As you may know your radio host has faced some personal tsuris of late & the emotional turmoil has taken a toll. Thanks for being patient. He’ll be OK, but the mood swings continue to be so wild they might was well be a Cure album of Monkees covers. Now there’s an idea. Anybody got Bob’s phone number?

So, what’s happening in the stratospherically untethered-from-reality GOP? Well, for one thing the twice impeached withered apricot know-nothing national security risk global embarrassment is releasing a song in collaboration with “individuals incarcerated for their alleged involvement in the Jan. 6th” insurrection (if they are incarcerated, & were caught on video, I think it’s safe to drop the “alleged,” for fuck’s sake, Forbes!!) because…of course he is.

Meanwhile Christian conservative groups are trying to further erode the right to choose by forcing the FDA to rescind federal approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The legal organization behind this dangerous lunacy was a key player in the case which undermined Roe & is Orwellingly named The Alliance For Freedom. This impossibly dishonest group claims that the drug was not vetted thoroughly enough & may harm patients. They have provided no evidence for this claim, but of course they haven’t — mifepristone has been in use for over 20 years & proven to be safer than fucking Tylenol. One would think that such madness would stand no chance of even being heard. Alas, the case is being brought before a Trump-appointed forced-birth crusader judge so it is possible said drug will, at least temporarily, be made unavailable. Mifepristone has become the method of choice for abortion seekers, these days accounting for 53% of all abortion procedures in the U.S. This is a big deal.

Hold onto your hats - however awful & frightening it is watching a tiny minority of zealots transform the U.S. into Gilead, this points to an even more terrifying bigger picture. GOP leaders know that banning abortion is deeply unpopular — only 22% of Republicans want abortion to be illegal in all circumstances — yet even after the uproar caused by the Supreme Court undoing 50 years of precident by overturning Roe Vs. Wade, they are right back at it. Why? Because they don’t care what the people, not even their own people, want. Why aren’t they afraid of losing elections? There is minimal concern because they believe they have locked in power as they continue to chip away at the pillars of representative democracy — between gerrymandering, the hundreds of state-level voter suppression laws they’ve passed & continue to pass since 2020, & the knowledge that their voters will vote for them regardless thanks to 40 years of Evangelical & right wing echo chamber disinformation & outright lies have their base convinced that Democrats hate America & butcher babies for funsies. I mean, who has time to worry about forced-birth, blatant authoritarianism, or attacks on the social safety net when Democrats are Satan-worshipping cannibals? Srsly.

TL;DR: Right now many unprincipled Americans have jumped on the fascism bandwagon for power & financial gain. Others to “own the libs.” Others because fuck what they learned on Sesame Street where puppets of diferent shapes & sizes & colors & ethnicities worked together to make a more perfect union, they just really really really like being allowed to use hateful racial ethnic & sexuality slurs & denigrate non-white non-Christians & the LGBTQ+ community with impunity. Still others because they are, in fact, strong father-craving fascists. We are approaching a tipping point where that minority of Americans, with the help of activist ideologue federal judges who ignore precedent & public opinion, will have the power to effectively intimidate others into going along with their anti-democratic agenda. And that my friends, is what I mean by the “even more terrifying bigger picture.”

Today’s marathon live-hosted 480 Minutes program runs from 9am-5pm Eastern U.S. time will debut new music byToday’s marathon live-hosted 480 Minutes program runs from 9am-5pm Eastern U.S. time will debut new music by Avey Tare (Animal Collective, @AaaveyTttare), Heartbeeps (Bordeaux, France), Pile (Boston, MA, @PileMusic), The Room (Liverpool, England, @DaveJackson9483), Sprints (Dublin, Ireland, @SprintsMusic), & Sun Room (San Diego, CA, @SunRoomBand).

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480 Minutes / 2023 Episode 8/Overall Episode 821