Monday Stuff

Robert Weissman of Public Citizen discovers some conflicts of interest here with the Tangerine Toddler and his stinking ballroom...those who contributed received $50 billion in government contracts, which somehow is NOT illegal on its face, though I can just about guarantee you that the destruction of the East Wing of the White House most definitely is, as Weissman notes...as we also learn, about two-thirds of the companies making donations were facing enforcement actions of some kind, which of course the Gropenfuhrer sh*tcanned as opposed to going after his enemies...in terms of “return on investment,” Weissman also notes that these companies got 100-to-200-times what they shelled out for the damn ballroom in the way of the aforementioned contracts...kind of surprised to see Major Garrett practicing some actual journalism, but credit where it’s due...



...and Robert Reich makes a pretty good case here IMO on why and how we should end the “doom loop” in this country’s politics...among other places, this clip should be played continuously at the DNC headquarters until the message sinks in, assuming it ever does...



...and this video from CBC News: The National takes us into a TPUSA event with Erika Kirk...”Conservative women may not vote for Repugs in the midterms” is apparently the overriding message here, but I’ll believe it when I see it... and oh yeah, ”I don’t want a party that tells my son he can cut off his penis,” huh? Yep, we’re definitely in the epicenter of wingnut BS all right, no doubt full of evangelical nutjobs...just add this Savanna Stone person to the incredibly long list of folks who got utterly played by the Gropenfuhrer and his regime (and she doesn’t think women should vote? Really? I suppose that’s part of her grift too, and apparently for other women also)...it’s really pointless trying to argue with anybody who thinks Dems/liberals/progressives are at fault somehow for not enough “reading, writing and arithmetic” in schools...file this under “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”...



..and in a bit of a similar vein, David Shuster of Rebel HQ brings us more Trump voters having buyer’s remorse, this time in Ohio, including a woman who voted for Cheetoh Hitler 3 times, and now her factory job is disappearing; apparently, a company called Conn Selmer is moving its operations to China...when the Lyin’ King stood up and said, “I don’t care about you. I just care about your vote,” what the hell else was there to think about? Oh, and it looks like this “deal” emerging over his Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iran apparently won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on...and billions in a cash infusion to Iran, while this country continues to struggle with inflation and a cratering economy – are you tired of the winning yet? Is it starting to occur to you, Trumpers, that the guy who came into the world with millions but ended up having to declare bankruptcy six times DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE F*CK HE’S DOING???!! AS PRESIDENT OR AS ANYTHING ELSE???...Oh, and along comes Senator Foghorn Leghorn of Oxford (pretending to be from Louisiana) attacking Graham Platner; if I were the Platner campaign, I would just keep using these clips from Kennedy and other pols as more evidence that the Maine Dem is scaring the hell out of the D.C. establishment...once more, concerning Kennedy, I think you can still Google John Oliver, Song of the Summer, and enjoy the result...



...and speaking of John Oliver, I give you his report from “Last Week Tonight” on the New College of Flori-DUUH! (took a little while for yours truly to get through the whole thing)...looks like On-His-Way-Out Guv #DeathSantis, when he was trying to run for *preznit, chose to use the school for purposes of wingnut demagoguery and decided to sic the even-more-odious Chris Rufo on the place…I have to admit that I don’t think it’s so hot for students to design their own curricula, but then again, you can’t argue with the fact that many of them apparently continued their education upon graduation, so what the school did must have worked somehow (and I’m SOOO GLAD for SOMEBODY to give Stuart Varney the treatment he deserves)…the mascot story is indeed dorky, but a little sweet too IMO; not surprising that that was changed to a “steroid tree” by the incoming regime…yep, Rufo did indeed cherry pick from the consultant’s report on the school and tried to tilt the perception as negatively as possible…and boy, this Richard Corcoran guy brought in to run the school sure was a prize, wasn’t he?...so naturally, the gender studies program was the first casualty of the new regime, in favor of “culture wars bullsh*t,” with “scholars in residence” like Bruce Gilley (a member of this group), along with this Fred Piccolo character, who seems to have a problem with keeping it zipped up, you might say (allegedly!)...and this David Rancourt person is just a straight-up pig (can’t think of a word for the entitlement of someone who can even think what he says, let alone try that crap on “open mic night”)...probably comes as no surprise to find out that the “success” of de- wokifiying (word?) the New College came also from lowering standards and recruiting student athletes...”rebalancing the hormones and the politics on campus” – just no end to the wingnut grievance, is there?...oh, and on top of all of this, now it costs half a mil to earn a degree at New College, dwarfing the cost versus any other public university...also, it looks like Corcoran, the president of the school pulling down a mil a year (and again, for a PUBLIC university) participated in an open mic night also? Well, at least he didn’t say something grossly inappropriate like Rancourt did (maybe these guys ought to stay away from comedy clubs for a little while)...NSFW/H...



