Friday Stuff

This is your periodic reminder that our PA-01 U.S. House Rep Brian Fitzpatrick continues to evade public scrutiny over his failure to debate his Dem challenger Bob Harvie, which, again, makes sense in a weird way since Fitzpatrick also refuses to hold face-to-face town halls.

This clip from The Independent shows Dem U.S. House Rep Sean Casten of Illinois trying to pin down Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on how much dough is allegedly coming into this country (and to who in particular) from #47’s decision to take over Venezuela however many months ago that was, with Bessent offering a whole lottta “Gee, I dunno” in response (our Trumpist regime is full of incompetent liars of course, but Bessent isn’t even very good at that task I think)...



...and Chris Hayes tells us that, with all of the ongoing misery led by #47, he continues to obsess over vanity projects at the expense of real-world crises he has initiated (the Iran war, doing his best to allow “Bibi” to continue destroying the Middle East, wrecking our economy, allowing gas prices to soar through the roof, gutting any clean energy initiatives, etc.)...I didn’t know he was planning to build a golf course on federal land, but that fits also unfortunately...and apparently, Bill Pulte never passed out of a Comp 50 class in college either...and yeah, trying to steal the honor of renaming an arts venue (or threatening to destroy it) named after our slain 35th president is demented even for a life form like Combover Caligula (glad to see Hayes paying particular attention to this...as soon as Our Treasonous Orange Yam started yapping about this, a crew of reporters should have toured inside the facility and made recordings to demonstrate what appears to be the immaculate state of the center, despite Don The Con’s idiotic blathering about that)...



...and John Iadarola and Jackson White of The Damage Report tell us that “Disappointed” Susan Collins recently cast a vote to advance Mathew R. Byrne, another product of The Federalist Society (pretty much run by Leonard Leo of course) and an anti-choice nut job...typical for Collins, since, as John tells us, she played a big role in bringing us “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh, he of the “Kavanaugh stops” also...this Byrne guy doesn’t believe in the right to abortion in the event or r*pe or incest, but only to save the life of the mother (which is pretty much always a dodge for these characters as far as I’m concerned)...on the subject of women’s reproductive freedom, the family of Tierra Walker is suing the thoroughly corrupt Ken Paxton and the doctors responsible for the death of this woman (here)...apparently she was afflicted with preeclampsia about four months into her pregnancy and her doctors said, “hey, the fetus is OK and that’s all we care about” (allegedly of course)...and 90 people were involved in Walker’s case, BUT NOBODY OFFERED HER AN ABORTION??!! And oh yeah, the fetus died anyway along with the mom...heckuva job!...and I would call this “the lethal confluence of all of their bigotries” also...



...and J.T. Cestkowski of Status Coup tells us about a massive heat dome descending over this country primarily affecting the Midwest, with record-high temps of course...part of me isn’t sympathetic to Texas enduring only 3 days since August 3rd with temperatures below 100 degrees, but part of me is because we’re all in this together and the “divide and conquer” nature of our politics has a lot to do with how we got to this wretched state...at least there’s an attempt to hold some of these energy criminals to account in Oregon with a $50 billion lawsuit...oh, and Repugs in BOTH chambers of Congress introduced legislation giving dirty energy companies immunity from lawsuits; there are MANY reasons to vote these characters out of office, but that’s a pretty damn big one IMO (and the utterly odious Leonard Leo pops up again here, along with Chucky Koch and ALEC, no doubt coordinating with the just-as-wretched State Policy Network to try and get “model bills” passed across states to gut environmental regulation)...slightly NSFW/H...



...and yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protest in lower Manhattan at Zuccotti Park (here), which spawned worldwide protests...the goals of the protests were laudable IMO, given the utter failure to hold the banksters to account for the Big Casino crash in 2008, but I believe it ended up ultimately being a missed opportunity in that the group couldn’t translate their activism into a political movement...still, the effort was commendable I think – better to at least try than to sit on your couch held captive by “doomscrolling”...



...and tomorrow marks what would have been the 85th birthday of “Mama” Cass Elliot (oh, and speaking of those nutty '60s, we also just lost another icon of that era).

