Chris Hayes talks about Dementia J. Trump’s war in Iran maybe creating an oil shock that COULD lead to a green future (about freaking time)...sounds like Combover Caligula’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iran is going over like the proverbial lead balloon for about 59 percent (at least) of this country...oh, but ExxonMobil and Chevron are raking in the dough hand over fist, so it’s all good, right?...we get another reminder that the Tangerine Toddler is using hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars to cancel wind farm projects already in development...meanwhile, more EVs are sold in Europe than gas vehicles (I’ll have to look into the BYD vehicles, not that I automatically want to support China, but it looks like they’re on the cutting edge with this stuff - more here)...not too many people in the media beat the drum over environmental issues like Hayes does, to his credit, and EVERYONE ELSE should follow suit...Hayes speaks with writer Robinson Meyer...glad to hear Meyer mention the Inflation Reduction Act under Biden that could have put us on a better footing when it comes to renewables...”it’s totally insane to architect a world where you are reliant on (the Strait of Hormuz and other “choke points” to support dirty energy)” – absolutely for sure (more here)...
...and RIP Ted Turner...I know he has a bit of a complicated legacy you might say, but as far as I could tell, he worked his butt off to get where he ended up, and he sure was spot-on in discussing energy is this clip referencing what I believe was the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico...he also supported film preservation, which makes his aces in my book to be honest (and I wouldn't wish lewy body dementia on anybody)...
...and I’d like to do something I don’t do too often, and that’s include two clips on the same topic; the first is an Indiana local news station report on last Tuesday’s Republican primary...I’ll admit that I don’t know a damn thing about what transpired on the ground in that locality in terms of political campaigns, but I DO know that a bunch of state senators for the “R” team commendably opposed the off-cycle redistricting scam from Cheetoh Hitler, and apparently all but one was voted out of office for it...sounds like the gene pool in that state needs a lifeguard...
...and this Damage Report clip gives us a bit of a backstory on what took place (yep, those pissants at the Club for Growth figured in this too)...looks like reps in Tennessee also got the boot since #47 wants to redistrict there too, as noted here (and more on the thoroughly odious Jim Banks is here)...yep, breaking up a historically black voting district ISN’T ABOUT RACE, YOU DASTARDLY LIB! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!!!...and I don’t think it’s John’s imagination – this very definitely is the ongoing backlash to Reconstruction, hyper-charged by wingnut media and politicians (with Sharon Reed)...
...well, for everyone in the mood for something uplifting, Tennessee Brando informs us that The Onion has taken over Infowars, and it looks like they’ve truly turned it around in the best way...”Turn your piss into gold,” huh? Brilliant!...and yes, to be serious, don’t EVER think you can go too far ridiculing Alex Jones considering what he did to the parents and families of the Sandy Hook victims, who (and this can’t be mentioned enough IMO), were CHILDREN!!!...and I agree with Brando – I want to see EVERY CONSERVATIVE pundit and politician ruthlessly mocked instead of harmed in any way, despite what they want to do to us; as I’ve said before, the only person I ever advocated violence against at this site was Osama bin Laden, and I want to keep that intact...the person Brando mentioned who’d appear on Howard Stern’s show was Daniel Carver, by the way...
...and yesterday was the first day of National Nurse’s Week, and with that in mind, I present the following tune.
According to Rachel Maddow, the Tangerine Toddler is terrible at everything except this one thing...we’re reminded of the “ape memes” of the Obamas that our disgusting, flatulent orange meat sack of a *preznit posted at Truth Septic, along with #47’s “sh*thole countries” remarks...I give Maddow so much credit for facing the gut-churning racism of our ruling regime and not trying to “sane wash” it with some ridiculous language about this being the “new normal” or something, which it NEVER SHOULD BE...Maddow mentions the DOGE garbage from King Elon I’s merry band of incels and how the antics of this bunch in charge echoes the Woodrow Wilson administration, which definitely isn’t good when it comes to race...Maddow also mentions #47 rescinding EO #11246 Sec. 202 on his first full day in office, a move aimed right at people of color, along with removing the “Prohibition of Segregated Facilities”...oh, and the “Fair Housing Act”? Looks like that’s going the way of the dodo also because of this hateful bunch...black unemployment is spiking also because of course...all of this is put in the context of the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR putting the last nail in the proverbial coffin of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Roberts has been itching to do for decades...
