Saturday Stuff

David Doel brings us the news of Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal on all charges related to the death of two protestors and wounding a third in the BLM protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin (with the correct IMO amount of disgust over this all-but-guaranteed outcome...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and John, Cenk and Morgan Harper do a deeper dive into the trial and the result (and I thought this was a great Twitter thread on all of this from Kurt Eichenwald)...



...so now of course, one of Rittenhouse’s biggest fanboys, that particularly disgusting cretin Repug U.S. House Rep Matt Gaetz of Florida, has offered Rittenhouse a job...yeah, I don’t understand how Gaetz is still walking around enjoying freedom either at this point (Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ brings us more)...



...and keeping with the theme of the rising tide of wingnut violence, Farron Cousins tells us that the FBI is going to be tracking the lunatic nonsense at these school board meetings, which of course is the latest outrage for the “GQP”...



...and returning to somewhat more restrained political nonsense, Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about Dem U.S. House Rep (and Ohio Senate candidate) Tim Ryan going off on Repug Jason Smith of Missouri for the latter’s complaint about the Dems’ child tax credit, which, as Ryan says, is at least one year’s worth better than what Republicans did for kids, which was NOTHING (also mildly NSFW/H)...



...and like many of you I’m sure, I’ve been watching this country’s slow descent into anarchy and right-wing corporate authoritarianism for at least 40 years, and at certain times, my outrage is utterly spent, and I’m grateful that TYT and David Doel in the prior clips did a pretty good job of summing up how I feel about the Rittenhouse verdict, which is just the latest horrific milestone...when that goofball judge threw out the lesser charges related to Rittenhouse carrying his AR-15 across state lines from Illinois to Wisconsin, I definitely knew for sure that the fix was in...the right wants everything for themselves, and wants to see us all horded up like cattle, living slightly better than livestock, but just well enough so we can keep operating the machines, as it were, as George Carlin so presciently told us so many years ago, while they enjoy everything else and give us table scraps by comparison with threats to kill us if we don’t comply, with the Rittenhouse clones who will surely follow in light of this predictable but still awful verdict – and if you know all of this to be true but keep your mouths shut and don’t protest in some form anyway, then you’re part of the problem also...can’t think of many tunes that sum up how I feel at the moment, but this will do for now.

Friday Stuff

Rachel Maddow speaks here with Ari Berman on the typically ridiculous gerrymandering bill affecting Democratic representation in the area of Galveston, TX and how that’s representative of all of the other GOP-sponsored anti-voting bills across the country (which makes it even more critical to pass the John Lewis Voting Act in the Senate, or whatever it’s called, by nuking the stinking filibuster once and for all...Angus King of Maine gave an interview somewhere a couple of weeks ago I think where he talked about what could be done to the stinking filibuster short of getting rid of it, and of course, I’ve seen no action at all on that front from Dem Senate Majority “Leader” Chuck Schumer)...



...and it looks like BBB passed in the House early this morning after Kevin McCarthy tried to pull his impression of Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and the bill passed with no Republican votes at all of course and one Dem turncoat, Jared Golden, who should be immediately primaried...until this morning, the most recent idiocy in the House was Lauren Boebert’s typically racist and utterly stoo-pid rant against who else but Dem Rep Ilhan Omar...David Doel tells us about it along with Omar’s great response...



...and speaking of Republican idiocy, Chris Hayes talks with Dem U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren about Repug U.S. Senator John “Louie Gohmert Impersonator” Kennedy and his typically insulting line of questioning towards Saule Omarova, Biden’s nominee for comptroller of the currency (more here)...



...and staying with “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” Sam and Emma talk about Repug John Barrasso trying to squirm away from George Stephanopoulos’s question about the ”hang Mike Pence” stuff...so many lies from this POS from Wyoming, including Biden begging Putin for oil, and the evergreen zombie BS about an allegedly fraudulent election in PA...of course, it would be nice if S. would actually call out Barrasso on this, wouldn’t it, instead of SUCKING SO HARD AT HIS JOB!...



...and Thom Hartmann gives us more context on the GOP’s new racist strategy in terms of choking off any historical context at all which could make suburban white people feel uncomfortable in any way whatsoever (didn’t know that stat about Dems losing the white vote in presidential elections since LBJ, but it doesn’t surprise me)...



