Friday Stuff

David Doel talks about “Tuckums” presenting his typically lying/slanted take on the 1/6 insurrection with doctored footage from what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provided to him recently (which of course should be provided to ALL news orgs, but McCarthy won’t do that unless he’s compelled to of course, probably by legal action of some type)...



...well, to refresh our memories, I present the following clip of Chris Hayes speaking with filmmaker Evan Hill, who helped to put together that amazing 40-minute New York Times documentary of what took place, including the Rosanne Boyland stuff (and yes, it is awful)...



...and with the treasonous events of 1/6 fresh in our minds, Thom Hartmann asks “What Do GOP Seditionists Offer Other Than Tearing America Apart?” (good question, and definitely a good point by Thom to mention John C. Calhoun and his “nullification” BS and how that links to Marjorie Traitor Greene...and God, is Thomas Massie ever a cosplaying airhead and a coward...Hartmann gives us yet another important history lesson, this time with absolutely staggering numbers on the slaves brought to this country before 1840 and the economic effect on poor Southern whites, and you damn well better believe that there’s a parallel between that and the current day, exactly the sort of history the “party of Lincoln” is trying to make illegal...more related idiocy is here)...



...and if you’re looking for a plan to return the Dems to control in the “lower chamber,” Rachel Maddow speaks with Ezra Levin of Indivisible about targeting the 18 U.S. House Repugs representing districts won by Biden in ’20 (one target is GOP Rep Mike Lawler in NY...and I’m sure Bri-Fi in PA-01 is one of the reps mentioned also, but knocking him off, while not impossible, is going to be a heavy lift, and I don’t say that gladly, despite his ‘moderate’ cred even though he votes with his party at least 85 percent of the time)...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about the Gropenfuhrer’s short list of VP picks for ’24...interesting theory about Nikki Haley in particular; diabolical enough to completely make sense, unfortunately, and I don’t think Kristi (Unsafe At Any Speed) Noem is going to buy much either (have to admit that I didn’t know about the real estate license scandal)...we’re loooong past the point where Former President Fergus Laing needs to be wearing an orange jumpsuit (maybe at looong last?), which would make this whole discussion moot, even though it would pave the way for #MeatballRon, who is dangerous for a similar but different set of reasons...



...and I, among others, point out the insanity of what goes on in our spheres of news and politics to try and motivate all of us to positive action, but another consequence could be turning into oneself leading to depression, and I have to admit that I do feel a bit of responsibility on that score even though I honestly believe that I need to do this...you can consider presenting the following video as a form of outreach, especially towards Generation Z and Millennials (we learn that rural youth have twice the rate of suicide as urban youth, and isolation and access to guns are identified at likely causes...”research shows that suicide rates are lower in states with stricter gun safety laws” - telling stuff indeed)...



...and if there is ever a clip to present as we near the end of a week, it’s this one, with “The Governator” speaking for about 12 minutes or so against fascism – well done (more here)...



...and RIP Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd – since he’s the last surviving member of the original band, and particularly since he’s featured on this tune, I believe I need to present it, which is probably a first for this site (and I’ll overlook that Confederate rag for the occasion).

Thursday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen presents this clip of a gay Missouri Republican criticizing another straight member of his party for an anti-LGBT bill in the state legislature prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation (more here)...and boy, is Cohen ever right about the Dems needing to get on board with a Spanish channel (NSFW/H)...



...and Sam of The Majority Report tells us about Georgia U.S. House idiot Mike Collins, who blames diversity and inclusion for train derailments (and once more, let’s not forget that the Obama rule for trains to use upgraded brakes was negated by Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and John of The Damage Report tells us about Republicans pushing for a 6-week abortion ban, which is effectively a full ban, along with more bogus “investigations” by the U.S. House, including the “weaponization” of the government, by Gym Jordan...I know we touched on the investigations thing earlier, but it bears repeating IMO (with Jayar at the end..."Due date abortion?" "Gender-selection abortion?" Is Ronna Romney McDaniel smoking a blunt or something?)...



...and David Doel brings us the clip of the recent exchange between Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and Repug U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma...a lot of important context provided here by Doel, illustrating what an entitled tool Mullin truly is (to say nothing of the fact that Mullin likely broke U.S. House ethics rules by making $$ off his plumbing business while serving as an elected representative)...



...and this video from More Perfect Union provides more information on Cal-Maine Foods gouging consumers on the price of eggs, and how other egg producers possibly acted in collusion...gee, it sure is a shame that we don’t have a federal government that can, y’know, put together a commission with subpoena power to investigate this...OH, WAIT! WE DO!...



