this week marked the 75th birthday of guitar legend Ry Cooder...I guess I could do a few different things to commemorate that, but I decided to put up this clip of Little Village for the occasion (in which Cooder performed with Jim Keltner, Nick Lowe, and John Hiatt...I think he has a performance this May in San Francisco).
Ari Melber brings us new information on the 1/6 insurrection indicating that there was more close coordination with some of these right-wing groups and Ginni Thomas than first reported (imagine that), with her husband Almost Silent Clarence Thomas as the sole SCOTUS vote in favor of Mango Mussolini and his attempt to hide White House records from the investigation into that treasonous episode (Melber speaks with attorney Joyce Vance)...
Update 3/25/22: Keep digging that hole, Mrs. Thomas (here).
...and turning to the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine, Jordan Uhl of Rebel HQ discusses Fix Noise cheerleading for MOOAARRR WAAAARRRR (and Dems would "cut and run"...typical for The Roger Ailes BS Factory) telling young people in this country that they need to fight it for the boomers pretty much (and yeah, it figures that that pusillanimous meat sack Marc Thiessen is right in the middle of this mess)...
...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about Sherrod Brown giving it to Joe Manchin in a tweet over Manchin sinking Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination for the Federal Reserve because she supports clean energy (more here)...
...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less), a repeat segment originally from 3/16/12, which is a reminder of what Not Your Father’s Republican Party thinks of women voters...
...and with the prior video in mind, Ana and Cenk tell us that Idaho has passed its own anti-abortion bill, enabling family members to go after ANYONE who had anything to do with the abortion including the health care provider of course...requires women to get a police report and provide it to their abortion provider...God freaking almighty (more here and here...I haven’t seen Ana this pissed in a long time, and is she ever right...I knew child care was expensive, but boy, has the cost gone up in recent years...and the person they referred to at the end is this loser)...
...and happy St. Patrick’s Day – may the road rise up to meet you, and that goes for all of those other good wishes too.
Ali Velshi, sitting in for Rachel Maddow (and commendably reporting on the ground in the vicinity of Ukraine – hope he and everyone manages to stay as safe as possible) speaks with Ben Collins about the sources of the garbage about the alleged Ukrainian bioweapons...I know I touched on this business earlier, but we need to keep refuting this stuff apparently...
...and I share nothing whatsoever politically with outgoing Repug U.S. House Rep Adam Kinzinger, except to say that he’s 100% correct to go after the criminals involved in the 1/6 insurrection (along with Liz Cheney, and that definitely applies to her also...probably more so), but Kinzinger makes one of the best arguments I’ve ever heard for not giving “Tuckums” the benefit of the time of day, especially given Carlson’s most recent treasonous garbage (and I agree with Ro Khanna on a lot, and I understand his point of view, but despite what he says, I wouldn’t give a forum to those Fix Noise bastards either)...Brian Tyler Cohen explains...
...and David Doel tells us about the brave Russian woman who protested the war on TV (more here)...I honestly hope she doesn’t end up in a black hole somewhere deprived of just about everything she needs to live, but given what Putin has become, I wouldn’t put it past him (actually, he’s really been a monster all this time, but a succession of U.S. presidents and congresses were too busy playing patty cake with him to properly pay attention)...
...because, as Don Winslow reminds us, Putin has been lying all along (gee, a head of state telling nothing but lies - why does that sound familiar?)...
...and I’m a little behind on my Second Thought videos, and this one has to do with Why Liberalism Won’t Solve Anything (uh oh; NOW he’s getting personal...just kidding...and I LOVE the activism he discusses at about 10:20, though I honestly part with his discussion about third parties, since I think they’ve been used as trojan horses mainly but not totally by the red team...Jill Stein, anyone?)...
...and if there’s one artist whose music I’ve pretty much ignored on this site (there are a few I know), it’s Dolly Parton...this has nothing whatsoever to do with her personally (she’s truly a hero as far as I’m concerned, and another reason why I feel that way will be presented in a moment), but it has more to do with the fact that I’m pretty selective when it comes to country music...I respect the artists who go WAY back since I think they were trailblazers, but I could do without the vast majority of them now because I think the music all sounds the same, as well as for all of their triumphalist garbage most notoriously during the awful Bush/Cheney years...anyway, as noted here, Parton turned down a nomination to the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame for a really classy reason, and I think that deserves a tune in her honor.