Thursday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore informs us that, apparently, Uday Trump Jr. got some Russian oligarch to bankroll his ridiculously over-the-top, three-day (!) wedding celebration at two exclusive private islands last May, with Umar Kremlev spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on the events (here)...as Dem U.S. House Rep Robert Garcia said, the issue is what Kremlev got as a payback for this largesse (I wouldn’t give a fig about Trump Jr.’s latest wedding if it weren’t for that...and oh yeah, the “OMIGOD, WHAT DID HUNTER BIDEN DO NOW??!!” nonsense looks even more ridiculous)...that said, I have to admit that it’s news to me that Biden The Younger has apparently gone big into crypto, which is a pretty rank way to build clout IMO, and I don’t give a damn which party we’re talking about...glad to hear that utterly worthless Senate minority “leader” Schumer get taken to task yet again, and I’m not surprised Chris Murphy stepped up on this...oh, and I guess Anna Paulina Luna-tic doesn’t think the Trump Jr. stuff matters because a laptop isn’t involved – yeah, that figures from her...mildly NSFW/H...



...and Tennessee Brando lets us know that Thomas Massie introduced an impeachment resolution against “I’ll Drink To That” SecDef Kegseth, and as a result, “MAGA Mike” Johnson shut down the U.S. House (here), presumably so he’d have more time to watch p*rn with his son (here)...so glad to hear Brando acknowledge the Gropenfuhrer refusing to put his hand on the “good book” when he was sworn in, which should indeed have been a tipoff to anyone previously not paying attention...also, not the biggest fan of Massie on most issues, but credit to him for standing tall here...Brando is also right that we need something like a Nuremberg Trials 2.0 for all of this misery, but don’t expect a single Repug to support that of course (NSFW/H also)...



...and Kyle Kulinski tells us that, apparently, Israel is running out of water because an algae bloom in the Mediterranean is affecting 5 of their 6 water desalination plants, with the algae bloom caused by refuse from Gaza sewage treatment plants that Israel has bombed back beyond the Stone Age...interesting exercise in karma, I must say...also, apparently the IDF is running out of victims suckers individuals to serve in Israel’s military, with some exempt for religious reasons...”a hallmark of right-wing governance is incompetence” indeed...definitely NSFW/H also...



...and this CBC News report by Alexandre Silberman tells us that folks in Montreal have called for more in the way of gun legislation 20 years after the Dawson College shooting...Louise De Souza, mother of the girl who was killed, has worked tirelessly to combat gun violence, and Hayder Kadhim, one of the shooting survivors, has done his best to raise community awareness...one of the reasons I’m highlighting this is to point out that Quebec took action right away and banned guns in public places and created a firearm registry, which are steps we should have taken long ago but for the pernicious influence of the gun lobby, of course...



...and Josh Johnson of The Daily Show gives us a rundown on the latest news...and I can just hear it now; “oh, you dastardly lib with your ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ memes about Mitch McConnell...well, don’t you feel dumb now?”...actually, no, I don’t – name for me ANY OTHER EMPLOYER who would allow an elderly employee to COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR FOR ABOUT THREE MONTHS WITH NO EXPLANATION while he recovered, collecting a paycheck and bennies the whole time, not to mention the fact that the employee in question has done MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE over the last couple of decades to make the U.S. Senate VIRTUALLY USELESS...and I don’t have a clue about what’s going to happen with AI, and I don’t have the bandwidth to care at this moment (but OF COURSE this story provides an opportunity for A Certain Treasonous Orange Egomaniac to tell the world how smart he thinks he is) – God willing he’ll be gone one way or the other someday (and define “gone” however you want), and I’m getting to the point where I don’t care how or when that happens (and what’s the deal with his hairpiece anyway?)...NSFW/H also...



...and I suppose we’re getting closer to the holiday shopping season, so some acts/performers are going to be issuing commemorative recordings of sorts with that in mind...this tells us that Bob Dylan has a 39-disc set scheduled to come out, which is a little “over the top” as far as yours truly is concerned...recordings were with the Rolling Thunder Review 50 years ago so they’re likely to be good, but I would probably need a cosigner to get the dough I’d need to make a purchase like that (I’ll just remain content with the vinyl that I’ll try to transfer to disc one day).

