(Of course, part of me wonders how such a dim bulb as Herschel Walker could have STILL gotten as many votes as he did - about 1,719,000 or so, believe it or not - but as others smarter than I have already said, Republican fall in line, and they proved it again, and they'll do ANYTHING to protect their privilege. Fortunately, though, it didn't matter.)
...and speaking of failed Republican U.S. Senate candidates, David Doel tells us that, apparently, Mehmet (“CALL ME DOCTOR, DAMMIT!”) Oz is trying and failing to get his old show back, so he may indeed end up on something related to Fix Noise or Newsmax...when you lie down with the political dog of Our Ochre Abomination, so to speak, you get up with fleas, and it looks like Dr. Crudite is finding that out now – c’est dommage...
...and Ana and Cenk of TYT discuss the individuals who received gold medals for the sacrifices on behalf of family members who bravely helped to secure our democracy on January 6th and how these folks snubbed incoming U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao...Cenk is spot-on IMO at the end when it comes to trying to deflate the bubble of our corporate media press corps (more here)...
...and speaking of domestic terrorism, Rachel Maddow brings us the story of the white supremacists who (allegedly) are linked to an attack on a power substation in North Carolina, using assault weapons to attack fiberoptics and cut off communications (sounds like these folks, if convicted, need to go to prison for a looooong time)...
...and in addition to the 81st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, today would have been the 80th birthday of Harry Chapin...
Jesse Dollemore tells us of Mango Mussolini defending his 1/6 insurrectionist pals, along with earlier videos of Our Former *President who claims to support the rule of law or whatever...sorry to bring you so many clips of this festering orange sore on the butt of our republic, but it’s necessary to point out what an unprincipled, narcissistic liar he truly is, especially in light of this (and that goes for the silence from just about his entire party in response, with the commendable exception of Sen. Lisa Murkowski here)...
...and Ana and Ben Gleib of TYT tell us about Herschel Walker saying he had to “rent a kid” to go watch “The Jungle Book” with him, along with apparently declaring a war on pronouns (I think comparing this to the Biden “leg hair” anecdote is a little weak, and last I checked, only President Manchin and Vice President Sinema supported the filibuster; I get a little tired of Ana painting the whole Democratic Party with a broad brush on that issue...and I get it that Gleib is a little tongue-in-cheek at the end, but we can’t take anything for granted of course – today is runoff vote day, and to help Raphael Warnock, click here)...
...and David Pakman reports that the U.S. House race between Adam Frisch and Lauren Boebert is going to a recount mandated by state law because of the narrow percentage of Boebert’s victory...yeah, it would be beyond awesome if somehow she got the boot, but that really isn’t likely, especially since Frisch has already conceded...
...and mentioning Boebert and her nuttiness is a good lead-in I think to this video of Farron Cousins telling us that the CO-03 U.S. House mistake, along with Marjorie Traitor Greene, Gosar and others, apparently want to investigate Republican Party donors...yeah, this story will last for a news cycle or two before it’s forgotten I’m sure...
Ana and Cenk of TYT discuss Dem U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut saying he doesn’t want to fund law enforcement that doesn’t enforce red flag laws (for these supposed “2nd amendment sanctuary” places...Murphy’s right, but I can tell you right now what will happen...Repugs will yell ”DEMS WANT TO DEFUND THE POLICE!” and voters will lose their minds as Cenk says – I think Ana had a great idea to try and pass a law to get the damn cops to enforce red flag laws like they’re supposed to; that might be an easier “sell,” along with increased mental health funding, which Republicans of course will oppose)...
...and I realize tomorrow is the Georgia runoff between Herschel Walker and Dem incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, and I think this ad provides some necessary perspective; we know what’s being mentioned already, but it’s an important reminder (to help Warnock, click here)...
...and Jesse Dollemore brings us what I guess are the departing words from “Cry more, lib” Repug U.S. House Rep Madison Cawthorn, who whines about “the softness of men in America” on his way out the door (mildly NSFW/H)...
...and this CNN clip with Don Lemon tells us about LeBron James chiding reporters a bit over the lack of questions on the Jerry Jones photo (more here – Jones was part of the crowd that blocked 6 black students from entering North Little Rock, AK High School); I definitely think James has a point, but to be fair to Jones, it’s not like he did anything to prevent the African Americans students from entering the school either, which would have been exactly the wrong thing to do of course...but yeah, there is a bit of a double standard I can see with the Kyrie Irving thing (I thought it was hysterical, for example, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama gave that “clinging to guns and religion” speech in San Francisco, and in response, meatheads like J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times said the speech was “racist”... Obama was right then and he remains right to this day)...