...and as a bit of a companion piece to the Maddow segment, Brittany Page gives us the following...I guess, with all of the utter madness going on, it’s easy to overlook the fact that our corporate news orgs, for some perverse reason, are trying to rehabilitate the image of The Swanson TV Dinner Heir, trying to obfuscate the fact that “Tuckums” is indeed a gutter racist, as Page so correctly points out...”a clean-cut Nazi is still a Nazi” indeed...the thought of Carlson having ’28 aspirations, sadly, has a lunatic logic to it, and leave it to our fourth estate to go into unquestioning stenography mode on this as they do with any other Repug who gives them their precious “access” so these well-sinecured lickspittles can crank out their opinion pieces and on-air commentaries and then hob-knob with the “smart set” of the political/media/industrial complex...
...and switching to the graft and patronage by the coterie of hangers-on for #47, John of The Damage Report (definitely NOT him) lets us know that the private prison outfit GEO Group is giving $1 million to a Trump-aligned group for the midterms, after about $426 mil in new ICE contracts to that company were frozen – yet another shakedown by our criminal regime (and yet another reason why private prisons should be illegal)...weird that, as John points out, our ruling gaggle of idiots is apparently looking at GEO Group to cut costs to the taxpayer for some reason when they PLAINLY don’t care about anyone else doing that...oh, but GEO funneled the $$ to Bronzer Beelzebub through a subsidiary that didn’t collect any government dough, so that makes everything A-OK somehow...still stinks to high heaven...
...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ brings us the tale of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy getting hit for rising gas prices (I just spent about $52 to fill up the Honda Accord...thanks Trump!)...and we get faux concern on this by Stuart Varney of Fix Noise, who does his best to employ his English accent in the most studious way possible here...and PERFECT timing for all of this, with the summer travel season right around the corner...and are you assured by Duffy acting like it’s only a matter of time until the Strait of Hormuz is opened? Because I’m not (and “strong leadership” by #47? Looks like Duffy is trying to give Baghdad Bob a run for his money)...and that ABC/Ipsos/WaPo poll confirms for me that about 37 percent of this country is effectively brain dead...we’re reminded again of Spirit Airlines going belly up, and Duffy uses the same BS excuse for it that Scott Bessent used in the Majority Report clip; well, when the Spirit CEO blame high energy prices, I don’t know what kind of spin you can legitimately put on that (though I’m sure the Trumpers will keep trying)...and I know I’ll probably keep saying this maybe for the rest of my life (again, in response to Duffy, and this John Rose nematode), but once again, WE HAD A NUKE DEAL WITH IRAN UNDER OBAMA THAT PUMPKIN POL POT WADDLED AWAY FROM!!!...also, anyone with a brain knows about the ripple effects across our economy from higher energy prices, which are also now hitting agriculture and other food products, notably beef...oh, and when it comes to wildfires not just in rural America but everywhere, maybe somebody ought to try reading this to Brooke Rollins (in response to her ridiculing climate change, which is typical for this bunch I know...I have to admit, though, that the “screw worm” border excuse is a new one, for me anyway)...I also have to admit that I’m shocked that Joe Kernen of CNBC actually called out Steve Scalise for the latter’s lies on this subject...
...and Stephen Colbert of The Late Show (whose time is winding down, sadly) gives us the latest...I never got a kick out of Cinco de Mayo, BTW...also, if you can figure out what the hell is going on with the Strait of Hormuz, lemme know, OK?...on top of that, I think it should be a crime for Pumpkin Pol Pot to appear in ANY venue near kids given that he’s all over the place in those files that this outlaw regime doesn’t want to discuss...and “in hockey, they say ‘uncle’”...??? What – is that what happens before the shootout at the end of a regular season game, or does that happen if a team gets called for offsides too many times? What a mental patient...and “kamikaze dolphins?” I’ll tell you what – I’m going to go buy a bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and chug down a bunch of Valium, and assuming I make it through that, please wake me up when this nightmare is over...and I care less than nothing about the Met Gala to be honest (also didn't quite get the Delta Airlines joke, but that's OK)...
...and usually I’m pretty diligent about remembering the anniversary of the Kent State massacre, but for some reason I forgot this year – however, I’d like to make amends for that now.