Tuesday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about a recent debate in Kansas between incumbent Repug U.S. Senator Roger Marshall and his Dem challenger Adam Hamilton, in which Marshall heard it from the crowd over the ruinous economic policies of the head of Marshall’s party...I thought this was a good description by Cohen of the “doom loop,” if you will, of trying to appease Our Sweaty Orange Bronzer Boy, losing your credibility in the process, and then hearing it from your constituents in response when you decide to make a public appearance...but just to show that I’m going to TRY and comprehend what Marshall is saying, according to him, Kansas lost 1700 manufacturing jobs over two decades but are getting 100 back, as it that’s supposed to be a win; funny that Marshall doesn’t mention those ridiculous tariffs against Canada, which could lead to Kansas manufacturing not buying planes from Canadian company Bombardier, putting 1,000 Kansas jobs at risk, to the point where Marshall and his fellow Senate Repug Jerry Moran told the head of their party to back off against Bombardier as noted here (as if #47 will listen)...I don’t know anything about the cost of soybeans or whatever that was that Marshall was saying (not trying to dismiss matters important to farmers – just saying that I’m not going to try and move Heaven and earth checking Marshall’s claims on that)...slightly NSFW/H...



...but the big story on Action News, you might say, is the SCOTUS stopping the Gropenfuhrer’s attempt to block states from sending out mail-in ballots (24 states plus D.C. sued in response)...this nonsense started in late March with another bogus executive order telling states to create a “state citizenship list”; that idiocy was blocked by a lower court, so of course the appeal went up immediately to the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR...also tells you something that the online portal that the Feds need to manage in order to upload voter info from the states still isn’t operational (elect a clown, expect a circus)...oh, and OF COURSE, Strip Search Sammy Alito and Almost Silent Clarence Thomas thought the order from the Gropenfuhrer was just peachy (and maybe “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh also)...Maddow speaks with Marc Elias, who, for my money, knows more about how Republicans continually try to “ratf*ck” elections than anyone else (some really clear-eyed commentary from Elias on this that we all need to hear, reinforcing the fact that Don The Con is the most unrepentant scumwaffle on the face of this planet)...I’m sure Maddow and Elias are 100 percent correct that the next move from our ruling regime will be to yell “WAAAH! THE SUPREME COURT WON’T LET ME DO WHAT I WANT!! THE ELECTIONS ARE RIGGED!!!”...



...and I now have a bit of a “compare and contrast” exercise coming up...I know I’ve said I’ll be careful with clips of TYT, and you’ll have more information on that shortly – first, Ana Kasparian lets us know about some Israeli settler named Yona Schreiber, who was just acquitted in an attack on a French nun (here) – this monster apparently pled an insanity defense and it worked...good point to mention that these anti-Christian attacks from Jews also happen in Armenia...I definitely want to see a follow-up report as to whether or not this Schreiber person actually ends up in a psychiatric hospital for six years in accordance with the sentence; my guess is that he’ll be discharged as soon as this story fades from the headlines...and 88 incidents of harassment and assault from settlers against Christians in this year alone? I DEFINITELY would call that a trend...and even vandalizing graves??? Pretty damn strange behavior IMO from a country that is supposed to be an “ally”...I’m objecting here to what Israel is doing against Christians, but what they’re doing against Muslims is pretty damn vile also...



...and with the prior clip in mind, I would ask that you watch the following from Brittany Page...I think TYT occasionally deals with important issues such as the one in the above video, and I agreed with them in the clip above, but it also looks like they’re playing footsie, you might say, with The Swanson TV Dinner Heir, spouting his schtick with more than a bit of racism and white supremacy thrown in (and I remember that pic of Cenk Uygur laughing and holding hands with Charlie Kirk)...unintentionally hilarious to hear Tuckums claim that institutions created by whites are more benevolent (with this Peter Brimelow character, who created the VDARE website as noted) – yeah, maybe to OTHER WHITES...use that Google thingie and look into “redlining” housing districts and related discriminatory practices by Our Ochre Abomination and his family, including his dad in the real estate biz – you can find examples all over the place in this country...and oh yeah, whites are supposedly being eliminated, which ISN’T A THING...glad to hear Page resurrect William F. Buckley, who was one of the people long ago who wrote the conservative grievance playbook, constantly whining about the “liberal media” when his idiot theories were disproven (if you want to dive in really deep on this topic, read McGeorge Bundy’s critique of Buckley’s “God And Man At Yale”)...also, I know TYT has cozied up to Joe Kent for some ungodly reason, he being the guy who lost to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington State in a U.S. House election; MGP is absolutely NO BETTER than Kent IMO...”clout chasing drama goblin” – good one...unpleasantly surprised to hear about Ryan Grim, and Saagar Enjeti is just another useful media idiot...and I also knew about the fascist party winning in Germany, of all places, with King Elon’s help – not sure I need to point out how awful that is...I often don’t include videos this long because I just don’t have the time to pick them apart as much as I want, but I think this is an important (and particularly well done) clip from Page – it’s obvious that she knows what she’s talking about on this, though she does on her other topics also IMO...NSFW/H also...



