Friday Stuff

David Doel informs us that a pro-Palestinian protest in Toronto was attacked because it allegedly targeted a hospital, which it didn’t (as Doel informs us, the hospital was on the protest route, and that’s all)...this unleashed a torrent of BS narratives all over the place (I realize this is a pretty Canada-specific story, but the bit about wingnuts losing what’s left of their minds in blind IMO support of Israel is definitely a feature and not a bug of “reporting” in this country too...NSFW/H)...



...and Sam Seder of The Majority Report discusses MSNBC reporter Matt Bradley (in Tel Aviv) using the framing of “and this history Is still debated” concerning the Palestinians and the Nakba (yes, it was a mealy mouthed way to put it, but I agree with the take that Bradley is probably getting heat to keep as pro-Israel a stance as he can)...



...and returning to this country, Jesse Dollemore brings us the story of Our Ochre Abomination blaming Repug Mazi Pilip who lost her U.S. House race in New York to Tom Suozzi...see, according to #45, if Pilip had just groveled harder, she would have won...uh huh...keep on believing that...



...and Chris Hayes gives us a bit of a rehash of Tangerine Palpatine’s remarks about not honoring Article V of the NATO treaty on behalf of his sugar daddy Vlad The Butcher (I can’t imagine what kind of kompromat Putin has on the Gropenfuhrer, but it must be truly awful...I know this has been discussed before and likely will be again, but I think it’s important to keep beating the metaphorical drum about this matter)..



...and John of The Damage Report informs us that the FBI recently uncovered a massive ’22 plot to potentially start a civil war at our southwest border, allegedly involving these right-wing militiamen Bryan Perry and Jonathan O’Dell (not just against migrants but apparently the cops also...ugh – more here)...



...and this report from More Perfect Union and Eric Gardner discusses Why Child Care Costs More Than College...among other things, the video makes a great argument for paid family leave, as well as governmental intervention (and nice work by that town in Minnesota to come up with what appears to be a way out of the mess that they faced related to this story)...



...and we recently observed the sixth anniversary of the Parkland school gun massacre, and with that in mind, Thom Hartmann tells us that the family of slain student Joaquin Oliver used AI to recreate his voice for a message to cowardly politicians to DO SOMETHING AT LONG FREAKING LAST ABOUT THIS...Thom always has interesting insights, this time concerning Scalia, Thomas Jefferson and “slave patrols” and the Second Amendment...and great job by the Hawaii Supreme Court to tell the SCOTUS that Heller and their other BS gun rulings were crap (and oh yeah, what could be more “American” than a Super Bowl win celebration followed by a mass shooting?)...



...and I’ve been looking for a newer tune to include here, and I was pleasantly surprised to find this from Billy Joel – he’s been out of the loop with this for a while, but it’s nice to see him back again.

Wednesday Stuff

Farron Cousins tells us here that it looks like still another witness has told U.S. House idiots James Comer and Jim Jordan that they can’t link President Biden and Hunter to some alleged Burisma bribe/influence peddling/OH FREAKING GOD ARE WE ACTUALLY DOING THIS AGAIN??!!...and yeah, the fact that these ridiculous hearings are all happening behind closed doors is more than a bit of a “tell” (and their star witness already said to the Senate that this was a nothing burger as Cousins informs us)...



...and speaking of U.S. House Republican idiocy, Jesse Dollemore lets us know here that the “party of Lincoln” has (on the second try) impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for...what? Trying to resolve the border issue with no help? You know, the matter that the “R” party wants to leave alone so Bronzer Beelzebub can actually have something to crow about when he tries to seize the White House once more later this year? I mean, when he isn’t throwing ketchup against a wall at McDonald’s and leaving intelligence docs lying near his gold commode at Mar-a-Lago (and of course, Marjorie Train Wreck Greene is right in the middle of this...and yeah, congrats to Dem Tom Suozzi for winning the U.S. House NY seat that was previously occupied by “George Santos”).

And one of the people responsible is this guy, who voted to impeach Mayorkas twice. And to do something about Bri-Fi, click here...



...and with regard to the presidential contest, I know it’s taken me a couple of days to get around to this, but I tried watching other videos with commentary about Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show, but I finally said, the hell with it, Doomsy...watch the damn video of Stewart yourself (I try not to refer to myself in the third person, by the way).

