Sacrifice of Liberal Pawns

In the establishment worldview, MSNBC is the most left-wing news source among the corporate media giants. What this means is that MSNBC serves the role as gatekeeper. This far left and no further. Compared to how far left the American majority is, MSNBC isn’t very left at all. The Silenced Majority holds positions that are portrayed as radical in corporate media, from progressive taxation to universal healthcare.

One of the most left-leaning commentators on MSNBC was Joan Walsh. But in reality, she was a mainstream liberal and a defender of the status quo of the Democratic political machine. She was one of the liberal class attack dogs who put the ‘Bernie Bros’ (i.e., progressive reformers) in their place, including the large numbers of ‘Bernie Bros’ who happened to be some combination of non-white and female.

One might note that right now Bernie Sanders support is stronger among non-whites and females than among whites and males. It wasn’t accidental that Sanders spoke for policies that were straight down the center of public opinion. He was the voice of the average American. And that put the likes of Walsh in an uncomfortable position in being to the right of the American public.

Walsh went so far as to help promote the ‘alt-left’ framing that dismissed anyone to the left of the center-right Clinton Democrats. She was one of the main voices that turned it into yet another mainstream talking point — for example tweeting that, “At what point do some of these guys become the alt-left, a less toxic but still racially blinkered version of the alt-right?” Or when she tweetedtweeted: “Never use the term BernieBros anymore. Now there are alt-left bros who think mocking Clinton supporters is doing political work.” (These Clinton Democrats are the same people who dismissed Barack Obama’s supporters as ‘Obama Boys’ and for a similar reason, as Obama made progressive promises to the left of Hillary Clinton.) In her disconnection from reality, Walsh was oblivious to the sad reality of shooting herself in the foot. There is no honor nor reward in doing the bidding of corrupt power.

As mild and  moderately tame as she was, Joan Walsh was still too far left for the corporatist elite who own the corporate media, who control debate and frame the issues. As the Democratic Party pushes even further right, even the most establishment of liberals are seen as a threat and must be eliminated. So MSNBC fired Joan Walsh as a contributor, while giving Trump apologist Hugh Hewitt his own show. When the political left has their greatest opportunity in opposing the most despised president in American history, the plutocracy makes sure to hobble the leftist movement and shut out even the weakest of liberal voices.

MSNBC is what gets labeled as ‘liberal’ media by those who wield power and influence, specifically among the consolidated ownership class of corporate media and their lackeys in determining which voices get heard and silenced. As the American public keeps going left, the American elite keep pushing right. Joan Walsh thought she was safe by being a lapdog of power. She attacked those left of her, only to find herself the new target. What ‘liberals’ like her don’t get is that the very reason a strong left is necessary is to keep liberals like her honest and to hold the line of battle. Without a strong left to strike fear in the ruling elite, liberals become useless even as pawns of power and gatekeepers of media.

Joan Walsh didn’t understand the game she was playing and so she was played for a fool by those who did understand. She became the victim of her own moral failure. It is political karma. If you don’t defend others against attacks from the right-wing and, worse still, join in those attacks, then who will remain to defend you from those same attackers? Sadly too late, the targeted liberal commentariat finds themselves as part of the ‘alt-left’ they once despised. Alt-left is now everything on the left, anyone who speaks out against the dominant right-wing power structure.

* * *

‘Bernie Bros’ and ‘Alt-Left’ Are Propaganda Terms Meant to Disempower
by Michael J. Sainato (on Reddit)

The Democratic Party derailed Bernie: How the establishment has worked to discredit Sanders’ movement
by Conor Lynch

On Being a Good Ally: The Handmaid’s Tale And the Specter of Fascism
by Adam Theron-Lee Rensch

Endless Nonsense of the Misinformed Mind

This campaign season, I’ve been surprised by quite a bit. I knew the Democratic establishment and the mainstream media were powerful, but I never realized how powerful.

Even among intelligent educated people I know, a remarkable number don’t seem all that well-informed or interested in being well-informed. I continually come across people who repeat talking points and false claims, even long after they’ve been disproven or the data has changed.

There also is a lot of simplistic opinions. I know I shouldn’t be shocked by this. It’s just for some reason it seems worse this time around. Many people are really caught up in emotional reaction or else simple partisan groupthink.

