Thursday's Final Word

Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball joined foul-mothed and extremist I’ve Had It podcast co-host Jennifer Welch to whine about non-white ICE agents and female members of the second Trump administration. The episode, entitled “Christian Nationalist Crybabies,” was released on Tuesday. One thing Ball “had it with” was the apparent irony of Hispanic ICE agents deporting illegal immigrants of like ethnicity: It's like, what is wrong with you? Not only do you not have morality, apparently you don't have self-preservation. I mean, this is — these people hate you. They hate you. They hate your family. They hate your kids. They hate your future grandkids. They don't think you belong here. You're not a quote unquote, “heritage American.” You're never gonna belong. And you're the one implementing the violent force against your own community? I just can't wrap my head around that. Perhaps those brown-skinned ICE agents actually want to protect the legal pathway to citizenship. Why should they let short-cutters undermine the process they or their families properly used in order to find a better life? Also, it’s not very “diverse” for a liberal white woman to speak on behalf of a people group they’re not a member of. Just saying. Welch then went on a tirade against female leadership within the Trump administration, namely Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt and Kristi Noem: … these women that gender-wash this administration […] they are riding the coattails of the suffragettes and all of these women that fought so hard for them to have the job that they have, to be in front of the cameras that they are, to sit behind the desk that they're sitting on. And they are tearing it all down with zero self-awareness as to what generations before them thought. How unworthy these women are of these positions, because they're not taking the time or care. Huh? So, high-achieving career women have somehow… destroyed feminism? Sure.     Viewer be advised, Welch then satirized dopey “apolitical women” with Christian sentiments who fell for the “gender-wash” swindle with a sweet little F-bomb: How unworthy these women are of these positions, because they're not taking the time or care. And they're playing this role that a lot of authoritarians use where they use — trot women out so they make these apolitical women feel like, “Oh, it's fine. They're not anti-women because these women are for it. Oh, and they have a Christian cross. The Lord, she's — the Lord likes her. She loves the Lord, so we're gonna go ahead and go along with this fuckery.”  Building off of Welch’s sexism cry, Ball took a wild conspiracy as a source of legitimate concern for all American women: I mean, you have to take seriously this repeal the 19th Amendment stuff. Not that because it would be like easy to effectuate, but, I mean, all these things that start out as, sort of, like, memes or jokes have become reality with Trump 2.0. I mean, they're really trying to go for it. They're trying to make it so that the only people that count and can vote and have any sort of influence are, like, this narrow swath of people that to them count as whole human beings. C’mon (wo)man. Nobodies coming for your civil right to vote. Someone please order these poor ladies some Women for Trump hats! The transcript is below. Click "expand" read: I’ve Had It December 2, 2025 36:33-39:29 JENNIFER WELCH: Okay. Something else you said you'd had it with are minorities in ICE. KRYSTAL BALL: I mean that connects to this, right? WELCH: Yeah. ANGIE SULLIVAN: Yeah. BALL: [Inaudible] not only do you have no moral compass — and how many times have you seen these guys, they've got their masks on so you can't see their whole face, but what you can see it's, like, a brown skin tone and a dude who looks like his last name is probably, like, Lopez or Hernandez or something. It's like, what is wrong with you? Not only do you not have morality, apparently you don't have self-preservation. I mean, this is — these people hate you. They hate you. They hate your family. They hate your kids. They hate your future grandkids. They don't think you belong here. You're not a quote unquote, “heritage American.” You're never gonna belong. And you're the one implementing the violent force against your own community? I just can't wrap my head around that. WELCH: No. It's insane. And I feel the exact same thing that you feel when you see the ICE agents. When I see Pam Bondi, or I see Karoline Leavitt, or I see these women that gender-wash this administration where Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, says on camera, “Women shouldn't want to have careers to try to be happy. They should want to have husbands” — oh my god, your mug is so cute. SULLIVAN: Oh, I want to see. WELCH: — “husbands and kids.” SULLIVAN: Oh, that's so cute. WELCH: Sweet. For those of you that are listening, it's a cute little teddy bear mug. And then when I see Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt and Kristi Noem, and they are riding the coattails of the suffragettes and all of these women that fought so hard for them to have the job that they have, to — BALL: Yep. WELCH: — be in front of the cameras that they