Friday Stuff

(By the way, I know I haven’t had much to say about the I-95 collapse in these parts, but I can only add to the observations of others that Gov. Shapiro and the affected unions are kicking butt on taking care of this, which is what happens when the right people are in charge...and here is more evidence of that...and when it comes to the awful story about the five people dying in that submarine, allow me to present this.)

Dr. Rashad Richey and Aida Rodriguez tell us that “Governor Bully” wants to take an axe to Social Security and Medicare, forgetting of course all polling with majorities of Dems and Repugs supporting more funding and coverage...and I love Christie’s line about “oh, I’m almost 60, so don’t do anything to affect me...but if you’re 40, you can raise the retirement age or cut funding since you'll have time to prepare.” – OK, boomer...for the zillionth time, remove the damn cap on earninings subject to S.S. withholding!!...



Update: Oh sure, Christie has a shot - sure he does (tee hee - here).

...and believe it or not, this Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the thoroughly awful Shelby County v. Holder SCOTUS ruling, in which Hangin’ Judge JR gutted the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, as Chris Hayes tells us (more here...more on our criminal SCOTUS later)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen gives us this clip of former Minnesota Repug governor Tim “Pawlenty of Nothing” who, in an interview with Brianna Keilar of CNN, tried to blame “both sides” for insurrectionists at the recent CPAC gathering of lower life forms (it seems like they have about 100 of these meetups a year)... I DEFY anybody to show me that, say, Antifa or Code Pink supports the violent overthrow of our government...



...and with venomous right wing groups in mind, I now give you the latest installment of ”This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 6/24/15, in which Thom Hartmann discusses mass murderer Dylann Roof and his connection/affiliation/whatever with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which I believe is still in existence (and yes, the group tried to wash its hands of Roof after he committed his horrible crime)...



...and to me, there isn’t much daylight between the Council of Conservative Citizens and The Federalist Society, since they both are malign influences that want to be only destructive to this country; with that in mind, the latest “class room” video from More Perfect Union and F.D. Signifier give us the most comprehensive report I’ve yet seen on Leonard Leo, who’s more responsible than anyone else IMO for the utterly destructive path chosen by our courts and the SCOTUS of course...Leo and all of his fellow criminals in dark robes should be left to rot in cells wearing orange jump suits, but of course they managed to change the laws first so they can escape culpability for their criminal behavior...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us that right wing media just loves RFK Jr.’s campaign...as much as I utterly detest Steve Bannon, and rest assured that I do, I think we need to pay attention to what he’s talking about, especially when it comes to the “Keebler elves”...in a weird way, I wish we had a more mainstream Repug party, though I honestly believe that that’s over with that bunch...good point by Emma about wondering when the hell Bannon will FINALLY go to jail...



...and speaking of wingnut stoo-pidity, Farron Cousins lets us know that this state Repug rep in Flori-DUUH! named Rick Roth has apparently realized that – oopsie! –this horrible anti-immigrant bill from #DeathSantis is driving about 10% of the workforce out of his state...



...and I’m not sure that the weather is going to cooperate in these parts for a little while, even though we need the rain...still, I hope this tune kicks off a good weekend for one and all.

Thursday Stuff

(My note: If I were king, U.S. House Dems would absolutely meme the hell out of the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy needed 15 votes to get the job, and that many votes for House speaker hadn’t taken place since 1859...and instead of chanting “shame” after the Adam Schiff vote, they would have chanted “15 votes”...but that’s just me I guess.)

Ali Velshi speaks with U.S. House Dem Adam Schiff after yesterday’s censure vote as well as that ridiculous nonsense with John Durham, since apparently that body under Republic Party “leadership” has nothing better to do, aside from passing climate legislation, protecting women’s healthcare, providing relief for those impacted by evictions (more on that in a bit) and loss of Medicare in red states as well as those under the weight of student loans...naaah, let’s just exact political payback instead against the guy who took the lead in the prosecution of our prior criminal regime installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and by the way, this guy voted for the Schiff censure resolution also...to do something about it, click here)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about Schiff’s fellow Dem Dan Goldman pushing back on the Schiff censure BS...



Update: Well said by Schiff here.

...and from the “do as I say, not as I do” party, Kyle K. tells us about the North Carolina house state speaker, somebody named Tim Moore, who’s into group sex and having an affair with someone’s ex-wife...definitely not how I roll and not behavior I would normally care about if it weren't for the fact that these life forms all so busy hating on LGBTQ individuals ("silent sinners scream the loudest," huh? Interesting...NSFW/H)...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us about the other big story aside from the Schiff censure, and that’s the revelations about “Strip Search Sammy” Alito and this Paul Singer billionaire who just happened to fund this $100K trip to a luxury resort in Alaska to go fishing that somehow didn’t end up on Alito’s SCOTUS financial disclosure form (the whole thread from ProPublica, who continue to do amazing work, is here)...



Update: Gee, now it looks like Amy Coney Island Baby Barrett has some 'splainin' to do too (here).

...and Dr. Rashad Richey and Aida Rodriguez tell us that evictions are on the rise in post-pandemic era, with the COVID restrictions having ended last month (not completely happy with the “both sides” framing here because there are some Dems doing good work, but unfortunately, the overall policy accomplishments aren’t there, I have to reluctantly admit...good work by Philly here, I have to say)...



...and speaking of Philly (born there), happy 75th (!) birthday to Todd Rundgren.

