…and Kyle Kulinski tells us how Bernie Sanders called out PEOTUS Big Orange Cheetoh the way all Dems should (by the way, I don't think trivializing the Putin-related garbage is helpful, Kyle, especially in light of this, as well as this - NSFW)...
…and when I hear this tune, I think of President-Elect Fergus Laing, for what it’s worth.
I'm suddenly behind again on K.O.'s great GQ "Resistance" videos - here is #16, on what the spoiled brat about to ascend to power in this country supposedly knows, or THINKS he knows, about the Russian hacking...
...and Rachel Maddow weighs in on what we can do in response here (though I think the following needs to be pointed out also from here)...
...and at a certain point, I don't think this stuff is so funny anymore, but for now...
...and let's hear it for our friends up north, giving us more food for thought on the whole health care issue in this country...
...and as Cenk & co. tell us here, the U.S. House Repugs are apparently going to shed their phony deficit facade once and for all...
…and I know this is a few days late for the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 1/2/12, but given all of the recent electoral garbage involving fake news, I think we should never forget what entity is the “alpha and omega,” if you will, when it comes to that sort of thing - and boy, is that network going to have fun with the departure of "Maniac Megyn" Kelly (here) - now Bill Orally has to anchor the prime-time lineup with Tucker...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
...and speaking of Billo the Clown, Sam Seder has some words on all the entertainers blowing off the Bund rally for President-Elect Big Orange Cheetoh (to "Falkland Islands" Bill, have another belt, go fall down in a corner somewhere and sleep it off, OK?)…
…and changing the mood again, remember that, in light of this latest gun-related tragedy (here), today is yet another day not to talk about gun control because Heaven forbid that we politicize that issue (here – related info here)…and yes, I’m removing my tongue from my cheek as I type this.
This clip is almost two years old now, but with all the Beltway prattling about “repeal(ing) and replac(ing)” the Affordable Care Law (here), I thought Dem U.S. House Rep John Yarmuth of Kentucky made a pretty damn convincing case for leaving well enough alone here (And I wonder what would happen if we updated his map? I’m sure there would be a lot more red-to-green-or-blue)…
…and Thom H. gives us his theory on who he claims was the last legitimately elected Republican president – Dwight Eisenhower – and yeah, you can argue that I’m biased on this, but it still sounds pretty damn plausible to me…
...and Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks tells us about Nick Smith from coal country…more smarts in his commentary than from all of these supposed Democratic Party Beltway geniuses; no wonder the Dems continue to lose at the polls…
...and I thought this was an interesting take on the whole "fake news" thing...
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says that Russia was behind "fake news" in 2016.
(Apparently this recently appeared over the Rose Bowl parade - nice work.)
I know, if I were able, that I could probably post forever about the truly awful cabinet nominations of President-Elect Big Orange Cheetoh, but I’m not able to do that – however, I think I should take a moment and ask that you recall the following about former Indiana Repug U.S. Senator Dan Coats, who is apparently being floated for Director of National Intelligence (here).
Yeah, Dan Coats.
The senator who showed up at the wrong hearing (as shown in the following clip).
God help us…
...and kudos to Michael Mann for the ruling allowing him to sue these conservative assh*les for defaming him on the issue of climate science (and for attacking all of the fake news garbage, as Farron Cousins explains here)...
…and Ari Melber talks to Kelly Ward, interim executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, about Democratic plans to correct the redistricting garbage that the Repugs inflicted in 2010 (and even if it means that the Dem U.S. House rep in Florida loses, so be it)…
…and I said I would link to some new music eventually, didn’t I?
This clip runs on a bit, but I think there’s a lot of good information here from Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the rise of totalitarianism in this country…
...and Chris Hayes and media critic Bob Garfield try to dissect the lies of President-Elect Fergus Laing; here’s my idea – tell Big Orange Cheetoh that we don’t trust one goddamn word out of his mouth because he's nothing but a stinking liar (and by the way, if Trump actually cares about credibility - and I'm sure he doesn't - posing with Don King isn't such a good idea)…
…and sticking with press freedom, I’ll remember this item every time I hear about Joe and Mika and the rest of our Beltway political/media/industrial complex regurgitating talking points in truly stenographic fashion (try not to gag on the white wine and sweet and sour shrimp – NSFW)…
...and I thought this was a good report from the BBC about how our incoming Congress is now commendably diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and gender preference…just kidding – it’s still primarily a bunch of rich white guys…
…and speaking of those numbskulls (most of them anyway), I have an update to Rachel Maddow’s video (here) – and anyone who thinks the p*ssy-grabber-in-chief has something to do with it should read this…
…and I think we’re going to need a lot to keep up the fight, and that includes our sense of humor.