Jayar Jackson and David Shuster of Rebel HQ discuss SD guv Kristi (“Unsafe At Any Speed”) Noem, who is apparently so fixated on “messaging” from her party as usual (as opposed to, y’know, actual policies that would help the non-rich in her state), along with the news that Pillow Guy apparently wants to be head of the RNC...pass the popcorn...
...and Trae Crowder gives us his take on the latest nuttiness with “Ye” and Alex Jones...and when even Jones is telling you to “walk it back,” you’re officially out where the buses don’t run – I don’t mean this as a knock on Crowder because I think he’s great, but I wish to God that the state of our political discourse wasn’t so utterly “over the moon” that I couldn’t just ignore “Ye” or whatever this loony cretin is calling himself and devote the necessary time and energy to stuff that ACTUALLY FREAKING MATTERS!, but unfortunately attention must be paid (NSFW/H)...
...and Mehdi Hasan, to his great credit, “brings the receipts” on the subject of Republicans and “groomers,” in response to this completely odious Christina Pushaw person who apparently is the PR flak for FL guv Ron #DeathSantis...
...and Beau tells us about the Dem House Majority PAC (which will soon be in the minority of course) targeting certain districts for ’24 (I’m not surprised that PA-01 is on the list, but that will be a tough nut to try and crack)...once again, I have to question the strategy of Team “D” here, and I think Beau makes a great point in that the goal of leaking this information is to try and get Team R to “play nice” in the U.S. House, but please tell me the universe where that strategy actually works; the goal should be to win elections, and it that indeed is the aim, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TIPPING YOUR HAND THIS EARLY??!!...
...and this recent video from Second Thought tells us about neoliberalism more or less looking the other way while authoritarianism takes hold of our politics (basically, Democrats believe the political dynamic in this country is more or less an episode of “The West Wing,” while Not Your Father’s Republican Party treats it like a steel cage match)...really scary to follow the money and see the unholy alliance between right-wing political campaign funding and climate change denialism, and the MLK quote at the end is damning indeed...
I thought Thom Hartmann had some interesting insight into what King Elon I is trying to do by taking over Twitter (basically, to mine the “bird app” to get ahold of user data to sell off to third parties)...
...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us that Musk, being the spoiled, plutocratic baby that he is, has decided to call up advertisers and basically yell at them for leaving Twitter (what infantile behavior, which shouldn’t be surprising I know), with the exit being a direct consequence of Musk basically gutting the whole damn company and letting all the conspiracy theorist BS on the platform all over again ('on brand" indeed)...
...and Thom Hartmann mentioned Marjorie Traitor Greene...with her in mind, Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us that the Repug GA U.S. House rep recently opined online about farts and wearing masks for ‘Rona, of course (sounds like the gene pool in the district that actually voted for her is in need of a lifeguard)...
...and speaking of “the peach state” and Not Your Father’s Republican Party, Sam of TMR tells us that Herschel Walker, living in his Texas home, was so upset about the border apparently that he decided to run against Dem incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock – sounds like Walker was fed some new talking points by his handlers and could barely form a coherent sentence while spouting them off to everybody (to help Warnock, click here)...
...and sticking with Walker, Farron Cousins tells us that Lex Luthor Scott sent out Emails through the NRSC pleading for an “emergency donation” for Walker, when in fact Scott’s group plans to pocket 98 percent of the donation (grifters gonna grift...and yeah, normally I would just pass the popcorn and watch Repugs screw each other over, but in Scott’s case it’s different IMO, particularly since most people seem to forget that Scott was found guilty of the largest Medicare swindle in history as noted here)...
...and here are more seasonal selections...
...and here is another tune as a tribute to Christine McVie.
I know on Monday I acted like I was fed up over people losing their collective minds on the Trump/Thanksgiving/Ye/Nick Fuentes stuff, but I honestly didn’t mean to communicate that the whole matter should be ignored...part of my response had to do with my total disgust over inadvertently paying any attention at all to contemptible guttersnipes like Fuentes, but Rachel Maddow brought us this clip with segments of Fuentes spreading his filth, and I think we do indeed need to pay attention to this execrable worm (excerpts come from Right Wing Watch and People for the American Way, who are truly doing God’s work)...
...and some of these Fuentes clips repeat I know, but yeah, it’s a little spooky (but not surprising) to see how closely what he says is mirrored by The Roger Ailes BS Factory, to say nothing of the Gropenfuhrer, as The Daily Show points out (NSFW/H)...
