Friday Stuff

Thom Hartmann asks if the “far right” has turned religion into an authoritarian cult; if you have to ask the question, I have a feeling you already know the answer (I'm not sure if Thom is referring to the Super Bowl “He gets us” ad or not, and he references David Green of Hobby Lobby...and I agree with Thom on Franklin vs. Billy Graham...and GREAT point by Thom that a lot of the states where these religious hustlers practice their con are also states that refuse to expand Medicaid, even though it’s basically free money...and not supporting Ukraine is more than a bit of a “tell” also from these charlatans as far as I’m concerned)...

...and John and Ana of TYT bring us Alaska state rep David Eastman – I have to admit that I didn’t have a Repug politician saying there’s an upside to child death on my Bingo card; more on this Eastman ghoul is here...and yeah, he’s a Trumper all right (related commentary from Thom H. is here)...



...and retired U.S. Army Major Richard Ojeda tells us about Marjorie Trailer Park ($700K) Greene saying that we need a “national divorce” (I can almost feel my brain cells dying when I listen to this horrible woman)...



...and turning to the East Palestine, OH rail spill, David Pakman tells us that...rut-row!...Norfolk Southern apparently eliminated a critical maintenance role that could have led to the accident...it sounds like something called the hot box detector was going off before the train derailed, but nobody could do anything about it – ugh!...



...and this is an absolutely terrific clip by More Perfect Union on the despicable con of “right to work” laws and the re-awakening (I would call it) of organized labor in this country in response...really important history of the labor movement presented in this video...



...and tomorrow marks what would have been the 80th birthday of George Harrison.

Thursday Stuff

John and Jayar of The Damage Report tell us about the latest right-wing grifter with too much time and/or money on his hands, and that would be Vivek Ramaswamy...and you guessed it; he’s running for preznit (three guesses from which party, and the first two don’t count)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen, in collaboration with More Perfect Union, tell us why the Wisconsin Supreme Court election is so important and why Repug wingnut Dan Kelly needs to be defeated (to help Dem Janet Protasiewicz, click here)...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about FLA guv Ron #DeathSantis trying to get a nutty “free speech” bill passed, with all of the utterly horrible unintended consequences you can imagine; in part, the bill makes it easier to sue journalists and empower bigots (HB 991)...



...which definitely points to the larger issue of the “party of Lincoln” not giving a fig about democracy in any way...Lawrence O’Donnell gives us a reminder of how Dem Mike Mansfield of Montana served in the U.S. Senate as a moderating influence for his time, which leads into a discussion of Jon Tester deciding to run for another term, and I agree with O’Donnell that the Dems pretty much breathed a sigh of relief on that one...



...and staying out west, Farron Cousins tells us about two idiot Repugs in Idaho (State Senator Tammy Nichols and State Rep Judy Boyle) who want to make it illegal to administer an mRNA vaccine, which would include “the jab” for ‘Rona of course (more here)...



...and here’s an NSFW/H tune that goes out to a bunch of people in this post...I’m sure you can guess who they are.

Wednesday Stuff

Ana and Cenk of TYT discuss Marjorie Traitor ($700K) Greene calling for secession, forgetting that she represents what is, at the moment, a blue state – cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs indeed - more here...



...and Emma of The Majority Report mentions Dem U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio calling out corporate America in regard to the East Palestine, OH rail spill (a lot of good points in this discussion, but I think it goes off the rails a bit - no pun intended - when they criticize railroad privatization and Native American genocide; not saying that doesn’t matter, but I just think that’s another discussion...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and sticking with the East Palestine spill, Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us that Repug Gov. Mike DeWine told the residents that the water was safe to drink based on a report from a consultant hired by Norfolk Southern; Mayor Pete gets dragged a bit here, and as someone said (David Doel I think), if you’re coming into office, why wouldn’t you make a point of looking at the screwups of the prior administration and try to fix them, including Trump’s overturning of the Obama rule about upgraded train breaks (and nice work from Dem PA guv Josh Shapiro here)...



...and Joy Reid tells us about Biden’s recent meeting with President Zelenskyy in Ukraine, with more of the back story, along with the pro-Putin apparatchiks in this country doing Russia’s dirty work (also interviewing Michael Beschloss and Ali Velshi on the ground in Kyiv...Ron Paul is so absolutely pathetic that he should be completely ignored, blaming the Federal Reserve for every damn thing on earth)...



....and John and Rayy Vana of The Damage Report discuss student loan borrowers planning to picket outside the SCOTUS to get the justices to look them in the eye before they make a ruling potentially gutting the relief Biden is providing on their loans...unfortunately, I think John is absolutely right about these six robed lunatics not caring, but I admire the effort, and I LOVE his fire on this!...



...and Beau discusses a very wise kid in a Texas elementary school who found a gun in a bathroom and contacted the teacher right away about it before a disaster took place...it’s the goddamn guns, people! However, if you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you already know that...



...and I’m also sure I speak for millions when I say that President Carter, at this time, isn’t far from our thoughts...as he prepares to walk with Our Lord (that’s what I believe anyway), I think it’s apropos to include this clip of Rachel Maddow talking about Carter’s courage in trying to prevent a nuclear reactor disaster in 1952 while serving as an engineer in the U.S. Navy...fair winds and following seas...



...and RIP Huey “Piano” Smith - I now give you one of his signature tunes.

Monday Stuff

Mehdi Hasan tells us that Dominion Voting Systems is pretty much wiping the floor with Fix Noise based on the internal memos from the “news” personalities yelling about Sidney Powell and “America’s Mayor” ranting about alleged issues with Dominion and the web of lies that emerged from that network about the ’20 presidential election (this should spell the end of The Roger Ailes BS Factory, but it likely won’t until the humanoids viewing that channel finally decide that they’ve had enough of being lied to, and I’m not holding my breath on that - more here)...



...despite that, there was about 15 seconds of clarity from Steve Douchebag of the “fair and balanced” channel on Trump rolling back the Obama-era train regulations regarding breaking systems that (in all likelihood) played a major role in the East Palestine, OH spill – David Pakman tells us more...



...and Thom Hartmann asks, “Did the SCOTUS corrupt America by legalizing bribery?” Thom cites the ’78 decision by Justice Lewis Powell, saying corporations are people and money is the same thing as speech, so corporations have the right to bribe people (the FNB of Boston v. Bellotti case had to do with corporations contributing to ballot initiative campaigns)...Thom cites TWA fighting the recommendation of Al Gore to harden cockpit doors, though, as Thom says, both sides were truly guilty on this to one degree or another (it took 9/11 to finally get that to happen...SCOTUS decisions on corporations led to gutting public schools, privatizing public electric and water utilities, ending government subsidies for colleges, etc...and by the way, my sympathies to Thom and his family on his niece's passing - sorry to hear)...



...and Buckley v. Valeo, Bellotti and other rulings authored by Powell came subsequent to the justice’s infamous 1971 memo to Eugene Sydnor of the Chamber of Commerce; Robert Reich tells us more...



...and RIP Richard Belzer; I know he finally found fame on that cop show, and good for him – he was edgy and talented IMO and overcame a hell of a lot of hardship before he became successful...

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...and every so often, I come across a tune or video that kind of takes me away from the typical news/political nonsense, and I think this qualifies, so here it is.