Wednesday Stuff

(And before you cry out, "Oh, how dare you, you dastardly dumb lib! That's blasphemous!," you should recall that 45 once said the Holy Eucharist was "my little cracker," OK?)

To begin, Farron Cousins informs us that a 29-year-old MAGA church leader was recently charged with sexually assaulting children...can’t think of a hell hot enough for life forms who do this stuff (yeah, maybe all the wingnuts screaming about the trannies and drag queens should realize that kids feel a hell of a lot safer around them than they do with leaders of established religions, tragically, but those culprits brought this on themselves)...



...and as you watch this NSFW/H clip, please allow me to emphasize that I don't feel morally superior to anyone (I got into this awhile back here), though this man makes some terrific points IMO...

Worth the 6 minutes.
Just listen.

This man spoke perfectly for every single person who voted against MAGA.

He spoke for everyone who voted against Trump. pic.twitter.com/VmcodSnMZx

— Travis Matthew (@Matthewtravis08) November 17, 2024

...and Brittany Page, sitting in for Jesse Dollemore, lets us know that Kristen Welker of NBC played a clip of Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin calling out Big Stupid Head Matt Gaetz, the guy with the truly weird looking eyebrow liner, while Welker interviewed Mullin...still pretty tame stuff from Welker, but she did the right thing here...and oh yeah, it looks like the alleged underage sex trafficker (Gaetz of course) may end up heading the DOJ (hope you 78 million numbskulls who voted for 45 are ready for an out-of-control ride on the most dangerous rollercoaster you can ever imagine, because it’s coming thanks to you, you knot-heads!)...



...and this clip from Leeja Miller brings us the story of How Right Wing Media Took Over America...and I didn’t know that The Daily Signal was owned by the Heritage Foundation either, but it makes sense, sadly...as Miller says, this does indeed go back to the ‘50s with some fragmented attempts from ex-New Dealers who were mad at FDR to get their own channel of sorts going, as well as John Birch Society goofballs and a burgeoning conservative movement led by William F. Buckley, among others (all of which is discussed in this great book), but yeah, Nixon indeed helped whip all of this into overdrive...familiar but important history on the demise of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of wingnut AM radio, led by Flush Limbore; I actually met Sandra Fluke while phone banking for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (she was utterly trashed by Limbore for trying to get the ACA to cover contraception, with Limbore predictably calling her a slut), and she was almost embarrassed when I told her how much I respected her courage for putting up with all of the predictable wingnut attacks that ensued...and oh yeah, this story includes the rise of Fix Noise starting in 1996...Miller also mentions the wingnut nematodes like Tim Pool who were busted for taking compensation from Russia for pushing pro-Putin BS; I think anyone doing that should be charged and, if convicted, should do serious time for it, but that’s just me I guess...good to call out The Epoch Times for doing their best to infect the media bloodstream also...and oh yeah, Sinclair Broadcasting has pretty much taken over local news unfortunately...also mentioned is Philip Anschutz of the Washington Examiner, and the Wilks brothers’ affiliation with PragerU, as well as Dick Uihlein and the Donors Trust fund (and yes, the Powell Memo does indeed figure infamously in all of this)...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Scar recently went to Mar-a-Lago to “bend the knee” before Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence, and in response, Sam “brings the receipts”...Scar made his bones as probably the most rabid hater of the Clintons anybody has ever seen, and when he “served” in the U.S. House he was one of the most doctrinaire Repugs in existence, so this doesn’t surprise me actually...and let’s not forget that Scar once represented Michael Griffin, accused and later convicted in the murder of abortionist Dr. David Gunn (and no, I don’t give a damn that Griffin’s father was a friend of Scarborough’s in-laws)...I wish I could disagree with the stuff that Emma V. says at about 9:00 or so (about Biden and the toxic plague of DC “centrism” from our political/media/industrial complex), but I really can’t (lots of snark in this clip, which is appropriate IMO)...



...and today is the 41st anniversary of the tragic death of Tom Evans of Badfinger, who took his own life (one of the most star-crossed bands of all time).

Monday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us about a voter in Scranton, Pa (allegedly some middle-of-the-road guy) who voted for #45 even though he thinks he’s like Hitler...yeah, I don’t know what to do with this kind of lunacy either...this is the product of at least 30 years of right-wing media BS and failure in teaching civics and social studies, but IMO, it’s also the failure of Dems to try to engage with folks like this guy...it shouldn’t be up to people like Michael Shure going to rallies to try and explain reality to these nematodes (no disrespect to Shure of course)...NSFW/H...



And by the way, I thought this was a tweet with good advice from the daughter of MLK and Coretta Scott King...