And I kept waiting to be outraged by what Stewart had to say. And I kept waiting.

And I kept waiting...

Oh, we’re not supposed to criticize Biden when he makes occasional slipups? Really? And we’re supposed to just bite our lip and not say anything about that idiotic Tik Tok video (Mama Kelce’s chocolate chip cookies?)? Or when Biden acts like he’s unable to do anything about Netanyahu’s butchery in Gaza (and just how the hell is THAT going to get Israeli hostages returned...and no, I’m definitely not letting Hamas off the hook either).

It’s not Stewart’s job to give public figures a pass if he thinks what he has to say will hurt people’s feelings; I trust his judgment enough to keep his remarks balanced. And I believe he did that in his segment. By contrast, I’ve given up on Bill Maher because any notion of balance with him went out the window awhile ago. My take, for what it’s worth, is that it’s now more important for him to suck up to his conservative pals and ridicule libs whenever he can than to give a fair hearing to all sides of the political spectrum.

Maybe this is “apples and oranges,” but I’m going to say it anyway. I hope we haven’t forgotten what Stewart has done to ensure health care for the 9/11 first responders (under the Zadroga bill, named for James Zadroga...his father Joseph was killed recently in an accident in a hospital parking lot). That doesn’t have anything directly to do with Stewart’s segment I know, but that’s more than I and a lot of other people have done for that heroic cause (and I thought that informed Stewart’s truly commendable words at the end of his segment...and I haven’t heard anybody say a damn thing about THAT).

So, without any more ado, here is the Stewart piece...



...and in a matter more directly germane to the U.S. economy, Robert Reich brings us information on the Dickensian minimum wage in this country of $2.13 an hour for tipped workers, which dates back to 1991 (and kudos to Saru Jayaraman for trying to fix that)...



....and Beau gives us some inside info on Egypt’s decision (maybe?) to rescind its peace treaty with Israel based on that country’s expansion of hostilities into Rafah...it’s true that this isn’t a positive development, but it doesn’t necessarily mean war between the two countries either, thank God (and by the ICJ, Beau means this)...



...and with all of the struggle and suffering in the world, maybe I’m just being a pointy-headed lib to include this tune, but I’m doing it anyway for Valentine’s Day...hope it’s a good one for all.

Tuesday Stuff

Beau brings us the story of Our Treasonous Orange Nightmare encouraging Russia to attack NATO (definitely picked up on Beau’s sarcasm about Trumpers supposedly having read the Constitution...and yeah, it’s pretty much “game, set, match” for Bronzer Beelzebub’s claim about not supporting a NATO member country based on Article 5 of the treaty... can’t think of a word to describe the sociopathy of somebody criticizing that international organization for allegedly not paying its bills when the accuser may be the world’s biggest deadbeat)...



...and John of TYT addresses the dustup over RFK Jr.’s Super Bowl ad...nice that Jr. apologized, but I thought the excuse of “oh, I didn’t know what my Super PAC would do” is totally lame, and apparently Jr. is keeping a tweet with the ad pinned on his X account, or something, as John says; here’s my question, though – who seriously thinks that ad is going to do something for Jr. one way or the other? To me, it looks like a bunch of rich bastards with too much time and money on their hands decided to do something to “piss off the libs”...the only people who will recognize what this ad is trying to do are folks who actually voted for JFK way back when or their kids (like me)...



...and this Rebel HQ clip features some nice work by Dem U.S. House Rep Susan Wild of PA-07 making the case for unionized employees in favor of their non-unionized counterparts, in terms of having better wages and benefits...and of course, this Mark Mix character keeps repeating “why don’t non-unionized employees join a union on their own?” when in fact, as Wild points out, non-unionized employees are very much discouraged from doing that by their employers (see what happened when we tried to get the EFCA passed), though increased union baseline salaries are also beneficial to non-unionized employees doing similar work...and yeah, this union carpenters guy for Trump is about as out to lunch as you can expect...I can take or leave Jackson White, but nice work by Alex Wagner in that clip (and I’m sure it’s not surprising to find out that Mix is tied to Charles Koch; that and more odious garbage on so-called “right to work” can be found here)...