And by the way, let's not forget the role played by the late but hardly lamented Roger Ailes in this tragedy, as Gabriel Sherman discusses in The Loudest Voice In The Room, pgs. 69-70:
(From Ailes’ days as a political consultant):
In the spring of 1970, Ailes was in the middle of another contentious GOP primary race for an open Senate seat in Ohio, one that would have spillover effects for (the Richard Nixon presidency) and the country. Ailes was advising the Ohio congressman Robert Taft Jr. against the “law and order” candidate, Governor James Rhodes, who had been considered as a possible Nixon running mate in 1968. The race was pushing Rhodes even further to the right.
When Taft debated Rhodes in Akron in late April, Ailes walked onstage thirty seconds before airtime and handed Taft a note with one word written on it: “Kill.”
“Rhodes got shook up,” Ailes bragged afterward to a Boston Globe reporter. “I gave Taft the note, partly facetious, partly for a laugh – just to try to get Bob to be a little tougher in his answers.”
The gambit worked: the Toledo Blade noted that “the usually placid Mr. Taft accused the governor of lying about his record and told him he should be ashamed of himself.” A few days after the debate, Rhodes flew to Kent State University, which was engulfed in student unrest. At a press conference on the morning of May 3rd, Rhodes lashed into protestors who had burned the ROTC building the previous night and declaimed that the demonstrators were “worst than the Brown Shirts and the Communist element.”
Rhodes’s inflammatory speech intensified the conflict at Kent. In the chaos, National Guardsmen fired into a group of marchers. The volley of more than 60 shots in 13 seconds left four dead and nine wounded. Kent State, (Nixon Chief of Staff) Bob Haldeman later wrote in his book The Ends of Power, “marked a turning point for Nixon, a beginning of his downward slide towards Watergate.”
For the record, we’re coming up on the ninth anniversary of Ailes’s death on May 18th, and tragically, his influence still reigns at that trash network he founded, continuing to pollute informed discourse and utterly trashing well-reasoned opinions in favor of shameless propaganda, all in the service of a morally bankrupt corporate agenda that is doing all it can to drag this country backwards into the mire of xenophobia, racism and misogyny. And the harm that this has done to this country is something that I don’t think can ever be truly calculated, though I believe the weight of that burden will be carried for untold generations.... anybody who thinks that won’t affect the quality of the lives of the people of this country far into the future is truly living in a fantasy.
Ali Velshi points out that telling the truth about Cheetoh Hitler isn’t automatically an incitement to violence...I think we all know by now that any news account that Combover Caligula doesn’t like is automatically derided as “fake news,” but as Velshi points out, everyone in this sorry, disgusting cabal is now using that same tactic also pretty much, including Trumpette spokes-liar Karoline Leavitt...I’d actually forgotten about that actual thug Greg Gianforte assaulting the reporter from The Guardian, and of course Gianforte ended up getting elected as governor of Montana...same with the murders of those five reporters in Annapolis, MD...and I definitely have issues with former FBI Director James Comey for the whole Hillary Clinton Email thing a month before the vote in 2016, but the whole “86 47 alleged threat” seashell thing on the beach is utter nonsense...
...and with the Velshi clip in mind, I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 5/3/17...this “Resistance” commentary from Keith Olbermann pertains to the words of Reince Priebus, the chief of staff during the first sorry reign of the Gropenfuhrer, and the threat of a Constitutional amendment to basically try and overturn the First Amendment in order to toughen our libel laws, all in the service of Dear Leader Mango Mussolini...as Olbermann puts it so directly, any such attempt to mess with our First Amendment freedoms would first and foremost be aimed at you and me, and in all likelihood, this humble blog would cease to exist (it’s been pretty well documented about all the ways our “fourth estate” is trying to curry favor with our disgusting ruling collection of bottom feeders)...revisiting Olbermann’s outrage is refreshing I have to admit; I don’t subscribe to his podcast, though I probably should to get more of this sort of thing I suppose...