..and Tennessee Brando tells us that “I’ve been talking with Tennessee voters, and this shocked me”...and of course, we have a big-time example in PA-01 of a Repug politician deciding not to face his constituents, which I’ve tried to point out at this site recently (and Tim Burchett is another example in Brando's "holler," if you will)...in a weird way I’ll admit, I admire the directness of preachers in Brando’s world wearing their “R” party allegiance on their sleeve, you might say, even though they‘re utterly wrong to do that of course, as opposed to this area, where that advocacy is treated with a bit of a wink, implying that you’re either “in the club” or you’re not...so glad to hear Brando invoke the TVA, one of the transformative New Deal programs that genuinely impacted people’s lives for the better...”politics is talking to you every day” indeed...mildly NSFW/H also...



...and I have a hard time saying no to just about anything from Walter Trout, including this tune from within the prior year.

Monday Stuff

This is your periodic reminder that our PA-01 U.S. House Rep Brian Fitzpatrick won’t stick his head out of his shell and debate Dem nominee Bob Harvie. In a weird way, that makes a bit of sense since Bri-Fi refuses to hold in-person town halls also.

I know I said I’d be careful about clips from TYT, but I thought this was a good one from Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discussing gas prices continuing to skyrocket, with oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz pretty much shut down at this point, with the lowest amount of traffic since May (I would call 4.9 million barrels per day versus 21.6 million quite the dropoff)...as AAA tells us, gas had never been about $4 a gallon on Labor Day, but IT IS NOW, TRUMPERS (so much winning!)...and it looks like Trumpist DOE Secretary Chris Wright can’t even spin the propaganda correctly, blaming governors in “Democrat”-run states for keeping prices up...wrong, you asshat - as Ana Kasparian points out, energy futures are NOT going down according to a benchmark for that, despite Wright’s lying about it...also, I’m not mad at Ana for saying Ukraine attacking Russia’s oil infrastructure is contributing to this; I think anyone who’s sane understands why Ukraine needs to do that, but it’s just a fact, and now the Houthis (no doubt with Iran’s help) are ratcheting everything up in that area of the world also, which could have been foreseen by any adult with an actual brain...additionally, Iran’s ballistic missile capability is concerning for sure, and since there are no actual adults in this administration, I KNOW they’re not prepared for the economic shock of ever-increasing prices combined with Canada’s retaliatory tariffs (and not blaming Canada, but just mentioning a fact...I’m not surprised to hear Cenk go off on Israel, but guess what? I think HE’S ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN RIGHT...and I have to admit that I can do without the T-shirt promo for Hasan Piker, but I’m not going to get too bent out of shape over it)...



...and related to that, Belle discusses #47 pushing Iran to get a nuke...important to note that, based on our intelligence (which has probably been degraded to some degree by virtue of the knuckleheads we have in this administration in critical roles related to this, like Crazy Eyes Kash Patel), it doesn’t look like Iran is looking to get a nuke at this time (which makes this ridiculous war even more unjustifiable), but we can’t rule that out 100 percent of course, especially with Combover Caligula basically telling Iran to build a nuke to be taken more seriously (SMDH)...



...and Farron Cousins brings us the story of ICE taking over a Maryland town for a couple of days and beating up protestors (tracking someone to a neighborhood called Tasker’s Chance) – so a guy flees an ICE stop (not good, but I don’t completely blame the person either), and the ICE goons descend en masse on this neighborhood, and some charge the house and others beat up protestors I guess because it’s a day of the week with a “y” in it...oh, and no arrests, since apparently the main goal here was for a bunch of rednecks to pretend to be actual law enforcement and bust heads...yep, just because TikTok is probably using an AI to decide which videos to upload (and keeping out anything it thinks is controversial), that doesn’t mean ICE’s garbage isn’t still going on...



