Friday Stuff

This brief clip from The Guardian provides the latest update on yet another mass shooting, this time in Indiana - yeah, it's a problem that we apparently can't resolve because there are so many in this country who just shrug and tell us to move on even though this doesn't happen to the same degree in any other country on earth (the tune at the bottom of this post is for the "shruggers")...



Update: And apparently, it's yet another white punk kid with a grievance (here).

...and this USA Today clip tells us about the other big gun story, and that is the shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago (David Doel had an excellent video on this, but YouTube flagged it for some reason; I would encourage finding it and watching...apparently, this boy had a gun when he was chased and ditched it, but his hands were empty when he raised them before he was shot...ugh)...



Update: After I posted this, I watched the unedited video of the shooting. I most definitely am NOT going to post it here (trust me...you don’t want to see it. I felt like it was an invasion of sorts when I saw it).

This certainly isn’t George Floyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, or maybe a hundred other similar incidents. It appears (and I don’t want to say anything conclusively one way or the other to prejudice this legally) that Toledo discarded the gun as he put up his hands. In a situation with a dimly lit alley where an officer has fractions of a second to respond, that makes these events all the more problematic.

This is a terrible tragedy to Adam Toledo and his family, first and foremost. However, I can’t help but wonder what the hell he was doing in an alley in “Chi-raq” like that at 2-3AM in the morning (though that is NOT AN EXCUSE FOR WHAT HAPPENED, I hasten to emphasize). And I hope the individual who (again, allegedly) game him the gun is apprehended and sent to prison for a minimum of 20 years.

via GIPHY

...and returning to more typical fare for this site (though I guess that varies), John and Ben Dixon tell us about the minimum wage “compromise” that the Dems who voted down $15 an hour are trying to come up with, including Curtsy Kyrsten of course (great point by John about how the “compromise” she supports is LESS than the minimum in her own state...”after years of trickle-down economics, you now get the Kyrsten squat”...sad but true, and anyone who thinks ANY REPUBLICAN would go along with it is truly delusional...and if this doesn't give away the game, I don't know what does)...



..and this segment from Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki handling a reporter trying to parrot more Repug talking points – great analysis by Cohen on the whole “oh, we can’t raise taxes on high earners because our utility charges would increase” nonsense...



...and speaking of swatting down idiocy, Thom Hartmann handles an anti-vaccine caller exactly the way we all should; I understand that he can’t shut down too many callers or else he won’t have a show, but there’s absolutely no justification in giving a platform to liars, especially when it comes to our ongoing plague...



...and Robert Reich tells us once again about the economic scams from the usual suspects, as it were...



...and given today’s top stories, I couldn’t help but have this tune in mind; maybe one of my more cynical selections from a guy who knew a thing or two about protests, I’ll admit.

Yes, as others have pointed out, we have a crisis in policing in this country where, apparently, the cops are trained to escalate any confrontation immediately (that is, if you’re not white). But I also believe that we’re not going to have any kind of unilateral reform in this country on that issue. We need to get the cops to the table, as it were, and involve them in whatever discussions and/or policy recommendations hopefully come out of such meetings with all parties represented. We’re not going to have a prayer of coming up with any solutions to keep more people breathing unless we do that.

And as far as the Indianapolis shooting is concerned...yep, just another day in this country with a “Y” in it, unfortunately; there’s roughly about 30 percent or maybe more in this country who just aren't going to budge on that issue along with the other critical ones facing us (including rebuilding this country and addressing the climate crisis, immigration reform, common-sense taxation, etc.). If someone has some kind of a magical means to remedy that, please let me know, because I’ve got nuthin’ (and yeah, this tune goes out to the “30 percent”).

Thursday Stuff

John and Jayar of The Damage Report tell us about the response from Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN to the charge from The Swanson TV Dinner Heir that the COVID-19 vaccines allegedly aren’t any good (making it excruciatingly hard to actually get to a point where we can resume something approximating a normal routine – I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll EVER be rid of this plague...and as someone who gew up in Philly, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I love the fact that Fauci responds with his "New Yawwk" accent that he grew up with, as if to add an unspoken "FU" to Carlson)...



...and sticking with The Roger Ailes BS Factory...as much as I wish for Rupert The Pirate to get his comeuppance at long last, I just don’t see that happening in this world, though, like Limbaugh, Murdoch’s ultimate reckoning awaits...



