Hog Planet

Your boys have gone and done it again. We’re plunging away this week at the anticlimactic end to the Mueller saga. Lawyers don’t come off well in this one, folks. We didn’t even get the golden showers tape! What a wash. Speaking of the washed, Michael Avenatti (lawyer) has been arrested for attempting to extort Nike. We also have some exciting 2020 campaign news; of course we are referring to the upcoming debate on circumcision. In the opposition’s corner, we have Andrew Yang, the “intactivist” entrepreneur pushing bare-bones universal basic income. In Favor: our old pal Ben Shapiro (lawyer), the impish self-loathing racist behind the conservative rag the Daily Wire. In the pop culture corner,we discuss the 45th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s infamous Wall of Sound and Woodstock 50’s soulless setlist, featuring headliners Jay-Z, Imagine Dragons, and Chance the Rapper, among many inexplicable others. To close out, Dan tortures the listeners with readings from yet another oafish former lawyer, Seth Abramson’s Tom Clancy-esque Russiagate conspiracy theories in his book Proof of Collusion.

Follow @spaventacular @wagstank @plunge_podcast

Notez:

Nathan Robinson's Brilliant Ben Shapiro Takedown

https://static.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher

Russiagate Collapses

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

https://t.co/8cTRN60Xhl

Avenatti Extortion

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/michael-avenatti-extortion-arrested-charged-nike?CMP

45 Years Ago the Dead Pioneered the Wall of Sound

https://livemusicblog.com/features/grateful-dead-wall-of-sound/

We’re back with a masterful intro courtesy of Joseph Bags. Check out his soundcloud link below. This week we discuss prominent table-stander and horse face haver Robert “Beto” O’Rourke’s entry into the crowded 2020 democratic primary race. We also tell the tale of the yelp app made specifically for MAGA people, as well as QAnon’s abrupt entry into the mafia world, literally by the hand of one Anthony Comello. For pop culture we dig deep into the entirety of Amazon’s Jordan Peele-produced documentary Lorena, which chronicles its namesake, her disgusting ex-husband John Wayne Bobbitt, and the aftermath of that infamous night in Manassas, Virginia when she severed his manhood and launched a cultural battle of the sexes that we are still fighting today. Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@plunge_podcast, @spaventaculr @wagstank rate and review on iTunes, and tell all your friends and enemies about the show.

Joe’s soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/josephsbags

Notes:

MAGA Yelp

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/3kgymy/new-conservative-yelp-app-will-identify-restaurant-safe-spaces-for-maga-hats-handguns

Gambino Qanon

https://splinternews.com/suspect-in-gambino-mob-boss-murder-seems-to-be-a-maga-d-1833392546

Citizens arrest

https://www.thedailybeast.com/suspected-gambino-mob-boss-killer-anthony-comello-once-tried-to-make-a-citizens-arrest-of-nyc-mayor-bill-de-blasio-report

Happy Black History Month from the Plunge! Rachey’s joining us to celebrate Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign announcement and the return of a human with a pulse to the multi-year horse race circus that we ritually subject ourselves to. We go deep on the Bernie bro myths, see how he stacks up to his competitors, and evaluate how the internet has collectively lost it a full year and a half away from the election. In the pop culture corner, we discuss the preposterous boomer fantasy Yesterday, Friday night’s foolish conservative sitcom power hour on Fox, and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s new commentator gig on Extra. We close out with the latest updates from the Amazon Lord of the Rings series’ writers’ room, which is literally professionally guarded and hermetically sealed from the outside world by a fingerprint scanner. What could be inside? Find out on the Plunge!

Notez:

Bernie Approval Breakdown By Demographic

https://boingboing.net/2018/01/22/a-future-to-believe-in.html

Bernie’s diverse team https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/1098674806659207169?s=21

Amazon Locks Lord of the Rings Writers Inside

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-has-lord-of-the-rings-writers-in-a-lo-1832744087

Get sloshed for this one, folks. Sean Spicer was faded at the State of the Union while Joshua Trump dozed peacefully, and Nancy Pelosi finally found common ground with Donald Trump. Doomed vanity candidate Howard Schultz, on the other hand, was begging for applause after telling a crowd to wipe the word “billionaire” from their mouths. Racism had a big week with Elizabeth Warren being exposed for having listed “American Indian” on a Texas state bar form, Cindy McCain calling the cops on an interracial family, and the ongoing blackface convention that is the Virginia Democratic party. To cleanse the show of toxins and chemicals, we will turn to Goop in the pop culture corner, which has recently achieved full media transcendence between its millions of podcast listeners and upcoming Netflix series. Speaking of content, we urge you to unfollow all joke and image-stealing F***Jerry related accounts on Instagram and whichever other social media haunts you inhabit. We also wish 21 Savage and his family the best as he struggles to free himself from the removal proceedings against him. We discuss the horror of US immigrant detention centers, and as usual, we have a link or two for you to donate to if you feel strongly about this (as you should). Dan closes us out with a tale of a truly gubernatorial encounter.

