Saturday, November 19, 2022

Saturday Stuff (updates)


The person pictured above between Former Commander Codpiece on the right and Our Gal Condi Rice on the left is Michael Gerson, former George W. Bush speechwriter. He served as a propagandist for our former ruling cabal of criminals before he was rewarded for his efforts with a job as a columnist for the Washington Post.

The reason I’m pointing out Gerson is because he died recently, apparently from kidney cancer complications at 58 as noted here. I’m genuinely sorry to hear that, and I’d like to extend my condolences to his family and friends. However, that’s not “the end of the story,” you might say.

Gerson had what I would call a peculiar gift with language, and that is that he could couch some truly insidious sentiments behind flowery phrasing, you might say. It would often take me a minute or two to process exactly what it was that he wrote, and by the time I did, I felt steam coming out of my ears. Probably that type of phrase that he’ll be remembered for the most is “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” related to #43’s whole No Child Left Behind grift, which of course was a way to reward Bush’s brother Neil selling his scammy educational products (I got into that way back when here), while at the same time trying to undercut public schools in this country (because, as any Republican will tell you, the only thing a U.S. public school can do is “fail”). That phrase from Gerson was his way of accusing Democrats of wanting to maintain the status quo and not see kids in this country achieve under his boss’s supposedly inspired plan.

Like with most print media hangers-on, Gerson was treated as some kind of eminence grise in the columnist world for becoming a supposed expert on how other people should live their lives (see BoBo, Bedbug Bret and The Moustache of Understanding in “the old gray lady”). However, I will always remember Gerson (and not fondly) for the speech he wrote for Bush on the 60th anniversary of V-E Day (news story is here). I’m not quite able to track down a link to the speech at the moment (I’ll keep trying), but I’ll never forget that it contained some truly Gerson-esque language which in essence said that the “global war on terror” being waged at that time was more important than World War II. And that pretty much enraged me because it diminished the sacrifice of my father as well as thousands of other U.S. soldiers who gave up big parts of their lives (and many suffering grave injuries or death of course) to fight in that conflict. And because I couldn’t think of much of anything else to do in response, I came up with this dumb blog to chronicle the nonsense of the Bush Administration and hold it up to the ridicule I thought it deserved. And nearly 18 years later, I’m still at it with this masochistic exercise (against myriad others besides the Bush Administration since then of course).

So I guess maybe in a weird way, I should thank Gerson. But I’m not prepared to do that at the moment, and I don’t think that I ever will be.

Now to the videos...Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about yet another bomb threat received by Boston’s Children’s Hospital because they provide gender-affirming care, from demagoguery generated by that scumwaffle Matt Walsh (Ana and Cenk of TYT bring the reality perspective, and yeah, apparently the number of kids receiving puberty blockers is about 1K per year, not “millions” or “hundreds of thousands”...kudos to Cenk for his completely appropriate outrage)...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us that Herschel Walker in Georgia is apparently trying to lock up that all-important “werewolves and vampires” voting bloc in his runoff election for the U.S. Senate with incumbent Dem Raphael Warnock...almost embarrassing to witness this, but attention must be paid to Walker if we are to defeat him...



...and Chris Hayes speaks with Obama senior advisor David Plouffe about the prospects of actual U.S. House governance from the “clown car caucus” of Not Your Father’s Republican Party...yeah, the chances of that are dim at best...the interview ends up as a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who is stepping down from a leadership role in that body...you can measure Pelosi’s success by the pure, unbridled hatred aimed at her from the other side...and GREAT point about Hakeem Jeffries as a good choice for minority leader since he’s from NY and could help to win back those 4 seats that were lost, which could be critical in ’24...I’m hearing stuff about Jeffries being a corporate Dem, but we’ll see how that plays out of course...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History”...we’re just going around the corner back to a year ago today, with David Doel commenting on some typical Lauren Boebert insanity, this time aimed at Dem U.S. House Rep Ilhan Omar...and yes, this is topical because Boebert did manage to get back to the House for another term, as I suspected she would unfortunately (Adam Frisch, who ran a solid campaign, called her and conceded, because that’s what losers of elections are supposed to do in this country)...



Update: And of course Boebert and her playmates in "the sedition caucus" got help from some of the cretinous corporate criminals noted here.

Update 11/21/22: As I said, election losers are supposed to concede, shut up and go away, but of course that dangerous wackadoodle Kari Lake doesn't plan to do that (here).

