Friday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore tells us about Repug U.S. Senatorial Mistake Tommy Tuberville sniveling over his holding up military promotions because the Repugs “support the troops”...and oh yeah, let’s have “Tubs” remind us once again how he was a quitter of a college football coach with that mural on the wall THAT HAS NOT ONE DAMN THING TO DO WITH REPRESENTING THE CONSTITUENTS OF HIS STATE! And it’s a typical bitch move to basically say, “I helped get the Secretary of the Navy confirmed, and this is how he pays me back”...the life forms in Alabama who sent this putz to our nation’s capital must be sooo proud...and I’m sure they are (more fool them...and I should note for Jesse’s sake that Louie Gohmert basically set his political career on fire in Texas, which was no small feat, and is no longer in the U.S. House...and more Tuberville idiocy concerning our military is here - keep digging that hole, Coach!...and good job by Jesse to make the underwear ad a little amusing IMO)...



...and sticking with the “party of Lincoln,” Jayar and David Shuster inform us of these cretins in Llano, Texas (of course) who have introduced a new ordinance to allow police and bystanders to arrest or file a lawsuit against anyone suspected of traveling on highways to leave the state to get an abortion (more here)...



...and Kyle Kulinski tells us about Mango Mussolini illegally selling mugshot merch, and it turns out that the dough he raised could conceivably be used for long-overdue maintenance to the Fulton Country jail, as Kyle explains (which would be ironic beyond belief...I have a feeling, though, knowing the Gropenfuhrer, that that $7.1 million amount raised from selling his image is an inflated number, though maybe it is legit...trust but verify, as somebody once said)...



...and I have a lot to say about this next item, so please bear with me – David Doel discusses an ad for President Biden to be aired on “60 Minutes”...and yeah, I’m not saying to ignore the CNN poll Doel mentions, but I would take it with more than a grain of salt; Biden has work to do I know,, but I’m not sure how many people have really focused on this stuff yet...also, I have to admit getting a little tired of these “takes” from Doel and others like, “oh, Biden caved to Manchinema so he did nothing”...what the hell do you call the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure bill? And look who’s fighting Biden on student debt relief...IT’S THE DAMN STINKING REPUBLICANS, AS USUAL!! And I know Doel cites that list from The Lever, which is David Sirota’s outfit, and Sirota will never be satisfied that Biden isn’t Bernie Sanders (yes, I supported Sanders too, but he lost and Biden won...can we please freaking more on??!!)...also, this should make a big difference to younger voters...and as far as putting pressure on Manchin and Sinema goes, how about this? Yes, “Curtsy Kyrsten” went “independent” and is from a purple state when the politics are a little trickier, but West Virginia where Manchin is from is red as hell...idiot bloggers like me can call out Manchin, and he deserves it, but when it comes to realpolitik, Manchin could yet switch to the “R” team to screw over the Dems in a fit of pique, which means a hell of a lot less getting done in “the world’s greatest deliberative body” than we have now, so yes, unfortunately, at times, Dems have to play Manchin’s game...at a certain point, we need to stop dumping on the politicians and instead point out what idiots voters are who keep sending back the “R” party to power even though all they do is sh*t on anyone who isn’t their funders (and by the way, this tells us what an utter joke that poll by “the most trusted name in news” truly is...it skews almost 60 percent in favor of the Repugs!)...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report discuss “Apartheid Clyde” threatening to sue the ADL over the failure of the “X/bird app” under King Elon I – the ADL criticized the lack of content moderation under Musk, which got his shorts in a knot, and that apparently led to this current dustup...I’m not the biggest fan of the ADL either, but this looks like still more avoidance by somebody alleged to be some kind of well-moneyed genius who in reality is just some thin-skinned prima donna who has made a career out of “falling upward,” as it were (and I thought this was an interesting related item)...



Update: More here and here.

...and Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins tell us about a complaint filed by the NLRB over Amazon’s harassment of its workforce trying to unionize...I give Jeff Bezos slightly more credit for brains than Musk, but aside from that, everything I said about the person in charge of the “X/bird app” applies to the guy who made a penis-shaped rocket that he sent flying into space...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 9/7/13...I didn’t get this in for Labor Day, but it’s definitely apropos for that and just about any other occasion really (and in consideration of the prior video also of course...more here)...



...and RIP Gary Wright – he blew up all over the place of course with “The Dream Weaver,” an LP (you can Google it) which has a whole bunch of good tunes, though I always thought he deserved a lot of credit for “The Light of Smiles” too, which includes this number...he made some memorable music with the band Spooky Tooth also; I think any appreciation of Wright should include that as well.

