Today: Ana Marie Cox is still funny and NOM is not.
The Buccaneer Stops Here
Rachel started us off with the story of the Navy’s amazing (and grisly) rescue of Captain Richard Phillips.
Anti-terrorism consultant Neil Livingstone dropped in to explain the problems of policing an area of a million square miles and make all the history nerds in the viewing audience pass out with joy by discussing Thomas Jefferson’s response to the Barbary Pirates.
Never forget: Jefferson didn’t just moon around inventing the dumbwaiter, writing inspiring documents, and conducting serious archeological surveys in his spare time. He was also a total bad-ass.
Those Daily Affirmations Worked! Sort of.
A Minnesota State Court confirmed that Al Franken won the Senate election! Which would be really exciting if we didn’t already know that Norm Coleman is planning on appealing rulings all the way up the chain to Odin.
Don’t tell Norm where the pickup basketball game is if you want to make it home in time for dinner.
This Way Out?
Were you beginning to feel a tiny ray of hope in your heart about the python-filled morass that is Afghanistan?
Rachel and GQ‘s Michael Hastings teamed up to put your ray of hope into a sleeper hold and then punch it in the kidneys for several minutes.
Hastings, throwing phrases like “25-year commitment,” around like the world’s dreariest confetti, took issue with the fact the almost all of the debate on our Afghaniplan has been over how many more troops we should send.
As opposed to whether we should send more at all, or if we should leave a key under the mat when we hightail it out of there.
Ms. Information
Obama has made it easier for Cuban-Americans to send gifts and money to Cuba and to visit family.
This rolls back the increased restrictions that the Bush administration placed on travel and exchange with Cuba. Because when has a stream of cool consumer goods ever been useful in destabilizing Communism?
Rachel also reported that the TRMS segment on the National Organization for Marriage commercial about how people who support same-sex marriage have evil weather-control machines has been taken down from YouTube.
They’re claiming that the segment, which uses tiny, fair-use clips of the laughable audition footage, is violating their copyright. They want to play that way? Fine. Everybody set your machines to “Frogs.”
Friday Night Frights
You know that awful, incomprehensibly lawless thing Bush used to do where he would arrest someone in a foreign country, transport them to a prison in another country outside the United States, and then never bring them up on charges or let them see a judge to protest their incarceration?
Obama wants to do that, too.
Newsweek‘s Michael Isikoff dropped in to make sure that you never again feel safe and trusting enough to take off the Slanket.
GOP in Exile
Former Ohio Republican Congressman and convicted felon Bob Ney has a new radio show on WVLY-AM in West Virginia. In addition to conspiring to defraud the United States with Jack Abramoff, Ney used robocalls in his ’06 campaign that referred to Rachel as a “cross-dressing lesbian”.
I know I should be disgusted by the robocall, but it’s too hilarious. I mean, really. How would he know if Rachel is cranky when she changes clothes?
Father of Libertea
You’ve shown some real moxie and made it through two upsetting but good-for-you video clips, so you deserve a little treat.
Who would have guessed that Rachel Maddow would enjoy teabagging so much?
But as it turns out, we all love teabagging. And because we live in a just and beautiful universe, Air America Radio’s Ana Marie Cox was there to lend a hand. She and Rachel discussed whether the “grassroots” movement is being astroturfed by multi-millionaires and the inevitable Ron Paul connection when things get a little loony.
In case you’re just checking back into society after a meditation retreat or a stay in the survival bunker, teabagging is a movement in which down-home folks who are very angry about taxing the rich show their displeasure by mailing actual teabags to elected officials.
Because sending envelopes full of small-grained substances to Washington is now patriotic instead of creepy.
Until next time, keep your spirits up while dressing and your weather machines tuned.
