Friday Stuff

Thom Hartmann asks Why Do Billionaires Fund Anti-Black and Anti-Trans political movements (the statistics Thom presents are staggering, with gun violence as the leading cause of death in this country)...also, I’d never heard a number before on all of the dough stolen from the middle class of this country stretching back to The Sainted Ronnie R, but $51 trillion probably makes sense – and it’s heartbreaking also to realize what happened once more to the For The People Act and who the culprits are for its likely demise; all of them should be summarily tossed (including Manchin and Sinema) and Dems elected instead (REAL ones in the latter two cases), but good luck expecting the Trumpers and independent voters to go along with that (and when it comes to the real-world impact of hating LGBTQ folks, I give you this...more here)...



Update 8/20/23: Ugh (and why is this not surprising?)

...and Cliff Schecter of Blue Amp Channel tells us about the billionaires who control Republican politicians (and more than a couple of SCOTUS justices), with commentary also from Lawrence Lessig...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report brings us the story of Wisconsin Repug state senator Cory Tomczyk, who is trying to sue a newspaper out of existence for publishing an anti-gay slur that he apparently said in public, in front of witnesses; he has also admitted to using the slur in the past...”waging lawfare” indeed (more here – mildly NSFW/H)...



...and with the prior clip in mind, Brian Karem of Meidas Touch discusses media consolidation since the ruinous years of Our 40th President...I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that so much of what afflicts this country goes back to that sorry era (I would argue even further than that, to Tricky Dick at least)...this is an update to the story of the cops shutting down the Marion County, KS newspaper; the warrant to allow this was approved by wingnut judge Laura Viar, who seems to have her own closet skeletons to hide, allegedly of course, as well as referencing the previously noted Wisconsin case...Karem correctly calls for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine (which would have to be updated anyway to take cable TV news into account, and it would have to survive the inevitable legal challenges), and I would also call for a return to the equal time requirement, and no, they’re not both the same thing – maybe a constitutional amendment for both? Yeah, I know, good luck with that too...



...and in keeping with the theme of “the fourth estate” (and hacks such as this guy - not Atrios of course), Sam and Emma of TMR speak with Jon Marshall on how the Repugs’ war on the “liberal media” puts us all at risk – I’d forgotten about Biden and the “disinformation governance board” or whatever that was...pretty sure Cancun Cruz and his fellow lunatics went nuts over it, despite, or probably because of, its well-intended goals (sad but not surprising that the COVID conspiracy BS got over four times the views of what I would call legitimate news, but not surprising...I wish I had a magic answer for this, but I really don’t; it’s going to be a hardass slog trying to reverse the damage to our discourse going back about 40 years, really)...



...and that chaise lounge chair, or whatever that is, looks pretty inviting I must say – I think this tune fits for the weather in these parts...hope it’s nice where you are also.

Thursday Stuff

(The cartoon quote recalls one of the all-time great gangster pics IMO, FWIW).

Chris Hayes speaks with Noah Bookbinder of CREW, who makes what I would call a compelling case that Our Treasonous Orange Crapsack can’t legally run for preznit again because of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment – works for me (citing a precedent in New Mexico)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen speaks with election attorney Marc Elias, who does a deeper dive into Mango Mussolini’s 4th indictment brought by Fani Willis, this one for the Georgia garbage (along with 18 others I believe), and RICO charges are in the picture this time...couldn’t happen to a more deserving traitorous scumbag (pretty solid analysis of this stuff from Elias IMO)...



...and Beau speculates on whether or not AZ will be the next state to bring an indictment against #45 – yeah, it kind of makes sense not to hop too quick on the “oh, AZ is going to indict him also” bandwagon as Beau says (and wouldn’t it be just too sweet if the state laying low with filing future criminal charges is our own beloved commonwealth of PA? And yes, I know the difference between a state and a commonwealth)...



...and Farron Cousins, sitting in for David Pakman, tells us about some Trump-loving maniac doxing the grand jury in the Georgia trial of Combover Caligula (and yes, as Cousins says, this stuff and the threats are never OK regardless of which side it’s coming from, but it seems to be coming overwhelmingly from the right)...



...and speaking of threats, it looks like conservative “Christian” broadcaster Steve Deace, on something called Blaze TV, sez we should just start the hangings now as opposed to, y’know, paying attention to dumb stuff like science and vaccine clinical tests (still ranting about COVID, unbelievably enough) – David Shuster tells us more (more on this idiot Deace is here)...



...and I have a feeling that this video was filmed in North Brunswick, NJ, but I’m not sure...I’ll have to check it out a little more (nice tune, though).

Wednesday Stuff

Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us that Kayleigh McEnany apparently didn’t bother to "vet" her lie about Hunter Biden and his dad, saying the Devon Archer testimony was broadcast when – oopsie! – it was BEHIND CLOSED DOORS!...example number 45,232 that that network thinks their viewers are idiots (more here)...



...and speaking of The Roger Ailes BS Factory (featured in the Majority Report clip), it looks like frat boy goon (in Kyle Kulinski’s completely correct analysis IMO) Jesse Watters called climate change a “psyop,”...God, are those “before” and “after” pics of Lahaina ever heartbreaking...



Update 8/17/23: And when it comes to "Mrs. Kyle," if you will, I would call this a truly boneheaded take (Biden approved a disaster declaration for the island almost immediately).

...and Mike Figueredo tells us that it looks like the Repug state chair of Flori-DUUH! is attacking families of LGBTQ people fleeing their hellhole of a state (and twisting himself into metaphorical knots trying to blame the “Democrat Party”) since it’s apparently becoming obvious that they’re losing $$$ from queer tourism, you might say...yep, once more, all these life forms understand is money (and hatred of “the other” of course)...