...and here is another summer selection...



...and with that, I now take my leave of you for a few days. I’ll plan to rev this thing up again next week.

Friday Stuff

I give you our “I Love the Inflation” *preznit (and no, I don’t plan to ever let anybody forget that he said that)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen discusses Cheetoh Hitler saying someone ELSE’s past indiscretions makes him unqualified for office, referring to Graham Platner, which is borderline hilarious coming from Our Ochre Abomination...and if I were Platner, I would use that negative language about him in a campaign ad (calling Platner a “thug,” which is one of the Tangerine Toddler’s go-to insults as we know)...and naaah, the Repugs wouldn’t have Platner I know, because the “R” team would have PEDOS instead...also, I temporarily forgot about Ken Paxton in Texas, but it does indeed take more than a little gall to criticize Platner with “multiple scandals” Paxton running for the “R” team, as well as having once supported Matt “Are You Sure You’re Legal?” Gaetz...I LOVE how Cohen points out the double standard of the low bar Repug candidates have to meet versus the purity tests Dem candidates have to take (NSFW/H)...



...oh, and it looks like former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond has departed...in this clip, we learn of JP Morgan Chase bowing to lefty pressure from a group called Majority Action and removing Raymond as an independent director (though, as we also learn, Raymond still had a seat on the board of directors of JP Morgan-Chase)...Raymond did everything he could to ignore the scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change and instead get these bogus “studies” published intended to ignore the climate crisis to ensure profitability for our dirty energy companies...looks like Majority Action was able to persuade shareholders in order to remove Raymond...I believe that the phrase that matters concerning Raymond at this moment is “rest in piss”...

via GIPHY

...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report bring us U.S. House Repug numbskull Brian Mast of Flori-DUUH! “mansplaining” to Dem Rep Rashida Tlaib why she was wrong to bring up her war powers resolution intended to keep U.S. troops out of Lebanon...oh, and Mast says dead Palestinians need to prove they were innocent while getting bombed by Israel, or something...oh, and Mast wears his IDF uniform to work? Fine, then – fly over to Israel, live there and run for the Knesset, or something...oh, and Tlaib’s resolution is “unserious”? I think the wanton murder of Palestinians by the IDF (and trying to keep the U.S. out of Lebanon) is as “serious” as it gets...I’m old enough to remember when this country used to do the difficult work of peace negotiations with ALL SIDES in an attempt to stop this, as opposed to just sending more arms to the main perpetrator of this carnage...



...and Seth Meyers gives us “A Closer Look” on the Knicks’ miracle comeback in Game #4 of the NBA Finals, along with other stuff...oh, and Combover Caligula and “Couch Boy” were the “pro peace” ticket, huh? Add that to the unending catalog of utter lies from our ruling regime, especially when contrasted with all of the clips of the Tangerine Toddler saying he’ll keep us out of wars, in addition to everything he would make cheaper (once more, it takes a comedian to “bring the receipts” since our corporate media is otherwise not up to that task)...



...and this musical selection is a bit of a “two-fer,” given that June is Pride Month and today is the 10th anniversary of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting (here)...once more, let me know if any child is ever “groomed” as a result of a lecture on gender tolerance or exposure to drag queen story hour.