Wednesday Stuff

Jayar Jackson and Rayyvana of The Damage Report discuss the NRSC and the NRCC (Repug Party national campaign organizations) supporting a lawsuit that a Trumpist judge is helping to forward along that would make it easier for STILL MORE damn dirty dark money to infest our politics...sounds like a bureaucratic maneuver of sorts eliminating House and Senate campaign committees to set up special operations for so-called “independent” expenditures (wink, wink) to boost candidates with TV ads (and yes, this would partly help Dems too, but definitely not to the same degree)...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about the 15-year-old in New Hampshire who claims (with witnesses) that he was twice manhandled by the campaign team of Flori-DUUH! guv Ron #DeathSantis...God, “Mr. Pudding Fingers” sure is a big brave dude, isn’t he?...



...and speaking of courage (or the lack thereof) Ana and David Shuster of TYT bring us this clip of Josh Hawley, still flogging this “manhood” issue (hey dude, you want to represent as some kind of a “real man”? Don’t go running out of the Capitol like a little bitch after you hold up your fist in solidarity with the 1/6 insurrectionists, as Shuster mentions...interesting discussion, and I’m glad to hear about “reaching out” and supporting different personalities and profiles of not just men, but women too...as far as I’m concerned, NO politician is an authority on this subject, and definitely not Hawley, and that goes for lefties too; if, say, Sherrod Brown, Ed Markey or Eric Swalwell started riffing on this subject like Hawley, I wouldn’t trust them either...Hawley isn’t interested in constructive solutions to real issues of loneliness, effects of social distancing and working from home, as well as arguably too much time spent on the Internet...mea culpa on that one – to the extent that Hawley actually IS interested, it is in coming up with something that can fit on a bumper sticker or sell more of his schlocky books – chasing clout and the almighty dollar and that’s about it)...



...and did you know that, like me, you’re probably paying for Kim Kardashian’s private jet, as well as other celebrities of course, which end up spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere than, say, flying commercial like we might do? This clip from More Perfect Union tells us about it (and I’m sure it’s not hard to figure out how the rules got skewed in their favor...and I noted Markey previously, but kudos to him for fighting the good fight on this issue in particular)...



...and focusing on Wisconsin, Chris Hayes speaks with reporter Ruth Conniff about Repugs in that state threatening to impeach newly elected justice Janet Protasiewicz if she rules on a case involving gerrymandered voting maps (and I forgot how much of a WATB Dan Kelly was in his “concession”...sooo, this Robin Vos character may try to impeach Protasiewicz because she stated a plainly obvious fact about the gerrymandered voting maps? Wow, what “weak sauce” THAT is!)...



...and here’s a newer tune from Bruce Cockburn, still kicking it at 78...rock on, dude!

Tuesday Stuff

Sam Seder of The Majority Report gives us a video of President Biden and a gentleman from North Carolina talking about Medicare negotiating for lower drug prices (for about the top 50 drugs, anyway...yeah, I’m sure a lot of that speech was prepared, but that doesn’t make it any less true)...



...and Thom Hartmann discusses college students at West Virginia University protesting budget cuts affecting curricula, mainly liberal arts of course (and 169 faculty positions? God almighty) – this is the real story I wanted to highlight; New Hampshire Republicans can all eat each other’s faces as far as I’m concerned (figuratively speaking of course)...



...and Jesse Dollemore and Brittany Page read an Email from a woman seeking an abortion in post-Roe America...to be honest, part of me is wondering why this woman didn’t have her tubes tied or is her partner didn’t take some protection measure on his own (pregnant at 47?), but that’s not my business and it’s not the real issue here...also, kudos to Dem Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker for doing his part to protect women’s bodily autonomy (NSFW/H)...



...and tied to the abortion issue also, Farron Cousins tells us about lunatic Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who apparently is planning to bring criminal charges against anyone who helps a woman leave his state to get an abortion (GREAT point by Farron Cousins about how the Commerce Clause allows someone to say “F you” to Marshall and help a woman seeking an abortion anyway, but yes, this will indeed have a chilling effect, which is what Marshall and the life forms who support him want of course)...



...well, in a story focused on roughly the same geographic area as the prior video, this report from CNN's Jake Tapper tells us about the gay Louisiana pediatric cardiologist who was pretty much forced to leave his state to practice somewhere else because of laws about not discussing gender identity for grades K through 12...kids are pretty smart IMO and they can tell the difference between kind, caring adults loving and respecting them for who they are as opposed to intolerant a-hole parents and politicians trying to cram an obtuse set of beliefs down their throats...



...and also from the “FAFO” file, I give you this Lincoln Project clip about 1/6 insurrectionist Joseph Biggs and his sentencing (NSFW/H - more here)...



...and here is today's regional weather forecast...



...and RIP Steve Harwell of Smashmouth...

Monday Stuff

This clip from More Perfect Union tells us about the standoff that could shut down the auto industry...looks like autoworkers for Ford, GM, and Stellantis (first time I’ve heard of that third automaker) may strike for pay raises to make up for lost ground from The Great Recession, along with other stipulations in a proposed new contract, including trying to end the practice of using “supplemental workers” as full-time employees, which is another lowdown trick to cheat the workforce...