Let me give an example of some comments I’ve seen. Some people still seem to think of Bernie Sanders’ campaign as a failure. He should just give up, bow out, and hand the nomination to Hillary Clinton. They’ve assumed from the beginning, like Clinton has assumed, that the nomination was in the bag. It’s as if campaigns are just formalities and it’s really the political elites who declare who will represent us.

Such arrogance. And also such naive optimism about their candidate. Have these people been living under a rock? Haven’t they seen what’s been going on with Sanders’ campaign?

Sanders is the most well liked and most trusted candidate running right now, along with having a low negativity rating. He has raised massive amounts of money, all with small donations, setting a record in accomplishing this. He has also set a record in the largest crowds a candidate has drawn in US campaign history. He is running  neck to neck with the candidate promoted by the party establishment and the mainstream media, an establishment candidate who would have been losing long ago if the system wasn’t rigged in her favor.

Sanders’ campaign is the most impressive in my lifetime. The voting public hasn’t been this engaged in a long time. Even Obama never got this kind of groundswell.

It’s amazing how wrong people have been about Sanders, proportionate to how certain their opinions were stated. Consider the whole Bernie Bros allegation. And then how vicious Clinton supporters became when they found out that young women have turned against Clinton and sided with Sanders. Having learned their lesson from that, they now try to ignore all the data that shows how Sanders is taking the lead in numerous demographics that Clinton supposedly was guaranteed.

This is seen with demographics from low income to young minorities. Sanders has masterfully won them over. The response is to ignore it or confidently state the opposite is true, no matter what the data shows. I hear people say such things as, “Sanders never caught on with minority voters” and “Sanders always seemed to be speaking to fairly affluent white college students.” These kinds of statements are patently false.

Then there are all the other unsubstantiated allegations. Chairs were being thrown or whatever. It’s an endless smear campaign. Clinton supporters rarely talk about the issues and, when they do talk about them, they merely demonstrate they know little about the issues. I’m genuinely shocked that Clinton supporters know so little about her political record and the consequences of the policies she has supported, not to mention all the endless shady dealings. I could write an entire book detailing all of this and some people have already written such books.

So many people can’t be bothered to research the data for themselves. They simply know what is true because that is what they heard someone say, either in Clinton’s campaign or from the MSM.

I seem to have an endless capacity for being amazed at willful ignorance and intellectual laziness. I never want to believe that knowledge means so little in changing minds. I’m naive in my love of knowledge. I just think knowledge is awesome and wrongly assume most people share this attitude.

I just don’t get personality politics, partisanship, groupthink, and blind loyalty. It isn’t my nature to think that way.

I don’t even care about Sanders, despite my support of his campaign. No one is likely to tell me any criticism or data about Sanders that I don’t already know. And if someone did surprise me with something new, it wouldn’t really bother me. If I found out that Sanders did a fraction of the immoral and anti-democratic kind of crap that Clinton regularly does, I’d drop him in a heartbeat and not give it a second thought. Sanders as a person is as irrelevant to me as is the fact that he is running as a Democrat.

I just don’t care about such things. I want reform, however that might be achieved. And, most importantly, I want truth.

* * *

Which Candidate Do the Poor Support?

Bernie Sanders and Civil Rights

Five demographic arguments for Bernie Sanders
by Carl Beijer

The story here is clear: one can only call Clinton an advocate of the powerless by ignoring women, Hispanics and other non-black voters of color, ~30% of black Americans, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and other non-straights, the young, and the poor. The narrative being aggressively advanced by writers like Tomasky and Goldberg – that Sanders is the candidate of privilege – can only be made by a stunning degree of demographic gerrymandering that ignores the dramatic sea changes in preference that have taken place since the beginning of the campaign.

Oldest African-American Newspaper in US Endorses Bernie Sanders
teleSUR

“Sanders has supported policies and programs that would be in the best interest of all Americans and African-Americans, specifically. He has been a consistent fighter for a more just and equitable society,” the oldest African-American newspaper says.

How Bernie Sanders won Michigan
by Kathleen Gray & Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press

While many said the race in Michigan would come down to demographics — and Clinton’s advantage with African-American voters — exit polling done for CNN suggested it was more about issues and widespread dissatisfaction with the federal government.

