Friday Stuff

Tennessee Brando brings us a clip of Repug politicians refusing to carry water for Dementia J. Trump on the border any more, including James Lankford, “The Mittster” and Dan Crenshaw...absolutely shocking to hear common sense on this from Chip Roy also, but yeah, this is where we’re at...and I think we’ve truly entered The Twilight Zone when Dubya criticizes nativism and Smoot-Hawley, and #43 is absolutely right; of course, it would be nice if Commander Codpiece would actually criticize The Gropenfuhrer by name, but yeah, that will happen when everything turns into sunshine, lollipops and rainbows I know...and none of this will stop the "OMIGOD KAMALA HARRIS LET MS-13 GANG MEMBERS OVER OUR BORDER AND THEY DID CRIMING!!!" garbage ads...



...and Robert Reich tells us why the rents are so high, and I know it’s not exactly a revelation to find out that it’s because of price gouging, which is the theme of the next set of clips...and yeah, stock buybacks continue to be the insidious “gift that keeps on giving,” brought to us by The Sainted Ronnie R...looks like these private equity bastards are using a company called Real Page that allows them to collude on pricing...more on the meat companies follows in the next clip...



...and this from More Perfect Union tells us about some outfit called Agri Stats (alluded to in the Reich video) which apparently gathers consumer data shared by the meat packing industry (Tyson and Cargill in particular) in an effort to regulate prices (following the example of Real Page as noted above), which (and cut me a little slack on this, OK?) is quite likely ILLEGAL AS FREAKING HELL...not surprised to see Keith Ellison doing the right thing here, and I’m also not surprised to hear that overpricing at Walmart has driven price gouging...The Sherman Act may be the most important piece of antitrust legislation we’ve ever signed into law, and yeah, it needs updating for sure as stated in the clip...



...and Sam and Emma of The Majority Report bring us the news that a body of work is emerging showing that it’s pretty much price gouging that’s responsible for corporate inflation...nice work by The Groundwork Collaborative (and as soon as I saw Stephen Moore’s mug, I knew that we were in for a load of “bullpucky” about “oh, we can’t have an anti-price gouging law on the federal level because it will kill ‘mom and pop’ businesses,” putting aside the fact that many states already have such laws, as noted in the clip..and GREAT POINT about keeping Lina Khan on the job)...



...and as far as I’m concerned, you can always count on Thom Hartmann for an important history lesson on how we’ve come to this point where the “one percent” have managed to enact policies and write laws (and spout their media propaganda) that afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable, you might say...in the late 70s, what you would call movement conservatism was flat on its metaphorical back, but “The Gipper” brought it back to life and supercharged it...



...well, now that I’ve totally bummed everybody out, allow me to present a newer upbeat tune to kick off our weekend.

Thursday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen brings us this clip of Cantaloupe Capone whining about how poorly he thinks he was treated by the Obamas at the DNC, which is hilarious when you consider that the leader of “Cult 45” rose to prominence of a sort by questioning the patriotism of our 44th president over and over...I honestly didn’t think Former President Hopey Changey was trying to get personal, but I could be wrong; I just thought he was mimicking the “accordion hands” bit from Our Ochre Abomination...but yeah, it sure would be funny if he DID mean to be personal, huh?...



...and Anthony Vincent Gallo of Occupy Democrats discusses the contrast between the affection shown to Dem VP nominee Tim Walz by former students/football players and the disdain for the Gropenfuhrer, and kudos to Neil Young for allowing the use of one of his many great tunes (and I know we’re all quite rightly remembering this great moment also)...



...and as a bit of a compare-and-contrast exercise, I give you this from The Lincoln Project on who would likely be holding cabinet positions in an utterly dystopian second term for Combover Caligula...