...and on the subject of right-wing grifters, Sam and Emma of The Majority Report tell us about Jenna Ellis making fun of the Colorado police announcement recognizing the gender pronouns of the victims in the Club Q massacre, which, at the time, was the latest episode of gun carnage in this country...Ellis was also a senior legal advisor to Doug Mastriano during his campaign for PA governor – sickens me that I have to inhabit the same planet as life forms like Ellis (and Mastriano also actually)...
...and Jesse Dollemore brings us this video of Herschel Walker basically saying that you haven't earned the right to vote if you were born after 1990, or something (wow, is boomer entitlement ever on display among everyone present in this clip - all except Jesse of course...to help Dem incumbent U.S. Senator of Georgia Raphael Warnock, click here)...
...and here are more seasonal selections.
Update: RIP Christine McVie - part of me wants to include "Songbird," and maybe I will later.
Jesse Dollemore tells us about Marjorie Traitor Greene telling us that “free speech is dead” with a video that, as of Dollemore’s clip, had garnered half a million views (nice face-freeze, I must say...and about Greene, add this as yet another item to the "why the $#@! didn't Democrats make this a campaign issue?" file)...
...and Farron Cousins tells us about how the incoming U.S. House Republican majority wants to investigate Biden’s student debt relief plan...and as ridiculous at that is, and it is that for sure, click here to find out how the “party of Lincoln” plans to waste untold taxpayer dollars on bogus “investigations”...
...and as long as we’re focusing on the House, allow me to provide this clip from Sam, Emma and company at The Majority Report telling us about Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who has introduced a bill basically declaring war, you might say, on LGBTQ kids, which his party wants to make the model for the rest of the country of course...and let’s not forget that Johnson, as noted here, is the guy who took advantage of an exception in Louisiana’s state law that allowed him to make “tens of thousands of dollars” as part of the legal team representing the state in a federal court trial over abortion clinic restrictions (that may have been legal, but it doesn’t pass the “smell test” as far as yours truly is concerned)...
...and John and Jordan Uhl of The Damage Report tell us about Democrats winning recent elections to take over the Ohio state Board of Education, so of course Repugs in that state’s general assembly want to strip the board of its power – yep, if you can’t win the metaphorical game of checkers, just overturn the board, stalk off and have a big hissy fit...
Farron Cousins reminds us that the “party of Lincoln” has only itself to blame for allowing a certain Treasonous Orange Pustule to hurt its electoral prospects, given the chances they had to distance themselves from him even though they refused to do so.
And by the way, a lot of people I respect and follow online are losing their collective minds over Our Former *President having Thanksgiving dinner with white supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes (and I won’t get into what an utter idiot this “Ye” person is – I think that’s what he goes by – for apparently bringing Fuentes with him to Mar-a-Lago).
Yes, Fuentes is a despicable human stain who has no place whatsoever in anything approximating informed political discourse. Yes, #45 should be vilified every way possible for sharing company with an oozing nematode like Fuentes for any reason whatsoever (and this is probably an inevitable consequence). And yes, the absolutely predictable silence from Not Your Father’s Republican Party over such a meeting (including not a word of reproach from “Silent Brian”) should be the object of fierce but non-violent scorn also.
But really, is any of this a surprise?
How many times has this globulus, delusional, lying, self-absorbed sack of trans fats barely fitting into a suit engaged in some kind of controversy with our collective media tut-tutting over it (such as making fun of John McCain as well as the New York Times reporter, spreading insulting comments about Mexicans and Muslims, threatening to beat people up at his rallies, responding to the Charlottesville neo-Nazi march with the “very fine people on both sides” stuff, to say nothing of the Access Hollywood tape) and then flushing it into the collective memory hole as they so often do, concurrent with the moment the loyal Republican base decides that all is forgiven and falls in line for Our Ochre Abomination just in time for the next election?
How many times have people on the left or the middle of the political spectrum expressed disgust over #45’s utterly vile behavior, only to be greeted with collective silence from the life forms who should be saying “You know what? I can’t stomach this guy any more. I’ve had enough” (with the only caveat being that, in search of their next “daddy,” they would probably make a bee line to Ron #DeathSantis in Florida, who is also dangerous for a different set of reasons...more on him shortly)?
For the most part, our political discourse is trash because too many people in this country think that status quo is acceptable. And I honestly don’t know how to change that.
So until then, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t jump on the bandwagon over the latest controversy involving Generalissimo Trump (and of course he disavowed the meeting). And if you think he honestly didn’t know about Fuentes or what he represented, I’ve got a bridge to one of the five New York boroughs to sell to you.
Anyway, here's the Cousins clip...
...and speaking of Mango Mussolini, David Doel tells us about 2 ads Biden released the day 45 announced his run – nicely done I must say...