...and RIP David Lindley; this is another case where it’s hard to find a particular tune to highlight from his gargantuan body of work, but I always associate him with Jackson Browne for many memorable selections, including this one.

Wednesday Stuff

(A bit of housekeeping...I may be cutting back on posting about news/political stuff for a bit; I don’t completely know yet. I’ll keep you informed as best I can.)

I thought this was a typically spot-on commentary from Beau about the highest paying jobs when getting out of college (engineering – understandable IMO) and lowest paying (education – ummm, I agree with Beau; we have a problem here...”we do not value the thing we need the most” indeed)...



...and speaking of college, Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about Bernie Sanders educating Bill Maher in the matter of student debt...the only reason I’ve even acknowledging that lickspittle Maher at all (who, let’s not forget, achieved his fame and popularity with a hell of a lot of support from people with the ideological bent that he now chooses to piss all over) is because of how Sanders brings him around on the issue...and it turns out that the poll Maher cites was referenced by NBC News, but they didn’t conduct it, and the poll was basically conducted by an AI? Heckuva job...



...and sticking with education, this More Perfect Union video tells us about the billionaires funding the SCOTUS cases/attacks on Biden’s student debt relief, in particular the laughably misnamed “Job Creators Network” bankrolled by Bernie Marcus, The Mercers, Charles Koch & Philip Anschultz, the same cretins who want us stuck in dead-end jobs with lousy pay forever until we drop...



...and continuing with the theme of trying to improve your mind through diverse perspectives, John and Sabrina Rios of The Damage Report give us the latest polling on book bans – the numbers should be 100 percent opposed across the board of course, but we are where we are...and yeah, it figures that a majority of Repugs are on board, but not a majority of Dems and independents, thankfully...



...and I realize it’s “water wet, sky blue” stuff to point out what an utter joke of a supposed TV news network Fix Noise is, but Sam and Emma of TMR let us know about Howie Kurtz, the alleged media critic, commenting on how the Roger Ailes BS Factory chose to muzzle him over the revelations about his employer from the Dominion lawsuit; pretty solid analysis in particular from Sam IMO...



...and it looks like PA’s former U.S. Senatorial mistake ended up landing comfortably, as Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us, with “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey joining the board of a private equity firm (OF COOURRRSSE!)...and yes, it definitely deserves a dishonorable mention that Toomey, along with “Curtsy Kyrsten” of course, helped to scuttle legislation to close the carried interest loophole...



...and when it comes to Toomey’s replacement, Retired U.S. Army Major Richard Ojeda tells us about one of #45 fail sons name calling John Fetterman, who continues his courageous recovery from a stroke and depression (Fetterman I mean of course)...to me, it’s absolutely ridiculous to see the comparative media attention given to these lower life forms congregating at CPAC, but kudos to Ojeda for giving Ochre Abomination Jr. the upbraiding called for here...



...and by the way, happy International Women's Day.

Monday Stuff

Alex Wagner of MSNBC talks with Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker about that idiot Tennessee lawmaker, State Rep Paul Sherrell (and do you even have to ask which party?), who wanted to bring back lynching (more here – and yes, he apologized, which is what he should do at a minimum)...



...and continuing under the heading of Republicans Behaving Badly, I give you Brian Tyler Cohen discussing Jon Stewart’s interview with Oklahoma State Senator Nathan Dahm about guns (NSFW/H...I know I’m a little behind the news curve on these two items, but I feel like they need to be addressed - here)...



...and I know I linked to this story on Friday, but Jesse Dollemore did a good job IMO in commenting on it, namely, FLA guv #DeathSantis wanting bloggers criticizing him to register with the state, or something...apparently, the “line in the sand” is if those correctly pointing out what a fascist he truly is are generating income for their time and trouble...and I have to admit that I didn’t have “agreeing with Newt Gingrich” on my Bingo card (here)...



...and Alabama U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville is proving once more to be one of the most enlightened minds of the 13th century with his claim that the Dems want “one gender”...commentary by Cenk and Ana of TYT, and GREAT point by Cenk at the end about what snowflakes conservatives truly are, calling we lefties every name in the book, but when we hold a mirror up to them, WE allegedly become the bad guys...



