Mike G. retweeted
Abdul El-Sayed gives a BRILLIANT response to a guy asking him is he disavows the Muslim Brotherhood (he disavows them).
Why doesn't every Christian candidate get asked if they disavow the Proud Boys, or the KKK, or other Christian Nationalist terrorists?
Mike G. retweeted
CONFIRMED: "Tommy"—the heckler who tried to gotcha El-Sayed at his Michigan town hall—is not some random guy. He is Thomas Teepell, Operations Director for Republican Senator Josh Hawley until February of this year.
This explains why his "gotcha" targeted the Muslim candidate.
The Handbasket first identified him via his X and Facebook profiles (Detroit) and LegiStorm, which confirms he ran Hawley’s Senate operations until February. Crooks and Liars, Newsy Today, and Lawyers Guns & Money have since confirmed it.
Tommy’s father is Timmy Teepell, a Republican strategist who worked for Bobby Jindal (2004–2011), ran his 2015 presidential campaign, and helped Josh Hawley win as Missouri Attorney General in 2016 and U.S. Senator in 2018.
Christian nationalist ties run deep. Timmy is described as the “most powerful ally” of Sean Feucht, who preaches Christian supremacy. Video shows Feucht praying over father and son. Tommy interviewed on-stage with Feucht at his D.C. headquarters in April 2024.
On October 2, the University of Michigan student paper revealed that America Next—a PAC founded by Bobby Jindal—offered College Republicans $200 to attend El-Sayed’s Flint town hall, boo him, and ask inflammatory questions for viral moments. Nothing happened in Flint; then Tommy appeared in Caro.
El-Sayed disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood on the spot, spent four minutes dismantling the question, and Tommy walked out.
The “gotcha” was on him.
Mike G. retweeted
OMFG! This response from @AbdulElSayed to a completely bigoted question is probably the best thing I’ve heard all year.
Every bigot in America needs to listen to this three times.
Mike G. retweeted
Whoa! Barbara Bush — the daughter of former President George W. Bush — just cut a $2,500 check to a super PAC backing Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
The dollar amount is peanuts. What it signals is worth more than the millions dumped by far-right disinformation propagandist Elon Musk. It's the Bush family looking at the Trump-Republican Party and saying out loud that this turd is in its last toilet bowl swirl before being permanently flushed by the American people.
Mike G. retweeted
Donald Trump on Sen. Jon Husted: "I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn't know he was a great athlete ... I looked at his ass"
Mike G. retweeted
This is so sickening.
A protester at Trump’s Youngstown, Ohio rally was just punched in the face by a Trump supporter as Trump eggs it all on and makes fun of the guy’s weight.
This is Trump’s America.
Mike G. retweeted
Monk Meditations, Monk Movements and Black Mozart, three of the four Batiste Piano Series albums, all recently released and I’m ecstatic! This piano series is part of how I process the world through the piano 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
With Black Mozart, in the spirit of celebrating Mozart’s genius, I dreamt of this album as a collaboration between two musicians both sharing a piano bench, trading ideas across hundreds of years. I brought my life story to it and the music of my ancestors: the blues, stride, ragtime, gospel and the sounds of home in New Orleans. In all this transformation, the essence of the original composition is preserved while being infused with new meaning. The end result is something that pushes to expand the canon, and extend what we consider ‘classical’ work.
Thelonious Monk is a musical north star for me. The Monk Meditations album captures the spiritual heartbeat of his music, stretched across a whole album. You can meditate to it, pray to it, rest with it. The approach to how this album is recorded, tuned, performed and sequenced along with the musical arrangements, synth soundscapes, overtones and repetitive breath based/heart based tempos creates an atmospheric journey tailored for meditation. The tracks are woven together as one extended meditative sequence and musically constructed to induce intentional flow state, opening your mind in a focused workflow, or serving as the soundtrack to your dream state, or meditation.
This music is minimalist as a musical allegory for the stillness I believe we all must cultivate in our lives in order to hear our deepest, truest thoughts and the guidance of the Creator. There are accompanying prayer mantras in the liner notes to manifest internal and external peace. These notes are included to encourage the listener to slow down and discover the still, small voice within themselves. Jazz is a sacred tradition and this album frames jazz music as such, while also drawing deep influence from the tradition of new age and ambient music. It honors Thelonious Monk while simultaneously evoking the musical and cultural practices of Tibetan “monks”, thus creating Monk Meditations. The music is exploratory and improvisational but the improvisation is focused on building expressive, meditative textures that utilize a lot of repetition in the melody, rhythm and harmony.