A Shock: Bernie is Actually Bagging Black Votes
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post

The first hint that Sanders’ halting efforts to break Clinton’s iron-grip on Black voters paid some dividends came in the early March Michigan Democratic primary. Sanders got almost one-third of the Black vote in that primary. It did more than raise a few eyebrows. It was just enough to edge Sanders past Clinton and nab the win. It also did much more. It proved that in close contests in the Northern states with a significant percentage of Black votes, Sanders need not top Clinton’s Black vote total. This won’t happen. He just needs to slice into her percentage of the Black vote to be competitive, and as Michigan showed, to even defy the oddsmakers, and win.

Youth of Color Talk About Sanders
by Christen McCurdy, The Skanner

Sanders went on to win Washington’s caucus Saturday and clinched victories in Alaska and Hawaii the same day.

Exit polls on the racial breakdown of Saturday’s caucuses are not available. Critics have noted all three states have notably smaller Black populations than the national average and that Clinton’s wins in southern states were apparently solidified by Black voters.

On the other hand, Alaska and Hawaii are two of the most racially and linguistically diverse states in the nation, and Sanders polls well with younger voters of all races, enjoying a slight edge over Clinton among young African Americans.

According to the polling firm Edison Research, 51 percent of African American Democratic voters aged 17 to 29 said they support Sanders, versus 48 percent supporting Clinton. Sanders leads 66-34 among young Hispanics who are likely to support a Democrat.

Clintons wrestle with a black generation gap
by Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune

Much has been said about the generation gap that has caused younger women to prefer Sanders over Hillary Clinton. As the parent of a politically savvy African-American 20-something, I have seen the same gap open up between black millennials and their elders.

Too young to remember the peace and prosperity of the 1990s, today’s youths are more familiar with mass incarceration, violent crime surges, viral videos of police brutality and losses in many black households of economic gains they made in the Clinton years.

New Twitter-age movements like Black Lives Matter are fueled by such experts as Michelle Alexander, 48, and her best-seller “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”

In an essay in The Nation titled “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote,” Alexander harshly questioned the “devotion” of black voters to the Clintons.

“Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African-Americans?” she wrote. “Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities …?” No, she wrote, “Quite the opposite.”

Why Young People of Color Are Rejecting Hillary Clinton
by Hector Luis Alamo, Latino Rebels

Hillary has a problem, and her problem is the Democratic Party’s problem: How are they going to excite young voters, and particularly young voters of color? Now that we’re being told Bernie Sanders has no path to the nomination, Democratic strategists and status-quo pragmatists are hoping young people will take the immense energy that has exalted the Sanders campaign and inject it into the scheme for Hillary. That ain’t happening, but not because young people are naïve, impetuous or are being fed lies about Hillary’s record, as Democratic operatives the likes of Dolores Huerta would have us believe. On the contrary, young people won’t vote for Hillary because “we just don’t trust her,” as a young black Bernie supporter recently explained on CNN. “We don’t trust what she says, and we don’t like what she’s done. And for those combined reasons, we won’t vote for Hillary Clinton.”

The more young people learn about Hillary, the less likely they are to vote for her. Her betrayal of female workers during her time on the board of directors at Walmart, her betrayal of children, families, people of color and immigrants during her time as first lady, her pro-Wall Street years in the Senate, and her betrayal of the United States’ neighbors in Latin America during her tenure as secretary of state. Hillary indeed has plenty of experience in government. Unfortunately for her, it mostly involves her taking neoliberal positions. There’s nothing wrong with Hillary being a neoliberal and not a “true” progressive, but at least tell me the truth.

The Generation Gap Between Latino Voters
Latino USA, NPR

Is there a generation gap dividing young and old Latino voters? Young Latinos seems to prefer Bernie Sanders, while older Latinos like Hillary Clinton.

Bernie Sanders rally in Stockton draws many Latino supporters
by Cynthia Moreno

An NBC analysis that tracked the voting preference of Latino Democrats back in March found that Latinos under 30 supported Sanders on exit and entrance polls in primaries and caucuses held in 19 states.

