Friday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us that President Biden is up by 7 points in a recent Marist poll, which is positive news of course, though we do have a looong way to go until November ‘24 (and independent voters are still idiots...God forbid that our democracy goes down the tubes, but if that awful event happens, it will be because of them...and I think Kyle is doing a bit of navel-gazing here speculating about what kind of pull RFK Jr. could have with Dems – hopefully there isn’t any negative impact against #46)...



...and Beau gives us his take on Biden’s 3rd-quarter funding numbers vs. Combover Caligula...good point about the importance of the “cash on hand” dollar figure, where Biden also smokes Our Treasonous Orange Pustule – but yeah, Beau is right of course; have to be vigilant and take nothing for granted...



...and retired Army Major Richard Ojeda tells us about this wackadoodle MAGA “pastor” named Robert Henderson who didn’t think a president should be criticized under Trump, but whoopsie! He’s singing a different tune now that Biden is in office (more here)...



...and once more, I know what The Lincoln Project is (if you choose to make a donation, that’s on you), but they keep cranking out good clips, like this one about Gym Jordan, who I believe is going to make another attempt to be U.S. House Speaker - ugh!...



Update 1: What is it that they say about the definition of insanity? Doing the same wrong thing over and over and getting the same result? (here).

Update 2: Um, yep.

...and in a related vein, Brianna Keilar interviews Repug U.S. House idiot Austin Scott, who keeps repeating the same damn tired talking points about how the Dems took out McCarthy, he was the largest House fundraiser, etc. – kudos to Keilar for reminding this asshat that the motion to vacate was brought against McCarthy by a member of McCarthy’s own damn party, and if everyone in the GOP House had voted to keep McCarthy, WE WOULDN’T EVEN BE FREAKING TALKING ABOUT THIS!!!...



...and I didn’t know that “climate gentrification” was a thing, but it appears now that it is, particularly around Miami in Flori-DUUH! of course, given the encroaching seawater on that state from the climate change that they don’t want to seriously address; Thom Hartmann offers some commentary...



...and this clip from “The Classroom” at More Perfect Union tells us about The Secret Meeting That Broke Our Food System (destroying the “free seed” system and the role played by the ASTA – kind of wonky but important...definitely didn’t know about the battle to privatize every single molecule of our food, but I know I shouldn’t be surprised – DID know about the link between Bayer and I.G. Farben and Zyklon B, I have to admit, and OF COURSE Bayer absorbed Monsanto, who IMO is responsible more than anyone else for the garbage in our food...NSFW/H)...



...and I’m kind of liking this new tune from Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company...hope you agree.

Thursday Stuff

Leave it to that cowardly pantywaist Jesse Watters of Fix Noise to want REVENGE! against Palestinians in the utterly awful Israel/Gaza war...fortunately, a Navy SEAL put Watters in his place in a matter-of-fact way; I have to admit that I don’t understand how “Bibi” in Israel was caught completely off guard with an attack that apparently was in preparation for two years...in terms of an intelligence failure, yes, there is a comparison to be made between this catastrophe and 9/11 as far as yours truly is concerned (David Pakman tells us about it)...



...meanwhile, for the reality point of view on a related story, Joy Reid speaks with Mehdi Hasan and Michelle Goldberg on the utterly awful news of the 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Chicago, Wadea Al-Fayoume, who was stabbed to death (26 times? Dear Lord...), and his mother was attacked also...so much credit to Hasan in particular for calling out the usual suspects here...I kind of go back and forth on Goldberg (not crazy about the “keyboard radicals” stuff and wanting “a decent left,” to be honest, which she seems to backpedal from in the interview), but I’ll cut her some slack on this occasion...



...and Joy Reid quite rightly points out that the wingnuts howling about George Soros, in addition to being ridiculous (yeah, some retired billionaire on a farm or whatever in New York state is in reality this evil lefty puppet master), is also anti-Semitic, and Leeja Miller dives a lot deeper here into how Soros became such a boogeyman for conservatives...terrific reporting on how Soros made his billions and his “open societies” philosophy, and yeah, Miller nails it by tying all of the anti-Soros BS to Arthur Finkelstein (linking it to Viktor Orban and other Repug politicos going back to Tricky Dick...NSFW/H at the very end, but boy, is she ever right!)...



...and Jesse Dollemore discusses the utter dysfunction by the children in the U.S. House of Representatives and presents a clip of Chris Hayes talking with Jamie Raskin about, maybe, Liz Cheney or The Mittster as an alternative U.S. House Speaker...and here is my question in response; if the roles were reversed, would the Repugs be asked to capitulate for the sake of a Democrat? Probably about half past NEVER ON YOUR GODDAMN LIFE!...and yeah, good for Jesse here to point out, though Cheney and Romney support the Constitution (which shouldn’t even be a question for any of these knuckleheads in government), Cheney and Romney are TERRIBLE on the actual issues, and it does show indeed how far we’ve fallen that we’re apparently making that a secondary consideration (the Letterhack YouTube thing was yesterday I believe)...