I am definitely all for this movement pic.twitter.com/Q2hBW0UCHs

— Scott Smith, MSW #BLM 🇺🇲🦅🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈🌈🟦🟧 (@Canaansdad1987) November 16, 2024

...and speaking of cultish behavior, it looks like “Rocky” has taken one too many blows to the head, introducing 45 at the “America First” policy institute and comparing him to Jesus and George Washington...Jesse Dollemore gives us the story...



...and Francis Maxwell of the Meidas Touch Network informs us that world leaders are positioning themselves in response to what will likely be a catastrophic trade war with Mango Mussolini and his beyond-ridiculous tariffs, especially Emmanuel Macron of France (these people aren’t stupid...the world leaders I mean of course), and that information on MSNBC presented by Steven Rattner I believe spells out the economic ruin that is likely to ensue (also, credit to women leaders around the globe for standing tall)...heckuva job, all you U.S. imbeciles who voted to give the convicted felon another shot at tanking our country...



...and Thom Hartmann talks about Vlad The Butcher dumping nudes of Melania on Russian TV, along with the unveiled threat from Moscow to Trump himself...can’t imagine what kind of kompromat Putin has on 45, but it must be awful...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen and Marc Elias give us a bit of an election post mortem...if Elias says that the ’24 election was free and fair, then I believe him; I still say what will emerge over time is information on all of the ways that the Harris vote was suppressed, but again, not by anything illegal to my knowledge (though the bomb threats from Moscow were a factor also)...I’m not going to go off on Dems and messaging all over again; as much as I SINCERELY HATE TO SAY THIS, the Trump party did a better job of driving turnout than the Harris campaign did (and the DNC, DSCC and other affiliated orgs proved themselves to be utterly clueless once again)...GREAT question by Cohen about why down-ballot progressive measures won even though Dems on that ballot lost, and it’s utterly depressing to point out that Trump won the popular vote, albeit not by much (so fine folks like Thom Hartmann won’t be able to keep pointing out how Repugs lost on that score); FWIW, I think the result proves that the economy absolutely held sway over every other issue including abortion, and writ large, it also goes to the overall declining quality of life in this country, a matter in which Dems have some proposed solutions that are OK but don’t address systemic issues, and the Repugs have no solutions at all (a lesson this country will relearn in short order...and speaking of Elias)...



...and happy 74th birthday to Graham Parker.

Friday Stuff

Yesterday I led off with a Hispanic group hoping Trump doesn’t deport him or anyone he knows, and today I’d like to start with Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network bringing us the leader of Michigan’s “uncommitted” movement pleading to President Biden for help after this Michigan guy decided not to support Harris/Walz...and I know I was a little sympathetic to Muslims in Dearborn for not supporting Harris, but upon further consideration, yeah, they’re a bunch of damn morons given that 45 has said he would bulldoze Gaza...just keep stepping on that rake, dude (and yeah, those clips of Huckabee are pretty damn disgusting, but we knew what he’s all about, or should have anyway by now)...



...and Miss Beau tells us that it looks like John Thune will be the new Senate Majority Leader – about as much of a pro-business establishment Repug as you can get..pretty bad, but not as bad as Lex Luthor Scott, and yeah, I know we’re talking about degrees of awful...have to admit that I’m surprised that Thune is saying he won’t shoot down the filibuster, but we’ll see...



...and this CBS News report lets us know that Alex Jones’s Infowars has been bought by The Onion, which is thoroughly appropriate IMO, and I’m glad that the deal (which apparently was managed by the Sandy Hook families) includes a tie-in to ads for Everytown for Gun Safety...there are some folks who I think should be forced to live in some kind of a display for people to walk past and make a mockery of (if that makes sense), and Jones is pretty high on that list as far as yours truly is concerned...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report lets us know about a young woman upset that she apparently isn’t being supported by her family for her Trump vote...well, when you support a delusional authoritarian strongman for president, what else can you expect? And oh yeah, the Trump supporting Mexican woman thinks immigrants should enter our country the “right” way; as Figueredo says, our immigration system is broken, though it works for businesses who want to pay poverty wages to their workforce...a pretty depressing summation at about 21:00, but he’s probably right about trying to reach the MAGA chuds; not much chance if their own families can’t do that, so it’s a fool’s errand to expect that Dems can pull that off with some of these characters, to say nothing of “moderate” Republicans...NSFW/H...



...and John Oliver gives us his take on Trump’s re-election...yeah, anybody who says the Dems need to move to the center or should come out against trans rights is definitely working from the wingnut playbook and doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously (and that includes Tom Suozzi)...video goes over the looniness of Trump’s proposed cabinet nominees, including King Elon I of Xitter wanting to cut $2 trillion from the budget (truly bleak when I find myself agreeing with Larry Summers)...didn’t know about the PRESS Act, and yeah, that should have been passed already, but good luck with trying to get that done now (love to be wrong)...great news about Emma Curtis in ruby-red Kentucky elected as Lexington’s first transgender public official, as well as the pro-choice measures passing in seven states (also NSFW/H)...