...and when it comes to the Repug ’24 presidential nomination (can’t even think about that seriously right now to be honest), Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about Ron #DeathSantis laughing at G-Bay torture of detainees (why the $#@! is this coming out NOW INSTEAD OF DURING THE DAMN FL GUV ELECTION??!!! And Figuerdo is referring to Michael Prysner BTW...NSFW/H)...
...and Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about the history of online bullying which apparently played a part in the utter disintegration of the alleged Q nightclub shooter (not using that as an excuse for the horrible crimes he’s accused of committing, but only saying the online garbage was part of the whole toxic stew behind this awful story)...
...and here are a couple of seasonal selections...
...also, yesterday marked what would have been the 80th birthday of James Marshall Hendrix...
...and 11/27 also marked the 55th anniversary of the release of Magical Mystery Tour.
I know I’m repeating this for about the zillionth time, but I wish to God the Democrats would actually run ads like this; fortunately, The Lincoln Project did against “Erections Have Consequences” Herschel Walker; to help his opponent in the GA U.S. Senate runoff, incumbent Dem Raphael Warnock, click here (maybe next time, Walker should be surrounded by three Republicans?...and why is this not surprising from Walker?)...
Update 11/27/22: Exactly what Walker deserves (here).
...and Farron Cousins tells us that the incoming Republican U.S. House majority might be a memory in 2 years given what they’re focusing on (God, I hope so!), which apparently is trying to impeach Biden, I guess because they weren’t invited to his granddaughter’s wedding or something (and with all due respect to Cousins, I think it will be pretty damn pathetic to watch this play out and won’t actually be hilarious...and I'd like to learn more about that 6 percent myself)...
...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us that the father of the alleged Club Q mass murderer doesn’t give a damn about those killed or wounded in the attack, but only that his son “doesn’t do gay”...one of these days, whatever come after us will find out about stuff like this and have a good laugh over how stoo-pid we were as a nation on this issue in particular (NSFW/H)...
...and to me, what was noted in the prior video plays right into what is discussed in this one, and that is allegations of “grooming” by teachers, which is just a part of what has led to the crisis of teacher shortages in this country (Ron #DeathSantis and Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao should be forced to run a class in a school district in their respective states and try to do for these kids what the teachers do who they so readily demonize...keep waiting for someone to have to pay some kind of a price for their awful rhetoric, when in reality the teachers and their kids are the ones who suffer - and unfortunately, this fits the ridiculous profile too)...
...and this More Perfect union clip tells us about a potential rail strike, and I have to admit that it‘s hard for me to get my head around the fact that a $20 billion industry is apparently too cheap to give its employees paid sick days...
...and this TYT clip tells us that an after-school “Satan club” trolling wingnuts in California is getting fundie nut jobs all in a lather (and personally, I’m not willing to blow off the religious concerns, though, as Ana says, the floodgates have indeed been opened by this wretched SCOTUS, but on the other hand, I don’t believe that I have a right to try and inflict my beliefs on anyone...with Cenk also)...
...and this recent Second Thought video makes a pretty convincing case against intellectual property (I always learn something in these videos, and this time around, I found out about TRIPS and IP rights for the first time FWIW – “Capitalism requires scarcity to function, and in the absence of material scarcity, intellectual property allows capitalists to maintain it artificially to our collective detriment.” – uh, yep)...
...and dear God, it really is that time of year again, isn't it?
I got a kick out of this pic, I have to admit (courtesy of Pixdaus and Daily Kos)...
...and here's another holiday fave, with an intro by Seth MacFarlane as Stewie Griffin (and again, the captions make this hilarious as far as I'm concerned...and timely in light of this)...
...and here's more holiday fun...
...and I kind of liked this also (hat tip for this to Daily Kos)...
...and here's a Thanksgiving message for those wonderful folks at the TSA.
Update 1: And here is another late addition.
Update 2: Might as well add this too (and yeah, "Man Tan" Boehner is long gone I know, but those who've followed him have done their best to make things worse).
Update 3: Imagine all the people that can be fed for $35 grand (here, getting serious for a minute).
Update 4: And since I add to this list every year, I might as well include this too (hasta la vista, baby!).
Update 5: And I suppose this is an apropos item too.
…and thank goodness the “culture warriors” of Fix Noise are trying to protect the holiday (more here)…
…and I guess this is an appropriate tune for the day...
...along with this.
Update: Yes, as I and others have pointed out, we know what The Lincoln Project is, but this is a wonderful ad.
Update 11/25/21: Well said.
Update 11/27/21: And here is a video about another holiday tradition (more here).