...and Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland and the crew from The Majority Report bring us the tale of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lying and blaming Biden/Elizabeth Warren/Pete Buttigieg for not allowing Jet Blue to merge with Spirit Airlines and using that as the excuse for Spirit going under (that merger was apparently disallowed by a Reagan-appointed judge as Sam says, and the increase in the price of jet fuel hammered Spirit also since they apparently had no operating margins to get back to profitability)...and leave it to that shrieking harpie Maria Bartiromo to just go “uh huuum” because, as Sam says, she knows what Bessent is saying is BS...sounds like both airlines were carrying so much goddamn debt that it didn’t matter who merged with who; at least one of them would have gone under...airline story ends at about 5:12 and then they look at farm bankruptcies; maybe I’m being unkind, but I pretty much have no sympathy for our farmers because, as a bloc, they voted for Bronzer Beelzebub because I guess they bought into the utter fiction that the Repugs are better for the economy...that bar graph at about 5:47 tells the pretty damning story (and as they note in the clip, the increased farm bankruptcies benefit “Big Ag” for sure)...also, we get that clip of Don The Con making those remarks about affordability at “The Villages” in Flori-DUUH (in front of the ”pay no price, bear no burden” one percent wannabes), which, indeed, should be played on a loop in an ad for every Dem candidate in existence...Emma also mentions the stupendous idiocy of Todd Blanche saying you need voter ID for a restaurant (I mean, unless Blanche’s idea of a “restaurant” is a place where ladies perform while you stack dollar bills on the bar – heh)....NSFW/H for the Gropenfuhrer’s potty mouth...
...and speaking of planes, Belle of the Ranch discusses Canada and Sweden making out when it comes to defense spending by the EU...interesting history IMO on AWACS radar planes supplied to NATO and how they’ve been built by Boeing since forever (the E7 Wedgetail), but because of the antics of Our Demented Orange Toddler of a *preznit cutting spending about a year ago, it looks like the Swedish “Global Eye” powered by SAAB is going to end up as the plane of choice for NATO on this instead (Swedish tech in a Canadian plane, basically, with the US losing out on about $600 million per unit, potentially $6 billion overall – are you tired of the winning yet?)...
...and Mr. Newberger gives Repug mouthpiece Scott Jennings the treatment he deserves here (based on this)...
...and I don’t know if she’s coming to this area in the fall (in Europe this summer), but I’ll definitely be on the lookout for tickets – I’ll get in a plug here if I learn more about that.
Brian Tyler Cohen and attorney Marc Elias inform us that, with the SCOTUS’s latest wretched ruling on Section 2 of the VRA, Repug-run states mainly in the deep south are going to “move heaven and earth” to try and redraw their maps for this election cycle, and all of this is completely by design...kind of makes me wonder why Dems as a party haven’t made SCOTUS reform a higher priority all this time (some notable exceptions here are Dem Senator Sheldon Whithouse of Rhode Island) - beyond infuriating to see the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR just continue to take away our rights year after year while all we hear from the national Dem organization is a “tut tut” in response (and I think Dem governors should have tried to create some kind of a “consortium” or something like that long ago to come up with a joint strategy against voting nonsense like this, and likely for other reasons also, including standing up to the jackbooted ICE neanderthals)...looks like Louisiana is up first with their redistricting nonsense (this too), followed closely by Alabama, and then after that, it’s a “grab bag” of states taking their turns, as Elias puts it...Cohen and Elias are about 150 percent right when they say that Dem states need to step up, and I believe NJ Dem guv Mikie Sherrill “got that memo” as noted here...
...and awwww...Melania has hurt fee fees about Jimmy Kimmel making a joke about her old man potentially croaking on us, as Mike Figueredo tells us...good job by Zeteo to produce the clip of all of the hateful garbage from this pestilence of a ruling regime...and OF COURSE the FCC under human thumb Brendan Carr is going to use this moment to review ABC’s broadcast license, or something...and don’t expect much (or likely, any) corporate media outrage over this, since they’ve been effectively cowed by this godawful administration...nice to see the rantings of Cancun Cruz and Big Hair Blackburn (another southern state Repug who will probably skate into the governor’s mansion, along with “Coach Quitter” Tuberville) get called out here...nice job by Figueredo to remind us again about the bullsh*t DOJ inquisition into the SPLC...didn’t know about the YEAR-LONG detention of Columbia student Leqaa Kordia for protesting on behalf of the Palestinians...Democrats “need to be the threats that Republicans said they were” indeed, again, if we manage to take back power, and we need to keep working towards that goal (very NSFW/H)...
...and sticking with media stuff, Kyle Kulinski tells us that it looks like there was some stuff left out of the Gropenfuhrer’s recent “60 Minutes” interview, and as Kyle says, #47 screamed all over the place about editing of Kamala Harris’s interview by that program/network (which was likely just standard for what they did for ANY guest to squeeze the interview into the allotted time period), but as always, when it comes to yelling about “liberal bias,” working the refs and all the typical conservative horsesh*t, IOKIYAR...and as Kyle says, the SPLC funds informants to right-wing groups to get intel on these groups, and the SPLC turns over whatever information they get to law enforcement, but leave it to Cheetoh Hitler to get that EXACTLY WRONG...and by the way, one thing to do in response to this lying madness is to make a donation to the SPLC, and you can do that from here (NSFW also)...
