Nice work by Jimmy Kimmel here to keep the pressure on (more here)…
…and here is Rachel Maddow’s “A” block from last night (more here); I pretty much agree with Karoli at C&L, and with respect to Charlie Pierce, I don’t agree…when a hostile foreign power is attacking our electoral process, what is called for is a BIPARTISAN response from our elected officials…again, if the shoe had been on the other foot, you want to know how fast the Repugs and our corporate media would have been attacking the Dems if they politicized this the way Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao did (to say nothing of the rest of his party)?...
...and once again, my hometown does me proud...
Philadelphia just added two colors to its Pride flag for queer and trans people of color pic.twitter.com/BGFbJMmYSy
…and sticking with Philly, here’s a clip from about a year ago of local guitarist Chris Forsyth and his Solar Motel Band performing what I think are a couple of cool instrumental numbers – the second selection, which he starts at about 7:00, has a bad word in it which he states and appears onscreen once…c’est dommage.
Rachel Maddow reminds us how disabled individuals stood up for their rights in Colorado and did likewise yesterday in the office of Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao; as a result, they were zip-tied and carried out.
Oh, and by the way (speaking of the Senate’s version of Mephistopheles), there are people dumping on Occupy Democrats because they have a pic of McConnell stating that he received government-funded care while treated for polio at Warm Springs, GA as a child (the same place where FDR was treated). The fact that McConnell was treated for polio as a child at Warm Springs is not in dispute; what IS in dispute is how much the government paid for it. I think the mere fact that he was at Warm Springs recovering (and again, despite what McConnell intends for us, I don’t wish physical harm for him of course) with people in similar circumstances and apparently learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING or HAD NOT A SHRED OF EMPATHY for them based on his actions is damning enough. Whether or not he recovered on the government’s dime is needlessly splitting hairs as far as I’m concerned.
…and speaking of people facing risky health prospects, I give you this (once again, heckuva job, baby boomers, and I don’t absolve myself when I say that)…
'Millennial women are poorer, more likely to commit suicide, and 10x more likely to be incarcerated' 😧 pic.twitter.com/evdyTyMFtt
…and this just in: Rand Paul is still a thoroughly compromised idiot…
…and Seth Meyers weighs in on Trump-scam-care (and of course, McConnell is an utter lying sack of shit about how supposedly closed the “Obamacare” legislative process was, a point amply proven in this video and in many other places and many other ways)…
…and kudos to young Joe Kennedy again on this subject…
Stop what you're doing and listen to Joe Kennedy trashing the AHCA for its callousness pic.twitter.com/abY16lvCRE
…and after watching this, I’m not about to go out and say now that Jon Ossoff lost because of voter suppression, but I WILL say that this further emphasizes the need for increased transparency in our elections (GREAT reporting by Greg Palast on the GA-06 election once again)…
…and it’s time once more for another installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 6/23/08, in which former Dem U.S. House Rep Dennis Kucinich did his best to mobilize us to try and get Dubya and “Deadeye Dick” impeached (given that, how can we do less for the “Gropenfuhrer”?)…
…and time once more for a 1967 tune (a question to ask President Tiny-Handed Impulse Control Egomaniac, though of course we already know the answer).
It looks like Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and his pals are trying to make us all bend over and say “Aaahhh,” on “Trump-scam-care” based on this (and kudos to Number 44 for this - more here).
…and with that in mind, I would say that Hawaii Dem U.S. Senator Brian Schatz is pretty spot-on here…
'For this bill, no transparency, no bipartisanship – just 13 men meeting in secret.' – This Senator called out Republicans over the #ACHApic.twitter.com/zCMVXuCRv7
…and maybe this is piling on, but as you watch Sen. Elizabeth Warren here, note that “Aggressive Progressive” Jimmy Dore dumped all over her for being a “corporate Dem” for supporting HRC…yeah, what a “winning strategy,” that was, huh genius?...
