Saturday Stuff

Like many others, I had a lot of disagreements with U.S. Senator John McCain (here), but among his many notable accomplishments, he saved the Affordable Care Law (at least for the time being, despite the garbage being perpetrated against it by Generalissimo Trump and his band of lapdog congressional Republicans). As noted in the clip below, he also spoke out eloquently against torture (with a perspective on this unique to anyone else in public life), and he also worked on campaign finance reform with former Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold.

Oh, and somehow I’m sure you will NEVER, EVER hear a Republican candidate for president or anything else speak so eloquently against his Democratic opponent (again, as noted in the clip) – RIP…



…and Kyle K. tells us about more Drudgico BS about how the Dems should continue looking for that mythical centrist “middle” and stay away from Medicare for All – oh really? How about a 70 percent approval for something that is supposedly unpopular, as noted here (NSFW)?...



…and yes, I’ll admit that these are words and not actions, but coming from Pope Francis, I believe the words matter, though yes, there needs to be more follow-up (on the abuse scandal and the PA grand jury report of course)…



…and in addition to John McCain, RIP to guitarist Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd (the subject of another great Showtime documentary).

Friday Stuff

Robert Reich presents some recommendations for our corporate courtier media when covering Generalissimo Trump (yeah, good luck with that, I know, but kudos to Reich for speaking out on this and other matters of course)…



…and speaking of the “fourth estate,” Kyle responds to Jake Tapper on Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “Medicare For All” (NSFW – I think Kyle goes off the rails a bit especially at the end…I have no problem with showing some respect to John McCain which I alluded to in previous posts…but Kyle is absolutely right about Tapper’s ridiculous framing of the discussion about health care spending, along with NOBODY pointing out how STOO-PID it is for us to keep spending on defense as we do while our infrastructure continues to crumble)…



…and Farron Cousins sez that Rudy! was on the receiving end of a screaming match from the Gropenfuhrer about Uday Jr. and his involvement in all of the Trumpian criminality since America’s Mayor didn’t take the AG job instead of “immunity gnome” Jeff Sessions, with Trump thinking that Jr. would have “skated” with Rudy instead – everybody got that? (GREAT point at the end by Cousins that, if our Tiny Handed, Orange Lunatic had just decided not to run for president, he would have been a whole lot better off)…



…and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us that the current resident of An Oval Office is apparently warming to the idea of putting Erik Prince in charge of the Afghan War, which, let’s not forget, is still going on (and I’m not going to say what my reaction would be to a Dem saying the garbage Prince said - US military was “a litany of death and failure,” huh? Not really a privatization, but a rationalization, huh? – because I honestly think no Dem would have said anything that horrific)…sure, watch the Repugs privatize the profit and socialize the risk as usual…what could go wrong?)…



…and Hasan Piker does his best to debunk more wingnut horror stories of alleged white genocide (and, if it has anything whatsoever to do with perceived white oppression, you can be sure that Tucker Carlson is ALL OVER IT, PEOPLE!)…



…and yes, I know this story comes from The Putin Network and he’s only too happy to win propaganda points against us, but again, the reporting looks pretty solid (on the subject of the US prison inmate strike)…



…and I couldn’t let the week come to an end politically without including this clip from Dem Texas U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke answering a question about the NFL protests – yep, he hit a walk off grand slam, as it were, as far as I’m concerned (for God’s sake, Texas, PLEEEEEAAAASSSEEE vote him in and send Ted Cruz packing!)…

…and tomorrow marks what would have been the 100th birthday of legendary American pianist and composer Leonard Bernstein – I think this is an appropriate tribute from “West Side Story,” which he was integrally involved with along with Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (proof once more that art transcends boundaries including language).

Thursday Stuff

Farron Cousins reminds us that, as far as deficit “hawks” are concerned, the red ink only matters when Democrats are in charge, because of course their ultimate goal is unending tax cuts for the 1 percent, war without end and gutting the social safety net…



…which is the perfect transition to this item about Bri-Fi in PA-01 (and by the way, the latest Repug garbage in Bucks County, where political campaigns are supposed to be “honorable” according to that conservative mouthpiece masquerading as an almost-daily newspaper, is that you can’t trust Scott Wallace around kids – I didn’t think this gang would EVER go any lower than questioning former rep Patrick Murphy’s military service or one-time candidate Ginny Schrader’s support for Israel given her Jewish husband, but it shows how wrong you can be I guess – I had more to say about this here)…



…and all Congressional Repugs are bad as far as I’m concerned, but some have endorsed our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Wannabe Dictator more than others, and Lou Barletta is “all in,” you might say – to help Bob Casey, click here…



…and I’ve devoted space here defending Nancy Pelosi’s admittedly fine record of legislative accomplishment when she was House Speaker, but she just stuck a pin in that metaphorical balloon by totally caving on the question of impeaching the Gropenfuhrer with her utterly lame answer to that question, as Cenk and Ana tell us (referencing the 1999 clip of Huckleberry Graham in high dudgeon over Number 42 – and I couldn’t tell you anything about the Joe Crowley story...also, I’m not 100 percent certain of this, but I believe Lawrence O’Donnell was the one who unearthed the Graham clip – if so, kudos to him)…



…and wow, it looks like Walking Clothing Allowance (as Charlie Pierce calls her) sure is outraged about the admittedly tragic murder of Mollie Tibbetts, and of course it's all the fault of dastardly libs like yours truly (oh, and about the suspect being “illegal,” I give you this - more Tomi Lahren hilarity is here)…



...and here's another summer selection, as I work my way down the list on the way to Labor Day (trying not to think about it...)

