The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
"Fiercely and unapologetically progressive, and definitely NSFW. 'The Professional Left' features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal as they skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media mealy-mouths with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. From mercilessly mocking partisan hacks to elevating stories the media ignores, it's the profane, unflinching political commentary you didn't know you needed. More at http://ProLeftPod.com."
The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
Ep 1020: Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Episode 1020 opens with a deep dive into the Snoopy vs. the Red Baron novelty songs — where continuity gets rewritten and enemies become "friends" who never have to answer for their body counts — before turning that fairy tale into a warning about how Republican history keeps getting whitewashed the same way.
Snoopy shoots down the Red Baron, then toasts him as a "friend" — no accountability, no memory. Sound familiar?
Bush's real damage to America's reputation got erased, replaced by the fictional Obama "Apology Tour" lie.
Now ask: who fixes what Trump broke, and how?
More at proleftpod.com.
Links for this episode:
Driftglass on The Bob Cesca Show
https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-9-2-26/
Driftglass on The Nicole Sandler Show
https://nicolesandler.com/9-2-26/
Stay in Touch!
Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com
Website: proleftpod.com
Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod
or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod
Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791
You can listen to the professional left wherever you get your podcasts on NetRots Radio or at our website, proleftpod.com, where you can also contribute to this podcast. There's a PayPal button at our website, or you can mail us a letter andor contribution at P.O. Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791.
SPEAKER_03This is the podcast for the week of September 4th, 2026. It's not safe for work.
SPEAKER_09Recorded live from the Cornfield Resistance, where today it's episode 1020, so we are contractually obligated to play this clip from Snoopy versus the Red Baron that mentions the numbers 10 and 20 in sequence.
SPEAKER_03I think I had this album.
SPEAKER_09I'm sure I did. I'm sure someone in my house did. We're so going to get demonetized for this, but I don't care, Blue Cale. I just don't care. I probably listened to that song dozens of times when I was just a wee little drift glass, and hearing it again, I was struck by how violent it actually is. Also, it's frequently misremembered as the other Snoopy versus Red Baron song called Christmas Bells from the 1967 follow-up album, Snoopy and His Friends, The Royal Guardsman. And when I say frequently misremembered, I mean by me this one time. But this being a political podcast, I have to make like I speak for the masses, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure, sure. Christmas Bells, oh, Christmas Bells. I remember that song. And while the fact that there was another Snoopy versus the Red Baron song at all may seem weird, the fact that there were three, count them three follow-up songs is just wild.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But there were. This was a novelty song. But when it went to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, well, you know, you make hay while the iron is hot, you know, that's what you gotta do.
SPEAKER_09Like you do.
SPEAKER_03Also, there is no continuity in the Snoopy Red Baron extended universe.
SPEAKER_09Not at all.
SPEAKER_03In the first song, after the Red Baron has already scored 80 kills, which is one of the few parts of this story that's actual history, things were looking pretty grim for the Allies, and then a hero emerges, a little dog with a black nose and a sopwith camel airplane. Snoopy takes to the air and blows the Red Baron out of the sky. The end.
SPEAKER_09The end. The story's over. But, but, but in the second song, it's the night before Christmas, Blue Cal. It's 40 below zero, and the events of the previous song have disappeared entirely from history. Snoopy is called upon to take on the Red Baron, who somehow was not killed when Snoopy shot him down in the last song. Or, as Annie Wilkes might put it, This isn't what happened last week.
SPEAKER_02Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us. This isn't fair. He didn't get out of the cocktail car.
SPEAKER_09Anyway, this time the Red Baron gets the better of Snoopy. And remember, this guy is the top World War I ace with 80 confirmed kills. But, quote, why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never know, unquote. Instead, the Baron forces him to land behind enemy lines, and Snoopy thinks, well, I'm fucked now. But instead, the Baron lands and wishes him a Merry Christmas. They toast, they salute, and they fly off, knowing that they will meet again. The end. What the hell?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Now you got to remember that Snoopy was always fighting the Red Baron in his mind and, you know, flying off the top of his uh doghouse. But the third song proceeds as if the second song never ever happened. These are just standalone songs. Sure, Snoopy had shot the Red Baron down, but we shift point of view to find out that he isn't dead. It turns out at the last minute, he got out of the cock of duty car. The Red Baron escaped the burning wreckage of his plane, and uh-oh, he gets another plane. Snoopy hunts him down. Eventually they land together and get out for a pistol duel. But instead of playing by the rules, the Red Baron fires early, then runs away like a little bitch. Snoopy vows to hunt him till the end of time. The end.
SPEAKER_09It's a real, you know, Ahab and the White Whale story at that point. It could go on for a century or more. But finally, we come to the last song in the cycle, which is Snoopy for President. Because why not? In the real world, in the real world, when this album dropped, it was 1968, and there was an election coming up. And wouldn't you know it, in the Snoopy Red Baron, extended universe, there's also an election coming up. And sadly, every single politician running for that office turned out to be a lying dirtbag. So Snoopy is tasked by the Great Pumpkin to run for president of the United States, believing that, quote, love has left the people across our native land. Aw, so sad. Unquote. Snoopy campaigns for the presidency, but comes up short of winning by just a single vote. I'm guessing that was happening in Florida. So, oh no. Now the whole thing, the fate of the country, is going to be thrown into the House of Representatives, which, as everyone knows, is a pit of vipers, Blue Cal.
