How do you sell yourself as “the infrastructure president” while allowing a vital piece of infrastructure such as the US postal service to be destroyed?! Turns out you can’t! After a year of Gaslit Nation imploring Joe Biden to remove USPS Board of Governors chairman Ron Bloom so that postal service wrecking ball Louis DeJoy could be fired– and a trollbot farm relentlessly hounding Gaslit Nation for our controversial belief that everyone should get their mail on time -- he has FINALLY announced that he plans to do so in December. Bloom, a sleazeball DeJoy Defender who works for the company that helped bail out Jared Kushner’s debt in a dirty deal under congressional investigation, will be replaced by Daniel Tangherlini, and another USPS member will be replaced by Derek Kan. We do not know much about these guys yet but we are going to vet them, so stay tuned!

We also discuss the fallout of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and how it is part of a broader streamlining of political violence. Rittenhouse has become a favorite of right-wing elites who like to cloak their own lust for power under the veneer of vigilante justice. Like the January 6 Capitol attackers lured into action with promises of protection, he is a pawn in a broader authoritarian play. This broader play includes threats to public servants and election officials and new laws that allow protesters to be run down in the road. All of this is meant to suppress protest, dissent, and voting. It is imperative that officials protect our public servants and voters and push initiatives like voting by mail, which prevents people from being put in the terrible position of making a choice between their safety and their vote.

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Welcome to month ten of post-Capitol attack America in which no elite operatives have been punished for the worst attack on the Capitol since 1812! This includes fascist felon Steve Bannon, who turned his surrender for subpoena dodging into a reality TV show starring himself. We discuss Bannon’s brazen criminality and why the lack of urgency from agencies tasked with accountability is so dangerous. In times of extreme threat, complacency is complicity. It is not a victory for democracy that a coup architect who has expressly declared his intent to destroy a government he once served – and whose state secrets he now possesses – gets a slap on the wrist. It is not a victory for democracy that Bannon still faces NO consequences for the original crime of violent insurrection: a crime that continues today. We also discuss Bannon’s ties to transnational organized crime, exemplified by his choice of mobster lawyer David Schoen to represent him.

Then we turn to Russia’s increasing aggression in Ukraine and Poland, the latter via its proxy state, Belarus, all of which is taking place while US pundits blather about the threat of “woke culture” and other nonsense. Andrea breaks down the disaster of the Nordstream 2 deal and the history of global kleptocracy underlying it, and we ponder the strange phenomenon of professional asshole Ted Cruz being on the right side of an issue. We also discuss the MIA status of NATO and what should be done to defend vulnerable European countries from Kremlin aggression, which has moved from digital warfare to on the ground operations and even into outer space! Andrea concludes the show with her best Andy Rooney imitation as she contemplates the infrastructure plan, climate change, and American materialism.

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Welcome to the Gaslit Nation election aftermath hellhole special! We break down last week’s results and the dire situation in Virginia, where Posh Trump Glenn Youngkin became the governor after a campaign exploiting bigotry and predicated on lies. We look at two big factors in Youngkin’s win: 1) how the GOP’s elite criminal impunity draws white voters to backing raw power, in the hope that this power will protect them and in fear that it will not 2) how the canard of “critical race theory” was weaponized by propagandists and the Dems did little to combat it, despite GOP operatives spelling out the strategy very clearly in March! We also note how Terry McAuliffe fell short and give credit where credit is due for the good Dem campaigns that did win in states like Georgia and New Jersey.

Then we discuss the ongoing witch hunt being conducted by John Durham with the approval of Merrick Garland’s corrupt DOJ. Much like Bill Barr, Durham is flipping the script and investigating the investigators, targeting people who contributed to the Steele dossier and reaffirmed what the FBI already knew: that Donald Trump was a mobbed-up Kremlin asset and had been for years. We have been telling you all year that Merrick Garland is a Trump crime cult enabler who stands in the way of justice and accountability, and his approval of his witch hunt and refusal to take the most rudimentary steps to protect our national security – like enforcing Steve Bannon’s subpoena – shows us to be sadly correct yet again. The reason for the Democratic “enthusiasm gap” is that Biden’s administration gives us little about which to be enthusiastic. Instead, they break promises on the most momentous and existential of crises, including voting rights, civil rights, and the protection of US sovereignty and safety.