Trae Crowder gives us the latest on the wingnut umbrage over Biden and gas prices...OK, I’ll try this one more time...1) Inflation and high prices are an issue ALL OVER THE WORLD because of corporate greed and restarting the global supply chain after COVID, 2) NO PRESIDENT can control the price of gas, and 3) There are so many capped wells in this country that have already been approved for exploration by our dirty energy criminals that they could use them instead to increase supply and lower gas prices, but the people who could do that won’t because they’re making too much goddamn money and have no desire whatsoever to cut us all a break (NSFW/H)...
...and speaking of anti-Biden BS, Thom Hartmann tells us about the Top 4 Lies about #46 promoted by Fix Noise...
...and this clip from DW German TV tells us that Japan has joined the fray against Russia in a revived dispute over the Kuril Islands...it would almost be comical to see Putin sitting as far away as he is at that table, though of course there’s nothing even remotely amusing about what’s transpired because of his actions, which befit the demonic dictator he has become...
...and this clip from Really American reminds us of those Republican U.S. senators who visited Moscow on July 4th, 2018 and were never called to account for it...
...and Adrienne Lawrence of Rebel HQ discusses the racist attacks of The Swanson TV Dinner Heir against Biden SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, leading into other clips including the fight between the two kids in that Bridgewater, NJ mall and all the “CRT” BS refuted by Brett Erlich and Jackson White...
...and I don’t think I’ve had a “relationship” tune here for a little while, so please allow me to add this – yeah, whenever I break up with someone, the best thing to do is lie down in a creek by the woods by myself and take a nap...what could go wrong?
Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us about the Inspector General’s report on how the Department of Homeland Security dropped the proverbial ball on information sharing on intelligence prior to the 1/6 treasonous insurrection (and yeah, the T-shirts displayed by the characters in the pic is pretty damn treasonous as far as I’m concerned..."if the U.N. comes in here" - you're livin' out where the buses don't run, dude)...
...and Ari Melber interviews former UN ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul about Fix Noise amplifying claims (wrong, of course) from the Kremlin about Ukraine having a bioweapons lab (good for Melber cutting to the proverbial chase at about 6:20)...
Update: And right on cue, along comes "Tokyo Rose" Gabbard (here).
...and McFaul was spot-on in the prior clip, but as David Doel tells us here, McFaul also basically made the recent ridiculous claim that Hitler didn’t kill German-speaking people (an update is here - yes, McFaul was wrong and admitted he was wrong, and he really should say nothing further on this topic except “oops” and get out, but here’s what gets me about this...someone like McFaul who is basically a pretty solid source slips on the metaphorical banana peel ONCE and it’s FREAKING OPEN SEASON on the guy (and as soon as you see a row of tweets in response starting with Mike Cernovich, you can rest assured that the wingnut outrage party is now underway), but on the other hand, the wingnutosphere runs wild with their nonsense on a routine basis, gets called out, and then does nothing but yell louder and double down, and there’s nothing even remotely comparable in terms of the outrage (yes, our side is supposed to be better, but there’s a double standard at work here for sure)...and I realize that McFaul said this on The Rachel Maddow Show, but for Maddow to be trending is beyond absurd since she basically is on leave for her book/movie project and has nothing to do with this (though she does pop up from time to time to be fair)...
...and John and Francesca analyze the SCOTUS basically saying that our government won’t be accountable for torture sites and in particular for their actions in the case of Abu Zubaydah (shocking that Gorsuch is on the right side of this issue along with Sotomayor...once more, some of the very worst excesses of the rotten Bushco years are going to get the “memory hole” treatment)...
...and RIP William Hurt...he’ll be remembered rightly so for The Big Chill, Broadcast News, Body Heat, Children of a Lesser God and a slew of other pictures (including what I thought was a courageous Oscar-winning performance in “Kiss Of The Spider Woman,” as well as playing former Bushie Henry Paulson in that movie based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, which I thought was a bit of revisionist history...not Hurt’s fault though), but I have to admit that an underrated performance of his (in my mind, anyway) was in “The Accidental Tourist” (featured in this clip) and that goes for Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis also (Davis won the Best Supporting Actress award for her “Tourist” performance, which I thought was another Oscar “makeup” call, as in an award that an actor should have gotten for a prior performance...Davis was OK in “Tourist,” but she REALLY should have gotten it for “The Fly”)...
...and I hope everyone was able to make the adjustment to daylight savings time in these parts – I’m still working on that to be honest.
John and David Shuster of The Damage Report tell us about some lady (using the term loosely) in that trucking protest around D.C. saying she didn’t want to be “digitiled” (???) and that other loopy guy who’s protesting because??...