I guess this qualifies as an "oopsie" for those Fix Noise miscreants...
…and yeah, those kids trying not to be deported are so looking forward to the inauguration of “Donald Drumpf,” aren’t they (here)?...
…and Kyle and David Pakman both tell us that – whaddaya know? – increasing the federal minimum wage produced no downside…imagine that (NSFW - and more on Australia and the minimum wage is here)…
…and how’s this for an apropos tune to ring in 2017?
I know I mentioned that I would replay Jason Kander's GREAT ad, so I'd better do it before the year ends (he was the Dem running against Roy Blunt for the U.S. Senate from Missouri, a contest Blunt won but by a tighter margin than the so-called experts predicted)...
…and with the spirit of that ad in mind, Kyle K. tells us here that Bernie Sanders is telling all of us to stand up on January 15th to protect our health care (NSFW)….
...and Chris Hayes talks with Rick Perlstein, author of “Nixonland,” about parallels between Number 37 and the demented child-king about to take the reins of power on 1/20/17 (God help us – thanks once more, everyone who voted for this assclown, Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, and also to the “Bernie or Bust” crowd)…
…and kudos to Cenk and TYT for raising a half mil from their audience to stand up for actual quality journalism; excellent (and here is yet another example of corporate media stupidity)…
...and I also failed to note the passing earlier of Al Brodax, responsible for "Yellow Submarine"...
…and yeah, I think I’ll let John Oliver have the last non-musical video word here (incredibly NSFW – some good things happened for yours truly this year, and I’m grateful, but overwhelmingly I share these sentiments)…
…and did you know this year that almost an entire band died? That would be Keith Emerson and Greg Lake of EL&P (best wishes for a long and happy life to Carl Palmer)…
…and what else can you say about 2016, the year that (thank God!) is about to come to a close?
Remember the actual hope and optimism last summer, when we were talking about the better-than-even-money chance that the Dems had of taking back the Senate? Including the return of Russ Feingold in Wisconsin? I mean, they CAN’T POSSIBLY return that big stiff Ron Johnson for six more years, could they?
Well, they did, incredibly enough. And by the way, as a resident of the commonwealth of PA, I know I have no gloating rights whatsoever in that we had the chance to do the same thing to that corporatist fraud Pat Toomey, and he won another term also. In fact, the only Repug U.S. Senators who got sent packing (in what should have been a “change” election for real, since it was also a presidential election of course – and the less said about that, the better, I know) were Repugs Mark Kirk in Illinois and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, hardly right-wing firebrands (Kirk went down in no small part because he made fun of the ancestry of Tammy Duckworth, a decorated veteran maimed in the Iraq war, and Ayotte’s political demise was aided by the presence of a third-party candidate and an incredibly popular Democrat and former governor in Maggie Hassan, who won).
Oh, and remember the fleeting moments when – what do you know? – the Dems, according to some statistical models, actually had a chance, however slim, of retaking the House depending on the margin of a projected Clinton presidential win? And we know what happened there also, particularly in PA-08, where the voters, in their utterly dunderheaded stupidity IMHO, refused to vote for a great progressive, Dem Steve Santarsiero, and instead chose to fill “Mikey The Beloved” Fitzpatrick’s vacant seat with his brother, who has no experience holding elected office (as opposed to Steve, who served for four years on the Lower Makefield Board of Supervisors and four years as a PA House Rep).
Yeah, it sure was ugly. The whole damn thing was drowned in dark money payoffs, voting machine malfunctions and other forms of suppression, a tidal wave of fake and orchestrated news against Hillary Clinton (to say nothing of negative ads, some of which were true and many of which were bogus), the supposed revelations from James Comey about alleged Clinton Email illegality based on Huma Abedin’s server that her then-husband Anthony Weiner used for porn (to say nothing of the supposed Clinton Foundation “scandals”), and dutiful stenography on the part of our utterly bought-and-paid-for political/media/industrial complex, the net effect of which was to thoroughly regurgitate all Republican-friendly talking points with hardly any push-back in response. And oh yeah, this was aided by the actual, documented, mind-numbing incompetence of the Hillary Clinton campaign. And all of this led to the voters making the most horribly uninformed electoral choices possible, including electing (again, notwithstanding voter suppression and actual fraud for real) Donald J. Trump as president.
