The Best of 2018

Last year, my first calendar year with Progressives Chat, I wrote and posted an entry on “The Best of 2017” [The Best of 2017].

With “The Best of 2018,” I gave myself a rule: No more than one video can be listed from the same source. But, I will confess: This is what personally appealed to me, very strongly, for subject matter and how well these videos were executed.

One source not listed: Jamarl Thomas. He deserves honorable mention particularly for his 2018 videos on United Kingdom politics—for Brexit—and with regard for prime minister and Conservative leader Theresa May vs. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“The Best of 2018” is posted on this date [Monday, December 17, 2018], two weeks prior to the actual end of 2018, because the topic I have scheduled for Friday [December 21, 2018] will be entertainment-related. It will also be a segue to Christmas. For the next two weeks, the last two weeks of 2018, I will have just one thread on Mondays [December 24 and 31, 2018].

(Side Note: On the Saturday, December 15, 2018 The Jimmy Dore Show, it was mentioned Dore interviewed Ralph Nader just recently. Dore said the video, however many parts, will get released. I don’t know when that will be. But, even if I wait until January 2019, I intend to post it as a blog topic for Progressives Chat.)

#01 “Hillary Clinton: I Got More Votes In The Places That Matter”
Secular Talk [March 16, 2018]

Kyle Kulinski covers Hillary Clinton’s controversial comments, in India, about her Election 2016 loss and how she explains that voters—apparently outside her 20 carried states—were backwards in denying her election to the presidency of the United States. When Hillary Clinton expressed this, it became the best example yet why she was never worthy of the presidency of the United States. This topic was covered, as well, by the likes of The Humanist Report’s Mike Figueredo and The Jimmy Dore Show’s Jimmy Dore. But, the one (of the three) who assessed it best—for being direct and insightful—was Secular Talk’s Kyle Kulinski.

#02 “Ocasio–Cortez Calls Out the ‘How to We Pay For It’ Double Standard”
The Humanist Report [August 21, 2018]

The Humanist Report’s Mike Figueredo comments on Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, in a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo, who was challenged on the cost of Medicare for All. (“The sticker shock.”) The 29-year-old U.S. House Rep.-Elect, at the time the Democratic nominee who unseated the renomination bid of incumbent Joe Crowley from New York #14, turns the tables on Cuomo and addresses hypocrisies of such arguments opposing Medicare for All.

#03 “Obama Joins Club of the Super Rich
— Defends Global Capitalism in Lecture”
The Real News [July 29, 2018]

The Real News had an excellent three-part segment, which was one of my blog topics [‘Obama Says Inequality Led to Rise of the Right, but Takes No Responsibility for It’], and this is the first part of a discussion between host Paul Jay and guest Leo Panitch, co-author of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Enemy of American Empire (2012). The two examine just how not only wed is Obama to the “Super Rich” but that he embraces them (while understanding their destruction).

#04 “Michelle Obama Shames Women
— Offers Them Nothing”
The Jimmy Dore Show [June 6, 2018]

Although it wasn’t the most important subject, this was my favorite 2018 video from The Jimmy Dore Show as Jimmy Dore pulls no punches of previous First Lady Michelle Obama voter-shaming people—especially women—who allowed for Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton in the United States presidential election of 2016. Kudos also go to Jimmy Dore’s wife, Stef Zamorano, who is terrifically funny as she mocks the condescending attitude by Michelle Obama: “Jimmy—I’m sitting here, next to Ron and Arnold and you, and I’m trying to figure out, ‘Where’s my place in this world as a woman? I’m helpless. I need another woman to tell me how to feel about being a woman.”

#05 “Secretly Taped Audio Reveals Democratic Leadership
Pressuring Progressive to Leave Race”
The Intercept [April 26, 2018]

Caught on audio was the Democratic Party’s No. 2 leader in the U.S. House, Steny Hoyer [D–Maryland #05), telling candidate Levi Tillemann the party had selected Jason Crow to be the nominee for Colorado #06. This came from a report by The Intercept’s Lee Fang [Secretly Taped Audio Reveals Democratic Leadership Pressuring Progressive to Leave Race]. Afterward, the controversy moved the despicable superdelegate Elaine Kamarck, in an attempt to justify this corruption, to write a piece in defense [Actually, National Democrats Should Interfere in Primaries]. (Refer to “The Best of 2017” link. You will see Elaine Kamarck interviewed by The Young Turks’s Emma Vigeland.) This was yet one more reason why, as I had in 2016, refrained from having voted for a single Democratic nominee and/or incumbent from my general-election ballot in 2018.