Update: If any of those knuckleheads mess up the 911 response system by stupidly flooding it and someone dies as a result (hopefully not of course), then the person responsible should be prosecuted for manslaughter (here).
..and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about Vlad The Butcher bombing a children’s hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine...so many levels of despicable that it’s hard to capture them all...
...and I thought this was an interesting clip of CBC correspondent Andrew Chang interviewing foreign affairs correspondent Brian Stewart on Ukraine’s military resiliency, to say nothing of the resiliency of its people overall...
...and Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us about Ukrainian forces lighting up a Russian tank column (and in addition to his thoroughly numerous other faults, it’s surprising in no way that Jimmy Dore is an apologist for Vlad The Butcher)...
...and David Doel discusses Biden’s decision not to import Russian oil (good point about the price gouging that’s of course still raging unabated in our economy and potential ripple effects vs. Russia as Doel explains – interesting note about gas prices being $5 a gallon under Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, and to be fair, there wasn’t much George W. Bush could do about that either, though I definitely don’t remember people losing their minds over that issue then as they are now...gee, I wonder what could be different about that...and good points by Ilhan Omar against our “dear friends” the Saudis and their slaughter against Yemen (here), as well as the fact that we should have been investing in renewables to a hell of a greater degree than we have already as Doel says)...
...and speaking of cruelty to kids, Emma Vigland of The Majority Report tells us that Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao wants to block federal waivers that offer universal free school lunches during the pandemic...yep, #MoscowMitch strikes again (more on that death eater from Kentucky and his caucus of Russian quislings is here)...
...and I thought this was an unusually good local news report, this one from Ch. 10 in Tampa Bay, about FLA Guv #DeathSantis getting a bill passed to “police” elections and basically discourage Democratic voters – the clip also looks at states that not only have stupidly restrictive voting access, but others that have expanded people’s ability to exercise their franchise (and I realize they have to have a clip of a lying Republican for “balance,” so as a counter point with the reality-based perspective, I offer this...what an insufferably smug a-hole #DeathSantis is)...
...and when it comes to artists boycotting Spotify (remember that?), I know I haven’t included anything from Joni Mitchell for a little while, so I’d like to make up for that with a couple of her tunes from “back in the day” (yep, I watched Dick Cavett many moons ago).
Chris Hayes gives us a history lesson on the cost of relying on corrupt regimes for energy (with clips of pretty much every prior president speaking on this going back to Nixon, including The Sainted Ronnie R, who idiotically got rid of the solar panels Jimmy Carter wisely installed at the White House...the person Hayes ended up interviewing was Dem U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who is pretty damn knowledgeable on the subject of renewable energy...and Biden has banned importing Russian oil as noted here)...
...and that’s probably a good lead-in to this DW report on the Russian military apparently targeting civilians – bastards...also, volunteers are coming from all over the place to help Ukraine, to their eternal credit...security analyst Ed Arnold is interviewed once again...
...and John and Francesca talk about Generalissimo Trump cheering on war between Russia and China (labeling U.S. military planes as if they’re from China, then those planes bomb Russia, then Russia and China go at it and won’t that supposedly be great...unbelievable – yeah, as if that isn’t one of the first things Russia and China already figured out...Francesca makes a lot of good points particularly in the last minute...84 freaking minutes of that numbskull??)...
...and Farron Cousins tells us about the “mighty rodent” in FLA contributing to politicians behind the “don’t say gay” bill...scurrilous monsters supporting that awful legislation – related links are here, here, here, and here...and I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that there’s a bit of an intersection between people supporting awful bills like these and the anti-mask crowd as noted here...
...and with the prior clip in mind, I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 3/6/17, in which former Texas sports commentator Dale Hansen (who I believe has since retired) speaks out in defense of trans athlete Mack Beggs – definitely something to keep in mind in light of this...
...and this is probably one of the best clips I’ve seen in awhile on the subject of taxation from Ben Carollo of Rebel HQ (an unidentified guy on TikTok does a good job of blowing up some wingnut talking points on this subject) – I have to admit that I was skeeved out a little at the end, but that’s my problem and I have to get over it (re, the prior two clips)...
...and returning to what I guess you could call more traditional gender roles, Ana of TYT tells us about Joe Manchin joining Repugs to block a Senate bill that would codify Roe (and no, I don’t let Bob Casey off the hook here either; even though the political calculation made that a smart move for an important base constituency for Casey, it was still a crappy move for all the other reasons...I wish I could get mad at Anna for her summing up at the end, but in good conscience I really can’t)...
