"Fiercely and unapologetically progressive, and definitely NSFW. 'The Professional Left' features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal as they skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media mealy-mouths with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. From mercilessly mocking partisan hacks to elevating stories the media ignores, it's the profane, unflinching political commentary you didn't know you needed. More at http://ProLeftPod.com."
In their final episode of 2025, Driftglass and Blue Gal try to sum up the entire awful year in just a few key words or phrases.
As they close out nearly 16 years of podcasting together, the hosts reflect on the core lies drilled into Americans' heads so long that people automatically reach for them whenever the truth becomes too uncomfortable to face.
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Driftglass and Blue Gal bring their epic year-in-review series to a close, covering September through December and finally boxing up 2025 to send it to hell. The hosts examine the final months of a year that saw legacy media trapped in their own 'Both Sides Do It' prison, DOGE's promises evaporate into nothing, and the Epstein files get a (incompetent, but still) cover up. But there's also hope in this finale—a...
Driftglass and Blue Gal continue their review of 2025, covering May through August in this second part of their series.
The hosts show how the Republican Party's corruption and chaos isn't something new or unexpected—it's exactly what the party has been building toward for decades through right-wing talk radio and Fox News. They walk through major events from those months, including media companies giving in to Trump...
Driftglass and Blue Gal reflect on what they call an "annus horribilis"—a genuinely awful year that fundamentally changed America as Trump's second term brought unprecedented corruption, chaos, and the erosion of democratic institutions. From Qatar's $400 million Boeing 747 bribe to Trump's crypto schemes and the $300 million White House ballroom boondoggle, they catalog the scandals that made 2025 feel lik...
Trump's "affordability" tour crashes into reality, with the president telling struggling Americans to buy fewer pencils and dolls while his own supporters admit they can't afford groceries. David Brooks' embarrassing 2009 love letter to John Thune as the GOP's wholesome future collides with Thune today holding the biggest bag of political excrement in modern history as the ACA subsidy vote collapses. R...
We examine the difference between political "weather" and "climate" this week, starting with Trump once again bribing farmers with $11 billion after his own tariffs destroyed their markets. We play audio demonstrating Trump's cognitive decline and discuss his increasingly unhinged Truth Social posts, including a bizarre rant about Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Republican Party is now held together by violence...
The dangerous convergence of Trumpian immunity and media complicity creates for Trump an imaginary “kingdom” once reserved for anointed kings. Our Constitutional form of “government of the people” has been corrupted by both MAGA's belief that Trump operates with divine authority above the law and a mainstream media that protects its own incompetent insiders at all costs. As a side quest, what does Mark Halperin's endles...
No show today; we've had quite a weekend.
We'll be back to our regularly scheduled podcasting on Thursday. See you then!
In this week's episode, we experience the whipsaw—that aggressive, back-and-forth sawing motion that's now a perfect metaphor for what Republicans are doing to millions of American families over the Affordable Care Act.
We watch in real time as Trump's promised two-year ACA subsidy extension is announced, then delayed, then killed by Mike Johnson—all within 48 hours. Why did Republicans pull the rug out from under ten...
In this week's episode, we dive deep into the infrastructure project nobody wants to talk about: the construction of political lifeboats.
What are we witnessing as Trump's administration unfolds? We're seeing the familiar pattern of those who enabled catastrophe beginning to build their escape routes—just as they did after the Bush administration collapsed, when the "Fake Tea Party" served as the greatest ma...
GOP rats are slowly but surely abandoning the sinking Trump ship, and we have to ask:
Will "Republican Lifeboats" once again successfully allow the MAGA/Tea Party faithful to escape accountability?
We analyze Marjorie Taylor Greene's masterful deployment of the "Magic Words" to blame "both sides of the aisle," framing her slow-motion exit from the Trump pandemonium bandwagon as an act of high princi...
This week, we're talking about the Epstein Files, the shutdown that wasn't really about the shutdown, and why six words might just end a presidency.
Meanwhile, some privileged podcasters are dismissing angry "online" Democrats as if losing our healthcare is just a theoretical concern.
Plus: The increasingly evident mental decline of a president: Trump goes from "inventing" the word "affordability...
This week, we're celebrating our first post-Blue Tsunami show! Democrats won across the board on Tuesday, and we're sleeping a little better. To quote Churchill: "This is not the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Happy 21st blogiversary to the amazing Fran Blue Gal!
Zohran Mamdani won NYC mayor with over 50% of the vote. And yet the Wall Street Journal immediately declared, "Election Wins Wo...
This week, we're recording on election day while awaiting results to find out which version of "Democrats are doing it wrong!" the pundits will run with tomorrow.
We open with words of wisdom from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to the American Federation of Teachers. Then we come to bury Dick Cheney, not to praise him.
We'll explore our "12 Rules for Staying Fing Sane," which we redefine as a playbook for...
This week, we're recording on Driftglass's birthday while he's still battling a cold and sounding disturbingly like RFK Jr. meets Broderick Crawford—so we're keeping it simple and direct.
Why should Democrats stop accommodating Republican sociopaths who inflict pain on their own base as leverage? And what happens when Democrats finally say "let them burn" instead of rushing to pay the ransom?
Why are the...
Does Driftglass with laryngitis sound like Brenda Vaccaro? The podcasters disagree, YOU be the judge!
(See you on Thursday, which is also Driftglass's 65th birthday! Woot!)
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This week, we're examining the legacy media's desperate attempt to plug a 20-foot hole in their Both Sides narrative—and why their favorite solution won't work.
The New York Times Editorial Board insists that "moving to the center is the way to win," but the data show that this strategy is already exhausted. Talking of compromise with an enemy who wants no reconciliation is absolutely ridiculous.
Links for th...
Find your No Kings Protest March/Rally at https://www.nokings.org/
This week, we're asking the only question that matters: Will what we do actually help?
What does it mean to be "effective" in the fight to save democracy? Did throwing pies at Bill Kristol, Rupert Murdoch, or Newt Gingrich ever change anything? And why should we always ask ourselves the Bridge of Spies question: "Would it help?"
We'll exp...
This week, we're watching the media scramble for survival as tectonic forces fracture the landscape—and the billionaires are building lifeboats while Mount Vesuvius smokes overhead.
Why is The Bulwark declaring itself "the future" while The Washington Post and CBS News die?
And what does it mean that CBS just hired Bari Weiss to, let's face it, manage the death of broadcast TV news?
We'll reveal the secret to...
In this week's episode, we tackle the concept of "ethos"—what people actually stand for versus what they claim to believe. Drawing parallels from the Cornerstone Speech of 1861 to George Wallace's segregationist campaign, we explore how America's ugliest movements had clear, comprehensible (if abhorrent) belief systems. But what about today's MAGA movement? Beyond rage and resentment, what do they actu...
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.
"SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!