Link to donate to Project South: https://southernmovement.secure.force.com/pmtx/dn8n__SiteDonation?id=a1X460000008uNW

Linkz:

Nauseating Description of Gangsta Pelosi

https://www.theroot.com/nancy-pelosi-house-speaker-or-congressional-gangster-1832401823

Billionaire Is Offensive

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2019-02-07/stop-demeaning-billionaires-such-as-howard-schultz#click=https://t.co/QOzmFIdbC9

Goop Pseudoscience

https://theoutline.com/post/1394/the-unbearable-wrongness-of-gwyneth-paltrow?zd=1&zi=t4x6wltn

21 - ICE is the real savage

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/21-savage-is-being-held-in-one-of-the-worst-immigration-detention-centers-in-the-u-s-790472/

Vic Berger Ted Cruz Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCfXDChqu9w

Jerry Media, Cancel Em Folks

https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/fuck-jerry-instagram-comedians-unfollow-campaign-elliot-tebele.html

Like Bernie and Jane Sanders drunkenly singing Woody Guthrie with the Soviets, your humble hosts have returned to bless your ears with mellifluous content. This week, we start out talking about “the grind,” meaning both the grind of burnt coffee that made former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz rich enough to mull over running for president this week and the daily workplace drudgery millennials are now pretending to enjoy as they shout “secure the bag” into the high heavens. Our main story this week is the newest development in the Mueller investigation: the arrest of Roger Stone, the infamously foppish former lobbyist. We discuss the non-dog-friendly threats he made against Randy Credico, his supposed liaison with WikiLeaks, as well as the right-wing outcry against the perceived police brutality Stone endured during his arrest. In pop culture, we’re staying in the Stone Zone to discuss the Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone and evaluating whether or not Roger lives up to the hype. We also denounce the resurrection of the Dude, Jeff Bridges’ famous character from The Big Lebowski, and his sudden appreciation of Stella Artois as teased in a preview for a soulless upcoming SuperBowl ad. Lastly, we dabble in some visual art appreciation as we evaluate the hand-drawn political cartoons (for lack of a better term) that Jim Carrey has been posting to Twitter lately, and towards which Jerry Saltz turned his eye for a banger of an interview in Vulture with the Ace Ventura actor. Lastly, in story time this week, Sam struggles to prove his innocence as he explains why he was suspended from elementary school multiple times before the age of 10.

Notes:

Enough with the Coffee Man

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/01/howard-schultz-billionaire-starbucks-president-2020

Rise of Rise & Grind Work Culture

https://t.co/2IZK09PTPJ

The Dude Superbowl commercial

https://theoutline.com/post/7019/the-dude-big-lebowski-super-bowl-commercial-stella-artois?zd=1&zi=aiegju4i

Jim Carrey: Serious Visual Artist

https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/jim-carrey-art-paintings-political-cartoons.html

It’s episode 44. You know, like Obama. And speaking of presidential personas, Kamala Harris, the self-described “top cop,” has officially thrown her hat in the 2020 ring. We have thoughts to share regarding her record and the ways people are already attempting to shield her from legitimate criticism. On the show this week, the very concept of life itself is under scrutiny, as we discuss the twins who tested five genomic mapping products, including 23andme, and came to the unsurprising conclusion that none of them actually work. In news visible to the naked eye, the March for Life stirred up controversies from Ben Shapiro’s addressing the crowd with live and in the flesh ad reads, to the infamous, dough-faced MAGA teens of Covington Catholic who descended on Native American protesters and later blamed the Black Israelites for everything. In the pop culture corner, we evaluate noted drug enthusiast Aaron Sorkin’s irrelevant opinions on the newest, youngest, and most left-wing wave of Democrats yet, and we recap teenage rip-off rockers Greta Van Fleet’s high school talent show-level performance on Saturday Night Live. To finish up the pop culture corner, we discuss the two Fyre Fest documentaries that Hulu and Netflix respectively released and try to contextualize the multi-million-dollar fraud that Billy McFarland and the Fyre company perpetrated in our current zeitgeist of millenial go-getterism and the rampant rush to commodify experiences and exclusivity. The story this week is about Sam getting beat up in a bar.

