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The Mamdani Meltdown · Stuff Keeps Happening

0:00
Hello. I said a variation of my usual intro.
0:04
But stuff still happens. So what's up? It's the
0:08
Mamdani meltdown. Politicians, both Democrat
0:11
and Republican, are losing their shit over the
0:14
New York City Democratic primary. Zoran Mamdani.
0:18
He won in like a blowout election in the New
0:21
York City primary against Cuomo, the disgraced
0:24
former governor of New York. It's truly baffling
0:27
that the man ran at all. But, Zoran kicked his
0:30
ass so hard that despite projections showing
0:32
that the voting would have to be tallied for
0:34
a while because of the rank choice voting system,
0:37
Zoran won on the first round. Like enough of
0:40
a blowout that Dem strategists were guffawed.
0:44
I think guffaw is the only applicable term there.
0:47
So Bamdani is a brown man. who also calls himself
0:51
a democratic socialist and is Muslim. So U .S.
0:55
politicians aren't happy. And to be clear, I'm
0:57
including Democrats. Like Democrats are really
1:00
showing their hand right now and proving that
1:02
bigotry belongs to no party. It's definitely
1:04
more rampant in Republicans, and we'll get to
1:08
that. But let's start with the Democrats. So
1:10
Democrats are mostly leaning in on one claim
1:12
that Mamdani endorsed the phrase, globalize the
1:15
intifada, which is not a thing he ever did. The
1:18
phrase is a interpret it as a threat towards
1:21
Jews, and it's all bad faith. He didn't endorse
1:25
that. In fact, he's made his position very, very
1:27
clear that he would protect and support Jewish
1:30
communities and has shown that he will support
1:33
Jewish people in his actions already. There's
1:35
really not a question about his support for Jews.
1:37
It's just he's not a big fan of Israel. And so
1:41
they are going into hyper super ultra overdrive
1:43
doing that whole thing where they just say that
1:44
Israel and Jews are one in the same. which is
1:48
so deeply offensive. And so Kirsten Gillibrand
1:51
was on a radio show where she was taking calls
1:54
and a caller called in with a question saying,
1:57
hey, what about all the awful things Mom Donnie
2:00
has said about Jews? And the host of this radio
2:03
show even tried to give her a layup saying, well,
2:07
you know, some of the things the caller said
2:08
may not be true. I can't fact check in real time.
2:11
But she ignored that. and was like, yeah, you
2:13
know, he's going to have to really work on that.
2:15
And that's something I'm going to work with him
2:17
on. And, you know, we're going to work together
2:19
on making sure that Jews are supported. And I'm
2:21
going to I'm going to talk with him about that.
2:23
And it's like, what? What? You're just sitting
2:25
there asserting that you're the reason that he
2:27
would help Jews. What? Despite rambling for quite
2:29
some time and making her point very, very, very
2:32
clear, she has said that she misspoke and is
2:34
trying to walk it back. Eric Swalwell is. doing
2:36
the same thing. The, oh, he owes an apology to
2:39
Jews, kind of, also needs to explain himself,
2:42
despite not saying what Mamdani said, which is
2:45
nothing. To my knowledge, Chuck Schumer hasn't
2:47
said a specific dumb thing, but also is refusing
2:51
to just outright support Mamdani. And Hakeem
2:53
Jeffries, the head of Democrats in the House
2:55
of Representatives, He also basically did the
2:57
same thing as Swalwell, just being like, well,
2:59
you know, he's going to have to clarify his points
3:02
and be very clear moving forward because we don't
3:05
know. So that was the Democrat side. Brace yourself.
3:09
In this corner, we have the Republicans being
3:11
overtly racist. What a novel concept. Senator
3:15
Andy Ogles came out swinging, calling Mamdani,
3:18
quote, Zoran Little Muhammad Mamdani. He then
3:21
referred to him as anti -Semitic, socialist,
3:24
and communist, and then called for his denaturalization
3:27
and deportation. Nancy Mace heard there was a
3:30
bigotry party going on, and she wanted in on
3:31
that action. So she tweeted, associating Mamdani
3:35
with 9 -11. Donald Trump Jr. asserted that New
3:37
York City has fallen. And Trump himself referred
3:43
to Mamdani as a quote 100 % communist lunatic
3:47
because words Just don't mean anything anymore.
3:51
I want to remind you that all of these reactions
3:54
are to a candidate who was Overwhelmingly support
3:58
like they're just ignoring the fact that the
4:00
city voted for this and wants this and they're
4:04
losing their shit acting as if it's the end of
4:06
days when in reality It's a city trying a new
4:09
policy for their mayoral candidate. The dude's
4:12
most radical proposals are free public transit
4:15
and city -owned grocery. Like both of those already
4:19
exist in the U .S. But instead of focusing on
4:22
the catastrophic tax bill that's about to pass
4:24
through the Senate, they're just ripping on a
4:26
guy for a thing he didn't say. But speaking of
4:28
that tax bill, numbers! I'll make it quick. I'll
4:32
make it fun. So, recap. Republicans are trying
4:34
to pass a bill called the Big Beautiful Bill.
4:37
It's Trump's tax and economic plan. I say plan.
4:40
It's more just Trump wants it to be passed so
4:42
he can sign it on 4th of July and say he did
4:45
that. He has kind of shown that he doesn't actually
4:47
give a shit what's in it and just wants it to
4:49
get to his desk because he recently tweeted out
4:51
saying, hey, don't go too crazy, Republicans.
4:54
Remember, you got to get reelected. What the
4:56
fuck does that mean? He's saying I know you're
4:59
doing bad shit, but don't do too much bad shit.
5:02
What I'm gonna crash out I'm gonna crash out.