David Doel brings us the CNN report on Richard Fierro, who bravely subdued the Club Q shooter...(NSFW/H – I admire Doel’s honesty and total disgust over this situation, and let’s have no illusions trying to deny that garbage like this played a role also...and yeah, this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum, does it?)...
Update: I know people who are getting ready to move out of this country. Maybe they're onto something (here).
...and Joy Reid interviews Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, and Dr. David J. Johns (when you have so damn many of these mass carnage events that you need to almost have a Rolodex of them, yeah, you’ve got a problem all right)...
...oh, and in case anybody wants to see this garbage in action up close and personal, Maz Jobrani gives us an example of some “Karen” on her bike who got her panties all in a knot over a gay couple (two women) walking in public...try minding your own goddamn business, lady!...
...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report gives us more on “Strip Search Sammy” Alito leaking SCOTUS opinions to right-wing groups (Figueredo mentions the Lochner era, which, until now, was as pro-business a High Court as anyone can imagine - I know I linked to this story on Monday also)...
...and I have to admit that I really went back and forth on whether or not to provide a clip related to JFK, timed for the 59th anniversary of his assassination yesterday (I really didn’t have much to add, to be honest), but Thom Hartmann included these clips from a speech JFK gave about peace at the University of Michigan on June 10, 1963 – always important to remember exactly who and what it was that we lost when he was killed...
John and Dan Evans of The Majority Report give us more evidence that presumptive incoming U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will do whatever he’s told from his caucus of treasonous lunatics, including Marjorie Traitor Greene, Boebert, Biggs, Gosar, etc., with McCarthy claiming that committee assignments will be denied to Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff and Ilhan Omar...good luck getting those Dem votes you need to get legislation passed, you coward...
...and speaking of lousy U.S. House Republican congressional representation, it looks like Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina’s 11th congressional district has checked out two months early (assuming he was ever really doing his job to begin with), as David Pakman discusses...
...and it appears that twice as many Repugs died than Dems prior to the ’22 elections according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (focusing on Ohio and Florida)...and I agree with Ana K. of TYT (going solo) that this is awful regardless of someone’s politics...
...and Farron Cousins tells us that the administration of #DeathSantis in FLA has been linked to the person who tricked migrants onto the flight to MVY via text messages (of course, we just had an election where voters in The Sunshine State could have, y’know, VOTED THIS FRAUD OUT OF OFFICE!, but the majority chose not to do so, though I have a feeling there were all kinds of games going on with voting machines in Dem districts, but that would have to be proven of course)...
...and speaking of Stupid Voting Tricks, Thom Hartmann discusses all of the voter disenfranchisement that went on in North Carolina, Georgia, (and indeed) Florida and Tennessee (and Mississippi – big surprise)...and once more, we can thank “balls and strikes” John Roberts and the completely wretched SCOTUS for gutting the preclearance provision of the VRA, thus enabling this garbage...
...and I guess there’s something to be said for a lone guitarist standing up to the world’s actual or perceived injustices; I’m not sure if this is a number cut from that cloth, if you will, but I like the tune anyway.
What follows is a video on the latest mass shooting in this country, this time at the Club Q “gay nightclub” (as described in media accounts like this one) in Colorado Springs, CO (more here, here, here, here, and here...and doesn't this figure? – and once more, to quote The Onion, this represents a difficult, thorny issue that pretty much every other freaking industrialized nation on earth has managed to effectively resolve EXCEPT US! And of course, you can throw "hating teh gay!" into this toxic stew for good measure)...
Update: And right on cue, here comes "Strip Search Sammy" Alito to pile on here, after having revealed SCOTUS opinions in advance to his pals (here).
...and allegedly, “Curtsy Kyrsten” is somewhat of an LGBTQ presence in the U.S. Senate, but I wouldn’t depend on her for related issues; actually, I don’t think she can be depended on for a damn thing, as Dem U.S. House Rep Ruben Gallego pretty much says straight up, particularly given Sinema’s total absence in campaigning for Dem candidates in AZ in the most recent cycle – Farron Cousins tells us more...
Update: And by the way, since Arizona will eventually get a Dem governor sometime next January, Sinema could just quit after that happens and I'd be fine with that, knowing she'll be replaced by a Dem for real - she'd be doing us a favor (so of course she won't do that).
...and David Doel features an interview with Just Stop Oil activist Phoebe Plummer; yeah, I thought the whole soup-splattering stuff with the Van Gogh painting was kind of dumb, but she’s 100 percent, spot-on correct in this clip on the urgency of climate change (and Doel is also right about how the media in general treats the critical issue of climate change as kind of “meh”)...
