The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: Rod Blagojevich

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

Is two-handed bowling really bowling?

I haven’t watched pro bowling on TV in a good, long time. In fact, until late last year, I didn’t know that pro bowling was back on TV in any consistent way (Fox and Fox Sports are now the new home of pro bowling on TV). Since I’ve started watching it again, I’ve noticed that there are several pro bowlers now bowling two-handed.

When the hell did this happen? When did this become a thing that more than a few guys do?

Back when I used to bowl in a league, the new thing was bowling without using the thumb hole, but that didn’t seem to catch on in any big way. There were a few pros on TV doing the “no thumb” thing but I’ll be damned if I remember who they were, and from what I’ve seen since I started watching again no one seems to be doing that anymore at all. Two-handed bowling, though?

Holy shit.

But is two handed bowling really bowling? I have a hard time accepting it as actual, real bowling, but, at the same time, if it’s catching on in a big way and it gets people interested in bowling again, I guess it’s going to have to become a form of bowling. I don’t like it, but then there are people out there who like it, so why not?

Any bowlers out there reading this? What do you think? Is two-handed bowling really bowling?

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week.

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to disgraced former Democratic governor of Illinois and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich, for his recent claim that he was a political prisoner. Blagojevich, who was granted clemency by President Trump this past week, went on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show this past Friday night and said that he was unfairly imprisoned by “corrupt prosecutors” and that he did nothing wrong. Cooper challenged the former governor’s assertion that he was a “political prisoner,” calling the claim “bullshit.”

And it is bullshit. Shockingly massive bullshit.

Blagojevich was convicted, over the course of two trials, of 18 felony counts of lying to federal investigators, bribery, and corruption. Blagojevich tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after Obama won the presidency, and he also apparently engaged in shakedowns involving a children’s hospital, a racetrack, and a building executive. And Blagojevich was recorded making arrangements for all of the things he was accused of. He could have been convicted of several more charges over the course of his two trials, but the juries in his two trials didn’t go that far (you can check out the full details of the Blagojveich trials here).

So Blagojevich was given two jury trials, where the two juries convicted him on most but not all of the charges leveled against him, and he had a team of lawyers that gave him a vigorous defense. Is that what typically happens to people railroaded by corrupt government prosecutors?

No, it isn’t. So how is Rod Blagojevich a political prisoner?

He isn’t one. He’s a corrupt piece of shit that was convicted by two juries of his peers. He did all of it. And he hasn’t apologized for the crimes that he committed. That’s a disgrace. And kudos to Cooper for calling him out on all of it.

Now, will Blagojevich continue his “political prisoner” lie going forward in his public life? You would think, after this interview, that he wouldn’t, especially if he wants to fight for justice system and prison reform, I have a feeling, though, that this will be Blagojevich’s story for the rest of his life. He’ll probably get some sort of book deal, he’ll do the interview and speech circuit, and he’ll find just enough people to believe him in order to sustain himself. Or maybe he’ll end up as some sort of “Democratic political analyst” on Fox News and go from there. Or maybe he’ll become one of those “celebrities” that ends up on various reality shows (he did appear on a season of Trump’s The Apprentice so it’s not like he isn’t a known commodity in that realm).

Whatever Blagojevich ends up doing, he will never be able to escape the bullshit story that he tried to foist upon the world. He is not a political prisoner. It’s ridiculous.

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And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

–Chris Mathews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Mathews, for comparing Bernie Sanders winning the Nevada Democratic caucus and becoming the early front runner in the 2020 Democratic Presidential race to the Nazi invasion of France in 1940. Yes, that’s what Mathews did, and while it isn’t all that surprising (Mathews has said crazy shit many times on TV over the years) it’s still awful. Perhaps Mathews and his fellow pundits in the “liberal” media should try to figure out why the Democratic party has, at least right now, latched on to Sanders and report on that instead of engaging in batshit analogies. And, shit, Mathews, you’re a part of a big deal news agency. Why aren’t you vetting Sanders if he’s so fucking awful? Don’t you have roughly five hours of cable television a week to do that?

–That Hobart, Indiana couple that ran two kids off the road for flying Trump flags on their bikes, for running those kids off the road because they were flying Trump flags on their bikes. Look, if you want to give those kids the finger or yell at them and call them nuts, go right ahead. That would be awful, yes, but that wouldn’t be running kids off the fucking road with your goddamn car awful. Or you could have just talked amongst yourselves, called the kids fucking stupid, and moved on. Or, best yet, just ignored the kids and moved. That would have been the right thing to do.

People really are out of their fucking minds, aren’t they?

–NASCAR, for allowing President Trump to turn the start of the 2020 Daytona 500 into a 2020 campaign event. While it’s no doubt true that the NASCAR fan base is majority Republican and that NASCAR’s owners are all right wing in some way, shape, or form, it’s still unbecoming for a major sports league to be seen as so mega partisan, especially during an election year. And when you consider that Trump hadn’t been seen at Daytona in almost two decades and that he didn’t hang around to actually watch the race, in person, the whole thing was nothing more than a stunt for his campaign and NASCAR shouldn’t be making an effort to do shit like that. NASCAR doesn’t have to necessarily stay neutral, but why didn’t Trump make an effort to be seen at Daytona in 2019? Did anyone within NASCAR ask that?

–Those people in Southern, California that were getting close to that bear that was walking around a neighborhood so they could take a picture of it/video of it, for getting close to that bear that was walking around so they could take a picture/video of it. It’s a fucking bear, you morons! A bear! If you see a bear walking around your fucking neighborhood, get away as fast and safely as you can and call the cops. Don’t get close to it and try to get your picture taken with it. It’s a fucking bear!

Really, what the hell is wrong with people? How can they be this fucking stupid?

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