Saturday Stuff

Farron Cousins tells us that the verdict appears to be in on the reign of Bari Weiss at CBS News, and it’s about what you would expect...the Nielsen ratings agency says it looks like the CBS Evening News hasn’t hit 4 million viewers a night, which I suppose is the ratings benchmark against which the prime time newscasts are measured...Cousins is spot-on in saying that, in a world where a shameless flak like Weiss isn’t in charge of what was once a prestigious TV news organization, that person would have been canned by now with ratings like these (NSFW/H)...



...and David Shuster of Rebel HQ lets us know that California has enough signatures to get the billionaires tax on the ballot (this bunch would be taxed at 5 percent on all of their assets, and it would be a one-time tax), and leave it to Bernie Sanders to keep fighting for economic justice with the rest of us...of course, leave it also to plutocrats like Sergey Brin and his pals to have a collective hissy fit over it (not that we heard a word of protest from these characters of course over the Big Beautiful Clusterf*ck from last summer – hell, they made out like bandits, so OF COURSE they kept quiet over it)...but awwww, it looks like Peter Thiel and that foul ilk are still on the hook for the tax if it passes because they would have had to have left the state in January – womp womp...and yes, the ONE-TIME tax would go for nutrition and health care benefits that the regime of the Gropenfuhrer destroyed by the aforementioned bill (and I’m not going to dignify the typical indignant bullsh*t of our *preznit who, let’s not forget, was found civilly liable by a New York jury on a charge of sexual abuse, which is basically r*pe without the actual word - here)...



...and Dan Lieberman of More Perfect Union tells us that it looks like Corpus Christi, Texas may be the first US city to officially run out of water, with giant oil, gas, and petrochemical companies gobbling up precious resources (according to the report, businesses use about 60 percent of the water)...the residents have to rely on city, state and federal lawmakers, and I would guess that a few of them have already been paid off since that’s usually how this stuff plays out...and if you guessed that a historically black community is impacted the most here, then you win an exemption from water over-usage charges during a drought, which apparently is fine and dandy for businesses in the “All Hat, No Cattle” state (apparently, water exemptions were promised to businesses to get them to relocate to Corpus Christi, which has “bad idea” written all over it)...it looks like they reached a tipping point over a desalination plant to try and address the drought, according to councilman Jim Klein...I think it’s plain that this Roland Barrera guy is pretty much a business shill who doesn’t give a damn about the residents...kudos to civil engineer John Michael fighting what must be a lonely fight to drill emergency wells...I just don’t know about this Bob Paulison guy; I’m inclined to think he’s in on the grift too, but I’d love to be wrong, and this Peter Zanoni doesn’t sound impressive on this either as far as I can tell...



...and taking another trip over to the UK for a minute or two, Jonathan Pie discusses the “dodgy donations” of Nigel Farage, including a 5 million pound gift by someone in Thailand...didn’t know the extent of Farage’s grift, but it Is indeed a growth industry to fly around the world telling conservatives what they want to hear...Pie really nails it on crypto in particular here; there should be a full-throated corporate media outcry against it because it’s used primarily by criminals, but good luck expecting THAT to happen (very NSFW/H, but funny IMO)...



...and I wanted to conclude things for the week with this item – in our current Trumpist BS era there is so much hateful nonsense going on with the people who allegedly represent us (though we know the reality of course) and so much overall idiocy that I wanted to provide this item as a bit of a “palate cleanser”...before a recent Stanley Cup playoff game in Buffalo (where they commendably sing both the American and Canadian national anthems), the microphone for the singer performing “O Canada” went out, so the U.S. fans finished singing the anthem instead...props to the great Buffalo Sabres fans for this moment, and congrats to the team for moving on in the playoffs (and to the “Fly Guys” also of course)...



...and this week ten years ago, 15 albums by Prince reappeared on the UK charts in response to the musician’s death on 4/21/16...kind of puts me in a mood to hear this number once again.

Thursday Stuff

Brittany Page sits in for Jesse Dollemore and discusses questions coming out about the official story of the attempted shooting of Combover Caligula at the WHCD...looks like the WaPo is doing an analysis of the facts that we know at the moment...the timeline of events here seems a little weird to me in that, based on the excerpted photos, it is hard to tell if the alleged shooter discharged his weapon before the cops fired on him multiple times...I’m not saying the cops should have let him run into the hall without firing on him if the alleged shooter didn’t obey orders to stop (which likely were issued to him), but I don’t understand why we’re not hearing a step-by-step analysis of what took place...I mean, did the alleged shooter fire or didn’t he (but then again, we’re talking about Mango Mussolini's henchmen here, so anything is possible)...