Wednesday Stuff

David Doel tells us that it looks like Hunter Biden is going to get a plea dela from a Trump-appointed attorney in Delaware (though that of course won’t stop one bit of wingnut screeching I realize)...and yeah, the genuinely scary stuff is about the Himalayan ice caps melting, but I guess that story’s a snooze fest, tragically, for way too many people...



...and the latest from Second Thought asks, “if clean energy is cheaper, why aren’t we using it?”...and if you guessed that this has a lot to do with Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard saying “well, we have Environmental and Social Governance (or ESG) funds while we continue to invest in dirty energy...what more do you tree-hugging libs want??!!” and then not doing much of anything else with renewables, then you get to enter the lottery to predict the day and time that the very last starving polar bear on an ice floe will finally kick it (God forbid we don’t have an 8-12 percent return on investment for these bloodsuckers)...”under capitalism, production is always initiated on the basis of prospective profit” and “there is no capitalist path to climate justice” indeed...



...and Mike Figueredo tells us that some Repug pol named Kevin Sabella, Sr. from Long Island apparently showed his junk in public and has done so repeatedly...good one, schumck (and yeah, some of the news orgs had “fun” with this story...suppose a little kid saw this POS do this?)...



...and Jayar Jackson, Adrienne Lawrence and Maz Jobrani tell us about Oregon state senate Republicans grounding hundreds of bills to a halt in a fight against a bill to protect abortions and gender-affirming care...as always, it’s Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! for Not Your Father’s Republican Party (maybe some dated snark at this point, I have to admit)...



...and Kyle Kulinski informs us that it sounds like the student loan case to the SCOUTS may be imploding – cool! (or at least, this loan servicer named in the suit is saying "WTF? How are WE getting harmed by Biden’s student debt relief?")...and I have to admit that I didn’t know that “court stripping” was a thing – sounds like this wingnut Missouri AG is pulling some kind of garbage on this...



...and happy first day of summer, everybody.

Tuesday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore brings us the news that an LGBTQ group in Canada (Egale Canada) is trying to get Fix Noise taken off that country’s airwaves for promoting hate and “abusive content”; I wish the group luck in that endeavor, but it’s a longshot of course...more here (and we learn more on that lunatic yelling about a 9-year-old girl with short hair for allegedly being “trans,” which she isn’t of course)...



...and John and Bennie Carollo of The Damage Report let us know about Marjorie Traitor Greene getting big mad at a woman not wearing pants at a pride parade...and oh yeah, Pornhub too (of course, Greene could perform actual constituent service since that’s the job she was elected to do, but perish the thought)...



...and apparently, Spotify isn’t even bothering to fact-check Joe Rogan on his stuff against getting vaxxed to fight COVID any more, as David Doel tells us (video has to do with that loon RFK Jr. and Prof. Peter Hotez trying to inject some sanity into the former’s anti-vax idiocy...that anecdote about “wrestling with a pig” has a lot to do with why I try to mention Fix Noise as little as possible...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and even though I just said that I want to avoid The Roger Ailes BS Factory, here is a clip from The Lincoln Project about CA guv Gavin Newsom doing a great job in that interview with Sean Inanity... I really haven’t said much about it not because of Newsom, but because I don’t want to give that millionaire Fix Noise propagandist any daylight at all to spread his right-wing vitriol...



...and Farron Cousins tells us that wingnut James Comer in the U.S. House is blaming “low IQ” MSNBC viewers for his utterly failed “investigation” into the latest Biden “scandal”...speaking of "right-wing vitriol" (what a joke)...



...and it's time for me to get into another summer selection, so here it is.

Monday Stuff

Alex Wagner tells us about the Gropenfuhrer stiffing more gullible idiots who somehow still support him, thinking that Mango Mussolini would actually make good on his promise of "free food for everyone" (dear God, the stoo-pidity), and attorney Joyce Vance discusses the latest issues that #45 is dealing with when it comes to legal representation (with all of his misery totally self-inflicted of course)...



...and RIP Daniel Ellsberg, who brought down political and media hellfire by making public the “Pentagon Papers” about our prosecution of the Vietnam War way back when...maybe the most notable of a long line of whistleblowers who courageously tried to keep our country from descending into something approximating corporate fascism (here and here...CBS news with Cronkite is from ’71, with a bit of snark from correspondent Bruce Morton, which I think is fine)...



...and speaking of snark, Emma along with the TMR crew tells us that Glenn Grothman is at it again, sounding off about the alleged commie liberal socialist plot against gas stoves (and “limousine liberals”? That’s at least a 30-year-old catchphrase, dude...you need to seriously update your wingnut-ese...and OF COOUURRRSE Grothman has to attack those “low income” poors also, and gets in the typical white boomer suburban dig at Section 8 housing...and yeah, what Emma sez; NSFW/H)...



...and David Doel tells us that the UK’s Daily Mail has apparently outdone itself with this BS about the supposed negative effects of WFH...yeah, the problems of “Anna” have more to do with our overall lifestyle than whether or not you’re actually in a physical office (sitting in traffic, burning gas that turns into CO2 into our atmosphere contributing to climate change, etc.)...



...and this gives us more background on the origins of today’s Juneteenth holiday...



...and in his quest to avoid anything whatsoever that has to do with passing actual legislation that makes a difference in people’s lives, apparently “Cancun” Cruz has picked a fight with Pat Benatar as noted here – how typically ridiculous.



Update 6/21/23: To do something about Cruz AT LONG FREAKING LAST, click here.