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We know there’s a lot going on, but Sarah isn't feeling well and lost her voice. We plan to cover the major news events next week, like the elections and what they can tell us about the midterms, and Joe Manchin’s latest betrayal of the American people. This week, having recently spoken at Congress about the urgent importance of adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, and getting arrested in Washington, DC in a protest demanding voting rights legislation, Alyssa Milano stops by Gaslit Nation to discuss this and more, including her new book Sorry Not Sorry.

For more on Alyssa, here’s a condensed version of her biography from her website: Alyssa Milano currently stars in ‘Insatiable’ for Netflix as ‘Coralee,’ the social climbing wife of a disgraced lawyer/beauty pageant coach. Prior to that, she was seen in their hit series, ‘Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later,’ with Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, and Judah Friedlander. Milano also served as the host and a judge on Lifetime’s ‘Project Runway All Stars.’ She entered the world of graphic novels with ‘Hacktivist,’ a fast-paced cyber-thriller that follows the young founders of an innovative social media company who moonlight as a secret black-hat hacker team. Milano starred on the hit series ‘Charmed’ for nine years. She began her career on ABC’s ‘Who’s the Boss,’ and has appeared in over 20 films.

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This month's song is "Home" by Via Skies. If you have a song you would like to submit for the Art Matters Gaslit Nation Song Series, submit it here!

Welcome to the Gaslit Nation Halloween Special! At Gaslit Nation, it is forever Halloween AND Groundhog’s Day, so we revisit some familiar villains – Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon – and look at the incredibly shitty horror sequels they are plotting! We discuss the Facebook Papers and Zuckerberg’s desire to control the world while plunging individual nations into autocratic violence and reaping the profits, the continued lack of accountability for the January 6 seditious attack on the Capitol, the new Rolling Stone article naming Republican representatives as accomplices to the coup plot, and the deluded Democrats who think they will avoid the fallout of climate change and intergenerational mafia state corruption. We also praise the few Democratic officials getting it right, like Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, whose tweet we totally stole for the title of this episode!

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This week’s Gaslit Nation explores narrative warfare, from Russia’s Stalinist revisionism (now including an attack on Andrea’s film Mr Jones!) to the “both-sidesing” of the Holocaust in US schools, to the memory-holing of the Capitol attack. We kick things off by describing the Kremlin lackey freakout over a Russian human rights group screening of Mr Jones, Andrea’s film about a journalist who attempted to cover Stalin’s genocide-famine in Ukraine, and we warn that Russian-style censorship is a GOP aspirational goal. We then turn to fugitive felon Steve Bannon and the feckless January 6 Committee, which has discovered the information Gaslit Nation released about Bannon nine months ago – the very same information we urged them to use in the February impeachment hearings but which they ignored!

We then discuss how the publishing industry is protecting the Trump Crime Cult by continuing to churn out books from corrupt officials who witnessed terrible crimes and were rewarded for their silence and delay. We get into bulk book buys as a form of money laundering, the promise of publishing deals as a bribe that provides incentive to stay quiet, and how publishing agreements function as tacit NDAs. We note that Bob Woodward and Michael Wolff are two sides of the same coin – one hiding behind respectability, one hiding behind sensationalism, both portraying a sophisticated criminal operation as mere incompetence or idiocy. This damning evidence display was so long that we had to continue it in our Patreon bonus special, so subscribe at the Truth-Teller level or higher to hear the whole thing!

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It has been over nine months since the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and none of the key perpetrators – Trump, Bannon, Flynn, Stone, etc – have been held accountable. And now they are dodging and defying subpoenas! What the Democrats are showing is that you cannot fight hate speech with weasel words and you cannot fight accelerationism with inertia. This whole gang is running out the clock – the GOP, the transnational crime syndicate that backs them, and the Vichy Democrats enabling their impunity. Every day that passes without consequences erodes both our democracy and the sense of urgency about the threats it faces.

