Episode

4/26 Casual Friday! w/ Owen Jones & Kate Willett

April 26, 2024

It’s Casual Friday! Emma speaks with political commentator Owen Jones to round up the week in news. Then she speaks with comedian Kate Willett! First, Emma runs through updates on the brutal assault on Emory students and faculty protesting genocide and cop-city by the Atlanta police, mass arrests of anti-war protesters on college campuses across the US, Israel’s imminent invasion of Rafah, US troops’ presence in Chad, Trump’s legal woes, Net Neutrality, the climate crisis, and new anti-trans legislation out of Tennessee, before parsing through some rather telling comments from the ongoing Supreme Court case about Trump’s potential immunity as President, with representation going as far as to make space for immunity over extra-judicial assassinations. Owen Jones then joins, as he and Emma reflect on the last seven months of constant scenes of devastation and genocide coming out of Gaza, and the mainstream media’s heart-wrenching insistence on downplaying the horror, denying the deaths, and running cover for Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing under the guise of victimhood. Expanding on this, Jones and Emma explore how the severe repression and propaganda from mainstream Western political institutions is seeing an en-masse public awakening to the genocide of Gaza, and the Western elites’ violent commitment to controlling the discourse, with supposed “liberal democracies” from the US to the EU and UK defaming anti-zionist Jews and anti-semites and uplifting actual racists and Jew-haters as legitimate actors. After parsing through the absurdity of the media’s insistence on ignoring the obvious rhetoric and policy that has shaped Israel’s approach to this entire war, Owen steps back to look to the role of the UK in particular, with the Labor Party’s step back from the coalition of Jeremy Corbin at the end of the last decade, and committing itself fully to Israel’s agenda of dehumanization and hasbara. Wrapping up, Jones walks Emma through the performative cruelty of the UK’s Tory government’s ongoing illegal and immoral deportation scheme for asylum seekers. Kate Willet also joins, as she and Emma discuss the repression of left-wing beliefs in the supposedly “liberal” entertainment industry, and the growing trend of the industry’s support for right-wing reactionary comics. Kate and the MR Team explore the attempt to present left-wing comedy as hyper-politicized and right-wing comedy as almost de-politicized, before wrapping up by touching on the difficulty of escaping the self-censorship pushed on women and lefties when it comes to speaking out about politics.

And in the Fun Half: Emma previews new allegations about Kristi Noam’s killer personality, watch Briahna Joy Gray refuse to back down from Rising Co-Host Robby Soave’s fascist criticism of student protests, reflects on the greater failure of the US media amid this crackdown on free speech, and listen to Donald Trump attempt to frame these non-violent protests as worse than Charlottesville. Shawn Hannity’s Blonde and blue-eyed guest waxes about the severity of the ongoing “illegal occupation” of Pal– I mean– of college campuses by students who pay tuition to be there, and the MR Crew discusses the media’s reproduction of genocidal propaganda, plus, your calls and IMs!

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It's News Day Tuesday! Emma speaks with Gregory Brew, analyst with the Eurasia Group's Energy, Climate, & Resources Team, to discuss the fluid situation in Syria now that rebels have taken control of Damascus. Then, she speaks with Thomas Birmingham, reporter and intern at The Nation based ...
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