...and this Now This clip tells us about Republicans from the Texas suburbs who were encouraged to be poll watchers against “fraud” in Houston – yep, only people with the right skin color should use the universal franchise once more as far as they’re concerned, and the whiter, the better I guess...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about the assclown governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, who apparently wants to designate April as Confederate History Month (yep, when Repugs refuse to face issues for real, they just retreat to their tribal culture wars BS)...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about “Man Tan” Boehner’s attempt at image rebuilding to sell his book, with the help of the thoroughly unctuous Willie Geist of “Morning Jo(ke).”

As for yours truly, I’ll tell you exactly what my issue is with Boehner (and I’m a little surprised the video didn’t touch on this)...

Boehner played a pivotal role in the 2011 budget ceiling garbage and the sequestration deal that resulted from it (a totally manufactured “crisis”) with the Obama Administration. The thinking by the Obama folks was OF COURSE we’ll come up with some kind of an agreement over spending with Boehner, because nobody wanted the sequester to go into effect, arbitrarily slashing governmental spending across the board (except, quite rightly, for entitlements and the military, though apparently entitlements have been affected somewhat too). Well, it turned out that the Obama folks naively didn’t pick up on the fact that INITIATING THE SEQUESTER WAS THE WHOLE GODDAMN POINT!

And if you want to get an idea of how harmful the sequester has been, I offer this, this, and this (and I'll keep looking for more current information, but this is apparently yet another topic that our corporate media refuses to deal with)...



Update 4/21/21: And let's not forget this about Boehner also.

...and speaking of fails by the fourth estate, I honestly don’t know why this wasn’t included in the clip with Rachel Maddow speaking with Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP about all of the garbage voting bills in this country, as well as this and this (Maddow led into this segment by mentioning the full-page ads in the Times and the WaPo...and speaking once more of fourth-estate fails, I give you this)...



...and this video is about a year old I know, but it has to do with CEO Dan Price, who has been trumpeting how he commendably raised the salaries of his workers and managed to grow his business at the same time, contrary to right-wing BS economy orthodoxy of course (more here)...



...and as long as money seems to be a recurring theme in this post, I thought I’d present this timely number (I believe the filing deadline was extended to May 17th – we managed to do OK this year and we hope you do too).

Wednesday Stuff

This Now This clip provides some more detail from Igor Volsky (formerly of Think Progress) on the executive actions taken by President Biden related to common sense gun reform (of course, what we REALLY need is for Congress to act, but I’m not holding my breath given that nothing on the federal level happened after Sandy Hook...once more, love to be wrong)...



...and this Meidas Touch video (titled the “GOP Pedo Ring”) is kind of self-explanatory (and once more, if the Democrats knew anything at all about messaging – noted in another video in this post – they would make damn sure what’s presented here became ingrained in the minds of every voter in this country)...



..and David Pakman tells us that embattled GOP congressional lowlife Matt Gaetz is suspected in a “ghost” candidate scheme...I know I touched on this last Saturday, but apparently more metaphorical shoes have dropped on this story since, though apparently Gaetz is in deeper doo-doo on other stuff of course...as far as I’m concerned, Jill Stein was a “ghost” candidate in 2016 (and still, the only candidate of the “party of Lincoln” who has told Gaetz to GTFOH is Adam Kinzinger...still crickets from this guy)...



...and this TYT clip tells us about Fix and Fiends attacking Biden on Infrastructure (yes, Buttigieg was off with the numbers, sure, but take a look at the people throwing stones, and he’s also done a good job in other interviews despite what Ana says...I get a little tired of Cenk and Ana beating the anti-corporate Dem drum the way they do, though I definitely agree with them that the Dems SUCK at messaging and are still behind the proverbial 8-ball in using social media – why I will never truly know)...



...and a hat tip for this video goes out to Egberto Willies of Daily Kos (you can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his YouTube channel also of course), with Mika B. talking with Steve Rattner about increased income inequality as a result of the pandemic (of course, Willie Geist and Randall Lane have to find a way to blunt this story somehow ...“hey, we had 483 new billionaires”...but fortunately, Rattner and the other political reporter at the end make sure we “keep our eye on the ball”)...