...and I need a bit of a mellow newer tune to listen to as we rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, and I think this will suffice.

Thursday Stuff

David Pakman brings us the leader of Latinos for Trump who thinks “family oriented” Latinos won’t be deported...yes, you can chalk this up to cosmic stoo-pidity, but again, when there’s no competing message for this garbage, people are going to believe these fairy tales (I definitely don’t wish ill on anybody, but what else can you expect?)...



...and John Iadarola and Sharon Reed of The Damage Report inform us that the House voted down a bill to allow Trump to accuse a non-profit of supporting terrorism and giving them 90 days to respond or lose their 501c(3) status, referring to the applicable section in the tax code (and given that the appeal would go to Trump, they would likely lose anyway and go out of business in the scenarios John mentions) - would have been used to go after DEI and the BDS movement for sure...and as far as I’m concerned, a big reason we lost the way we did a week ago is because of the mentality behind 52 GODDAMN ALLEGED DEMOCRATS!! who voted for this garbage!...and I have to admit that I’m shocked that Thomas Massie did the right thing here, but he did...of course, Bri-Fi, being the good little lapdog that he is, went along with it...and sorry if this sounds mean, but Sharon Reed still adds just about nothing to these discussions...



...and Alec Opperman of More Perfect Union tells us about the games CVS is playing with staffing and endangering people’s lives in the process...and why am I not surprised to hear that likely the biggest root cause of the problem is insurance companies not reimbursing independent pharmacies to the same extent as the chains...PBM stands for Pharmacy Benefit Manager, by the way, and yes, they have a lot to do with deciding drug reimbursements...and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find out that CVS has the largest PBM in the business, and that would be Caremark...shocked that the state of Ohio did the right thing here, but credit where it’s due (and more on the Pharmacies Fight Back Act is here)...



...and yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Karen Silkwood in a road accident; she was on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter to discuss the goings-on at the Kerr-McGee plutonium manufacturing facility in Oklahoma...Silkwood is mentioned in this tune by Gil Scott-Heron about the dangers of nuclear power.

Wednesday Stuff

David Doel takes a fairly deep dive into what happened about eight days ago... interesting that every governing party in the world lost vote share when running for election this year, which is the first time this has ever happened apparently...great point about Biden being hurt by programs ending that he initiated, which he really didn’t have much control over (thank Manchinema among others for refusing to kill the filibuster and allowing the plans on this list to expire; I’m sure that will help those two cash in now for cushy gigs at some wingnut foundation or some such group of rich miscreants)...the two issues that did in Harris according to this were immigration and the economy – I know I’ve already gone off on the Dems and messaging, but I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the times that Harris/Walz mentioned that Trump killed the Lankford bill in the Senate, which would have addressed a lot of the immigration issues; the economy would have required more imagination I know, and even that might not have worked, but the effort definitely could have been better of course...and I don’t care what anybody says; Putin told Jill Stein to stick her face in Rashida Tlaib’s district in order to get the Muslim vote over Israel/Gaza and take it from Harris; yes, I saw some lefties online screaming about allegedly dumb voters in Tlaib’s district, but what the hell do you expect from them when their population is getting slaughtered in Gaza and the Dem prez ticket offers essentially nothing? At least the progressive measures that passed in Missouri and Alaska are encouraging; let’s see how long it takes for the Repugs to roll them back...and yeah, it’s unbelievable that the Harris people brought on Tony West, with all of the likely negative consequences – I think Doel is spot-on there – but that is indeed what happened...I think Doel is a little too hard on Biden here about the programs ending as already noted, but if he wants to argue that Biden could have fought harder for them, then maybe I’ll go along with that...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about would-be Trump staffers fighting, and he’s only been president-elect for a week...yeah, I know the Dems and the Harris campaign lost the narrative (and they might have lost on the economy even if they’d bothered to get the messaging right), but heckuva job, all you Trump voters, for inflicting this on us...



...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report brings us a clip from a French leftist that offers a bit of encouragement, telling us “you will make it”...I hope to God she’s right...



...and RIP jazz alto sax legend Lou Donaldson.

Monday Stuff

(By the way, I may be cutting back on posting generally for a lot of reasons. I pretty much beat my brains out during the election, and that is something I just can’t keep doing anymore. If there are any developments in particular to affect that, I’ll let you know. I also plan to cut back on the Trump/Vance snark, mainly becuase I think it's boring and repetitive at this point.)

And by the way, I don't know who this gentleman is, but I definitely want to include his perspective on last week's carnage (NSFW/H)...

He summed it up like few could. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/76B4fPudCd

— ✭ 🅑🅤🅑🅑🅐 ✭ (@BubbatheOG) November 8, 2024

...and I thought this was a pretty interesting commentary from Miss Beau...of course, Trump is going to claim credit for some recent stock market rallies, which means you also have to give Biden credit for the stock market increases prior to the election (which won’t happen of course – when has Biden gotten credit for anything?)...and yeah, good point about bond yields going up, meaning that the loan is riskier, and the future economy is in question, as she says...



