- 3 months ago
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00:00:00Thanks for joining us for political talk on another Politipod Live.
00:00:07I'm Matt Nissenoff.
00:00:09And I'm Tom Bickel, here to discuss current political events. Tonight we'll cover some Trump news, have a word on our current First Lady Melania Trump,
00:00:18we will cry for Argentina, have some economics, private and public, we'll talk about a couple of political races, and we'll have the latest on Pam Bondi.
00:00:27We will also have our regular segments, Fascism Creeps and Election Central.
00:00:32But for now, we start with...
00:00:36Start with Trump news.
00:00:40I think the big story everyone has heard this past couple of, this past week, has been the MRI, the need to have an MRI.
00:00:52He, six months ago, had an annual health checkup.
00:00:56And according to him, of course, he's of excellent health.
00:01:01And I'm sure he's saying, what, probably six foot five now?
00:01:06Maybe 125, 130 pounds?
00:01:10Yeah, so...
00:01:11Absolutely.
00:01:12Exactly. So he's perfectly healthy according to him.
00:01:15And yet, six months later, here we are, and he requires an MRI, which is not a common thing during an annual checkup.
00:01:24It's usually, there's something that causes the doctor to want you to have an MRI.
00:01:30And also, it's come out that he started bragging about having taken a cognitive test.
00:01:35He's one of those man, person, woman, camera...
00:01:40Camera TV.
00:01:41TV things.
00:01:43Go for it.
00:01:44And he even went to the extent of challenging two congresspeople, Democrats, AOC, and Talambi, I think is the other one.
00:01:55He's been talking to Rashid Talambi and saying to them, you should have to take the test that I took.
00:02:00And it's so difficult that I, you know, I'm sure I'd still do better than you.
00:02:05And everybody else is saying, well, it's not a test.
00:02:08It's actually, even though it's called a cognitive test, it's really, you're doing it against yourself.
00:02:14You're not trying to compete against other people here.
00:02:17And yet he has failed.
00:02:18Exactly.
00:02:19Yeah, exactly.
00:02:20We should put together a GoFundMe and see if we can raise enough to help these two democratic congresspeople make a decision to take the test and compare the results.
00:02:35Although he then would lose the, he would then say the results never really existed and he can't write the paperwork and it won't be released.
00:02:44Fake news.
00:02:47NDAs, can't talk about it.
00:02:49Exactly.
00:02:50He'll release the visual tests for glasses instead and say, you know, that should be good enough for you.
00:02:58And the regular sort of, but it is, it is actually noteworthy that they had him do these tests again.
00:03:11Whatever you think, good, bad, or indifferent, it is not common in an annual checkup to have an MRI and a cognitive test unless there's a reason.
00:03:23The doctor's concerned enough to want to check.
00:03:26You have to wonder if the doctor was doing a lot of this.
00:03:30Hey, you know, over here, buddy, quit, quit squeezing the plastic breast exam breast.
00:03:38Yes, sir.
00:03:42Put down the pen.
00:03:43No more poems on the body.
00:03:44Come on, cut that out.
00:03:45So, you know, I hear, I have a couple of conversations about this with people.
00:03:54And that was the first thing I thought is what you said about you don't just take an MRI because you feel like it because everything's fine.
00:04:04You know, you take an MRI when there's a problem and you want to check on that problem and see what the cause is or how bad it's gotten.
00:04:11On the other hand, devil's advocate.
00:04:14I was talking to somebody and they made a little bit of sense.
00:04:17I said, you know, that's true unless you're rich and you can just have MRIs whenever you want, just like, you know, just like anything else.
00:04:29Just just get one hell get get to make a make a Christmas card out of one of them.
00:04:36So there there's that.
00:04:38But, yeah, he's if he was in stellar health, I could buy that.
00:04:41He's not in stellar health.
00:04:42He looks like he's got things strapped under his pant leg, some sort of fluid being held or, you know, retained or dispersed.
00:04:52Who knows?
00:04:54He could be Bane by now.
00:04:56Bane is a Batman villain who has a special juice that pumps right into his spinal cord.
00:05:01Anyway.
00:05:02Yeah.
00:05:03So I think I tend to think there's a problem or several.
00:05:07I think he's coming back from a stroke.
00:05:11Somebody noticed a certain time pattern that three months ago he was when he supposedly when he disappeared, maybe had a stroke.
00:05:22And then the MRI was like three months after that, which is about time you check in on something like that.
00:05:27We'll never know.
00:05:28We can speculate.
00:05:29And I sure love conjecturing on the total physical damage.
00:05:35He's accruing day by day.
00:05:38It is.
00:05:39It is that, you know, but we'll never know until.
00:05:44You know, until the until the regime falls and people talk and there's hearings and people sell books and want to get on a talk show and shit like that.
00:05:56So until the documents are brought out of the bunker.
00:06:02That's right.
00:06:03So until then, we'll just have to revel in the speculation.
00:06:06And to be fair to him, I mean, it could be a new kink he has.
00:06:10He may be into MRIs now.
00:06:12He's had other propensities in the past.
00:06:15And maybe this is just his new thing.
00:06:17So it could be nothing more than that.
00:06:19And what married.
00:06:21Never mind.
00:06:22I was going to make a bad joke about marriage and lying very, very still during sex, like an MRI.
00:06:28But I think I just won't pursue.
00:06:31I'm going to take the high road on that one, Matt.
00:06:33It's classy of me, don't you think?
00:06:34Yeah.
00:06:35Yes, absolutely.
00:06:36You are definitely in a class for that.
00:06:38Ever the gentleman.
00:06:40And part of your class, you picked up this picture.
00:06:44Tell us more.
00:06:46This one was snapped, I think, about two weeks ago in the Oval Office.
00:06:51And people couldn't help but notice the devilish aesthetic.
00:06:57With this, you're talking about the Trump photo, right?
00:07:00Yeah.
00:07:01Yeah.
00:07:02It looked like he's got a sprouted a couple of horns.
00:07:04And I got to tell you, I presume they were always there.
00:07:08There's no other picture there to compare it to.
00:07:11So we can't say that it hasn't.
00:07:13That's right.
00:07:14Always been there.
00:07:15You can't see cloven hoofs under the desk there.
00:07:18But again, I insist, have been and always been there.
00:07:22Although it does challenge South Park's version of things.
00:07:26Where he's only dating the devil and not actually both himself and the devil.
00:07:33Which would give a whole new twist.
00:07:34Complicated.
00:07:35Yeah.
00:07:36Politics is complicated, for sure.
00:07:37Yeah.
00:07:38Fair point.
00:07:39And another point, actually, is here he is, the architect of peace.
00:07:47The man who has brought eternal peace to the Middle East.
00:07:50Of course.
00:07:51He solved it all.
00:07:52Let's all go home.
00:07:53Peace in our time.
00:07:55And, oh, that reminds me, apparently, Israel's attacked Gaza in retaliation for something that
00:08:03Hamas did or didn't do, along the lines of the ceasefire.
00:08:09Yeah, but they have the solid legal ground of they started it.
00:08:16Right.
00:08:17Right.
00:08:18So for a guy who's going to heaven, says so in his own Bibles.
00:08:23If you look towards the back, I think.
00:08:25Spoiler alert.
00:08:26Spoiler alert.
00:08:27Yeah.
00:08:28That eternal peace seems to have broken and yet been restarted.
00:08:36Apparently, Israel moved in with troops, did whatever it was they wanted to do.
00:08:41And then, today, they're saying, both Israel and Trump are saying, okay, it's back.
00:08:48The ceasefire is back in place.
00:08:50Red light, green light.
00:08:51Well, it's off.
00:08:56It's on.
00:08:57We're on a break.
00:08:58It's like friends.
00:08:59We're on a break.
00:09:02Too good.
00:09:04Yeah.
00:09:05Well, and actually, who knew diplomacy on the clapper?
00:09:14Speaking of things that may well be broke.
00:09:18Melania.
00:09:19The Melania Trump first lady.
00:09:22Haven't heard much about her.
00:09:25And the word on the street is that she's been playing very low key.
00:09:30She hasn't been terribly active and is not interested in being active.
00:09:35She has a staff that's been whittled down to four or five people.
