YouTube
BAFTAs Host David Tennant Lives with "Swifties": No Taylor Swift Jokes
Taylor Swift fans won't have to worry about any jokes from BAFTAs host David Tennant - he has "Swifties" at home he would have to answer to.
Doctor Who: RTD Embraced "Timeless Child" in 2021 Audition Script
Based on the 2021 Fifteenth Doctor audition script, Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies viewed the "Timeless Child" storyline as canon.
Trump’s Chaos Agenda Donald Trump wants you to be...
Trump’s Chaos Agenda
Donald Trump wants you to be disgusted. He wants you to be cynical. And he definitely doesn’t want you to watch this video. Why? Because that’s how he wins in 2024. Let me explain.
The Republicans’ election strategy is built on chaos. The more chaos they create, the more pessimistic Americans feel about the capacities of our democracy to govern the nation. So we give up on democracy and turn to a so-called strongman.
Trump has been pushing his party to deny the 2020 election result, shut down the government, pardon insurrectionists, impeach President Biden, investigate Hunter Biden, stop funding Ukraine, and obstruct the criminal prosecutions Trump is facing. He’s stoking hatred, using fascist language by labeling his opponents “vermin” and claiming immigration is destroying the nation.
Trump wants voters to believe America is ungovernable, and that the only solution is an authoritarian like him taking over.
And he wants those who don’t support him to be so disgusted that they tune out — and not even bother to vote.
Trump’s chaos agenda is also drowning out news about how well we’re actually being governed under President Biden.
Rarely do we hear about how the economy continues to generate a record number of new jobs.
Not to mention billions of dollars being invested to fix the nation’s infrastructure and combat climate change. Medicare on the way to lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Billions in student debt canceled, in spite of rulings from the right-wing Supreme Court. Corporate monopolies attacked. Workers’ rights to organize, defended.
Trump and his allies don’t want you to know about any of this. And sadly the media plays along by focusing mostly on chaos and dysfunction, with an inclination to blame both sides in the name of “balanced coverage.”
Folks, the political struggle of our time is no longer Left versus Right, Democrats versus Republicans. It’s now democracy versus fascism.
Be warned. And help spread the word about Trump’s chaos agenda by sharing this video.
The Silent Revolution in American EconomicsI don’t think...
The Silent Revolution in American Economics
I don’t think you’re expecting what I’m about to say, because I have never seen anything like this in fifty years in politics.
For decades I’ve been sounding an alarm about how our economy has become increasingly rigged for the rich. I’ve watched it get worse under both Republicans and Democrats, but what President Biden has done in his first term gives me hope I haven’t felt in years. It’s a complete sea change.
Here are three key areas where Biden is fundamentally reshaping our economy to make it better for working people.
#1 Trade and industrial policy
Biden is breaking with decades of reliance on free-trade deals and free-market philosophies. He’s instead focusing on domestic policies designed to revive American manufacturing and fortify our own supply chains.
Take three of his signature pieces of legislation so far — the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and his infrastructure package. This flood of government investment has brought about a new wave in American manufacturing.
Unlike Trump, who just levied tariffs on Chinese imports and used it as a campaign slogan, Biden is actually investing in America’s manufacturing capacity so we don’t have to rely on China in the first place.
He’s turning the tide against deals made by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, that helped Wall Street but ended up costing American jobs and lowering American wages.
#2 Monopoly power
Biden is the first president in living memory to take on big monopolies.
Giant firms have come to dominate almost every industry. Four beef packers now control over 80 percent of the market, domestic air travel is dominated by four airlines, and most Americans have no real choice of internet providers.
In a monopolized economy, corporate profits rise, consumers pay higher prices, and workers’ wages shrink.
But under the Biden, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have become the most aggressive monopoly fighters in more than a half century. They’re going after Amazon and Google, Ticketmaster and Live Nation, JetBlue and Spirit, and a wide range of other giant corporations.
#3 Labor
Biden is also the most pro-union president I’ve ever seen.
A big reason for the surge in workers organizing and striking for higher wages is the pro-labor course Biden is charting.
