Episode #096 – Deflection

News – Story 1: Michael Flynn, National Security Advisor, has resigned after Russian diplomat conversations
News – Story 2: Playboy returns mostly nude photos to the magazine
News – Story 3: PewDiePie, YouTube’s largest content creator, dropped by Disney for making anti-Semitic videos

– on the February 3rd TV show episode, the discussion of a Congressional law to allow coal companies to dump their waste into streams was brought up to the panel; Tomi defended the coal waste dumping by calling the coal companies “the forgotten American” and saying the coal industry was under attack; Maher countered with “even if we support coal, why allow the company to dump sludge in the river?”; Toni’s reply was a deflection “It’s a more complex issue than that”; talk about not answering the question directly; when should it ever be acceptable to dump coal waste in a river or stream?; obviously Tomi and her right wing base are ok with this; otherwise, her answer could have been “yes, they should find a better way to dispose of the waste”; but that wasn’t the answer she gave; unfortunately, the topic of discussion doesn’t allow to expand on this topic into more depth on the show; I certainly would love to hear Tomi give a direct answer to this question; polluting the environment while removing regulations isn’t hurting the little guy; it’s forcing a company that dumps pollutants in the air and ground to be better at reducing that waste.

– * It’s been about 4 years since Depeche Mode released a new album and it was just so-so; not very good, actually; there were some songs that grew on me eventually, but overall, it was lacking pretty heavily for any kind of greatness; now there’s a new album coming out on March 17th called “Spirit” and the first single is “Where’s The Revolution” and after a good 20 or more listens, I like it; it had to grow on me some, but compared to 2013’s “Heaven”, it’s a lot better and has a good strong sound; it’s very hard to be a fan of this band and have them produce an album or two of material that is hard to listen to; I’m hoping the other tracks on “Spirit” will be just as good or better; if not, then I guess I will join other fans in wishing for a return to the older sound from the last 80’s and early 90’s when Alan Wilder was still in the band.

iTunes link: Banal Leakage

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