Well, I’m going to have a good, stiff drink on New Year’s Eve, take some down time at some point, and then try to figure out how we’re going to attack this mess all over again. But before I do, I want to thank everyone who has spent any time whatsoever at this site over the last year and extend my wishes for all good things in 2017 (and never forget the words to this song - for the belated 70th birthday of Patti Smith).
(By the way, keep this image in mind as the Repugs do their best to privatize Social Security and Medicare and try to utterly destroy the Affordable Care Law - from here.)
While other Dems cower and lick their wounds, leave it to Sen. Elizabeth Warren to put down the right marker to the p*ssy grabber-in-chief here…
…and with that in mind, kudos to former Rockette Autumn Withers for speaking out against performing at the inauguration for President-Elect Big Orange Cheetoh here (as far as I’m concerned, Steve Kornacki is nothing but a corporate media hack)…
…and Kyle K. does another great job here IMHO, this time pointing out the idiocy of “Bibi” and his little temper tantrum over the U.S. abstention over the recent UN vote against Israel and those damn settlements (NSFW)…
…and today marks the 80th anniversary of the sit-down strike in Flint, MI in an effort to get recognition for the United Auto Workers union (here – the strike was successful, in no small part due to the sympathies of Michigan Gov. Frank Murphy; good luck trying to get that kind of support now from the individual who, as far as I’m concerned, had more to do with the poisoning of Flint’s water than anyone else – here…a cautionary lesson for us all on pretty much what it takes to win concessions for rank-and-file workers)...
…and there have been so many celebrity and/or musical passings this year that I know I’ve missed a few, and here is one, and that would be guitarist Rick Parfitt of Status Quo (this was a YUUGE hit back in the hippy, trippy ‘60s)…
…and call him Ziggy Stardust, The Think White Duke, or whatever, but I think the death of David Bowie this year was the biggest musical loss of them all.
Thom Hartmann tells us that Baby Newton Leroy is running his mouth against Obama again - typical...and by the way, here is more on the "Caucus Room Conspiracy"...
…and yes, Repug U.S. House Rep Mr.-Puppy-Dog-Eyes-With-The-Shiv really is that big of a dick, people…
…and I give you another installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” (more or less) from The Young Turks at 12/23/13 (that’s when I put up the video, which is actually closer to four years old as it turns out) – yeah, I know it’s another video about the importance of saving our climate (more here from that time also), as important as that is, but I think it’s important to revisit this story in light of this typically stupid development here from the pretender about to take the reins of power (ugh – yeah, try telling me how committed somebody like Rex Tillerson actually is to saving our planet - here), as well as this – no more “oh, other countries that are polluting as much as we are won’t do anything, so why should we?” excuses…
...and sticking with the climate, with the cold weather this time of year, I have a feeling you may hear this a time or two...
…and happy 80th birthday to boomer icon Mary Tyler Moore – with what’s been going on with celebrities from that era lately, we’d better cherish the ones we have left (the “It’s A Long Way To Tipperary” clip was the literal end of the series, for anyone who somehow doesn’t know that)…
…and speaking of milestones, we can’t let this year wind down without remembering Glenn Frey one more time – wish I could put up the awesome video, but this great tune on its own will do for now I’m sure.
Update 1 12/29/16: You know, I get really steamed when Bill Maher lectures lefties about political correctness, but then I read about something like this and I see that he’s getting more ammunition from our collective side.
How could anyone think that Steve Martin – Steve Martin, of all people! – could say something in response to the death of Carrie Fisher that would be anything but an endearing and heartfelt tribute??!!
Oh, for shame! He actually complimented her looks, as if that’s somehow sexist or something. Fetch the fainting couch!
Ridiculous (and why do I have a feeling that, were she still with us, Fisher would be laughing her ass off in response?)…
Update 2 12/29/16: Hat tip to Joe Conason on Twitter for this...
…and normally I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to those zany Brit royals at this site, but I think Prince Charles is pretty spot-on here; I get it that people vote for their pocketbook as it were and are too busy living their lives to take the “long view” from time to time, but I think that’s exactly what we need to do here…
...and I give you Kyle Kulinski on corporate media stenographer Dana Bash and her notions of "bipartisanship" (very NSFW but right, what Kyle says I mean)…
…and in a year of what I guess you could call a more normal or typical amount of musicians who have left us, I think this would be a more notable milestone, but with all of the others who have gone in 2016, this might have been obscured somewhat, but I don’t think it should be – cutting to the chase, you can consider this to be a tribute to Paul Kantner.
