Yeah, it appears that Larry Kudlow is every bit the type of miscreant that you would expect to populate the Gropenfuhrer’s cabinet of fools and frauds (and a snowflake to boot based on this)…
Update 8/22/18: Only on a news day as utterly unbelievable as yesterday could this story be put on the proverbial back burner.
…and of all the Trump criminals in our ruling regime, I think we need to pay more attention to this Elliott Broidy character – I’ll admit that paying off the women Trump cheated with may be low-hanging fruit, as it were, by comparison with the mountain of other garbage, and as much as I detest Trump I’m still not hearing proof that he knocked up somebody and paid for an abortion, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it eventually turned out to be true…
…and Farron Cousins talks about a Robert Reich column about how Generalissimo Trump is trying to abolish every regulation that he can, although this is definitely a “team R,” thing overall if you will (and Cousins doesn’t provide any proof that it’s partly a “team D” thing as well, unfortunately, though I’m sure he could back up that claim)…
…and speaking of Reich, he tells us why our Treasonous, Tiny Handed Orange Egomaniac’s trade war is ruinous for this country…
…and I hope you’re up for an encore of Aretha Franklin tunes, because here it comes (and of all of her legendary recordings, “Think” may be the most transcendent as far as I’m concerned).
Cenk and Ana of TYT discuss Generalissimo Trump and revoking the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan - all of the people who've had their clearance removed by Trump, including Brennan, have worked with Comey and/or have some relationship to the Russia investigation (and that goes for more people who could also have their clearances taken away, which Trump is making noise about of course)…if these people don’t have their clearances, then they can’t prepare for testimony, including before Congress and/or Mueller…fortunately, people like Dem U.S. Senator Mark Warner are wise to this; of course, trying to stop it is another story (Rachel Maddow had a good video on that last night, but if you want to try and find it at MSNBC’s site, be my guest…this was the story Cenk teased a bit at the end, by the way…kudos to Adm. McRaven)…
…and a lot of this is echoed by Ari Melber, author and former CIA analyst David Priess and Tim O’Brien of Bloomberg News (and yeah, we know what Sarah Hillbilly Sanders and Mr.-Puppy-Dog-Eyes-With-The-Shiv truly are, but since we’re talking about our thoroughly compromised corporate courtier media here, Heaven forbid that they don’t get their faces on TV)…
…and staying with national security and international stuff, Kyle K. tells us how pulling out of the Iran nuke deal has been disastrous (NSFW at the very end)…
…and happy 75th birthday to legendary Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro (and, as we know, DACA turned out to be yet another Trump lie – “Part The Infinity” as Charlie Pierce might say…I would say that, given what has passed since these questions were first asked not quite a year ago, Poppy Harlow looks like an idiot)…
…and here are two more musical selections to pay tribute to Aretha Franklin (more here).
By the way, good job by newspapers to push back against the “fake news” idiocy from the Gropenfuhrer today; the CNN story is here, and nice work by The Intelligencer in these parts is here (but Eric Boehlert is correct IMHO here too).
Update 8/17/18: Yes, Jack Shafer made a good point here that the press blew it in covering our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Dictator, but are they now supposed to do NOTHING in response? I was always taught that you're supposed to stand up to bullies.
Now, turning to our demented orange child king…Seth Meyers gets into some Omarosa-related stuff here (again, I don’t care about the “N” word tape, not because it isn’t bad but because you’d have to be stoo-pid at this point to think Trump ISN’T a racist)…
…and Brett Erlich and Ana of TYT tell us about the one racist guy getting yelled at by his dad and the other one complaining about life on his boat, or something…
…and I thought this was a hilarious idea from Frederick Joseph, even though he was trying to make a serious point, but of course there was nothing even remotely funny about some of the reactions he got for it…
…and RIP to the Queen of Soul, remembered by critic Jon Pareles in this fine New York Times feature (more here - for what it’s worth, Elvis passed on this day in history too)…
…and trying to highlight her best work over only the next couple of days is a fool’s errand I know, but here are a couple of selections we know well.
What follows is a CBS report of PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaking about the grand jury report that named 300 priests in allegations of sexual misconduct – Shapiro uses the phrase “the weaponization of faith” which, sadly, is totally apropos I believe…at about 8:16, Shapiro admits that “we don’t think we got them all,” despite the incredibly exhausting and commendable work by the grand jury on this (more here)…
…and even though, as far as I’m concerned, the grand jury report is an earthquake by comparison, I know I have to keep an eye on the political stuff too, so I give you the following from Stephen Colbert about Generalissimo Trump’s latest idiocy…
…and TYT with Cenk and Ana tell us about Ted Cruz wanting the Gropenfuhrer’s help in his U.S. Senate campaign against Beto O’Rourke (yeah, it would be pretty funny if Cruz was doing that shimmy also…and when we’re talking Number 45, let’s not forget this too)…
…and continuing with our ruling regime of frauds and criminals, Mike Malloy gives us the following about Melania’s family and "chain migration" (and by the way, she gets no pass whatsoever from yours truly – and concerning a not-directly-connected story, I could care less if Omarosa has tapes or not…we know what our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Egomaniac truly is – let’s get over our case of “shiny object syndrome” and pay attention to what matters, OK…and yes, that’s aimed primarily at our thoroughly useless corporate media - NSFW)…
…and Hasan Piker claps back on some wingnut yelling in his car about NFL protests…
…and even though I believe the tragedy discussed in the first video is man-made and a deity isn’t responsible, I still felt like hearing this song.
