Damn Daylight Savings Time. Don’t get me wrong. I like the fact that it stays light out later; I just hate losing an hour of valuable sleep time this time every year. We should really pick a time and stick with it. Unbelievably, Arizona does something right!
Anyway, barring my tired status this morning, it was a busy show.
I filled listeners in on our Saturday evening in the emergency room. Alison had a softball injury that turned out to be a sprained index finger. I erred on the side of caution, and will likely get some interesting programming out of it once the bill arrives and I see what the hospital charged for the visit and what her insurance company will pay. I will certainly keep you posted.
On Thursday evening, I got an email that said that AFT President Randi Weingarten and 19 others were arrested in Philadelphia protesting planned school closures. A bit of research showed that Philadelphia is planning to shutter 23 public schools rather than fix them. This video tells a bit more about what’s happening there:
I’ve seen nothing in the national, corporate media about this story, so I invited Will Bunch – senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the guy behind the Attytood blog – to come on the show to talk about it. We need to talk more about this, or it’ll soon be happening in your city too.
In the second hour of the show, as we do every Monday morning, Nicole Belle and I talked about what happened yesterday on those Sunday talk shows, in a segment we call “Fools on the Hill”. This week, Nicole started with a list of important stories and issues they virtually ignored:
There are many, many issues this country is facing that merit a serious discussion on the Sunday shows. For example:
- Rand Paul’s filibuster of the Brennan nomination could have led to a much needed discussion on the use of drones and the oversight executed thereof.
- We could talk about the revelation that banks illegally foreclosed on military members who were fully paid up on their mortgages and how the deregulation of the banking industry made it impossible for people to know who actually owned the note on their mortgage.
- We could talk about Newt Gingrich’s personal sugar daddy likely broke federal laws against bribing foreign officials and how all that money he spent on GOP politics was likely an investment against an indictment.
- We could talk about how conservatives think it’s an appropriate response to post racist , violent comments to a rape survivor when she dares to suggest that rather than telling women to arm themselves to prevent rape, we should tell men not to rape.
- We could even have a discussion about how racism is still so prevalent in our “post-racial” society.
But no, that wouldn’t happen on the Sunday shows, because those are issues that Americans are actually grappling with. Instead, guess who all five of the major Sunday news shows booked?
Jeb Bush.
Because, dagnabit, the Beltway media really, really wants to talk about the 2016 race right now and not all those actual issues. And who better to let have a chance to revise history than the brother of the worst president of all time?
And it’s seriously such a blatant attempt at whitewashing. Jebbie told Chris Wallace that he doesn’t think there’s any ‘Bush baggage’ to his potential 2016 run. That’s a whole lot of delusion to have to wade through.
Amazingly, that’s not the only delusional thinking on Fox News Sunday. Paul Ryan admitted to Chris Wallace that the Republican budget assumes the repeal of Obamacare. To which Wallace replied, “Well, that’s not going to happen”
Delusion is sadly rampant in the Republican Party. On This Week, Paul Krugman scoffed at Sen. Ron Johnson argument that we need to cut Social Security and Medicare to save it, calling them non-facts.
Nancy Pelosi told Candy Crowley that in the negotiations towards this Grand Bargain, the idea of raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits wouldn’t actually strengthen the program, but might be the scalp the Republicans need to be able to do a deal.
And finally, Happy Women History Month. In honor of this and in direct conflict with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book urging women to be more ambitious and fill leadership roles, that expert on woment, George Will, tells them to forget it, “No one can have it all.”