Notez:

Kamala is a Cop

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html

Terrible Libertarian Defense of MAGA Boys

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/20/covington-catholic-nathan-phillips-video

Aaron Sorkin idiocy

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aaron-sorkin-democrats-young-people_us_5c455b68e4b027c3bbc31066

It’s us again. Rate and review on iTunes. 5 stars. You know we are worth it. And we have been proved right yet again; in our first segment, academia confirms that old people post the most fake news. In smoking news, Steve Bannon was rejected from a lobbying job by Juul, and mealy-mouthed pseudo-philosopher Malcolm Gladwell is getting back to his old Big Tobacco shilling days in his most recent New Yorker piece, where he resurrects debunked concerns about marijuana use. Sounds like he needs to switch to indica, right folks? In national politics, it has been revealed that Trump’s border wall talking point was intended more as a mnemonic than an actual policy prescription. 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke took a different approach to his pre-campaign campaigning by showing us the inside of his mouth during a dental cleaning. And who could forget Markos Moulitsas, the Daily Kos founder who sent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi 25,000 roses that she never knew she needed and didn’t seem to actually want. In pop culture, we’re discussing Jeff Bezos’ utterly mammoth divorce from his wife Mackenzie, his grisly sexts, and the allegations that he shtupped his friend’s wife. The world of reboots dipped back into the 60s to resurrect Woodstock for its 50th anniversary, and if that doesn’t sound messy enough, we also have takes on Kohler’s brand-new, state-of-the-art intelligent toilet. To close out our cultural review, we discuss Bohemian Rhapsody’s surprise Best Picture win at the Golden Globes, despite the sexual assault allegations against its director, Bryan Singer, and the fact that the Freddie Mercury biopic really sucked. To wrap up the show, Dan has a story about making friends on the bus.

Notez:

Gladwell's Reefer Madness

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/14/is-marijuana-as-safe-as-we-think

Trump is a baby who lacks object permanence

https://t.co/BUTGxgroOX

Daily kos raises $85k to buy 25k roses for Nancy Pelosi

https://splinternews.com/daily-kos-guy-delivers-thousands-of-roses-to-nancy-pelo-1831637937

It’s your first Plunge of 2019. How exciting! A plethora of politicking awaits. QAnon patriots have discovered that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enjoys dancing as well as the company of friends, and they are using this crucial knowledge to destroy her nascent political career. In more substantive news, staffers from Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign have come forward, alleging a culture of sexism, gendered pay discrimination, and a culture of indifference towards those who reported the improper conduct of male staffers. Meanwhile, a “nude selfie” has reportedly been unearthed in Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, the subject of which has yet to be revealed. In other presidential news, we discuss the Trump superfans who missed out on partying with their fearless leader when the government shutdown prevented him from attending his annual $1,000 per plate New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago. The shutdown did not interfere, however, with a desperate Canadian man’s attempt to pay the president a visit and ask for help finding a wife. In the pop culture corner, we discuss Netflix’s finest holiday offerings, including the psychological thriller Bird Box and “Bandersnatch,” the new interactive episode of Black Mirror in which you get to experience the illusion of cinematic agency by deciding which music a 20-something listens to and whether or not he should butcher a family member. We also play our favorite clips of Bob Einstein, the legendary comedy writer and actor known for his Super Dave Osborne character as well as for playing Marty Funkhouser on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. We close out with a cautionary tale from Sam about a seven or eight-word phrase that he has not yet been able to force from his mind.

