Friday Stuff

Ana and John of TYT discuss the Fix Noise reaction to Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness...rut-row – it looks like Judge Winebox just admitted that her parents gave her a free ride for college, even though of course she lambastes those trying to pay off their student loans (and by the way, what about all of the PPP grifters who bailed on repaying THEIR loans? How come we’re not hearing any bitching from Pirro and her pals about THAT??!! Ana is good in this segment, but John kills it...Ana mentions the classified documents thing and Trump, which is important but not directly relevant to this topic actually)...



...and comparing student loan debt forgiveness to heroin addiction, as this life form named Will Cain does, is pretty damn loopy even for The Roger Ailes BS Factory – Richard Ojeda tells us more (and yeah, you can thank The Sainted Ronnie R, among many others, for our wretched status quo on student college debt, as noted here)...



Update: I thought this was some important context, and this is a terrific related post.

Update 8/31/22: A little repetitive I know, but I think this is worth adding to the discussion.

...and turning to political campaigns, The Lincoln Project puts Trumpette Kari Lake of Arizona under the spotlight, and it sure as hell isn’t pretty (to help Lake’s competitor for AZ governor, Dem Katie Hobbs, click here)...



...so let's look at a gubernatorial contest on the other side of the country, OK? With that in mind, I thought this was a great opening ad for Charlie Crist, the Dem running against incumbent Ron #DeathSantis in Florida...



...and sticking with The Sunshine State, Farron Cousins tells us that the DOJ is absolutely still going after Matt Gaetz, but the problem (for Gaetz) is that there’s so damn much he could be guilty of that it’s taking awhile to sort things out – hope Gaetz will enjoy the rest of his life in the gray bar hotel...



...and Emma of The Majority Report tells us about this Repug U.S. House Rep Andy Barr of Kentucky totally blowing off Chuck Todd’s question about fighting inflation and instead going right to the wingnut talking points – yep, never a constructive solution from the “party of Lincoln,” only more bombast and pointless distraction (and apparently, Kentucky shares a border with Mexico based on what Barr is screeching about, which is indeed news to me)...



...and this video from More Perfect Union tells us about Becky Ley, a Delta Airlines flight attendant who has gone over to the pro-union side, but definitely not because she seeks to disparage the airline at all...



...and RIP longtime jazz producer Creed Taylor (here), who collaborated with George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Wes Montgomery, Stanley Turrentine and many others, as well as Stan Getz and João Gilberto on this timeless tune.

Thursday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen and More Perfect Union do a pretty deep dive into Mehmet (“CALL ME DOCTOR, DAMMIT!”) Oz and all the scammy “miracle cure” stuff as well as links to his shadowy donors and anti-worker policies; when it comes to grifters, yep, Oz and his benefactors are all birds of a shady feather, you might say...Oz has indeed made a fortune abusing people’s trust as a TV pitch man – gee, I can’t imagine who that reminds me of...in response, to help John Fetterman, click here (and by the way, there is also this and this)...



...and Trae Crowder gives his NSFW/H commentary on Biden forgiving student loan debt...



...and this DW report analyzes the Russian war on Ukraine on the 6-month anniversary (with Mathias Bolonger, Roman Goncharenko, William Glucroft and Mike Martin; don’t know who the broadcaster is...God, 7 million displaced inside Ukraine thanks to Vlad The Butcher)...



...well, at least 1 Russian soldier is brave enough to speak out against the war, and that would be Pavel Filatyev, who is featured in this Now This clip...



...and the person sitting in for David Pakman tells us about Brian Stelter being forced out of his job at CNN by cancellation of his show “Reliable Sources” – and yeah, it looks like this nut job John Malone will push the network even further to the right...yeah, just what the world needs – more wingnut BS...I was OK with Stelter on balance, and I hope things work out for him...



...and here comes another seasonal selection.

Wednesday Stuff

Lawrence O’Donnell discusses Generalissimo Trump and more than 300 documents at Mar-a-Lago, with some having the highest levels of security apparently, and 45 “went through the boxes himself,” according to a report in the New York Times...and I would agree that Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb are likely in deep legal doo-doo also...



...and no, the preznit can’t just unilaterally declassify documents (especially when he’s out of office), as Leon Panetta points out, rightly noting that Mango Mussolini’s claim that he can arbitrarily do this is BS (again, don’t know who this guy is who’s sitting in, but he’s pretty good)...



Update: Interesting...

Update 8/27/22: This (and this)...

...and I’m bringing back a clip by Chris Hayes from last May on Trumper Doug Mastriano, the Repug party nominee for governor in our beloved commonwealth of PA, for a couple of reasons: 1) It contains a hell of a lot of important background on this lunatic, and 2) It’s a bit of a prologue to a recent terrific report in the Bucks County Beacon (which has emerged as a powerful progressive voice) by Jennifer Cohn which gets into the scary linkages between Mastriano, Trumpers, insurrectionists and “Christian” nationalists (here)...the best way to combat this is to do whatever you can to support Dem Josh Shapiro for PA governor (here)...



Update: I forgot Mastriano was coming to Delco, which is a natural spot for his political ilk unfortunately (here).

So he wants to make PA the "Florida of the north," huh? Anybody have any more questions?