Yeah, I think President-Elect Fergus Laing needs a little psychoanalysis at a minimum, and probably a straight jacket too while we’re at it…
...and dude, there’s nothing “satirical” about genocide, regardless of who you’re talking about – listen, I love free speech as much as anybody as long as no one is being physically hurt, but this comes fairly close to the “shouting fire in a crowded movie theater” test for my money…
…and yet again, it’s all about jobs! Jobs! Jobs! for Not Your Father’s Republican Party (NSFW)…
…and with the time left before the end of the year, I’d like to pay tribute to artists who left us in 2016, which was a particularly horrendous year on that front as well as others of course – I thought I’d kick things off with an homage to “the purple one.”
I know we have to try and finish off the post-mortems of the Hillary Clinton campaign, but I thought this was a particularly good one from Cenk Uygur…NSFW; basically, the Bernie Sanders people were trying to help her and were rebuffed…unbelievable; probably the most damning commentary I’ve heard yet on what happened, and I can’t imagine how it’s untrue in any way – yeah, the Comey stuff and the Putin leaks were awful (as well as the Kris Kobach garbage and all the other stuff that went on since the Voting Rights Act has basically been gutted), but the campaign was digging its own metaphorical grave leading up to that…again, I don’t personally blame Hillary Clinton, but her advisers did a horrible job – as Cenk explains, they COMPLETELY missed the boat on what this election was all about…
…and Seth Meyers brings us the following on Trump and climate change (I know he’s trying to make some serious points with humor, but I think it’s getting harder for him to do that given what we’ll be facing after 1/20/17, and I don’t blame Meyers one bit for it - here)…
...and Chris Hayes talks with Dem Secretary of State Jason Kander of Missouri about the nominees from President-Elect Fergus Laing, including climate change denier Scott Pruitt (noted in the Seth Meyers clip also) to head the EPA (Two things: 1) Kander is absolutely right at the end over the betrayal of soon-to-be #45…the Repugs of course are partying now, but that will come to an abrupt end, and sooner than they imagine and possibly for good, and 2) Kander ran what was easily the BEST POLITICAL AD of the abysmal 2016 election season, which I’ll put up again soon – it turned what was looking to be a snoozer of a U.S. Senate race against Roy Blunt into something hotly competitive, and Dems everywhere should use that as a template for any political campaign from now on)…
…and with this, I bring down the curtain, as it were, for the seasonal tunes - hope everyone's holidays are enjoyable.
I think K.O. is starting to unveil the con that the Repugs in Congress plan to pull on us while we try not to become distracted from the latest idiocy of Generalissimo Trump…
…and yeah, I think “The Resident” here on Putin TV makes a good point about the school district administrators getting a little weak in the metaphorical knees about cancelling a Christmas play in my beloved commonwealth (here - the fact that it’s near Lancaster is beside the point as far as I’m concerned), but let’s not forget this aspect of the story too…
…turning to the seasonal stuff, this is the latest date that I can ever remember for the beginning of the “festival of lights”…
…and I’m sure these other three selections need no introduction.
I personally have been screaming about our corporate media for a little while, and it looks like I’m not alone in my negative opinion based on this Young Turks video (I think Cenk is a little too kind to the Teahadists here, since they’re corporately funded too, but I believe his fundamental points are correct)…
…and time once again for another installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 12/23/08; what follows is a trailer for the documentary “The Warning” from that time about, basically, Dubya’s administration (which, thank God, was about to end), though we should probably revisit this given what is coming as of 1/20/17, unfortunately…
...and here is some more seasonal stuff to try and take our minds off all of this mess.
(By the way, the San Antonio Spurs and their great coach Gregg Popovich are my new favorite pro basketball team for that quote - hat tip to The Sports Whisperer on Twitter.)
…and In case you were wondering if anything has actually changed for the better on guns after the Sandy Hook massacre that took place about four years ago...well, here is the answer (NSFW – sigh)…
…oh, and the next time you hear about “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey and others demonizing about “sanctuary cities,” I would ask that you consider this.