Mehdi Hasan speaks with Oxana Shevel, president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies; they discuss Vlad the Butcher of course and the war in Ukraine (echoing earlier clips about Putin refusing to tolerate the presence of a democracy on his border...and this is another typically disgusting move)...
...ang Joy Reid talks with Prof. Nina Khrushcheva and former Russian U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul on the ways Putin is clamping down on social media and messaging overall in Russia concerning the Ukraine war (along with companies pulling out of that country...also, Reid plays the video of that captured Russian soldier at the end; the full clip is roughly about 10 minutes, and it is indeed very powerful)...
...and this is probably the most topical video Second Thought has ever produced, and it’s about Putin and Ukraine of course (definitely can do without Johnny Harris, I must say...the real payoff, such as it is, comes at about 17:00, discussing the conditions that brought us to Putin)...
...and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us that “Blow ‘Em Up” Bolton recently said that Trump would have taken the U.S. out of NATO if he’d had a second term...I think Bolton is a scumbag, but sadly, this remark makes sense (and regarding that typical Trump lie about Obama and blankets, I give you this)...
...and Jayar Jackson and Rick Strom tell us about this KY Repug idiot named Danny Bentley over RU-486 talking about Jewish women and cancer...yeah, a real Darwin award winner here (more here)...
...and happy International Women's Day (more here).
I don’t know much about the makers of this clip, made by a bunch who call themselves the Republican Accountability Project, but it’s pretty damn good (would that, y’know, the Democrats had the spine to do something like this)...
...and it looks like The Daily Show has discovered the drug suddenly used by everyone in the “party of Lincoln”...
...and Ayman Mohyeldin, sitting in for Rachel Maddow, tells us about the last independent TV channel in Russia that was forced to shut down...figures (interview with Tikhon Dzyadko, editor-in-chief of TV Rain)...
...and Lawrence O’Donnell gives us a bit of a history lesson on the Cold War (including the “daisy ad”...I basically don’t have an issue with O’Donnell and I think he’s generally spot-on, and once in a while he “hits it out of the park,” and I think he does that again here)...
...and Beau gives us the latest on Huckleberry Graham’s remarks that probably will get a lot of play in Russia (calling for the oligarchs to “off” Vlad The Butcher...how many ways of duuuh! to count here...not sure I can recall the last time I saw Beau so genuinely disgusted, and for damn good reason)...
...and Cenk and Ana of TYT discuss Pat Robertson’s particularly bonkers take on Putin supposedly “on a mission from God,” or something, trying to hasten the “end times” (kudos to Cenk for his “take no prisoners” commentary on this)...
...and returning to matters affecting this country, this clip from More Perfect Union describes UPS workers getting hurt on the job and apparently getting forced back to work (and dishonorable mentions go out to Concentra and Liberty Mutual, who apparently work with UPS to force workers back onto the job when they’re not ready)...
...and here’s another Nils Lofgren tune with this in mind.
#Happy Curtsy Day! Yeah, today marks the one-year anniversary of this incredibly tone-deaf action from Arizona’s U.S. senatorial mistake (here)...
...and David Doel discusses Elie Mystal’s appearance on The View partly in response to Biden’s State of the Union address (and yeah, this is another example of Dems having to try and educate voters and not fall into the conservative BS narratives related to the most newsworthy issues...we actually used to have the Constitution amended on a fairly frequent basis until the ruinous right-wing ascendancy pretty much captured our government...and I have a feeling that tweet from Michael Ian Black was meant to be tongue-in-cheek)...
...and John and Viviana Vigil of The Damage Report tell us about Texas and Greg Abbott going after parents of trans kids, saying that those kids receiving gender-affirming treatment are victims of child abuse (but oh, the Repugs are against “big gumint”...yeah, tell me another one...the ACLU is fighting back to their credit)...
...and with all of the stories out there on corporate pricing driving inflation as noted here (and the “I” word, by the way, is an issue all over the world as we get restarted post-COVID...and hopefully we’re done with variants), I thought it would be a good idea to bring us a bit of a history lesson; President Kennedy spoke out against U.S. Steel when they pulled a similar trick just about 60 years ago as noted in this clip (sorry the video quality is a little off - more here)...
...and Chris Hayes brings us a history lesson on how we got to where we currently are regarding Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, including the three “prongs,” if you will, from Putin that he was able to apply successfully (including the not-insignificant role played by Paul Manafort and his own odious political history)...
