Thursday Stuff

To close this year, Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland tell us about the Trumpian rush to kill as many people as possible on his way out the door...and yes, he really will be done in about 20 days, wingnut screeching notwithstanding...I didn’t know about that Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett anecdote about capital punishment, but though it’s completely sickening of course, it also doesn’t surprise me in the least...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about a video that included Mango Mussolini along with a superimposed pic of what allegedly was the medallion of the Nobel Peace Prize (and for the cherry on the icing on this sh*t sundae, he even used the wrong medal picture, as noted here)...



...and Ali Velshi, sitting in for Rachel Maddow, tells us about the immunization campaign in 1947 to make sure New York City was vaccinated against a smallpox outbreak, which could have easily killed millions (to say it’s a cautionary lesson for now is a huge understatement, particularly in light of this...and Harry Truman didn't rail against the virus for coming from Mexico. or at least I can't find a record of that, as opposed to what Combover Caligula surely would have said)...



...and nice work here by Jon Ossoff to take advantage of the opportunity from the Fix Noise reporter to call out Kelly Loeffler (to help Ossoff running against David Perdue, as well as Raphael Warnock running against Loeffler, click here)...



..and I should probably include these “TCM Remembers” segments every New Years’ Eve, but to tell you the truth, I kind of get caught up in other stuff and I forget sometimes – my bad (didn't know about Gene Reynolds)...



...and as is usually my custom at this time, I go “meta,” if you will, and thank anyone who has spent any time at this site over the prior year, especially THIS year. I said this time a year ago that 2020 could be the most consequential year of our lives; I said that thinking of the Democratic presidential primary between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and I was considering absolutely nothing else. I had no idea how unintentionally correct I would be.

The way 2020 started out, it looked like this site would end up being pretty much shut down. I didn’t anticipate any way at all to keep it running given my for-profit employment commitments. Well, through what I guess you could call dumb luck, I was able to keep it going up to now. However, I seriously do not expect that that will be the case next year. I’m quite sure at a certain point that I’ll be cutting back on these posts substantially. I don’t see walking away from doing this entirely, but that’s a possibility also.

When I started doing this in 2005 (egad!), my intention was to bridge the ideological gap between left and right as best as I could. That wasn’t easy with all of the Dubya-Bushco triumphalism that was reigning, though that façade was starting to crack big time. Over the course of these 15 or so years, however, that gap has turned into a chasm. The right-wing construct of media unreality (which is also self-sustaining economically, sadly) has poisoned the decision-making ability of the vast majority of (but not all) Republicans, to the point where they CONTINUALLY advocate for policies that are exactly contrary to their best interests, all in the name of “owning the libs.” This goes for far too many independent voters also (and the majority of those people I encounter are merely Republicans in disguise for whom Donald Trump is the proverbial “bridge too far,” though they’re onboard with every other wretched idea and policy from the right of the political spectrum).

And don’t think for a minute that I’m giving our side a pass here either. I recently included that very NSFW/H clip from Destiny about Kyle Kulinski almost comically misrepresenting Amy Klobuchar on the whole dance about badly needed COVID-19-related economic relief for people, state governments and small businesses. Also in that vein, Cenk and Ana of TYT yelled about how Nancy Pelosi conducted the negotiations, blaming her for not taking the $1.8 trillion package that was supposedly on the table (it really wasn’t), and also not seeing (as Destiny did) that the $2K payment proposal was actually a “Trojan horse” with hidden spending cuts that likely would have been disastrous. So yeah, there have been times when I’ve been pretty fed up with our camp on certain issues too. Also, I realize people are more likely to watch videos having to do with a certain president about to depart 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (even if he’s carted out in a straight jacket) than policy that I actually care about (and stuff like this), and that, for better or worse, has informed my video selections also (don’t think for a minute, though, that I’m implying an equivalency on this stuff between our side and theirs – each side has issues, but they’re markedly different). And by the way, don’t get me started on Jimmy freaking Dore!

So yeah, feeling like I’m a referee all the time with this stuff is beyond exhausting, and I’m really not sure how much I’m “moving the needle” when it comes to enlightening or informing anybody. I’ll be pondering all of this as we go forward into the New Year. With all of that said, I just want to wish all good things for everybody in 2021.

Finally, my year-end tune (as is my custom) has almost always been “People Have The Power” by Patti Smith. I’d like to deviate from that at this time and include this John Prine tune, as a tribute to everyone who (like Prine) lost his battle with COVID-19 this year – once more, my hope is that we’re all in a better place with this scourge and living life as we know it once more before too much longer.