...and it looks like all of the non-musical clips in this post will pertain to members of the “party of Lincoln” behaving in a particularly bad way, and here is another example...Farron Cousins discusses TX rep Nate Schatzline sponsoring an anti-drag bill, who was caught...wait for it!...IN DRAG! And GREAT point by Cousins about how subjective a judgment it is to consider something “sexualized”...and here is what I think is going on with all of this anti-trans BS from these knuckle-draggers; it’s all about persecuting “the other” to rally political support, whether or not the “other” is an African American, a woman, an Hispanic immigrant, a trans individual, or just a plain ol’ liberal – no bar is too low for these cretins (more here)...



...and Patsy Cline died in a plane crash 60 years ago yesterday.

A Word Or Two On "The French Mistake"

(To begin, I have an observation that is really “inside baseball” I know, but I have to say it. What I’ve done in the past was write longer-form posts at times over on the Wordpress site where I can tag and categorize my content more effectively than I typically do here at Blogger, and I usually just link to WP from my Blogger posts. However, Wordpress has done such an effective job of totally shitting up their UI and overall functionality that I may just say the hell with writing new posts there altogether and do everything here. That explains a bit what I’m about to say next.)

There was a time at this site when I did my best to critique/pick apart what I considered to be wingnut propaganda on a variety of fronts, and my hope was that I could “get the word out” (as much as my admittedly limited reach allowed) before the spin on the topic in question became enshrined to the point where it pretty much morphed into the dreaded “conventional wisdom” within our corporate media. This applied to a number of topics, such as Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction during the sorry Bush reign, the whole “birther” nonsense under Obama and, in the present moment, our alleged “open border” with Mexico (propagated by Our Treasonous Orange Pustule of a Former “President,” among others). To that end, I often spent more time than I would like otherwise at National Review, The Weekly Standard, AEI, Townhall.com, the Wall Street Journal and other right-wing propaganda outlets and would fill up posts critiquing, among others, Bret Stephens, Kurt Schlichter, Andrew Malcolm...the list went on an on.

I eventually ended up abandoning this exercise for at least two reasons: 1) I needed to preserve my sanity, and 2) I ran out of bandwidth to do that on a regular basis. Well, I’d like to return briefly to that here to take issue somewhat with a recent New York Times column by David French, formerly of The National Review (because, as the Times would no doubt tell us if they were directly asked, you can never have enough conservative columnists).

I have to admit that French these days is in the “never Trump” camp (see Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Michael Steele, Nicolle Wallace, etc.) so he’s a little more enlightened than the typical Trumpist sycophant. It should be noted also that he served our country, which is commendable. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need to be called out on occasion, and I think his most recent piece in the Times is the opportunity to do exactly that (the subject is the “national divorce” insanity proposed by Repug U.S. House Rep Marjorie Trailer Park Greene, among others):

(Greene’s “national divorce” idea) is not a new concern for me. In 2020, I published a book arguing that political polarization had grown so extreme that it was time to be concerned about our national union. The second sentence stated the thesis: “At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, religious, political or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart.”

That statement was true then, and it is true now. If anything, partisan anger has only grown. I finished the book before the spring riots that ripped through American cities in 2020 and before the insurrection of Jan. 6. Those wounds have not fully healed.

Did you catch that? French equated the protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd with the 1/6 insurrection against our government and the legal, lawful result of the 2020 presidential election.

One of these things is not like the other...

Well then, with this in mind, I think it’s only appropriate to revisit the following from French:

French once defended Kevin Williamson, who said those who’d received abortions should be hanged (here).

He also claimed that lifting the ban on transgender military service will result in “thought control” (here).

And in case anybody out there is still wondering how we could have arrived at a place in our political discourse where we’ve declared open season pretty much on LGBTQ individuals (to say nothing of women needing an abortion or related medical care), I give you a screed from French 8 years ago where he went on record saying that homosexuality is “sinful” here (I realize that’s pretty much straight from the Catholic playbook sadly, but that definitely helped to speed our intolerant path towards jackbooted authority and the ultimate death of democracy IMO...I mean, I hope to God that doesn't happen, but we'll see).

I realize the Times is going to allow French a platform to inject his doctrinaire musings into what passes for informed political dialogue in this country regardless of what I say or do, but as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t mean that he should be allowed to do so with impunity. And I intend to call out French and his ilk for exactly that as long as I’m able to do it.

We didn’t get to this sorry state in this country by accident. A lot of people who knew better either contributed to our political and ideological misunderstandings by active participation or other than benign neglect, and continue in that exercise. And French is definitely responsible too. And I don’t care how comfortable a living he manages to eke out for doing so.

Update 3/26/23: More here.

Update 5/8/23: More here also.