SPEAKER_03So somehow the Great Pumpkin as kingmaker is uh is something.
SPEAKER_09The power behind the throne, if you will. The power behind the phone.
SPEAKER_03The power behind the throne is the great pumpkin. But that's not how elections work in the Snoopy Red Baron extended universe. Here, there is no Electoral College or Twelfth Amendment or any of that nonsense. Here it's a straight popular vote, and the voting stays open until whenever, because after losing by one vote, or I guess it's tied, they don't do a lot of math on this one. No. Snoopy then wins when a stranger raises their hand to cast one last vote for Snoopy, which puts him over the top, making him president of the United States. And America gets a quick withdrawal from Vietnam, a doubling down on great society programs. There is no Nixon administration, no Watergate, no Carter, a more liberal Supreme Court with more expansive voting rights decisions, stronger labor law precedents, better affirmative action decisions, and Nixon's Southern strategy dies in the cradle.
SPEAKER_09Yay! Yay! I I guess we should have mentioned at the top of the show that this is just a little bit of science fiction university, just for goofs. Anyway, can you guess who this stranger is whose single vote upon thereof hangs the fate of the nation? It is none other than Snoopy's longtime arch nemesis, the Red Baron, who now refers to Snoopy as his friend. Because in this universe, foreign war criminals who in real life were killed by Australian ground fire in 1918 at the age of 25 can in fact cast the deciding vote in the United States presidential election. The end.
SPEAKER_06Huh.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. So here's a question for the for the kids out there. Why did we take you on this little trip down novelty song memory lane, right? Well, to be honest, first and foremost, it was for fun, just a bit of fun. It's something a little different than you're going to find than any other political podcast this week. I guarantee you, no one else is covering the Snoopy Red Baron extended universe on their political podcast. We're first on that. And the long Labor Day weekend is nearly upon us, and we're kind of already there mentally.
SPEAKER_03Second, it's important to remember that folk wisdom about all politicians being lying crooks goes way, way, way, way back. And the fantasy of a not a politician, third-party candidate zooming in to save the day has also been around forever.
SPEAKER_09And Snoopy, not a politician.
SPEAKER_03He's not a politician.
SPEAKER_09And third is the contrast between the bloody, violent reality of history. That's Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron, the actual Red Baron, really did kill 80 men in World War I before he himself was shot down, and the cheerful Knights of the Air fairy tale of the second song, where Snoopy's life is not only spared, but he's toasted, saluted, called a friend, and then sent on his way to become president of the United States one day.
SPEAKER_03And this is where we leave the Snoopy Red Baron Extended Universe and discuss the here and now in the real world. Specifically, the history of the modern Republican Party prior to 2016, which is routinely fictionalized into something it definitely was not by people for whom that history is extremely inconvenient. Let's start with something everyone who is not inside the MAGA bubble can agree on. That Trump and the GOP have trashed our alliances, betrayed our friends, and routinely sides with tyrants and international pariahs. We're supposed to be friends with North Korea now and not Canada. And that our friends and allies might have been able to get past that if the first Trump administration had been a fluke. If Democrats could have kept building on the enormous progress the Biden administration had made on mending fences around the world.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, Biden was really good at that. Biden flying into a war zone to walk with a nation's leader in Ukraine is straight Biden stuff. But once this country elected Trump a second time, a second time, all that goodwill evaporated. And the world figured out that the United States, they had known for like 80 years, that's gone now. From now on, this newer, uglier, stupider United States was always going to be just one election and a few thousand votes away from electing fascist monsters. That this United States was not to be trusted. Now, while we're not in the prediction business, that'd be crazy, we're not above smuggling in some irresponsible speculation under the very loose cover of science fiction university. So let us assume that Democrats do very well in the fall and that Trump and his minions react as they've always reacted anytime anyone anywhere gets in their way, by completely freaking out, by lying constantly, by concocting ludicrous conspiracy theories, by suing everyone, and mobilizing their MAGA brown shirts to sow violence and chaos.
SPEAKER_03So two more years of escalating failure, rampant corruption, and Trump decomposing in public and gibbering incoherently for hours every day when he's not falling asleep at his desk. Two more years of Republican perverts and fascists trashing whatever is left of our national reputation and making everyone miserable. By 2028, everyone is so heartily sick of these toxic clowns that whoever the Dems end up nominating will win by an uncheatable, unriggable margin. Remember, this is science fiction university territory, and we're just hypothesizing about one possible future that doesn't look too improbable. The new administration will undoubtedly be flooded with passionate, legitimate, pent-up demands from restoring USAID to putting four more justices on the Supreme Court to trying and jailing as many members of the Trump crime family as they can lay their hands on, tear down the ballroom, replant the trees, audit the fuck out of every Trump-friendly business who had their grubby fingers in our pockets, abolish ICE in its current fascist configuration, cancel every government contract that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk has, hire back as many experts and military professionals as possible and fire the hacks and lunatics. Turn the Oval Office back into a place we can be proud of and not a New Orleans whorehouse at low tide.