...and as the head of the “party of Lincoln,” Bronzer Beelzebub is more guilty than anyone else of depriving women of health care as a result of repealing Roe, but there are plenty of other culprits in his party who share blame as well...John Iadarola and Danielle Moodle remind us of that as they bring us this AP study informing us that over 100 pregnant women in medical emergencies were turned away from hospital ERs...GREAT point that we have the training and technology in this country to provide the medical care that pregnancy deserves, but wingnut ideology is the obstacle here as we know...



...and normally I would pay more attention to a stink bug or dung beetle than I would to a contemptible guttersnipe like Charlie Kirk, but I think that we need a reminder every once in a while of what a loathsome POS he truly is, as Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report tell us (NSFW/H)...



...and I’m continuing to work my way down my list of summer tunes with this number.

Wednesday Stuff

Jesse Dollemore brings us the tale of the WaPo “fact checker,” making excuses for Our Ochre Abomination...yep, it’s another example of powerful people and institutions CONTINUING to cover up for #45...”you don’t have to carry water for a fascist” indeed...”democracy dies in both-siderist stoo-pidity” for sure (more here)...



Update 8/24/24: More here.

...and I have to admit that I’m paying attention to the Dem convention in Chicago in dribs and drabs, you might say, but what I’m seeing is bangin’, especially the roll call (I heard someone say that there should be a play list of all the tunes from the states and territories, which is a great idea)...I’ve bitched about Dem messaging plenty of times, but kudos to them for getting it right here, especially on the positioning of AOC as Miss Beau says here...

...and as a bit of a compare-and-contrast exercise, I give you Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence and his hetero-sectional (heh) sidekick on their attempts to distance themselves from Project 2025...and no, I’m not going to stop mentioning that...as Yasmin Khan reminds us, those bastards at The Heritage Foundation (along with like-minded wingnut orgs) have been trying to basically undo our democracy for at least the last 40 years or so...and to do something about Lex Luthor Scott, click here...



...and Marc Elias and Sophie Feldman of Democracy Docket tell us about 9 more states run by the “party of Lincoln” that have sued President Biden over his attempt to expand voting...love the Star Wars bar scene reference...yep, “Trump sycophants” pretty much says it, especially when Elias talks about PA Republicans...more on this nonsensical, but dangerous, Independent State Legislature Theory is here...



...and RIP longtime Dem U.S. House Rep Bill Pascrell, Jr. of New Jersey...here, he does what he did best, and that was to call out GOP nonsense (and he did a good job being pretty active on Xitter also)...



...and I need a minute to set this up, so please bear with me...as noted here, today is the 50th anniversary of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act; I’m sure we’re all familiar with the Brown v. Board SCOTUS ruling in 1954 which ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional; well, I for one didn’t know about the so-called “massive resistance” to Brown, on display in Fairfax County, Virginia among other places...the Civil Rights Act of 1964 put some teeth, you might say, into the effort to ban racial discrimination in schools and public places that began with Brown (going up against the massive resistance movement), and the EEOA built on the Civil Rights Act to ensure schools accommodated students regardless of nationality and provided adequate resources for students who did not speak English...maybe TMI, but anyway, that gives me an excuse for a tune about education (well, a bit anyway).

Tuesday Stuff

Kyle Kulinski tells us about the latest Trumpian stoo-pidity, this time over saying the Presidential Medal of Freedom is somehow “better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor for our military, which the leader of Cult 45 blabbered about when introducing Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon, who donated gobs of dough on behalf of "Bibi" and his hateful regime (and who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom previously for it); Kyle gives a pretty good rundown of all of the ways the Gropenfuhrer bent over backwards for “the chosen people,” along with a terrific response from a vet on the medal BS...and seriously, are you surprised by this? (NSFW/H)...



...and Jesse Dollemore tells us about Cantaloupe Capone peddling more BS about tariffs before an audience of lemmings in Wilkes-Barre, PA (and as noted here, Our Ochre Abomination basically had to bribe our farmers at unsustainable levels to offset the impact of his dunderheaded economic policy, including the tariffs he supposedly loves)...