...and this item form Melissa Chan of the German news service DW tells us about Japan, South Korea and Taiwan dealing with the unpredictability of the closure/non-closure of the Strait of Hormuz...as the report says, there’s a lot more of an emphasis on military spending by these countries now, and given the madness reigning politically here, who can blame them?...and yeah, the phrase “both alone and with the US” as stated by correspondent Rik Glauert is indeed more than a bit of a “tell” (and we know Japan is an industrial power now in itself and is nothing like what it was 80-90 years ago, but the thought of nationalism potentially taking over there again is discomforting to say the least)...as the report says, the biggest threat hanging over all of this is China’s potential invasion of Taiwan, which would be terrible both militarily and economically, and arguably, that has been made more of a possibility by our weakened military posture because of this latest Mideast madness in Iran...of all the ways that Bronzer Beelzebub has ruined the prestige this country once enjoyed, destroying alliances with our longtime allies (and this story is part of that IMO) is part of that for sure (doing the bidding of Vlad The Butcher once again like the Russian operative #47 truly is)...
...and this “cold open” from SNL recently brings us Colin Jost as SecDef Kegseth and Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel – when all else fails, there is always ridicule available in response to these cretins...
...and RIP Nedra Talley Ross, the last surviving member of The Ronettes.
Farron Cousins tells us that the verdict appears to be in on the reign of Bari Weiss at CBS News, and it’s about what you would expect...the Nielsen ratings agency says it looks like the CBS Evening News hasn’t hit 4 million viewers a night, which I suppose is the ratings benchmark against which the prime time newscasts are measured...Cousins is spot-on in saying that, in a world where a shameless flak like Weiss isn’t in charge of what was once a prestigious TV news organization, that person would have been canned by now with ratings like these (NSFW/H)...
...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ lets us know that California has enough signatures to get the billionaires tax on the ballot (this bunch would be taxed at 5 percent on all of their assets, and it would be a one-time tax), and leave it to Bernie Sanders to keep fighting for economic justice with the rest of us...of course, leave it also to plutocrats like Sergey Brin and his pals to have a collective hissy fit over it (not that we heard a word of protest from these characters of course over the Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck from last summer – hell, they made out like bandits, so OF COURSE they kept quiet over it)...but awwww, it looks like Peter Thiel and that foul ilk are still on the hook for the tax if it passes because they would have had to have left the state in January – womp womp...and yes, the ONE-TIME tax would go for nutrition and health care benefits that the regime of the Gropenfuhrer destroyed by the aforementioned bill (and I’m not going to dignify the typical indignant bullsh*t of our *preznit who, let’s not forget, was found civilly liable by a New York jury on a charge of sexual abuse, which is basically r*pe without the actual word - here)...
...and Dan Lieberman of More Perfect Union tells us that it looks like Corpus Christi, Texas may be the first US city to officially run out of water, with giant oil, gas, and petrochemical companies gobbling up precious resources (according to the report, businesses use about 60 percent of the water)...the residents have to rely on city, state and federal lawmakers, and I would guess that a few of them have already been paid off since that’s usually how this stuff plays out...and if you guessed that a historically black community is impacted the most here, then you win an exemption from water over-usage charges during a drought, which apparently is fine and dandy for businesses in the “All Hat, No Cattle” state (apparently, water exemptions were promised to businesses to get them to relocate to Corpus Christi, which has “bad idea” written all over it)...it looks like they reached a tipping point over a desalination plant to try and address the drought, according to councilman Jim Klein...I think it’s plain that this Roland Barrera guy is pretty much a business shill who doesn’t give a damn about the residents...kudos to civil engineer John Michael fighting what must be a lonely fight to drill emergency wells...I just don’t know about this Bob Paulison guy; I’m inclined to think he’s in on the grift too, but I’d love to be wrong, and this Peter Zanoni doesn’t sound impressive on this either as far as I can tell...
...and taking another trip over to the UK for a minute or two, Jonathan Pie discusses the “dodgy donations” of Nigel Farage, including a 5 million pound gift by someone in Thailand...didn’t know the extent of Farage’s grift, but it Is indeed a growth industry to fly around the world telling conservatives what they want to hear...Pie really nails it on crypto in particular here; there should be a full-throated corporate media outcry against it because it’s used primarily by criminals, but good luck expecting THAT to happen (very NSFW/H, but funny IMO)...