Oops! It looks like Betsy DeVos is BUSTED (as TYT tells us), caught not paying taxes and flying the flag of the Cayman Islands on one of her 10 yachts – womp womp (sometimes David Sirota pisses me off with his CORPORATE DEMS! CORPORATE DEMS! CORPORATE DEMS! CORPORATE DEMS! act, but I have no issues whatsoever with his first-class reporting, and this is an example…Ana is on fire at about 4:20 or so, and Cenk is later, and they’re both spot-on…and as much as this is awful wretched excess on DeVos’s part of course, I don’t favor vandalism either)…
(And by the way, speaking of “Corporate Dems”…no, I don’t like the fact that corporations have an outsized say in our politics either. But like many of you I’m sure, I get BOMBARDED with soliticitations from candidates, and more often than not, I’m unable to throw them anything. Basically, even though I don’t like it of course (and I admit I don’t know from firsthand experience), I don’t know how you can possibly run a political campaign WITHOUT corporate contributions. That’s why, aside from anything related to our health and that of our planet, campaign finance reform and TOTAL PUBLIC FUNDING OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS MUST BE the most important issue…but good luck getting the vast majority of the American sheeple to support it. The candidates need to earn my trust, though, to convince me that they won't do the bidding of corporations at my expense.)
…back to the videos – and kudos to Dem U.S. House Rep (and vet) Ruben Gallego for standing up to the right-wing nut jobs out there; this is how it’s done (again, with the recent one-year anniversary in Charlottesville in mind…nice job with a bit of trolling by Gallego, and I think Gallego did a good job of fending off those idiotic Avenatti questions; haven’t we gotten into enough trouble with ONE TV personality already??!!)…
…and I think the prior video (with the Pelosi question) is actually a pretty good lead in to the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 8/12/12 – the next time you hear anybody bitching about the U.S. House Dem Minority Leader (while some in our party wrongly “measure the drapes,” and a GREAT recent column on this from Prof. Krugman is here), keep in mind that she had A LOT to do with the legislative accomplishments Rachel Maddow notes here, the last time Dems ran all branches of the federal government...I know this originally aired late in October/early in November 2010 of course – and by the way, I will NEVER accept the supposed choice between using political capital just for the sake of politics and consolidating power (as Repugs do) vs. using political capital to get stuff done but losing for it at the ballot box (Dems); as far as I’m concerned, use political capital to get stuff done, make the case to the voters that you’re better than the other guy because of it, and see if you win re-election or not…
..and Velshi and Ruhle tell us that it looks like all of this “winning” under the Gropenfuhrer may be slowing down as we get closer to the end of the year – but I’m sure he’ll find a way to blame Former President Hopey Changey anyway…
…and Thom Hartmann talks with Wendell Potter, formerly of CIGNA, about how healthcare interests (pharma and insurers) are trying to scare us out of universal health care – great job by Thom and WP to talk about the $32 trillion vs. $49 trillion health care expenditure in this country over the next 10 years; I think this is an example of the campaign they’re talking about (gee, how about rolling back the exemption noted here for starters instead?)…
…and happy belated 75th birthday to Jim Kale, bassist for The Guess Who; he and drummer Garry Peterson had kind of a nasty legal spat with Cummings and Bachman over playing under the name of the band with just Kale and Peterson…as far as I’m concerned, C&B should let bygones be bygones, but what do I know?
Update: Right now, for what it’s worth, my reaction is shock and horror. The anger will come later.
No wonder they worked so hard to keep the report from being released.
To note the recent anniversary of the Charlottesville protest and the killing of Heather Heyer, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, James Thompson, and Adrienne Lawrence of TYT give us an example of what I think can best be called “white privilege in action” (more here – heh)…
…and Rachel Maddow tells us Dem U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida's quote about Russia having “free rein” to move around in that state’s election infrastructure (and OF COURSE Lex Luthor Scott would think it’s a joke; when these Russian hacks actually benefit DEMOCRATS, let me know, OK? And I didn't see the follow-up segment.)…
…and if Peter Strzok was fired only because of the texts about Trump, then that’s total garbage – apparently there was new stuff out there that FBI director Christopher Wray mentioned, however…we’ll find out if that’s just cover or not – Pete Williams of NBC reports to Velshi and Ruhle here…
…and this BBC story tells us about a conference of young progressives in New Orleans… I think the guy at about 1:31 is spot-on…get Dems elected, get a taste of power (dare I hope?) and THEN remake the party to be more representative of the country as a whole.
(…and here’s another thing to consider – Elizabeth Warren is great, and if she somehow ends up as the Dem prez nominee of course she’d have my support, but last I checked, MA guv Charlie Baker is a Repug, so our team would lose Warren’s seat for sure, and the Senate might be too close for comfort on that…just “spitballing” here…)
…and of all of the Gropenfuhrer’s utterly baldfaced lies, maybe the one about him supposedly being such a good deal maker may be the worst – maybe, as Robert Reich explains…
…and I don’t have to put the NSFW label for a song very often, but I do here – nice rockin’ tune all the same.
