Friday Stuff

Leeja Miller brings us a report on U.S. housing segregation, going back to WWII and “white flight” in the ‘50s along with so-called housing “covenants” that were racist as hell (more on “peonage” is here, as well as the 1968 Fair Housing Act, and here is the case Miller is referring to...like many of you I’m sure, I heard relentlessly about the evils of “Section 8 housing” when I was growing up, so you can consider this clip to be a bit of a response)...



...and it looks like Repug U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville and Trump Jr. are engaged in a contest to find out who has the more limited brain capacity, as Kyle Kulinski tells us, with Tuberville blowing that racist “inner cities” dog whistle loud and clear as Kyle says...that state could have had Doug Jones in the Senate instead of this maroon (and kudos to Tuberville’s brother here)...



...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ brings us Tuberville’s knucklehead Senate partner Markwayne (“I Don’t Want Reality”) Mullin again, grilling educators on whether it’s better to love Jesus or teach tolerance, which to me are two variations of the same damn question...I wish the last person Mullin interrogated hadn’t said something like Jesus comes first – what if we’re talking about a Jewish or Muslim school kid? – but I get it that she was worn down by Mullin’s abusive tactics...



...and keeping with the subject of faith (or the perversion thereof), Sam and Emma speak with Will Sommer on how quickly the fundie nutjobs aligned themselves with QAnon...I think Sam in particular is trying to be careful here when talking about religion, but I don’t think it’s automatic that anyone with a belief system would automatically gravitate to these crazies, and I’m sure Sam’s not saying that to be fair (and there is a bit of a precedent for this insanity as noted here)...



...and moving on to corporate stuff, I have some actual GOOD news for a change; Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about Costco doing the right thing by holding the line on prices and member fees (I wish to God there was a Costco near Le Manse Doomsy, though I’ll do more research into finding one...nearest I think is in Willow Grove, Pa.)...



...and the prior video mentions good corporate behavior, but this has to do with BAD behavior from UPS versus the Teamsters, courtesy of More Perfect Union...and I know this is a damn broken record, but working at UPS was a good job until – wait for it! – 1982 and the ruinous reign of The Sainted Ronnie R, and the first attempt at a two-tiered wage system, which was fought off, only to have it return, leading to an increase in hiring (and totally abusing) part time workers, doing about 8 hours’ worth of work in 3.5-4 hrs. and getting paid a lousy wage to boot...



...and Thom Hartmann gives us another informative history lesson, this time on the SCOTUS and Sandra Day O’Connor totally quashing part of a dissent from fellow Justice David Souter (nominated to the Court by GHWB), in which Souter alleged that the High Court was helping to create a “plutocracy” in Souter’s completely correct analysis...



...and I hope everyone is in the mood for a newer upbeat tune as we head into the first summer weekend...here goes.

Thursday Stuff

Willie Geist and others on “Morning Jo(ke)” speak with Sarah Kate Ellis of GLAAD about the removal of LGBTQ-themed merchandise from Target, as well as the typical nutty intolerant nonsense from the usual suspects against the LGBTQ community, timed for the first day of Pride Month, with Ellis telling us that 70 percent of those polled are fine with pride themes in advertising, along with other very favorable numbers overall – important to note but kind of pathetic that it needs to be pointed out...more here...



...and John and Francesca tell us about the glorious debt ceiling deal that our political/media/industrial complex just loves, and yeah, “not everyone gets what they want” is indeed Beltway code for “the poors get it in the neck again and the pay no price, bear no burden bunch skate once more” (I believe the House has signed off on this mess, but we’re still waiting on “the world’s greatest deliberative body”)...I’m not sure that Francesca is right about student debt relief going away, but there’s other stuff to cause unnecessary pain...and the bald-faced hypocrisy of this happening ONLY when a Dem is in the White House and the “party of Lincoln” controls at least one chamber of Congress is still enough to make me puke...



Update: OK, Francesca was right about the student debt thing, unfortunately...ugh (here).

...and Brian Tyler Cohen presents us with the latest word salad on abortion from Tim Scott, who apparently is still running for the Repug nomination for preznit next year...yeah, the misogyny here is barely contained...more here and here...



