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RachelWatch: The Trials of Jobs

Today: Rachel looks at competing strategies for dealing with unemployment, the unending creepiness of Blackwater, and elected officials who aren’t doing a damn thing about the “kill the gays” bill.

Beats Working Rachel started us off by noting that unemployment has become a bit of a pressing national issue. In kind of the same way that plagues of locusts are a bit of a nuisance.

Rachel took a look at the proposed solutions and you will never in a zillion years guess what some of the Republicans are proposing. I don’t want to spoil it, but it rhymes with “shmax smuts”.

TRMS Investigates: Uganda Be Kidding Me

Rachel took a look at how the United States, and in particular its politicians from the religious right, helpfully dismantled Uganda’s successful AIDS prevention program.

So we’re responsible for the rampant spread of a cruel disease and no doubt thousands of deaths by imposing methods we knew full well didn’t work, but it’s easy to see that all the suffering was worth it, because at least the government didn’t indirectly fund a program that failed to piously condemn any sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

And then the C Street boys helpfully picked up the sex-outside-of-marriage slack just to keep the world averages up.

Along the way, they stirred up a swirling brew of hatred that coalesced into the new kill-the-gays bill.

Rachel and the TRMS staff checked in with some of our pals from the religious and political right to see how they’re progressing on that condemning clear, outright evil thing.

The Planistan

Do you remember The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from when you were a kid? The apprentice animates a broom to help him with his work and can’t believe how helpful it is, but then it gets so aggressively helpful that it’s not helpful anymore and the whole castle is in danger but he can’t make it stop? And the more the apprentice tries to stop it, the more the broom just keeps multiplying and suddenly it’s way too scary for a kid’s story and still happening faster and faster and the brooms can’t be stopped and won’t go away?

Somehow I think certain members of the Bush administration only paid attention to the very first part of that story.

In this next clip, Rachel and Jeremy Scahill of The Nation are going to talk about Blackwater, and you are going to long for the simplicity and comfort of unstoppable evil humanoid brooms.

Ms. Information

Rachel, still invigorated from Wednesday night’s fantastic Brainorama, took a moment to fact-check Ambassador Rice’s claim that Pakistan’s government is now actively going after extremists.

Rachel pointed out that based on a recent statement by Pakistan’s prime minister, the government is actually taking more of a laid-back approach towards pursuing terrorists. Maybe the idea is to get them feeling secure enough to come in for a hug?

Rachel also brought us the disturbing story of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, who was apparently slipped a lethal dose of a hypertension medication after he testified that he had seen jailed Iranian protestors being tortured.

The Iranian government has released several very different versions of Pourandarjani’s death, and now asserts that he committed suicide. By putting blood pressure medicine on his own salad.

If, as is entirely possible, those last two news items have bummed you out to the point where all you want to do is sit around in your bathrobe watching cartoons only so far it’s too much effort to even put on the bathrobe, you may be in need of some motivation.

Fortunately, both George W. and Laura Bush are on the case. And will probably give you motivational speeches right there in your living room if you cough up enough cash.

Be sure to close up that bathrobe first.

Don’t Dwell on It

Rachel reported that the troop increase in Afghanistan will mean that “dwell time,” the time that soldiers get to be at home before deploying again, will probably decrease.

And goals such as ending the stop-loss program will probably be on hold for a bit.

But at least we’re not rushing into anything outrageous like allowing openly gay and lesbian soldiers to continue to serve.

Moment of Geek

…And after that depressing note, it’s time to bounce back with a super-nerdy Moment of Geek and a balloon-finding contest or two.

You may be feeling just a tad superior and thinking you’re not geeky enough for a balloon-finding contest. If you’re reading this recap, I beg to differ.

If you didn’t see the show last night, you may be thinking that it’s far too late to start in on MaddowQuest. (Or, for my fellow Twitterers, #MaddowQuest.)

It’s true that one nanosecond after the segment aired, several – if I may borrow a term – hard-core nutballs were already well into the fray, but in my opinion the challenge is engaging enough and the clips are fun enough that it’s well worth taking on the quest.

And you never know – sure, a few people think they’ve already sent in the correct URLs, but it’s possible that they have the tint settings on their monitors wrong. It’s easy to confuse a red balloon with John Boehner’s bright orange head under those circumstances.

Go get ’em.

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