...and oh yeah, as long we’re talking about The Mittster, I think we should rerun this campaign ad from Former President Obama on 10/19/12 about that infamous quote from Romney about letting Detroit go bankrupt during The Great Recession (here), in case anybody gets it into their head that Romney is some kind of a “reasonable” Republican (and yeah, you guessed it; time once more for “This Day In Doomsy History”)...



...and happy 66th birthday to Karl Wallinger of World Party.

Wednesday Stuff

Francesca and Brett Erlich bring us an update on the SAG-AFTRA strike, which apparently is going on because the studio heads are digging in their heels on the issues of AI, wages keeping up with inflation, and increased revenue share (the WGA strike has been settled for a little while now as noted in the clip)...that graphic with the studio CEO pay and median studio employee salary with the ratio of one to the other is pretty damn mind blowing and actually comparable to what corporate plutocrats in this country are earning vs. the workforce; not saying it’s right, I wish to emphasize, but only making a comparison...



...and Kyle Kulinski informs us that “Meatball Ron” #DeathSantis thinks that ALL Palestinians are anti-Semites, which is both factually incorrect and a ridiculous piece of wingnut propaganda...I think this is a pretty good takedown from Kyle about the dangers of the black-and-white thinking (or what passes for thinking, I should say) on the part of #DeathSantis and his same-party pals, as Kyle points out (and yeah, are there pro-Palestinian protests at colleges? Yep, but there are also plenty of pro-Israel protests in college campuses as noted here)...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report wonder Why The Crimewave Myth Persists...the crew looks at a Target store closing in East Harlem with no data to back up the claim of an alleged increase in crime, though ANOTHER Target will be built about a mile from the one that will close, and yeah, I also think Target guessed wrong here on where the gentrification would take place; doesn’t sound like it really has much to do with crime...GREAT point about CVS and their stock buybacks; if you’re so damn worried about crime, maybe reinvest back into security indeed...and yes, I think there is a correlation between locations of violent crime and lowest minimum wages in the country as Emma notes...



...and retired Army Major Richard Ojeda tells us about some Texas Repug U.S. congressional dumbass named Keith Self who blames OMIGOD BIDEN OPEN BORDERS! for the fact that his party can’t get their goddamn act together in the U.S. House, though fortunately this clown Self was called on it by CNN anchor Boris Sanchez (who had better watch his butt now – as I’ve said before, the worst thing you can do in corporate media is NOT to be deliberately, factually wrong...it’s pissing off a conservative)...and by the way, Gym Jordan lost his second vote for speaker with more defections than the first vote, but not Bri-Fi of course...to do something about our PA-01 rep who supports a guy who did nothing when OSU wrestlers contacted him about being sexually abused, click here.



(And by the way, when it comes to Repug congressional dysfunction, there’s more than just the nonsense in the U.S. House and “Coach” Tuberville blocking DoD-related promotions as noted here...there’s also Rand “Fake Ophthalmologist” Paul blocking diplomatic appointments as noted here.)...

...and I know I’ve bashed the @DNC, @DCCC, @DSCC and related organizations plenty of times because of what I would call their “duck and hide” social media strategy (or what passes for one, with notable exceptions like AOC and Bill Pascrell of NJ), so the least I can do is put up this video of what they do with our donations; clip is almost a year old and I’m sorry I didn’t find it sooner (should not have been that hard to track down), but better late than never I guess (always a good time to contribute however you can, and this video is an important lesson IMO especially for the even-more-critical races next year)...



...and given the first clip, I’m in the mood for a tune about movies; this immediately came to mind.

Tuesday Stuff

Thom Hartmann tells us that Gym Jordan may end up as the next U.S. House Speaker and opines on what an awful development that would be, even though apparently Jordan lost the first round of voting...Thom goes down the whole sordid list of Jordan and Trump-related offenses, to say nothing of legislation Jordan has opposed, as well as the fact that not a single piece of legislation Jordan has proposed/introduced has become law over his 16 years in the House (and when you're a Repug who has lost Man Tan Boehner, you’re really out on a limb...despite the initial vote setback, I’m sure this guy, a member of this group, will cave as he always does and vote for Jordan – to do something about Bri-Fi at last, click here)...



Update: Yep, Bri-Fi caved for Jordan all right (here).