Wednesday Stuff

Robert Reich discusses The Hidden Danger of America’s Wealth Gap...I know it’s not exactly news to find out how much the assets of the one percent (a fraction of that, actually) have “exploded,” as Reich correctly puts it, but the stats are still damning anyway...wealth appeared to grow fairly evenly until about 2010, led by this as Reich notes...also, after 2018, the wealth for these bastards was higher than the whole GDP of China, for crying out loud...also, daunting to see what kind of campaign spending the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch can lay out versus the rest of us...glad to hear Reich draw what’s pretty much a straight line from this economic madness to an authoritarian state...also important to point out once more why we need public financing of elections (good luck with that, I know)...



...but it’s always good sport for our corporate overlords to punch down at those less fortunate and encourage all of us to do likewise, as Britany Page notes...it looks like she and other good folks crashed a wingnut policy summit on homelessness in D.C. (as if The Cicero Institute actually cares about the problem)...yep, looks like the previously mentioned one percent and their lackeys want to criminalize homelessness and stick the unhoused into camps, just like Republican Jesus wants...this Joe Lonsdale character behind Cicero also founded Palantir, just to let you know; another case of following the money to see which industries (for-profit prisons and surveillance) stand to gain by Cicero trying to demonize people needing help (I think the phrase “homeless industrial complex” in this context is pretty damn repugnant, which is on the nose for these cretins...”it starts with dehumanization” indeed)...a related item from the execrable Nick Fuentes is here...mildly NSFW/H...



...and I realize I’m “behind the curve” a bit here, but I definitely wanted to get to this...David Doel gives us his take on the NYT “hit piece” on Graham Platner (update here)...I agree with Doel that the time for “purity tests” is the primary, but once you’ve settled on a candidate for the general election, you need to look at who is the best alternative among the whole field and put all that other business about checking every single damn box on the shelf...I just gave Glenn Ivey credit the other day; what a shame that he takes all that AIPAC dough (not surprising that “Disappointed” Susan Collins is #1 on the Repug side, and don’t get me started on Schumer)...and yeah, I think it’s unintentionally funny that the Times has a headline about Platner’s “unsettling behavior” with women when we have a *preznit who was found civilly liable in New York on a charge of sexual abuse, which is basically r*pe without the actual word...this Lyndsey Fifield person criticizing Platner definitely doesn’t sound like an impartial observer anyway, especially on Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk...and Fifield drafted Susan Collins’ remarks when Collins voted to confirm “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS, smearing those accusing Kavanaugh in the process...beyond ridiculous that the Times didn’t tell this Fifield woman just to go get lost, as opposed to giving her any credence whatsoever...I think Doel is right to say that the Times is going after Platner in part because he didn’t grovel appropriately at the mention of the state of Israel...NSFW/H also...



...and Logical Leftist Jeff Waldorf tells us about dozens of people getting sick in Idaho (about 45 people that we know of) after Bobby Brainworms promoted drinking un-pasteurized milk and getting stomach cramps, fever and, in some cases, diarrhea...oh, but it’s all about “freedumb” of course to push back against that “big gumint” that, y’know, wants to keep us from FREAKING DYING!!...and 40 raw milk bills introduced across 18 states?? I know drinking the MAGA Kool Aid can be a hell of a drug, but REALLY??...and yeah, Thomas Massie has done some good stuff and he lost his seat for it, but supporting a raw milk bill is definitely a point not in his favor (and that goes for Dem Chellie Pingree also...just goes to show how red Maine truly is, sadly, and I know I just mentioned Graham Platner)...as Waldorf tells us, the CDC has been studying and documenting the danger of raw milk for-freaking-evah; turns out that raw dairy causes 840 times more illness than the pasteurized version, as we learn in the clip...we’re only talking about 15 seconds of applied heat to prevent potential life-threatening paralysis (from Campylobacter), among other awful effects...so many levels of “duuuh” here...



