"480 Minutes" - Inspecting The Bunker
No, that's not slang for something naughty (at least not yet), it's the so-called *president's bullshit (and uncontested by Fox "News!") excuse for fleeing to the underground bunker beneath the White House when in reality he was there hiding from the protesters across the street.
Last week the bully who has no idea what his wife's "Be Best" slogan means (and in his defense, no one else does, either) threatened to send the U.S. military into U.S. cities (wait...what?!) to pacify the protests sparked by the on camera cold blooded murder of a Minnesota man under the knee of a veteran "peace officer." President Pandemic spent the weekend rage tweeting and re-tweeting incendiary messages and the protests not only grew, they spread. The Stable Genius, sounding decidedly unstable, warned, "I will deploy thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel" and wished aloud that there was an "occupying force" in U.S. cities to "dominate" protesters, telling governors, "you have to get much tougher...or you'll look like a bunch of jerks."
Think about that for a minute. The guy whose job it is to unify a democracy and protect the rights of his citizens was instead pushing governors to make law enforcement more brutal in an effort to stifle free speech and put down protests over...police brutality. It's not quite suggesting that California should rake it's forests to prevent forest fires, repeatedly suggesting to national security officials that we should nuke hurricanes, or of course the whole Clorox/very powerful light inside the body thing, but it was still powerful dumb and completely tone deaf.
One thing he said on that call with governors that has not gotten much attention (because it was all so very terribly wrong) is the impossibly self-unaware admonishment, "You have every one of these guys on tape, why aren’t you prosecuting them?" The Commander in Chief showed himself to be far more concerned with prosecuting people who looted Target than with the cops who slowly and "on tape" murdered an unarmed, handcuffed, subdued alleged passer of a fake $20 bill.
Trump is a career grifter who pardons criminals from a crooked politician to a murderous a Navy Seal to a virulently racist sheriff who bragged of running a concentration camp (his words!) at the Mexican border. This know-nothing once took out a full-page ad in the New York Times insisting on the death penalty for five kids of color arrested for raping and murdering a white jogger in Central Park who they did not rape or murder. The kids were wrongly convicted in part due the pressure on the District Attorney to blame someone for the horrific crime. All spent most of their teens and at least some of their 20s locked up. They were later exonerated and given a $41M award as compensation for their stolen childhoods and state broken lives, but the hero of the KKK to this decade has insisted that they were probably guilty of something. Yes they were, Donald -- they were guilty of being non-white and in the wrong gigantic park at the wrong time, you gigantic asshole.
Meanwhile The Orange Menace, paying no mind to the Kent State massacre, went ahead and dispatched troops to cities, even where they weren't wanted, along with unaccountable unidentified mercenaries, ratcheting up the potential for violence and actual violence...and not a peep from The National Rifle Association. The NRA, which claims it is "dedicated to the future of freedom" and never lets a crisis pass without at least trying to score political points, has been strangely silent. Not a peep from the organization whose solution to everything, including mass shootings, is: "More guns! Less restrictions on the sale and ownership of guns! A national registry for guns = tyranny!" Their 2A über alles members insist on a right to own and carry weapons of war into Applebee's claiming they are necessary to protect us all from the tyranny of the federal government. Now that there are curfews and occupations to prevent people from publicly expressing their grief and anger, their *president is shouting bizarre and dangerous ravings far more likely to be heard from the lips of a frightened fascist than a freedom-loving American, yet those very fine folks are suddenly silent and nowhere to be found (save for a few agitators who have shown up at the protests armed to the teeth hoping to incite violence if not commit it themselves). After some took to the streets a few weeks ago to protest the very stay at home orders recommended by dear leader's administration and stormed state houses open carrying their guns while intimidated representatives were in deliberations, it's probably safe to say their lack of visible and audible presence is not because they are at home knitting protective masks.
Maybe they are following the lead of their rotting apricot hero (who hates them) and are inspecting their bunkers, too.
On a more positive note, Bandcamp is again being way cool today waiving their revenue share for all sales to support artists impacted by Covid-19, so hie thee over to bandcamp.com and buy thyself some music.
Today's show will be live-hosted from 9am-5pm Eastern U.S. Time and feature new music by Drab City (Drab City, UK, @drab_city), Elephant Stone (Montreal, Canada, @ElephantStoneHQ), Ex Norwegian (Miami Beach, FL, @exnorwegian), Kyle Avallone (New York, NY, @KyleAvallone), No Age (Los Angeles, CA, @NoAgeLA), Sports Team (London, England, @SportsTeam_), and Tanya Donelly (Boston, MA, @TonyaDonelly).
The marathon 8-hour show is followed by 2 hours of uninterrupted music and is then rebroadcast in its entirety beginning at 7 p.m. Friday, 5 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, and one final time at 1 a.m. on Sunday. That is followed by a rebroadcast of a Fuzzy Road radio show at 11 a.m. and then a couple of old 480 Minutes episodes from this week in past years, making for hosted shows all weekend long.
Tune in and chat with fellow listeners on Slack. Hanging out and yakking it up with real humans in a virtual conference room is (usually, and especially these isolating times) better than not hanging out and yakking it up with other humans.
Keep track of BAGeL Radio's live-hosted shows and re-runs with our handy dandy program schedule, which you can import into your favorite calendar program, embedded here:
Contact the DJ during the live-hosted show hours (9am-5pm ET):
e-mail: ted(at)somafm.com
Twitter: @bagelradio
facebook.com/bagelradio/ (comments only, no FB messenger, sorry)
chat with fellow listeners: https://internet-radio-slack.herokuapp.com
Videos
480 Minutes / Year 16 - Episode 22/697 - Inspecting The Bunker