...and Beau gives us his take on AG Merrick Garland’s decision to bring prosecutor Jack Smith from The Hague to go after Our Ochre Abomination...I’ve read that U.S. House Repugs are going to do everything they can to try and bring our government to a halt to prevent any investigation into #45, which sound like something out of their wretched playbook all right, even though that should deter absolutely nothing...for whatever my take is worth on this stuff, I’m not sure what took Garland so long, though he absolutely needs to do this (If he thinks he has a case of course...and with Trump, how could he not?) because one of the first things McCarthy will do when his party takes over the House will be to break up the 1/6 committee, and it sounds like Smith is exactly the right guy for the job of holding the head of Cult 45 to the full account he deserves...
...and Ana and Cenk of TYT tell us about citations against Packers Sanitation Services Inc. employing kids at meat packing plants, working third shift in a lot of cases apparently and, in one instance in particular, a child suffered burns on his body from a cleaning solvent (and according to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, companies aren’t allowed to employ kids under 14, regardless of whether or not they’re Hispanic)...
...and given the horrific story in the first video, I thought this tune was particularly appropriate.
The person pictured above between Former Commander Codpiece on the right and Our Gal Condi Rice on the left is Michael Gerson, former George W. Bush speechwriter. He served as a propagandist for our former ruling cabal of criminals before he was rewarded for his efforts with a job as a columnist for the Washington Post.
The reason I’m pointing out Gerson is because he died recently, apparently from kidney cancer complications at 58 as noted here. I’m genuinely sorry to hear that, and I’d like to extend my condolences to his family and friends. However, that’s not “the end of the story,” you might say.
Gerson had what I would call a peculiar gift with language, and that is that he could couch some truly insidious sentiments behind flowery phrasing, you might say. It would often take me a minute or two to process exactly what it was that he wrote, and by the time I did, I felt steam coming out of my ears. Probably that type of phrase that he’ll be remembered for the most is “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” related to #43’s whole No Child Left Behind grift, which of course was a way to reward Bush’s brother Neil selling his scammy educational products (I got into that way back when here), while at the same time trying to undercut public schools in this country (because, as any Republican will tell you, the only thing a U.S. public school can do is “fail”). That phrase from Gerson was his way of accusing Democrats of wanting to maintain the status quo and not see kids in this country achieve under his boss’s supposedly inspired plan.
Like with most print media hangers-on, Gerson was treated as some kind of eminence grise in the columnist world for becoming a supposed expert on how other people should live their lives (see BoBo, Bedbug Bret and The Moustache of Understanding in “the old gray lady”). However, I will always remember Gerson (and not fondly) for the speech he wrote for Bush on the 60th anniversary of V-E Day (news story is here). I’m not quite able to track down a link to the speech at the moment (I’ll keep trying), but I’ll never forget that it contained some truly Gerson-esque language which in essence said that the “global war on terror” being waged at that time was more important than World War II. And that pretty much enraged me because it diminished the sacrifice of my father as well as thousands of other U.S. soldiers who gave up big parts of their lives (and many suffering grave injuries or death of course) to fight in that conflict. And because I couldn’t think of much of anything else to do in response, I came up with this dumb blog to chronicle the nonsense of the Bush Administration and hold it up to the ridicule I thought it deserved. And nearly 18 years later, I’m still at it with this masochistic exercise (against myriad others besides the Bush Administration since then of course).
So I guess maybe in a weird way, I should thank Gerson. But I’m not prepared to do that at the moment, and I don’t think that I ever will be.
Now to the videos...Cenk and Ana of TYT tell us about yet another bomb threat received by Boston’s Children’s Hospital because they provide gender-affirming care, from demagoguery generated by that scumwaffle Matt Walsh (Ana and Cenk of TYT bring the reality perspective, and yeah, apparently the number of kids receiving puberty blockers is about 1K per year, not “millions” or “hundreds of thousands”...kudos to Cenk for his completely appropriate outrage)...
...and Jesse Dollemore tells us that Herschel Walker in Georgia is apparently trying to lock up that all-important “werewolves and vampires” voting bloc in his runoff election for the U.S. Senate with incumbent Dem Raphael Warnock...almost embarrassing to witness this, but attention must be paid to Walker if we are to defeat him...
...and Chris Hayes speaks with Obama senior advisor David Plouffe about the prospects of actual U.S. House governance from the “clown car caucus” of Not Your Father’s Republican Party...yeah, the chances of that are dim at best...the interview ends up as a tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who is stepping down from a leadership role in that body...you can measure Pelosi’s success by the pure, unbridled hatred aimed at her from the other side...and GREAT point about Hakeem Jeffries as a good choice for minority leader since he’s from NY and could help to win back those 4 seats that were lost, which could be critical in ’24...I’m hearing stuff about Jeffries being a corporate Dem, but we’ll see how that plays out of course...
