Listen now (2 mins) | Little-known fact: A leading cause of death in Texas is Gov. Greg Abbott. Yes, by intentional actions and deliberate inactions, Abbott has used his gubernatorial policies to kill thousands of Texans, including: his calculated refusal to extend Medicaid to millions of poor Texans (including nearly a million children)… his intentional denial of water breaks for outdoor workers broiling under this year’s 100-plus-degree heat dome… his lethal deregulation of utilities causing the state power grid to collapse for days in the deep freeze of 2021 with hundreds dying for lack of heat and water… his shameful prioritizing of gun extremism over the lives of school children... and his despicable grandstanding stunts at the Mexican border, killing untold hundreds of migrant families by design.

Gather ‘round, students, for this week’s history lesson. This week we look at one true American hero, who single-handedly saved our country from a fascist takeover in 1933. That alone should make this hero a household name—and what a name he has.

Listen now (2 mins) | Sen. Tom Cotton, a far-out, right-winger, is to good public policy what a boll weevil is to a good cotton crop: totally destructive. But he is politically candid – rather than disguising his racial bigotry, for example, Tom flaunts it, as he did last month in an open letter to the retail giant, Target. While the senator is usually a devoted corporate-hugging Republican, he lashed out at Target for business policies that he furiously condemns as racially discriminatory…

Writers in the entertainment industries have been on strike since May 2nd, and then this month, the actors have joined them. Hollywood seems like one of those glamorous industries rolling in cash, far removed from the reality of everyday life in America. But, that’s not the whole picture, and these strikes have revealed some ugly truths about worker exploitation, and how this fight is about much more than pay rates-- it’s about the future of work for us all.

Listen now (2 mins) | As John Mellencamp sings: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” True. And here’s and equally true twist on that aphorism: “If you stand for everything, you won’t amount to anything.”

The old saying goes that no one wants to see how the sausage gets made. But, that’s the kind of stuff that Hightower and the rest of us here love to learn about! So, we thought you’d enjoy a peek behind the curtains and see how Hightower’s work gets from his brain to your eyeballs and eardrums.

Listen now (2 mins) | Rube Goldberg would marvel at Sen. Joe Manchin’s wacky, convoluted machinations to rig the system so fossil fuel polluters can run roughshod over nature, local people, and democracy. Goldberg was a master of satirical cartoons, drawing hilarious schematics of convoluted contraptions to do silly tasks. His “Self-Operating Napkin,” for example, involved a spoon, cracker, toucan, skyrocket, sickle, and a pendulum attached to a napkin – all operating sequentially to automatically wipe the chin of a soup eater.

Our first Friday Open Thread yielded such a cornucopia of comments and recommendations, it’s taken us a couple weeks to read through them all. Here are a few that stood out to me.

Listen now (2 mins) | Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America. Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society. Their regime held power through mind control – they had T a “Ministry of Truth” for perverting language and manipulating facts, while their “Thought Police” enforced ideological purity and suppressed dissent.

Yes, the 4th of July has passed, but beaucoup summer picnics lie ahead, so here are the makings of a classic State Fair staple: The American Corn Dog! This is the original. Way before Hebrew National franks and the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile came into play, Mesoamericans pioneered