John I on The Damage Report tells us how our Treasonous, Tiny Handed Orange Dictator is deciding to face off somewhat with AOC – I largely try to ignore that misogynist methane dispenser taking up space in An Oval Office, but I guess sometimes I have to actually acknowledge his existence…
…and Dem U.S. Senator Michael Bennet stands tall again in the face of more garbage from Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao on blowing up the U.S. Senate, cutting the time for debating judicial nominees from 30 hours to 2 hours, as Brian Tyler Cohen tells us (and in a related story, I think Sen. Elizabeth Warren is on the right track here – let’s end this fairy tale that the U.S. Senate, the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” is some kind of collegial place where everybody gets along in a respectful manner…BS; Repugs have been doing everything they can to knee-cap the Dems for decades, and if getting rid of the filibuster helps to return that “favor,” then that works for me)…
…and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act in the House, and the wall it is likely to run into when it reaches the Senate (related to the prior clip as far as I’m concerned…and to be honest, the actions of Dianne Feinstein here trying to play nice with Repug Joni Ernst are more worrisome to me IMHO than when she talked about the Green New Deal in her office in front of those school kids…and though I have a lot of issues with him aside from this, I have to be fair and note that our Repug house rep Brian Fitzpatrick voted in favor of VAWA renewal)…
…and I’m afraid that we may be looking at the beginning of the “Trump slump” on the economy (terrific), as Farron Cousins tells us…
…and Sam Seder and The Majority Report tell us about some idiot named Roger Williams in Texas (of course…not “born free,” I guess…sorry – a bit of an obscure joke) who asks “if you’re a capitalist or a socialist” and says “Yes or No answer” – uhhh, brainiac?You’re not asking a “yes” or “no” question…just say “oops” and get out…the subject is reauthorizing the national flood insurance program, apparently – oh so clever, this one is…
…and as a parent, I have to tell you that I’m not crazy about the drug references in this song, but otherwise I think this is a great tune for a Friday night.
Yep, I think this pretty much tells you what Fix Noise thinks of its audience, as Farron Cousins points out; anyone south of the border is just a member of the scary brown horde I guess as far as that network is concerned…
…and this clip from Velshi and Ruhle of MSNBC offers a bit of analysis on Trump-nominated ambassadors and how much some of them apparently contributed to his inaugural - yeah, I get it that it's up to the discretion of the president, but has this *president* shown much discretion about anything else? (oh, and Doug Manchester apparently has other issues besides not knowing the Bahamas is an independent country, as noted here)...
…and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us that the Gropenfuhrer is apparently getting rid of the DHS group that overlooks domestic terrorism (and it’s pretty unbelievable that a report on this topic was commissioned by Dubya but shelved by Obama, but I guess that’s where we are…and do you really have to think about where our “very fine people on both sides” Tiny-Handed Orange Dictator comes down on this issue?)…
…and happy 70th birthday to none other than RT (definitely NOT the Putin propaganda channel).
(Note: I’ll admit that I’m behind when it comes on the Dem presidential campaigning stuff…I don’t know whether or not Joe Biden was a little inappropriate with touching some women, which to me sounds like a tempest in a proverbial tea pot especially in comparison to the Gropenfuhrer – if you don’t like Biden for other reasons, I get it, but this stuff so far sounds weak…and I’m wondering where it could be coming from, even though all signs point to the Bernie Sanders campaign – love him on policy, but I think he needs to clean up a lot of this stuff among his ranks – and believe me when I tell you that I hope I’m wrong; I also have tried to stay out of this because I think it’s pointless to obsess over every little bit of what our corporate media decides is important…from what I can gather, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris sound like the most serious candidates on policy so far, but the white guys including this Indiana mayor are the ones getting all of the attention, which is sadly typical I know…I’m afraid we’re looking at about another 18 months of ridiculous distraction, including some “Never Trumpers” who say our Russian Operative at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has already won his second term based on these way-too-early signs, which tells me what these people are really all about after all, and I DEFINITELY don’t meant that in a good way.)
OK, with that admittedly boring bit of “meta” stuff out of the way, It looks again like the “party of Lincoln,” with its Treasonous, Tiny Handed Orange Demented Lunatic-in-Chief, is once again teeing up health care as the main issue in 2020 with their cruel stupidity, as Kyle explains (without denigrating the media over covering the Mueller investigation, which is a welcome change…NSFW)…
…and speaking of cruel stupidity when it comes to health care, this is easily one of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve ever seen – my very deepest sympathies go out to the brave Curtis family of Indiana for the loss of their daughter, and all because medical pot isn’t legal in that state…we’re wasting our time in this country with the political horserace BS and dwelling on every single lie from our ruling cabal of criminals (don’t ignore them, but maybe just keep a running list online somewhere being refuted with reality – not sure what else to do), when THIS, climate change and common-sense gun laws are some of the stories we should be focusing on instead…
Update: OK, I admit that I opened a bit of a door previously, so to be fair (and also since it pertains to Indiana), I should include this.