are, to sit behind the desk that they're sitting on. And they are tearing it all down with zero self-awareness as to what generations before them thought. How unworthy these women are of these positions, because they're not taking the time or care. And they're playing this role that a lot of authoritarians use where they use — trot women out so they make these apolitical women feel like, “Oh, it's fine. They're not anti-women” — SULLIVAN: Right. WELCH: — “because these women are for it. Oh, and they have a Christian cross. The Lord, she's — the Lord likes her. She loves the Lord, so we're gonna go ahead and go along with this” — SULLIVAN: “She must be a good person.” WELCH: — “fuckery.” It’s — BALL: Yeah. I mean, you have to take seriously this repeal the 19th Amendment stuff. Not that because it would be like easy to effectuate, but, I mean, all these things that start out as, sort of, like, memes or jokes have become reality — SULLIVAN: Yep. BALL: — with Trump 2.0. I mean, they're really trying to go for it. They're trying to make it so that the only people that count and can vote and have any sort of influence are, like, this narrow swath of people that to them count as whole human beings. So, I think you have to take it extremely seriously. And they're putting on thick pieces about how women ruined the workplace and were to blame for absolutely everything that's ever happened. It's like, you know, what happened to this idea of personal responsibility also. I thought you guys were big on that. SULLIVAN: Right.

After the battle of Cold Harbor in the spring of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was called a “butcher.” The Union general had sent wave after wave of Union soldiers against entrenched Confederates near Mechanicsville, Virginia, and at one particularly bloody point in the fighting, some 7,000 men were killed or wounded in just 30 minutes. But Cold Harbor was far from the bloodiest Civil War battle to take place during the course of the conflict. During the war, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their lives. The horrors of Spotsylvania and Shiloh left fields of dead, and Chickamauga and Chancellorsville resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. At Shiloh, the carnage was such that General William T. Sherman remarked that it could “have cured anybody of war.” These are the harrowing stories of seven of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, from Gettysburg to the Wilderness to Antietam. Gettysburg, The Bloodiest Battle Of The Civil War On June 3, 1865, Confederate soldiers marched north toward Pennsylvania. They were ebullient. The war was going well for the South, so well that Confederate General Robert E. Lee expected that a decisive victory in Union territory could force peace talks. Instead, the Battle of Gettysburg, which broke out a month later on July 1, would become one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. And it would end in a resounding Union victory. Public DomainOver 7,000 Confederate and Union soldiers lost their lives during the Battle of Gettysburg, which raged for three days in the summer of 1863. On the first day of July 1863, 93,000 Union troops met 71,000 Confederate soldiers in the tiny Pennsylvanian hamlet of Gettysburg. Though the Confederates were initially able to overwhelm the Union soldiers, the tide began to shift on the second day of battle. Then, Union forces held their ground. Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine Infantry were even able to repel Confederate forces at Little Round Top by running straight at the enemy with nothing but their bayonets. Then, during fierce fighting on the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee focused his assault on the center of the Union line. That afternoon, three divisions of around 12,500 Confederate men flung themselves at Union forces stationed along Cemetery Ridge. But the attack — dubbed Pickett’s Charge after General George E. Pickett, who was, in fact, just one of three generals involved — was a massive failure. The Union troops stood their ground. And over the course of just an hour, the Confederates suffered 6,555 casualties. The failed assault up the ridge became known as the “High-Water Mark of the Confederacy,” and, indeed, it would spell the beginning of the end for the Confederacy itself. Library of CongressA depiction of Pickett’s Charge, which also became known as the “High-Water Mark of the Confederacy.” By the time the Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3, 1863, both sides had suffered unthinkable losses. The Union had an estimated 23,049 casualties; the Confederates 28,063, for a total of 51,112. It was a Union victory, but Gettysburg was also the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, one of the deadliest days in American history, and a sharp reminder of the stakes of the conflict. Speaking at the site on Nov. 19, President Abraham Lincoln famously promised: “…that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” The post The Grisly Stories Of 7 Of The Civil War’s Bloodiest Battles, From Chancellorsville To Gettysburg appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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