Friday Stuff

This is probably the longest Second Thought video I’ve seen yet, but it tells the story of the East Palestine, OH Norfolk Southern disaster better than anything I’ve seen to date...really getting into the back story as usual, this time about safety concerns barely getting addressed under Obama, wiped out under Mango Mussolini, and getting essentially ignored once again under Biden/Buttigieg...“when profit is the only thing that matters, safety is an unnecessary luxury” indeed, and he’s absolutely right about nationalizing the railroads...something I always wondered about was why, in 2010 when the “Tea Party” insanity took over Congress, one of the first things they did was to go after environmental regulations (targeting the EPA specifically), and as it turns out, that was right smack dab in the middle of the ’08-’14 period when train derailments started to increase by leaps and bounds...of course, that was also pretty big on the Koch Brothers wish list at that time...



...and Thom Hartmann talks about standing up to fascist bullies, and I think you can safely consider Norfolk Southern to be one of that bunch...I’m a little surprised to hear Thom imply that Dubya WASN’T a “bully,” especially since I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten the story of Don Siegelman (here), though to be fair, I guess Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales were more to blame for that, to say nothing of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame...



...and to take the whole “bully” thing a little further, I guess you can say that about this Lorna Roxanne Green lunatic who was arrested in Casper, Wyoming for (allegedly) attempting to set fire to the only abortion clinic in the state (John and Jessica Burbank provide commentary)...



...and as Thom says, the NRA is pretty high on the list of bullies, and kudos to Dem U.S. House Rep Max Frost for taking them on (Frost being one of the ever-shrinking number of federal government Democrats from Flori-DUUH!)...Max Burns of Rebel HQ tells us about it (more here and here)...



...and to try and lighten things up a bit, I thought I’d present this, which I thought was a clever bit of comedy from The Daily Show, though “Tuckums” can be unintentionally hilarious all by himself I know...



...and somehow I neglected to mention the passing of unheralded R&B singer Chuck Jackson last month, so please allow me to make amends for that now (Elvis, among others, covered this tune).

Thursday Stuff

Gee, maybe somebody ought to do something about this climate change thing, huh (John and Yasmin Khan give us the latest gory details...more here and here)...



...and Francesca, Maz Jobrani and Farron Cousins tell us that, in a recent survey, more Americans polled by Gallup support the Palestinians than Israel...and yeah, if Andrew Cuomo leads off with something, you can be sure that he’s on the wrong side...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us about Van Jones taking a bit of a veiled swipe at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, given the tick-tock of waiting for the latest legal machinations pertaining to Our Treasonous Orange Pustule of a former *president...really? Yep, I would agree that Jones has become a little too damn comfortable with the D.C. “club” of politicians, operatives and media sycophants...



...and turning to our ongoing plague, David Doel tells us about Bernie Sanders questioning Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel on fleecing the people of this country over the COVID vaccine (gee, they ONLY made over a billion dollars last quarter?)...and NAIL. HAMMER. FREAKING HEAD!!! by Doel on questioning EVERY DAMN THING about Operation Warp Speed! Do you have any idea how much that cost U.S. taxpayers? I sure as hell don’t (God forbid we ever see any actual reporting on this), and I have seen NO ACCOUNTABILITY WHATSOEVER for doling out our tax money to the drug companies for this...”oh, but Trump was responsible for O.W.S.”...so, I’m supposed to give him credit for that even though that was completely opaque to me, again, as a taxpayer?...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us that Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh is getting some help from her fellow Dems in standing up for the rights of trans people---shocking I have to admit, but good news for a change...and yeah, this is indeed how Dems are supposed to respond to conservative garbage, in this case from these characters Mike Moser and Steve Erdman...as Figueredo points out, young kids aren’t getting “bottom surgery,” but are getting puberty blockers to help with transition under medical supervision; the blockers are reversible in case they want to stick with their biological sex, but the surgery option isn’t available unless they’re essentially grown and have agency, despite what contemptible bottom feeders like Matt Walsh are spouting off about (and my guess is that Erdman listens to Walsh, which explains why he’s clueless...NSFW/H)...



