Friday Stuff (updates)

(My take on last Tuesday's disaster for what it's worth is here.)

I think Jonathan Pie was a bit harsh in his assessment of the Kamala Harris campaign (not saying he doesn't make good points, though), but I also think his core argument that there could have been more separation on the issues by Harris from Biden is well taken; as far as I’m concerned, our “fourth estate” also had an outsized role in what happened on Tuesday with continually dumping on Biden and giving him ZERO CREDIT for bringing this country back from the ruinous Trump 1.0 years of COVID and job losses in the millions, leading to Biden's unpopularity and depressing turnout (there were many other factors too, most of which I tried to outline in the linked post above...I think Pie’s “across the pond” perspective on this and other matters is always interesting and often funny, though not humorous now I’ll admit...NSFW/H)...



Update 1: By the way, I don't totally absolve myself for blame here, in case you were wondering about that. I was probably a little "Trump-and-Vance-obsessed" in the last couple of weeks especially also, but first and foremost, I was trying to communicate what a threat he was and not so much commenting on the perverse spectacle of what he said and did. And I would have included instead information on what the Harris/Walz campaign was proposing along with Democrats generally...but I couldn’t find the damn information! I will always favor subject matter about actual policy versus "the horserace" if I can manage to track it down.

...and Jesse Dollemore brings us the tale of this Trumpist nut Mike Davis (who may be Attorney General) wanting to drag bodies of Democrats through the streets, apparently...and we’re supposed to find a way to make common cause with these lunatics...oh, but he means “political” bodies, so it’s not really violence, huh? Suuuure...also NSFW/H)...



Update 2: And get ready for plenty more of this.

Update 3: I have a feeling that I will have MANY updates to this post, so I might as well include this also.

...and Thom Hartmann lets us know about Trump’s coming attack on America’s economic backbone (e.g., the “administrative state”)...and Thom’s right about every Republican president having an economic downturn, something else that I suppose the @DNC decided not to remind voters about during the campaign because I guess they thought it was impolite or something (and I know it’s hard to translate for low-attention-span voters just how bad it was for the SCOTUS to nuke the Chevron ruling as Thom points out, but that was a critical development also)...one of Thom’s great points is that recessions are great buying opportunities for billionaires, and I can’t imagine that we won’t see that again sadly (I also didn’t know about the origins of our civil service as a result of the assassination of President Garfield and the connection to Schedule F employees...interesting stuff, but potentially tragic of course unfortunately)...



...and with fingers crossed I’ll admit, I want to give a bit of a qualified endorsement to what Jon Stewart says here...



Update 11/9/24: It also just occurred to me that, in my lifetime, there have only been two occasions where a presidential candidate for the party of the incumbent president has won election in his own right. The first was LBJ in 1964, and the fact that JFK was assassinated the year before was a big factor (as I’ve read – I was quite young at the time). The second was in 1988, when Poppy Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in a presidential campaign run by Lee Atwater that was so lowdown (i.e., Willie Horton) that it created a template that was followed by other Repug politicians ever since (still, though, it worked). I’m only pointing this out to emphasize how important it was for Kamala Harris to separate herself from President Biden; in many ways she couldn’t, though, to be fair...I don’t know if a little more imagination from Harris in that regard would have mattered, but it’s just a thought, you might say.

Update 11/10/24: I don’t know about the attribution of the diagram from this link, but that’s an absolutely staggering number of eligible voters who didn’t participate, considering that Biden got about 80 million four years ago – just proves my point that Mango Mussolini benefitted from depressed turnout and really didn’t build on the base that made up his popular vote total in 2016 (Update 11/11/24: Actually, the number of Harris voters I'm seeing now is 76 million, which tells me that all of the garbage that led to suppressing her vote worked infamously well).

...and before everything hit the fan last Tuesday, I was getting ready for a tribute to Quincy Jones, so please allow me to present that now...



...and here is a tune from one of Jones’s many terrific recording sessions.

Tuesday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen and election lawyer extraordinaire Marc Elias bring us the story of Not Your Father’s Republican Party trying to get the SCOTUS to make sure PA voters don’t get the chance to cast provisional ballots in person on Election Day if those voters had accidentally cast “naked” mail-in ballots previously without the privacy envelope, which wouldn't count...the SCOTUS decision on this is pending at the moment, but I think we all know which direction this is likely to go unfortunately (especially since it looks like “Strip Search Sammy” Alito will get this)...and oh yeah, PA Repugs are trying to work in this “Independent State Legislature” BS theory again (here)...and Cohen and Elias are right about PA’s antiquated voting laws that “Pennsyltucky” refuses to change; anytime Dems try to modernize voting laws in our beloved commonwealth, the “R” party starts bellowing “OH YEAH? THEN PASS VOTER ID!,” which continues to be a “solution” in search of an actual problem...and boy oh boy, is Elias ever right about voting blue up and down the ballot!...



...and David Pakman tells us that the “R” team is panicking over the racism displayed by conservative “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe during that recent MSG rally...oh yeah, Brian Kilmeade of Fix and Fiends sez, “Well, Hinchcliffe said this stuff two hours before Trump came on stage,” as if somehow that absolves Our Big Sweaty Orange Cheetoh of any responsibility for vetting these characters appearing at his own damn rally...and oh yeah, that line about the Harris supporter masquerading as a NY Times reporter or something like that was just precious, wasn’t it?...