On Monk Movements, I arranged his compositions Blue Monk, In Walked Bud, Ugly Beauty and Brilliant Corners into piano movements that retain their essence while infusing them with my vision for pianistic glory, with the intention of eventually sharing the sheet music of these spontaneous arrangements as works to be played by pianists of all disciplines. In addition to these movements, I created original movements of my own influenced by the architectural “movement” of Monk’s music which melodically, harmonically and structurally has a very distinctive movement. I then sequenced all the pieces to exist as a whole; an extended movement. The album was inspired a lot by the abstract expressionist art movement as well, particularly in regard to how I approached my improvisation over the forms.
Each album captures all the rawness and immediacy of performance, leaving my footsteps, exclamations and breathing in the recording to emphasize the humanistic essence of the recording. I look to continue the series for years to come exploring many threads of inspiration and sharing these time stamps with you all. Soul and science. Stillness and movement. A conversation that keeps going.
Mike G. retweeted
My 60 Minutes interview is LIVE! We talked about music, faith, family and the love that holds it all together. Go watch and tell me what moved you, in the comments. I love you even if I don’t know you! 🖤
youtu.be/UvVdMQARZVI?si=NDYP…
Mike G. retweeted
Trump disgustingly claims Ilhan Omar came from a “non-country”.
Omar is a refugee who fled Somalia to a Kenyan refugee camp before coming to the United States, fearing for her life at the age of 12. She then worked her ass off and became a US congresswoman.
Trump is a convicted felon, rapist who appears in the Epstein files 6000 times.
Mike G. retweeted
When a cardinal complained that a rise in Vatican salaries meant a particular usher earned as much as the cardinal, the pope remarked: "That usher has 10 children; I hope the cardinal doesn't." #StJohnXXIII
Mike G. retweeted
BREAKING: The Catholic Archbishop of the U.S. military enrages MAGA by announcing that Catholic soldiers must not take part in the public execution of Nidal Hasan.
Pete Hegseth is about to blow a gasket...
“In addition to supporting and subscribing to the statement by my brothers the Bishops of Texas, it is my duty to express my disapproval of what is proposed regarding the execution of the terrorist Hasan in the Archdiocese entrusted to my spiritual care to be done by those for whose salvation I have been constituted as the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA," stated Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic pastoral services for the U.S. military.
He was referring to a statement put out by the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops condemning Hegseth's plan to livestream Hasan's execution because it would "make a spectacle of death" and fail to achieve "true justice." Broglio was no doubt drawing attention to the Texas bishops' statement specifically because Hasan committed his mass shooting at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.
While we have absolutely zero sympathy for Hasan, we also adamantly oppose MAGA's efforts to turn us into an even more bloodthirsty nation where public killings are broadcast for the entertainment of the masses. We are the United States of America, not ancient Rome.
“First of all, I renew my expression of heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of those who died in the attack at Fort Hood," Broglio continued. "It was an attack that disregarded the dignity of the human person. I had the sad duty of presiding and preaching at the funeral of Michael Grant Cahill, the only civilian killed in that attack."
“Secondly, I repeat the opposition of the Catholic Church to capital punishment. The Catechism was already clear and Pope Francis made it even clearer. The dignity of the human person is again at stake."
“Thirdly, do we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries? The crime committed by Nidal Malik Hasan was heinous, but does exposing the public to his execution serve any purpose? Has the potential moral injury, which the members of the firing squad might experience, been considered? Will the exposure of a live-stream to the young and impressionable during the 250th anniversary year of our independence be able to be repaired?"
"The US military generally enjoys a good reputation in the world," he continued. "Is there really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheel chair to the whole world? Does this decision reflect the dignity of the human person?"
“I call upon all men and women of good will to ask that this decision be reconsidered and, at the very least, do what is possible to keep the exposure to the live-streaming of the proposed execution from the vision of the young and impressionable," he went on.
"As I would in the case of a procured abortion, I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church," concluded Broglio.
Regardless of one's thinking about the Catholic Church's teachings on other issues, we wholeheartedly agree with their staunch opposition to the death penalty and particularly public executions.
Hegseth and Trump want to normalize this kind of brutality — likely setting the stage for even more heinous displays of fascist violence — and at the same time they know that it's red meat for their mindless, jabbering base who will delight in watching a Muslim be killed on television. The moral weight of history is on our side. We must stand up and stop this.
Please ❤️ and share if you oppose public executions!
Mike G. retweeted
A gold statue of President Donald Trump fully naked can now be seen in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France.
"The sculpture is a satirical out-cry against Trump and the U.S. assault on the green transition and the rule-based world order," said Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt.
📸: Johannes Simon, Getty Images