Wednesday Stuff

Welcome to the GOP “Grand Old Crime Blotter” post…to begin, Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen flipping on his former boss and implicating the Gropenfuhrer for authorizing a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels (again, if this were a Dem, this person would have been tried, impeached and sentenced to prison by now, with our corporate media and everyone else wringing their hands about how awful it is, and it would be that…but isn’t it great for ratings too??!!)…



…and next, Ali Velshi tells us about the Paul Manafort convictions (not sure why we need a damn split screen with 7 people, but Velshi is right of course when he says in essence that, in a normal world, people would resign over this, though of course we’re not IN a “normal” world, even though this doesn’t directly tie Generalissimo Trump to Russia…yet)…



…and I’ll bet Repug U.S. House Rep Duncan Hunter is thinking that he’s one lucky SOB given that the indictment of both he and his wife for misuse of campaign funds wasn’t even the biggest news story yesterday (and as noted here in an update, Hunter bought a pair of Hawaii shorts and said later to claim them as golf balls for the Wounded Warrior Project…nice)…



Update 8/23/18: Way too damn funny - pass the popcorn...

…and Farron Cousins tells us about Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Rogers of Alabama, who, as it turns out, was the one really behind all of the recent “Space Force” idiocy…



…and Mike Malloy wonders what it would take to get Trump out (Don’t we all at this point?), as well as the little 6-year-old boy in dreadlocks showing up at the “Christian” school who was apparently turned away (very NSFW)…



…and I’m not sure that I’ve ever included this summer song before, or at least this version of it – hope you like it (from '65, I believe).

Tuesday Stuff

I wish I could agree with the sentiment that the PA election for governor is “over” (and in favor of the Dem incumbent Tom Wolf, I hasten to add), but I know it definitely isn’t, and I was reminded of that when I heard about this from our fat-headed Repug nominee, as well as this – in response, to help Wolf, click here…



Update 8/22/18: Yep, Wagner and Lou Barletta are each doing their best (worst?) to see who can "out-Trump" the other (here).

…and Chris Hayes discusses the remark about Don McGahn supposedly being a “rat” (takes one to know one, doesn’t it, Generalissimo Trump?) – and yeah, before we consider McGahn to be such a supposedly heroic figure (with McGahn doing all this because he doesn’t want to end up “in the slam,” let’s not forget), let’s also think about all of the radical right nut jobs McGahn is helping to put on our courts, to say nothing of his role to try and get Brett Kavanaugh to join The Supremes – the clip from “The Sopranos” is the perfect context, by the way…



…and Mike Papantonio tells us that the potential merger between Tribune Media and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group won’t go through – womp womp (yes, this is more from The Putin Network, but the reporting looks pretty solid to me)…



...and I know I'm falling behind on my summer tunes again - here is a bit of a "guilty pleasure" I guess (may have to crank the volume a bit).

Monday Stuff

I cannot even imagine what future generations will think of this time of utter madness in our political discourse, which, as Farron Cousins describes, has degenerated into a lower farce than I could have ever predicted (more here)…



…and I know of course that, when we’re talking about our Treasonous Orange Dictator, we’re talking about someone who’s pretty damn far from any semblance of rationality, but I thought this was a particularly stupid moment even for him recently (and yeah, naming the defense authorization bill after John McCain is a bit much I’ll admit, but of course leave it to the Gropenfuhrer to flub even THAT attempt at a tribute to someone who actually deserves it as far as I’m concerned)…



…and I’m going to try and make the subject matter of this post a hell of a lot more honorable and decent by now paying tribute for former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – RIP…



…and staying with world stuff, I would say that this Danish politician gave a pretty good “clap back” to Fix Noise humanoid Trish Regan, who happened to be completely and utterly wrong about Denmark…



…and Bill Maher’s comments on the Catholic Church and last week’s horrific PA grand jury report were typically idiotic and ridiculous (yes, we get it that you think religion is a phony product, and the comparison to Jiffy Lube doesn’t even merit a response – let’s move on), but I think Jennifer Granholm, the Axios reporter and (shockingly) Charlie Sykes were correct, though we could do without the enema reference…Sykes is right, though, that this is a “reformation” moment for sure…and this is positive, but the time for words is over – only action now…and by the way, Maher was also complaining that Dems and their spokespeople or whatever aren’t on the cable news shows the way Rudy 9iu11ani is concerning Trump, Russia and Mueller, to which I have at least two responses: 1) Have you seen MSNBC lately, though I’ll grant you the point that that network definitely is not “liberal,” and 2) If “America’s Mayor” is going to make this much of an ass of himself, isn’t it best to stay the hell out of his way?…



(And this is why it is hard for anyone to believe that the Church will EVER clean up their own wretched mess, to say nothing of this…if the priests were all gay, they would just date each other and that would be that, you assclown.)

…and I was happy to hear about this from The Eagles (the band, that is, not our Super Bowl champs – ahhhh, it never gets old), which gives me an excuse for this great selection from their top-rated recording.