...and Chris Hayes informs us that the The High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR just threw out a voting map in Louisiana that was redrawn on the basis of that state’s population (one majority black district was added to one already existing black district), but our bought-and-paid-for SCOTUS blew that up in favor of a map that goes back to only one black majority district even though that isn’t representative of Louisiana’s population, and in the process, this guts Section 2 of the VRA because, according to Roberts and the SCOTUS conservatives, racism doesn’t exist anymore...and as Hayes says, Roberts has been after the VRA since he worked in the Reagan White House...and of course, Flori-DUUUH! jumped into the fray right after this horrible ruling to get a more gerrymandered voting map passed...Hayes speaks with Sherrilyn Ifill (the data presented on those two line graphs is undeniable)...our ruling regime and the “R” party in general want Apartheid America, and tragically, we’re on the way to that...GREAT point by Ifill that, once again, our renegade SCOTUS ran roughshod over its own precedents to pursue a plainly ideological goal...



...and sticking with legal stuff, Robert Reich and David Sirota discuss two upcoming SCOTUS cases that could destroy what’s left of our anemic campaign finance laws in the wake of Citizens United...and yes, that ruling meant that labor groups could spend like crazy also, but if you look at what has transpired since 2010, corporate spending has so far exceeded that spent by worker advocacy groups that it’s not even funny...didn’t know about Snyder v. United States, in which a “bribe” was somehow endowed with the legal fiction that such payment is instead a “gratuity”...we also learn about the NRSC v. FEC case, which would get rid of the limit on coordinated spending by political parties for candidates (with Couch Boy taking the lead on that one), and Sittenfeld v. US dealing with federal anti-bribery laws; P.G. Sittenfeld was convicted of accepting $20K in bribes (oh, excuse me...”campaign contributions”) in exchange for supporting a local development project; his “defense,” if you can call it that, is that “pay to play” is so widespread in our politics that it should no longer even be considered a crime...kind of makes me sick that Sittenfeld is a Dem, and naturally he was pardoned by Our Sweaty Orange Bronzer Boy...in response, we can indeed push for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and also, the fine folks in Montana need to enact the law not allowing corporations to spend in elections (watch Strip Search Sammy Alito and Almost Silent Clarence Thomas lose their minds over that)...



...and this clip from Thom Hartmann harks back a bit to Citizens United also as well as other SCOTUS rulings...sounds like Thom has had a contest more or less for about 20 years for anybody to name a major piece of Republican legislation that has helped the average person of this country over the last 45 years, and nobody can name anything (I could’ve told you that, but that’s OK)...didn’t know that families in this country spend, on average, $5K more than families in Canada, but that sure tracks, I have to admit...I’m not the least bit surprised to hear about all of the negative ads coming our way from the “party of Lincoln” this fall (here come the “migrant caravans” again bringing more drugs and crime, along with bathroom bills and “protecting women’s sports”) since the “R” team has NOT ONE DAMN THING TO OFFER THAT’S ANY GOOD, AND DEFINITELY NOTHING ELSE TO RUN ON...by the way, Lewis Powell ruled in the affirmative on Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, and Powell was a Democrat, albeit a very conservative one...



...and I know we must all find it in our hearts to extend whatever compassion we can to everyone who endured the near-tragedy at the WHCD a few days ago, so I’m going to provide what I consider to be an appropriate commentary from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog...



...and happy 85th birthday (I believe he’s still with us) to Johnny Farina of the duo Santo and Johnny, who had a big hit with this tune from back in the day.

Wednesday Stuff

Brian Tyler Cohen gives us a report on King Charles visiting our shores and acting like a head of state is supposed to in his speech before a joint session of Congress, citing all of the ways our legal tradition intersects with that of the U.K., along with that important reminder that, yeah, there are “checks and balances” against Mango Musoslini, and I think Cohen’s analysis of Dems rising to applaud and then Repugs is spot-on...I think the same analysis applies to the King’s remark about Ukraine...to say I personally have been ambivalent towards the monarchy is an understatement, but I have to admit that it was nice to see how a REAL head of state is supposed to (again) act for a change...



...and in a bit of a related theme (i.e., our country on the world stage), Kyle Kulinski brings us the all-time-awful world approval numbers on Combover Caligula (anybody surprised by that?)...I think that plus-11 number is in Hungary; kind of embarrassed to be honest that my geography knowledge isn’t better on that...apparently, #47’s antics over Greenland have done the worst damage to our reputation, though I’m sure his idiocy over Ukraine hasn’t helped one bit either...I hate to agree with Kyle’s analysis that we’re defaulting to the Chinese century as he puts it, but I don’t see any way around that painful conclusion (NSFW/H)...