...and when it comes to the usual corporate media “take” on all of the dysfunction in the U.S. House that has created an opportunity for Jordan, you can rely on “both sides” Dave Gregory to find a way to blame Dems for this utter mess in one of our legislative branches of government (and actually, I was at least as PO’ed about Gregory’s “ferment on college campuses” and “anti-Semitic left” remarks also as I was with the “where are the Dems?” idiocy...”Dancin’ Dave” is indeed working overtime here to come up with some kind of faux equivalency between the two sides, as Jesse Dollemore tells us)...



...and given the theme of Repug politicians going off the deep end, Mike Figueredo brings us the story of someone named Joseph Viso, Jr. (anti-vax skeptic, anti-LGBTQ, thinks Dems are communists, etc.) who literally smeared sh*t on the locks and doorknobs of a day care where he had a dispute next to his business at the time...nice freaking guy...oh, and I guess I can only say THANKS, OBAMA! in response (and yes, I’m definitely kidding...sooo I guess this happened awhile ago, so why is it coming to light only now I wonder?...NSFW/H)...



...and this report from the CBC tells us that the U.S. and France, among other countries, are trying to contain the horror show going on in Gaza between Israel and Hamas...I have to be careful with these clips because I want to keep information as current as I can, and I also don’t want to get dinged by YouTube for violent content, which I really can’t do much about...doesn’t mean I’m trying to ignore this, I wish to emphasize...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less), with a 10/18/08 clip courtesy of Michael Morrill and Keystone Progress...folks from Chester County, PA speak out in favor of President Obama and criticize the rhetoric coming from the McCain/Palin campaign aimed at former President Hopey Changey...I never criticized – or at least, I don’t think I did – some of the attacks from McCain aimed at Obama and Biden back then since they weren’t personal; my biggest complaints with McCain had to do with policy – of course, the former half-term Alaska governor who was McCain’s running mate was another story...this is kind of a relic that pre-dates the rise of the Gropenfuhrer of course, but I still think it’s timely to present something like this every so often as a reminder that we can agree or disagree without trying to tear each other to pieces in the process...



...and I may be a month or two early for this number, but I thought it was a neat newer tune (and sadly apropos), so here it is.

Monday Stuff

Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report brings us the latest on the U.S. House Speaker mess, with Don Bacon and Austin Scott criticizing their party for acting like the spoiled brats that they truly are; Scott did indeed take a shot at speaker, but lost the vote and said he would support Gym Jordan instead, who would be a typically horrific choice, which probably means Jordan has the best shot...and by the way, all I hear from this guy is crickets, except for some typically bland, milquetoast statement criticizing “extremism”; to do something about Bri-Fi at last, click here...



...and Leeja Miller gives us another well-done IMO clip, this time on The Heritage Foundation, which was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner and also Joseph Coors (of Coors Beer)...good job by Miller to discuss the spinoffs of Heritage including ALEC, and the link between Heritage and the Powell Memo (which sprang in part from the regulation of the auto industry on behalf of consumers, to say nothing of linking cigarettes to cancer and warning this country about that also, which hurt Powell’s benefactors at Philip Morris)...didn’t know about the “Mandate for Leadership” that was ready when The Sainted Ronnie R set about trying to destroy our government in 1981, as well as future iterations of that atrocity...also didn’t know about the hand that Heritage played in Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare “reform” bill, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised...also didn’t know about Heritage’s rebound under Mango Mussolini (with the utterly execrable Jim DeMint leading the way)...and the “Index of Dependency” is another typically repulsive deliverable, if you will, from these guttural bottom feeders...also important to note the State Policy Network (founded in 1992 by Thomas Roe, former board member of Heritage) and their impact at school board and local zoning board/town hall meetings, which Miller discusses, as well as the link to Project 2025 (NSFW/H especially near the end, and yes, her swearing is appropriate IMO)...



...and the latest from Second Thought discusses What Happens To Rich People Under Socialism...to me, the takeaway is that there would still be rich people, but they would accrue wealth within a bottom-up framework in favor of workers instead of the “trickle down” propaganda that has been spoon fed to us by our media among other culprits...personally, I think you should be able to get rich if you also take care of your workforce, but you shouldn’t if you don’t...nice to hear some sanity on the issue of what a socialist economy would actually look like...“The main concern of socialism is equal democratic and economic power”...sounds like a plan!...



...maybe those opposing socialism think it would be like this scene from “Doctor Zhivago” (spoiler alert: it wouldn’t be...clip depicts life immediately after the 1917 Communist revolution in Russia)...



...and speaking of movies, RIP Piper Laurie (clip is from “The Hustler” of course)...



...and RIP also Rudolph Isley of The Isley Brothers.