...and Farron Cousins tells us that this alleged genius Repug U.S. Senator Roger Marshall recently told Maria Bartiromo of Fix Noise that, gee, his party hasn’t been able to pin anything on Hunter Biden and/or the IRS and/or whatever alleged scandal du jour is raging because there just aren’t enough danged Republicans on Capitol Hill (more Marshall idiocy is here)...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 6/1/18, in which we learn from Kyle Kulinski (in an NSFW/H clip) about Virginia state senator Bill Carrico, who offered kind of a Dickensian response when asked why he didn’t support Medicaid expansion in his state, which is emblematic of his entire party of course – I believe Carrico is, mercifully, out of government now, but OF COURSE he’s now a lobbyist...



...and I think this is a pretty anthemic tune for the beginning of pride month; I haven’t had a lot to say about this in the past, thought maybe I should have, but I think it’s definitely important to make some kind of a statement of support on this now.



Update 6/5/23: And this from the supposedly liberal bastion of California (this too) - GMAFB!

Wednesday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us that Lex Luthor Scott in Flori-DUUUH! is saying that “socialists” aren’t welcome in his state; fine with me, scumwad...I think this is a pretty spot-on take from Kyle on Scott’s idiocy and the whole “NAACP Travel Advisory” thing...just incredible to me that Scott, who was guilty of the largest Medicare fraud in history as Kyle notes, continues to “fall upward” politically with his nonsense...of course, in that state, the shadow of Castro looms large, though it shouldn’t really, but that’s the status quo because the Dems as a party have never been able to figure out a way to respond (NSFW/H at end)...



...and I thought this was a pretty interesting discussion on The Majority Report with a caller talking about how the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR took a metaphorical pickaxe to the Clean Water Act again (and yeah, the wingnuts have after been after government agencies, particularly the EPA, and their rule-making capacity for years...more here)...



...and well well, it looks like Maria Bartiromo and Fix Noise made up another “story” to attack Biden...this one is about homeless vets supposedly being kicked out of a shelter to make room for those dastardly, dirty migrants (tongue in-cheek here...David Pakman gives us the details)...and by the way, if you want another example of Fix Noise and the wingnutosphere losing their damn minds over something before they bothered to, y’know, ACTUALLY FACT-CHECK WHAT THEY WERE SAYING, I give you this from the New York Times, in which we learn about someone who was run over with a car, and the usual suspects started spouting off with, “oh, he was killed because he’s a Republican, right after Biden made that speech criticizing MAGA,” which was immediately quashed by law enforcement; they couldn’t determine any kind of a political motive behind this terrible accident...actually, both parties involved in this awful story were intoxicated and it’s hard to get through the fog on this, if you will, thought I’m sure there will be more to come (fine reporting in particular by Charles Homans and also Ken Bensinger)...



...and I thought this was another spot-on clip from The Lincoln Project (maybe in my lifetime, I’ll actually see the “D” party do stuff like this...click here to contact the Senate, which is full of its own brand of craven pretenders I know, and click here to contact the Dems and those other lunatics in the U.S. House)...



...and sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh, and with that in mind, I give you this story of the two kids who got thrown out of a #DeathSantis fundraiser for eating pudding with their fingers...David Doel explains (mildly NSFW/H)...



...and this caught my eye in the Times also (along with the story of the guy who got run over), and that was an obit for Dem Ohio U.S. House Rep Tom Sawyer, who challenged the 1990 census under Poppy Bush for undercounting African Americans as well as voters in cities overall, mainly in the Northeast but also in the Rust Belt...Sawyer also protested the work requirements in Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform” bill, though he defended Clinton during the impeachment fiasco and opposed the 2003 deployment of U.S. forces to Iraq...this tune is probably a bit tangential here, but it’s my attempt at a tribute to someone who fought the good fight and served the way a public official is supposed to, as opposed to the gaggle of idiots who take up positions in public life now.