..and former 60 Minutes Managing Editor Guy Campanile decided to “spills the beans” on what that program has become under Bari Weiss...oh, and Campanile had worked at the network for 34 freaking years...as John Iadarola says, there’s definitely a plan behind “the Epstein class” buying up the media, and that goes for social networks also; Lord knows they have the money to do it, absent any kind of government intervention (and normally I wouldn’t automatically say that we need that, but I think that’s unavoidable here)...as one example, this tells us what Hungary is doing to dismantle the apparatus set up by Viktor Orban to control the media in that country...we need to pass meaningful reform when it comes to corporate ownership of our media (e.g., if you own a TV station, you can’t own a newspaper or radio station either) that includes devoting an approximate amount of time/space to opposing/minority points of view, as well as consulting with media representatives for other reforms...basically, we need to replace the “guardrails” that were abolished under The Sainted Ronnie R (equal time rule, the Fairness Doctrine), and I realize there is zero appetite from the frauds and charlatans in charge now for that...



...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ informs us that Texas Republicans are not shy about sharing their dislike of Ken Paxton...gee, what’s not to like? The marital infidelity, the kickbacks to support AI data centers in locations Paxton doesn’t live, and speaking of which, there’s Paxton’s 15 houses on his six-figure-a-year salary...yep, it definitely paints a contrasting image between 20,000 pounds of food to be donated and the $20-$25K minimum for the “have mores” to be included to attend the “Trump-a-palooza” last week...and yes, I give James Talarico props for handling that question about gender too, but for future reference, do you know how you handle that? You say there are two genders but multiple gender identities, because that’s how corporations look at it (to say nothing of the fact that it’s ridiculous to be preoccupied with that with another forever war vs. Iran and a cratering economy, and a continually warming planet also)...and I suppose you need to present that speech excerpt from the hero of The Great Unwashed, though I wanted to vomit in my mouth as I watched it (another “sir” story, the damn accordion hands...jumping Judas H. Priest on a pogo stick!)...



...and happy belated 80th birthday to Dennis Tufano of The Buckinghams.

Friday Stuff

Jimmy Kimmel explains why his interview with Dem U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico of Texas had to go right to YouTube and could not be aired on TV (referencing that BS "convention" that just ended also - more here)...seems that a certain rotund, sweaty orange sack of trans fats and his FCC minion objected and Kimmel didn’t want to cause problems for any ABC affiliates in “the land of the yellow rose,” as Kimmel tells us...wonder if Our Ochre Abomination will go crying to Natalie over it?...



...and Robert Reich explains How Trump Made America Expensive Again...the damn Iran war, his stinking tariffs, the Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck which gutted health care among its other travesties, cuts to renewable energy which will increase out utility bills, trying to cram these disgusting AI data centers down our throats, and all the while, the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch continues to “live large” at our expense...



...and Jordan Chariton of Status Coup informs us that a Trumpist federal court judge recently ruled that the residents of Jackson, Mississippi don’t have a constitutional right to clean drinking water (oh, and they don’t have a right to reliable information from public officials either)...Jackson residents have apparently been boiling their water for some time to protect themselves, some for 10-15 years believe it or not...the numbskull responsible for this ruling is Judge Kurt Engelhardt...for background, it should be noted the suit had to do with the “bodily autonomy” of the residents, who pretty much have been poisoned for decades by the city of Jackson, which has not upgraded its water infrastructure (and did I mention that the population of Jackson is majority black?)...sounds like Engelhardt was definitely splitting legal hairs here, saying that the statute in question applied to cases of sexual assault but not poisoned drinking water (imagine being in a position where you have to rely on bottled water and somebody tells you “you have too much water”)...I honestly don’t know the latest on the Flint water crisis; Gretchen Whitmer inherited it from Rick Snyder, but if the water is indeed still messed up after all this time, she owns that now by default (NSFW/H)...



...and I realize I’m a little late with this next item, but I wanted to get to it anyway...Steve Harness of Really American informs us that the Spider-Man guy who tried to keep wingnuts from attacking peaceful protestors in Minneapolis is going to be prosecuted, while Jake Lang who started all the trouble with his idiocy is going to walk away...looks like counter protestors siding with Lang drove their vehicles onto the sidewalk in protest...my spider sense is telling me some wingnut asshats got some hurt fee-fees, because nothing says you want to peacefully resolve differences more than trying to ram someone with about 2,000 pounds of steel, right?...I have to admit that “prior communication” between Lang’s goons and the cops is an interesting excuse to let Lang off...whoever this Lubuc guy with the Minneapolis cops is should end up permanently behind a desk, since he doesn’t belong interacting with the public (fist bump emoji)...NSFW/H also...