...and I wanted to conclude things for the week with this item – in our current Trumpist BS era there is so much hateful nonsense going on with the people who allegedly represent us (though we know the reality of course) and so much overall idiocy that I wanted to provide this item as a bit of a “palate cleanser”...before a recent Stanley Cup playoff game in Buffalo (where they commendably sing both the American and Canadian national anthems), the microphone for the singer performing “O Canada” went out, so the U.S. fans finished singing the anthem instead...props to the great Buffalo Sabres fans for this moment, and congrats to the team for moving on in the playoffs (and to the “Fly Guys” also of course)...
...and this week ten years ago, 15 albums by Prince reappeared on the UK charts in response to the musician’s death on 4/21/16...kind of puts me in a mood to hear this number once again.
Brittany Page sits in for Jesse Dollemore and discusses questions coming out about the official story of the attempted shooting of Combover Caligula at the WHCD...looks like the WaPo is doing an analysis of the facts that we know at the moment...the timeline of events here seems a little weird to me in that, based on the excerpted photos, it is hard to tell if the alleged shooter discharged his weapon before the cops fired on him multiple times...I’m not saying the cops should have let him run into the hall without firing on him if the alleged shooter didn’t obey orders to stop (which likely were issued to him), but I don’t understand why we’re not hearing a step-by-step analysis of what took place...I mean, did the alleged shooter fire or didn’t he (but then again, we’re talking about Mango Mussolini's henchmen here, so anything is possible)...
...and Chris Hayes informs us that the The High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR just threw out a voting map in Louisiana that was redrawn on the basis of that state’s population (one majority black district was added to one already existing black district), but our bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS blew that up in favor of a map that goes back to only one black majority district even though that isn’t representative of Louisiana’s population, and in the process, this guts Section 2 of the VRA because, according to Roberts and the SCOTUS conservatives, racism doesn’t exist anymore...and as Hayes says, Roberts has been after the VRA since he worked in the Reagan White House...and of course, Flori-DUUUH! jumped into the fray right after this horrible ruling to get a more gerrymandered voting map passed...Hayes speaks with Sherrilyn Ifill (the data presented on those two line graphs is undeniable)...our ruling regime and the “R” party in general want Apartheid America, and tragically, we’re on the way to that...GREAT point by Ifill that, once again, our renegade SCOTUS ran roughshod over its own precedents to pursue a plainly ideological goal...
...and sticking with legal stuff, Robert Reich and David Sirota discuss two upcoming SCOTUS cases that could destroy what’s left of our anemic campaign finance laws in the wake of Citizens United...and yes, that ruling meant that labor groups could spend like crazy also, but if you look at what has transpired since 2010, corporate spending has so far exceeded that spent by worker advocacy groups that it’s not even funny...didn’t know about Snyder v. United States, in which a “bribe” was somehow endowed with the legal fiction that such payment is instead a “gratuity”...we also learn about the NRSC v. FEC case, which would get rid of the limit on coordinated spending by political parties for candidates (with Couch Boy taking the lead on that one), and Sittenfeld v. US dealing with federal anti-bribery laws; P.G. Sittenfeld was convicted of accepting $20K in bribes (oh, excuse me...”campaign contributions”) in exchange for supporting a local development project; his “defense,” if you can call it that, is that “pay to play” is so widespread in our politics that it should no longer even be considered a crime...kind of makes me sick that Sittenfeld is a Dem, and naturally he was pardoned by Our Sweaty Orange Bronzer Boy...in response, we can indeed push for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and also, the fine folks in Montana need to enact the law not allowing corporations to spend in elections (watch Strip Search Sammy Alito and Almost Silent Clarence Thomas lose their minds over that)...
...and this clip from Thom Hartmann harks back a bit to Citizens United also as well as other SCOTUS rulings...sounds like Thom has had a contest more or less for about 20 years for anybody to name a major piece of Republican legislation that has helped the average person of this country over the last 45 years, and nobody can name anything (I could’ve told you that, but that’s OK)...didn’t know that families in this country spend, on average, $5K more than families in Canada, but that sure tracks, I have to admit...I’m not the least bit surprised to hear about all of the negative ads coming our way from the “party of Lincoln” this fall (here come the “migrant caravans” again bringing more drugs and crime, along with bathroom bills and “protecting women’s sports”) since the “R” team has NOT ONE DAMN THING TO OFFER THAT’S ANY GOOD, AND DEFINITELY NOTHING ELSE TO RUN ON...by the way, Lewis Powell ruled in the affirmative on Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, and Powell was a Democrat, albeit a very conservative one...