SPEAKER_09Mm-hmm. All of that, all of that, and so much more will be waiting for our hypothetical future new president, Democratic president. And somewhere near the top of that list, we'll be trying to reestablish cordial relationships with all the former allies that Trump screwed over so badly. And you know what? This will not be the first time a Democratic president has had to clean up the diplomatic disasters that their Republican predecessor left behind. And if you think we're talking about Joe Biden trying to fix all that Trump 1.0 had wrecked, well, technically you'd be right. Technically, that that does in fact count. But that's not what we're talking about. Today, we're time traveling backwards once again to 20 years ago during the Bush administration.
SPEAKER_03And if that time frame sounds familiar, well, congratulations on listening to the last episode of this very same podcast, episode 1019, Where's the Beef, where we did a deep dive into the Republican Party's epic crack up over the 2006 midterms and how eerily similar their reactions then were to their reactions now. They went through all five stages of Republican political grief, which, if you are unfamiliar, are as follows. First, of course, is denial, that happy bubble where Republicans already spend 95% of their time.
SPEAKER_09And then there's anger, which they always are anyway.
SPEAKER_03Then bargaining.
SPEAKER_09Maybe it'll only be 12 or 15 seats. And then instead of depression, comes vote for me because really I've been an independent all along.
SPEAKER_03I'm an independent. And finally, stage five, finger pointing.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Recriminations. That's the last stage. So it's really quite a journey. This time around, we're going to take another look back at that period in our very recent political history that conservative media and legacy media and never Trump media have all conspired to whitewash and reimagine to something which it very definitely was not.
SPEAKER_03We're going to examine what happened when the last Republican president, George W. Bush, wrecked America's international reputation past the point of no return. And then we'll look at what happened after that.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, after that. From Los Angeles Times, May 1st, 2004, quote, abuse photos are threatening to further undermine the occupation, unquote. Those were the Abu Ghraib torture photos they were referring to.
SPEAKER_03Los Angeles Times again, May 3rd, 2004. Abuse, 2004, excuse me, abuse revelations have damaged the credibility of the U.S. occupation.
SPEAKER_09On May 5th, 2004, Colin Powell, remember him, was publicly worrying about the horrible image sent around the world.
SPEAKER_03LA Times again, May 13th, 2004. Lawmakers discuss repairing damage to U.S. credibility in the Arab world.
SPEAKER_09June 21st, 2004. This is ripping along all the same year. CNN's Christian Amanpoor says the photos sullied America's reputation.
SPEAKER_03January 14th, 2005, LA Times runs the headline: Prison abuse seen as hurting U.S. credibility.
SPEAKER_09And this is from the Pew Research Center, January 24th, 2005, quote, anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history. It is most acute in the Muslim world, but it spans the globe, from Europe to Asia, from South America to Africa. And while much of the animus is aimed directly at President Bush and his policies, especially the war in Iraq, this new global hardening of attitudes amounts to something larger than a thumbs down on the current occupant of the White House, unquote.
SPEAKER_03CBS News, July 26, 2006, went a little further. Quote, the world doesn't respect Bush. Americans generally approve of President Bush's handling of the current Mideast crisis, according to CBS News New York Times poll, but six in ten say the president is not respected by foreign leaders. Mr. Bush's overall approval rating remains low, and in an additional diplomatic concern, most Americans, 60%, now think he is not respected by foreign leaders. That number is down significantly since just before the Iraq war began in 2003, when about half of Americans thought Mr. Bush was respected around the world. Unquote. Time magazine had features asking why the world disliked America and whether Iraq had transformed global opinion.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, and The Economist, if you can believe it, the economist ran repeated editorials on the damage done by Iraq and the Bush administration's to uh to world opinion by Bush administration's foreign policy.
SPEAKER_03The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs ran long essays on the decline of American soft power and legitimacy.
SPEAKER_09And this is from Reuters, August 9th, 2007, quote, as troubles mount, Bush refuses to budge. Bush won his first term and then a second, depicting his Democratic rivals as flip-floppers, shifting with the political winds. He was supposed to be the first MBA president. Oh great, Mr. Businessman president. That just always works out great. He holds a master's degree in business administration from Harvard and would run the executive branch like a CEO. The Conservative National Review magazine wrote in a scathing critique of Bush's tenure. That's the National Review, not some liberal magazine. But critics say instead of bringing management sense to the White House, he brought a rigid, conservative agenda and surrounded himself with longtime lieutenants devoted to it. Bush's with us or against us approach helped galvanize the country in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, but his popularity fell as deteriorating conditions in Iraq turned most Americans against the war. That factored heavily into the Republicans' loss of Congress in November's elections, which we talked about in the last episode. Now, pay attention because this part's very important. Throughout his presidency, Bush has seemed loath to admit mistakes or change course, apparently seeing it as weakness. Unquote.
