Friday Stuff

Kind of reminds me of the Monty Python skit about The Silly Party splintering off into the Very Silly Party here (are the Repugs sure they have enough people responding to the SOTU next week? :-)...



…and when it comes to Net Neutrality, I feel like we’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic – not saying we shouldn’t protest, but the other side has more money for lawyers than we do; kind of a long-winded setup for this, I admit…



…and this might be the best news of the week…



…and this makes me think of warmer, better weather – hope it does for you too.

Thursday Stuff

The Rev. Dr. William Barber tells us how we need a "3rd Reconstruction" in this country here (amen)...



…and remember, it’s JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! as far as the Repugs are concerned (here...yes, all life is sacred, but platitudes from the pulpit are one thing - here is a dose of reality)…



…and I have only this to add in response to this – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Even funnier than the awful captions...



…though I have to admit that I was sorry to hear about this; kind of made me recall this great cover from their “Young and Rich” tour, back when you could use a phrase like that and everyone would recognize the irony (takes a few seconds to get going).

Wednesday Stuff

There goes that damn “big gumint” socialist Obama trying to make sure that voting is reasonable in this country (removing tongue from cheek, and for the record, I have a slightly different opinion of Ben Ginsberg...more here)…



…and while we’re still preoccupied with the antics of a current Republican governor, let’s not forget this story about the intrigues of a recent one…



…and while I admire Selena and Julia Martinez tremendously for trying to persuade our august corporate media to tell the truth about the Affordable Care Law, I think it’s utterly damn pathetic that the “Tiffany Network” couldn’t even give them a point of contact to find out the status of their efforts, making them basically drop their box of petitions to somebody at a warehouse…



…and here’s some Wednesday funk to listen to as the snow melts (so where's the cash bar?).

Tuesday Stuff

Kudos to Rachel Maddow for continuing to ask the question about the now-legendary GW Bridge lane closures that Governor Bully steadfastly refuses to answer (and I guess it’s time to order another round of daiquiris for Mark Halperin, Howard Kurtz & co. happily riding the tire swing, as Atrios and Charles Pierce might say)…



…oh, and did you hear the one about former Bushie Ed Gillespie running for the Senate in Virginia? Yes, I’m serious (and here is a reminder of a typical Gillespie moment during the wretched reign of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History – more here)…



…and the legal atrocity K.O. discusses here took place four years ago today (and as you listen to these still amazingly prescient words, think about how much of what Keith said has actually come to pass thus far, and what “Medusas” may yet rise up as a result - meant to include this earlier)…



…and I’ve used up a few “snow” songs already, but here’s another one (wonder if he’s still a fan of you-know-who…awwwwww).

Monday Stuff

I have to admit that I’ve been “behind the curve” a bit on this issue too, so I’m going to ignore the latest stupidity from the former half-term governor of Alaska, as well as the rants of a Seattle Seahawks football player, and concentrate on this instead…



…as well as this – Bill Maher asked on “Real Time” why West Virginia politicians don’t stand up and say let’s consider trying to develop some new business that isn’t going to poison us or potentially kill us like coal, and of course he was hooted down by “liberal” James Carville (I saw the show until Mary Matalin was introduced – I refused to pay attention to a certifiable liar)…



…and speaking of Maher, I thought he had some appropriate commentary upon his return here (and yes, NSFW)…



…and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 85 today (a prior related post is here…I’ll leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide how alive “The Dream” still truly is any more).

Friday Stuff

(I also posted here.)

This goes out to Tom “Chicken Little” Corbett for cancelling his Central High appearance today because of “protests” (here) – comes with the job, you clueless meat sack…



…and yeah, the latest Governor Bully stuff is important of course (and I LOVE the “Goodfellas” touches)…



…and Sen. Bernie Sanders is fairly noncommittal here on the issue of President Obama and the NSA speech today in a call to Thom Hartmann (but good for Dem U.S. House Rep Rush Holt of NJ here)…



...and it looks like the PA Repugs will have to try again on their voter ID scheme based on this (kudos to Judge McGinley), and you just know that they will (meanwhile, I’m sure Mike Turzai haz a sad)…



…and it would have been nice if another Congressional Repug besides James Sensenbrenner had helped to craft this attempt to restore the Voting Rights Act, but all the same, kudos to him and the other 5 Dems for their efforts…



…and I thought I’d give “mellow” the night off again, just in time for the weekend.

