Wednesday Stuff

Farron Cousins of “Ring of Fire” tells us about Ted (“Raphael” Born In Canada) Cruz claiming that Beto O’Rourke will ban barbecue, or some such nonsense…I’ll refuse to gloat over this until the day mercifully comes when Cruz is defeated…tells you something about Texas that this race is as close as it is, and I don’t mean that as a compliment (and in a related story, kudos to Willie Nelson for this)…



…and nice work here also by Maya Wiley here, former assistant U.S. Attorney for the southern district of NY, on the latest Brett Kavanaugh garbage (Nail. Hammer. Head.)…



…and when it comes to Kavanaugh and everything else really, Corker, Flake and the rest are just the same old Republicans (here – they’re going to use Dr. Ford’s quite reasonable demand to have the FBI investigate first as an excuse to have no more hearings at all and go right to the vote).

(By the way, I have been quite understandably flooded with requests to call Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Elevator) and urge him to vote No on Kavanaugh. And I haven’t done it. And it is because I’ve called Toomey over a dozen times on various issues since he tragically was elected to the Senate in 2010, and he has steadfastly refused to vote the way I have asked him to on ANY ISSUE WHATSOEVER.

If you live in PA and want to try, go ahead (here). Sadly, the opportunity to get rid of him came and went in 2016, and short of his resignation, I see no way to be rid of him until 2022 at the earliest.)...



Update: I emailed Toomey and told him to oppose Kavanaugh - should have made clear earlier that I did something anyway.

…and I know a little bit about this issue myself; Kyle of Secular Talk discusses the typically stupid and pointless crackdown on vaping by The Gropenfuhrer’s FDA…yes, I know that, when discussing cigarette smoking and vaping, you’re talking about two activities that are inherently unhealthy, but Kyle is absolutely right – in my experience anyway (which is supported by Kyle’s data), you have an easier time working yourself off regular cigarettes (with their many foul carcinogens, to say nothing of nicotine) than you do off of an e-cigarette…if you have to choose between the two, I suggest going the e-cigarette route (but of course, do that and Big Tobacco haz a sad...NSFW)…



…and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about this CNN segment with Trumpster-ettes, you might say – Nell Justilliano, who I think is totally out to lunch, is the first person interviewed by Alisyn Camerota – easy for me to look down my nose at these women, though I obviously am not doing that and I would be wrong to do so (the young twenty-something woman with black hair impressed me with her knowledge and overall awareness); I just thoroughly disagree with these women panelists, though I respect their right to have an opinion…should almost go without saying I know (and I think Cenk is particularly correct about them getting bad – or at a minimum, incomplete – information)…

…actually, maybe these panelists (and everybody else) should just watch this video from Robert Reich and THEN speak to Camerota…



…and I think this is a GREAT New York Times commentary on where we are vis-à-vis the midterms…



…and happy birthday to David Bromberg (and I promise I got the date right… biggest finish of them all coming up; just wait for it).