Monday Stuff

I’ll lead off with Ari Melber yet again, talking with Dem U.S. House Rep Steve Cohen about Generalissimo Trump’s typically delusional notion that the shutdown will hinder investigations into his administration, which is probably why Number 45 has no desire to try and resolve it (and good job to invoke Warren Zevon)…



…and Farron Cousins tells us how the congressional Repug lemmings may end up taking the proverbial plunge off the cliff along with the Gropenfuhrer, and they’re predictably losing what’s left of their minds (and speaking of Repugs losing their minds, in response to this, please read “The exit” from here)…



…and kudos to Jayar Jackson of TYT for dragging Orrin Hatch as this colossal fraud slithers out of the spotlight of the U.S. Senate…



…and speaking of exits (well, sort of), I usually “go meta” at the end of the year like this and extend my appreciation to anyone who has spent any time whatsoever at this site during the year, and I do so again now.

This time, though, it’s a little different. I want to emphasize that, while I’m not giving this up entirely, I plan to step WAY BACK from posting as I have. I have at least one other pet project that I want to devote time to instead. As of now, it looks like that will consume a lot of my time for 2019. I don’t know how it will go, but the only way I’ll find out is to give it my best shot. To the extent that I have a plan, it is this – to work on other stuff and return to posting more frequently later in 2019 when (God help us) the 2020 election cycle starts to heat up (as Farron Cousins noted above). And at that time, I’ll try to mix it up a little more between written content and videos – sites like TYT, Ring of Fire, Secular Talk and others will do just fine without me putting up their stuff as often as I have.

Besides, I need a break. I’ve been doing this to one degree or another since 2005, and I think I’ve earned it. I originally started doing this because Dubya gave a speech in April 2005 created by Michael Gerson that, in typically obsequious and cowardly language, tried to elevate what was once called the “Global War On Terror” at the expense of the 60th anniversary of VE Day. Don’t ask me to track down any links about what exactly was said – I don’t intend to debate that all over again. All I know is that, whether he knew he was doing it or cared, Former Commander Codpiece was impugning the sacrifice of my father, to say nothing of the sacrifice of thousands upon thousands of other men and women who served in that theater, and I have to admit that something inside me snapped a bit.

Of course, I (along with probably every other liberal blogger who has ever done this) ended up cataloguing what turned out to be a volume of conservative right-wing lies, propaganda and nonsense that was stunning even to an admittedly jaded individual like yours truly after I started this thing up. I also ended up putting videos here just about every day except for most weekends to try and hang onto whatever views I managed to get and keep everyone coming back as much as I could. I particularly tried to do that for the 2018 election cycle because I felt it would be particularly important to keep as many people engaged as I could (“Z” list blogger that I am, I know there was only so much I could do about that). But I think I had some measure of success, and fortunately, we were able to achieve the electoral result we needed (yes, losing ground in the Senate hurts, but we HAD to win the House, and that happened thank God).

So I’m going to offer this video and then take a bit of a break. Usually I put up “People Have The Power” by Patti Smith, but instead, I’ll note that somehow I forgot to observe the passing of longtime Elvis drummer D.J. Fontana earlier this year (with this year also being the 50th anniversary of Presley’s comeback 1968 TV special), and offer this instead.

Let’s all do what we can to keep up the fight. Also, best wishes for all good things in 2019.

And rest assured that you’re not rid of me yet :-).