SPEAKER_03By the 2007-2008 presidential campaign season, a recurring storyline in mainstream media wasn't just that Iraq had gone badly. It was how can the next president restore America's standing, credibility, leadership, moral authority, and image abroad? That framing appeared repeatedly on CNN, CBS, ABC, Reuters, The LA Times, USA Today, Time, Newsweek, and The Economist. It became so widespread that Barack Obama's 2008 campaign often spoke explicitly about, quote, restoring America's standing in the world, unquote.
SPEAKER_09Yep. And how did Republicans react? By attacking him for campaigning on American mistakes. So put a pin in that because we will definitely come back to that later. January 19, 2009, Reuters has this retrospective on the failed Bush administration as it shambled out of Washington, D.C. Quote, two unfinished wars, the U.S. economy in deep recession, the budget deficit about to hit a trillion dollars, and America's image badly tarnished abroad. Not since Herbert Hoover left Franklin Roosevelt the Great Depression has a U.S. president left his successor a litany of problems seemingly as daunting as George W. Bush will bequeath to Barack Obama when he takes office on January 20th. While Bush and his loyalists insist history will take a kinder view of his legacy, historians are already debating whether he will rank among the worst presidents ever, putting him in the company of Herbert Hoover, Warren Harding, and James Buchanan. Some presidential scholars say it's too soon to render a verdict, but many have made up their minds. Can anyone really doubt that this was an abysmal presidency? said Shirley Ann Warshaw, a political scientist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. All that's left to sort out now is just how far down the list he goes. The widespread support he won in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in 2001 is long gone, weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, an inept response to Hurricane Katrina, and a meltdown on Wall Street that has spilled onto Main Street. At home, unemployment is at a 16-year high, mortgage markets are imploding, and people's savings are slipping away. Unquote. And they go into great detail about all of his failings, which are manifold and a part of the historical record, but then the article continues, quote, overseas, Bush's legacy will be defined largely by Iraq and will be left to Obama to finalize an exit strategy and repair the damage to U.S. credibility. Bush flew to Baghdad last month hoping to showcase security gains there, but instead, the enduring image will be of the president ducking shoes hurled by an angry Iraqi journalist. Unquote.
SPEAKER_03He got hit with a shoe.
SPEAKER_09No, he ducked. And he
SPEAKER_03Yes, that's right. He ducked.
SPEAKER_09Yes, he did. Because they were so fucking furious at him for wrecking their country.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And once again, a majority of the country elected a Democratic president to try to clean up the disasters that a Republican president had left behind. And mind you, there was near unanimity that the Bush administration had been the worst in modern history, that one of the casualties of those eight disastrous years had been the trashing of our international reputation, and that the new guy would need to do something about that pretty quick.
SPEAKER_09Yep.
SPEAKER_03So Obama was inaugurated on January 20th, 2009. And here was the headline of Carl Rove's April 2009 column in the Wall Street Journal, quote, The President's Apology Tour, unquote. This is generally conceded to be the headline that launched the phrase into mainstream political discourse and gave the humiliated, angry, racist Republican base something to rally around.
SPEAKER_09Yep. And between then and now, they use the conservative media hate machine to repeat that lie a million jillion times. Because remember, that thing we mentioned about Bush being loath to admit mistakes or change course because he saw that as a weakness. See, kids, they're all like that. All of them, from the top of the party to the base. The thought of apologizing for anything ever horrifies them more than the thought of having their eyes scooped out with a melon baller. They have and will go right on sacrificing the future of our country and the lives and well-being of their own children on the altar of never, ever admitting they were wrong.
SPEAKER_03They won't even admit they're wrong to God. I mean, this is the thing. I'm not perfect. I'm just forgiven.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. They can't do that.
SPEAKER_03God is a blank check. It's why liberals are not welcome in the never Trump media, by the way.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, we haul in crates full of receipts that they don't want to talk about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's why Tom Nichols blows his top as reliably as old faithful whenever anyone brings up his political party's past. The idea that they were wrong is unbearable enough, but the idea that they were wrong and the left was right, that is positively demonic, an offense against God and man, which cannot be allowed to stand, Dricklass.
SPEAKER_09This aggression against my sense of my rightness will not stand, Luca. Will not stand. This is why the base of the Republican Party will always, always follow any demagogue who promises them ouchless absolution, no cost absolution, and that they will never be held accountable for anything ever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know what? It just occurred to me that 10 years from now, they'll be talking about Trump as a visionary leader.
SPEAKER_09The right.
SPEAKER_03They're right.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_09They're this they're just lost souls.
SPEAKER_03And the only thing they can't.
SPEAKER_09The only cure for conservatism is embalming fluid.
SPEAKER_03Yep. He's being real nice here, everybody.
SPEAKER_09There's there's that's an old riff on the only cure for presidential ambition among senators is embalming fluid.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09But these people just have to die off. They're just wired this way. And they, I mean, you and I have walked this walk for 20 plus years now.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_09And every single time, it's like it wasn't my fault. I didn't know, it's your fault, it's liberals' fault, it's someone's fault. Always, always. Starting with the Clinton administration. Yeah. Followed by the failed Bush administration, and suddenly everything they accused Clinton of, Bush did, and they'd never heard of it. They're like, What are you talking about? So this is just who they are, which is why five minutes after Obama was inaugurated, the right had wiped all memory of the horrors of the Bush administration away. It's all gone. And instead, all they saw was this uppity black man who wanted to apologize to the world for America being awesome.
unknownTrevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03And it was the refrain, in addition to Obama's doing an apology tour, is Bush isn't president anymore.