The Reagan years blew in a typhoon of union busting across America. Corporations routinely sunk unions and fired workers who attempted to form them. They offshored production or moved to so-called “right-to-work” states that enacted laws making it hard to form unions.
Even though Democratic presidents promised labor law reforms that would strengthen unions, they didn’t follow through. But under Joe Biden, organized labor has received a vital lifeboat. Unionizing has been protected and encouraged. Biden is even the first sitting president to walk a picket line.
Biden’s National Labor Relations Board is stemming the tide of unfair labor practices, requiring companies to bargain with their employees, speeding the period between union petitions and elections, and making it harder to fire workers for organizing.
Americans have every reason to be outraged at how decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people have thrown our economy off-keel.
But these three waves of change — a worker-centered trade and industrial policy, strong anti-monopoly enforcement, and moves to strengthen labor unions — are navigating towards a more equitable economy.
It’s a sea change that’s long overdue.
Five Biggest Border Lies Debunked Republicans are lying about...
Five Biggest Border Lies Debunked
Republicans are lying about immigrants and the border. Here are five of their biggest doozies.
1. They claim Biden doesn’t want to secure the border
Well, that’s rubbish. Biden has consistently asked for additional funding for border security.
Republicans have just as consistently refused. They’re voting to cut Customs and Border Protection funding in spending bills and blocking passage of Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental that includes border funding.
2. They blame the drug crisis on immigration
That’s more rubbish. While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs have been flowing into the U.S. from Mexico, 90% arrives through official ports of entry, not via immigrants illegally crossing the border. In fact, research by the Cato Institute found that more than 86% of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl in 2021 were U.S. citizens.
3. They claim that undocumented immigrants are terrorists.
Baloney. For almost a half century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally.
4. They say immigrants are stealing American jobs.
Nonsense. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. And the surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Far from it: unemployment has been below 4% for roughly two years.
5. They blame crime on immigrants
More baloney. This has been debunked by numerous studies over the years. In fact, a 2020 study found that undocumented immigrants have “substantially” lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants.
Notwithstanding the recent migrant surge, America’s homicide rate has fallen nearly 13% since 2022 — the largest decrease on record. Local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime.
Who’s really behind these lies?
Since he entered politics, Donald Trump has fanned nativist fears and bigotry.
Now leaning into full neo-fascism and using the actual language of Hitler to attack immigrants.
Trump wants us to forget that almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants who fled persecution, or were brought to America under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants.
Know the truth and spread it.
Corporations Have Been Salivating Over This SCOTUS Decision The...
Corporations Have Been Salivating Over This SCOTUS Decision
The Supreme Court seems to have no problem regulating women’s bodies. But when it comes to regulating big business, they may be ready to end 40 years of established law. Let me explain.
The Court is hearing a pair of cases that could upend federal regulations designed to protect us. At risk is the Biden Administration’s entire climate agenda, the power of the government to approve and regulate drugs, and even the safety and quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.
And big corporations are salivating for a ruling that goes their way.
So what’s putting all of this at risk? It’s a challenge to something known as the “Chevron” Doctrine, a legal precedent established by the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1984 case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That case held that whenever any regulation in a law is unclear, it should be the federal agencies, not the courts, that interpret and implement it. This makes sense because unlike courts, federal agencies are staffed with scientists, researchers, and engineers — actual experts in the fields they’re regulating.
But now, a pair of Supreme Court cases challenging the doctrine could shift this power to the courts, stripping federal agencies of this key role of interpreting and implementing our nation’s laws.
If non-expert courts become the sole interpreters of the nation’s laws, a single activist judge, carefully selected by plaintiffs, could invalidate all the regulations of a federal agency charged with protecting the public.
No wonder the big banks, fossil fuel companies, and pharmaceutical giants, who hate the power of federal agencies to limit their profits, have been trying for years to end the Chevron Doctrine. And this time, they think they have the votes on the Supreme Court to do it.
If agencies are stripped of their power to regulate, the big losers will be the American public. We need real experts tackling today’s complicated problems, not judges who think they know better.
