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| Washington, D.C. bakery owner Yael Krigman (left) with WABC-7 meteorologist Eileen Whelan |
The segment focused on the Washington, D.C. area which is home to thousands of federal workers and federal contractors; including a security guard named De'von Russell and a small business owner named Yael Krigman (pictured left).
They're both staring down the barrel of financial uncertainty thanks to Trump.
At first glance, Krigman and Russell are the kinds of Americans that Republican politicians like to claim they represent - hard-working folks looking to make a better life for themselves and carve out their own little slice of the American dream.
But since Trump has been in office, Republicans have done nothing but screw small businesses, farmers, the middle and working class and the poor, between the trade war with China impacting U.S. farmers, the government shutdown and the massive Republican tax cut - which has caused the federal deficit Republicans whined about incessantly when President Obama was in office to skyrocket*.
*[I tried looking up the Monthly Treasury Report on the Bureau of Fiscal Service website which lists updated deficit numbers - but there's no updated data because the people who get paid to do that aren't doing their jobs because of the Trump - McConnell shutdown.]
As Lisa Desjardins reported, Yael Krigman quit her well-paying job as an attorney to pursue her passion for baking and opened a small Kosher bakery called Baked By Yael across the street from the National Zoo - which normally supplies her and he 17 employees with a steady stream of hungry customers during the day.
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| Custom "Cake-pops" from Baked By Yael |
By the way her custom "Cake-pops" - balls of baked cake batter attached to a stick and dipped in candy coating - looked so good, I went to her website and ordered some of them to be shipped to me.
Hey I figure it's only right to try and support fellow Americans affected by the shutdown right? And, well, I really love cake.
Check out the Baked By Yael website for yourself.
Lisa Desjardins also visited De'Von Russell as he played with his adorable three-year-old daughter Dejah; if you want to see the PBS segment click this link and scroll to 25 minutes 14 seconds.
Russell works as a security guard for the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, he loves his job, but he's one of thousands of federal contractors across the country who probably won't be getting back pay for the two weeks he's been furloughed from work.
As Russell said in the interview, he's managed to pay all his bills for the time being, but like many Americans including myself, he lives paycheck to paycheck.
And if the shutdown continues, he and thousands of other Americans are looking at a bleak month ahead with no end in sight simply because of Trump's refusal to act, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's refusal to allow legislation that would reopen the government to even come to the floor for a vote.
Just think about that for a moment; is he serving the American people, or a constituency of one?
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| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and colleagues search the Capitol for Senator Mitch McConnell |
But evidently the elusive senate majority leader was doing his best to hide from AOC and her Democratic posse - if you haven't seen the video of AOC's hunt take a minute to watch the edited highlights.
For those of you who prefer to geek out on the often-arcane workings behind the scene of the House and Senate, Lawrence O'Donnell's 16-minute segment on MSNBC's The Last Word is worth the watch as he offers some deeper historical context on the significance of AOC and her colleagues trying to bring their demands directly to the floor of the male-dominated Senate chamber.
The system is clearly broken when one cowardly senator from Kentucky has the power to keep major portions of the federal government in a protracted shutdown because he's scared of an erratic president having a temper tantrum that could make his angry Kentucky voter base even angrier.
Sadly, that homegrown Kentucky anger was on full display on Friday in Washington, D.C.
As you may have heard by now some students of the all-boys Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky - a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio located in northern Kentucky - are getting a much-needed lesson in the power of social media.
In a video now seen by millions around the world, a group of mostly white Covington Catholic boys along with what appear to be at least some of their parents in the background, are seen mocking, taunting and blocking a group of Native American activists who were in Washington, D.C. to participate in the Indigenous People's March on Friday.
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| An unnamed Covington Catholic HS student smugly stares down Omaha tribal elder Nathan Phillips |
Part of what's troubling is the open hostility many of them display towards a group of Native Americans who were there simply singing and drumming - what is it about the Native Americans that sparked the kind of mob mentality seen in the video?
If you've seen the video, quite a few of the Covington Catholic High School boys are wearing Trump's red or white "Make America Great Again" hats, some have Trump sweatshirts on - as if their parents have indoctrinated them into the kind of openly racist, white supremacist belief system that's become the defining element of the Trump presidency.
The one smirking boy in the gray jacket and red MAGA hat in particular (pictured above) who decided to stand defiantly close to Omaha tribal elder Nathan Phillips, a Vietnam veteran, almost looks like he wants to spark a physical confrontation.
In a short video that I saw posted on actress Alyssa Milano's Twitter page, Phillips reflects on the broader history that the boys who taunted him do not even remotely seem to grasp - even as they can be heard chanting "Build that wall" in the background.
Seriously, these kids live in a cushy suburb and attend a private school with a $10,000 per year tuition, what the Hell do any of them need a wall for?
As USA Today and other media outlets have reported, Covington Catholic HS and the Catholic Diocese issued a joint statement condemning the behavior and apologizing for the student's actions; as well as insisting an investigation of what happened will take place.
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| #WheresMitch has become a popular hashtag as politicians wonder why the Senator is AWOL |
There are millions of white grade school students who consider the behavior of the Covington Catholic High School boys to be reprehensible, I spent quite a bit of time reading social media reaction to the incident, and people of all ages, ethnicities, nationalities and religions are offended by what takes place in that video.
But given that Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell's chief motivation for blocking spending bills that would reopen the federal government seems to be his fear of alienating the pro-Trump voters in his state whose support he will need in the 2020 election, the video of the Covington Catholic HS boys offers troubling insight into the kind of grassroots conservative anger that McConnell fears.
Anger that's hardly unique to Kentucky.
Whatever happens with the government shutdown, or disciplinary actions against the Kentucky students who mocked, taunted and disrespected a Native American elder who served his country in Vietnam, one thing is clear.
The sun is definitely not shining bright on "My Old Kentucky Home" these days.
In fact there's a cloud hanging over it.
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