...and Miss Beau informs us that the idiot caucus in the U.S. House issued its impeachment report on Biden...still sounds like a nothing burger, which shouldn’t be surprising, timed to try and deflect from the Dem Convention in Chicago of course...and yeah, yet another shut down is looming because these GOP assclowns STILL can’t pass a budget on time...

...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report brings us the news that, apparently, a focus group of Repug voters REALLY HATES J.D. Vance...c’est dommage! – clip also includes an extensive interview with Russell Vought, who makes it pretty damn clear that the Repug presidential and VP nominees are up to their eyeballs in Project 2025, which of course turned off at least one voter profiled in the Frank Luntz segment (NSFW/H)...



Update: Just keep f*cking that couch, J.D. - you're doing great (here and here).

via GIPHY

...and this video from More Perfect Union tells us about the ongoing crisis in “the Sunshine State” with homeowners insurance; 1.2 million residents are insured publicly since private insurance is priced out of sight for most homeowners...didn’t know about the “trickle down” negative effects of losing homeowner’s insurance, but it makes sense unfortunately...and why am I not surprised that former Dem governor Charlie Crist apparently tried to make sure that Citizens Property Insurance was the insurer of last resort, but “Meatball Ron” blew that all up of course...and even the name “Slide Insurance” fills me with zero confidence...and the company was founded by an Enron lawyer, huh? What could go wrong, I wonder?...also didn’t know that State Farm was a member of ALEC, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least (and that quote from #DeathSantis at the end about “left-wing things” is a doozy all right...more garbage from the Flori-DUUH! guv is here)...



...and I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood for an upbeat summer tune while the season is still upon us.

Monday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

Here is your occasional reminder (courtesy of The Lincoln Project) that Our Ochre Abomination wants to blow up our democracy, all for the sake of keeping his sorry orange butt out of the slam “(The SCOTUS) has given (Trump) a license for dictatorship” indeed...



...and David Pakman tells us about #45 making still more ridiculous claims, this time that energy prices would come down 50% under another godawful Trump term...and oh yeah, no one will be able to price gouge if you drill for more oil (my brain is hurting already)....and I have to admit that I haven’t seen a bullet wound up close fortunately, but that ear of his appears to have healed miraculously from the Butler, PA shooting (but at least he remembered the name of the guy who was killed, so that’s something I guess)...



...and Miss Beau tells us about the latest dustup concerning the Medal of Honor and some of the lowlifes who received it from Our Treasonous Orange Pestilence..GREAT story about Mary Walker from the Civil War era and her skill and bravery, and yes, she was a civilian who was awarded the Medal of Honor, which was rescinded for some dumb reason but was re-awarded (and I’m sure Miss Beau means President Andrew Johnson)...



Update: By the way (and I'm sorry I'm a little late with this), I didn't know that this video was a response to some typically insane remark from Bronzer Beelzebub about the Congressional Medal of Honor (watch this space for more on that).

...and Brian Tyler Cohen (with Marc Elias) inform us that a Georgia board of elections member who apparently has said he won’t certify the election result unless Trump wins (some assclown named Rick Jeffares) has now lobbied for a job in the Trump admin in the godawful event of Combover Caligula actually winning this fall (another GREAT point about the “safe harbor” date for the slate of electors, as well as January 6th of course, and Elias mentioning again that the point of the 1/6 insurrection was to prevent election certification so #45 wouldn’t have to leave office...and speaking of Brad Raffensperger...)...



...and RIP Phil Donahue – Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewed him here (from about nine years ago) on the decision by MSNBC to boot Donahue off the air for his opposition to Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iraq (echoed by Keith Olbermann at the time, among others...and actually, the invasion of Iraq was March 2003...”This is a nation of law unless we’re scared”...Nail. Hammer. Head.)...



...and this newer tune kind of helps ease us into the new week before it gets revved up near the end...I like the harmonies too – hope it works for a Monday.