I’ll defer to David Corn here since I think his take pretty much says it - and on the matter of whether or not our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Dictator is going to meet with our former ol’ buddy Vlad Putin, I give you this…
…and yes, give SC Repug U.S. Sen Tim Scott credit for basically killing the nomination of former Jesse Helms stooge Thomas Farr for U.S. District Court judge for North Carolina, but yeah, as Scott Lemieux says here, it shouldn’t have been that close of a vote for the reasons Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated recently…
…and Thom Hartmann tells us of the Gropenfuhrer’s latest lie, about alleging that he had no financial interest in building a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 campaign (confirmed from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s latest revelations…the corporate media conventional wisdom seems to be coalescing around the claim that our demented lunatic of a preznit didn’t make any $$ off of the deal, at least as far as we know, and that should be it, but hey, news organizations with alphabets for names, try keeping your eye on the goddamn ball, as noted here, OK?)…
…and as you watch this video about the number of uninsured kids going up in this country (from John, Ben and Aida Rodriguez, dovetailing a bit from the Hartmann clip), I would ask that you also keep in mind this utter lie from Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao (as well as this about a Russia/Mueller-related item)…
…and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 11/30/11, in which many of the usual suspects in the GOP Senate caucus professed to oppose a sales tax holiday, though they eventually reneged here, including the Senate Majority Leader; as noted here, yeah, a sales tax holiday is probably bad tax policy, but it strikes me as the equivalent of scrambling for table scraps while the one percent enjoy a banquet of filet mignon by comparison…tax policy that actually makes sense across the board is the answer, but good luck with that given that the Repugs will actually INCREASE their Senate majority in January…
…and once again, heckuva job for letting THAT happen, voters in North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri and Florida!...
...but it's just about time for the weekend, so here's somewhat of an upbeat seasonal tune to listen to (depending on what we observe of course) while we wait for holiday stamps at the post office and fight the mall traffic.
For many reasons, I haven’t been paying as much attention as I had previously to the Russia investigation involving the Gropenfuhrer and his cohorts (including this), but though I know this has been a ratings boon for MSNBC, I also think they’re doing some commendable work on this still-hugely-important story, particularly Rachel Maddow…it’s easy to let this blend in with the typical flotsam and background noise from this often-comically inept regime of crooks and traitors, but I thought this was a particularly good refresher of sorts with the exactly appropriate historical context (didn’t see the follow up story)…
…and Hasan Piker has another “Breakdown” on that “death eater” Tomi Lahren and tear-gassing asylum seekers (if pepper spray is supposed to be so edible, as they put it, try consuming it on camera, which they won’t do of course – and for the record, on a related matter, I give you this…NSFW)…
…and Farron Cousins tells us about Ivanka Trump claiming innocence for using a private Email server (from one clueless conservative blonde to another - GMAFB!)...
…and David Pakman tells us that Germany, Finland and Denmark, commendably, are going to stop weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the Jamal Khashoggi murder and the Yemeni genocide (as opposed to us of course)…
…and Sam Seder and The Majority Report tell us more on the Mississippi election between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy; it's true that the racist won, but there were some interesting down-ballot results as it turned out (and yeah, we know what Pete Hegseth of Fix Noise truly is...Sam got her name wrong, but we know who he's talking about)…
…and here’s another seasonal selection – there are times I wish I could skate away too (good day for hot chocolate with marshmallows).
Gee, I wonder if Gritty will end up as the new Flyers GM?
As somewhat of a lapsed fan of the orange-and-black, I feel compelled to weigh in on the recent firing of GM Ron Hextall (here), for whatever my opinion is ultimately worth in these or other matters (I've followed the team on an ever-less-frequent basis since they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2010 mainly because of the front-office screwups that frequently occurred before Hextall was named as GM).
Let’s see now – I believe, when Hextall first took the reins, the Flyers had previously unloaded Patrick Sharp, Dennis Seidenberg and Justin Williams since the team had ZERO patience with developing prospects (and all three went on to win Stanley Cups with other teams) and, in return, the Flyers, being stuck in their 1970s mindset, acquired bigger but slower and less-talented players who usually ended up getting hurt, waived or traded themselves.
Oh, and did I mention Sergei Bobrovsky? The guy who posted about a 2.40 goals against average in his rookie year and who was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets? All he did was go on to win a Vezina trophy, that’s all.
