@alyssonne,

I agree with you that we can like what Assange is doing politically and we still shouldn’t let him off the hook for rape. People aren’t black or white, good or evil. Everyone is mixed. However, I’m not sure how to deal with the rape charges against Assange, since on the one hand, people are always quick to dismiss rape victims and especially the white dude community, the Assange fanboys, the ones who are online and likely to be atheist and MRA and treat any problem that doesn’t affect them personally as not valuable. On the other hand, the US government was obviously working with the Swedish government to get Assange back to Sweden so he could be extradited and thrown into some dark hole forever. Now, that may just be opportunistic, in so far as Assange may have actually committed a rape and they’re using it to get to him. However, the possibility still exists in my mind that this is a frame job. I don’t want to dismiss rape and I don’t want to let the government use sex scandal to smear political enemies, and I’m not sure which this is?

The Young Turks do some really excellent work, but they screw up royally often enough to be really irritating. Case in point: in this BOTL show, Cenk makes a perfectly reasonable point about sex scandals appealing to the prurient interests but being a bullshit way to take out a political enemy. Then he states that Julian Assange was accused of “not having sex the right way, like not using a condom or something.” Actually, Cenk, he was accused of raping a woman who was asleep, and therefore could not possibly have given her consent. I understand wanting to support Assange politically, but it’s irresponsible and patently incorrect journalism to turn rape charges in Sweden into “not have sex the right way.” Not cool.

When I first started listening to BOTL, I listened to Jimmy Dore, and almost nothing else that is featured here. I’ve been listening to BOTL for about a year now, and I now subscribe to Majority Report, The Young Turks, The David Pakman Show, This Week in Blackness, and still the Jimmy Dore Show. Well, today I added one more Common Sense with Dan Carlin. I’m running out of hours in the day, Jay, but I love you for it. I could not be more grateful for you and proud of you. Thank you for all you do.

The Best of the Left brand needs no changes. The “filler” is what makes it stand out with opportunities for activism and debate. The songs are great

Great show, I listen every week…but with all the podcasts I listen to, it tires me to have to ffwd in the beginning, then ffwd past the 6 songs, then ffwd past your commentary, then ffwd past the voicemails…I’d pay money to avoid all that. 70 minute show with 30 minutes of filler, ain’t nobody got time for that.