Notes:

Qanon Has Failed So Many Times

https://theoutline.com/post/6883/qanon-conspiracy-theory-end-times?utm_source=&zd=1&zi=lchcqqqz

Bernie Sanders Campaign allegations

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/681815362/bernie-sanders-responds-to-allegations-of-sexism-and-harassment-on-2016-campaign

Trump Fan Stories

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/423397-people-paid-1k-per-ticket-for-nye-mar-a-lago-party-trump-missed?rnd=1546357313

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/canada/canadian-arrested-at-white-house-trying-to-get-to-trump-and-give-him-two-bottles-of-crown-royal/wcm/cb9ff5ec-7970-4671-877a-4ac00c235bf8

RIP Bob Einstein

https://deadline.com/2019/01/bob-einstein-dead-curb-your-enthusiasm-super-dave-osborne-smothers-brothers-1202527938/

It’s the annual Christmas episode, and our sweaty President Donald Trump is on the show telling your children that believing in Santa is for babies. On the other side of the aisle, we also have Scott Dworkin and the Democratic Coalition here to wish them a very Mueller Christmas. You may actually want to cover their ears for that one. As it is every Christmas, Boomers really had a week. Joe Biden yelled at the youth for complaining about the bleakest economic landscape since the Great Depression, and formally accused sex creep Kevin Spacey reprised his role as Frank Underwood and threatened all of us while doing his dishes. We’ll also discuss the notion of civic duty and public servitude through Notorious RBG’s teleworking from her cancer treatment bed and Trump’s completely justifiable fear of serving in the Vietnam War. You’re listening to a couple of Jews talk about Christmas, so we obviously have movies to discuss, including Vice, Aquaman, Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, and The Clinton Affair; we also have our first impressions of the trailer for Jordan Peele’s Us to share with you. For storytime, Dan will tell the tale of the terminally first world injuries he has sustained in the past few weeks.

Notes:

Kevin Spacey Ruins Christmas

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/27/kevin-spacey-sexual-assault-snapchat-video

https://deadline.com/2018/12/kevin-spacey-let-me-be-frank-youtube-video-close-to-topping-8-million-views-1202526746/

Joe Biden: Useless Right Wing Democrat

https://www.ibtimes.com/joe-biden-backed-bills-make-it-harder-americans-reduce-their-student-debt-2094664

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/biden-crime-mass-incarceration-police-prisons

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/joe-biden-democratic-party-military-hawk

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/biden-anita-hill-women-senate-clarence-thomas-213864

MSNBC Nat Sec hacks soiling themselves over wanting to keep us at war forever

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/us/politics/trump-syria-afghanistan-withdraw.html

Trailer for Jordan Peele’s Us

https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/25/18147192/us-first-trailer-jordan-peele

After 94 years of cheating death, George H. W. Bush has finally left this mortal coil, and you know we have a few thoughts on his life, legacy, and lexiconical contributions. The alt-right has been protesting Twitter, conferencing in DC, and, in friend of the show Steve Bannon’s case, teaming up with dissident billionaires and other hacks to bring down the Chinese Communist Party. Also in politics: we prematurely name the pros and cons of some of the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and evaluate the ways in which PETA and Quartzy want us to revolutionize our language.

In pop culture, we will explore why it is that Hanukkah underperforms by the metrics of our capitalist Oracle of Delphi known as the Market. We also have some thoughts on the podcasts The New Yorker and other outlets have chosen for their year-end best-of lists, and we shout out our favorite independent shows like @streetfightwcrs, @thisishellradio, @theDCSentinel, @yourkickstarter, @CitationsPod and @thedollop. We close out the pop culture corner with Sam’s theories on where Hank and Peggy Hill of King of the Hill fame would be today, in the age of Qanon, Never Trumpers, and Bernie Bros. For story time, Sam shares an all-too-close encounter with baby boomers in the dimly lit, mercurial atmosphere of New Orleans’ Maple Leaf Bar.

Follow @plunge_podcast @spaventacular @wagstank

NOTEZ:

GHWB Rememberence: Vomiting on Japanese PM’s Genitals BUSHU-SURU

https://splinternews.com/lets-not-forget-george-h-w-bushs-true-legacy-barfing-1830833077?utm_source=splinter_twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow_splinter_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Bannon teams up with Guo Wengui

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/stephen-bannon-guo-wengui-china.html

Anti-animal language guide from PETA

https://twitter.com/peta/status/1070066047414345729?s=21

Apparently we need to treat our lives like startups

https://qz.com/quartzy/1486110/if-your-personal-life-has-ceased-to-inspire-you-try-treating-it-like-a-startup-says-esther-perel/

Bizarre article about the lack of capitalist frenzy around Hanukkah

https://apple.news/AW-q5je63Q-aygOTyeoTzzw

Podcast best of year lists that suck

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2018-in-review/the-best-podcasts-of-2018

https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/the-10-best-podcasts-of-2018.html

https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/182283/apple-lists-top-podcasts-for-2018