Gaslit Nation is blessed with 2020 vision, meaning that we told you all this shit was going to happen in 2020 and officials did nothing about it! We review the course of events that led us to this terrible juncture, including Pelosi’s efforts to block impeachment and witnesses, how the excuse of “bipartisanship” was used to stall the Jan 6 investigation, and the Dems' and DOJ’s current refusal to enforce subpoenas. We then go into corruption at the DOJ and bring you the Villain Origin Story of Merrick Garland. Did you know that Merrick Garland was mentored and brought into government by Jared and Ivanka’s lawyer Jamie Gorelick – and that Gorelick also jeopardized US national security in the 9/11 lead-up and then went on to abet big oil, big tech, racist police, and white-collar criminals? What’s even worse -- this Forrest Gump of corruption continues to advise Merrick Garland today!

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The US government may have avoided a shutdown, but Facebook did not! On Monday everyone’s least favorite data-mining, genocide-abetting tech behemoth had the longest shutdown in its history, less than a day after an explosive interview with a Facebook whistleblower aired on “60 Minutes.” Coincidence? We think not! We discuss the Facebook shutdown, the whistleblower’s revelations, and how dependency worsens the disinformation crisis. We speculate on what Zuckerberg and his dirty partners were doing in their offline interim period and discuss what should be done about this mass surveillance and propaganda system posing as a social media site.

We continue last week’s brain-melting conversation about rotating Biden Blockers Sinema and Manchin, a conversation we are tired of having about a situation we are tired of facing. So maybe the Dems could, you know, do something productive about that! We reveal why Sinema made her heel turn in 2014, discuss why the problems facing Sinema’s constituents are the real crisis, and ponder why the media obsession with “optics” does not include the optics of deportation, poverty, and suffering that Americans endure as a result of her obstructionism.

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The government may be shutting down – again! Thanks to fatuous GOP concern about the debt ceiling, the government may be shutting down by Friday and the Treasury may be out of money by October 18. This is part of a long and destructive pattern that we’ve discussed previously on this show. The last shutdown, which happened under Trump and went from Dec 2018-Jan 2019, felt like a test run for a broader destruction of infrastructure, basic goods and services, and anything else that relies on a functional government. The 2018-2019 shutdown was a sequel to the January 2018 shutdown, which was a sequel to the 2013 shutdown, which itself felt like a test of how much hardship Americans would put up with and how many resources they would do without.

What’s new now? It’s happening under a plague! We discuss the political manipulation behind the possible shutdown, the torpedoing of the Build Back Better plan and other Biden proposals, how the shutdown will affect the midterms (along with voter suppression!) and the snapping of the social safety net under the pandemic. Andrea explains what the debt ceiling is and the economic disasters that will occur if the government shuts down and the Treasury does not function. Sarah wonders what the hell happened with the infiltration of the Treasury in 2015 by the Kremlin and the hacking of multiple government institutions (including the Treasury!) by Russia in 2020. Seems like it might be relevant as we run out of money. So many mysteries to explore!

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Today we examine the most powerful person in the United States -- Elizabeth MacDonough! Who, you might ask? Why, the Senate Parliamentarian, of course! You know, that person who you stood outside for hours in line in a plague waiting to vote for, the person whose policies you studied and advocated and critiqued…oh wait, that’s Joe Biden, the helpless inhabitant of the White House! Once again, the Biden administration agenda is being conveniently held up by the thumbs down recommendation of the Parliamentarian, and once again, Vice President Kamala Harris could simply overrule the Parliamentarian, or the Senate could fire the Parliamentarian…but since the Parliamentarian creates such an amazing excuse for Democratic inertia, they aren’t! And they’re screwing over the American public in the process.