Thursday Stuff

And the “Governor Bully” parodies keep on coming – hat tip to one of my senior correspondents for this (a little rough…like to see a little better production values, but great all the same)…



…and to take Jon Stewart’s analogy a step further here, does this then mean that Obama is Samuel L. Jackson? I wish (yeah, the Iran thing may be a waste of time in the end, but leave it to spineless-on-this-issue Dems like “Sideshow Bob” Casey to help ensure that outcome)…



…as somebody says, though, “let’s be clear” about who’s doing what under that dome, OK?...



…and I don’t care what this guy’s cell phone looks like – if he’s talking on it, hang up and drive or stay the hell off the turnpike (sorry, but I’m a bit touchy on that).

Wednesday Stuff

I have no words for Samantha Bee of “The Daily Show” for this (surreal, hilarious – uh huh, I guess those are good for starters)…

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...and now a word from our sponsor, who would be me (a bit of a civics lesson - and by the way, has anyone besides me noticed how horrendous the potholes suddenly are in our beloved commonwealth?)...



…and I also give you Rachel Maddow and the latest on Christie and a certain bridge here (gosh, someone practicing actual journalism on this, as opposed to Philadelphia's "newspaper of record" with a headline about Christie trying to take another road, or something, which to me is a bad joke)…

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…and due to Governor Bully and his people, the “runaway American dream” slowed to a standstill, as The Boss and Fallon sing about below (heh).

Tuesday Stuff

The only chance we have to stopping this garbage, people, is voting the “Party of Lincoln” back to permanenent minority status, as well as holding the feet of fainted-hearted Dems to the proverbial fire (Ed Schultz reminds us of the importance of this issue here, with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky)



…and don’t look now, but Net Neutrality is in trouble based on this (with the laughable spin on this provided by Fix Noise humanoid Megyn Kelly)…



…and it looks like the fun is continuing for Governor Bully (heh)…



...and I thought this was a good story involving Neil Young - kind of brings to mind for me one of his songs about a vehicle, so here it is.

Monday Stuff

I think this is something to ponder the next time we decide to sit down and eat a T-bone steak (more here)…



…and turning to the water side of the equation, I thought this was a good report from Alex Wagner and Ana Marie Cox on the contaminated water in West Virginia (and this is a typically insidious move – anyone who thinks AFP is actually trying to help as opposed to targeting potential new members must also believe in the Easter Bunny…maybe trying to deflect attention from this?)…



…and I for one am going to miss Dem U.S. House Rep George Miller exactly for moments like this; this is how ALL Dems should act, though Miller is definitely entitled to a break too…



…and happy 60th birthday to Trevor Rabin of Yes.

Friday Stuff

I give you the latest Repug Party flim-flam on jobs here, and while you read about it, keep in mind the following from “the Big Dog” at the DNC during the summer of 2012…



…and this is the Rachel Maddow report I was referring to last night – she refers to Judge John Wallace as John Harris, but I think you know what she’s saying…



…and in the Rewrite, Lawrence O’Donnell tells us that most reporters, on the national level anyway, aren’t prosecutors, or at least they apparently don’t have much of an appetite to discover the truth, and in response, I ask, why not…



…and turning from our top story, Jon Stewart reminds us once more of corporate wingnut “priorities” here…



…and happy 70th birthday to Frank Sinatra Jr., a good sport for lending his voice to this “Family Guy” clip…



…and happy belated 70th birthday to Jimmy Page.

Thursday Stuff

Rachel Maddow makes a great point here about the whole Governor-Bully-and-the-GW-Bridge thing, though it’s probably unintentionally funny for me to include this hosanna to local newspaper reporting given what I say so often about the Bucks County Courier Times…not to bash the beat reporters, who are pretty good on balance, just the hilariously wingnutty Op-Ed page – oh, and by the way, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Christie fluffer Matt Katz of the Inky since this broke.