00:09:40But now, all these stories are coming out because the offices of the first lady are in the east wing.
00:09:47Or, pardon me, were in the east wing.
00:09:50That's part of the building that was recently demolished.
00:09:53And apparently, a bunch of news stories have come out that she's not happy about that.
00:09:59Because that would have been, or that is where her official offices were.
00:10:03Although now, other rooms have been set up.
00:10:06Although, if I may offer an aside, I am led to believe that she's actually really happy that she doesn't have to set up any Christmas decorations
00:10:20in the walkway that resemble the set of the movie Saw.
00:10:26So, everybody won on that one.
00:10:31That's good.
00:10:32That's good.
00:10:33Hey.
00:10:34A very Gothmas Christmas to you.
00:10:37And, honestly, I don't know what else to say about her other than,
00:10:43there certainly seems to be some problem that's there.
00:10:52Whatever it is, everybody, you know, we all have our thoughts and ideas on it based on what we know of what's happened between the two of them.
00:11:02But she just doesn't seem to, she doesn't seem too worried about doing, playing the role.
00:11:09She doesn't care, do you?
00:11:13Yeah, right.
00:11:15There's your merch.
00:11:18Right.
00:11:23She never has been very zealous about the role.
00:11:26I think between the transistor in the back of her head that tunes in Moscow at the end of every night and gives Trump's his orders for the next day,
00:11:39and, you know, some decorating opportunities.
00:11:45What else is, I don't know, she doesn't, I don't think her heart's really in it.
00:11:49And this time around, I think she's even less inclined to fake it.
00:11:56So, I guess I'm not surprised.
00:11:59Yeah.
00:12:00I mean, I just think it's a wild little twist.
00:12:06Yeah.
00:12:07And, I mean, her offices were in the East Wing.
00:12:10So, you know, I mean, where you go to work doesn't even exist anymore.
00:12:18What's she supposed to do?
00:12:19Run her office out of the West Wing toilet?
00:12:22I mean, I don't know.
00:12:24I don't know.
00:12:26I don't know what we expect her to do.
00:12:29Not to sympathize with the devil, but she can't just sit out in the dirt.
00:12:35That's the way to run a railroad.
00:12:37I don't know.
00:12:38I'm looking for meaning in this.
00:12:39I'm not finding it.
00:12:40Yeah.
00:12:41She's as complicit as any other member of that family.
00:12:44So, I don't think that it's, that she doesn't want something out of it.
00:12:47But I just don't think it's actually playing the role.
00:12:50So, I agree with you.
00:12:51And speaking of flushing things down the toilet,
00:12:55I think a good flush of that toilet would bring us to Fascist Creeps,
00:12:59our first segment.
00:13:00Yes.
00:13:01A herd of a different color.
00:13:03Yes.
00:13:04A herd of a different color.
00:13:05Yeah.
00:13:08So, to get things moving on to hold,
00:13:13that portion of how fascism is creeping into America,
00:13:20there's a lot about this deporting people to Aguilera, to the Uganda.
00:13:28Uganda, Liberia, dark side of the moon.
00:13:32Sure.
00:13:33It's absolutely appalling.
00:13:36And I don't know.
00:13:38It's bald-faced, just vile.
00:13:42And there's no rubric for it.
00:13:44There's no reason.
00:13:45Gilmar Albrego Garcia would have been happy to go to Costa Rica if they just wanted to get rid of him.
00:13:51But no.
00:13:52They want to send him somewhere where he can be chained to a wall for 11 hours out of 12.
00:13:58And, you know, beaten on the bottoms of his feet or whatever it is they want to happen.
00:14:03They want to send him to Uganda or Liberia.
00:14:06I forget now.
00:14:07It's been a few days since I read about it.
00:14:09You have to put these things down, Matt, for your own mental health sometimes.
00:14:13It's so confronting.
00:14:15This guy will never be the same already.
00:14:17He's already traumatized.
00:14:18And they're not even by half done with him.
00:14:20They want to send him someplace he's never been.
00:14:23Never been.
00:14:26Right. The place where the laws aren't exactly up to human rights.
00:14:32Exactly. Loaded with human rights violations.
00:14:36There's nothing.
00:14:37There's no good reason for that.
00:14:40It's the same.
00:14:41Yeah.
00:14:42Trump just lies about everything.
00:14:44So often the people have become numb to it.
00:14:46And here it is.
00:14:47This one is that we were going to deport violent criminals, people with criminal records.
00:14:54The worst of the worst.
00:14:56Yeah, exactly.
00:14:57And they're just grabbing U.S. citizens.
00:15:00They're, you know, the White House has passed the word down that they want 3,000 arrests a day out of ICE.
00:15:10And they're not even able to, they're not capable of doing that.
00:15:15Right.
00:15:16So they're not hitting their goals, which means they're going to just start grabbing more people and more and more who are American citizens and not violent and not criminals and are citizens.
00:15:27And those are so sending them to these.
00:15:31I don't know if it's a black site exactly, but certainly a place that's outside of the jurisdiction.
00:15:36So they can say, well, we, you don't know what happened to them that we just sent them away.
00:15:40And what happens to them there?
00:15:42We can't, we have no control over.
00:15:44It's out of our hands.
00:15:46We just threw them into a volcano.
00:15:48What happens when he hits the bottom is really not our concern.
00:15:51You know, it's important journalistically, not that we're journalists or anything, but it's important to document all these things, just like you did, just like you listed a simple list of these grievous things that have been going on.
00:16:08But it's still hard to listen to.
00:16:10It's frustrating and it's irritating.
00:16:12It's provoking.
00:16:13It's provocative.
00:16:15These people are being harmed.
00:16:17They're not just being shipped to a county jail somewhere, which it would be bad enough.
00:16:23They're being shipped to alligator Alcatraz where they're left to sleep in cold puddles and exposed to the weather and bugs and diseases and no good food.
00:16:35And they drink out of a toilet and all these terrible things.
00:16:40People die.
00:16:41Not all these people are healthy.
00:16:43Some of these people need medication.
00:16:44Do you think they're getting it?
00:16:45Do you think their blood pressure, their diabetes is doing fine in the absence of medication and decent sleep and decent nutrition?
00:16:57Suitable climate environment, you know, not freezing to death.
00:17:01Do you think they're all young and hardy and can sleep in the trees like baboons?
00:17:06Or do you think they're suffering?
00:17:08Do you think they're never going to walk right?
00:17:10Do you think some of them will die and we'll never see them or hear from them again?
00:17:16These are people being harmed irreparably.
00:17:19They're not going to be the same if they come back at all.
00:17:23If we can ever find out what happened to them.
00:17:26These are wrongs that can't be righted.
00:17:28This is not something you can just sue the government.
00:17:31No, you'll be made whole.
00:17:36And no one seems to be stopping it.
00:17:38It's very frustrating.
00:17:39The human cost is unconscionable and is not being taken into account yet, at least.
00:17:49I mean, hopefully yet.
00:17:50And there's the other portion of the problem, which is since ICE can't keep up with the demands of the White House, there's this weird mixing of different departments and different areas that have been brought in.
00:18:07So, for instance, federal troops being brought in to allegedly protect the ICE officers.
00:18:15And then on top of that, half of the ICE field commanders are actually working with border control troops, border control officers.
00:18:27That's never happened before, but because they have to gear up, they're grabbing folks from the border control and throwing them into the mix.
00:18:35They certainly don't have the same standard or the same restrictions or understand them, at least, as to what to do with somebody who is a citizen in the country.
00:18:48And they're replacing those ICE troops and being a lot more aggressive and they're being a lot more confrontational because the border control guys are used to doing that.
00:18:59And then the response to that is how the population is seeing how things are going.
00:19:04I mean, 54% of the population of U.S. citizens are saying that if they are undocumented and they are criminals, then they should be deported.
00:19:14So the majority of people like the original concept behind what was supposed to happen.
00:19:23But the other problem is 51% don't like how it's being done now because it's not following those ideals.
00:19:31And in fact, the judge, Judge Ellis has called for the border control commander, Bovary Bovris.
00:19:43I'm not certain how the guy's name Bovino.
00:19:46I think it was Bovino.
00:19:48But Bovino, I apologize to no one.
00:19:52Don't, I could be wrong.
