Friday Stuff

I haven’t paid much attention to Beau of the Fifth Column over the week, though maybe I should – I thought this was a good commentary on the utterly disgusting “big game” hunt in Botswana by Wayne LaPierre of the NRA (more here)...



Update 5/1/21: It's all here; I haven't watched the clip, but apparently it's very disturbing.

...and John and Adrienne Lawrence tell us about the police statement in response to the shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr. (yeah, it sounds like the cops have learned to cover themselves every way over Sunday before they release any footage at all that’s even remotely controversial)...



...and the crew from “The Majority Report” tell us about a Republican idiot in Orange County, CA asking a doctor about a tracking device in the COVID vaccine (mildly NSFW/H... I never considered the anti-vaxxer nonsense to be tied to the “birther” stuff under Obama, but I will acknowledge Sam’s point – and yeah, this has more than a little in common with the furor over the HPV vaccine too as the panel admits)...



...and Kyle reminds us of what an utter fool Repug U.S. House Rep Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin is, going after Cardi B (I can assure you that I don’t watch ANYWHERE NEAR 30 hours of broadcast TV a week)...



...and David Doel tells us about the reaction from people around the globe to a New York Times video demonstrating how ridiculously expensive health care is in this country and the in-too-many-cases awful outcomes that result anyway ("U-S-A! U-S-A!")...



...and staying with “the great white north,” this CBC video talks about a smaller employer paying sick leave to its employees, an Ontario-based snack food company called Neal Brothers (and in terms of the U.S. perspective, I give you this)...



...and apparently, Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett won’t recuse herself from a case involving Chucky Koch because of course (hard to disagree with Cousins’ sentiment about the SCOTUS given the existing evidence)...



...and it so happens that April was Jazz Appreciation Month (and today is International Jazz Day), so that gives us a good excuse for this tune.

Thursday Stuff

This report from Mrs. Greenspan tells us of the “mayor of 9/11” getting his apartment raided by the Feds, including cellphones and computers, as part of an ongoing probe into his business activities...hopefully we’ll see Rudy getting the “perp walk” treatment (wonder if he was hiding at Four Seasons Total Landscaping...with Michael Schmidt of the New York Times)...



...and I thought this was a nice clip from President Biden’s speech last night, which of course met with the typical conservative garbage in response (here also...“grow the economy from the bottom and the middle out” indeed)...



...and working off Biden’s theme about the IRS going after the usual suspects when it comes to owing tax revenue, I give you this from Ana and Wosny Lambre – I honestly don’t know how much the IRS’s funding was or wasn’t hurt by the sequester, but on the other hand, if most of our corporate media wasn’t busy chasing click bait and doing their jobs of ACTUAL REPORTING instead, then maybe we would know – and I know the answer, but I have to ask the question anyway...where the hell are all of these “fiscal conservatives” in this argument? You know...Republicans who normally are such penny pinchers if it doesn’t involve bloated military spending or tax cuts...I guess they’re just going to look the other way on what a great return on investment it is to fund the IRS so it can do the job it was intended to do...



...and Joy Reid gives us some important historical context on the recent anti-protesting legislation signed into law by FL Repug Guv Ron #DeathSantis (more here and here, along with comparisons to George Wallace and FL Sheriff Walter Headley – and “Don’t register to vote and vote the stupid way they did up north,” huh? Go feed in your trough, you pig)...and that ridiculous quote about systemic racism allegedly not existing came from Huckleberry Graham of course...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “The Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 4/28/17, in which Keith Olbermann told us about “the first 100 days” of the Gropenfuhrer’s ruinous reign (and as a compare-and-contrast exercise, I give you this)...



..and happy 74th brithday to the leader of Tommy James and the Shondells.

Wednesday Stuff

I think everyone in this country should review the events of 1/6 once a week, at a minimum, so it’s crystal clear who was responsible and we never, ever forget it, and I think this video is helpful for that purpose (“You do have hope,” huh? Yeah, well, WE have hope too...that you’ll spend the rest of your miserable, wretched life behind bars – related content is here and here)...



...and with Repug nonsense in mind, Rachel Maddow tells us about all of their made-up scandals, in lieu of actual governance and working with the Dems to improve this country for the vast majority of Americans (and Laura Italiano is a heroine in my book, especially for quitting in a profession that’s shedding jobs)...



...and when it comes to self-inflicted, made-up nonsense, it’s hard to top this from Alaska state senator Lora Reinbold, who was banned from flying because she wouldn’t wear a mask, which is a bit of an issue given how big that state is, and now Reinbold has some absolutely insane commuting to do (taking her cue from Tucker Carlson, no doubt)...



...and speaking of The Swanson TV Dinner Heir, David Pakman provides a pretty thorough rebuttal to Carlson’s latest nonsense (and “Tony” Fauci? Also, I KEEP A MASK HANDY WHEN I'M OUTSIDE and I’ve had both my shots – as to whether I’m a “zealot” or a “neurotic” – well, I’ll leave that up to you, dear reader :-)...



...and David Doel gives us another example of Cops Behaving Badly, this time, in the Kubrickian-titled city of Loveland, CO, laughing over arresting - and apparently injuring - at 73-year-old woman with dementia for not paying a $13 tab at Walmart (the date of this footage was last June – why on earth are we just finding out about it now? ”The issue is not training. The issue is the culture.”...I wish to God I could disagree with that, but I can’t see how)...