...and Desi Lydic of The Daily Show mentions the Gropenfuhrer taking a snooze during the most recent Knicks-Spurs game... I didn’t see the contest so I can’t judge referee Mark Davis, but apparently Jalen Brunson of the Knicks was getting fouled with regularity with no calls forthcoming...and since the game was in NYC, there were a lot of stars at courtside, which is cool...and oh yeah, a certain Treasonous Orange Egomaniac showed up as noted, saluted, took a nap and then left to a completely justified torrent of boos...oh, and #47’s preferred choice for LA Mayor (and “reality” TV star) Spencer Pratt lost I see...c’est dommage...so OF COURSE “Don Snoreleone” started ranting about a “rigged election”...oh, and MAGA Mike Johnson, being the good little supplicant he is, took a break from watching porn with his son to allege fraud in the LA election also, citing a lack of evidence (God, this nonsense makes my brain hurt)...with Troy Iwata...mildly NSFW/H as well...



...and I thought this was a bit of a catchy newer tune to get us all through the “hump day.”

Tuesday Stuff

Eric Gardner of More Perfect Union lets us know about Apartheid Clyde privatizing the profit and socializing the risk again in a manner that befits the one percent, this time on the SpaceX IPO...sounds like a massive “pump and dump” scheme leveraging index funds, which are the type of funds designed to EXPLICITLY PREVENT something just like this from happening...clip does a good job of how King Elon just keeps rolling his companies into each other in the hope that he can inject profitability...as we learn, the fact that this initial public offering for SpaceX seems to be top-heavy with what you could call regular investors is indeed a “tell” that something crooked is going on...sooo, it looks like the “banksters” got rid of the “seasoning” required for a company to be listed on the NASDAQ and that’s how Musk is planning to get his company onto it...one driver in this is the competition between the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ vying for the SpaceX IPO and similar offerings, and again, that’s not going to matter to “mom and pop” investors after the stock craters...looks like shares on SpaceX may begin trading this Friday 6/12...mildly NSFW/H...



...and this report from the German news service DW lets us know about anti-Christian attacks on the rise in Jerusalem (report by correspondent Jan-Philipp Scholz)...I seriously think this country needs to tell the “children of David” en masse to f*ck all the way off between their wars without end in Lebanon and Iran (to say nothing of Gaza and the West Bank overall) and also for attacking priests and nuns, but I realistically know what the chance is of that actually happening in this country...we can blame the rise in Jewish nationalism most definitely as a factor here, encouraged by “Bibi” and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom should be held up to constant ridicule at a minimum...oh, and three guesses who made this problem much worse by announcing that the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (and no, it definitely wasn’t Biden)...with Hana Bendcowsky of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations...



...and if you’re still wondering how Israel gets away with this garbage, Thom Hartmann gives us an explanation – it seems that dozens of congressional reps and staffers have been gifted with luxurious first-class trips to Israel courtesy of an affiliate of AIPAC (the American-Israel Education Foundation, which is a non-profit that is somehow able to skirt lobbying restrictions) ever since the awful attacks on Israel on October 7th...kind of telling to me that Netanyahu has gotten a pass from our media this whole time over the fact that, like 9/11, 10/7 represented a massive intelligence failure...not surprised that 8 in 10 Dems have an unfavorable view of Israel and 6 in 10 Americans generally...Thom reminds us of AIPAC showering “moderate” Dems with cash while doing their worst to trash progressives, such as Pramila Jayapal’s sister as Thom notes...pathetic that we allow ANY foreign government to mess with our elections, as Thom also points out...with all due respect to Thom, I think his memory is a little fuzzy; Citizens United was decided in January 2010, not October...also, Google requests permission to release 32 million mosquitoes in CA and Flori-DUUH! to try and prevent diseases carried by non-sterile bugs (and I agree with Thom that our government should be doing this and not a for-profit corporation...hopefully it will work)...



...and Tennessee Brando tells us about Our Ochre Abomination creating a watch list for social media influencers (here), and right now the list includes David Pakman and Brian Tyler Cohen...as Brando says, this was probably inevitable after our ruling regime went after media companies, educational institutions, law firms, freaking comedians, other politicians – you name it...probably only a matter of time until everybody who has made a video that I embed here ends up on a Trumpist “watch list” also (and I’m glad to see this Tony Hinchcliffe weasel get dragged again)...NSFW/W but for a great reason...