I’ve read the Republican “health care” bill. This is blood money. They’re paying for tax cuts with American lives. pic.twitter.com/298DLguNiM
…and we know who’s trying to perform this metaphorical bank robbery of sorts, but guess who is driving the getaway car, if you will (hint: they have a whole lot of initials)…
Republicans drafted a health care bill in secret. With some notable exceptions, the reaction from the media has been lackluster: pic.twitter.com/fwcYZUeWPX
…and turning to how we ended up with Generalissimo Trump, Rachel Maddow gets to the election stuff at about 9:00 and does a good job once more of connecting the dots between the Russian hacking and how voting was potentially disrupted (likely disrupted as far as I'm concerned) in Dallas County in Texas, among other places (and yeah, I think it's genuinely sad to see Oliver Stone get played like that)…
…and yeah, Rep. Yarmuth, I think “that’s a shame” too…no disrespect to the Dem U.S. House Rep, but how about telling the “Gropenfuhrer” exactly what you think of him for this? Or, as Bill Maher said, the NEW Dem mantra should be “when they go low, we kick them in the nuts”…
Poor Kentuckians voted for Trump. Here's how he repaid them.
Yeah, I saw the news today oh boy, and I think this, this, and this sum up how I feel (and uh huh, THIS – and I’m looking at YOU again on this one, Jimmy Dore!). I believe it was Karl Rove, of all people, who said that “demographics is destiny,” and though the demographics aren’t there yet for us, we’re getting closer on that.
That being said, I watched a video that Cenk Uygur, who I respect, made last night right after the word came down about Handel’s victory (I didn’t include it partly because I didn’t totally agree with it and also because he couldn’t keep the camera still). Cenk is a little too doctrinaire as far as I’m concerned (to me, Repugs win because they fall in line, which Dems don’t do as often as they should); he caved on the whole “Nancy Pelosi” thing from the wingnuts because she’s a “corporate Dem,” but as far as I’m concerned, when someone tries to call her out, we should get in that person’s face and say exactly what their problem is with her – speaking only for myself, I’m tired of all of the ZOMG! NANCY PELOSI NANCY PELOSI NANCY PELOSI OOGA BOOGA!!! nonsense (oh, riight – she’s from SAN FRANCISCO!). Just saying she’s a corporate Dem without any pushback against those clowns is validating their idiocy (though, maybe, on the other hand...now DWS is a whole other story as far as I’m concerned).
Also (with the huge qualifier that I rarely saw any political ads from Ossoff), if there is indeed any truth that Ossoff ran that typical losing centrist Dem strategy (for lack of a better word), then yeah, the outcome was totally predictable.
I just know that his ridiculous Emails definitely had the look-and-feel of the typical DNC garbage with headlines like “P-U-M-M-E-L-E-D!” “PLEASE!” “HOPE GONE!” “DEFEATED!” “AWFUL NEWS!” “FINAL REQUEST!” and the like. They got so ridiculous, actually, that I asked to receive fewer of them as opposed to unsubscribing from Ossoff Emails altogether. Well, I eventually DID unsubscribe because the volume was STILL totally out of hand. Then, I received an Email from the Ossoff campaign in the closing days via Daily Kos, so like a fool I made another contribution. And then, that started the whole daisy chain of constant Emails all over again to the point where I unsubscribed again.
Oh, and by the way, if there’s also any truth to this, then Ossoff deserved to lose; with a weapon to beat up Handel like The Great Orange Turd, why in God’s name WOULDN’T YOU FREAKING USE IT??!!
Now to the videos...…K.O. wonders about whether or not there really are tapes of the “Gropenfuhrer” and James Comey, and how exactly we would find that out (loved the Nathan Thurm reference)…
...and yeah, who's in the mood for another global financial meltdown? Show of hands?...