...and the German network DW brings us “Conflict Zone” with Sarah Kelly, on the matter of Vlad The Butcher potentially extending his deadly incursion from Ukraine to Poland and the Baltic states (with Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks)...
...and while Vlad The Butcher continues waging war, this tune has remained very much on my mind (for this reason also - more here).
This report from the German news service DW on Russia’s Ukraine war gives us the latest on that horrific conflict over the last week, which includes the U.N. vote against Vlad The Butcher, with security analyst Ed Arnold and commentator Giulia Saudelli...and yeah, smooth move by Putin to arrest children protesting the war with flowers...
Update 3/5/22: And oh yeah, regarding the trucking convoy apparently coming to a neighborhood near you, I thought this was telling.
...and David Pakman tells us that Putin in now guilty of war crimes, including (allegedly) bombing a kindergarten and an orphanage...God almighty...gee, I wish Dubya, among others, had seen this coming when he allegedly looked into Putin’s soul...what a goddamn sick joke that was...
...and returning to domestic matters, Cenk, Ana and John of TYT discuss the progressive response from Dem Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this week – sounds like Tlaib hit all of the right notes (and we need to make that point about corporate greed and inflation over and over and over again)...
...and Robert Reich does that here also in another great video...
...and fortunately that CPAC freak show is history, but I thought Beau had yet another good take on it, giving it the brief, incisive attention it deserves (not a lot to be taken seriously from it as far as I’m concerned...let those frothing idiots go nuts, have at it and leave sane people alone, OK, though I think his point about Mango Mussolini’s 11-point dip is worth noting)...
...and Adrienne Lawrence Esq. of Rebel HQ tells us about Repug U.S. House wingnut Van Taylor, who was caught in an affair with a jihadist and won’t seek re-election (womp womp)...
...and David Doel tells us about Florida students protesting the “Don’t Say Gay” bill from Guv #DeathSantis (and the leader of the protest was suspended – of course it was stoo-pid to do that, the suspension I mean, but kudos to him for his courage - more here)...
...and despite it all, I’m going to see if I can make things a little more upbeat with this tune as the week nears a close.
Cenk, John and Francesca of TYT discuss the State of the Union address from President Biden last night – lots of what I’m sure is excellent analysis...and no, I didn’t watch the SOTU from Biden, just like I didn’t watch it from Generalissimo Trump and Obama – I think I soured on all of it pretty much after Dubya’s 2003 address, which was one of the most grotesque examples of wall-to-wall lies I’ve ever seen in my life...I care about how political stuff affects people’s everyday lives, and as far as I’m concerned, the SOTU is theatrics regardless of who’s giving the speech (though apparently Little Miss Trailer Trash from Colorado and that lunatic from Georgia outdid themselves, as evidenced by the pic and noted here) – I’ve read people on the Twitterz saying “oh, Biden needed to give the speech of his life, and he didn’t.”
It’s...a...freaking...speech...people!...
...and as usual, Beau had what appears to be a thoughtful take on the speech, as well as a commentary on Russia’s performance (mistakes) in Ukraine and NATO’s upper hand (more on the story of Highway 80 in Iraq is here - more on the Russia/Ukraine war will follow shortly)...
...however, I also need to mention that FLA Guv Ron #DeathSantis, being the punk and coward that he is, decided to harass high school students who quite sensibly were masked (and that goes for that POS aide of #DeathSantis who thought the whole thing was funny - I think the women were just laughing nervously)...gee, what a sterling example of GOP manhood Florida’s gubernatorial mistake is, he being the guy who also sent state troopers to the house of Rebekah Jones to intimidate her and her family all because she was trying to report on actual COVID numbers as opposed to the made-up ones from #DeathSantis (here)...and believe it or not, as noted here, embarrassing the students wasn’t even the worst thing #DeathSantis did - easy to talk smack about another country when you're safely ensconed hundreds of miles away...
...and this Now This clip notes that some reporters and commentators are getting blow back for pointing out that many Ukrainians trying to flee are white and Christian...I think they’re trying to point out the similarities of Ukrainians to much of their viewing audience, but of course it gives short shrift to war victims such as those in Yemen and Syria, to say nothing of the Palestinians of course, and to say nothing of black Ukrainians also – makes me wonder about the priorities of news organizations that actually DON’T report on other Middle Eastern conflicts the way I think they should – if I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring...