...and it looks like Dementia J. Trump kept up his perfect streak of ruining everything he touches last night, watching the Knicks lose their first playoff game (and kudos to the MSG fans for giving our *preznit the welcome he deserved)...



...and here is another summer selection (sad that they're both gone now - oh well).

Monday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen tells us of the latest meltdown from Our Treasonous Orange Man-Baby of a *preznit, this time storming out of an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet The Press” when she called him on his idiotic BS about a wide range of subjects...and oh yeah, he bolts the scene like a spoiled child after he calls her “stupid” (after all this time, it’s still hard for me to comprehend how the Gropenfuhrer gets away with behavior that would likely get any other politician drummed right out of office)...I don’t know who this Katie Zacharia person is, but she’s just another Trumpist lickspittle IMO (and kudos to Cohen for calling out her nonsense)...how anybody could think that Combover Caligula is some kind of a big man for relentlessly berating female reporters is something I cannot possibly imagine...



...and Jesse Dollemore informs us that it looks like Dem U.S. House Rep Glenn Ivey of MD busted the Gropenfuhrer on his “pay to play” pardons, so our course acting AG Todd Blanche is all “YOU FILTHY COMMIE DEM! HOW DARE YOU MAKE AN ALLEGATION LIKE THAT AGAINST DEAR ORANGE LEADER!!”...you’d have to be a stone-cold moron to NOT see the quid pro quo garbage here, and I realize that description applies to much of our ruling regime...I haven’t heard “money hungry goblin” before, but I guess I should add that now to my catalog of insults for #47...NSFW/H...



...and in this clip from Andrew Chang of CBC News, we learn about the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is the test that Cheetoh Benito keeps taking to measure his diminished brain capacity (and no, as we learn, it definitely IS NOT an IQ test)...by the way, I don’t intend to make fun here of anybody with cognitive difficulty – I’m genuinely sorry about that – but only #47 who keeps bragging about this subject and regularly calls other people “stupid” as pointed out above...gee, maybe the reason nobody has taken the damn cognitive test as many times as Our Ochre Abomination has is that NO ONE HAS NEEDED TO!!...



...and John and Jayar of The Damage Report inform us that we’re up to killing 202 people with up to 60 different boat strikes, and I’ll wager that every single one of them was innocent (additionally, none of those damn boats were heading to this country anyway)...and by the way, the drugs are still getting into the US in case you were wondering about that (good point by Jayar to mention the murdered Iranian school children, mostly girls, in our ongoing war; should never lose sight of that – more here)...



...and Mr. Newberger gives us a preview of future “restoration projects” from Our Satanic Orange Overlord...



...and by the way, I know I'm going back on my promise last week to not devote so much space to the Tangerine Toddler; I'll try to do better next time...

...and happy 75th birthday to Bonnie Tyler.

Friday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski discusses the firing of “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley at the behest of Bari Weiss and the Ellisons...I give Pelley so much credit for finally saying “enough is enough,” and of course he ended up paying for it by losing his job...oh, and by the way, this Nick Bilton guy (who I guess is now in charge of the program) is a British former tech reporter for the New York Times and “documentary filmmaker” who is ALSO IN WAAAY OVER HIS HEAD here (and based on the response from former and current employees of “60 Minutes,” it also sounds like Bilton is colossally full of sh*t when it comes to describing Pelley – and termination for cause is an extra layer of dickishness here)...oh, and all of this is making the wingnutosphere absolutely giddy as noted here (and I think Kyle is dead-on when it comes to predicting the type of “stories” we can now look forward to on that program – and why does this not surprise me either?)...NSFW/H...



...and speaking of this country sucking up to Israel as Kyle noted above, it looks like Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Rogers is proposing something called Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act of ’27 which would “expand U.S. and Israel military cooperation with joint research, testing, manufacturing, and sharing technology as well as promoting joint military training, information-sharing, network integration, and data fusion” (oh, and Dem House Rep Adam Smith also signed off on this colossal mistake)...report is from Drop Site News...sounds like the biggest takeaway is that all aspects of our military alliance with Israel would go into the same “black box” as that of our own military spending and development...also important to note that this increased alliance could support Israeli defense factories also, to which I say that Israel’s defense firms should stand or fall on their own without our help...good point toward the end about the industrial espionage carried out by Israel against this country, which I would call strange behavior from an “ally”...more here...