You want to know what defines a so-called “sanctuary city” (a political term and not a legal one, by the way)? If Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to detain an individual suspected of some kind of wrongdoing, well gosh, they just have to go to court and show cause in order to get an arrest warrant (what a novel, quaint notion in the era of Generalissimo Trump – observing and honoring the rule of law). That applies if you live in a “sanctuary city.” If you don’t, then ICE can have you detained indefinitely without an arrest warrant (gee, didn’t we have a problem with doing that leading to the whole mess over trying to close Guantanamo and all those people indefinitely detained without charges filed against them, with trying to close it and failing perhaps the biggest monument, if you will, to Repug congressional obstruction?).
And by the way, not that it matters now of course, but Hillary Clinton had it exactly right on this issue. And when I saw how squishy Katie McGinty was, I basically knew she would lose (and by the way, as far as I'm concerned, the newscaster in this clip is categorically wrong on this issue)…
…and Sam Seder tells us that Repug U.S. House Rep Bill Huizenga (Stupid-MI) is basically guilty of child endangerment at a minimum as far as I’m concerned, all for the sake of promoting Huizenga’s “free market” bona fides at the expense of his son’s health (stupid to be sure and probably worse, but at least he wasn’t dumb enough to do this before the election – wish he had, though…the garbage coming from Huizenga on this is definitely one source of “fake news,” by the way)…
...and here are some seasonal favorites - yeah, nothing like getting together with family this time of year, is there?...
...and I like Seth MacFarlane's cover, but to me, there's nothing like the original...
...and I don't hear this tune nearly enough for my liking this time of year, so here it is again (slightly NSFW)...
...and I'll bet you knew this was coming, right?...
…but I’ll bet you didn’t know THIS was coming too – consider this to be my tribute to a true broadcasting legend, and that would be Dave Conant of public radio station WRTI of Temple University, who signed off today after an illustrious career spanning over 40 years in radio (here)…his forte was classical music, so here is a seasonal tune in his honor (the dancing isn't bad either).
I thought it was appropriate to revisit this clip in light of this development – oh my, do Mikey the Beloved and “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey have their shorts all in a knot (as usual, conservatives can’t get through their day without a fix of phony outrage - and as far as Philadelphia’s wingnut newspaper of record is concerned, Heaven forbid that you include Adegbile’s picture at the top of the story as opposed to that of the cop killer)…
…and what a great report from Allana Harkin on “Full Frontal” about the usual corporate media suspects trying to pit vets against refugees – why does ANYBODY still take those idiots seriously, the pundits I mean?...
Yeah, I’d say that George Lucas fellow called this, amirite?...
…and Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich warns us yet again about how President-Elect Fergus Laing has been playing (and will continue to play) the media like the proverbial harp from hell, as it were (and here is more on the Sinclair stuff Reich is referring to - they have a typically f'ed-up definition of "straight" also, which I'm sure you realize by now...let's see how well-received the "victory rallies" are for this self-absorbed, narcissistic, chauvinistic idiot after he's sworn in and actually has to function like, y'know, an actual head of state)…
...and these are some carefully measured words in response to Generalissimo Trump from K.O., which make them more powerful as far as I'm concerned; a bit of a disquieting note about Al Gore, though - sure, he could have run a better campaign (as I said, this year's contest mirrored the 2000 one in uncomfortable ways), but he still did well enough to damn near win the whole thing (which, discounting the Miami-Dade chicanery, he actually did as far as I'm concerned)...
…and you know what? I want to take a bit of a break from the political stuff with this clip, since the news is mostly bad anyway and what follows is something more in line with the season as far as I’m concerned…
.@RachaelRayShow tomorrow: Margaux Murphy talks about providing home cooked meals to homeless in Philly every week w/ Sunday Love Project pic.twitter.com/m76kaLEuVg
Rev. Al Sharpton talks to Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights on the voter suppression in the 2016 election (looks like his corporate overlords at The Comcast Network were breathing down his neck to cut this short – God forbid the American sheeple realize just how much the proverbial game is fixed)…
…and Thom Hartmann tells us about the – how shall I put it? – jaded history of the Electoral College (and when it comes to standing up to Generalissimo Trump, I give you this great column from Eugene Robinson)…
...and I REALLY feel like I need the Christmas selections today.
“The reality show version of King Lear” – perfect quote from Charlie Pierce to describe the (God help us) incoming administration of President-Elect Big Orange Cheetoh (and sorry, but I don't think one bit of this is funny)…
…and heckava job, all you voters for President-Elect Fergus Laing; the whole world was watching, but now they’re laughing at us (here)…
...and now for some seasonal stuff (from the ridiculous to the sublime)…