...and I guess, given the first item, I’m feeling a little more aware of my own mortality than usual, just in time for this newer tune.

Wednesday Stuff

Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about some alleged “preacher” named Daniel Kuhtsar of the Sure Foundation Baptist Church who haz a sad over getting death threats since he called for the same thing against LGBTQ individuals – yeah, another entry for the “’f’ around and find out” file as far as I’m concerned...



...and Ana and Cenk of TYT discuss Idaho’s Lewis-Clark college censoring a pro-choice art show because it allegedly violates some state law; sound like that location is run by the most enlightened minds of the 13th century (and I thought this was a good discussion about wingnut hypocrisy when it comes to “free speech for me, but not for thee”...and I believe the lefty censorship Cenk notes is dis-inviting conservative speakers to public events – inviting them at first, then realizing how crazy they were and then cancelling the invitation – which I always thought was dumb; get them on the record and refute their nonsense WITH ACTUAL FACTS...and sorry if I’m being unkind, but I’ve never really bought the whole “canceling for campus security” argument as noted here...I’ve been to Middlebury a few times, and I definitely wouldn’t call it a place where cars are likely to be set alight and storefront windows get smashed up, not that I want that in any circumstance)...



...and David Shuster brings us the story of Ohio police in Walton Hills sued by a woman driver named Amanda Mills who tried to record them, and it sounds like they messed up her arm and caused other injuries as a result (named in the suit is some life form named C.J. Schmidt, who apparently is one of the roughhousing officers in question – he and his pals deserve what they get from this)...



...and in this clip, Thom Hartmann does a pretty good job IMO of drawing a line of Republican Party corruption from Richard Nixon to the Gropenfuhrer; Thom reminds us about this story from over the weekend about the effort from The Sainted Ronnie R and his minions – which was successful, as it turned out – to scuttle the Iran hostage negotiations under President Carter to help ensure Reagan’s election, leading to Iran/Contra and Dubya and the ’00 election along with the second Iraq war, up to the two Trump impeachments and 1/6 of course)...



Update 3/23/23: More from Greg Palast is here.

...and I would call this a pretty good summing up by Rachel Maddow of the varying levels of corruption and illegality of Mango Mussolini and his associates (again, mindful that at least one legal metaphorical shoe will drop soon concerning the leader of Cult 45)...



...and this tune was #1 on the Billboard chart for the week ending March 23, 1968...Otis Redding spent most of his career making those great, upbeat soulful tunes with his fellow Stax musicians, Carla Thomas and others, but apparently was motivated by the Beatles and the success of Sgt. Pepper earlier that year to change things up a bit and perform this selection, against the wishes of the estimable Steve Cropper and “Duck” Dunn...Redding died soon after he made this, and it was the first number one posthumous tune in Billboard history...amazing that he crammed all of his great work into only 26 years.

Tuesday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen and lawyer Glenn Kirschner give us their take on the latest legal machinations involving Our Treasonous Tiny Handed Former *President (and I thought this was more than a bit of a “tell” also, as in, preparing for a revolt of “the great unwashed”)...



...and Francesca, Maz Jobrani and Farron Cousins of TYT tell us about 2 more recent train derailments that could impact neighboring communities, though it doesn’t appear initially that the Arizona incident will cause anywhere near the calamity of what happened in East Palestine, OH, though the Puget Sound oil spill in Washington state will impact tribal lands unfortunately...as I and others smarter than myself have said before, most people hate government until they need it to do something, and in this case, the rail lines will apparently have to be compelled to upgrade their trains or face criminal sanctions – it will take federal action of some type because they sure as hell won’t do that on their own...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about “right to work” laws getting overturned in Michigan (incredible that 40K jobs were lost in MI because of RTW...and Emma is talking about this, by the way...also, kudos to the Temple University grad students as noted here)...