...and these next two clips are timely for this day also of course - hard to imagine it's been 25 years (I once expounded on this topic here long ago, for what it's worth...related items are here and here...oh, and this is typical for Our Orange Pustule-In-Chief also...and I thought this was also a timely reminder).





Update 1: More here.

Update 2: In the immortal words of David Huddleston in "Blazing Saddles," "Now who can argue with that?" (here).

Update 9/12/22: Important related info is here.

Update 9/12/23: And this needs to be remembered also.

Update 9/13/24: As we know, there is truly no bottom with this treasonous egomaniac (here).

Update 1 9/11/26: Yeah, tell that Muslim mayor to stay away – what does he know about what this day means? Plenty, based on this clip (which is pitch perfect, IMO).



Update 2 9/11/96: I wish The Rude Pundit was wrong, but I know he isn't (here...here also).

Update 3 9/11/96: This is also the last year for Paulie's Push - God bless that man (here)...Paul Veneto was scheduled to work as a flight attendant on United Flight 175, but he was off on 9/11 and has been dealing with survivor’s guilt over it...pushing his cart has been a way to cope with what he’s dealt with and try to heal himself and others who suffered from the terror attacks, which is probably most of the people in this country to one degree or another.

Thursday Stuff

Lawrence O’Donnell talks about that ridiculous mini “Trump-a-Looza” convention, or whatever that was, which mainly wasn’t attended by a few incumbents of the Trump Party, though there were exceptions (two of them from PA will be noted in a minute)...oh yeah, oil prices are going to be “tumbling downward” right after the election, huh? And his cruel and stoo-pid war of choice versus Iran will end also after November 3rd? Says the failed casino owner, real estate developer, steak and vodka salesman, crypto boss, and on and on and on...Alaska Repug U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, in a race with Dem Mary Peltola, didn’t attend Trump’s little party because Sullivan knows what the numbers are and he’s not an idiot (though he likely is a crook)...and “the Hormone Strait”?? God, what a delusional nut case Our Sweaty Orange Boy truly is...



...and Dem U.S. House Rep Madeleine Dean is interviewed here on C-SPAN responding to that traitor John Fetterman’s recorded speech at that sham “convention”...good for Dean to point out not only Fetterman’s ridiculous words, but his actions by rubber stamping the wretched nominees from Mango Mussolini to cabinet positions and heading government departments...the two Repug U.S. House Reps from PA who Dean is referring to are Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan (and of course, pretend “moderate” Bri-Fi passed on showing up, though he would have been right at home if he did)...apparently, Fetterman praised #47 for supposedly helping steelworkers (uh, no)...



...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ points out how Cantaloupe Capone is sinking GOP candidates nationwide, including Texas, with #47 having the worst record on inflation ever recorded by an incumbent prez...and yeah, the Charlie Cook stuff is good news, but what matters is what happens on November 3rd; rosy forecasts have gone wrong before as we know...didn’t know Dems hadn’t won a statewide election in “the land of the yellow rose” in 38 years, but with all of the voting games that go on down there (what The Eternal Molly Ivins once called “the national laboratory for bad government”), I’m not totally surprised (disgusting that the political punditry on elections centers around money, but once more, love and kisses to the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR for Citizens United...and what a big spender Bronzer Beelzebub is to fork over $10 million to Ken Paxton; maybe Paxton won’t have to steal any pens for a little while)...and yeah, we know what Turd Blossom is, but I hate to admit it; he knows how to win elections, and I trust his explanation on how far the Super PAC dough goes versus the spending by a candidate’s campaign...



