Friday, October 13, 2017

Professional Left Podcast #410


"The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible."
-- George Burns
I'm going to go right on directing everyone to visit our new website -- http://www.proleftpod.com -- for all of the sweet bells and whistles:  there are links to donate to our podcast work at that site, as well as a links to our swingin' Zazzle merch store,  our respective blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Kittehs! and much more. Many thanks once again to @theologop for building us such a lovely home.


Links:

The Professional Left is brought to you by our wholly imaginary "sponsors" -- 






-- and real listeners like you!




7 comments:

starskeptic said...

OMG "the earth's core is full of hippies"
THAT was the part of the film that left me thinking, 'maybe the machines aren't all bad!'

Unknown said...

I was one of the two 'men' who didn't care for your Bernie impression. It was an innocuos, genial jab, just not well done. Listen to Larry David to hone your impersonation, watch Seth Meyers for better jokes.
Here's the thing: Bernie, along with other members of the Democratic Senate Caucus are in a pitched battle to save Medicare, Social Security, public education, voting rights, gay rights, the environment, international treaties etc. Stop with the nagging already. In keeping with the PLP's stated mission of giving no quarter to those who would divide us, you should be mindful of taking sides with anyone on Hillary vs Bernie. It's a fake rivalry being promoted by a real enemy.
INPO, here's my list of the most annoying 2016 Democratic Primary Reenactors, you and Bluegal don't even come close to making it.
Joy Reid, Walker Bragman, Nicole Belle, Joan Walsh, Peter Daou, a blogger named P.M. Carpenter, H.A. Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal, plus a number of tweeters with blue check marks, so they must be important. There's Jill Stein as an unsavory carpetbagger and playing the part of Rhett Butler, Howard Dean.

Unknown said...

If only the mean old Democrats would get out of the way, we'll have all the wonderful things that Trump and the Republicans promised us: great healthcare, better jobs, defeating ISIS and North Korea. In a perfect world Republicans would pay for the awful things they do.

dinthebeast said...

Mark me down as one who loved your Bernie impression. Humor is one thing we have that they don't, and as Molly Ivins used to say, satire is one of the only tools the powerless have against the powerful.

Toxic stress will straight up kill you. I've been saying so for years. And if it doesn't kill you, it can give you a stroke like it did me, and I'm here to say that whatever it was that you were immersing yourself in toxic stress in the service of, it will not seem worth it when you wake up paralyzed on one side of your body and unable to work (or do much of anything else, including use the toilet unassisted for a month or so) for what is probably going to be the rest of your life, even after working your ass off at recovering for what will be a decade in April.
So just don't do it. Remember that your other option is death and or disability, and you will think of a way to avoid it. That's what they taught me in acute rehab, and it is another criterion, like the one caring adult for those kids, that determined whether or not you got out of rehab and stayed there, or came back for another ride after another stroke. There was one guy there for the fourth time.
That said, I didn't do it myself beforehand, and I nearly died because of it, and I still walk with a quad-cane.
I have it on good authority (from my doctor, who works in the Adult Medicine Clinic at Highland Hospital, so he has seen it himself) that a great number of people aren't as goddamn stubborn as I am, and are thus far more receptive to the idea even before catastrophe strikes.

Politically speaking, catastrophe has struck. So do we learn from our mistakes while we are also learning to navigate the new world we find ourselves inhabiting, or do we rationalize the behavior that got us here as somehow necessary to our existence and go through the whole shitshow again and again?
It sounds like a tall order, and it is a tall order, but the more easily manageable option is the one we fucked off last year. And if that sounds like relitigation to you, I have a little list to recite of my own:
Tillerson, Mnuchin, Mattis, Sessions, Zinke, Perdue, Ross, Acosta, Price, Carson, Chao, Perry, DeVos, Shulkin, Pompeo, Haley, Pruitt, McMahon, Mulvaney, Coats, Lighthizer, Hassett, Priebus, Bannon, Kushner, Bossert, Conway, Icahn, Navarro, Spicer, McMaster, and Flynn. There are more of them, but you get the idea.

Thank you again for the podcast, it really does help.

-Doug in Oakland

Unknown said...

I always find it hilarious when die hard Berners accuse others of relitigating the primaries.. lol. I also find it hilarious to listen to the same people crow about economic justice yet always seem to leave reproductive rights out of the equation.. As if one of the most important components of economic justice for women (and their families) isn't the ability to have complete control of our reproductive systems.

I don't think I'm out of line to be upset that certain leftists are suggesting that Democrats should compromise on reproductive rights. I'm incandescently angry about that. Having subsidised IUDs and access to abortion care if I ever needed it are the major things keeping me working and able to support myself and my family. But I should compromise on that? Gosh. Sorry, but that's not the progressive revolution of my dreams.

Unknown said...

"I always find it hilarious when die hard Berners accuse others of relitigating the primaries.. lol.

It's an autoimmune disease. One side wants to impose a purity test on candidates that isn't pragmatic, the other a purity test on voters.
Clinton won the election. She won the popular vote and won three or four swing states where vote suppression definitely occurred, machine hacking very likely occurred.
So the argument Clinton was a bad candidate doesn't fly, nor does blaming Sanders for her plus three million vote "loss".
FYI Bernie has a 100% pro-choice rating. You might be referring to an interview where he said Democrats could win back White male voters in the South and Mid-West by focusing on economic policies that would help them. He was suggesting a campaign strategy to win elections, not changing policy.

Robt said...

Talking about representation.

My House Representative last election. A republican.

Won the last election in his district with 48.9% of the vote while his Dem
opponent had 47.7% of the district voters.

This republican votes with his party 95% of the time.

This leaves 5% of votes with Dems. Not so fast.

When the House votes on Russia Sanctions this is counted on voting with Dems. You know, a bi partisan vote.

Odd how voting on Russia sanctions for meddling in our elections and colluding with a candidate for Russian interests. This is not voting to defend the Constitution or voting to defend the country.

This is considered Republicans being bi partisan and voting for a liberal issue?

This Rep. even with 48.9% for . And 47.7 % for his opponent. Had to take some dem moderate vote to win. So how does this representation of the district work when he votes 95% of time dor GOP anything????