...and Beau discusses the 21 percent of those polled who said they trusted Fix Noise less after the revelations about what Tuckums, Ingraham and Sean Inanity really thought about the ’20 election despite what they said on the air (which of course came from the Dominion lawsuit...this is combined with the 11 percent who didn’t believe the network anyway, and it sounds like about 1/3rd of their audience is wavering a bit – not an overwhelming number, but definitely a dent in the metaphorical wall)...



...and I’ll tell you at the outset that this item is difficult, but I believe it needs to be mentioned – last Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie, who ended up giving her life in protest of Israel bulldozing Palestinian homes that were alleged to shelter terrorists...the following is an interview with Corrie discussing her reason for protesting recorded two days before her death...this post contains more information on Corrie’s killing from a bulldozer, but some of the images could be triggering, I have to tell you...still, though, the tragedy of her death needs to be remembered in its utterly unvarnished horror (I also have to be careful about putting up content that Blogger finds to be “sensitive” because I’ve gotten dinged for that already)...



...and in searching for a tune to commemorate the latest legal difficulty for Our Ochre Abomination, I now present the following.

Monday Stuff (updates)

A much-young-looking Cenk Uygur tells us that Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History lied about 935 times in the runup to the Iraq War, which began 20 years ago today approximately (the second war that is...more here, here, and here)...



Update 1: And let's not forget about this too.

Update 2: More food for thought is here (from the "what's past is prologue" department).

Update 1 3/21/23: And for anyone who doubts this, I have a name for you - Ashleigh Banfield.

Update 2 3/21/23: Yeah, I think this about says it.

Update 3 3/21/23: Maybe the best take on this yet (here)...

...and God forbid Former Commander Codpiece would show a speck of the contrition former British Prime Minister Tony Blair feels in this CBC report, though that doesn’t bring back anyone from the dead or help anybody whose lives were destroyed...



...and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! speaks with author Neta Crawford on the many costs of the war, which will only grow over time (our military, Iraqi civilians, regional disruption, and on and on...more on Operation Inherent Resolve is here)...



...and it appears that Dem U.S. Senator Tim Kaine and Repug U.S. Senator Todd Young have managed to put together a coalition to repeal the resolutions on both Iraq wars, which truly is the least “The world’s greatest deliberative body” can do (more here)...



Update 3/23/23: What an utter, unbelievable, pathetic f*cking joke! (here).

Votes like this tell you who our government really represents...the war machine and the investor class. Everyday people (the 99 percent, basically), not so damn much.

Update 3/29/23: OK, this is a little better.

Update 4/2/23: More here.

...and I know I’ve brought this clip back a few times, and I’m doing it again today because I think it truly captures the utterly insufferable arrogance of the foul, fetid Bush gang, on Iraq and a few other matters also, including Saddam Hussein’s alleged relationship with al Qaeda (mildly NSFW/H)...



...also, here is Keith Olbermann speaking with Jon Soltz of Vote Vets about "the surge" in October 2007 and what it did/didn't manage to accomplish (I can STILL remember the screaming at Dubya to get us the hell out of there during this timeframe in particular and his characteristically stubborn refusal to do so)...



...and I’m going to give the last non-musical comment on this to The Eternal Michael Brooks, who cut through all of the BS on this and called the war what it truly was five years ago...



Update 3/25/23: More here...and by the way, I know Bedbug Bret wrote some piffle at “the old gray lady” saying the war was a good thing – I think the best response to that nonsense is here...I would bother to reply if it was full of the typical triumphalist BS that came spewing forth from any of the war’s initial supporters, but since it doesn’t, I’ll keep my powder dry, as it were...Stephens is merely ridiculous with his tone of “well, this went wrong and that went wrong...but the war was still the right thing to do,” but at least he’s showing a molecule of self-reflection...that’s about all, though.

...and I can think of no more appropriate tune for this day than this one (and this too).