…and gosh, whaddaya know? It looks like a GOP contractor leaked a hell of a lot of voter information from their voter records – looking for the same degree of self-righteous indignation from our corporate media over this as I would over the Dem stuff during the HRC campaign last year…
…and just because our impulse-control-issue-child-in-chief has a problem with accepting climate change, that doesn’t mean the rest of us should too (I seem to recall the Good Book saying we should be stewards of the earth – oh, but that was from “hippie” Jesus, not Republican Jesus…oh, and let’s not forget who was responsible for this, by the way)…
If Donald Trump won't fight climate change, world leaders like Pope Francis & Angela Merkel will pic.twitter.com/5zfwu7X7mU
Kyle K. gives us the latest on Trump-Scam-Care and all of the disgusting secrecy by Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and his pals (NSFW…and how typical is this…first comment is great – and boy, is Kyle right about “Medicare for all”)…
…and speaking of health care, this needs to be pointed out again and again and again (yeah, I’m sure Ivanka and Melania are such a mellowing influence for President Impulse Control Tiny-Handed Egomaniac…what a load of crap)…
…and of course, this is another health crisis, but at least SOMEBODY may get sent up to do hard time over it (more typical for a third-world banana republic than what this country is truly supposed to be)…
…and in response to this item from that human stain Darrell Issa, I give you the following commentary from Martin Bashir (Remember him? And what exactly was it that got him thrown off the air again? Oh yeah, that’s right…he made an unsettling reference that hurt the fee fees of “Caribou Barbie” – pretty thin given the garbage and viciousness of Generalissimo Trump that came after Bashir’s run had ended)…
…and yeah, I think we’re no longer at a point where we should be amused by all of the metaphorical pratfalls of the “Gropenfuhrer” – assuming we were ever at that point in the first place – but genuinely concerned for our country, as K.O. reminds us…
…and I know I’ve been hung up on 75th birthdays lately, but I absolutely had to extend similar best wishes here to Brian Wilson.
Rachel Maddow tells us about the “cyber” guy for Generalissimo Trump who the U.S. House Intelligence Committee wants to talk to, as well as asking the question “Where In The World Is Mike Pompeo?” (and more on the thoroughly rancid Bob Goodlatte is here)…
…and this video tells us about the “Fabulous Life of Karen Handel” (I’m not sure if everyone will get the Robin Leach voice-over reference, but nice try – more here and even more unbelievable stuff here…TOMORROW IS THE GA-06 ELECTION AT LONG LAST! And to help Jon Ossoff one last time, click here...and let's not forget this from Handel also)…
…and let’s also not forget how hugely important an issue this is also (nice job to work in a bit of humor by the guy you’d expect for that, though he’s in deadly earnest also)…
Internet freedom is in grave danger – and these senators are trying to save it pic.twitter.com/uSGAb3nryT
...and kudos to the Golden State Warriors for telling President Big Orange Cheetoh where to go (NSFW - and yeah, I guess you could go either way...maybe if Trump were something close to a typical head of state in the tradition of what presidents are REALLY supposed to be in this country, I would oppose what the Warriors are doing, but he isn't so I don't – I’m probably going back and forth a bit on this I’ll admit, I mean the whole “see the president” thing in general...and Kyle is a little rough on Number 44, but unfortunately I don't think he's wrong)...
…and speaking of sports, today is the 45th anniversary of the ruling against Curt Flood, an All-Star centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals who tried to claim free agency rather than be traded to the Phillies – I couldn’t stand Flood for years because of that, but when I learned more about his story and the personal toll the verdict against him ended up taking on him, I was a lot more sympathetic (and for a long time, he was right about many Phillies fans and the organization, unfortunately), especially when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally did the same thing as Flood three years later and were successful (here)…
…and GREAT commentary here by the Rev. Dr. William Barber in response to the Philando Castille verdict, among other news items…
…and here is another 75th birthday to commemorate, and that would be “Spanky” McFarlane of Spanky And Our Gang (the ‘60s rock group, not the kids show) – this is a really preachy tune too, but it’s kind of my thing after all, isn’t it?
(For Mother’s Day, I had a picture of four women wearing MAGA shirts, so it’s only apropos that I do the same thing for Father’s Day, and I definitely mean it as a bad joke for this day also.)
And speaking of bad jokes, am I the only one who thinks that’s the best way to describe the timing of the mistrial ruling in the Bill Cosby case, coming down on Father’s Day weekend?
And yes, here are the usual caveats when I post about legal stuff – I don’t know all the details, nor do I claim to, and I’m also not privy to any kind of information that shouldn’t be disclosed. If somehow I was, I would keep it to myself because I wouldn’t want to say or do anything prejudicial to the trial.
However, from what I know, I think this sums up how I feel (and having graduated from Temple, I can tell you that I don’t enjoy dumping on Cosby, even when I feel that I have to)…
…and I guess you can apply those caveats to this also (and what does it tell you that Yanez was fired right after the verdict – and by the way, where is the NRA screaming about “gun owner rights” on this one? And great points by Ana, Ben and Alonzo Bodden)…