...and I know we must all find it in our hearts to extend whatever compassion we can to everyone who endured the near-tragedy at the WHCD a few days ago, so I’m going to provide what I consider to be an appropriate commentary from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog...
...and happy 85th birthday (I believe he’s still with us) to Johnny Farina of the duo Santo and Johnny, who had a big hit with this tune from back in the day.
Brian Tyler Cohen gives us a report on King Charles visiting our shores and acting like a head of state is supposed to in his speech before a joint session of Congress, citing all of the ways our legal tradition intersects with that of the U.K., along with that important reminder that, yeah, there are “checks and balances” against Mango Musoslini, and I think Cohen’s analysis of Dems rising to applaud and then Repugs is spot-on...I think the same analysis applies to the King’s remark about Ukraine...to say I personally have been ambivalent towards the monarchy is an understatement, but I have to admit that it was nice to see how a REAL head of state is supposed to (again) act for a change...
...and in a bit of a related theme (i.e., our country on the world stage), Kyle Kulinski brings us the all-time-awful world approval numbers on Combover Caligula (anybody surprised by that?)...I think that plus-11 number is in Hungary; kind of embarrassed to be honest that my geography knowledge isn’t better on that...apparently, #47’s antics over Greenland have done the worst damage to our reputation, though I’m sure his idiocy over Ukraine hasn’t helped one bit either...I hate to agree with Kyle’s analysis that we’re defaulting to the Chinese century as he puts it, but I don’t see any way around that painful conclusion (NSFW/H)...
...and continuing a bit with global matters, Dina Doll of the Meidas Touch Network discusses a report from Drop Site News; apparently, our ruling regime is torturing survivors of the boat attacks near Ecuador (blindfolded and held hostage for eight days)...we’re talking broken bones and, in one case, a foot sliced open so badly that the boat filled with blood (all of this is done by our cretinous ruling regime in our name, people)... Ecuadorian fishermen were captured and transferred to the El Salvadorian coast guard, though the fishermen were eventually sent back to Ecuador because of pressure from their families...didn’t know that, apparently, the Trump gang has allegedly killed 174 people from these boat attacks...good point that the fact that these boats were sunk as opposed to boarded for collecting evidence tells you that this was basically an execution at sea of people who were likely completely innocent...we’re reminded once more of SecDef Kegseth’s claim that we bombed an alleged Ecuadorian drug compound which was actually a dairy farm...another good point is that this madness is taking place while Kegseth canned the Secretary of the Navy during #47’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iran (here)...we’re reminded once more of Kegseth’s little rally about “the warrior ethos” while our military starves from being fed meals that you probably wouldn’t inflict on your pet (here)...important reminder that torture by our service personnel does indeed violate their own documented guidelines...
...and returning to domestic matters that are no less awful, Tennessee Brando lets us know that it looks like Ghislaine Maxwell is getting close to a full pardon...I mean, we’re talking about the Trump Crime Syndicate, so what seriously is going to stop them? Also, I’m not familiar with Scott MacFarlane, but it looks like he’s doing a good job with this story...also, good work by Madeleine Dean of our beloved commonwealth, trying to get that scumbag Howard Lutnick on the record over this horror show...and by the way, I think we just observed the one-year anniversary of the death of Virginia Guiffre, just to let you know (NSFW/H also)...
...and Josh Johnson of The Daily Show gives us another “Let Them Eat Ballroom” bit...yeah, let’s just speed up development of the Gropenfuhrer’s vanity palace/bunker while our economy goes down the drain along with our international prestige (and leave it to Huckleberry Graham to take the lead on THAT)...and gee, I wonder how many hospitals and doctors could continue to operate along with providing all of the VA services our vets need if that $400 million was used for THAT instead?...and I know I’ve said it before, and at the risk of repeating myself I’ll say it again; why the hell anybody with a brain would watch Fix Noise is something I’ll NEVER understand...and yep, John Fetterman gets lit up here, and he deserves all of it, sadly (with Jordan Klepper)...
...and if I'm going to include this tune for the month of April, I know I'd better hurry up, so here it is.