...and Ana and Cenk of TYT bring us the story of Karen Lauritzen, who apparently was named Teacher of the Year last year in Idaho, who now plans to leave the state and move to Illinois because of wingnut outrage, due to Lauritzen basically recognizing that the U.N. actually exists and because she posted a picture of herself on social media with the apparently incendiary logo of “Love is Love” with a rainbow...yeah, I’m not hearing anything but wingnut stoo-pidity here either (Cenk really goes off, but I think he’s completely justified – I’d love to see somebody on the right push back against the crazies too, but naaah, that won’t happen, sadly...I’m a little leery of these two any more especially Ana to be honest, but I think they need to be given credit when they’re right...not exactly sure why Ana is so blasé in comparison, but I guess that’s her default setting now, if you will, for this stuff)...



...and this More Perfect Union video featuring labor author Steven Greenhouse discusses the “Joy Silk Doctrine”...sounds like this is kind of a back-door means to try and bring back the “card check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act, which the wingnuts typically went bonkers over of course...”oh, this is so undemocratic! It takes away the right to vote!”...not really (under the EFCA, employees had a choice, hence the name), but it also takes away the “right” of employers to coerce employees into not unionizing, as Greenhouse explains...



...and I need to catch up on my summer tunes a bit, including this one.

Tuesday Stuff

I thought this was a pretty convincing video from Robert Reich explaining how Combover Caligula is really a fascist versus an authoritarian; of course, #45 now has his 4th indictment, this one in Georgia for election interference, along with his minions (here)...so much winning!...



...and I have to admit that I’ve fallen behind a bit again on my “Second Thought” videos; this one has to do with trying to unearth “The Secret Marxist Conspiracy”...didn’t know about Michael Minnicino, Gerald Atkinson and William Lind before; I may have heard of Lind in passing...the video does a great job IMO of showing how wingnut media types and politicians whip up their base into a frenzy to oppose “the other,” whoever that may be, in an ongoing effort to consolidate political and economic power for themselves...NSFW/H...



...and one way to suppress dissent of course is to go right after the media, which we learn about in the following clip (and I’m sorry I’m a little behind on this story) – this has to do with the newspaper publisher in Marion County, Kansas who was raided by the cops, supposedly for a document that the newspaper had already told the police about, likely leading to the death of the paper’s 98-year-old co-publisher and apparently the mother of the paper’s editor-in-chief (more here and here)...



Update 8/16/23: Curiouser and curiouser (here).

...and another way to exercise authoritarian control is to use law enforcement to attack those deemed to be troublemakers or malcontents by virtue of their socio-economic class, race, ethnicity or other characteristic; witness the horrifying racist police abuse in Rankin County, Mississippi, basically sending out the so-nicknamed “Goon Squad” to kidnap and torture (or so the complaint states) two African American men, as Jesse Dollemore and Brittany Page discuss (NSFW/H)...



...and there were folks who pretty much saw authoritarianism coming (at a minimum) in this country, and one of them was Frank Zappa, who cracked the code” in the ‘80s when it came to the wingnuts trying to establish a “fascist theocracy” as Zappa correctly put it (and of course conservative Robert Novak told Zappa he was wrong, though neither are still with us to see Zappa vindicated...Brett Erlich of Rebel HQ tells us more...and I’ve read that that quote about fascism and America WASN’T attributed to Sinclair Lewis)...



...and if the prior clip isn't an excuse for a Zappa tune, I don't know what is.

Monday Stuff

Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about wage theft in this country; the Economic Policy Institute informs us that $50 billion is stolen from workers every year, including unpaid overtime, as well as the scam (noted in the clip) of forcing pizza delivery drivers to stock shelves as employees while still technically classifying them as contractors...that number dwarfs criminal offenses such as robbery ($500 million) and burglary ($3 billion) and surpassed all other types of theft in 2018 (NSFW/H)...



...and in the category of corporate criminals, Sam Seder of The Majority Report (no, not him) tells us about Jack Welch’s pernicious influence on climate reporting at NBC I believe (with author David Gelles...so many interesting points here about “Neutron Jack,” but one to me is how G.E. Capital was used to try and influence the earnings of the parent company by manipulating the price of the company’s stock – and yet another cautionary tale against rewarding executives with that type of compensation, a practice enabled by The Sainted Ronnie R that, prior to that, had been illegal and should remain so...and yes, drag Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek into this...”we are looking at decades of work ahead of us” to try and straighten out our economy and our political institutions indeed)...



...and turning from corporate to political idiocy, Jen Psaki tells us about all the individuals from the “party of Lincoln” taking credit for infrastructure-related and other spending who opposed it with every fiber of their wretched being while taking up space on Capitol Hill...



...and when it comes to politics to actually achieve a good ends, Kyle Kulinski tells us about Biden raising construction worker pay in essence, ensuring prevailing wage law is enforced, restoring the Davis-Bacon Act (from The American Prospect...yes, I know Clinton and Obama weren’t perfect by any means on the economy, though they got a lot right as far as I’m concerned, but for Kyle to automatically conflate them on this issue with The Sainted Ronnie R and the destruction Reagan waged on the middle class is beyond a joke – and I know Kyle is right on the policy, but I should point out that my cat has about the same chance of being elected president as Marianne Williamson)...

via GIPHY

...however, as much as I’d like to, I cannot disregard the state of Flori-DUUH! and their assclown guv #DeathSantis for ignoring the various crises under his mind-numbingly idiotic “governance” (environmental, economic and public health-related), as Farron Cousins tells us...



...and RIP Tom Jones (no, not THAT Tom Jones); I’m referring to the co-author of the play “The Fantasticks,” which brought us this evergreen tune.