00:19:53Don't be wrong.
00:19:54Yeah, exactly.
00:19:55Like I said, we're not journalists.
00:19:57Exactly.
00:19:58Yeah, exactly.
00:19:59We are not media.
00:20:00But this guy has been called in by this judge who says, now I want you here every day at 6 p.m.
00:20:10I want you in front of me to tell me what's happening, what's going on, because this guy has been not only leading his troops into battle, he's been one of the people firing tear gas into the crowds.
00:20:21So he's part of the, he's part of the problem.
00:20:26He's not, certainly not a leader who is trying to live by the law.
00:20:31And Governor Pritzker in Illinois, Attorney General James in New York, and other public officials are starting to say, you know, part of the response is record these things when you see them.
00:20:47If you are out there and you see something, don't try to grab the ICE officers.
00:20:52Don't try to give them a reason to, don't provoke them by grabbing them or chase it or running directly at them.
00:21:00But do yell and scream and cause a scene and absolutely record what you see.
00:21:08Record everything.
00:21:09And I know that in Attorney General James' case in New York, she has set up a website where you can go and download your videos if you have them.
00:21:20So it's very, it's a very important step to follow if you see something happen on the streets.
00:21:29Wherever you are in the United States, film it and get it to authorities and video record everything.
00:21:39So, now that I've mentioned that a couple of times, let's move on.
00:21:44You know, that litany you went through of terrible things that ICE people have done in the name of ICE.
00:21:51One thing that we forgot to mention is sexual assault and sexual harassment.
00:21:55I saw a headline recently of a woman deported out of California after reporting ICE had sexually harassed her.
00:22:04But in searching for the story in the news aggregator, there's a story last month at the Guardian about ICE facilities in Louisiana being accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault.
00:22:18And there's a story the month before that, September, September, August.
00:22:23Anyway, it's not new.
00:22:25And it keeps happening.
00:22:27Something we haven't covered much about in the discussion about ICE is that it's been recently further revealed that they're hiring on people who aren't qualified to do the job for any number of reasons, one of which is criminal history.
00:22:41They could be scumbags.
00:22:42They could be scumbags.
00:22:43You are like real perverts.
00:22:45And you don't want them in control of other people when the door slams shut.
00:22:50And that's just one reason you don't want untrained, unqualified people, people who can't do 15 push-ups, people who can't run from here to there, people who can't open an open book test on the Fourth Amendment with their own notes.
00:23:04And this is going to happen.
00:23:05And this is just one more way that people are scarred.
00:23:08They can't be made whole by a lawsuit.
00:23:10They can't get that time in their life back, especially if they're injured or killed.
00:23:15And it's just unconscionable.
00:23:17And this country needs to move on it.
00:23:21Somebody needs to stop it.
00:23:23And if it isn't going to be our leaders, well, then I don't know who.
00:23:26Well, and the hypocrisy of going after violent criminals by getting a bunch of violent criminals and giving them badges and guns and weapons.
00:23:37And I'm sure not exactly advanced training, the Dean Caines of the world and others.
00:23:44So, yeah.
00:23:45Yeah.
00:23:46Excellent point.
00:23:47Excellent point.
00:23:48I am going to move us on to another issue that's come up, another situation, I guess you can say.
00:23:56I'm going to move us down in Argentina.
00:24:00And we had talked about this in a previous episode where we mentioned that Trump has to help bolster his followers and those who are of his political beliefs,
00:24:15is now trying to help support that in other countries in just about every way he can.
00:24:21And in Argentina, there was an election coming up.
00:24:24And to help boost his side, he put out there that the US would start funneling money to Argentina.
00:24:34And this initial thing was a somehow a currency swap where there would be two million dollars of American money being swapped out for the Argentine.
00:24:49Is it a peso or is it a I'm not certain what the monetary.
00:24:53I think it's a peso, but I could easily zero.
00:24:57But in any case, there's two million US dollars there now instead of whatever it's called.
00:25:02And that's all the taxpayers money.
00:25:06That's all right out of his pocket.
00:25:08That's a that's out of you and me.
00:25:12So we're sending millions of dollars to Argentina to help bolster political ideology.
00:25:18And at the same time, there's things here that need to be funded that are not going to get a dime.
00:25:26Anything about Argentina, anything about the fascism that's creeping there?
00:25:31You know, I could go on and on about Argentina just forever.
00:25:36So better, better.
00:25:37I don't get started.
00:25:38No, I don't have anything.
00:25:39Well, and but I will say that they did have the election.
00:25:43The Trump side won.
00:25:46They actually won both in the Senate and the House or their version of the House.
00:25:51So they have a firm grip on.
00:25:54Yeah, they have a firm grip on the country.
00:25:56And so look out for Argentina.
00:26:00I think that there will be, in fact, a reason to cry for Argentina, as mentioned earlier, as you mentioned earlier.
00:26:08Let's talk about some things that are happening here in the good old USA.
00:26:13There are job cuts happening everywhere.
00:26:17I'd like to note that we did not support the America first paradigm.
00:26:22We got to America like third or fourth.
00:26:27So fight the power, Matt.
00:26:29There you go, exactly.
00:26:32I think we've been clear on that.
00:26:36No one can doubt our integrity.
00:26:38And the and and starting off on this, I think we're just talking about the loss of jobs that are starting to happen across the country.
00:26:49And it's not just Trump and his sycophants destroying the government by trying to lay off or fire government workers, but also the public, the private sector.
00:27:02Paramount cut a thousand jobs today.
00:27:05Target cut a thousand jobs.
00:27:08And Amazon in the next week or two will be firing 30,000 people.
00:27:15And that's not to mention as the government shut down and Trump and his folks have already taken care of a hundred thousand jobs there.
00:27:26So with all the job loss with the employment, you know, maybe he'll do the same thing.
00:27:31He did the first time he was killed a million people and have killed a million and lose the jobs and cause the largest joblessness in the country.
00:27:47Well, since the last time he was president, but before that, yeah, he could do it in his first year instead of his last.
00:27:56Yeah, exactly.
00:27:57He's got practice now, so it can be much more cut down that learning curve.
00:28:02Powerful.
00:28:03He did get the Fed to make that cut that he was.
00:28:08He was constantly harassing the head of the Fed to cut the rates by a quarter.
00:28:17And that has now happened twice.
00:28:20So that's a full half rate cut if you put everything together.
00:28:25So I don't know.
00:28:26Perhaps that was the goal.
00:28:28Perhaps that was the what was important.
00:28:31What I think is important or do you have anything on that?
00:28:35Is there anything?
00:28:36Please go ahead.
00:28:37The thing that I think of as kind of important is what's happening to the government funding of the safety net and things like SNAP and WIC.
00:28:48WIC is what's called the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants and Children.
00:28:55With the SNAP funding, that goes to 42 million Americans.
00:29:02And with the WIC funding, that goes to 7 million more.
00:29:05So that's nearly 50 million.
00:29:07So that's one in eight, seven, one in eight Americans.
00:29:11That's right.
00:29:12One of those two.
00:29:13And it's prior to that to now, it had an $8 billion a year budget.
00:29:20And Republicans are promising, they are standing up and they are promising that they will not use contingency funds to help cover the cost of SNAP due to the government shutdown.
00:29:35So there's a brave stand for you.
00:29:38Certainly not one that's been done by either party in the past, but that's the Republicans that we have today.
00:29:45There are lawsuits from several states.
00:29:50I think it's 25 different states that are challenging those decisions.
00:29:56So we'll see what happens.
00:29:57We'll see if that will work its way up to the, or how fast it will work its way up to the Supreme Court.
00:30:02And then what they will actually decide.
00:30:05And there's also a thing in the law that legally you're not supposed to refund, you're not supposed to give money to SNAP if it's not coming from the government.
00:30:19You can fund food banks, which is almost the same thing, but you're not officially allowed to give money to SNAP.
00:30:29So that's another weird little twist so that the states are now trying to figure out how to do that step.
00:30:36So, for instance, states and municipalities are trying to figure ways of how they can fund food banks so that people can still get food to eat.
00:30:46Which seems like something that should be a goal.
00:30:51So, there's California is taking $80 million out of their budget to put towards food banks.