...and Thom H. said that Neil Gorsuch in particular referred to Dementia J. Trump as our current president during the recent SCOTUS arguments over removing #45 from the ballot in Colorado...interesting rehash of the 2000 election, specifically about Sandra Day O’Connor not wanting to resign while a Dem was in the White House, and Al Gore should have been there based on the Miami-Dade votes that were FINALLY counted after it didn’t matter anymore...also, interesting speculation on where our politicians in robes on the High Court could take this whole matter – not holding my breath for a just outcome either from these frauds...

...and Lawrence O’Donnell touched on some of what Beau discussed previously (good job to take a shot at the fourth estate on trying to make Biden’s age this year’s “BUT HER EMAILS!!!”), but O’Donnell adds a lot of important historical context IMO...”the flawlessly uninformed people at (Trump’s) rally”...spot-on...and here comes another “sir,” story, which means Our Traitorous Orange Meat Sack is lying once again...one of the reasons why this commentary is terrific is because O’Donnell cites FDR, Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, all of whom had more integrity in their little fingers than Combover Caligula has in his corpulent, fast-food-bloated, cowardly body (yes, Ford was wrong in that debate for sure as O’Donnell points out, but read about how Ford almost died in the Pacific in WWII when a typhoon hit his aircraft carrier...what guts to get through that...the individuals who should pay heed the most to this commentary are the life forms such as the one driving the vehicle with the sticker shown above, but good luck with that I know...more here)...



...and yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the first performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin.



Update: Apologies for not pointing this out MUCH earlier, but there is actually a special election in Lower Bucks County today for the state PA-140 house seat vacated by Dem John Galloway (who was elected as a judge). Please slog through the snow and get to your polling place to vote for Dem Jim Prokopiak; you’ll feel the warm glow of satisfaction in the midst of the winter cold, and you’ll be doing yourself a favor by keeping the house under Democratic control.

Update 2/14/24: AWESOME!

Monday Stuff

This feature from Chris Wallace titled “Tell Me Why I’m Wrong” has to do with The Swanson TV Dinner Heir’s alleged interview with Vlad The Butcher (I have to admit that I’m shocked to agree with Bretbug, but I do, and his “take” is uncharacteristically commendable...and speaking of “useful idiots,” that applies to Reihan Salam also as far as I’m concerned...nothing against “Really American,” but they need to “jazz up” these clips a bit)...



...and Jesse Dollemore brings us some analysis on this BS report on Biden from wingnut lawyer Robert Hur, who apparently guessed that everyone would zero in on his executive summary and not drill down into the details of what Hur found out, and it seems he was basically right (more here, here and here, and for good measure, there’s this too...Merrick Garland should have his resume updated and on the street for this cluster...NSFW/H...and yeah, way too damn funny to see that nematode Jesse Watters get busted for a verbal screwup when he accuses Biden of the same thing)...



...and Emma V. of The Majority Report gives us some insight on the back-and-forth over funding for Israel (looks like the Senate worked through the weekend on $$ for them and Ukraine)...have to admit that I’m a little squishy on not supporting Bibi if it also means that we don’t send $$$ to Ukraine (and kudos to Rashida Tlaib, and once more, if the Dems had any damn brains, they would listen to her...that being said, we should never stop trying to make Hamas responsible for their horrific acts also, though I’ve heard positive stuff about the proposed three-phase plan on this which Netanyahu dismissed in one word...briefly NSFW/H a couple of times)...



...and David Doel touches on the proposed peace plan between Israel and Hamas in this clip – I’m in agreement on his basic point that John Fetterman should be giving a press conference calling for Netanyahu to support the deal to return the hostages currently on the table...FWIW, I think any such deal should also include full criminal liability for anyone from Hamas who had anything whatsoever to do with the attacks of 10/7 as well as the wholesale destruction of Hamas’s military infrastructure, but for the moment, the hostages should be the priority...and I agree that “there is no equivalence” either, but not in the way Fetterman thinks...



...and turning back to domestic politics, Brian Tyler Cohen speaks with elections lawyer Marc Elias of Democracy Docket concerning a typically beyond ridiculous conservative lawsuit against Louisiana redistricting, in the face of a case that is actually settled in favor of two “black opportunity districts” (I believe that’s the term) that were created in response to gerrymandering in the first freaking place in that state! – “everyone in America has a right to sue – it doesn’t mean you have a right to win,” indeed (NSFW/H also)...



...and RIP Henry Fambrough, the last original member of The Spinners.