...and continuing a bit with global matters, Dina Doll of the Meidas Touch Network discusses a report from Drop Site News; apparently, our ruling regime is torturing survivors of the boat attacks near Ecuador (blindfolded and held hostage for eight days)...we’re talking broken bones and, in one case, a foot sliced open so badly that the boat filled with blood (all of this is done by our cretinous ruling regime in our name, people)... Ecuadorian fishermen were captured and transferred to the El Salvadorian coast guard, though the fishermen were eventually sent back to Ecuador because of pressure from their families...didn’t know that, apparently, the Trump gang has allegedly killed 174 people from these boat attacks...good point that the fact that these boats were sunk as opposed to boarded for collecting evidence tells you that this was basically an execution at sea of people who were likely completely innocent...we’re reminded once more of SecDef Kegseth’s claim that we bombed an alleged Ecuadorian drug compound which was actually a dairy farm...another good point is that this madness is taking place while Kegseth canned the Secretary of the Navy during #47’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure in Iran (here)...we’re reminded once more of Kegseth’s little rally about “the warrior ethos” while our military starves from being fed meals that you probably wouldn’t inflict on your pet (here)...important reminder that torture by our service personnel does indeed violate their own documented guidelines...



...and returning to domestic matters that are no less awful, Tennessee Brando lets us know that it looks like Ghislaine Maxwell is getting close to a full pardon...I mean, we’re talking about the Trump Crime Syndicate, so what seriously is going to stop them? Also, I’m not familiar with Scott MacFarlane, but it looks like he’s doing a good job with this story...also, good work by Madeleine Dean of our beloved commonwealth, trying to get that scumbag Howard Lutnick on the record over this horror show...and by the way, I think we just observed the one-year anniversary of the death of Virginia Guiffre, just to let you know (NSFW/H also)...



...and Josh Johnson of The Daily Show gives us another “Let Them Eat Ballroom” bit...yeah, let’s just speed up development of the Gropenfuhrer’s vanity palace/bunker while our economy goes down the drain along with our international prestige (and leave it to Huckleberry Graham to take the lead on THAT)...and gee, I wonder how many hospitals and doctors could continue to operate along with providing all of the VA services our vets need if that $400 million was used for THAT instead?...and I know I’ve said it before, and at the risk of repeating myself I’ll say it again; why the hell anybody with a brain would watch Fix Noise is something I’ll NEVER understand...and yep, John Fetterman gets lit up here, and he deserves all of it, sadly (with Jordan Klepper)...



...and if I'm going to include this tune for the month of April, I know I'd better hurry up, so here it is.

Tuesday Stuff

Leave it to that worm “MAGA Mike” Johson to say that “Democrat” leaders are the ones that need to “turn down the rhetoric” or whatever, so of course we need that stinking $400 million ballroom to protect Dear Leader and God Emperor Trump (and Fetterman gets name dropped because he’s the one who made a mess on this issue for the “D” team)...and when it comes to “turning down the rhetoric,” there is also this of course (and even Joe Scar thinks that the recent call to fire Jimmy Kimmel is ridiculous as noted here...I probably wouldn’t have made that joke, but it certainly didn’t advocate violence)...



...and speaking of that damn ballroom, this clip from Public Citizen informs us that that organization sued to get the contractual agreement, and they won...we learn more about this mess, including the fact that donors can remain anonymous and exempts the White House from conflict-of-interest safeguards (Erin Burnett interviews P.C.’s Jon Golinger)...and let’s have no illusions that we the taxpayer aren’t paying for this mess, because we are through inflated contracts from the people bankrolling this idiocy, and that’s just one way that we’re on the hook (and I think the “underground bunker” part of all of this deserves a hell of a lot of scrutiny also...big time “quid pro quo” stuff going on here)...



...meanwhile, David Pakman gives us a clip that the “R” team doesn’t want circulating before the midterm election (a reminder of all of the times in ’24 that the Gropenfuhrer said he was going to bring down prices)...kind of got a perverse kick out of him making the ridiculous promise of “cutting your energy bills in half” and then saying in the next breath “you can get very angry at me if I don’t do it”...