00:31:03And New York is doing $30 million plus another $11 million, which they had already put towards the, before the shutdown.
00:31:13They had already wanted to add in $11 million, so they've now added another $30 million.
00:31:17So that's $41 million.
00:31:19Louisiana, Louisiana's legislature wants to cover $150 million with no guarantee that there will be a reimbursement from the federal government.
00:31:34So they see it as a serious enough thing that they need to do that they're willing to put what they have or, you know, what they, what they, to reach the goal as opposed to worrying about how it's going to be taken care of on the other side.
00:31:51So hopefully, hopefully it will be, hopefully they will be able to get refunded.
00:31:57Municipalities are putting in everything they can.
00:32:00Pueblo County in Colorado is portioning $150,000.
00:32:06There's Cuyahoga County in Ohio.
00:32:11Sorry, I was, when I lived in Ohio, I lived in one of the other counties.
00:32:16I didn't learn to pronounce it.
00:32:19I think you're doing better than I would.
00:32:20You go right ahead.
00:32:21Go ahead.
00:32:22But the folks up there in the north, Cuyahoga County, put $20,000 into the food banks.
00:32:31And Emporia, Kansas, has teamed up with their local United Way, and they're extending the community food bank.
00:32:41And even though it had been planned to be closed, they're doubling up on supporting it now.
00:32:50So everywhere, there's a lot of people trying to put in.
00:32:53They're not going to be able to cover the whole amount.
00:32:56And there's no reason why the contingency funding set aside for just this sort of problem isn't going to be used,
00:33:04other than the Republicans have announced they won't.
00:33:07So there's some problems with that.
00:33:12And remember, oh, and that's after, I should say, that's after the Trump budget bill.
00:33:18Remember the big ugly bill?
00:33:20That cut had already, that had promised to cut $186 billion from SNAP prior to the shutdown.
00:33:31Right.
00:33:32So they're already planning on cutting it.
00:33:33They're already planning, trying to gut the program.
00:33:36And this is just allowing them to have a reason, I guess.
00:33:41Yeah.
00:33:42They've increased work rules to scooch people off of SNAP, people that didn't used to have to prove that they're working or looking for work or volunteering.
00:33:51Now they have to do it 20 hours a week or prove that they're exempt for half a dozen or a dozen reasons that are available.
00:33:58And it's all just to shake people off of SNAP.
00:34:02I get a little passionate about it.
00:34:04These are people who did not need to be kicked.
00:34:07They're already down.
00:34:09They're down.
00:34:10And we're just turning the screw on them.
00:34:15I've quoted this before, but it keeps coming to mind every time it comes up.
00:34:19Farquad and Shrek says, many of you may die, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.
00:34:25And it just seems like a Marie Antoinette let them eat cake moment.
00:34:30They got their golden ballroom there.
00:34:32They're still collecting a check.
00:34:33They're still getting their health benefits up there in Washington.
00:34:36And they're not even trying.
00:34:38They're not even talking about patching this up and getting things back on the road.
00:34:42They're not even talking about pushing through legislation.
00:34:46They've been operating on a continuing resolution for months and months.
00:34:51They're still on Biden's budget because they haven't pushed anything new.
00:34:55I hate that I have to know this because I only know what I'm told, but I know this.
00:35:01This is not my forte.
00:35:02And yet it's our problem.
00:35:05These are people.
00:35:06And yet I think part of the part of the reason we're in this predicament is that the United States electorate sleeps through a lot of this stuff.
00:35:14They feel like it's fine on autopilot and they're going to wake up as we careen into the ditch.
00:35:20I think we're careening.
00:35:23So maybe this will shock them awake enough that we can grab the wheel and get back onto the asphalt.
00:35:29It's a last ditch hope.
00:35:30And it's a it's a terrible way to do business.
00:35:33And it may not even work.
00:35:35But I hope maybe I hope it brings something good.
00:35:38Actually, you had an idea that you had been mentioned from actually from the first episode.
00:35:44You've been saying that the next step is we did the no kings and that was OK.
00:35:50And now the next step is, is it time for the general strike that will help get the point across?
00:35:57Because that's the sort of next step action that there's going to.
00:36:01And I've said, go to, you know, worry about the elections and that's great.
00:36:04And please do that.
00:36:06But there has to be something else to sort of make the point that there's there's another chance to do something that will even things out and not force this to go any other step.
00:36:25That perhaps with the voting, if their elections are not ignored or challenged, maybe they can be challenged fine.
00:36:38But because we all know that they're going to be taken care of correctly and they'll be done fairly and well.
00:36:45But there's got to be something else.
00:36:48And maybe that general strike idea is the one is the one that you've been mentioning all along is the way we should go and get get the serious enough seriousness of it across.
00:36:59If we can pick up on how others have done general strikes.
00:37:03I'm starting to see people spec speculate about that and propose it seriously and give it real thought as an option and game it out.
00:37:13What happens on the first day?
00:37:15What what happens on the second, third, the first week, the second week?
00:37:19What what does success mean?
00:37:21I think those are good conversations to have.
00:37:24I think everything else we've been doing is easily ignored.
00:37:28It's good to see these things that people some people are paying attention and are upset about the loss of lives and liberty.
00:37:35But to get to make any real headway, you have to get in the way of people's money.
00:37:41You have to bring things to a halt and make real trouble.
00:37:45Good trouble.
00:37:46We it is not that long since John Lewis, you know, said that for the last time.
00:37:52It hasn't been that long.
00:37:53We can still remember it and we can still learn from it.
00:37:56And I look forward to from the Portland Frogs to the Florida Gators.
00:38:03I love it when we get creative and we have not yet begun to honk honk, you know, and and get silly with it, but also make real trouble.
00:38:13And I can't wait to see what this country can do.
00:38:16And I wish we get started doing it because the hour grows late and it's later than you think.
00:38:21Where did you see that about people gaming it out sort of thing in a head and talking about success?
00:38:28You know, I thought I saw an article on social media.
00:38:31I don't have it here in front of me, but but someone said they fed it into an AI machine and then sort of reviewed the results.
00:38:43And it was a was a useful discussion.
00:38:46I don't know if it was a answer to too many questions, but they talked about it depends on who buys in.
00:38:55Is it just going to be some private companies or is it going to are we talking hospitals and nurses?
00:39:01Are we talking about unions and police forces, you know, things like that, things that are not so easy to ignore, you know, you miss them when they're gone.
00:39:13But anyway, so it was it was an interesting discussion.
00:39:17It's out there to be had.
00:39:19That is maybe we can do something about that.
00:39:24Maybe we can start tracking it on this show.
00:39:27Yeah, maybe track, maybe see if we can find somebody who can explain it and in a bit more detail or help game it out.
00:39:36So something.
00:39:37Yeah.
00:39:38That'd be really, I think, an excellent idea.
00:39:42I look forward to the day.
00:39:44Excellent.
00:39:45We'll start working on it.
00:39:49Shall we move on?
00:39:51I think so.
00:39:52Get to our other segment for the evening.
00:39:55Absolutely.
00:39:56Election Central.
00:39:57So a little pod live in combination with Election Central lets you know of upcoming elections.
00:40:03And I'm Matt Nissenoff reporting.
00:40:06This covers America because the there are thousands of locations of local elections that are happening on November 4th.
00:40:18It's a general election day.
00:40:20So not every place is having it like a presidential year.
00:40:23But a lot of places are just about every place you can think of.
00:40:27Every state has something happening somewhere in it.
00:40:31Some are entire states.
00:40:33Some are just local elections.
00:40:34And to name a few, like the general elections that are happening on November 4th.
00:40:39There's a front of democracy coming across the nation.
00:40:44It's not limited to the following states, but it does include Maine and Florida and Iowa and Montana and Virginia and New Jersey.
00:40:55Even in Ohio and Rhode Island and New York.
00:41:00There are special elections that are happening in other places with county boards of elections bringing out the equipment and setting stuff up.
00:41:09A whole bunch of things that are special elections that may have been done at another day in time have all been scheduled for November 4th as well.
00:41:18Take advantage of having everything out and ready to go.
00:41:22And special elections include, but are not limited to.
00:41:26In Washington State, there are seats for both the State Senate and the State House of Representatives, as well as a seat on the appellate court that will be voted on.