...and Sam, Emma and Matt Duss of The Majority Report talk about the Ukrainian journalist who confronted UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as noted here (and Emma correctly points out that establishing a no-fly zone is a declaration of war against a country with a dangerously unhinged leader WHO HAS FREAKING NUKES! Yes, it’s terrible what Ukrainians are facing, especially women and children, and I don’t have an answer for that unfortunately, but we have no choice but to take the long view, as the panelists point out)...
...and for those who think it’s up to us on Team “D” to somehow find a way to achieve some common ground with these lunatics from the GQP, Farron Cousins tells us that half of Trump voters polled think Putin is a better leader for Russia than Biden is for this country – traitorous assholes...
Update 3/4/22: Yeah, this sure figures, doesn't it?
...and in a bit of unequivocal good news, David Doel tells us about Biden’s SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Stephen Breyer...stomach-churning to imagine all the ways the “party of Lincoln” (along with Manchinema of course...yeah, I know what they’ve said, but I don’t trust them as far as I can pee) will do their best to turn her hearings into a thinly-veiled-racist smear job even though Jackson has been confirmed three times for lower court positions by the U.S. Senate...
Update: And of course, it begins with The Swanson TV Dinner Heir (here).
...and we recently observed the 40th anniversary of the release of “Swing To The Right” by Todd Rundgren and Utopia (2/24/82), a recording that was prescient in a few ways IMHO...that applies to this tune maybe more than any of the others (with the title being a nod to this, let's not forget).
This report from the German news service DW tells us, among other things, that that country has agreed to a major arms delivery to the war-besieged-by-Putin country of Ukraine, with interviews with correspondent Thomas Sparrow, on-the-ground-in-Ukraine aid worker Darya Romanenko, journalist Igor Kossov, analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, Monika Sieradzka, and Joung-ha Ghedini-Williams of UNHCR...
...and Ali Velshi discussed a claim that Putin thought Russia would be welcomed with open arms in their Ukraine incursion (some Cheney-esque hubris going on apparently, thinking the Russians would be “greeted as liberators” by the Ukrainians...with correspondent Erin McLaughlin and Keir Simmons...that 17-mile Russian column is pretty damn ominous, though...also, pretty cheeky comment aimed at Combover Caligula at the very end, but I’m sure it’s spot-on for both wretched world “leaders”)...
...and Adrienne Lawrence of Rebel HQ tells us about Anonymous hackers fighting back against Russia for Ukraine, to try and counter the cyber-garbage staged from Putin and his cohorts...
...and this Meidas Touch clip shows how “Tuckums” is trying to erase his love of Vlad The Butcher (yeah, good luck with that one)...
...and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about that ridiculous tweet from Repug U.S. House idiot Clay Higgins about millennials (or whichever generational cohort) and their “woke sky” or something in response to Russia butchery in Ukraine...as idiotic as this tweet is, and it is that for sure, it’s still grating to see Repugs having no hesitancy at all to send out stoo-pid messaging while Dems can’t make up their minds to send out good messaging of their own...
...and hopefully the title of this cool newer tune will eventually apply to the Russian strongman and his aspirations for global dominance – all we can do is help out where we can, and pray IMHO.
Cenk, Jackson White and Adrienne Lawrence “bring the receipts” on the wingnuts and their love of Vlad The Butcher (and if Charlie Kirk saw combat for real, he’d run away crying with a stain on his pants)...
...and Rachel Maddow discusses sanctions against Russia some more with Hagar Chemali, who was in charge of this under Obama (sanctions in general I mean)...
...and turning to non-Ukraine-war stuff, Farron Cousins discusses 13 different individual studies showing that Trump supporters are inherently prejudiced...yeah I know, sky is blue and water is wet, but still interesting IMO...
...and this More Perfect Union clip tells us about the plight of farm workers exploited in Maine...and by the way, Gov. Janet Mills is allegedly a Democrat, so she is particularly at fault here for her veto of the bill on behalf of the rights of these people (old enough to remember watching a CBS Reports documentary called Harvest of Shame produced by Edward R. Murrow...good luck finding something like that on the cables nowadays)...
...and this Second Thought video tells us why so-called “billionaire philanthropy” won’t solve anything (another fault of Bill and Melinda Gates are their dogged opposition to the waiver of patent protections for life-saving COVID meds to be distributed to the third world...not saying the drug makers shouldn’t be allowed to make a profit, but can we please put world health first before the almighty dollar for a change, as noted here...and by the way, I think the headline of the linked article is incredibly incorrect; Gates only went along with the waiver because it was supported by the Biden Administration, so props to them instead...Gates changed his mind pretty much after the fact)...