(And by the way, she had a really interesting new theory tonight on “Bridge-Gate” – sorry, too easy…I’ll try to get the video for tomorrow)…



…and ZOMG! Some actual advocacy journalism from Ashleigh Banfield here, the person responsible for another courageous moment, let’s not forget (and yes, it’s true Christie hasn’t been directly linked to a damn thing, but none of this passes the smell test, mainly because it’s part of a pattern noted here, and here also)…



…and here’s more from Chris Hayes (I’m treating this just like the wingnuts would if it were one of us, by the way…all about him, all about him, as always...something tells me Governor Bully had better "lawyer up")…



…and happy birthday to Dave Matthews (can’t imagine why I’ve been thinking of this song all day :-).

Wednesday Stuff

Rachel Maddow brings us a timely report to coincide with the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s War on Poverty (yes, mixed benefits overall, but it’s easy to brush the successes under the proverbial rug, particularly since we decided to give tax cuts to the rich over the last 30 years or so and turn our backs on the middle class – kudos to Timothy Noah for this, though…I’ll have to find out whether or not Marco Rubio took another big glass of FAIL in his speech today)…



…and I wonder if Governor Bully has a bridge he wants to sell to us (here...but oh, he's outraged - uh huh)…



…and given that this is the third anniversary of the Tucson gun massacre that took the life of nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, Federal Judge John Roll and four others, to say nothing of horribly wounding now-former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and other bystanders (more here), I thought it was appropriate to rerun this clip so wingnut Alan Gottlieb can be ridiculed once more…



…and there’s no message or correlation to anything with this video – just a great recent tune, so here it is.

Tuesday Stuff

I give you Trey Radel, the latest do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do Republican (here)…



..and turning from a Repug who should go to one who will, I don’t know where Nia-Malika Henderson is getting this alleged “Dems only have a 1 percent chance of winning the U.S. House” bit from – yes, the odds are long, but they’re not hopeless. As far as I’m concerned, though, she’s largely a conservative apologist anyway, though she’s spot-on in her last comment about Boehner and the Teahadists (mainly, though, I wanted to hear what Sam Stein had to say).

As I said last night, I was definitely not a fan of Gerlach, but he knew how to win his district. I don’t know if he got sick of the Teahadists or not, but it would be truly naïve to expect this bunch not to try to field somebody to run for Gerlach’s seat (and the stuff about Lonegan running for Runyan’s spot in the House is truly comedy gold)…



…and speaking of comedy, I give you Jon Stewart (here)…



...and let's try to think warm, people, OK? (seriously, I didn't say anything about Annette Funicello when she passed last year, but far from taking a "woe is me" attitude for her MS affliction, she helped others too).

Monday Stuff

Watch this clip and then try explaining to me how there is anything even remotely close to a Fix Noise or right wing equivalent of Rachel Maddow, telling us of the latest propaganda masquerading as actual legislation (and yep, that prison promo bit at the end is beyond old by now...here)…



Update 1/7/14: And I meant to get to this last night in response to this loon from Not Your Father's Republican Party...



…and I have to admit that I was a bit caught off guard by this; yes, Gerlach continually polled at barely above 50 percent when election time came around, but as much as I hate to admit it, I can’t recall him ever being beaten by a Dem – hopefully some Teahadist zealot will win the Repug nomination for his seat…



…and RIP Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers.

More Friday Stuff

On the subject of weather…funny, but you never hear the global warming denialists when it’s 98 degrees in the shade, which Chris Hayes touches on a bit here…



…and I’m wondering if this will be the new theme song for the state of Colorado – I personally like this video because it contains absolutely none of the white stuff whatsoever, among other reasons :-)

Friday Stuff

Many of us here in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, PA are currently mourning the loss of Greg Caiola, someone who served in township government for a few years as a Democrat and who tirelessly gave of himself on behalf of our community.