SPEAKER_09That's right. You're not allowed to talk about him anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_09That's in the past. And you know, and you will notice how every time there's a catastrophe, the past is walled off immediately. We're not supposed to talk about that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_09And this lie, this this uh apology tour lie became such a ubiquitous Republican talking point that Mitt Romney actually ran on it in 2012. This is from PolitiFact, August 31st, 2012. Quote, Mitt Romney stated on October 30th, 2012, in remarks at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Barack Obama began his presidency with an apology tour. In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney repeated a charge he's made before that Obama had traveled the world apologizing for America. I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No, Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators, Romney said. We first fact-checked this claim back in 2010 when Romney published his book, Dot D-D-D, No Apology. The case for American Greatness. I think the working title was Fuck Apologizing, but you know, he's a Mormon and he can't use that kind of language. Obama's Apology Tour, Romney wrote, is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike of America is something he understands and that it is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe. President Obama's words are like kindling to them, Blue Gal. Unquote.
SPEAKER_03Then PolitiFact painstakingly went through all of Obama's speeches that Romney had cited as evidence, one at a time, about the only person they found who agreed with Romney was a foreign policy hack from the surprise, Heritage Foundation.
SPEAKER_09Heritage Foundation.
SPEAKER_03Have you heard of them? Politic fact continued. Quote, in the years since we first looked into this matter, Obama or someone in his administration has formally apologized for U.S. actions. In 2012, Obama apologized for the accidental burning of copies of the Quran, the Holy Book of Islam. Obama sent the apology in a letter to Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Officials hoped the formal apology would quell violent reactions against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. A few months later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized to Pakistan for a November 26, 2011 incident involving the death of Pakistani troops. The apology was made as part of an effort to reopen supply routes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Unquote. These two incidents were apologies for things that we damn well should have apologized for and were done to protect and support US troops serving in Afghanistan.
SPEAKER_09Why does Mitt Romney hate the military, Bluegale? Why is he hate the military? So Politict continues, quote, but a review of Obama's foreign travels and remarks during his early presidency shows no evidence to support such a blunt and disparaging claim. While Obama's speeches contained some criticism of past U.S. actions, he typically combined those passages with praise for the United States and its ideals, and he frequently mentioned how other countries had aired as well. We found not a single full-throated apology in the bunch. Calling those remarks an apology tour is a ridiculous charge. So we rate this statement pants on fire, unquote, which is PolitiFact Code for you just lying your ass off. It's just all a lie. It's all a big fucking lie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And and Obama famously said, we tortured some folks about Abu Graeb, which got a lot of liberals really mad at him.
SPEAKER_06Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03Uh you might recall that Romney lost Bigley in 2012.
SPEAKER_09He did.
SPEAKER_03We were there.
SPEAKER_09We saw the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03Uh, which further humiliated the ignorant racist base of the Republican Party, by the way, who had been told by Fox that he was going to win in a landslide. Oh, yeah. You covered that too. And further sharpened their appetite for hate-mongering propaganda. This was Fox News The Five in 2014 under the headline Obama Apologized for America.
SPEAKER_01President Obama's like a husband teasing his wife in front of his drunk single friends, a sad attempt to relate that leaves his better half humiliated. We are that better half, the one he dreads, as he truly prefers his mistress, the UN, instead. I mean, he did go to the UN for approval, not to Congress.
SPEAKER_09That's kind of like cheating. And this was Sean Hannity in 2016 talking to then presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Welcome back to Hannity joining us now with more on the Paris Climate Conference and President Obama's, well, head-turning remarks. 2016, Republican presidential candidate, Governor Mike Huckabee. It's almost like an obsession this president has with apologizing for the country.
SPEAKER_03And this was Michelle Malkin on Hannity in 2017, still flogging this lie because the truth about anything has long since ceased to matter to Republicans.
SPEAKER_04So far, I want to get your general impressions in terms of President Trump's first foreign trip. How do you think it's going?
SPEAKER_05I think it's been highly successful, and I think that's why you see all of these liliputians in the elite liberal medium whining and moaning. What is it that they want out of the leader of the three world, our commander-in-chief, the president of the United States? Well, we obviously know what they prefer. They prefer the world apology tour that Obama conducted for over eight years.
SPEAKER_09So here's a problem for the class to solve on behalf of our hypothetical future Democratic president. How should he or she go about mending international fences knowing that the Republican sabotage of our reputation under Trump is far worse than Bush's ever was? And that the same Republican mob who eagerly lined up to destroy Obama by any means necessary are in fact now crazier and more violent than ever before. What's the strategy here? What do we do about that in this hypothetical future? I have some thoughts, but what about you, Blue Gal? You want to go first or you want me to?
SPEAKER_03Um I want you to go first.
