This Ukrainian military ad is a few years old, but I still think it’s pretty effective...
...and this in-depth report from the German television service DW gets into a lot of history on “Vlad The Butcher” Putin and his global aspirations, including his quest to dominate Ukraine and Putin’s utterly bizarre – and dare I say unhinged? – vision of returning the Russian empire to something that’s almost pre-Communist (and recalling Putin’s remark about the breakup of the Soviet Union as the worst crisis of the 20th century, or words to that effect...if I could, I’d be trying to get Sweden and especially Finland into NATO right now)...
...and this Young Turks clip with Cenk and Ana from last Thursday gives us more analysis, along with Cenk’s theory about Putin’s gamble on waging war vs. Western sanctions as well as how this all could play out with the Russian oligarchs also...I think Cenk’s theory is pretty correct, ominous as it is, except for one thing; I definitely see the Russian military getting “bogged down” in Ukraine...
...and Rachel Maddow is back just in time to provide some more important context on Vlad The Butcher’s incursion into that besieged country (and yeah, I would say “shambolic disgrace” describes what Putin has done to Russia all right)...
...and John and Brett of The Damage Report tell us about the incredible bravery of the 13 Ukrainian border guards defending that island who were slaughtered by the cowards of the Russian military...
...and happy belated 80th birthday to singer Paul Jones, formerly of Manfred Mann (with a tune whose title definitely applies to Putin...have to return this site to something approximating normalcy at some point).
My Wordpress post basically asks why the hell the Democrats aren’t coming up with ads attacking Repugs for a host of issues, and one of them is their “bromance” with that lunatic waging war in Ukraine, but at least The Lincoln Project is stepping up (and yeah, I know they’re basically rebranded Republican grifters, but they’re doing good work once more)...
...and Ali Velshi speaks with Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser under Obama, about all of the ways that Generalissimo Trump did his best to put us on a glide path to the current ruinous circumstances unfolding in that area of the world...
...and Thom Hartmann tells us about Franklin Graham saying we should “pray for President Putin”...I MIGHT be amenable to this for the sake of peace overall if Graham had said something equivalent to Biden, which he didn’t of course (and boy, did James Madison among our founders envision this insanity...and I also realize that the fluid nature of the war currently being waged is making some of these clips a little more dated than I would like)...
...and Mehdi Hasan gives us a bit of a history lesson on bad Russian behavior under Putin since about 1999, with Nina Kruscheva and author Yuri Felshtinsky...
...and Beau brings us some more important context on all this (and oh yeah, there's this too)...
...and to be fair (and given this), it’s safe to say that Putin played Dubya, as noted in this clip, but he also played a few current and former U.S. politicians as well (as well as many of the adoring throng in that audience, it would seem... Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, Natalia Estemirova, Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin...all were Puitin critics who died under suspicious circumstances, as noted here)...
...and by the way, I would call this pretty emphatic....
Update: As Will Bunch said, not all "leaders" have bone spurs (here).
...and I realize that this tune was birthed during the era of The Sainted Ronnie R and the mutually missed oportunity of nuclear deterrence, which is a wholly other matter than Putin's catastrophic incursion into Ukraine, but if for no other reason, presenting this once more serves as a reminder of the long-simmering hostility that helped bring us to this awful point.
Farron Cousins tells us that Repug U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has been bitching about the so-called “first step” act allegedly leading to more crime and how awful the Dems are for supposedly creating it, when in reality it was signed into law by Generalissimo Trump with the Repugs in control of Congress...and I have to admit that I don’t know what a “slap chop” is, but yeah, it’s pretty damning that these “criminals” are stealing milk, baby formula, diapers, etc. – tell me one more time about “American exceptionalism,” OK?...
...and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about the Trumper Marine Corps reservist (!) making fake COVID vaccination cards (more here)...you know, I’m going to “back up” just a bit here and point out that, many, many moons ago when I started this blog thing for better or worse, my goal was to promote informed dialogue across the political spectrum...try not to laugh too hard, OK? However, that has morphed into cataloging the utter insanity of the other side almost non-stop...and yes, I am aware of that, though I’ll foreshadow things a bit here and say that there was a bit of a misstep recently from Team D that I’ll discuss shortly...
...and I can’t tell you how depressing it is to learn about what’s been going on with the Hershey corporation because I have so many happy memories associated with Hershey, Pa. while I was growing up; this More Perfect Union video gets into the thoroughly obnoxious details (yeah, yet another CEO blathering on a Zoom call about how great her workforce is, when in reality she’s treating them like dog crap)...
...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report tells us more about the “misstep” I referred to earlier, and that is Dem U.S. Senator Bob Menendez saying that New Jersey is a “maker” state and PA is a “moocher” one...ummm, I’m pretty sure that, as they note in the clip, Menendex was taking a shot at “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey (who can’t be gone from the Senate soon enough), but see, here’s the problem...we have an election coming up for Toomey’s happily-soon-to-be-vacant seat, and we don’t need Menendez putting his foot in it and amping things up for the other side and hurting Dem turnout...quite simply, along with Di-Fi, Menendez needs to announce his retirement...the only reason he's still in the Senate is because the Repugs ran the utterly awful Bob Hugin against him last time, and I’m afraid they won’t make that mistake again (and Vigeland sure is right about NJ and pharma...NSFW/H at the very end)...
...and Alex Wagner, sitting in for Rachel Maddow, talks to media critic David Folkenflik about The Swanson TV Dinner Heir’s bromance with Our Former Ol’ Buddy Vlad Putin (and the subsequent effect of Republican political candidates in primary contests who apparently are tripping over themselves to curry Carlson’s favor – hard to truly describe how utterly disgusting this is, especially given the powder keg that Ukraine has turned into and the threat of more military madness from the crazed Russian calling the shots)...