...and I thought Ana of TYT did a first-class job here of taking “the old gray lady” to task on this political piece they concocted about how AOC is supposedly so “divisive” (and I know I had the TYT clip earlier about Larry Summers’s words getting twisted on inflation, including from that death eater Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao...and for whatever my take is worth, I think our beloved "fourth estate" gravitates between mere incompetence and utter evil in mininforming their readers/viewers)...



...and former Medicare and Medicaid Administrator under Obama Don Berwick talks about 3 ways that Biden can lower drug prices (important and interesting stuff)...



...and this tune was #1 on the Billboard charts 50 years ago on November 20th (coincidentally, TCM presented a feature on photojournalist and filmmaker Gordon Parks on 11/16 and also coming up on 11/23 – more info is here).

Wednesday Stuff

Thom Hartmann brings us more denialism in this country of our own racist and genocidal dirty laundry, to say nothing of assorted other ills (and Judd Legum has been all over describing how critical race theory is a totally manufactured issue – it only applies to some college studies, truth be told, as Hartmann explains...however, it is the tip of the metaphorical spear, if you will, meaning that, if teaching CRT is ultimately made illegal, then that creates the precedent to pass a law stating that teaching ANYTHING that puts this country in a negative light on race – or other hot-button topics – can be made illegal too)...



...and I would argue that what contributes to our collective amnesia on our history, allowing particular groups to prattle on like spoiled little kids over issues they don’t like, is when our allegedly august media gatekeepers totally fall down when trying to do their jobs, which I think is the real takeaway in this Farron Cousins clip about Iowa Repug Guv Kim Reynolds using $450K of COVID funds to pay her staff (glad to hear Cousins bust the AP for not mentioning Reynolds’s political party – of course, there are other outlets who would probably point that out, but utterly “bury the lede,” you might say)...



...and continuing with the theme of media malpractice, leave it to Fix Noise and other outlets to utterly twist the words of senior Biden econ advisor Larry Summers on inflation, which is happening EVERYWHERE ACROSS THE GLOBE in large part because of supply chain and worker shortage issues related to COVID (so sez Prof. Krugman here and here – more info is here, and you can read more about quantitative easing here)...



...and related to the “I” word, Robert Reich points out that BBB (with its spending over 10 years as of now, let’s not forget) won’t contribute to inflation, despite what Manchinema sez, along with Reich’s completely correct observation that that alleged captain of industry Elon Musk is acting like a five-year-old brat...



...and John goes solo in this clip pointing out still more disgusting Trumpster revelations, this time about how Mark Meadows supposedly sent Mike Pence to plan the coup on 1/6...



...and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us more on that lunatic Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Gosar (and of course, his Anime snuff video aimed at AOC and Biden) and silence in response from caucus leader Kevin McCarthy and just about everyone else from that party, including some life form named Bill Posey who of course chanted "Let's Go Brandon" (with Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney commendably joining the Dems to censure Gosar, along with somebody else from that party voting Present)...



...and this Now This video tells us about service industry activists traveling across the U.S. to raise awareness for restaurant workers affected by the pandemic...



...and happy 75th birthday to Martin Barre of Jethro Tull.

Tuesday Stuff

John and Francesca of The Damage Report tell us of Bernie Sanders getting noise from gazillionaire Elon Musk, the latter being a total dick of course (and I don't care how many times he hosts SNL), with the latest reason being that Musk sent a tweet wishing questioning whether or not Bernie was dead (and speaking of Vermont senators, kudos to Dem Patrick Leahy for all of his good work upon the news that he won’t seek another term, as noted here...and by the way, to show how utterly clueless the national Democratic Party is, this issue was teed up for them, but it looks like a Republican is going to steal their thunder on it)...



...and this Rebel HQ video with Alyssa Bernadino and David Shuster tells us more about how the rich, including Musk, are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, in particular as a result of COVID (and I know she has a good point, but I still think Krystal Ball is a twit).

And I’m sorry, but I have to go “meta” again over this.

Am I mad as hell at Manchinema for doing EXACTLY what Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao wants them to do and that is to tie Biden’s hands any way they possibly can? You’re damn right I am. And am I mad at Biden over not delivering what he promised (thus far anyway). Uh, yeah I am.

But can we step back and look at what he HAS delivered? Like COVID relief and the corporate infrastructure bill, OK (which is “half a loaf” I know)? Are we supposed to pretend that that’s NOTHING? Do you HONESTLY think Republicans would have delivered anything close to that, as opposed to STILL MORE tax cuts for the rich, anti-abortion laws, gutting renewable energy development and other utterly performative BS? And oh yeah, they were OVERWHELMINGLY the political party that benefitted from that little incident on January 6th (which was a lot more thought out than originally believed, people – we were closer to losing our democracy than we knew at the time).