SPEAKER_09I think the problem that any hypothetical future Democratic president's going to face is the fact that this machine, once Republicans lose, is all they have. So they're going to come after whoever wins full bore, absolutely full bore. I believe J.D. Vance today, yesterday, the day before, was talking about how evil Abdul El-Sayed is. Not bad, not disappointing. We've called him evil.
SPEAKER_03That's the line now.
SPEAKER_09So these people have no shame and no conscience and no no limits. So unlike Barack Obama, the next Democratic president is going to have to kick him in the balls every single fucking day. Going to have to use the bully pulpit to say these lying scumbags broke this country. And I'm not just talking about the senators who sucked up to this asshole, or the congressmen who vouchsafed for him, or the Supreme Court that gave him a permission to slip to do whatever the fuck he wants. We're going to fix all that. I'm talking about the goddamn voters out there who can't tell a tyrant from a saint to save their fucking lives, who are so brainwashed by Fox and by hate radio, they cannot make mature adult decisions. So we're going to spend a lot of time in the first few months of my administration talking about the fact that Fox News and conservative media have poisoned this country and that we need to undo the damage by undoing Fox News and hate radio. We might have to set up re-education camps somewhere, but I'm not willing to go that far just yet.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and you know, there's going to be so much rebuilding to do. Right. And there's going to be, as you said, there you talked about there's going to be a flood of of will of people wanting to restore things.
SPEAKER_09Yes.
SPEAKER_03But there's also going to be a flood of very talented people into that administration, whatever it is and whoever it is, I hope so. Wanting to help. Yep. So I'm grateful for that. And I I wonder if the president is the right person to take on Fox the way you are suggesting. Well, um, I don't want Rahm Emanuel for vice president, but I want a Rahm Emanuel for vice president. Someone who is our uh, you know, son of a bitch. So, well, Spiro Wagne was was like that, just calling them out. He was always calling out liberal the liberal media. But we have to have a fighter who goes before the microphones every day and gets attention on social media for what he says. And I like your idea of throwing in a few curse words. It's way past time for that. And and talk about uh the stupid voters who did this and and that they are brainwashed and that Fox News is a brainwashing operation.
SPEAKER_09I I think um the first time a vice president does that, the next question for president, whoever's gonna be, do you agree that the voters are stupid and Fox News is terrible? I think it has to come from the White House. It has to come from behind the I think that that was a great idea that you had if it were 1994. But Donald Trump changed the game. He turned the the president, the the the Oval Office into a rage, hate, conspiracy spewing nightmare 24-7. And that's what people now expect a president to be all the time, all the time, everywhere. And I think that that we need an energetic gentleman who can do it, or lady, who can do it with a smile on their face, but has to, they have to throw elbows day one.
SPEAKER_03They have to throw elbows every day.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. This is not, we're not going to repeat the same mistake that my my dear friend Barack Obama made by treating these people like they're they're partners in peace, like they're honest brokers. They're not. The entire Republican Party are a bunch of villainous scum with whom we can no longer coexist. We have to we have to sequester that entire party away from decent human beings so we can get the work done of cleaning up the mess they just made. And every day I'm gonna be on television or on radio or on Twitter or on Twitch or whatever, reminding the American people, just like Franklin Roosevelt on the radio, right, that your life is fucked up because of your Republican neighbors. They did this to you. They took away your rural hospitals, they jacked up your medical prices, they jacked up oil prices, they allowed us in. It was not some group of, oh, everybody did it, it's both sides. No, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. And every time a reporter asks one of those baited questions, come back at them with um, shut up, piggy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Where were you when that was happening? Where was all this bravery when uh when Donald Trump is rolling you people, rolling over you people like a steamroller? You you only have you only seem brave when there's a Democrat in the White House. Well, this Democrat is going to call you out by name, and then we're gonna call the media company you work for and ask them why the fuck they they put this pussy in my White House.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09Anyway, maybe not quite like that.
SPEAKER_03And you're seeing your editor's name and the owner of your and it and the stock ticker of your news organization.
SPEAKER_09Oh, and and there's there'll be no Fox News, conservative media anywhere in the White House.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_09They're gone. They're gone from every every possible, every briefing room, every press room. They're gone. And they are treated as part of the story now. The reason your neighbor is screwed up, Jimmy, thank you for asking that question, is because the because Jesse Waters poisoned them.
SPEAKER_03Brainwashed your dad.
SPEAKER_09Because Sean Hannity poisoned them. And they know they're doing it, and they don't care because they don't care about this country.
SPEAKER_03And it's time for it's time for the Democratic Party to get behind a uh class action lawsuit of children who've had to stop talking to their parents because they were brainwashed by these people.
SPEAKER_09But I think day one, you have to you come out swinging and you don't stop. Yeah, that is a lesson that Donald Trump taught people.
SPEAKER_03That is a lesson Donald Trump taught you.
SPEAKER_09You've got to come out swinging day one and don't back down for a fucking minute. And we have a bunch of people in our party who are pretty good at that. I hope that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_03And I think use the power of the unitary executive as much as you can to do some good and do some big things quickly.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and one of those We'll talk more about that, I'm sure, as time goes on.