...and this report from PBS Newshour informs us of Our Ochre Abomination dismantling ocean monitoring systems, pulling out more than 900 deep water sensors from our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, with scientists in this country quite rightly expressing alarm...yep, Combover Caligula just wrecked a program to monitor climate change that was “decades in the making”...with correspondent William Brangham (and Hilary Palevsky also, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College)...hope you like our oceans boiling and mass extinction of underwater species, because that’s coming next (and all because Biden looked bad in a debate, I tell myself)...



...and Belle brings us another item tied to the Trumpist destruction of our government, and that has to do with the appearance of the “new world” screwworm in this country...she reminds us of Apartheid Clyde and his merry band of incels wrecking our government through DOGE (a plot hatched by Russell Vought of Project 2025 infamy, among others)...looks like the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service went kaput, and all they did was protect U.S. agriculture from foreign diseases and pests...you know, just dumb “woke” stuff like that...so now, we have the first known case of the “new world” screwworm in this country since the ‘60s, with its parasitic larvae eating the flesh of livestock, so we can just imagine what that will do to the health of herds and prices for food – are we tired of the winning yet?...more on the “Chesterton Fence” is here...



Update 6/8/26: And you'll NEVER GUESS who Repug asshats like Roger Marshall blame for the screwworm - I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count (here).

...and Michael Kosta of The Daily Show gives us an update on Dementia J. Trump and his madness having to do with the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which apparently is SOOO BIG that it needs a chart that looks like it was rejected from a fifth grade science project...oh, and along comes “farmer” and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to unveil the 250-dollar bill with Cantaloupe Capone’s mug plastered on it, as if that’s affordable for much of this country anyway...also, it seems that 97 of the 1/6 rioters freed by the Tangerine Toddler have committed offenses that landed them back behind bars – birds of a disgusting feather flocking together it seems...also, this Bill Pulte character is another Trumpist with apparently no familiarity with intelligence (kind of a “big basket” there I realize)...mildly NSFW/H...



...and I thought I'd give "mellow" the day off - hope it's a good weekend for one and all.

Diaper Donnie Tilts At You-Know-What

We all know how much our dearly despised abhorred reviled tolerated *preznit hates renewable energy because he can’t game the market and profit from it, and of all the alternative forms of power out there, I think wind is #1 on his hit list, as Desi Lydic pointed out yesterday. Well, with that in mind, I was recently visited by the muse, and I’d like to share the following:

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Or the grumbling in your stomach when you miss a Happy Meal
Affection for your children that you feel just now and then
Or delusions of Joe Biden when he used an Autopen
As Ivanka Trump lay buried underneath the fairway green
Or those rallies with “the faithful” where you always make a scene
Showing all the gaps they find in the windmills of your mind

Like the wormhole that you follow to delusions in your head
Where a cognitive exam should find some common sense instead
When the bronzer starts to melt, revealing layers of your tan
As you escalate pre-emptive war without end in Iran
As Xi detects our defense posture slowly start to crack
Knowing full well that this century belongs to Asia PAC
It’s a pity just to find only windmills of your mind

Like the growing voice of protest that you’ll never, ever quell
Or your Mar-a-Lago bathroom full of classified “intel”
Or all the ICE detainees fighting bravely to be free
Or musicians that are bailing on “250” in D.C.
Or those who hope our economic hardship does relent
Or Russell Vought’s conniving to protect the one percent
Our integrity's declined from the windmills of your mind

Like the pardons handed out when all the bribery was paid
Like the pain to poor and farmers from destroying US AID
Our infrastructure crumbles, while you act so unaware
As your FLOTUS flouts compassion, showing only a blank stare
Like the swirling lies behind the dark spaces we all find
In the windmills of your mind

With apologies to Michel Legrand, wherever he may be (a parody of a song in a movie about a crook, appropriately enough).