00:41:37In Texas, a couple of them state senators and House of Representatives folk and one city, at least one city councilor, in this case, Houston City Council, are up for election.
00:41:53And there are another couple of seats in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
00:41:58And even in worn-torn Portland, Oregon, they're able to put together an election on election day.
00:42:05So if you're in those places or any of the others, please get out and go vote.
00:42:12Now, there are recall elections.
00:42:14There's a sort of a twist where some places, not every place, but some places allow their elected officials to be recalled if petitions are signed.
00:42:25Someone challenging them can get enough signatures.
00:42:29It's usually a percentage of the vote that in which they were elected.
00:42:35So, you know, whether it's 10% or 20% is up to that local jurisdiction to set.
00:42:40But the following recall elections are happening.
00:42:45There's Morrill County in Nebraska, Valley, Nebraska, Fort Myers Beach in Florida, Montrose County in Colorado, and also Poway and Fairfax in California.
00:43:01I'll have local recall elections where elected officials are being called to ballot again for the local citizens to decide whether or not they should continue or not.
00:43:16And then just go ahead.
00:43:19You know, I wonder if I missed it.
00:43:22Does that account for California's Prop 50 as well?
00:43:25Isn't that next week?
00:43:26Prop 50, absolutely.
00:43:29There's, as I said, state issues.
00:43:33There are statewide issues as well as local elected officials.
00:43:39So, Prop 50 is in there.
00:43:41And there's a whole bunch of laundry list of stuff in New York as well.
00:43:46Issues and elected officials.
00:43:49And then, after November 4th, if you go down to November 15th, there's a couple of places that have held off on having their elections.
00:44:01So, not having them on the 4th, but pushing them back about 10 days, back to the 15th.
00:44:08And that includes Louisiana, where the entire state is having its election on the 15th.
00:44:15And that's for a general election.
00:44:17And then there are a few local positions, including St. Laundry, where the chief of police in Grand Corteau is up for election.
00:44:27And in Orleans Parish, there's the Clerk Criminal District Court.
00:44:33And council members in District A and E.
00:44:37So, local things happening as well, all over.
00:44:41And that's your Election Central Report.
00:44:44Thank you for listening.
00:44:46There are elections happening everywhere.
00:44:49Get registered.
00:44:50And go vote.
00:44:56So, there, that also, that's the end of the Election Central Report.
00:44:59But speaking of elections, you're talking about Prop 50, of course, is the big one, I think, in California.
00:45:06And a big difference of redistricting, then, in, say, Texas, where the legislature just shoved something through real quick.
00:45:15Did it on party lines so they could get it passed.
00:45:18It is a Republican-run jurisdiction.
00:45:22And then California said, well, that's a problem with what you're doing, and we want to do something.
00:45:27But we're also not going to do it the same way you do it.
00:45:30We're not just going to shove it down people's throats.
00:45:32We're going to take it to the ballot.
00:45:35We're going to let the people have the say on it.
00:45:37So, it's a much better way to do that.
00:45:42And so, Prop 50 is what they're calling it.
00:45:45Do you know much more?
00:45:46I mean, that democracy is a little passe anymore.
00:45:50Are we ready for something new and vibrant?
00:45:53It's one man, one vote gig.
00:45:55It's just dusty, Grandpa.
00:45:57No?
00:45:58Clearly, there are some who think it has gone its way.
00:46:03All that's old is new again.
00:46:05Sorry, I just couldn't go on without interjecting that.
00:46:10I'll stop.
00:46:11No, no, please.
00:46:13Don't stop.
00:46:15But we can move on to what's happening in New York.
00:46:19I talked about this a couple of times because I think it's really showing the...
00:46:26Whereas the Republicans have been very concerned about purifying their ranks.
00:46:32They worked hard to eject any moderate or force them into being an extremist.
00:46:38And it's MAGA extremist at that.
00:46:43But New York's mayor race sort of shows the democratic side of that same sort of attempt at clearing things up by the establishment.
00:46:59But the establishment's losing.
00:47:01And that's the difference.
00:47:03Instead of the establishment becoming the extreme, the establishment is running into a brick wall in the mayor's race in New York.
00:47:12The...
00:47:14Actually, there were two sort of icons of that, the establishment, so to speak.
00:47:20There was Eric Adams, who is the current mayor, but will not get a second term now.
00:47:26And Andrew Cuomo, who's a former governor, who was booted out of office for sexually assaulting 13 women.
00:47:35And also during the COVID times was forcing seniors into senior homes so that resulting in more deaths.
00:47:48And then under-reporting that because he was working on trying to get a book deal on how well he was handling the COVID emergency.
00:47:58So the book deal trumped having people alive.
00:48:03Go ahead.
00:48:06I think it's troubling how corruption has become the new inbreeding.
00:48:12Like it used to be monarchs, they had...
00:48:15They kept everything too tight with their cousins and they all ended up having four fingers and seven toes.
00:48:21And they had to knock it off because it was bringing them down.
00:48:24And now our current system is so decrepit and sort of inverted and inbred that the establishment pick is Cuomo.
00:48:35No Cuomo.
00:48:36No Cuomo, I heard someone say.
00:48:42And you know you've turned the thing into a ditch.
00:48:46When your best candidate is a Trump or is a Cuomo, you have to turn around and go back.
00:48:52You've gone too far.
00:48:53You missed your exit.
00:48:55Turn around.
00:48:56Nothing good is down this road.
00:48:58And anyway, I'll stop there because I have to say we've got it.
00:49:04We've got it.
00:49:05It's appropriate to the segment later.
00:49:07But yeah, the company we find ourselves in indicates a problem.
00:49:12Yeah, this was the thing.
00:49:13Even at the No Kings rallies at both the first one and the second one.
00:49:17There were some people holding signs saying stuff like no Cuomo, no ice.
00:49:21Cuomo comes out and says, oh, well, I'm going to stand up to Trump.
00:49:25And it's like, oh, when?
00:49:28When you're at a champagne brunch with him in the White House?
00:49:30Right.
00:49:31You know, you're going to stand up to him then, are you?
00:49:33When he reaches for your glass of champagne, that's when you're going to tell him.
00:49:37Yeah.
00:49:38Right.
00:49:39Right.
00:49:40Exactly.
00:49:41This is the same cloth.
00:49:42These are people who hang out on the weekends on their yachts together.
00:49:47This is not somebody who's going to stand up to anybody.
00:49:51Right.
00:49:52He's not going to steal any of Trump's masseuses.
00:49:56Exactly.
00:49:57And even one of his attack lines in this past week as we're coming up to the general.
00:50:03So let me first clarify that Zoran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee.
00:50:11He won in the primary.
00:50:12He crushed Cuomo by 13%.
00:50:16And that was in a crowded field.
00:50:18It wasn't just one on one.
00:50:20And he still crushed him by 13%.
00:50:23So Mamdani is the Democrat in the race.
00:50:28Cuomo stayed in the race as an independent.
00:50:30I think his party is officially listed as the fight and deliver party.
00:50:40So that's, that is, you know, clearly an independent party.
00:50:45And in New York, you can do that sort of thing.
00:50:47You can get a line on the ballot by a party.
00:50:51Curtis Sliwa, I don't know if that name means anything to you if you're not from New York City, but he's the guy who has led the Guardian Angels at some point and has his own.
00:51:06With the hat.
00:51:07Yeah, exactly.
00:51:08The famous red beret.
00:51:09A lot of people would know his, his look before they would know his name.
00:51:13I'm one of them.
00:51:14But yeah, he's one of the, he's the guy with the red beret.
00:51:17Talking tough.
00:51:18Yep.
00:51:19Yep.
00:51:20He's a tough guy like that.
00:51:21And he's, he's also got his conservative talk show where he has for years been been holding down the conservative side of the opinions.
00:51:32Hmm.
00:51:33And although there is one thing where he also is a very strong advocate for animals, animal welfare.
00:51:41So there are some people who are pointing that out specifically.
00:51:46And it's a fair point to make.
00:51:50Sure.
00:51:51Though the animals don't actually vote.
00:51:54So I don't know what that's going to do to help them, but it will do something.
00:51:59Despite what you heard on AM radio.
00:52:01Right.