...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History”...we’re just going around the corner back to a year ago today, with David Doel commenting on some typical Lauren Boebert insanity, this time aimed at Dem U.S. House Rep Ilhan Omar...and yes, this is topical because Boebert did manage to get back to the House for another term, as I suspected she would unfortunately (Adam Frisch, who ran a solid campaign, called her and conceded, because that’s what losers of elections are supposed to do in this country)...
Update: And of course Boebert and her playmates in "the sedition caucus" got help from some of the cretinous corporate criminals noted here.
Update 11/21/22: As I said, election losers are supposed to concede, shut up and go away, but of course that dangerous wackadoodle Kari Lake doesn't plan to do that (here).
...and I’m glad to hear things are going so well for the “bird app” under the alleged guidance of King Elon I, some other plutocrat presumed to be a genius of entrepreneurship...
Update: I know King Elon had some phony-baloney online poll about whether our not Orange Lucifer should be allowed back on Elon’s “bird app,” and apparently 52 percent of those polled said Yes, so #45 was allowed back on, and his followers total immediately jumped to about one million, and a whole bunch of people I respect are getting the willies over it.
Since Generalissimo Trump used the bird app to stage an armed insurrection against this country, as far as I’m concerned, he should be automatically disqualified for signing up on it again. But you know what? If he gets back on and gets a million followers – good. Same if he gets two million. Or three million.
Mango Mussolini’s continued online presence will remind everyone in this country with a brain of what a thoroughly execrable biped life form he truly is.
And at this stage of the game, does ANYBODY SERIOUSLY THINK he can actually generate enough of an impact to warrant serious consideration as a presidential nominee again? Hell, even Rupert The Pirate has turned on him (here). And so what if Our Ochre Abomination gets three million followers. How many registered voters are there in this country? About 220-230 million?
Using the bird app to remind everyone that Former President Fergus Laing remains a free man will reinforce to the vast majority of this country how sycophantic, moribund and decayed his political party truly is. So, as Cenk Uygur would say, “have at it, hoss.”
Update 11/20/22: I think Trump is now at about 83 million followers on the bird app (my guess is that at least half are trolls and/or bots). And yes, my point still stands IMO.
Update 1 11/21/22: In fewer words, let me just say this. If anybody thinks I’m going to cower before that bloated orange pustule regardless of what he does...well, you just don’t know me very well, do you?
...and for folks in Montgomery County, PA, there are still a couple of hours left to participate in a gun buy-back dropoff program at the locations noted here – with that in mind, I offer the following anti-gun tune.
Sam Seder discusses Andy Biggs and his “palace revolt” against new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (ugh...) – yeah, Biggs reeks entitlement which is typical for a Republican of course, showing that he and his party have learned not a damn thing from the last elections...and I’m sure it is going to get pretty damn dark with this bunch (and @RepBrianFitz will be along for the ride too), which may ultimately be a blessing because it will remind younger voters and independents to NEVER support these clowns in another election...
...and with the prior clip in mind somewhat, David Pakman presents data telling us that 18- to 29-year-olds basically saved our democracy in the most recent elections (now the damn Democrats need to f*cking REMEMBER THAT FROM NOW ON!)...
...and I honestly don’t know what’s going on with the PA House races in our beloved commonwealth for Bucks and Montgomery counties, but it’s nice to see Keystone State Dems get some “love” (Rachel Maddow tells us more)...
Update 1 11/18/22: As Atrios would say, ah well, nevertheless (here).
...and Jesse Dollemore gives us the latest Herschel Walker insanity (and actually, the date of the runoff is December 6th...as far as I’m concerned, the Dems have been treating Walker with kid gloves, when in fact it’s long past time to politically tear his head off...to help incumbent Dem Raphael Warnock, click here)...
...and John and Jayar tell us about the U.S. Senate passing a bill protecting same-sex marriage, and the House should indeed do so before the Repugs take over – like with the Maddow clip, I don’t know if there are any new developments; if I hear of anything, I’ll update this post...
...and this More Perfect Union video tells us why the proposed merger of the Kroger’s and Albertson’s supermarket chains could cause food prices to skyrocket (great, just what we need...very NSFW/H for a moment, but for a good reason)...