Young Latino Voters Trending to Bernie Sanders as Latino Vote Emphasized
by Alvaro Nino de Guzman Jr., Media Milwaukee

“It seems that Sanders is getting a lot of attention and momentum in the Latino community as well. Things might change especially because Sanders seems to have a broad appeal to young constituencies and among the Latino, the millennials are the majority. Forty-four perspective voters among the Latino community are young voters,” said Muniz.

How Hispanic Millennials Are Driving the Bernie Sanders Brand
by Elena del Valle, HispanicMPR

The Millennials now represent the largest voting bloc in the U.S. so they cannot be ignored – these 86 million young people will represent 40 percent the electorate in 2020. The proportion of Millennials that are Hispanic is higher than other age segments – e.g. one in four Millennials are Hispanic and their median age is 27 versus 37 for the remaining population, so their influence will be significant.

Why Bernie Sanders Really Did Win Nevada’s Hispanic Vote
by Doug Johnson Hatlem, CounterPunch

In a press release, Gonzalez and WCVI lamented that “[l]ost in this controversy is the fact that the data shows a record high Latino vote share in the Democratic Caucuses with Latinos representing 19% of the vote compared to 13% in 2008.”

WCVI is “one of the nation’s largest Latino voter registration groups.” It has worked since 1985 out of Los Angeles and San Antonio under a non-partisan mandate to get as many Latinos as possible registered and to the polls on election days, and will be hosting Latino Vote Summits in several key states beginning this Friday at the University of Texas San Antonio. SVREP’s work in Nevada saw Gonzalez quoted for a story in the Los Angeles Times last Wednesday suggesting that millennial Latinos, who may make up almost half of all eligible Latino voters in the U.S. in 2016, might just make the difference in the outcome.

“The leadership that is older is all Clinton, but the younger Latinos, they’re with Sanders,” Gonzalez told the Times. “Gonzalez said the rift is present in his own family. ‘My daughters are Sanders people,’ he said. ‘My wife is with Hillary’.”

Six in Ten Latino Teens Identified as Democrats And Most Prefer Bernie Sanders as President
by Glen Minnis, Latin Post

While youth voter turnout typically lags, pollsters found that 62 percent of the 28,141 teens surveyed that will be eligible to vote come November’s general election plan to do so.

The study found six in every ten Latinos identify as Democrats, with just 26 percent of respondents considering themselves members of the GOP.

Among those surveyed, Sanders leads overall democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton 43 percent to 16 percent. By comparison, Republican front-runner Donald Trump managed just six percent support.

Latinos also proved to be the group that most believes immigration to be a key issue in the overall presidential debate at 30 percent.

The Latin Vote: What Do Latinos Think Of Hillary Clinton And Bernie Sanders?
by Pedro Moreno Vasquez, XpatNation

When it comes to voting, Latin women seem to be more supportive of democrats. The 2014 midterm elections indicated that 66% of Latinas voted for democratic candidates. Among Latino men, the adherence for democrats is lower: 57% of them voted for a democrat, while 41% of Latino men voted for a Republican. For both sexes, Latinos over 45 are more likely to vote for a democrat.

It seems obvious then, that Latinas will strongly support Hillary. This has been a consolation for a candidate who, in recent months, has seen a shocking drop of support from nationwide female voters. In July 2015, 71% of democratic-leaning female voters supported Hillary Clinton. In a matter of eight weeks, Clinton lost almost 30% of those votes. Now only 42% of female voters support her.

Hillary is not considering something: Latino families in the US still have a strong patriarchal background. This may affect her appeal toward male Latino voters to a degree. In general, Hillary is not taking advantage of her Latino women support. She should do more to expand it. Clinton recently assigned a Dreamer Latina named Lorella Praeli as her Latino Outreach Director. Praeli has neither wide following nor charisma. There are, of course, Dreamers who are more popular, articulate, and have more presence, such as Erika Andiola, Cesar Vargas and Carlos Padilla.

But they support Bernie Sanders.

Huge Wins Ahead for Bernie Sanders if Latinos, Independents, Youths Vote
by Garrett Griffin, Weekend Collective

Sanders crushed Hillary by 20 percentage points in two-thirds of his victories: New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado, Vermont, Kansas, and Maine. This was not a fluke. He will likely have more big wins if young people, independents, and Latino voters register and cast their ballots.