...and I’m glad to hear things are going so well for the “bird app” under the alleged guidance of King Elon I, some other plutocrat presumed to be a genius of entrepreneurship...



Update: I know King Elon had some phony-baloney online poll about whether our not Orange Lucifer should be allowed back on Elon’s “bird app,” and apparently 52 percent of those polled said Yes, so #45 was allowed back on, and his followers total immediately jumped to about one million, and a whole bunch of people I respect are getting the willies over it.

Since Generalissimo Trump used the bird app to stage an armed insurrection against this country, as far as I’m concerned, he should be automatically disqualified for signing up on it again. But you know what? If he gets back on and gets a million followers – good. Same if he gets two million. Or three million.

Mango Mussolini’s continued online presence will remind everyone in this country with a brain of what a thoroughly execrable biped life form he truly is.

And at this stage of the game, does ANYBODY SERIOUSLY THINK he can actually generate enough of an impact to warrant serious consideration as a presidential nominee again? Hell, even Rupert The Pirate has turned on him (here). And so what if Our Ochre Abomination gets three million followers. How many registered voters are there in this country? About 220-230 million?

Using the bird app to remind everyone that Former President Fergus Laing remains a free man will reinforce to the vast majority of this country how sycophantic, moribund and decayed his political party truly is. So, as Cenk Uygur would say, “have at it, hoss.”

Update 11/20/22: I think Trump is now at about 83 million followers on the bird app (my guess is that at least half are trolls and/or bots). And yes, my point still stands IMO.

Update 1 11/21/22: In fewer words, let me just say this. If anybody thinks I’m going to cower before that bloated orange pustule regardless of what he does...well, you just don’t know me very well, do you?

Update 2 11/21/22: Uh, yep.

...and for folks in Montgomery County, PA, there are still a couple of hours left to participate in a gun buy-back dropoff program at the locations noted here – with that in mind, I offer the following anti-gun tune.

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Thursday Stuff


Sam Seder discusses Andy Biggs and his “palace revolt” against new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (ugh...) – yeah, Biggs reeks entitlement which is typical for a Republican of course, showing that he and his party have learned not a damn thing from the last elections...and I’m sure it is going to get pretty damn dark with this bunch (and @RepBrianFitz will be along for the ride too), which may ultimately be a blessing because it will remind younger voters and independents to NEVER support these clowns in another election...



...and with the prior clip in mind somewhat, David Pakman presents data telling us that 18- to 29-year-olds basically saved our democracy in the most recent elections (now the damn Democrats need to f*cking REMEMBER THAT FROM NOW ON!)...



...and I honestly don’t know what’s going on with the PA House races in our beloved commonwealth for Bucks and Montgomery counties, but it’s nice to see Keystone State Dems get some “love” (Rachel Maddow tells us more)...



Update 1 11/18/22: As Atrios would say, ah well, nevertheless (here).

Update 2 11/18/22: EXCELLENT!

...and Jesse Dollemore gives us the latest Herschel Walker insanity (and actually, the date of the runoff is December 6th...as far as I’m concerned, the Dems have been treating Walker with kid gloves, when in fact it’s long past time to politically tear his head off...to help incumbent Dem Raphael Warnock, click here)...



Update: YES!!!!

...and John and Jayar tell us about the U.S. Senate passing a bill protecting same-sex marriage, and the House should indeed do so before the Repugs take over – like with the Maddow clip, I don’t know if there are any new developments; if I hear of anything, I’ll update this post...



...and this More Perfect Union video tells us why the proposed merger of the Kroger’s and Albertson’s supermarket chains could cause food prices to skyrocket (great, just what we need...very NSFW/H for a moment, but for a good reason)...



...and the latest from Second Thought tells us How Capitalism Ruined The Internet (important history lesson in his clips as always, this time having to do with DARPA, the creation of the internet, etc...”It bears repeating that, if a service is free, you are the product,” and “we absolutely need these regulatory band-aids, but we can’t leave the stabbing machine turned on.”...typically spot-on, and I didn’t know about the municipalities that set up their own broadband; we need to find some way to synergize all of that so these areas can have efficiencies and build out that network a bit across the country – sorry for the corporate-speak – mildly NSFW/H)...