...and the latest from Second Thought tells us How Capitalism Ruined The Internet (important history lesson in his clips as always, this time having to do with DARPA, the creation of the internet, etc...”It bears repeating that, if a service is free, you are the product,” and “we absolutely need these regulatory band-aids, but we can’t leave the stabbing machine turned on.”...typically spot-on, and I didn’t know about the municipalities that set up their own broadband; we need to find some way to synergize all of that so these areas can have efficiencies and build out that network a bit across the country – sorry for the corporate-speak – mildly NSFW/H)...
Beau of the Fifth Column tells us about Mango Mussolini’s announcement that he’s running for president once more, which apparently was also greeted with a yawn by Rupert The Pirate’s vanity rag as noted here (about #45, apparently his presentation had low energy – sad!)...
...and David Doel tells us about Our Ochre Abomination’s typically scammy online operation with Herschel Walker (the whole 90/10 thing for donations)...
...and of course, what would Life In These United States be without another mass shooting (an update is here)...
...and Farron Cousins tells us about ballots getting “fixed” in Colorado, particularly in Bo-Bo-Boebert’s third district race against Adam Frisch, and no, that doesn’t mean anything illegal is going on, as Cousins explains...I believe today is the deadline for this effort; if I were to bet, I would say that Boebert gets back in unfortunately, mainly because she has the power of incumbency on her side, sadly (but again, as Cousins says, nobody really knows what’s going on here, which is the way the process is supposed to work)...
...and Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report tells us about the monumental political incompetence of Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the DCCC, and how he not only blew his own race, but ended up sinking so much money into a losing effort that it cost Dems in other races across the country that they might have been able to win (Slate article can be accessed from here...probably NSFW/H)...
(By the way, related to Maloney, I saw a really good post on Daily Kos that I’ll try to find and link here. The post had to do with $15 million raised by Marcus Flowers, who ran against Marjorie Traitor Greene. Yes, it would have been satisfying to see her lose, but her district was about plus-30-or-40 for Trump in 2020 at least, so seriously, what chance did Flowers have? Sorry if that sounds mean, but that’s the reality...and wouldn’t it have made more sense to spend some of that on, say, Tom Malinowski in NJ-7 who ended up losing to Baby Kean by about 10,000 votes?).
...and David Pakman gives us a bit of a preview of the '24 races, which look like they could be tougher for Dems...
...(and yeah, I know it's waaay too damn early for that, but that means that the clock is now running for real against "Curtsy Kyrsten"...more here)...
...and David Shuster tells us once more about all of the “red wave” predictions getting blown to smithereens...in addition to Pakman, Shuster also makes a great point about the importance of Georgia now, since, if Warnock knocks off Walker, the Dems won’t feel like they have to go along with this idiotic “power sharing” agreements on various Senate committees...also important to note Biden's judicial appointments...
...and RIP front man Dan McCafferty of the band Nazareth.
It’s always a good thing for Fix and Fiends to get the treatment it deserves, as well as a certain 45th president along with Kari Lake, who, as we know, ran for Arizona governor (from SNL’s “cold open” a few nights ago)...
...and the prior clip was meant as a joke of course (though it’s pretty close to reality), but this isn’t amusing in any way at all, given that Herschel Walker could actually end up as a U.S. Senator (to help Raphael Warnock in the runoff – and after two of these in a row in Georgia, can we PLEASE get rid of them? – click here)...
...and speaking of The Roger Ailes BS Factory, that nematode Jesse Watters thinks the Dems did well in the midterms because not enough people hate Biden, and Watters throws in a heaping does of misogyny to boot of course...as Bugs would say, what a maroon!...
...and Mike Figuerdo of The Humanist Report tells us that, for Chris Cillizza I guess, it’s “heads I win, tails I win” as far as political predictions are concerned, especially with Our Ochre Abomination (NSFW/H)...
...and speaking of people with idiot midterm predictions, Ana and Cenk of TYT (not them) tell us about Jim Cramer’s reaction to the just-concluded elections (and yeah, I’d call this a “truth bomb” for sure about the people who really call the shots and why they don’t want government to do a damn thing)...
...and John and Brett Erlich of The Damage Report tell us about the Trumpist judge who has temporarily halted Biden’s student debt relief program – and yeah, I think the plaintiff was put up to do this, especially since she apparently had all of those PPP loans forgiven, but this isn’t over yet of course...
...and Beau mentions what the Repugs have in mind to respond to what happened on 11/8, and that is to raise the voting age...seriously...which they (checks notes...) CAN’T FREAKING DO BECAUSE IT’S AN AMENDMENT TO THE FREAKING CONSTITUTION THAT THEY CLAIM TO LOVE SO DAMN MUCH! - one of Beau's more tongue-in-cheek commentaries...
...and I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I heard a track from Shinedown...forgot how good they are (won’t make that mistake again...mildly NSFW/H).
