Matt Taibbi is a really good reporter and he cares about the right things generally.

He has a new podcast out with Katie Halper. It’s called Useful Idiots and (I say again generally) it’s worth a listen.

The latest episode is with a woman named Krystal Ball, who I’ve had a low opinion of in the past, maybe because she did some time at MSNBC and always seemed to be a good apparatchik in the style of that network.

But on UI she impressed me.

Seems she was on the show of Bill Maher (speaking of people I have [an increasingly] low opinion of), and Maher, who has been hauling water for Biden, shifted gears and starting talking about how he likes Amy Klobuchar now. Krystal Ball was rightly horrified and didn’t hide it. Thus her stock rises, in my market.

On UI, she talked about a lot of things from a notably working class perspective. What I really liked was this:

“… the fundamental proposition of (the Sanders) campaign is ‘I am going to change who has power in the country’ …
The fundamental proposition of Warren’s campaign is ‘I’m going to come up with a plan to help you’. That’s different …”

She then goes on to explain why, but you’re smart enough to see the difference, and what a big difference it makes.

****

A second listening recommendation would be Edward Snowden. He has a book out now so interviews are all over the place. I heard the one on Fresh Air and learned a lot, enjoyably.

****

I was cranking along for a while there on diary posts of the better kind, and then I wrote that raggedy poem and switched my focus back to the outer world.

Noticing, noticing.

Should I talk about why?

No I don’t think so.