Tuesday Stuff

Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about U.S. House Repugs voting to overturn Biden’s student debt relief, including Bri-Fi and two alleged “Democrats,” along with Repug Burgess Owens of Utah...yeah, as Emma sez, Repugs have been attacking a college education for freaking decades...and I’m not 100 percent sure about this, but I have a feeling that a lot of this discussion has to do with education IRAs that are tax free, and yeah, they’re tailored for the wealthy primarily, unless you have the foresight to set one up and the ability to hide away enough $$ to take advantage of it...as The Eternal George Carlin said, Republicans want you smart enough to work the machines, but too dumb to know much of anything else, and cutting off the means to get a college education unless you’re “to the manor born” is one way to ensure that...GREAT point at the end by Sam about having to take a crappy job to pay off student debt (and based on this, I think U.S. House Repug Burgess Owens is the LAST person who should be trying to give advice on anything related to finance or money management)...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us that Repug guv Ron #DeathSantis of Flori-DUUH! said he would look at potentially pardoning the Gropenfuhrer and the other January 6th culprits...#DeathSantis kept using the phrase “weaponization of government” which is obviously wingnut code for, yeah, pardoning everyone involved with 1/6 (and I had to get a kick out of that nonsense about charges against grandma, or whatever that mess was)...



...and Rayyvana and Francesca Fiorentini of The Damage Report tell us about the push-back in Nebraska against not only a ridiculous abortion ban, but also an anti-trans bill as noted here (hard to keep all of this insanity straight sometimes I’ll admit)...



...and as long as we’re talking about “values” nonsense, Farron Cousins brings us this “Moms for Liberty” nutball Darcy Schoening (and I know I had a video with her earlier) saying that her group has “moles” that have infiltrated liberal groups, with Schoening alleging there is some kind of “gay agenda” out there to support Dems in a CNN interview, and true to awful form, “The most trusted name in news” barely pushes back...



...which kind of put me in a frame of mind to watch this old SNL clip, back when we used to be able to just laugh at this nonsense...



...and RIP Cream lyricist Pete Brown...kind of ironic to me that he apparently came to the band in answer to an invitation from drummer Ginger Baker, when Brown ended up forming a musical partnership with bassist Jack Bruce instead...I think the first Brown collaboration with the band was “Wrapping Paper,” and from that point on, Brown’s spacey and poetic lyrics would become a mainstay of their most famous hits, including this one.

Monday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen and Glenn Kirschner give us the latest developments on Combover Caligula and the classified documents mess at Mar-a-Lago, with strong evidence pointing to the possibility that there was a willful effort to conceal those docs form the FBI...just throw this criminal’s ass in jail already!...



Update 5/31/23: I'm going to tie a load on big time on the day that this criminal's ass is finally in stir (here).

...and Beau gives us his take on what appears to be a deal to raise the debt ceiling, which – again – is more ridiculous Washington kabuki for the benefit of our political/media/industrial complex...a few ways that all of these idiotic theatrics could have been avoided...I share Beau’s concerns about SNAP and Medicaid I believe, though as Beau says, we’ll have to wait and find out about the details...and yeah, they absolutely wanted $$ taken out of the IRS budget to let their donors get out of paying taxes; I guess that was the metaphorical hill the Repugs would die on in this cruelty...now watch “15 Votes for Speaker” McCarthy try to get those MAGA lunatics in line to pass it...



Update: More here.

...and Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us that the “party of Lincoln” in the House, now that they’ve got this preliminary debt ceiling deal worked out, is going to try and railroad another tax cut bill, to the tune of about $3.5 trillion, providing still more evidence that they don’t give a damn about the debt and just want to reward their donors and stick it to everyone else...I was wondering how long it would take for one of these two to blame Dems somehow, and Ana does that at about 9:20...yes, the Dems should be yelling about this; let’s see what happens, OK?...and Cenk is also wrong not to give Obama credit for cutting taxes, and yes, #44 could have done a better job of getting the word out on that, I know (more here) – still not happy with Cenk over that Article V business, to be honest...



...and I honestly didn’t know that Ed Ames was still alive, though he just passed; well, he made it to 95, God bless him (a fine singer and entertainer, though this may be what he’ll be remembered for more than anything else...after Carson makes the “Jewish” remark, he says, “Welcome to Frontier Briss.”...probably couldn’t get away with this stuff now)...



...and I thought this was a well-done Lincoln Project video with today’s holiday in mind...



...and I think this is an apropos tune for today’s observance; it’s more of a throwback to the accursed Bushco/Iraq War years when they wouldn’t photograph the coffins of our dead service members returning from that wretched conflict, but I think the tune is also a cautionary tale in the awful event that some other wannabe strongman tries to do the same thing in the future.



Update: And speaking of the failed reign of Commander Codpiece, I give you this (and apologies for failing to note the 20th anniversary of this in a similar vein).