I guess it’s possible to compile a list of projects and initiatives that Greg was involved in on behalf of LMT folk, but I can assure you that it would be a lengthy one and there probably would be an accidental omission or two. Speaking only for myself, I first met Greg when he came to Le Manse Doomsy with Ron Smith a few years back when they both ran for LMT supervisors (they won). Afterwards, I ran into Greg a couple of times while working a phone bank or I was involved with some type of “get out the vote” effort (not blowing my own horn by any means – many others work harder at that than I do, and I’ll try to “step it up”).

I should probably give you a bit of background on what has happened in our township over, say, the last 15 years or so. We used to have a completely-Republican-dominated board of supervisors run by a guy named Wes Hackman, who, as nearly as I could tell, was pretty much a rubber stamp for any development project that came his way. One such project was the Octagon Center by Matrix Development Corporation, a proposed big-box retail complex that would have decimated our community (I can already hear the “Lower Makefield snobs” snickering…at least WE didn’t just roll over for the latest Home Depot, Regal Cinema, Target scheme, all of which we have right down the street anyway). The movement that sprang up in response, I believe, ushered in an all-too-brief period of “good government” in our township, some of which is noted here in a post where Greg provided the details, a period that helped elect Greg, Ron Smith, and Steve Santarsiero to the LMT Board of Supervisors also.

(And by the way, I hasten to add that this “movement” also included some Republicans who worked tirelessly against the Matrix project. I’m not going to go all squishy and tell you that I have common cause, so to speak, with these people, but only a fool would argue that they don’t cherish this community also.)

And speaking of which, Steve (among others) has pointed out that Greg definitely reached “across the aisle” to the other side when he was a supervisor and working in other capacities for the township. You have to do that to get things done around here (and again, there are actually some Republicans you can work with, though that number is shrinking).

Greg’s passing, though, is much more than a loss to our civic life, of course. It is no doubt a crushing blow to his family and friends, who have our deepest sympathies at this time.

And I don’t know if this clip of Jeff Daniels as newsman Will McAvoy is the best tribute to Greg, even though it should be required viewing as far as I’m concerned, but I thought of Greg when Will summed up at the very end (the spirit of how we could be better as a people, I mean - clip is NSFW)…



…and I kept trying to think of a song for this sad occasion, and this is all that came to mind – can’t think of one that’s better.

Wednesday Stuff

Brand new year, same old income inequality (here)...



...and yesterday and today are the only times I can play this song, so here it is (George was a lovable goofball - can't believe this tune is 40 years old).

Tuesday Stuff

I couldn’t let the year come to a close without acknowledging this story – here is more on the legendary genius of Alan Turing, and while I’m sure he had no desire to also be a ground-breaking figure on the issue of LGBT rights, that is what happened…



…and ZOMG! You mean our glorious private sector actually GETS STUFF WRONG??!! Color me shocked (yes, I’m removing my tongue from my cheek). But look – OBAMACARE WEB SITE OBAMACARE WEB SITE OBAMACARE WEB SITE FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM SHUTUP SHUTUP SHUTUP!!!…



…and I suspect that, if your server tonight at Applebee’s or Macaroni Grill, for example, could tell you their story, it would go something like this (here)…



…and here’s a story of technology perhaps taken a bit too far…



…and I’m sure this question will be answered by a few people in a little while…



…and I firmly believe every word of this song – best wishes to one and all for a happy 2014.

Monday Stuff

Gosh, I didn’t know that Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich was a get down, jammin’ kind of guy, as noted here (though, when it comes to tunes by Queen and the Repugs, the lyrics of “Death on Two Legs” are a better fit – good message as always, though)…



…and yeah, what about that Kenyan Muslim Socialist pre-zee-dint of ours and his supposedly worst fifth year in the history of the universe…



…and Texas U.S. House nut job (redundant?) Steve Stockman wants to clean guns with the tears of liberals, or something (here)? The only thing funnier than that is the thought of this looney tune running for the U.S. Senate. And the only thing funnier than that is what will happen to the fabled Repug “brand” if he actually wins…



…and here’s a little number for our “worst to first” Philadelphia Eagles – nice job.