It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon and proprietor of the Hullaballoo blog, to round up the week in news. Sam and Emma start out by commemorating the historic Starbucks union vote in Buffalo. Then, Sam, Emma, and Digby dive into the numerous January 6th-related revelations that have come out in the past few weeks, starting with Mark Meadows withdrawing his cooperation with the investigation, most likely due to his fear of incurring Trump’s wrath for disclosing his COVID status in his book from last year, as well as Steve Bannon’s delayed contempt trial going into July 2022. Digby dives into Meadows history as a garden-variety dolt, and how Trump surrounds himself with obsequious yes-men, conflating loyalty with competence. They then dive into the recently disclosed PowerPoint coup plot document that Meadows turned over to the Jan. 6th committee, something that new Fox News outcast Lara Logan seemed to have on hand before Jan. 6th. They then discuss Trump’s year plus-long obsession with the election results, the demographics of the Jan. 6th rioters, as well as the recent Barton Gellman piece in the Atlantic about election fraud and theft becoming standard GOP orthodoxy, with the Bush v. Gore “independent legislature theory” becoming a bedrock of that. Digby, Sam and Emma then touch on how this relates to Mitch McConnell’s deal with Chuck Schumer on the debt ceiling, and how Lindsey Graham mounted a revolt amongst the Senate Trump-faithful to that deal, underscoring the deep fear many rank and file GOPers still have of Trump’s wrath (think Brad Raffensperger). They then take a look at the extremely bizarre video that came out of Kanye West’s publicist threatening a Georgia election worker to admit to election fraud in the state, the Democrats completely unprepared and limp response to all of these new threats of far-right violence being mainstreamed, the bombshell National Guard report about how the Army lied about their preparations to defend the Capitol on Jan. 6th, the deficiencies of the 50/50 Senate, the potential 2022-2024 hangover for Dem voters based on how little they’ve received after 2018 and 2020, and how state Dems are unwilling to go for the jugular in re-districting in states like Maryland.

Then, Sam and Emma are joined by comedian/Cameo celebrity  Andy Kindler, host of the Thought Spiral podcast! Andy, Sam, and Emma reflect on Bob Dole, lion of the Senate, as well as Andy’s haunting Zoom setup and the progress of Sam’s shingles vaccine. Then Sam, Andy, and Emma dive into Jim Breuer, new far-right comedy icon, and his positions on jesters, and whether cockatoos really talk about how much they love Dr. Fauci. They take a deeper dive into Clay Clark’s psychotic Reawaken America tour, Dr. Oz, Dr. Drew, Celebrity Rehab, and how Thought Spiral is the #1 podcast for white Jews over 59. And in the Fun Half, Reverend Jacque DeGraff evokes Pearl Harbor at the Fox News tree resurrection, the San Diego Board of Supervisors gets a taste of anti-vax Mariah Carey, Lauren Boebert expands upon her Special Forces FART team in Congress, and Tucker Carlson speaks with a Jan. 6th lawyer about the insurrection’s FBI “agent provocateur” (the guy is a amateur St. Louis Cardinals mascot who loves Tucker.) Plus, your IM’s!

Purchase tickets for the live show in Boston on January 16th HERE!