The Flyers’ salary cap situation was a joke when Hextall took over. He got them out of deals where they had to pay off Vincent Lecavalier basically for NOT playing, as well as Chris Pronger and that Russian tragedy of a goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov (it was former GM Paul Holmgren’s brilliant idea to basically rip the team apart by trading Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to be able to pay for “Bryz” based on Pronger’s recommendation…I’ve seen Pronger’s name floated as a possible GM replacement, and great player though he was, I think he should be disqualified for that reason alone, though I have to admit that Holmgren, partly due to Richards’s drug issues, ended up doing all right with acquiring good players in both moves).
The team also didn’t have any younger talent coming up from the minor leagues to push the veterans, but now, players at Lehigh Valley such as Oscar Lindblom, German Rubtsov, Mikhail Vorobyev and Mike Vecchione have all either seen time with the parent club in Philly or are on the short list to eventually make the NHL roster for good. And Hextall deserves the credit for that more than anyone else. And I know fans are anxiously awaiting the callup of Carter Hart as the long-hoped-for answer to the ridiculous game of musical chairs the Flyers keep playing with goalies (worse than the band Spinal Tap going through drummers), but he’s at least a year away – he needs time to develop; the worst thing to do would be to bring him up too early and watch him flame out.
David Scott, one of the owners, spoke out publicly about Hextall’s firing and cited the evergreen “philosophical differences,” more or less, with Scott saying he wants to “win win win” now, as if that was somehow in opposition to what Hextall was doing (oh, and did I mention that, as a player, Hextall was the winningest goalie in Flyers history?). And of course now-team president Paul Holmgren, wanting to remain employed himself, went along.
Do you want to know what’s really going on here?Envy and spite, that’s what.
The Eagles just won a Super Bowl, even though they’ve now imploded themselves partly due to injuries and are now scraping for some way to win their division and get in the post-season (and somehow winning the NFC East is the only way they’ll do it). The Sixers have taken big leaps forward also, though they’ll have to find some way to resolve this situation with Markelle Fultz, who may end up as the biggest number one overall draft bust in NBA history. The Phillies have rebounded also, though, with the exception of Aaron Nola, they have some big-time pitching concerns.
And that leaves the Flyers. And short of coming up with another Disney-esque on acid, Muppet-ish mascot, they had to find a way to be talked about again or risk utter irrelevancy once and for all among the Philly sports/fan/media cognoscenti (or so they think they are).
Here is the bottom line: I don’t see a plan from this organization. The only person who had one (whatever you may think of it) was Hextall. He knew the parent club of course, he knew the minor league affiliates, he knew all the coaches, he knew the scouts (I’m sure he hired more than a few), he was (and still is) known and well regarded throughout the league and had contacts all over the place. And now all of that is gone, even though (by Holmgren’s own admission) the fans have kept attending the games and have shown more loyalty than I ever would have if I were a season ticket holder.
And even though he’s dead, I have to say it anyway – this move to fire Hextall for specious reasons at best (as far as I’m concerned) has Ed Snider written all over it.
And it seems that the purge continued today, as noted here – I definitely respected Gord Murphy as a player, and I don’t know enough to critique him as a coach, but the Flyers have been absolutely awful defensively this year. And apparently it was enough for Chris Pryor as a Hextall loyalist to merit him getting canned also, regardless of whether or not he did a good job as head of scouting.
The Flyers continue to act like they think they’re the New York Yankees. In reality, they’re a lot closer to the Charlestown Chiefs (here).
And as you watch this from last night, keep in mind that Ottawa statistically is at about the same place as the Flyers (and when it comes to the goalie carousel thing, Anthony Stolarz is innocent as far as I’m concerned – he’s basically a rookie anyway...that winning goal by Matt Duchene was a pretty amazing play I thought that you couldn't do much about)…
Update: And while the Flyers make headlines for stupid reasons, the Eagles make headlines for great ones (here).
Update 12/5/18: All the best to Chuck Fletcher (here) – not exactly sure why he decided to join the cast of this soap opera, but he’s innocent as far as I know.