...and John and Brett Erlich of The Damage Report give us some insight into the seamy characters taking their victory lap over last Tuesday’s atrocity...yeah, Nick Fuentes of course, somebody named Evan Kilgore, and on and on...



...and Bernie Sanders (anybody remember him?) speaks with Dana Bash on CNN about continuing the fight...I don’t think the @DNC can find its own metaphorical butt with multiple sets of hands, but if they could, they would pay more attention to what Sanders has to say and act accordingly...



...and I’m going to let Tennessee Brando have the last word for now, including a clip of the response from Eric Swalwell (slightly NSFW/H)...



...and happy birthday to Marshall Crenshaw.

Friday Stuff (updates)

(My take on last Tuesday's disaster for what it's worth is here.)

I think Jonathan Pie was a bit harsh in his assessment of the Kamala Harris campaign (not saying he doesn't make good points, though), but I also think his core argument that there could have been more separation on the issues by Harris from Biden is well taken; as far as I’m concerned, our “fourth estate” also had an outsized role in what happened on Tuesday with continually dumping on Biden and giving him ZERO CREDIT for bringing this country back from the ruinous Trump 1.0 years of COVID and job losses in the millions, leading to Biden's unpopularity and depressing turnout (there were many other factors too, most of which I tried to outline in the linked post above...I think Pie’s “across the pond” perspective on this and other matters is always interesting and often funny, though not humorous now I’ll admit...NSFW/H)...



Update 1: By the way, I don't totally absolve myself for blame here, in case you were wondering about that. I was probably a little "Trump-and-Vance-obsessed" in the last couple of weeks especially also, but first and foremost, I was trying to communicate what a threat he was and not so much commenting on the perverse spectacle of what he said and did. And I would have included instead information on what the Harris/Walz campaign was proposing along with Democrats generally...but I couldn’t find the damn information! I will always favor subject matter about actual policy versus "the horserace" if I can manage to track it down.

...and Jesse Dollemore brings us the tale of this Trumpist nut Mike Davis (who may be Attorney General) wanting to drag bodies of Democrats through the streets, apparently...and we’re supposed to find a way to make common cause with these lunatics...oh, but he means “political” bodies, so it’s not really violence, huh? Suuuure...also NSFW/H)...



Update 2: And get ready for plenty more of this.

Update 3: I have a feeling that I will have MANY updates to this post, so I might as well include this also.

...and Thom Hartmann lets us know about Trump’s coming attack on America’s economic backbone (e.g., the “administrative state”)...and Thom’s right about every Republican president having an economic downturn, something else that I suppose the @DNC decided not to remind voters about during the campaign because I guess they thought it was impolite or something (and I know it’s hard to translate for low-attention-span voters just how bad it was for the SCOTUS to nuke the Chevron ruling as Thom points out, but that was a critical development also)...one of Thom’s great points is that recessions are great buying opportunities for billionaires, and I can’t imagine that we won’t see that again sadly (I also didn’t know about the origins of our civil service as a result of the assassination of President Garfield and the connection to Schedule F employees...interesting stuff, but potentially tragic of course unfortunately)...



...and with fingers crossed I’ll admit, I want to give a bit of a qualified endorsement to what Jon Stewart says here...



Update 11/9/24: It also just occurred to me that, in my lifetime, there have only been two occasions where a presidential candidate for the party of the incumbent president has won election in his own right. The first was LBJ in 1964, and the fact that JFK was assassinated the year before was a big factor (as I’ve read – I was quite young at the time). The second was in 1988, when Poppy Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in a presidential campaign run by Lee Atwater that was so lowdown (i.e., Willie Horton) that it created a template that was followed by other Repug politicians ever since (still, though, it worked). I’m only pointing this out to emphasize how important it was for Kamala Harris to separate herself from President Biden; in many ways she couldn’t, though, to be fair...I don’t know if a little more imagination from Harris in that regard would have mattered, but it’s just a thought, you might say.

Update 11/10/24: I don’t know about the attribution of the diagram from this link, but that’s an absolutely staggering number of eligible voters who didn’t participate, considering that Biden got about 80 million four years ago – just proves my point that Mango Mussolini benefitted from depressed turnout and really didn’t build on the base that made up his popular vote total in 2016 (Update 11/11/24: Actually, the number of Harris voters I'm seeing now is 76 million, which tells me that all of the garbage that led to suppressing her vote worked infamously well).

...and before everything hit the fan last Tuesday, I was getting ready for a tribute to Quincy Jones, so please allow me to present that now...



...and here is a tune from one of Jones’s many terrific recording sessions.