Update 9/2/22: And it probably should come as no surprise to learn that Mastriano thinks he's above the law (here).

...and kudos to Adrienne Quinn Martin, the Dem chair of Hood County, TX who spoke before a local school board on banning books (Ben Meiselas from Meidas Touch tells us more)...



...and part of me really wanted to ignore this clip, but I decided to say something about it (from David Doel)...I have a feeling the phrase “OK, boomer” was invented for Bill Maher...wow, must be a nice life where the biggest “problem” you have is bitching and whining about NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE A GODDAMN MOVIE....and I don’t have a clue who Harry Styles is, and I can assure you that I don’t care...I can’t believe there was actually a time when I paid attention to Maher (here...before I discovered comment moderation :-), and to be fair, there was a time when he was really “on the beam” and actually living in the reality-based community, but boy, are those days ever long gone (NSFW/H)...



...and it’s probably too late today to hit LBI today (about an hour from Le Manse Doomsy), but I definitely feel like it after watching this clip (maybe tomorrow...).

Tuesday Stuff

Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us about Repug U.S. Senate Mistake RoJo saying he was involved in Wisocnsin’s fake electors scheme for “a couple of seconds”...and yeah, as Cenk says, if this were the primary, Johnson would be crowing about participating in this legally actionable fraud, but since we’re now in the general election, RoJo has to try and sound like a “moderate,” when of course he is anything but as noted here (and I caught that cheeky little bit of snark from Cenk, by the way...to do something about Johnson, click here)...



...and when it comes to Repugs running for election to the U.S. Senate, I’m not sure how you could do worse than Herschel Walker in Georgia, running against Raphael Warnock...God, is Walker a train wreck! Yeah, God forbid he strays from the script with Kristi (“Unsafe At Any Speed”) Noem and actually, y’know, ANSWERS THE GODDAMN QUESTION about Roe v. Wade (as well as that “good air in U.S., bad air in China” mess of word salad in criticizing the Green New Deal, to say nothing of also mixing up the days for the proposed debate with Rev. Warnock......as I’ve said before, for the “party of Lincoln” to think that Walker is competent at this point to do anything whatsoever in public life is an enormous “F.U.” to Georgia voters...to help Rev. Warnock, click here)...



Update 8/26?22: I wonder if Walker is now going to tell us that he’s “bigger than Jesus” based on this? If he does, the wingnuts will grit their teeth and not say a damn word in reproach.

...and Farron Cousins tells us about the New York Times report that Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence and Mark Meadows wanted to give redacted classified data to wingnut journalists (related to giving up the info on “Crossfire Hurricane”...and yeah, I buy the theory that they didn’t release the docs b/c they knew they would boomerang on them) – mildly NSFW/H...



...and speaking of “the old gray lady,” Chris Hayes talks with Times journalist Ken Vogel about Leonard Leo and the $1.6 billion dark money donation from this Barre Seid guy for current and future wingnut political campaigns, as noted here (once more, the foul, fetid legacy of Citizens United lives on)...



...and Francesca and Dan Evans of The Damage Report tell us about a far-right Russian propagandist’s daughter (Darya Dugina) who was killed in a car explosion – yeah, Our Former Ol’ Buddy Vlad Putin is quick to blame Ukraine, without any actual proof of course...



...and under the category of those who have departed, RIP Jerry Allison of Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Monday Stuff

(I also posted here about our PA-01 U.S. House rep.)

It looks like Florida guv Ron #DeathSantis wants to create “desirable citizens” in The Sunshine State (and I’m sure they won’t teach Brown v. Board also)...I know I touched on this earlier in that Alex Wagner clip, but here’s another important commentary on it IMO from Farron Cousins – more here and here...



...and given that the prior clip has to do with telling people what to think and keeping them in the dark when it comes to the con game that is being played on them, I thought that was a good reason to replay this clip from The Eternal George Carlin, including the quote I include in the header for this site (NSFW/H)...



...and now, let’s go west by a state or two to Mississippi, where idiot Repug gov Tate Reeves ended a rental assistance program in Mississippi that was funded by the feds apparently because it encouraged dependency or something, or so he thought – and yeah, I wish Johnny Harris of the New York Times would say something about how rentals continue to go through the roof while people who are ALREADY WORKING lose RAMP assistance, but I’m sure we won’t hear a word from him since he can’t “own the libs” with this story...



...and God almighty, when the hell are Dems EVER going to learn that you can’t say or do ANYTHING to please these frothing wingnuts like this nematode Jesse Watters and those other rich cackling idiots on “The Five” and other programs on that abattoir of a TV network (Biden tried to say that communism and socialism – however you define that – are “failed systems,” but Biden got pilloried anyway)...a clip was added at the end with Watters taking a victory lap over battles he would NEVER EVER fight having to do with all of the land we basically took from Native Americans...and yes, I know that’s a complicated topic (John of The Damage Report hosts with Brett Erlich and Francesca Fiorentini)...



...and I know I included a clip of a comedian earlier (albeit a legendary one), and here is another one, with Chelsea Handler hosting for Jimmy Kimmel and taking Lauren Boebert to task (also NSFW/H), as Brian Tyler Cohen explains (I don't want to even imagine the life forms that would actually vote for Boebert)...



...and I’m continuing to work my way down the list of summer selections with this number.