The musings of a lightweight bonehead

JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 25, 2026 at 5:03 PM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

What has the GOP ever done right?

 Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

One of the most colossal blunders in Presidential history

Every day in this Georgia case in the behaviors of the powerful indicted figures, we're seeing the dangers of the two systems of justice in our country that Gerald Ford & others helped to promote. Thank goodness for D.A. Fani Willis.

— David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) August 22, 2023

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

 

UNPRECEDENTED criminality by Trump

As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://t.co/34ivpckXp7

— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) August 2, 2023

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

 

There is no doubt that Trump tried to violently overthrow the U.S. government

There has never in my lifetime been a Congressional hearing more damning to a President. Never.

This makes Watergate’s darkest moments look like a bridge club meeting.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 28, 2022

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

 

Nixon was no prince, but he pales in comparison to Trump

 

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

At least Nixon wasn't a traitor

 

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Words of warning from a man who's been there

This is beyond being a demagogue to the stuff of dictators. He is defying the rule of law. Failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior. If thinking Americans don’t understand what Trump is doing and what the criminal justice system must do we are all in big trouble! https://t.co/Z13uAprMkZ

— John W. Dean (@JohnWDean) January 30, 2022

Republican = Racist

Peace,

emaycee

 

ALL the President's men

AG Garland said the lessons of Watergate teach us that there must NOT be different rules for the powerful & the powerless. Given the bottom-up nature of criminal investigations, the relatively powerless - Trump’s foot soldiers - are being held accountable. Next up? The powerful.

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) January 5, 2022

Republican = Racist

Peace,

emaycee

 

Follow the money

Raskin to CNN: "You don’t knock over the US Capitol and wound 140 officers and storm the capitol and lay state of siege to the congress without any money being behind it.... Lots of money was raised and we do intend to get to the bottom of the financial dimension of this attack." pic.twitter.com/ssD8wPQw5h

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 23, 2021

The Republican Party Is Now a Fascist Cult Just Like Nazi Germany

Peace,

emaycee

 

The last time I saw Richard

 

401,000+ Dead Americans Because of Donald Trump's Incompetence

Certified Tally--Biden:  306 EV's, Trump:  232

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLI--Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama

When I think about music today, I often wonder if there are any songs like this week's featured tune:  one in which the first three guitar notes can be played and an entire generation of people recognizes the song.  There very well may be (I'm admittedly hopelessly out of the loop on newer music), but I've yet to hear it.

Lynyryd Skynyrd (pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd--get it?) formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964.  Skynyrd paid their dues for eight years, performing throughout Florida and later the rest of the south before being "discovered" by Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat, and Tears fame in 1972.  They released their debut album in 1973, which sold a million copies, and the band worked as the opening act for The Who on their Quadrophenia tour further increasing their profile.  The band had another hit and a couple of albums that were disappointments before releasing what would be their last album in their original form--which ended up being one of their bigger hits, unfortunately much of the success due to tragedy: a plane crash in 1977 killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines.  Several other members of the band and its crew suffered severe injuries in the accident, as well.  The band called it quits for ten years before reuniting with Ronnie's brother, Johnny, on lead vocals.  They're currently completing their final tour (albeit with one, count 'em one original member left--sadly most of the rest of those not killed in the plane crash have passed as well), and are supposedly releasing their last album sometime this year.  For their career, Skynyrd has released fourteen studio albums, 24 compilation albums (we have a new Friday Night Jukebox record!), and 12 live albums (also an FNJ record).  The band has sold 28 million records here in the U.S., been elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and regularly shows on on all-time lists both as a band and for their various works.

Fun Fact:  Lynyrd Skynyrd was named for a high school gym teacher (Leonard Skinner) several band members were students of who was something of a hard ass when it came to young men with long hair.  Over time, Mr. Skinner embraced the band, and they him, even introducing the band at one of their concerts in Florida.

Fun Fact #2:  When you check out the comments for "Sweet Home Alabama" on its YouTube viewer, 99% of the comments are incest jokes.  I mean, I get it, but 99%?  Sheesh, give it a rest.

