Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the Weekender edition of the Muckrake podcast. I'm J.J. at Sexton.

Nick Houseman is still out of the country, so I'm flying solo.

No cracking open of a can today.

This one is not going to be a joy ride.

I don't want to lie to you or tell you that this is necessarily going to be a fun broadcast.

But we do have to talk about some truly disturbing developments.

We have to talk about the passage of the Republican domestic agenda.

What it means for us in terms of how it will change our lives,

in terms of how we must wrap our heads around this, to understand it, where it comes from,

and ultimately where we have to go from here.

I've said it before, and I want to state it again, that politics will break your heart.

They will bring you to your knees.

When you look at devastation, when you look at oppression, and when you look at exploitation, and when you look at exploitation, it's all you can do sometimes to hold on to hope and to not become so discouraged

that you throw up your hands and say, what is it that I can do or that anybody can do?

And I want to say before we get into this broadcast, which will have some tough moments in it,

do not give up hope.

Because even if instead of talking about an absolute dismal embarrassing theft of a bill such as this one

the job isn't never done there is a fight ahead of us and we are going to have to do so much to repair the damage that has been done during this fascistic regime and to move beyond it it's not going to be just about repair, which is what we were promised in

2020. But to look at what this is, to stare into its face, to look into the abyss and see what

our future will be if we do not only reject this madness, these crimes,

but to demand something far beyond what it's even taking from us.

...