...and Ana of TYT tells us that a Kroger employee in Tennessee died from extreme heat while working in the salvage department of the grocery store, leading into more information on workers dying or getting sick form the heat across the country, particularly in Texas (big surprise, I know)...



...and this video from Second Thought asks Why Managers Exist (interesting little “Seinfeld” spoof there...mildly NSFW/H...”Managers just became a step in how (capitalists) made their decisions, not a power that could challenge their authority,” and “Exploitation never disappears, it only changes how it presents itself according to the complaints of its time,” indeed...I think he’s a little glib on the role of managers to be honest – they do have actual responsibility, to a point of course – but when it comes to true corporate power sharing, he’s definitely right...clip goes through the Industrial Revolution to the present day, and as much as I detest Reagan and Thatcher, to be fair, I think heads of state prior to those two are guilty of subservience to neoliberalist ideology also)...



...and Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! discuss Haitian workers in impoverished conditions at sugar plants in the Dominican Republic; trying to improve conditions by installing solar panels for communities without electricity (Goodman and Gonzalez moderate the interview with Arturo Massol-Deyá of the Puerto Rican environmental group Casa Pueblo, or House of the People...more here)...



....and here’s a reminder of the importance of the holiday, as well as the labor movement overall (more here , here, here, here, and a true relic is here...and as noted here, the beat goes on, you might say)…



...and here is a tune for the occasion.

Sunday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us about Pope Francis criticizing conservative Catholics for believing ideology over church doctrine; at least, that’s how I interpret the issue (here)...as Kyle says, people criticizing the pope now had no issues with Benedict or John Paul II since what came from the Vatican aligned with their beliefs...to me, faith should be a constant regardless; yes, there are plenty of times when I've disagreed with the doctrine from Rome, but that doesn’t mean that I ever question the legitimacy of what comes from the “vicar of Christ”...oh, and I can honestly do without Kyle’s snark about the transubstantiation, but I get it that he’s not a believer, and that’s OK...



...and as long as we’re talking about the nexus, if you will, between politics and conservative ideology, allow me to present this from Mike Figueredo about a gay Trump official getting roasted for condemning Texas’s ban on his group (God almighty, bro, when the $#@! are you going to get the memo that THEY THINK YOU’RE NOTHING??!! And yeah, we’re talking about the effing “Log Cabin Republicans” again) – and the fact that it’s Ric Grenell who is SUCH A TRUMPIST LACKEY (especially on the X/Bird app/whenever King Elon I is calling it these days as he ruins it) is truly the cherry on the icing of this sh*t sundae...as Figueredo says, if Grenell thinks that the “party of Lincoln” is going to do ONE DAMN THING to alienate their hard core evangelical base, particularly at the expense of LGBTQ individuals, then he’s more delusional than I can imagine (NSFW/H)...



...and the latest clip form Leeja Miller explains how Money Is Ruining Democracy (yep)...didn’t know about the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, and also, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 that allowed corporations to create PACs...Buckley v. Valeo in ’76 was the beginning of loosening the law on “independent” campaign finance spending, further eroding FECA...this may be the best video I’ve yet seen explaining all of the legal stuff that got us to this point...doesn’t get into all of the attacks waged by Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and his pals against the BCRA (otherwise known as McCain-Feingold), but I realize she can’t cover everything or else this video might run for about 24 hours (also NSFW/H)...



...and speaking of dark money, David Doel tells us that it looks like the Super PAC for Guv #DeathSantis is scaling back its operations big time in states with a lot of delegates for Super Tuesday...and no, I can’t believe we’re even considering this stuff right now – ugh (but way too bad for the “war on woke” candidate)...and yeah, I get it that the Dem Party in Flori-DUUH! needs a lot of work to be sure as Doel mentions, but unfortunately, what wins in that state and elsewhere is the Repugs’ superior ground game and voter outreach, including to Hispanic voters (gosh, voters speaking a language besides English; what a concept, huh @DNC?)...when #DeathSantis pulled that stunt with tricking the African American voters with criminal records into illegally registering (here) and I didn’t hear a peep out of Charlie Crist and Val Demings in response, I knew those two were toast in their respective elections (another mildly NSFW/H clip)...



...and Farron Cousins gives us what I would call a pretty clear-eyed analysis of something called the Republican Accountability Group, or whatever this outfit is...yeah, as Cousins says, they’re right about Our Ochre Abomination, but they’re WRONG to support the “party of Lincoln” in any way whatsoever for the reasons Cousins states, and more...



...and my schedule got a little discombobulated for a variety of reasons, so instead of a “Friday with Frank” clip to mark the unofficial end of summer (sniff), I now present some “Sunday With Sinatra” instead, though I have to admit that I still have a couple of “summer” tunes I plan to get to before I officially “ring down the curtain,” for what it’s worth.