00:52:02And then, yeah.
00:52:03And then exactly.
00:52:04And everything else is a conservative rather conservative opinions.
00:52:07Although the one opinion that has been made very clear by him during the election is that he cannot stand Andrew Cuomo.
00:52:17So he has been one of the leading attack dogs against Cuomo and Cuomo has been trying to force him out of the race.
00:52:25Okay.
00:52:26So that's two good points for him.
00:52:27All right.
00:52:28I'm starting to like this guy.
00:52:29I'm coming around.
00:52:31He's good to dogs and he hates Cuomo.
00:52:34All right.
00:52:35I could have a beer with him.
00:52:36He's.
00:52:37Yeah.
00:52:38So common ground, Matt.
00:52:41Politics is all about common ground.
00:52:43What is what you can achieve?
00:52:46Yes.
00:52:47Yeah.
00:52:48So that and that is true.
00:52:49And so Cuomo pushed out Adams, who Adams decided once he lost the actually he Adams quit the Democratic Party before the primaries.
00:53:01So officially Adams wasn't in the Democratic primary and then decided he'd run as an independent.
00:53:10And then apparently there was a lot of pressure on him to quit.
00:53:16And he did.
00:53:17So Cuomo feels that even though he called Cuomo a snake and a liar one week, the next week he was endorsing him pulling out of the race.
00:53:27So Cuomo feels that he's getting the Adams vote.
00:53:30I don't think he's getting all of the Adams vote, but he'll get some of it.
00:53:33Not enough to make a difference.
00:53:36And then he was trying to push Sliwa out thinking that he'd get all of the Sliwa vote.
00:53:41But Sliwa basically said, take a hike, pal.
00:53:46I'm not I'm not going anywhere.
00:53:48Don't underestimate the lying snake vote.
00:53:53Not to be underestimated.
00:53:55There's plenty of it here.
00:53:56There's plenty of it.
00:53:58Don't sleep on.
00:53:59That's a powerful lobby right there.
00:54:02Exactly.
00:54:03It's not it's not nothing.
00:54:06But what it is, is certainly not enough.
00:54:09If things are going the way they seem to be, then actually Mondami may even outdo himself in having larger than a 13% beating of Cuomo.
00:54:25We'll see.
00:54:26Election night is the November 4th.
00:54:28Early voting has started and people have been getting out of the polls.
00:54:31They say that, in fact, more people have voted in early voting in the first two days than during all of the early voting in the last election.
00:54:45If that's true, that's very intriguing because it shows people are getting involved.
00:54:51It doesn't really give an indication of who is getting the vote.
00:54:56I think it's probably whatever the I think it's probably in line with whatever the final results will be.
00:55:03But I don't think it's necessary.
00:55:05Some people are saying if it that must be new voters and therefore if they're new voters, they must be supporters of Mondani.
00:55:12I don't know if that's true, because I think that there are communities that are very that Cuomo has worked very hard to fear and send fear into and fear works.
00:55:25So I think that there's a couple of different communities that are coming out and coming out early to get it done, to get their votes in.
00:55:32Correct me if I'm wrong.
00:55:34Maybe you remember better.
00:55:35I hope you remember better than I do.
00:55:37Wasn't this the same vibe for the last presidential election?
00:55:41I thought that there was a strong mail in presence that indicated that it was going to be strong for Kamala.
00:55:48And then I remember how that turned out, but I thought I thought that there was a big a big push for mail out voting record breaking amounts of of voting ahead of time.
00:56:01And then it didn't come.
00:56:05It didn't mean what they thought it meant, apparently.
00:56:07I don't know exactly how that shook out or even if that was the dynamic.
00:56:10Do you have a memory of that?
00:56:12Yeah, that's absolutely what happened.
00:56:14And the weird backlash was that Trump has been so desperate to tell people to not early vote, but it wasn't exactly harmful to him.
00:56:27So that's an interesting thing for him to say because he just felt it was something that may not.
00:56:35Enough people were saying it on TV, apparently, that he picked up on that as the thing that must be true because it's on TV.
00:56:42It has to be true.
00:56:43And in the end, I think you're absolutely right.
00:56:47It turned out that it wasn't exactly the landslide towards Harris that the pundits were professing.
00:56:57And even in the primary in the mayor's race, they up to a half an hour after the polls closed.
00:57:04Everybody, and I mean everybody, media, pundits, guy down on the corner.
00:57:10I mean, everybody was saying the same thing, which was, oh, Mandami is going to be crushed by Cuomo.
00:57:15Cuomo is a legend.
00:57:16His family are legends.
00:57:18There's no way this guy, this upstart is going to be able to do well at all.
00:57:22He's just going to get smeared.
00:57:23And within a half an hour, within after the first hour of the polls being closed and results coming in, Cuomo conceded.
00:57:33So 60 minutes made the difference in that race after closing because the reality is it's the votes that matter.
00:57:43So what you see or what you think, okay, everybody's got an opinion.
00:57:50But what really matters is in an election, it's who voted how and what happens after you count the votes.
00:57:56Well, these are these elections are so fraught and there's so much riding on them.
00:58:01And then we're so polarized that the human mind is just hungry for any indicator.
00:58:06Which way is the wind blowing? Is there a reason to hope?
00:58:09Should I pack now? You know, so it's no surprise that people are looking for which way the weather vane is pointing.
00:58:18Exactly. And humans are always looking for that. Our brains are wired to want to find a pattern and to want to see something in the tea leaves and to want to be able to pick it out just by signs and wonders.
00:58:33And, okay, but that doesn't work.
00:58:38Can't count them before they're high.
00:58:40Yeah.
00:58:41Yeah. Although there is another point that you just made that was there are people who will say, you know, do I need to pack? Do I need to leave?
00:58:49And at least two people, George Santos, previous Republican who represented a congressional district down in part Queens and part Long Island, who went to jail for identity fraud and was recently pardoned by Trump.
00:59:08Trump, George Santos has come out and said, if Mom Donnie wins, I am going to leave the state of New York.
00:59:15And Andrew Cuomo has said, if I lose to Mom Donnie, I am going to move to Florida.
00:59:22I would like to point out that no one ever went wrong following something that George Santos said.
00:59:29True to his word every time.
00:59:33Exactly.
00:59:34Well, but I mean, in this case, it does give hope.
00:59:38Absolutely.
00:59:39Well, I would I listen, I hope he follows through on it, but he'll he'll do whatever he wants to do.
00:59:46He's not he's not chained to his word.
00:59:48Unfortunately, I wish I hope he does.
00:59:51Right.
00:59:52Right.
00:59:53And listen, you know, we can always start a GoFundMe.
00:59:56He tends to like those sort of things or at least accessing them.
01:00:00And the dog of the veteran who he helped start a GoFundMe and then stole the money and didn't give it to the veteran or the dog.
01:00:10Yeah, I picture I picture a trail of 20s leading to a cardboard box on a stick with a rope tied to it.
01:00:18Then we'll have him.
01:00:20Nice.
01:00:21We'll get him back in there.
01:00:23There were also some in New York.
01:00:28There are also some ballot questions that I thought I'd mentioned because there's a lot going on within a minute.
01:00:32And I'm not I'm not going to be able to go into detail, but I will say there are six ballot questions.
01:00:38This is not California where there tend to be 50 or 60 on each ballot.
01:00:43But there are six.
01:00:45And the first one is a statewide ballot question.
01:00:51Some people who built a Olympic arena up in in upstate use some land next to a park, a state park.
01:01:05And because they did it on the correct side of the border of that, that was great.
01:01:10Well, the Olympics are making a return or the World Cup is coming.
01:01:14And there's some other things coming that require some space.
01:01:18So the folks who built this a couple of decades ago said, oh, you know, gosh, we have this park right there.
01:01:26And we've got some some sporting area already set up.
01:01:32So why don't we use that?
01:01:33And we can maybe just dig out a little bit further out and get into it.
01:01:38And they wound up digging into the state parks land and using about 175 acres.
01:01:45And once they started the project, yeah, exactly.
01:01:48And once they started the project, somebody went, oh, hey, you know, you guys are on the wrong side of that border now.
01:01:55And that could be a problem.
01:01:57So there was some negotiating that took place.