Southwest and Western states with large Latino populations will likely flock to Sanders. He barely lost Illinois, but surveys the week before saw him with 64% of Latino support in the state, compared to 30% for Clinton. (Nearly half of Latino voters are millennials.) Of the 20 Iowa counties that have the largest Latino population, Sanders won 15 of them. He also may have won the Latino vote in Nevada, far better than expected, and Democracy Now reported after Colorado: “Latino vote helps Bernie Sanders surge to victory in massive Democratic caucus turnout.”

Upcoming states like New Mexico, Washington, Arizona, and California (with its whopping 546 delegates) with big Hispanic populations could cause Clinton’s lead to evaporate

Interview: Young Latinos Are Ralllying for Bernie Sanders
interview with José Manuel Santoyo, teleSUR

Although it has been often reported in this election cycle that minorities are overwhelmingly voting for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, many members of the African-American and Latino communities have banded together to support Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has been especially popular with young voters, inspiring many to participate in the democratic process for the first time.

TeleSUR spoke with José Manuel Santoyo, the online marketing strategist for Young Latinos For Bernie, about his organization’s efforts to bring his fellow young Latino’s into Sanders’ camp.

Huge!! New PPP poll: Sanders runs ahead of Clinton with Hispanic voters in a race against Trump
by vl baker, caucus99percent

GOP Busted On Talking Points!

In the past, I’ve noticed various talking points being repeated using very similar and sometimes exact phrasing (Shove it down! Ram it through!). I was frustrated because most people don’t seem to notice this form of propaganda/brainwashing. Even the liberal media in the past seemed oblivious to this technique used by conservatives. But it seems the liberal media is finally catching onto this game.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/gopers-parrot-lines-from-_n_710541.html

An extensive review of GOP campaign literature, floor speeches and public statements reveals that Republican candidates and officeholders routinely use GOP talking points verbatim in their speeches and campaign literature, while passing off the language as their own personal views.

Using the plagiarism detection software program iThenticate as well as Google and the Library of Congress, HuffPost found that more than 30 members of the House and Senate eschew originality when it comes to making their case.

A search for Democratic violations turned up far fewer instances. But if Democrats show less of a penchant for blatant copying, it may reflect their traditional unwillingness to follow the party line more than any higher ethical standards. Will Rogers’s oft-quoted declaration — “I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat” — has worn well over time.

– – –

State of Confusion by Dr. Bryant Welch

p.136:

Advertising succeeds on the basis of repetition. Assert the reality you want over and over again. Be absolute and never tentative. Tentativeness encourages independent thinking. The more people think independently, the less malleable they are. If there is a gap between your position and common sense, simply rewire the connection with “associational logic” that obscures the gap. Associational logic… creates the illusion of logical connections where there are none.

pp. 143-4:

While the ostensible joke is that these people are all ike puppets articulating a canned message…, there is much more than that at play. If the same language is used, the words can be transformed from language into symbols. University of California at Berkley linguist George Lakoff writes:

When a word or phrase is repeated over and over for a long period of time the neural circuits that compute its meaning are activated repeatedly in the brain. As the neurons in those circuits fire, the synapses connecting the neurons in the circuits get stronger and the circuits may eventually become permanent, which happens when you learn the meaning of any word in your fixed vocabulary. Learning a word physically changes your brain, and the meaning of that word becomes physically instantiated in your brain.

Repeating over and over does not simply persuade someone that what is being said is true; it actually makes it true in the inner workings of the mind. The target audience may not even be aware that they have adopted the particular point of view in question, but a space that was once filled with uncertainty is now filled with an idea. Further, it is an idea shared by a very self-confident and powerful other person. If that idea is repeated over and over, it begins to play a symbolic role in the mind.

pp. 134-5:

Symbols, primitive emotional states, and repetition are not the only vulnerable aspects of the mind. Associational thinking also plays a key role in current political gaslighting. Sometimes it is very humbling to recognize the true nature of the mind. It is made out of symbols that are connected to one another by associations of emotional connections. What we think of as logical connectiosn play a much more limited role in mental functioning. This has tremendous implications not just for advertising, but also for political reality formation. Gaslighers can build emotional connections between symbols without their target audience really even knowing what is being done. In 2000, the Republican Party spent over two and a half million dollars running an advertisement attacking the Gore prescription plan that ahd the word rats written across it but that flashed with such speed that it was invisible to the naked eye. With today’s technology, people can literally build a connection in the mind between rats and an opponent’s policy position.