We also need to see the potential fall of the Chevron Doctrine for what it is: a power grab by corporate interests, allowing them to shop for judges who will strip agencies of their power to protect the public.
Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You? Trump...
Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You?
Trump failed to deliver on his number one campaign promise:
President Trump presided over a historic net loss of nearly 3 million American jobs, the worst jobs numbers ever recorded under an American president.
This is no fluke. America’s economy has almost always done worse under Republican presidents. A New York Times analysis found that since 1933, the U.S. economy has grown nearly twice as fast on average under Democrats.
Now Trump’s defenders claim it’s not his fault that the economy collapsed under his watch. It was the pandemic. But there are two big things wrong with this.
First, the pandemic recession was as bad as it was because of Trump. His failure to lead with any national strategy left America in chaos throughout 2020, long after other nations had developed coordinated testing, tracing, and social distancing plans that allowed them to reopen their economies.
But secondly, even before the pandemic, Trump failed to deliver on his economic promises. Job growth slowed under Trump.
America added more jobs in President Obama’s last three years than in Trump’s first three.
Even before the pandemic most middle-class American households saw their incomes go down under Trump.
Trump’s major economic policy was cutting taxes on the rich and big corporations. He promised it would result in $4,000 annual raises for workers. How did that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise?
Republicans keep claiming that if we just cut enough taxes on the rich, the wealth will “trickle down.” But it never works. Wage growth slowed after Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich and big corporations. And the Bush and Trump tax cuts didn’t trickle down either.
These giveaways to the wealthy came at the expense of investments in infrastructure, education, and health care, making life more expensive and difficult for everyone who isn’t rich.
They also exploded the debt and deficit. Reagan oversaw a 186% increase in the national debt — the biggest percentage increase in over 70 years. The Bush and Trump tax cuts, that mostly benefited corporations and the rich, are the main reasons why America’s debt is growing faster than the economy.
Republican presidents have led us into the three worst economic crises of the last century, and Democrats led us out of them.
Republicans talk about running the country like a business, but they want to run it the way Trump ran his businesses: with massive debts, a string of failures, and payouts for the folks at the top, while workers get shafted again and again. Given Republicans’ track record, why would any hard-working American put their financial security in the hands of a Republican president ever again?
*Even more starkly depressing than the WELL State of the World 2024, because there are no kindly…
*Even more starkly depressing than the WELL State of the World 2024, because there are no kindly Californians trying to cheer anybody up
Can We Still Find Common Ground? Many Americans today worry that...
Can We Still Find Common Ground?
Many Americans today worry that our nation is losing its national identity. Some claim loudly that the core of that identity requires better policing of our borders and preventing other races or religions or ethnicities from supplanting white Christian America.
But that is not what defines our national identity. It’s the ideals we share, the good we hold in common.
That common good is a set of shared commitments. To the rule of law. To democracy. To tolerance of our differences. To equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone. To upholding the truth.
We cannot have a functioning society without these shared commitments. Without a shared sense of common good, there can be no “we” to begin with.
If we’re losing our national identity, it is because we are losing our sense of the common good. That is what must be restored.
Some of you may feel such a quest to be hopeless. Well, I disagree.
Almost every day, I witness or hear of the compassion and generosity of ordinary Americans. Their actions rarely make headlines, but they constitute much of our daily life together.
The moral fiber of our society has been weakened but it has not been destroyed.
We can recover the rule of law and preserve our democratic institutions by taking a more active role in our democracy.
We can fight against all forms of bigotry. We can strengthen the bonds that connect us to one another.
We can protect the truth by using facts and logic to combat lies.
Together, we can rebuild a public morality that strengthens our democracy, makes our economy work for everyone, and revives trust in the institutions of the nation.
America is not made great by whom we exclude but by the ideals we uphold together.
We’ve never been a perfect union. Our finest moments have been when we have sought to live up to those shared ideals.
I hope you’ll join me in carrying forward the fight for the common good.
You might start by sharing this video with your friends and loved ones.