...and Thom Hartmann asks why can’t Americans have nice things? And yes, I agree with the vast majority of Thom’s commentary, but as much as I hate to admit, Bill Clinton is partly responsible for NAFTA too (and me as well, for a time – I guess I was a rube once also, because although my better judgment told me it was wrong, I went along with it too)...



...and Robert Reich reminds us that the window on passing the “For The People” act is closing, and it’s pretty damn plain it won’t get passed without nuking the filibuster, which of course Senator Hardball in West Virginia and Ms. F-Off Ring in Arizona apparently are not going to allow (leave it to the U.S. Senate Dems to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory)...



... and here’s a spacy and relatively new springtime tune – consider it a near-end-of-April meditation if you will.

Tuesday Stuff

David Pakman tells us of wingnut Repug Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issuing an executive order against “vaccine passports,” which isn’t actually a thing in this country...yet (wait until he gets overruled by the feds, which I’m sure will result in idiotic lawsuits of course)...



...and with Arizona in mind (and the utterly stoo-pid vote recount going on in that state as noted here), I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 4/27/09, in which incumbent-at-the-time Repug U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota contested the election in which he lost to his Dem challenger Al Franken...more here; yes, Coleman had the legal right to do what he did, even though it proved to be pointless and just delayed the Dem U.S. Senate majority back then (which was probably the point more than anything else), but from that, we’re now at the point where the “Cyber Ninjas” guy is trying to reinstall Our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Russian Operative of a former *president...



...and part of me wants to ignore the latest garbage from PA’s former U.S. Senatorial mistake, but some nonsense is too ridiculous to pass up; yeah, I think a “blank slate” is what Rick Santorum has between his ears as opposed to actual gray matter...I was pondering this as I drove home from the Neshaminy Mall and recalled my drive over Mashapaug Pond in Connecticut a few years back on my way to Martha’s Vineyard, where we bought artifacts from the Wampanoag who were scraping for tourist dollars before the end of the summer season (more here...also, Sean Morrow seriously needs to update that podcast promo)...



...and Jayar, Cenk and Julie Oliver have some fun here with the Disney customer who is apparently put off all of a sudden by the “wokeness” of the parks (great point about how the kids coming up now are WAY more progressive than their parents on average, and THAT is really what is really getting this guy’s shorts In a knot, you might say, which is just too damn bad)...



...and John and Francesca tell us about Biden recognizing the Armenian genocide, as opposed to other presidents blowing that off – I’m sure Erdogan of Turkey will come back and recognize what we did to Native Americans, and unfortunately he has a point about that (but ssshhh – don’t tell Little Ricky Santorum, or else he’ll give another idiotic speech)...



...and these next two clips have to do with more performative wingnut BS; first, Farron Cousins points out the incredibly obvious fact (to someone with a double-digit IQ at a minimum) that Biden isn’t trying to limit anybody’s red meat consumption (yeah, in lieu of actual governance, this is what the other side preoccupies itself with)...



...and second, I almost feel like I should apologize for this from “The Majority Report”; yes, as we know, the internet is so kind and forgiving and definitely did not ridicule Baby Ben Shapiro for days about his remarks on the subject of “wood” (and I’ll just leave it there, you might say)...



...and yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which inspired at least one truly awful movie (not trying to trivialize the human tragedy, I wish to emphasize)...here is a tune for the occasion.

Monday Stuff

Leave it to “Goober” Gohmert to lead the charge against Mondaire Jones in the U.S. House who quite rightly called out “militarize our cities” (and how quickly THAT got swept away in our news cycle, huh?) Tom Cotton with his preposterous BS argument about why the District of Columbia shouldn’t be its own state ...I guess Gohmert is worried again about “aspersions on his asparagus” or something (Cenk, Jayar and Julie Oliver tell us more...great wrapup by Cenk at the end about the racist history behind the filibuster)...



...and Gohmert is back again here (who owes his seat to beyond ridiculous gerrymandering in Texas) to talk about that utterly absurd recount going on in Arizona (the “party of Lincoln” is the biggest bunch of crybaby punks I’ve ever seen)...



...and speaking of crybaby punks, John and Brett Erlich tell us about The Swanson TV Dinner Heir and his association during his college days with something called the Dan White Society, with more information on why that’s particularly disgusting...



...and along with the killer of Harvey Milk and former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, Carlson claimed some affinity with Jesse Helms; with that in mind, I’m bringing back this clip from the late, great Michael Brooks speaking with author Nick Martin about Helms (cut off a little at the end, but the interview makes good points about how Helms came to be so influential in the Republican Party, sadly)...



...and David Doel comes down as a “no” on the question of whether or not AOC should debate Marjorie Taylor Greene on the Green New Deal...I’m inclined to say no like Doel, but I admit that I’m going back and forth; AOC would be absolutely right on the facts of course, and Greene would just whine and try to “work the refs” like all wingnuts do – and God, how are we supposed to take these cretins seriously when they can’t even freaking spell??!!...



Update: Uh, yep.

...and it looks like Tinsel Town goofed again during the Academy Awards last night by not giving the Best Actor Oscar to the late Chadwick Boseman, which would have been a nice way to pay tribute to his way-too-short but distinguished career (and Anthony Hopkins, the winner, tried to blunt that a bit with his own tribute in an Instagram post, which was a nice touch)...I have to admit that I’m pretty much clueless on new movies any more; the only shot I might have of knowing the pic would be if it was streaming on Netflix, and even that’s problematic...I guess this admittedly long-winded setup means it’s time for this tune.