SPEAKER_09One of the things I I discovered when I was in government for 10 years, a little more than that, is that the people I worked with, and generally speaking, are really good at doing their projects and getting stuff done and doing great work. They suck at bragging about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09And there has to be a a czar, you know, we'll call them a czar, who's in charge of talking about how awesome we are and how awesome things are and how we're fixing this. You know, this is day three of us fixing the uh the giant hole in the ground where the ballroom used to be. This is day 27 of cleaning the reflecting pool up. Um, this is day 30 of taking down the arch. Now, remember everyone, for only $10 uh contributed to, I don't know, a good cause.
SPEAKER_03You can National Parks.
SPEAKER_09You yeah, to national parks, you can buy you can buy one minute with a sledgehammer to work over the arch. And we're gonna raise money for the national parks by getting rid of a national disgrace.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. There you go. There you go. Now, a reminder, we want to remind everybody, uh, there will be no show on Tuesday, September 8th. We need a holiday. Yeah, uh, we're gonna have no show September 8th, that's Tuesday, but we'll be back on Thursday, September 10th. And thanks again to Bob Seska and Nicole Sandler for hosting Drift Glass this week. Make sure you catch those shows. For putting up, we will have links in our show notes to that. Uh the news roundup today is short and sweet. In national news, Maria Bartoroma was fired today. She was you're fired, I uh as Ten Grain says.
SPEAKER_09When you when you pass that along to me, I thought, well, okay, that's that's you have to do that. We have to talk about that.
SPEAKER_03We have to talk about that. Yes. Uh the update on the whys and wherefores is from Oliver Darcy at Status. Fox News offered, quote, this is Oliver Darcy, quote, Fox News offered no explanation for Maria Bartorromo's abrupt firing, but Status has learned what happened behind the scenes and why it put the longtime host at odds with her own network. Status has learned that Bartorromo's termination stems from an incident which has not previously been reported that occurred in July. After Trump delivered his unhinged primetime speech, in which he pushed more conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, this time making a number of allegations against China. I am told that Fox News issued guidance to senior employees instructing them to steer clear of giving credence to Trump's delusional claims. I'm told that the guidance was issued in writing.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, once you've been sued for nearly a billion dollars, that that's you're gonna cover your ass.
SPEAKER_03Right, and and lost almost a you know three-quarters of a billion dollars over it. So now you're going to have in writing, we will not lie on the air about the election. The specific thing, right? Right. Indeed, the day after Trump's primetime address, Fox News conspicuously avoided covering the debunked claims the president had pushed. The lack of coverage raised eyebrows among media observers at the time, including us, including crooks and liars, including media matters, etc. It also appears to have caught the attention of the White House. It's unclear whether Trump or someone at the White House inquired with Barta Romo about the lack of coverage. Unclear. They have her on speed dial. Trump has her own speed dial. Uh, but ultimately, this is going back to Darcy. Uh, ultimately, Barta Romo spilled the secret. Status has learned, divulging to the White House that Trump's speech had received scant coverage on the channel because network bosses had ordered it so. I'm even told the text message in which Fox News Brass offered their guidance was shared by Bartorromo with the White House. In doing so, Bartoromo not only effectively betrayed her employer, but also disclosed confidential company information violating the terms of her employment agreement. Unquote. And don't forget that the reason Fox News settled for over $700 million.
SPEAKER_09Billion. Oh, sorry, million, yes. Million dollars.
SPEAKER_03$700 million over that was to avoid their employees being under oath. That's right. About the lies that they were told to say.
SPEAKER_09Right. Discovery will kill them.
SPEAKER_03Would would destroy their network.
SPEAKER_09So is she gonna just go straight over to the press secretary job in the White House? Or is she gonna take a look at the city?
SPEAKER_03A lot of people on Blue Sky said that that was her next stop.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. Uh you know how you know how the right's gonna react to this is the liberal Fox Network. You know, they're there to do Trump.
SPEAKER_03She took away Donald Trump's one friend over at that liberal network.
SPEAKER_09They're there to do Trump's bidding. And if they don't get that, maybe we should have words with them or words to that effect. Now, in local news, in local news, this is from WAND TV in Springfield, quote, the Illinois State Treasurer's Office generated $1.45 billion in investment earnings from the state's portfolio during fiscal year 2026. State Treasurer Michael Freericks announced Freericks, who serves as the state's chief investment and banking officer, emphasized that these interest earnings directly benefit taxpayers. Every dollar we earn in interest for the people of Illinois is a dollar that lawmakers don't have to raise in taxes or cut in services, he said in a statement, citing ongoing economic pressure from inflation. And high housing costs, unquote.
SPEAKER_03This is a far cry from Donald Trump buying up companies for the federal government, by the way.
SPEAKER_09Yep. This is this is a wise and fairly conservative investment portfolio on behalf of the citizens of Illinois to make some money to relieve the financial pressure on them for the services that they they want and deserve.