...and RIP Sally Kellerman, an actress who appeared in the film “M.A.S.H” of course (can’t have one of these scenes without the other)...
...and as part of our ongoing tribute to artists protesting Spotify over continuing to grant a platform to Joe Rogan after his anti-vax BS (here), here's another great Neil Young tune.
This Ukrainian military ad is a few years old, but I still think it’s pretty effective...
...and this in-depth report from the German television service DW gets into a lot of history on “Vlad The Butcher” Putin and his global aspirations, including his quest to dominate Ukraine and Putin’s utterly bizarre – and dare I say unhinged? – vision of returning the Russian empire to something that’s almost pre-Communist (and recalling Putin’s remark about the breakup of the Soviet Union as the worst crisis of the 20th century, or words to that effect...if I could, I’d be trying to get Sweden and especially Finland into NATO right now)...
...and this Young Turks clip with Cenk and Ana from last Thursday gives us more analysis, along with Cenk’s theory about Putin’s gamble on waging war vs. Western sanctions as well as how this all could play out with the Russian oligarchs also...I think Cenk’s theory is pretty correct, ominous as it is, except for one thing; I definitely see the Russian military getting “bogged down” in Ukraine...
...and Rachel Maddow is back just in time to provide some more important context on Vlad The Butcher’s incursion into that besieged country (and yeah, I would say “shambolic disgrace” describes what Putin has done to Russia all right)...
...and John and Brett of The Damage Report tell us about the incredible bravery of the 13 Ukrainian border guards defending that island who were slaughtered by the cowards of the Russian military...
...and happy belated 80th birthday to singer Paul Jones, formerly of Manfred Mann (with a tune whose title definitely applies to Putin...have to return this site to something approximating normalcy at some point).
My Wordpress post basically asks why the hell the Democrats aren’t coming up with ads attacking Repugs for a host of issues, and one of them is their “bromance” with that lunatic waging war in Ukraine, but at least The Lincoln Project is stepping up (and yeah, I know they’re basically rebranded Republican grifters, but they’re doing good work once more)...
...and Ali Velshi speaks with Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser under Obama, about all of the ways that Generalissimo Trump did his best to put us on a glide path to the current ruinous circumstances unfolding in that area of the world...
...and Thom Hartmann tells us about Franklin Graham saying we should “pray for President Putin”...I MIGHT be amenable to this for the sake of peace overall if Graham had said something equivalent to Biden, which he didn’t of course (and boy, did James Madison among our founders envision this insanity...and I also realize that the fluid nature of the war currently being waged is making some of these clips a little more dated than I would like)...
...and Mehdi Hasan gives us a bit of a history lesson on bad Russian behavior under Putin since about 1999, with Nina Kruscheva and author Yuri Felshtinsky...
...and Beau brings us some more important context on all this (and oh yeah, there's this too)...
...and to be fair (and given this), it’s safe to say that Putin played Dubya, as noted in this clip, but he also played a few current and former U.S. politicians as well (as well as many of the adoring throng in that audience, it would seem... Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, Natalia Estemirova, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin...all were Puitin critics who died under suspicious circumstances, as noted here)...
...and by the way, I would call this pretty emphatic....
Update: As Will Bunch said, not all "leaders" have bone spurs (here).
...and I realize that this tune was birthed during the era of The Sainted Ronnie R and the mutually missed oportunity of nuclear deterrence, which is a wholly other matter than Putin's catastrophic incursion into Ukraine, but if for no other reason, presenting this once more serves as a reminder of the long-simmering hostility that helped bring us to this awful point.
Farron Cousins tells us that Repug U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has been bitching about the so-called “first step” act allegedly leading to more crime and how awful the Dems are for supposedly creating it, when in reality it was signed into law by Generalissimo Trump with the Repugs in control of Congress...and I have to admit that I don’t know what a “slap chop” is, but yeah, it’s pretty damning that these “criminals” are stealing milk, baby formula, diapers, etc. – tell me one more time about “American exceptionalism,” OK?...
...and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about the Trumper Marine Corps reservist (!) making fake COVID vaccination cards (more here)...you know, I’m going to “back up” just a bit here and point out that, many, many moons ago when I started this blog thing for better or worse, my goal was to promote informed dialogue across the political spectrum...try not to laugh too hard, OK? However, that has morphed into cataloging the utter insanity of the other side almost non-stop...and yes, I am aware of that, though I’ll foreshadow things a bit here and say that there was a bit of a misstep recently from Team D that I’ll discuss shortly...