And do you SERIOUSLY think they WON’T try to finish the job and install Our Treasonous Orange Pustule or someone else from that foul, hateful circle as Dear Leader once and for all, completely gutting our democratic institutions in the process?

I’m more than a little disgusted with the conventional wisdom that 2022 is going to be an electoral bloodbath for the Dems. Yes, there’s a lot that could look a whole lot better and there are worrisome signs to be sure (particularly the wave of Republican-sponsored bills in statehouses across this country to approve more ridiculous gerrymandering, which would be undone by the For The People Act, which Manchinema continue to block), BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE, CAN WE PLEASE TRY TO REMEMBER WHICH POLITICAL PARTY IS OVERWHELMINGLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS THOROUGHLY PUTRID STATE OF AFFAIRS???!!!

Are you mad at Democrats? Good! Then for the love of God, make sure you remain angry at the bad ones only (as opposed to the many, many good ones) and DON’T VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS! Elect MORE Democrats to negate the bad ones blocking what matters!...



...and speaking of Republicans and performative BS, Farron Cousins tells us about RoJo getting his YouTube account suspended for spreading more COVID-related lies about the vaccine...



...and David Pakman tells us about the latest grift from Bari Weiss and some other bad actors, something called the University of Austin, which apparently isn’t accredited and doesn’t offer degrees – in addition to Weiss, yeah, David Mamet, Larry Summers, and Tyler Cowen are involved, among others – and sorry David, but I definitely disagree with you on Cowen – yeah, my “griftometer” is going nuts too...



...and Chris Hayes tells us about Alex Jones losing all of his lawsuits against the Sandy Hook families – couldn’t happen to a more deserving guttersnipe (and can you imagine how rancid the docs are that he was required to turn over, but instead decided not to and accept the default judgment against him?)...



...and I thought this tune had a cool groove with a pretty minimal sound – nicely done.

Monday Stuff

Chris Hayes speaks with former Obama senior advisor David Plouffe about the latest Fix Noise idiocy involving President Biden, and that is the “Negro” reference to baseball great Satchel Paige and “the mystery of the disappearing hand”...this is really weak stuff even for The Roger Ailes BS Factory, and as usual, they’re trying to invent a “scandal” out of whole cloth...at what point do we FINALLY say, “You know what? We can’t trust this idiot network to tell us the truth without fabrication (After all, given how they get caught, can you imagine what they actually get away with? Media Matters can’t catch ALL of it.), so we no longer are going to take what they say or do seriously"...yeah I know, I can dream, right?...



...and I know I’m a little late with the most recent Second Thought video from last Friday, aptly titled “Environmental Justice: How Capitalism Threatens Humanity”...the corporate class HATES the environmental movement more than anything else because they know how powerful a force it is in galvanizing public support (didn’t know 227 people died in pursuit of environmental justice last year, mostly indigenous people in affected communities – and yeah, the saga of the Dulles Brothers and United Fruit is, at a minimum, an entire video by itself)...



...and John and Charles F. Coleman Jr. respond to “Calgary” Cruz saying roads are racist by recounting related history in highway construction (Robert Moses in NYC could probably be the subject of a lengthy blog post on this by himself - I've always looked upon construction of the U.S. interstate highway system as a 20th century marvel, but I guess I should have realized that it had a seamy back story about dislocating poor populations)...



...and Thom Hartmann tells us how pregnant women in Poland can’t get an abortion...in particular, one woman couldn’t get the procedure because of laws in that country and had to wait until the fetus she was carrying died, then the doctors tried to perform a “C” section to remove the fetus but she died of a heart attack on the way to the operating room, and Thom recounts another story of a woman in a similar circumstance in Ireland who died of sepsis, causing that country to loosen its anti-abortion laws...we’re headed for the same damn thing in this country, people, if the Trumpsters/fundie zealots have their way, including Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett on the SCOTUS...



...and Sam and Emma discuss billionaire Howard Schultz of Starbucks using a Holocaust analogy to discourage a pro-union vote...just say “oops” and get out (yeah, and go share your own damn blanket, you clueless asshat...usually I follow stories like this with that Mike Doughty song, but I won’t this time...I love Sam's pithy comment, juvenile or not)...



...but maybe this will suffice as an apt musical selection given the most recent clip.