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Remember back in April when we described Joe Manchin as a “an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a lot of money”? Well, the Dem’s most annoying kleptocrat obstructionist isn’t so mysterious anymore! We discuss who’s funding him and why, the illicit and evil business activity in which his daughter is engaged, the attempt to buy off his wife with a government position, and his cavalier attitude toward the destruction of US democracy, infrastructure, and voting rights. The Manchin family has oligarch envy, just like the Trump family. The Democrats had a long time to figure out how to handle him and they did not – and now Americans and the entire polluted planet will pay the price!

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This week’s episode is devoted to the Texas state attack on reproductive rights and civil rights and its ramifications – not just for Texans, but for all Americans. This authoritarian attack codifies violent vigilantism, will inspire baseless reporting of citizens for political reasons, cultivates an atmosphere of vengeance and paranoia, and is backed by a Supreme Court packed with multiple corrupt justices installed by a career criminal Kremlin asset president. The Texas attack on reproductive rights is where theocrats, kleptocrats, authoritarians, white supremacists, misogynists, and secessionists all meet – much like they have in the Trump administration and its GOP backers. Texas is a hostage state, and we encourage you to support the Texans fighting back against their oppressive legislature. We are all Americans and we must support vulnerable Americans threatened by this abuse of power and corruption of law.

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On August 31, the War in Afghanistan – a war that has been going on for nearly our entire adult lives – came to an end, at least officially. We discuss the ramifications of twenty years of war and how different political entities worldwide are exploiting the situation. We situate Afghanistan in the history of other quagmire wars – Vietnam, Iraq – and revising Eisenhower’s 1953 speech on the military-industrial complex, “A Chance for Peace”, a prescient warning which would today be reviled as radical.

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This week we discuss Angela Merkel’s recent trips to Russia and Ukraine while getting played by Putin and his merry band of Western blood money lobbyists, finally some hope in the Congress for democracy-saving legislation (it's going to be a make-it-or-break-it fall!), and the latest with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the US evacuation. We detail why we need a comprehensive investigation of the entire twenty years of war instead of letting Republicans politicize the humanitarian crisis.

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We break down myths about “the unvaccinated” vs the anti-vaxxer propagandists and discuss the institutional distrust that have made a diverse crowd of Americans hesitant about the vaccine. We go through twenty years of horrific policy decisions that enabled a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan, wasted trillions of tax dollars, and led to war crimes and tens of thousands of Afghan civilian casualties. And we end with hopeful words from our December 2019 interview with Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

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The corruption in our broken and abusive systems won't change until we change them ourselves. That's why we need you -- yes, you -- to serioiusly consider running for something. Don't know where to start? Meet Amanda Litman, author of the essential roadmap to running for office Run For Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself, a book that will hold your hand and help you through the entire process.

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With so much ominous news about the climate crisis heralding the man-made apocolypse, we need leaders like the women highlighted in the must-read book All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Co-edited by Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, climate author and teacher, and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist and founder of the non-profit think tank Urban Ocean Lab, this soul-hugging anthology provides a breathing space. Dr. Wilkinson joins us for an unforgettable discussion.

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Nelson George set off to become the greatest music writer in the world. Given his strange relationship with Prince who summoned him to listen to new music, George achieved his dream. George contributed to the bohemnian renaissance of Spike Lee turning Brooklyn into a global brand, living the explosion of Black culture across film, music, art, and more at the close of the 20th century and looks back at this groundbreaking time in a sweeping and important discussion of why art matters.

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In this eye-opening discussion to kick off the Gaslit Nation Summer Reading Series: Essential Conversations with Leading Experts on How to Protect Our Democracy, running mid-July to mid-August, Bill Browder discusses the ongoing threat of Putin’s aggression and what to do about it. We ran an excerpt of our interview with Browder in May. This is the full interview.

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After examining the latest voter suppression situation in the United States, we do a deep dive into mercenary Erik Prince. After committing war crimes in Iraq, this Blackwater founder has been building up his "blood money" business, including teaming up with Russia and Gulf States to make dirty deals involving the 2016 election and now attempting to build a private army in Ukraine.

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