...and I have a bit of a melancholy two-fer; first, RIP Gary Brooker of Procal Harum (here), and also, RIP Martha’s Vineyard mainstay Everett Poole (here)...never truly a visit to the island without stopping by Mr. Poole’s chandlery in Menemsha...his shop hours were pretty much whenever you saw the Ford pickup in the driveway, and to say he’d earned the right to call his own shots is an understatement...I can think of no more apt tune for these occasions than this one...fair winds and following seas.
John and Francesca of The Damage Report tell us about The Swanson TV Dinner Heir’s obsession over AOC, which, yeah, is actually pretty damn messed up even for “Tuckums” - oh, and there was this too...
(Oh, and apparently, in an effort to ignore Putin’s incursion into Ukraine, Carlson interviewed Kyle Rittenhouse, with the latter threatening to sue individuals and news organizations over the fallout from his all-but-guaranteed-by-that-goofball-judge not guilty verdict...heh.)
...that being said, I realize there’s not one thing that’s funny about this utterly dangerous situation with Putin’s move into the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine; what follows is a report from the DW German TV network – Putin also apparently gave that nutty speech earlier today about trying to re-create some pre-communist Russian state...FWIW, I definitely DON’T have a good feeling about this, and years of coddling of this nut by prior presidents has led us to this point IMO...
...and returning to what admittedly is more typical fare for this site, Sam, Emma and Ben Burgis of The Majority Report tell us about the 41 percent increase in child poverty over the month of January (the child tax credit ran out largely because of Machinema and EVERY SINGLE U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN...and actually, Will Bunch, to be fair, really raised the alarm over this recently...wanna know why this story isn’t gaining more traction? Because, overwhelmingly, people in the suburbs DON’T CARE, and yeah, they think child poverty is somehow a “choice”...more fool them)...
...and I know I touched on all of the insanity at school board meetings yesterday with Farron Cousins, but Joy Reid “follows the money” a bit on this story (and I suppose it shouldn’t shock me to hear that the national Dems apparently STILL haven’t gotten their messaging act together against the CRT boogeyman, as well as the “Defund the Police” garbage...last I checked, Dems supported funding of public sector workers in COVID relief and Repugs didn’t...COPS are public sector workers, so YOU tell ME who’s “defunding the police” and who isn’t...and boy, is Matthew Dowd ever right at the end)...
...and speaking of no ideas and only resentment, Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about this Repug loon Wendy Rogers, a state senator in Arizona who is trying to push “the Overton Window,” which, as far as I’m concerned, has been pushed by the “party of Lincoln” beyond all reason as it is...
Update 3/1/22: Just add this to the garbage on Rogers I guess.
...and I know I'm overdue for a Neil Young tune as a tribute to a guy standing up to Joe Rogan and his anti-vax, anti-mask BS on Spotify, so here's something else from Young's catalogue.
I would say that this Meidas Touch clip tells us all we need to know about the Trumpsters and what “taking the fifth” truly means to these treasonous jackals, our recent ruling cabal of liars, traitors and idiots...
...and Farron Cousins tells us about the threats faced by school board members from lunatic parents all over the country over (checks notes), let’s see now...wearing a goddamn piece of cloth over their kids faces, CRT of course (which isn’t taught in ANY elementary school), books about gender identification...seemingly every goddamn thing EXCEPT FREAKING GUNS!!!! (NSFW/H, but for a good reason)...the now-adult one once went to the Pennsbury School District – THANK GOD we no longer have to worry about his K-12 education NOW, or else we’d likely have to go to these nutty meetings and battle some of these troglodyte flesh lumps screeching their garbage (oh, but Smerky just says it’s because of “polarization,” which is typical for a clueless corporate media hack like him)...
...and as long as we're on the subject of idiotic right-wing attacks, Beau tells us about the wingnut frothing ("Cancun" Cruz and raised-fist-traitor Josh Hawley in particular) against Biden nominee Nina Morrison (for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York) because of Morrison's work on The Innocence Project...ummm, last I checked, everyone accused of a crime in this country is guaranteed legal representation...more here...
...and Richard Ojeda of Rebel HQ tells us about a financial web site (Zero Hedge) accused of spreading propaganda in support of Our Former Ol’ Buddy Vladimir Putin (more here)...
...and when it comes to more nonsense in Flori-DUUUHH (land of Ron #DeathSantis), Chris Hayes speaks with reporter Bianca Padro Ocasio of the Miami Herald on Repugs’ efforts in The Sunshine State to illegally change registration of elderly voters from Democrats to Republicans - one negative from this is that formerly Dem voters could no longer vote in their "closed" primary system, which is similar to PA...
...and Thom Hartmann gives us another important history lesson, this time on the Clinton Administration’s funding of abstinence-only sex ed (caving to the wingnuts apparently, which is always a lose-lose proposition) and the Obama teen pregnancy prevention program, and how the rates of teen pregnancy dropped more under Obama than Clinton (what's past is prologue IMHO when it comes to topics some people stupidly find to be uncomfortable to discuss)...
...and as I’ve said before, I really don’t care about Black History Month, mainly because I think African Americans deserve more than one damn month, but I guess you can consider the latest clip from Second Thought below to be my contribution to this discussion (re, how history of accomplishments by leading figures in this area have been co-opted into a narrative to make whites more comfortable)...
...and I realize that the person we recognize first and foremost on President’s Day is the first person to occupy the office, but just to change things up a bit, here’s a tune about Number 29 (and I think the steel drums are a nice touch).
