Friday Stuff

There’s a new Lincoln Project ad out showing examples of presidential leadership, and the message is that, yes, presidents are supposed to act in a way that brings this country together instead of dividing us. And it clearly presents a contrast between Our Tiny-Handed Orange Dictator and Joe Biden, and the contrast couldn’t be more stark, you might say.

Even though I know these Lincoln Project Republicans, along with the other Never Trumpers, will turn on a dime back to their old, evil ways once a Dem is back in the White House (which, God willing, will be soon, and as always, we need to work to make that happen), they definitely deserve credit for trying to move this country in a positive direction.

However, I’m not including this ad because it’s coming from a Republican-centric point of view, and it just doesn’t sit well with me. Yeah, I realize that probably makes me nothing but a liberal pinhead, but it begins with Reagan talking to the country after the Challenger disaster in 1986. I have a problem right away with that, because the shuttle should never have launched in the first place. Yes, Reagan did what he did very well, and that was to give a nice speech to comfort the nation. But I’ve never heard a good explanation as to why Challenger launched during what was record cold Florida temperatures, to say nothing of the fact that Morton Thiokol did a crappy job in manufacturing the O-rings between the rocket boosters (which cracked upon liftoff, basically causing the disaster), along with the fact that it would have just been dandy for The Sainted Ronnie R to give the State of the Union address while the ship was flying in space. And next, the ad shows Dubya with the bullhorn at the site of the 9/11 attacks at what was once the World Trade Center (yeah, I know Dubya had a 90 percent approval rating after the attacks, which he basically pissed away over his time in office with his epic arrogance and incompetence).

So I’m sorry, but I’m not going to inadvertently help to legitimize bad Republican behavior, even for an ostensibly good cause.

Now, with that admittedly boring lead-in out of the way, I give you this clip from David Pakman about Generalissimo Trump's recent hate fest in Phoenix, AZ - those two idiots who claimed their air filtration system allegedly kills the COVID virus should go to jail, and the people cheering at that rally for “kung flu” are scum…and not to split hairs, but the 1918 Spanish flu actually did impact World War I, but yeah, the issue is that voting by mail is definitely secure and, as far as I’m concerned, should be the law…



…but despite the adulation from the outpatients in AZ, Ana and John I. of TYT tell us that the poll numbers for President Fergus Laing continue to plummet in the wake of the still-raging COVID-19 outbreak...



…though Trump did have time to visit his damn wall, as Chris Hayes tells us (and gee, it looks like the EU is paying us back by not letting people from the US in as they reopen because of the piss poor job we’re doing as a country in response to the pandemic, including 14 new cases in Jamaica, as Hayes tells us, and all from the U.S.)…



…and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us what happened during the recent congressional testimony of former GHWB Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer against AG and longtime Repug fixer Bill Barr – and leave it to Louie Gohmert, the stupidest life form in the entire universe (with the possible exception of the numbskulls who actually vote for him), to do his idiotic best to disrupt the proceedings (oh, and apparently this happened also in that hearing – typical)…



Update 7/27/20: God, Gohmert is such a contemptible POS (here).

…and before Gohmert’s antics, Thom Hartmann had this great segment on why it’s necessary to impeach Barr, notwithstanding the testimony of the witnesses at the hearing…



…and Seth Meyers gives us a recent news wrap-up, including a truly awful bathroom pun at the very end (and yes, there’s another reference to Trump visiting the wall)…



…and in my quest to keep these posts somewhat topical, I try to touch on recent stories that don’t immediately lend themselves to a particular categorization, and I think this next item qualifies – it has to do with the rebranding of Aunt Jemimah and other commonly recognized labels, apparently (yes, this is important, but the protests need to evolve into a political movement, which I think is happening actually and needs to keep happening – nobody should be satisfied only with these corporate-face-saving gestures, and I honestly don’t think anyone is willing to “call it a day” just over the stuff in this video, again, which is good)…



…and speaking of rebranding, I’m not sure about the wisdom of this, but I’m definitely not an expert in that area, though I wish them good luck with it, of course.