...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report informs us of “black” Trump supporters outed as white...first, some assclown named Dean Browning, and now some “black insurrectionist” named Jason Palmer...amazes me that these numbskulls think they can pull off this stuff and somehow NOT get caught eventually (NSFW/H)...

...and Ali Velshi introduces this segment with Rachel Maddow discussing the loss of abortion rights, bringing us the gut-wrenching stories of women becoming critically ill and dying in many cases because they were unable to benefit from a “D and C” procedure, which was standard under Roe, but is no longer in Repug-run states all over this country, but in particular in “the land of the yellow rose,” where Kate Cox had to flee the state to get the court-allowed abortion she needed (here)...one of Maddow’s many great points is how abortion bans also effect post-partum care after women give birth...also, we’re reminded about Deborah Dorbert, forced to carry a non-viable fetus for months in Flori-DUUUH! because of that state’s anti-abortion law...and oh yeah, South Carolina JAILED a woman for a miscarriage – what the f*ck country am I living in again??!!...and Maddow is exactly right that the Catholic Church didn’t care about this until the late 1800s...and I have to admit that I didn’t have “Tricky Dick supporting abortion for mixed race kids” on my Bingo card...



...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report lets us know that Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich and Sean Inanity recently had a toddler fit about women voting, referring to an ad from Julia Roberts that I have to admit that I didn’t see (even for the disgraced former speaker, the hypocrisy here is stunning for the reasons noted here)...



...and Farron Cousins lets us know that the Las Vegas Sun newspaper pretty much tore apart the Gropenfuhrer...and yeah, I think “cognitively crippled” says it pretty well (and based on this, I would say that even "the faithful" have had enough at long last)...



...and there's still more we can do if you're able, believe it or not (drive folks to the polls, remind friends and family to cast ballots, make phone calls)...I would ask that you keep that in mind while we watch the final clip during this election cycle from The Lincoln Project, featuring actors from the TV show "The West Wing"...

...and this is the tune that I probably include more than any other on Election Day in order to get us revved up to get to the polls, though I don’t think I need to do that too much this time around; in addition to doing the right thing for our country and ourselves, we need to negate the votes of the life forms such as the asshat driving the vehicle with this disgusting decal that I first spotted almost a year ago...let’s finish this off the right way, folks!

Monday Stuff

Mike Figueredo lets us know here that MAGA influencers are apparently freaking out over women exceeding men in early voting...and leave it to that nematode Jesse Watters to say that his wife voting for Harris is the same thing as if she had an affair; part of me wishes she would do both to fix his self-entitled ass...and please spare me the indignation of “Maniac Megyn” Kelly of all goddamn people; gee, maybe actually NOT TREATING WOMEN LIKE SH*T WHEN IT COMES TO ACTUAL GODDAMN POLICY is more important than the admittedly ridiculous and insulting posturing of a bunch of Trump bros who were too dumb to NOT utterly give away the game in front of thousands of people...a “celebration of Trump,” huh? I guess Kelly means a “celebration” of deceit, thievery, stupidity, malignant narcissism, treason and misogyny (NSFW/H)...

...and Chris Hayes provides new details of what would happen if, God forbid, Cantaloupe Capone manages to pull it off on Tuesday, including letting King Elon I cut spending for the peasants and RFK Jr. in charge of public health spending and administration...and yeah, I think the comparison to “a malevolent child romping around a nuclear plant” is pretty damn spot-on, unfortunately...



...and as we know, Combover Caligula has a pretty damn strange definition of “success,” as The Lincoln Project reminds us of the ruinous four years of the leader of Cult 45, when compared to the positive, democracy-respecting alternative who wants to continue building this country and supporting people, families and communities...



...and David Doel presents a couple of ads aimed at keeping Republicans out of your bedroom...and yeah, these freaked out Philistines in robes, including Almost Silent Clarence Thomas, really do want to come after Griswold, people, and probably more than just that...

...but not Loving...hmmm, wonder why?...



...and YouTuber @Xanderhal tells us that Our Ochre Abomination is suing my beloved Bucks County, saying they’re turning away voters...and yeah, it sounds to me like Our Treasonous Tiny Handed Orange Dumpster Fire thinks the “L” is coming, so he’s trying to gin up his lizard-brained followers into thinking that the fix is in...here’s a news flash for probably only Sweaty Bronzer Boy and absolutely no one else: 1) Long lines of voters is a GOOD thing because that means turnout is off the charts, which, again, traditionally has helped Dems, and 2) If voters are, in essence, deciding not to stand in line or unable to access on-demand mail ballots, HOW THE HELL DOES COMBOVER CALIGULA KNOW WHICH PARTY THOSE VOTERS BELONG TO?...and actually, I think the Trumpers won a case when they filed their beyond ridiculous legal challenges in ’20, and it had to do with discarding mail-in ballots with writing on the yellow privacy envelopes, but they indeed lost every other damn legal challenge...and yeah, I’d heard about the Amish voter fraud for real thing in Lancaster County also (NSFW/H)...



...and I should point out that, since voting districts were redrawn in our commonwealth of PA with 50 Percent Less Gerrymandering (or something like that), PA-08 became PA-01, but otherwise, this ad against Bri-Fi is pretty spot on (and to help Fitzpatrick’s Dem opponent Ashley Ehasz, click here)...



...and we also need to re-elect PA’s Dem U.S. Senator Bob Casey against carpetbagger Dave McCormick (here), as we’re reminded of in this clip...



...and let’s keep doing all we can to make sure that the title of this tune becomes an epitaph for the utterly abominable campaign of Dementia J. Trump and Couch Boy.