...and Brittany Page reminds us that it looks like “Dr. Crudité” wants us to keep working until we’re just about ready to die all for the sake of growing the economy his idiot boss is doing his best to utterly wreck, which would suit the purposes of the “R” party pretty well actually...when I listen to this fraud speak about what he thinks is best for our end-stage capitalist economy, I wonder what his definition of “work” truly is...I mean, it can’t be someone trying to cobble a living together working two or more crappy service jobs including gig work like Grub Hub or Door Dash deliveries on top of Walmart and/or Amazon, for example; I would imagine anyone doing that is trying to hang on until they can somehow retire early, which at this stage they can’t do unless they’re about 62..oh, but if someone can somehow endure that for an additional year, Oz thinks that could help contribute an extra trillion dollars (and as Page says, despicable frauds like Oz NEVER say that about SNAP benefits, ACA credits, extending the child tax credit, or other stuff that would actually do some good)...good discussion IMO from Page about what you could call the multiplier benefit of funding SNAP and how that helps local businesses providing food assistance and how those using that benefit can use their savings to aid our economy in other ways, with every dollar spent on SNAP resulting in $2 of economic activity (something Trumpist wingnuts will never understand)...you would think Repugs would embrace something that increases GDP with a great return on investment, but you’d be wrong of course because the punishment is the point (and I LOVE his Philly health care worker example, which I think is a damn lie anyway; see my earlier comment about someone working in a gig economy job in addition to another service job, with this example in health care...and no, I don’t condone criminal behavior either, again, assuming that even happened...tripe like that is nothing but a sop to the suburban conservative boomer audience watching that business channel...”it’s those damn minorities stealing from hard working white people again, Gertrude!”)...also, I think it’s particularly rich for Oz to site COVID as an example of people running scams, since companies in which he owned stock received forgivable PPP loans, as noted here (and why the hell should he be allowed to receive earnings from those companies while those loans are outstanding, then?)...



...and what would a Trumpist enterprise be without yet another lying scam? I’ll let Jonathan Pie take a shot at answering that (NSFW/H of course)...



...and I guess it's about time for this tune, with autumn closing in, as the other song goes.

Wednesday Stuff

This is your occasional reminder that our PA-01 U.S. House Rep Brian Fitzpatrick still refuses to debate Dem challenger Bob Harvie, along with the fact that Bri-Fi hasn’t held a face-to-face town hall with constituents for-freaking-evah.

To begin, Thom Hartmann speaks with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films about How Billionaires Are Controlling All Of Our Media...apparently, Greenwald has a new production called “Murdering 60 Minutes,” which actually mimics the format of the show before it was trashed by Bari Weiss...Greenwald draws the line from the Ellisons (David in charge of CBS, and trying to acquire CNN) right to the IDF, which for my money is a terror organization in its own right...we learn that 12 state Attorneys General have filed suit to prevent Paramount/Skydance from taking over Warner Brothers, with a March court date coming up...sounds like the Ellisons over-leveraged themselves to try and make this awful acquisition, and yeah, that means that still more people will lose jobs to try and make up for that...and as Greenwald says, social media is by no means immune from the pressure of oligarchs who want only their message to get out...



...and Jesse Dollemore lets us know that Cantaloupe Capone and SecDef Kegseth intend to steal $$ from the NIH for the Iran War...yeah, who needs research into studying allergies and infectious diseases when it’s time to kill brown-skilled people on the other side of the world?...Rosa DeLauro is frequently the target of wingnut umbrage, mainly because she doesn’t take any sh*t, and she demonstrates that again here...good point that, given the obscene funding of the DoD, imagine what kind of mismanagement is going on that apparently the Trumpers think it’s necessary to steal dough from elsewhere in our government to wage yet another damn pre-emptive war launched by a Repug *preznit...



...and Logical Leftist Jeff Waldorf tells us about another judge blocking #47’s birthright citizenship order, the latest in a series of legal smackdowns on this issue...even the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR said, “naaah...this violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution,” so Combover Caligula ignored that and tried again, and Judge Deborah Boardman (judge for the U.S. District Court of Maryland) blocked it again, citing the SCOTUS ruling...leave it to this gaggle of idiots to come up with the term “birth tourism,” as if an expectant mother risks her life to come here to book a cruise on Royal Caribbean...as Waldorf says, it’s so far beyond pathetic that this wretched administration keeps wasting time and money on losing causes like this while ignoring the issues that matter most to the majority of this country...



...and Farron Cousins brings us some data to tell us that Gen Z voters are done with Trump...31 percent of those who supported him now regret it, with 28 percent of millennials feeling that way also, along with 20 percent of Gen X’ers and 10 percent of boomers, which is still way too low for that latter cohort IMO...also, 93 percent of Gen Z’ers (about 49 million) plan to vote in the election (you paying attention, Dems? You plan to give these folks a reason to support you??)...



...and heading “across the pond,” Jonathan Pie presents the latest on The Reform Witch Hunt, with Nigel Farage and “loose pub talk”...looks like Farage got a bare minimum of scrutiny and then started crying like a little bitch over what the UK “Reform” party is up to (more here) – sound familiar??...NSFW/H...



..and I think the title of this song should be our mantra as we move ever closer to November 3rd.