01:02:01And it was decided that the state would find 2,500 acres somewhere else.
01:02:11And if they promised to add it to the state park or designated a state park, that if they did that with 2,500 acres, then they'd give these guys that 175 acres to finish their sporting place.
01:02:28And initially people, there were some people, I don't know about that, but one of the leading environmental groups got involved with the whole negotiating.
01:02:43And apparently they were part of this agreement where there would be an additional 2,500 added if these guys were given this 175.
01:02:52So Prop 1 is that question.
01:02:56Should we do that legally?
01:02:58Should we allow that to be the way things are?
01:03:01Gotcha.
01:03:02So yes or no, that's your decision.
01:03:05But there's the background for it.
01:03:07Then 2 through 6 all relate to, well, 2 through 5 are about affordable housing.
01:03:15In New York, there's been a real issue with not winding up with affordable housing in the city.
01:03:22And when you look a little deeper, what you find is there's certain neighborhoods that do a lot of building and a lot of affordable housing.
01:03:31But it's the same dozen places and then there's another 20 or so that don't.
01:03:40And if you don't have the whole place building it, then it's a problem because you're never going to be able to make enough.
01:03:47So now we're a million houses back, you know, behind the behind the times.
01:03:54We need about a million to catch up.
01:03:56But how do we do that?
01:03:57So these, the mayor put together a charter review commission and they put out an idea where we're going to basically cut the city council out of land planning.
01:04:12So we'll have a, like one of the questions is we're going to put together a special three person committee of the mayor, the comptroller and the city council's president.
01:04:27And when they get to get, oh, I'm sorry.
01:04:29It was the, it's the mayor and the borough president.
01:04:32We have a position called borough president.
01:04:35And the city council president, the three of them will make a commission that will look at affordable housing plans and it will take a two to one vote to pass stuff.
01:04:50So they feel they can start sort of getting more things done if they don't allow the council to vote on it, but allow this little commission instead.
01:04:59It will probably get more programs through, but the city council aren't big fans of the idea.
01:05:06And the 50 of them are not going to just sit back and let it happen.
01:05:11So we'll see if voters let it happen.
01:05:15Another thing is an idea that smaller plans are allowed an easier route.
01:05:23So if you're only building four or five units right now, it's almost as expensive to build four or five units as it is to build a skyscraper.
01:05:32So if given the choice, which do you think the developers want to do?
01:05:36They want to do a skyscraper.
01:05:38They can get more money.
01:05:39They can focus on just the luxury housing and eliminate the affordable and blah, blah, blah.
01:05:44So there's a feeling that if there's an easier path for the smaller projects that maybe that will help start getting things moving instead of having a full seven month program to get a project through, make it three months.
01:05:59Okay.
01:06:00So that's another ballot question.
01:06:02And there are actually two others are sort of tangential.
01:06:10There's a question five, which is currently all the boroughs have their own paper based planning process.
01:06:21So everybody measures slightly different.
01:06:24Everybody has their own borough version.
01:06:27So all of it is in paper as well.
01:06:30So what they're saying with prop five is let's get everything digitalized, make certain everything's uniform and make certain it's on digital and not paper.
01:06:40Pretty good idea.
01:06:41Vote yes on five.
01:06:42And six is they want to talk about combining local elections during the presidential year.
01:06:52So instead of having a separate election for the local stuff every off year, they'll bring it in line with the presidential every four years, every on year, so to speak, and have everything, you know, have all of those at one time.
01:07:09So that's a discussion you can have.
01:07:13Some people like it, some people not so much.
01:07:16So those are the ballot questions.
01:07:21At least in New York City.
01:07:24Another issue is the main Senate race.
01:07:28You mentioned what was going on out in California, and this is the other end of the country.
01:07:33There's a Democrat by the name of Plattner and another Democrat, Janet Mills.
01:07:43They're vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Susan Collins.
01:07:50And as you, I'm sure you know from the news, Susan Collins every six or eight months comes out and says, boy, that Trump fella.
01:08:00I don't know.
01:08:01I'm on the fence about him.
01:08:03That's right.
01:08:04He's really put me back on that fence.
01:08:07I don't know what to think.
01:08:09And even people in Maine are saying, okay, enough.
01:08:15Yeah, even they're getting to a point where they're thinking this is a little bit overdone at this point.
01:08:22I've seen comparisons of Lucy and the football.
01:08:25Lucy and the football.
01:08:26Nice.
01:08:27Very, very true, because she she always winds up winds up taking on the party line.
01:08:35But there's always this big display of should I or shouldn't I?
01:08:39I really don't know.
01:08:40I'm really going to talk to him this time.
01:08:43Oh, I did talk to him and he promised that he would not do things.
01:08:46You know, so the Democrat might have a leg up in the election and might be able to get that seat for the Democrats in the Senate, which would be a big deal.
01:08:57However, the two Democrats have taken different paths to get where they're going.
01:09:04Janet Mills was formerly in the Maine House of Representatives.
01:09:08She was formerly the attorney general and then also the governor.
01:09:13So she has taken a very traditional political history to get to this running for Senate.
01:09:20And this Platner fella, apparently he was a Marine.
01:09:25He's a vet.
01:09:27He was an oyster farmer.
01:09:29And a little bit of a political job in that he was a harbor master, which is a position that has a quasi governmental function, taking care of a particular harbor.
01:09:42So he has sort of that working man cred that people seem to like.
01:09:51And the question is, there's been a couple of speed bumps on the way.
01:10:00Apparently, he had a bunch of tattoos, one of which was a considered symbol for white white supremacy or one of those bad guy groups.
01:10:12Nazi symbology.
01:10:13Yeah, Nazis.
01:10:15And apparently he said that he didn't know that at the time he got it or something.
01:10:20I don't know about the excuse of it all.
01:10:23Well, he was in the Marines.
01:10:25And as I heard it told, he would they were they were all out getting tattoos and they wanted to just pick some bad ass skull designs.
01:10:33And supposedly nobody knew and nobody told him that it was exactly like or much like something that some some really productive Nazis had chosen in the past.
01:10:47And so supposedly the idea is that he he didn't know at the time and I hear he's since covered them up.
01:10:58Well, that's all right then.
01:11:01I mean, it's an interesting conversation because you get to where, you know, do you want to do you want to win this election or do you want to have perfect candidates?
01:11:10Because there is no perfect candidate Zoran Mamdani is is he's not your usual your usual order.
01:11:21He's he's got some big ideas and they're a little radical, but people like it.
01:11:27And maybe it's time for radical because the status quo get a little stale and not really working for the people.
01:11:33So, you know, what if you have a bit of a Nazi Democrat?
01:11:39Is that so bad?
01:11:42Well, when you put it like that, of course.
01:11:45Actually, I do have to object to that.
01:11:47Yeah.
01:11:48I go to satirically, but but that's the idea.
01:11:53Right.
01:11:54I mean, I will I will say that that, you know, the Marines.
01:12:02I can't say that I, I, you know, I certainly believe that they were out getting tattoos and I certainly believe they wanted the, you know, most aggressive things.
01:12:14Right.
01:12:15So, okay.
01:12:16So, okay.
01:12:18Um, he covered it up and that's good.
01:12:21Uh, you're right, though.
01:12:22It's, it's, it's kind of a non issue.
01:12:25I mean, it's not gonna unless he professes that is his ideology, which he is clearly not doing.
01:12:32Um, I don't, I don't know that it's, it's, um, it should be an issue that should prevent someone from voting for him, but, uh, it is an election and it is, you know, people actually in Maine, it could help.
01:12:49Um, so I, I don't know if that's, yeah, I mean, I lived in Maine for a little while too.
01:12:54I know some, uh, uh, some, uh, some of the places that lived there.
01:12:59And so I will say, uh, it's a good thing that it is a primary election, that he has a chance to go up against Mills and that they can, the voters can decide for themselves.
01:13:11They can decide if this matters or not, they can decide whether they believe him or not.
01:13:16Um, and that's, that's, that's why we have the process.
01:13:21I gotta say, I believe, I agree with you.
01:13:24Nobody's perfect.
01:13:25And if you spend all day waiting for the perfect candidate, it's never going to happen.
01:13:29You've got to take people as they are.
01:13:31On the other hand, I think it's reasonable that people are sensitive to it.