…oh, and don’t look now, but The Supremes under Hangin’ Judge JR just went a long way towards destroying the 8th Amendment of the Constitution recently in the case noted here, led by Neil Gorsuch (once more, great coverage on the legal stuff by Ian Millhiser)…the subject here is difficult I’ll admit; it has to do with someone convicted of murder and sentenced to die, but he’s trying to dictate the terms of his sentence because he suffers from vascular tumors that could exacerbate his execution.
Here’s a big part of the problem; a lot of the drug makers offshore know that, in this country, we use their products to kill people, and they don’t want any part of it. So we’ve had to come up with all kinds of ways to put people to death using painkillers of questionable reliability which, in Justice Elena Kagan’s words (and as Millhiser tells us), left death row inmates with “the feeling of being burned alive.”
And I’m not trying to garner any sympathy whatsoever for Russell Bucklew, who was convicted of a brutal murder 23 years ago. But since we’re talking about the Supremes here (basically, the highest appeals court that there is), we’re talking about creating a legal precedent (if someone dies by being “burned alive” today…well, what kind of punishment will they decide to inflict tomorrow? And, if we don’t know how to kill someone in a medically efficient way that ACTUALLY ISN’T TORTURE, can’t we just default to life in prison instead?).
I don’t know the answer to these questions. At a minimum, though, I think we should be talking about them, particularly since our now-solid conservative majority on the Court thinks that inflicting something akin to resurrecting the Inquisition is no big deal.
Oh, and with that in mind, I should note that “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh wondered why we couldn’t just kill the guy by firing squad instead.
You know, kind of like this (from “Paths of Glory,” the finest anti-war film ever made IMO)…
…and making things a little less heavy for the moment, I bring you this commentary from David Pakman about Chris Wallace of Fix Noise briefly standing up against his own network’s BS on what led to the Mueller probe…I’m not sure that we’ll ever see a clean, un-redacted version of Mueller’s report, though we should keep fighting for it of course – I would think it would be a hell of a campaign issue if we don’t, but there is literally so much other crap to dig through from our ruling cabal of traitors that I’m afraid it might get lost in the noise; I take absolutely nothing for granted for 2020, and neither should anyone else…
…and gosh, it looks problematic as to whether or not longtime wingnut shill Stephen Moore may actually make it to the Federal Reserve Board (Maddow once showed up Moore on “Real Time,” which was totally deserved because, as usual, Moore was lying his ass off)…
…and with the weather starting to get a little nicer around here, I thought I’d offer this selection – a little more upbeat and fun-filled I hope.
I want to give you a bit of insight as to what it’s like to be a Roman Catholic in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia these days.
I attended services a few weeks ago at my parish in Bucks County, and there was an announcement at the end of the service that they would be hosting a screening of the film “Gosnell” (here) about the insane monster masquerading as a physician who was convicted on numerous criminal counts including first-degree murder and 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortions. The screening would be held the morning of March 9th in the school cafeteria. And yes, we’re talking about showing a movie about this butcher in an elementary school on a Saturday morning to an audience of grade school kids.
As if that isn’t repugnant enough, this evening at services, I heard a promotion for the alleged movie called “Unplanned” about someone’s experiences supposedly running a Planned Parenthood center in Texas (more here...apparently this is showing in area theaters).
I am purposely not mentioning the name of the church that I attended because I don’t want to say anything that could possibly denigrate it in any way. Also, I believe the pastor is a good man trying hard to do the right thing, and I don’t want to say anything to negatively impact him either.
Besides, I believe the orders for all of this stuff are coming from “downtown,” as it were. And I’m laying all of this hateful crap at the feet of this guy.
Do you want to know why there’s a push for this NOW? Because it’s Lent, when people who aren’t regular churchgoers (and I guess I’m in that category a bit…mea culpa) are likely to come back to attend Mass leading up to Easter. Also, I would argue that this is happening because the Catholic Church sees an opportunity to drive a stake through the metaphorical heart of Roe v. Wade once and for all now that “Schlitz” Kavanaugh has been installed as a member of the Supremes.
Either way, this stinks. And as always, the only issue the Church cares about any more is ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION and, in case you somehow didn’t get the message already, ABORTION. Also, you can forget about me linking to anything related to the theaters showing “Unplanned”; I’m not going to make any effort to give this propaganda any traffic whatsoever.
However, if you’d like something approximating a more even-handed treatment of what Planned Parenthood REALLY does as far as I’m concerned, I’d like to offer this instead…
…and I give you Brian Tyler Cohen on Adam Schiff’s response to attacks aimed at him and the attempted whitewash by AG Bill Barr on the Mueller Report (and we already knew Devin Nunes was a disgusting, repugnant character typical for the Trumpster ilk, but I guess he was making jokes and some other stupid remarks while Schiff was talking…what a POS)...
…and gee, maybe we ought to do something about this climate change thing (by the way, I don’t know what the hell Pap means when he talks about what AOC is “projecting” at about 4:15, though he and Farron Cousins are right about Republicans jumping on their BS framing of an issue ahead of the Democrats, along with the typical lying nonsense of the Gropenfuhrer saying you won’t be able to watch TV if the wind isn’t blowing, or crap like that…and by the way, Catholic Church, if you want to speak out on something besides ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION, maybe this would be a good issue for you also…you know, the whole “stewards of the earth” thing…)…