...and Brittany Page tells us about Louisiana’s “convict leasing” bill that brings back the worst of Jim Crow, trying to criminalize homelessness in that state and forcing people into unpaid work (and this state rep Debbie Villio who introduced this bill HB 211 is truly a monster)...”connect them to service providers,” huh? I think all that's missing here is Strother Martin yelling, “What we have here is failure to communicate.”...and it sounds like incarceration is going to happen whether or not someone is convicted of a first or second offense, when In reality that should be an ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT...oh, and related to this, it looks like the Trump gang is building a homeless gulag on the outskirts in Utah, just to push the madness on this even further...apparently there is a provision in the so-called “Streets to Success” Act from this Debbie Villio person to get medical treatment, but of course, if you can’t pay the ridiculously high treatment cost (and once again, we’re talking about the HOMELESS), then you’re put to work – typical for a Repug (and great point by Dem rep Lesli Harris in response regarding what this will do to the criminal justice system in that state, namely overcrowding the already-overburdened courts with many more new cases...Harris also mentions that state’s “housing first” model, which is a MUCH BETTER way to go than that proposed by Villio, and it’s actually cheaper than to force a homeless person into an ER and/or jail; I keep wondering if the cost argument on stuff like this will ever register with wingnuts, but I don’t think it will – love to be wrong about that)...didn’t know about the Housing Not Handcuffs group – kudos (and more on the SCOTUS Grant’s Pass ruling is here)...



...and I haven’t had a Jesse Welles tune for a little while, so I thought I’d include this (John Oliver recently had a good segment on this topic)...



...and I don’t see any east coast tour dates for this band including Philly, but if I find out about more on that, I’ll make sure to update this post with that information.

Monday Stuff

Chris Hayes talks to Dem U.S. House Rep Robert Garcia of California on the all-time grifting of our “First Family,” starting with nepo baby Eric landing a $24 million contract from Cantaloupe Capone’s DoD, all going to Eric’s outfit called Foundation Future Industries that builds robotics...the whole thing was cheered on by Maria Bartiromo of course (gee, I’m old enough to remember wingnuts losing what left of their minds over Hunter Biden and Burisma and how “No Malarkey Joe” allegedly intervened on behalf of his son, which never happened)...Garcia puts this nonsense in its place IMO...oh, and I guess for sh*ts and giggles, Uday and Qusay have some drone interceptor company that they’re selling to the gulf states while this war with Iran that we’re winning well not so much we already took out their air defense capability no, their ability to retaliate remains we took out Iran's nukes last summer no, we have to bomb them to keep them from making nukes we’re reopening the Strait of Hormuz no we’re closing the Strait again NATO should offer to help no, NATO isn’t involved but China is now peace talks are ongoing in Pakistan no suddenly they’re not goes on...Hayes is correct for sure when he basically says that our corporate media needs to do a MUCH BETTER job of reporting on this illegal garbage...

Update 1: More here.

...and speaking of corporate media, Kyle Kulinski gives us a “hot take” on the WHCD shooting incident...I thought D.C. was safer now because of Bronzer Beelzebub’s ICE raids, or something...glad no one was hurt of course and apparently D.C. police got the suspected shooter...sorry, but I'm suspicious of all of this given the fact that we also had that incident in Butler, PA where #47 was allegedly shot in the ear, but he healed pretty quickly from that given that he's a 79-year-old man in poor condition living an utterly unhealthy lifestyle (NSFW/H)...



Update 2: Uh huh...

Update 3: And in response to these two numbskulls, I would only ask which political party was behind the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Also, I continue to be dumbfounded I must admit by the fact that Lex Luthor Scott is still taken seriously by ANYONE since he was behind the largest Medicare fraud in history as noted here.

...and Farron Cousins informs us that the “R” party knows that their redistricting scam for the fall elections may very well blow up in their faces (and yes, I know a wingnut judge in Virginia has put the Dem redistricting on hold in that commonwealth – case will likely go to the SCOTUS, and God only knows what that will lead to)...and gee, Ari Ari Bobari Fleischer from Dubya’s sorry reign thinks his party screwed the metaphorical pooch on this redistricting nonsense, huh? Pass the popcorn...and sooo, it looks like the “party of Lincoln” was going to run on “tax cuts for everybody” (another fiction), but they’re blaming the war with Iran for messing that up? Did Don Jr. and Eric Trump become the co-heads of the RNC and I missed that memo (while “making bank” as noted above)?? This is a whole new level of clueless idiocy (NSFW/H also)...



...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from 4/24/13...clip is a tribute to Dem one-time U.S. House Rep Bob Edgar...to say we need more folks in public service with his dedication is an understatement (and somehow I think that, if he were still with us, he would be leading the fight against the proliferation of data centers and lax government regulation of the type that led to the East Palestine, Ohio rail disaster, among other worthy causes)...



...and taking a jaunt “across the pond,” Jonathan Pie gives us a typically understated analysis of the performance of British PM Keir Starmer to date...I’m definitely joking (very NSFW/H as well)...



...and yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which was the subject of a terrific short HBO series; I think that calls for an anti-nuke tune, don’t you?