01:13:35We live in a time where we're surrounded by racists.
01:13:40They're in office, they're, uh, they're, they want your vote.
01:13:44And today's racist doesn't tell you they're racist.
01:13:48It's coded language.
01:13:50It's dog whistles.
01:13:51It's we're just going to round up the criminals.
01:13:55And then we go round up all the brown ones.
01:13:58Apparently that's code for criminal.
01:14:00So today's racist won't tell you they're racist.
01:14:03And if you catch him, wait, I'm still waiting on Pete Hegseth to, you know, to admit whatever that shit is on his chest.
01:14:10And they never will.
01:14:12They'll, they'll always swear that they're not racist.
01:14:14They'll always swear that they're just as American as you and me and a little more American than that guy.
01:14:20But the fact is they, the modern Nazis and modern racists have learned the elementary rule.
01:14:29Don't tell anybody you'll sucker in a hundred stupid people before one smart person goes, Hey, they, you know what?
01:14:35If you just don't listen to what they say and watch what they do, they're pretty racist.
01:14:39And so, yeah, first step is we don't talk about fight club and that really works.
01:14:45A lot of people, I've known some people who are pretty sketchy in that way, but it took me a while because they would say all the right things.
01:14:52They just don't admit to the things that they don't talk about in front of people who they don't talk about it in front of.
01:14:59And it's gotten them pretty far.
01:15:01So when someone comes around and they, maybe they lied about their tattoo.
01:15:05Maybe they didn't.
01:15:06Maybe it was a story that makes sense.
01:15:08And maybe it wasn't benefit of the doubt at coming at a premium these days.
01:15:13And it's really tough.
01:15:14So I get it.
01:15:15I think you're right.
01:15:16I think I don't have any reason to think the guy is a racist necessarily.
01:15:23And I'm skeptical, but we can't wait all day for perfect candidates.
01:15:28We'll never win another election ever.
01:15:31It's got to be his actions that speak for him, not his.
01:15:34Yeah.
01:15:35Not a stupid tattoo he got when he was stupid.
01:15:38And really, when's the last time somebody got voted into power on a bunch of lies and turned on us?
01:15:43I mean, I can't think of an example.
01:15:46We're probably fine.
01:15:47That never happens.
01:15:48Yeah.
01:15:49Not even likely.
01:15:54I believe that's spelled Fetterman, is it?
01:15:57Yeah, right?
01:15:58I was going to go with Fetterman, but.
01:16:00I decided to take it easy.
01:16:03Yeah.
01:16:04Well, leaving Maine behind.
01:16:07I know I did.
01:16:09We are going to move on to our next issue.
01:16:13And that would be.
01:16:16This is a little more.
01:16:17This is maybe a little more serious.
01:16:19This is Pam Bondi.
01:16:22And apparently a young fellow was arrested for putting a price on her head, a price of $45,000 to have her killed, which is certainly should be unacceptable.
01:16:43And not to mention, you know, that it most certainly is not the way to deal with the criminal activity she involves herself with.
01:16:57But there are ways to handle those situations.
01:17:02And this is not it.
01:17:04So I don't know that we should be calling for a violent attack on Pam Bondi.
01:17:12But I did.
01:17:15Do you have a thought on this or.
01:17:19I mean, I've looked at the story.
01:17:23It's.
01:17:26Somebody posted on tick tock.
01:17:30Bondi with a crosshair on her.
01:17:33And.
01:17:34You know, it reminds me of something that we had around the era of Sarah Palin, where there was a crosshair put over someone who was in politics and it was an implied threat.
01:17:49As I recall, it was a Republican crosshair.
01:17:53I could be wrong anyway.
01:17:55And it was it blew over.
01:17:58I feel like putting forty five thousand on it makes it a little specific.
01:18:10So I don't know.
01:18:12Other than that, either the person that did it is as a criminal history, so that's not good for him.
01:18:17Well, and apparently also that this is a weird twist to it is that it was social media that led to his being identified and called out.
01:18:32And apparently the authorities, the FBI in this case, used tick tock and Google and Comcast and a bunch of tracing him through social media in order to identify him and to locate him.
01:18:50You know, I bet we're all being surveilled pretty closely.
01:18:52I doubt we could get away with very much.
01:18:54I can't even, you know, there's a lot of things you can't post and they're fully within the law.
01:19:01You can't get away with.
01:19:02I would like to point out again still, and I hope I never do stop pointing out that the party that seems to be stoking stochastic violence seems to be inheriting the stochastic violence first.
01:19:18If you keep raising a bunch of rabid beasts in a cage, poking them with a stick, when you let them loose, they're going to come for you first.
01:19:30They've got to stop doing it.
01:19:32And until they do stop doing it, I hope it never stops blowing up in their face.
01:19:37And because there's a bit of karma there and I'm kind of a fan of karma and it may be the only revenge we get in these days is the law of probability and Murphy.
01:19:49But yeah, they keep, they keep stoking this as if the people that they drive to, to violence are going to go where they want them to go or never go where they don't expect them to go.
01:20:03It's a fool's errand and I've, listen, civilized people have been calling for him to knock it off since the word go.
01:20:10Uh, and the bellicose among us, the chess beaters, the people who want this kind of trouble.
01:20:14They, uh, they don't think they never can imagine it's going to happen to them.
01:20:19Uh, and I think it's just folly.
01:20:23And I just want to point out that, um, if they wouldn't start nothing, there wouldn't be nothing.
01:20:28Right. Right. All of a sudden it goes from thoughts and prayers to, Hey, you're so violent.
01:20:34Right. Why help the animosity?
01:20:37Exactly. Yeah. Excellent point. That's, that's, uh, uh, I wish I'd made that point myself.
01:20:43I think that's excellent.
01:20:45You know, if I'd stopped interrupting you, you're probably on your way to do it.
01:20:49Um, well, you are much too kind, sir.
01:20:53Um, I will say, and, and, uh, the, uh, another point that you made was that this guy, uh, uh, Alvalos, Alvalos, uh, was apparently had some charges on him from before some misdemeanor, uh, battery, and then another charge of stocking in another place.
01:21:15So he was, uh, he's actually somebody who was a bad guy.
01:21:20Uh, this is Tyler Maxon, Alvalos.
01:21:25Alvalos.
01:21:27Um, but, uh, so it, it should, it was, it, it is serious on an, in and of itself, but it is also more so, uh, because of, uh, having that sort of background where, uh, taking action on this sort of thing is, uh, in his, uh, in his history.
01:21:44In, in something that was done.
01:21:46Speaking of people with criminal backgrounds and, uh, people who should be taken serious and, uh, maybe at their word or at their poem's word, uh, for the criminal activity they are involved with, uh, it is once again time for us to do our check-in on the Epstein count-up.
01:22:09There it is.
01:22:11Days since the unredacted Epstein list has not been released as of today is 3,788 days.
01:22:19And counting.
01:22:20And counting.
01:22:21And counting.
01:22:22And counting.
01:22:23And we will continue to count-up as the days rack up because, uh, that's, that's the way this is playing out.
01:22:32Um, actually, I believe that at some point they even said that they were, that the report was finished and they weren't going to release it or that it never existed and they weren't going to release it or they were just about to release it and it did disappear.
01:22:47I don't know, I, I can't keep up, but, uh, whatever it is, it has not been, uh, given out to the public unredacted in 3,788 days.
01:22:58Uh, and there you jolly well are.
01:23:01But we live in hope.
01:23:02Okay.
01:23:03Uh, Matt is not my neighbor in hope.
01:23:04That's okay.
01:23:05Not in this.
01:23:06Yeah, I think that that, uh, uh, they worked very hard to bury it.
01:23:18It was used, uh, it exists.
01:23:21It was used because it was, uh, a good, uh, strike, uh, but that, uh, he knew all along he was in it and that he would certainly make certain it never got released.
01:23:33Anyway, thank you for joining us at Politipod Live for political talk.
01:23:38Uh, and if you want political laughs, you can join Tom and myself and another dozen of our friends, uh, who helped put together a political comedy bar podcast called Politipod, which can be found on soundcloud.com slash Politipod.
01:23:56This is Tom Biggle and Matt Nissenoff saying good night.
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