...and RIP Keith Levene of The Clash.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Wednesday Stuff


Beau of the Fifth Column tells us about Mango Mussolini’s announcement that he’s running for president once more, which apparently was also greeted with a yawn by Rupert The Pirate’s vanity rag as noted here (about #45, apparently his presentation had low energy – sad!)...



...and David Doel tells us about Our Ochre Abomination’s typically scammy online operation with Herschel Walker (the whole 90/10 thing for donations)...




...and of course, what would Life In These United States be without another mass shooting (an update is here)...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about ballots getting “fixed” in Colorado, particularly in Bo-Bo-Boebert’s third district race against Adam Frisch, and no, that doesn’t mean anything illegal is going on, as Cousins explains...I believe today is the deadline for this effort; if I were to bet, I would say that Boebert gets back in unfortunately, mainly because she has the power of incumbency on her side, sadly (but again, as Cousins says, nobody really knows what’s going on here, which is the way the process is supposed to work)...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about the monumental political incompetence of Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the DCCC, and how he not only blew his own race, but ended up sinking so much money into a losing effort that it cost Dems in other races across the country that they might have been able to win (Slate article can be accessed from here...probably NSFW/H)...



(By the way, related to Maloney, I saw a really good post on Daily Kos that I’ll try to find and link here. The post had to do with $15 million raised by Marcus Flowers, who ran against Marjorie Traitor Greene. Yes, it would have been satisfying to see her lose, but her district was about plus-30-or-40 for Trump in 2020 at least, so seriously, what chance did Flowers have? Sorry if that sounds mean, but that’s the reality...and wouldn’t it have made more sense to spend some of that on, say, Tom Malinowski in NJ-7 who ended up losing to Baby Kean by about 10,000 votes?).

...and David Pakman gives us a bit of a preview of the '24 races, which look like they could be tougher for Dems...

via GIPHY

...(and yeah, I know it's waaay too damn early for that, but that means that the clock is now running for real against "Curtsy Kyrsten"...more here)...



...and David Shuster tells us once more about all of the “red wave” predictions getting blown to smithereens...in addition to Pakman, Shuster also makes a great point about the importance of Georgia now, since, if Warnock knocks off Walker, the Dems won’t feel like they have to go along with this idiotic “power sharing” agreements on various Senate committees...also important to note Biden's judicial appointments...



...and RIP front man Dan McCafferty of the band Nazareth.

Monday, November 14, 2022

Monday Stuff


It’s always a good thing for Fix and Fiends to get the treatment it deserves, as well as a certain 45th president along with Kari Lake, who, as we know, ran for Arizona governor (from SNL’s “cold open” a few nights ago)...



...and the prior clip was meant as a joke of course (though it’s pretty close to reality), but this isn’t amusing in any way at all, given that Herschel Walker could actually end up as a U.S. Senator (to help Raphael Warnock in the runoff – and after two of these in a row in Georgia, can we PLEASE get rid of them? – click here)...



...and speaking of The Roger Ailes BS Factory, that nematode Jesse Watters thinks the Dems did well in the midterms because not enough people hate Biden, and Watters throws in a heaping does of misogyny to boot of course...as Bugs would say, what a maroon!...



...and Mike Figuerdo of The Humanist Report tells us that, for Chris Cillizza I guess, it’s “heads I win, tails I win” as far as political predictions are concerned, especially with Our Ochre Abomination (NSFW/H)...



...and speaking of people with idiot midterm predictions, Ana and Cenk of TYT (not them) tell us about Jim Cramer’s reaction to the just-concluded elections (and yeah, I’d call this a “truth bomb” for sure about the people who really call the shots and why they don’t want government to do a damn thing)...



...and John and Brett Erlich of The Damage Report tell us about the Trumpist judge who has temporarily halted Biden’s student debt relief program – and yeah, I think the plaintiff was put up to do this, especially since she apparently had all of those PPP loans forgiven, but this isn’t over yet of course...



...and Beau mentions what the Repugs have in mind to respond to what happened on 11/8, and that is to raise the voting age...seriously...which they (checks notes...) CAN’T FREAKING DO BECAUSE IT’S AN AMENDMENT TO THE FREAKING CONSTITUTION THAT THEY CLAIM TO LOVE SO DAMN MUCH! - one of Beau's more tongue-in-cheek commentaries...



...and I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I heard a track from Shinedown...forgot how good they are (won’t make that mistake again...mildly NSFW/H).