…and now, I return to what is typically more normal fare for this blog…I admit that I touched on the GM layoffs yesterday, but I thought this was more in-depth commentary from Farron Cousins on that and our farmers getting creamed from Generalissimo Trump’s tariffs, as well as straight-up corporate greed of course as Cousins says…
…and Willie Geist of “Morning Joe” brings us the latest on the Gropenfuhrer’s declining approval with a panel including Eugene Robinson (I understand the numbers here are pretty positive for the Dems and they’re reported as such, but I still think the “Republican-centric” focus of this commentary/reporting is pretty disgusting…and I hate to admit it, but I think Sam Stein is absolutely right about the remaining Repugs being even more beholden to the orange lunatic after the election)…
…and Kyle K. reminds us of the true cost of befriending the country that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers…of all of the atrocities committed by our ruling cabal of fools and criminals, support for the Saudi regime has to rank as one of the very worst…
Update 11/29/18: Yeah, I think this says it all right.
…and Cenk and Ana tell us about the latest horrible anti-abortion bill being contemplated by Republicans, this time in Ohio, making it punishable by death – yeah, keep telling me that “The Handmaid’s Tale” isn’t a documentary for the life forms sponsoring this monstrous cruelty…by the way, laws like this already exist in South/Central America, where women are prosecuted if they even miscarry (here), to say nothing of trying to end a pregnancy on their own...and boy, is Cenk right from about 6:29 to the end…
…and sometimes I put up these holiday tunes in particular as a bit of a palate cleanser if you will as opposed to some of the other relentlessly bad news, and this is one of those times (dogs are great, but I don't have the patience to take care of them - sorry).
(More on the pic is here, by the way...also, today is the runoff election in Mississippi between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy; once more, everything you need to know is here.)
Hasan Piker gives us more info on the Wisconsin high school Nazi salute thing vs. selective instances of punishing other students, particularly African Americans (yep, sounds like, once again, “free speech for me, but not for thee”)…
…and in a similar vein, Sam Seder of The Majority Report tells us about Louis Klemp of Kansas, he of the “master race” comment who has since resigned as county commissioner as noted here (yes, I know this is bad, but somehow this sounds like the makings of an SNL sketch…”Christmas With The Klemps”?)…
…and I thought this was a well-done report from the WaPo on the history of General Motors, and it reinforces my opinion that the company's senior management are clueless idiots...sinking $$ into driver-less cars??? And speaking of clueless idiots, it looks like this is more bad news for the Gropenfuhrer...
…and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (again, more or less) from 11/25/14, in which former Indiana governor (and now VP of course) Mike Pence came up with the following allegedly cute analogy of people on food stamps supposedly helping themselves up by their bootstraps, which is Republican Boilerplate 101 from The Sainted Ronnie Reagan of course (yep, sounds like “The Hunger Games” for real…Cenk is hilariously tongue-in-cheek here about the “banksters” and the oil company criminals, though yeah, I know the bottom line is that this is more wingnut BS)…
..and kudos to Philly rapper Meek Mill for this (very NSFW)...
...and JB knew a thing or two about the criminal justice system also - didn't end up hurting his great artistry either.
(By the way, everything you need to know about the U.S. Senate runoff election tomorrow in Mississippi between Repug Cindy Hyde-Smith and Dem Mike Espy is here.)
And yeah, it looks like, now, we have no problem with shooting tear gas at migrant women and children trying to cross the border (here...makes me recall this in particular...and what a typically soulless, execrable remark from this harpie)…
…and speaking of people who are destitute, did you know that, according to one Arkansas Repug (of course), poverty was a “choice”? Me neither, as Kyle tells us (NSFW)…
…and yeah, nothing to see here, just an African American veteran getting shot and killed at an Alabama mall while the police originally reported that he was the “perp,” only to find later that the shooting victim was innocent while the in-all-likelihood suspect got away (more here and here)…
…and of all of the atrocities of wholly-Repug "governance," this may be the absolute worst – without a decent climate, nothing else matters (don’t understand why this wasn’t more of an issue during the election…maybe because too many voters tuned it out? And releasing the report on Black Friday is about what you would expect from the regime of Generalissimo Trump)…
…and speaking of Black Friday, I didn’t know there was a Philly connection to the holiday – this is one of those times when I actually learn something doing this blogging thing…
…and based on the CBS clip above, I would trust the cartoon cops here more than the AL ones (yep, this is a seasonal item all right).