"Sweet Home Alabama" was the first single from their second album, Second Helping, released in 1974.  The song would reach #8 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album hit #12 the Billboard 200.  The song also was ranked #398 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time.

Welp...this week's ain't easy.  There seems to be all kinds of debate on whether or not the song is a celebration of racist former Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, or a condemnation.  Songwriter Ronnie Van Zant claimed he was not a fan of Wallace, but music writer Ed King said he thought it was a tribute to Wallace.  The song was originally written as an answer to Neil Young's "Southern Man" which condemned the south's racism--and ended up being a tribute to one of the nation's most racist states.  And to top it off, none of the song's writers were even from Alabama.  In the end, it's an imperfect song about one's home, enlivened with three guitars worth of strumming, some jaunty piano, and Van Zant's stellar vocals.  While I'm not a fan of all the song's themes, I'm also not a fan of all the themes in Nabokov's Lolita--but it doesn't mean either isn't a remarkable piece of art.  Which is a fancy way of saying, yup, I can shake my fanny to it and that's enough for me.

Lyric Sheet:  "Now Muscle Shoals has got the swampers/And they've been known to pick a song or two/Lord they get me off so much/They pick me up when I'm feeling blue..."

Enjoy:

 

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Whither journalistic curiosity?

The NSA spying revelations really aren't my forte (not that anything else I write about is, but you know...) but I found it quite interesting that Mike Rogers (R-MI)--my very own Congressman--Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) all were on Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos this past weekend pushing the idea that Edward Snowden must have had help with the NSA leaks (most notably, from Russia) without producing a single shred of evidence to prove it so (in fairness to Feinstein, she at least admitted as much).

Both David Gregory and Stephanopoulos questioned the allegations--which to me seem of a bombshell type nature--but both seemed quite content to let the matter drop without pushing much harder than a dried leaf does against the wind.

What...the...fuck?  Really?  Three members of Congress make wild ass claims about foreign governments helping to leak our very own NSA information on national TV news shows and not one of these journalists jumps up and down like a fucking monkey screaming "Proof!  Proof! Proof!"

Thank God these fuckers weren't around during Watergate--Nixon probably would have been able to circumvent the Constitution and win a third term as President.

Peace,
emaycee

Tarnished forever

In the 1970s, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein worked journalistic magic and exposed the corrupt Nixon administration which eventually (and rightfully) brought his Presidency to an abrupt and fitting end in August of 1974.  Their work justified--not that it was needed--the inclusion of the right to a free press in our Bill of Rights, and may very well be the greatest journalistic episode in the history of America.  It resulted in a book, All the President's Men, which is the book that began my fascination with American politics that lasts to this day.

In fairness, it would be virtually impossible for Woodward and Bernstein to ever top their first big story.  Bernstein may have realized this when he walked away, but Woodward kept pushing forward.  It eventually resulted in his first big failure, Bush at War, which was basically literary fellatio of Bush the Lesser, conerning the wars he presided over in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are remarkable only for their abject failure (a fact that never seemed to dawn on Woodward).

This week Woodward topped himself, going on Fox News and whining about how he had been "threatened" by Gene Sperling of the Obama administation in an e-mail concerning the current republican created fiscal crisis in Washington.  Woodward proceeded to release a copy of  the e-mail in question to the press, which was a colossal failure on par with Custer thinking he was going to kick the Native Americans' asses all the way back to their tepees.  The e-mail showed nothing even close to being a "threat" and even had conservative publications backing off the Woodward story almost immediately.

Perhaps Woodward realized his days as a journalistic superstar are long gone and wanted to cash in on Fox News, who will pay anyone remotely connected to politics, regardless of their political acumen (see also Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Sarah Palin), as long as they trash President Obama and/or Democrats.  I don't really know what he hoped to accomplish, but what he did was tarnish his reputation beyond repair.

Carl Bernstein may be a rat prick bastard, but at least his journalistic integrity is still intact.

Peace,
emaycee