...and I can’t tell you how depressing it is to learn about what’s been going on with the Hershey corporation because I have so many happy memories associated with Hershey, Pa. while I was growing up; this More Perfect Union video gets into the thoroughly obnoxious details (yeah, yet another CEO blathering on a Zoom call about how great her workforce is, when in reality she’s treating them like dog crap)...
...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report tells us more about the “misstep” I referred to earlier, and that is Dem U.S. Senator Bob Menendez saying that New Jersey is a “maker” state and PA is a “moocher” one...ummm, I’m pretty sure that, as they note in the clip, Menendex was taking a shot at “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey (who can’t be gone from the Senate soon enough), but see, here’s the problem...we have an election coming up for Toomey’s happily-soon-to-be-vacant seat, and we don’t need Menendez putting his foot in it and amping things up for the other side and hurting Dem turnout...quite simply, along with Di-Fi, Menendez needs to announce his retirement...the only reason he's still in the Senate is because the Repugs ran the utterly awful Bob Hugin against him last time, and I’m afraid they won’t make that mistake again (and Vigeland sure is right about NJ and pharma...NSFW/H at the very end)...
...and Alex Wagner, sitting in for Rachel Maddow, talks to media critic David Folkenflik about The Swanson TV Dinner Heir’s bromance with Our Former Ol’ Buddy Vlad Putin (and the subsequent effect of Republican political candidates in primary contests who apparently are tripping over themselves to curry Carlson’s favor – hard to truly describe how utterly disgusting this is, especially given the powder keg that Ukraine has turned into and the threat of more military madness from the crazed Russian calling the shots)...
...and I have a bit of a melancholy two-fer; first, RIP Gary Brooker of Procal Harum (here), and also, RIP Martha’s Vineyard mainstay Everett Poole (here)...never truly a visit to the island without stopping by Mr. Poole’s chandlery in Menemsha...his shop hours were pretty much whenever you saw the Ford pickup in the driveway, and to say he’d earned the right to call his own shots is an understatement...I can think of no more apt tune for these occasions than this one...fair winds and following seas.
John and Francesca of The Damage Report tell us about The Swanson TV Dinner Heir’s obsession over AOC, which, yeah, is actually pretty damn messed up even for “Tuckums” - oh, and there was this too...
(Oh, and apparently, in an effort to ignore Putin’s incursion into Ukraine, Carlson interviewed Kyle Rittenhouse, with the latter threatening to sue individuals and news organizations over the fallout from his all-but-guaranteed-by-that-goofball-judge not guilty verdict...heh.)
...that being said, I realize there’s not one thing that’s funny about this utterly dangerous situation with Putin’s move into the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine; what follows is a report from the DW German TV network – Putin also apparently gave that nutty speech earlier today about trying to re-create some pre-communist Russian state...FWIW, I definitely DON’T have a good feeling about this, and years of coddling of this nut by prior presidents has led us to this point IMO...
...and returning to what admittedly is more typical fare for this site, Sam, Emma and Ben Burgis of The Majority Report tell us about the 41 percent increase in child poverty over the month of January (the child tax credit ran out largely because of Machinema and EVERY SINGLE U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN...and actually, Will Bunch, to be fair, really raised the alarm over this recently...wanna know why this story isn’t gaining more traction? Because, overwhelmingly, people in the suburbs DON’T CARE, and yeah, they think child poverty is somehow a “choice”...more fool them)...
...and I know I touched on all of the insanity at school board meetings yesterday with Farron Cousins, but Joy Reid “follows the money” a bit on this story (and I suppose it shouldn’t shock me to hear that the national Dems apparently STILL haven’t gotten their messaging act together against the CRT boogeyman, as well as the “Defund the Police” garbage...last I checked, Dems supported funding of public sector workers in COVID relief and Repugs didn’t...COPS are public sector workers, so YOU tell ME who’s “defunding the police” and who isn’t...and boy, is Matthew Dowd ever right at the end)...
...and speaking of no ideas and only resentment, Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about this Repug loon Wendy Rogers, a state senator in Arizona who is trying to push “the Overton Window,” which, as far as I’m concerned, has been pushed by the “party of Lincoln” beyond all reason as it is...
Update 3/1/22: Just add this to the garbage on Rogers I guess.
...and I know I'm overdue for a Neil Young tune as a tribute to a guy standing up to Joe Rogan and his anti-vax, anti-mask BS on Spotify, so here's something else from Young's catalogue.