...and happy belated 75th birthday to Al Green (not the Dem TX U.S. congressman, I hasten to add, though he's a good dude too...any time I hear this song any more, all I can think of is a close-up of Bruce Willis's face listening to profane instructions from Ving Rhames based on this movie).

Tuesday Stuff

I would say that the era of “vaccine passports” has already arrived, in accordance with Keith Olbermann’s entirely correct IMO observations here; actually, given stories like this, we may get to the point in this country where people from one state/commonwealth may have to quarantine when they travel vs. people from other places who won’t have to – love to be wrong...



...and Cenk and Ana tell us about Caron Nazario, who was the officer pulled over in Virginia by police in that commonwealth (and by the way, I’m not disagreeing with what Cenk and Ana say here about the Democrats – Obama once had that “beer summit,” which was nothing but a stupid one-off of a photo op – but I would only point out how the Dems got absolutely clobbered over “defund the police” in 2020...blame cowardly politicians, but blame STOO-PID voters for validating bullshit right wing talking points too...and in response to this, I have one word: GOOD!)...



...and David Doel tells us about the shooting of Daunte Wright in Minnesota by a cop who apparently thought she had a taser instead of a gun (an update is here)...And I can tell you right now how the wingnuts are going to clap-back over this; they’re going to mention the state troopers in Texas and Iowa who were killed recently (apples and oranges, I know) and say...to paraphrase Cenk...”HOW DARE YOU EVEN MENTION DOING ANYTHING WHATSOEVER TO AFFECT THE COPS OVER THIS!! BACK THE BLUE!!! BLUE LIVES MATTER!!!” And their lemming-like viewers and listeners will lap it all up and use it to vote against Democrats, screwing themselves over yet again...see previous comment about BS talking points...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 4/15/11...it’s not often that these selections are so topical in the news, but this is one such rare occasion; the following video from the “Rethink Afghanistan” series from Brave New Films gives us the “Afghan War Calculator,” which is timely given this announcement from the Biden Administration that we are leaving that country at long last, as noted here...



Update 4/14/21: The Afghanistan story made me recall this post, for what it's worth.

...and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us all about wingnut Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s selective outrage over the conditions at a migrant detention facility (and yeah, spare me this garbage of “under Trump it was federal and we didn’t have jurisdiction, but under Biden it’s a state matter, so we do”...you either care about kids separated from their families and forced to live in horrendous conditions of utter deprivation or you don’t)...



...and I honestly don’t have a clue as to what corporations in the aggregate, you might say, are going to do with the mid-term elections coming up, though, as Farron Cousins says, it’s interesting that they had a call over the weekend to figure out what to do in response to the awful voter suppression bills such as the one in Georgia and others making their way through legislatures across the country (in the end, Repugs fall in line, and I have a feeling they’ll do that again here, though I very much want to be wrong on that also)...



...and I was glad to come across this clip from Ali Velshi of MSNBC about the importance of immigrants to this country (should be obvious, but I guess it bears repeating from time to time)...



...and happy 77th birthday to bassist extraordinaire Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna (and my bad for failing to mention the 80th birthday of Jorma Kaukonen last December).

Monday Stuff

John I. and Dr. Rashad Richey tell us about a Republican attack ad vs. Marjorie Taylor Greene in an anticipated primary...unfortunately, I think Richey’s analysis is spot-on, though I don’t mean that against him of course...only wish to say that, as Richey says, Greene’s base won’t care about this ad – might rally support for her as he says...



...and RIP former Lyndon Johnson Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who, in addition to serving as a Marine, fought for progressive causes and had a lot to do with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (here, he speaks with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now from 2013 about the effort to free attorney Lynne Stewart, who died in 2017)...



...and Cenk, Jayar and Ben Dixon tell us about Eric Bolling storming off the set of a BBC interview in response to Georgia’s horrible anti-voting law...good job to bring up all of Bolling’s prior garbage...and boy, does Jayar nail this at the end...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report speak with a PA caller in support of a national infrastructure bank (you can read more about the group she discusses from here)...



...and you can consider this 1980 clip of conservative godfather Paul Weyrich, speaking out in favor of voting restrictions, to be a reminder of the impetus behind all of the garbage anti-voting laws the “party of Lincoln” is currently trying to pass in state legislatures across the country (more here)...



...and I guess I had this newer tune in mind for the first video in particular, though I know it can be applied to many others besides the GA-14 lunatic wingnut U.S. House rep.