SPEAKER_03And the portfolio is public. I mean, it's not and not traded every day. Exactly. And not announced and then traded and then short-selled and then and then and then. This is bonds and clean energy and and and transportation and so forth. And this and this thing, it's there's nothing on that investment portfolio that would surprise or shock anyone listening to this podcast.
SPEAKER_09And I think last week, earlier this week, we had another we had another ratings increase. Moody's Jack Inc.
SPEAKER_03We had another credit ratings increase in Illinois. That's 12 timing.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. 11 or 12. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09So come on, Darren Bailey, make hay out of that.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh. No, this is this is a well-managed state, Illinois is. And uh by by an honest governor who's got too much money. I mean, I don't think there should be any billionaires anymore, but yeah, uh, you know, he has uh managed the state. And as I I said to you before, Driftglass, you know, here's someone who has experience cleaning up a Republican mess.
SPEAKER_09He does, absolutely does.
SPEAKER_03Uh, and doing it successfully.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. All he needs, all he needed was a supermajority in both houses.
SPEAKER_03That's what he needs is a supermajority in both houses of Congress. And and and and, you know, the courts have not stopped him either.
SPEAKER_09So well, and speaking of day one behavior, he has not shied away from just throwing all kinds of haymakers at the Trump administration.
SPEAKER_03He throws all those at Republicans all the time. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. All right. In international news, hat tip to our listener Andy, Andy in England. This is from Channel 4 UK. Because I have to take a punch at uh Nigel Farage. Uh and and all of England, frankly, is doing that today. Exclusive Nigel Farage filmed undercover celebrating secret new foreign donations. Undercover footage verified by Channel 4 News reveals a secret plot by senior Reform UK figures to break the law on party donations. A leading legal expert is now calling for criminal investigation. They have campaign finance laws with T.
SPEAKER_09Yes, they do.
SPEAKER_03And uh Nigel Farage has absolutely flaunted his, you know.
SPEAKER_09Corruption.
SPEAKER_03His corruption in in public, waived his undies in public. And uh we really they should have elected Count Ben Face to class.
SPEAKER_09A, no corruption, B, get a house out of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, he was he promised, Count Ben Face promised to build one affordable house.
SPEAKER_09Because that was one more than Nigel Farage ever did had ever done or will ever do.
SPEAKER_03And reform UK is such a misnomer.
SPEAKER_09He's deformed garbage.
SPEAKER_03I'll tell you. And you know, ever since Brexit. Don't get me started. All right.
SPEAKER_09Thanks. By the way, thanks, Andy. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Andy. We'll have you on the Andy. Uh all right. This is time to have an Internet Kitty drift glass each week. We post to our Patreon page and website and internet kitty sent in by you, the listeners. This week's internet kitty is Gary.
SPEAKER_06Gary.
SPEAKER_03Gary is a black cat in the same cat family as our own Olive and Barack Hussein, the Kenyan usurper. He's all black. And in this photo, Gary is helping with a construction project in the basement. He reviewed the project and immediately realized they needed a supervisor. A supervisor whose one job is to say, uh, that'll be extra.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, that's gonna cost you.
SPEAKER_03Basements are always gonna cost you. They're always gonna be extra. And Gary is paid for basements, not archaeology. And he's definitely not paid for shop vax full of hope, if you know what I mean. And of course, Gary only eats freshly poured cat food, our fake sponsor, whether you serve Pet Store Perfection or Dollar Store Dreck, your cat will sit in the basement, whip out his calculator, sigh heavily, and at long last, ask in his kind but gruff voice, could we get some freshly poured down here?
SPEAKER_07Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. That's the flavor they adore. Once my scoop and hearts as soar. Oh my lord, it's freshly poured. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you can visit Gary. You know, it's gonna cost you extra.
SPEAKER_09It's gotta be extra. Sorry.
SPEAKER_03At our Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash prolef pod or our website, prolefpod.com. Such an attractive cat. And you can send your internet kitty, dog, or other pet to us at our email address, prolefpodcast at gmail.com, where you can also write to both of us. Feel free to write to us. We love hearing from you. Be aware that if you write to us at any of our addresses, we reserve the right to read your email or U.S. Postal Service, Go Postal Unions, letter on the air, unless you say otherwise.
SPEAKER_09And don't forget our gourmet coffee guidelines. If you can afford an espresso-based beverage for yourself, buy one for us, even though it's 109 degrees here and we'd prefer it iced at this moment. But you can find that coffee thing over at patreon.com forward slash proleftpod. This isn't cherry. This is in fact our job, and we do it every week, and we do it with your help and support. You can also help us grow by sharing this show on social media. If you love this podcast, hook it up with a friend. We're sure they're going to get along great.
SPEAKER_03And everything, there are lots of different ways to donate to the podcast over at proleftpod.com. Our address is there if you've forgotten it, our PayPal link, a link to buy me a coffee, and a link to Patreon. It's all over there. Proleftpod.com. Hey Driftglass, how are the Internet Kitties doing this week?
SPEAKER_09Well, Blue Gal, the Internet Kitties want to wish everyone a happy and peaceful Labor Day weekend. Go postal unions and go every other union except the Soviet Union, which was shit.
SPEAKER_08Let's thank a bottle. Let's thank a bottle of it.