These same associational connections once established can also create a pseudologic in which associations create the illusion of logical connections used to support policies and positions that simply have no logic behind them. The fact that two items are in some way associated in the mind serves as a substitute for the formal logical connections that people associate with cause and effect and rational thought. The mind is tricked just as our eyes are tricked in a shell game. For an undiscerning audience, this can be very effective. People frequently do not appreciate, or even notice the role that highly subjective emotional states play in formulating what they take to be rational and logically constructed “thoughts.” Psychologist William James said, “People often think they are thinking when in fact they are just rearranging their prejudices.”

If these associational forms of “logic” lead to a pleasant emotional state such as a simplistic and self-gratifying conclusion about a difficult and complex problem, people are even less likely to challenge the faulty reasoning behind it. If one’s mind is saturated with images that are the psychological equivalent of a trademark that brands Fox News as fair and balanced, it will for many people completely override any assessment of whether Fox News is actually fair and balanced.

Cantor Lying with a Straight Face

Here is a boring and stupid video. There isn’t much point in watching except it’s a representative example of Republican behavior (see commentary below).

Cantor, with a straight face, does nothing but lie and mislead. This is common behavior for Republicans because they know the facts don’t support their ideology and their own self-interest.

There are two other things about this video.

First, it sounds like he is talking down to a child. I’ve noticed that some Republicans talk this way when they’re trying to get a message to the voters. It sounds mean, but it seems like Republicans such as Cantor think their constituents are lacking in intelligence and have a child-like mentality.

Second, this video sounds like a campaign ad. I’m wondering why the mainstream media airs campaign ads for free. Why is it rare for the media to confront politicians about their lies and misinformation?

Basically, no useful facts are being shared in this video, no rational argument is being made, no insightful criticism is being offereed. It’s just typical GOP talking points.

Shove it down! Ram it through!

Have you noticed how effectively conservatives use talking points? There has been plenty of videos analyzing the use of talking points by Fox News including management memos telling the hosts which talking points to use on any given day. It’s enough to make a person cynical, but it’s hard to become much more cynical at this point.

I was noting recently how some talking points are code words. Palin’s use of “real Americans” and “hockey mom” are code words for white Americans. The hockey mom was particularly interesting. First, it’s  sport that was originally popularized in Northern states which are predominantly white. Second, because of all the gear, it’s an expensive sport and so poor minority families couldn’t afford to pay for the gear.

There are tons of these talking points and code words. I’m sure people have written books analyzing them. I had one particular example in mind. I came across a discussion about health reform and a righwing commenter used the talking point about having the bill “shoved down our throat”. There are variations on it such as “rammed through”, but the phrasing doesn’t diverge much. It gets repeated by Republicans in Washington and it gets repeated on Fox News.

I was trying to find a specific video I had seen about it. Someone had put together a bunch of clips of this talking point. I can’t remember if the whole video was about Fox News, but at least part of it was. The video showed the Fox News reporters and hosts repeating the talking point over and over. Then the video showed a clip of Fox News version of a debate about health reform, but of course the debate only included conservatives. They invited some old people on to express their views and one old person repeated tha same talking point. Obviously, this old person had been watching a lot of Fox News and had picked up the phrase. That is how it works. Repeating a simple phrase enough times causes people to unconsciously take it in and start using it themselves. I’m sure that old person didn’t even know he was repeating a talking point. It’s the same principle as advertising. Repeat, repeat, repeat, and keep on repeating.

I think that particular video might have been from Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, but for the life of me I couldn’t find the video. I was surprised that I couldn’t even find much discussion about that particular talking point. I just found some references to it in forum discussions and whatnot. I thought that strange. I felt like I was going mad and was glad to find even slight mentions about the talking point. I’d think it would get more media attention, but the media is in the business of spreading talking points and not in the business of analyzing them.

I did finally find one video that refers to it and it was actually another video I had previously watched. It’s Bill Maher and he is on a roll in this video. Maher can be a very funny guy. In this video, he is in top form. He only briefly talks about it around the halfway point (4:40), but it’s hilarious.