5:06
Anyway, I previously covered the House version
5:08
of the bill. I'm gonna give some overview of
5:10
what the Senate version changes and what we can
5:13
expect if this gets passed. Regarding taxes,
5:15
it does the same thing as the House bill in making
5:17
Trump's originally temporary tax cuts from his
5:20
first term. It would make those permanent. So
5:22
back in Trump's first term, they made temporary
5:24
tax breaks to try to reduce the overall cost
5:27
of the package and make it more palatable. This
5:29
time around, they're trying to make those temporary
5:30
changes permanent, and they're also trying to
5:33
claim that because those temporary changes are
5:35
being made permanent they're not actually changing
5:37
policy and so we shouldn't consider the financial
5:40
impact of the opportunity cost of what the taxes
5:43
would have been if they were not permanent. Put
5:45
simply, Republicans are trying to confuse the
5:48
math around accounting and that's not how math
5:51
works. No tax on tips is in there but it is also
5:54
temporary and there's a maximum income level
5:57
before it stops counting. It offers a larger
6:00
standard deduction to seniors who make under
6:02
$75 ,000 because young people don't need money,
6:06
famously. It actually increases the maximum of
6:09
the child tax credit to $2 ,500 for a child,
6:13
except it also scales that down. So the poorer
6:16
you are, the less you get, all the way down to
6:19
nothing. So a child tax credit for a poor family
6:23
would be nothing. But for a rich family... would
6:26
be more. There's a proposal to increase the SALT
6:29
cap to $40 ,000 from $10 ,000 for most states.
6:32
The SALT cap is essentially the limit of how
6:35
much of your state and local taxes you can deduct
6:37
from your federal taxes if you itemize your taxes.
6:41
There was a proposal to increase it to $40 ,000,
6:43
but the Senate is looking to try to cut that
6:45
entirely and bring it back down to $10 ,000.
6:47
This is a bargaining chip for states that have
6:50
higher taxes. To pay for not even half of these
6:53
tax cuts, they want to slash 1 .5 trillion dollars
6:56
from the budget, which was otherwise earmarked
6:58
for Medicare, nutritional assistance, and climate
7:01
initiatives. It is estimated that the Senate
7:03
version of this bill would kick even more people
7:06
off of Medicare than the House version would,
7:08
closer to 12 million people in total. It's also
7:10
projected to kick about 3 million people off
7:13
of SNAP slash food stamps, you know, nutritional
7:15
assistance. It also increases ICE's budget by
7:18
a staggering amount, and I want to be within
7:21
no uncertain terms here. We are currently, right
7:23
now, living in a United States of America that
7:26
has concentration camps. These ICE detention
7:29
centers are concentration camps. People are dying
7:33
in them due to inhumane conditions. This isn't
7:36
even the first time the U .S. has done this.
7:38
Our hands are not free of sin. With that understanding
7:42
that we are currently doing concentration camps.
7:45
ICE is getting an additional $350 billion to
7:49
fund that. This bill would push for 10 ,000 new
7:51
ICE agents, each of which would get a $10 ,000
7:54
signing bonus. It has funds for 100 ,000, quote,
7:58
detention center beds, which should be read as
8:01
funding for concentration camps. It establishes
8:03
a $12 billion grant to provide money to states
8:06
that help ICE out, and it provides a separate
8:09
$3 .5 billion grant to the U .S. Attorney General
8:12
for basically the same thing, but they just wanted
8:15
to put a line item in there that has a backronym
8:17
that shortens to Biden to have like a fund that
8:22
is for deportation efforts called Biden, just
8:25
because their brains are broken. Overall, it
8:26
is expected that this is going to add over four
8:28
trillion dollars to the deficit. So literally
8:31
never let them tell you that they're trying to
8:33
reduce spending. All right, moving on. That was
8:35
a lot. We're going to we're going to. Go faster?
8:38
I had every intention of making this a more streamlined,
8:42
less intensive, less wordy issue. That didn't
8:46
happen. So we're gonna - we're gonna - we're
8:48
gonna move - we're gonna move forward. Fuck!
8:49
More policy, I'm sorry. The Supreme Court has
8:51
ruled that judges ain't shit. So there was a
8:54
court case that went to the Supreme Court of
8:55
the United States about Trump's attempts to undo
8:58
birthright citizenship, which is wild because
9:00
that's just like as constitutional right as you
9:03
can get. But this went to the Supreme Court and
9:05
ultimately the thing that was being argued was
9:07
whether or not a lower -level court can file
9:10
a nationwide injunction to stop executive actions.
9:13
There's about two dozen of these nationwide injunctions
9:15
right now from various judges who have been trying
9:17
to stop the Trump administration from unilaterally
9:19
just signing an executive order and infringing
9:22
on people's rights. When the president signs
9:24
one of those orders that's not okay, the judge
9:27
says no and they can't do it until it's resolved
9:30
in the courts. But not anymore! Now they can
9:32
do it. Fuck you. The Supreme Court basically
9:35
ruled they can't stop the president from just
9:37
doing the shit he wants to do, and the only way
9:39
that they can stop the president now is if they
9:42
file a class action lawsuit against the federal
9:44
government. And in that case, the people who
9:47
are in the class can be protected. So if the
9:50
government is infringing on your rights, you
9:52
have to either be in an individual lawsuit with
9:55
the government or part of a class action against
9:58
the government. to actually not have your rights
10:01
infringed, and only while it's going through
10:03
the courts. But that means that unless your attorney
10:06
general is on board with protecting your rights
10:08
from the Trump administration, they're not going
10:10
to do anything. And so this creates a patchwork
10:13
legal system. We essentially just have 50 different
10:15
countries now. Because you can go across the
10:17
border and whether or not your child has birthright
10:20
citizenship could be in question And so to that
10:23
end the SCOTUS did sort of like leave some wiggle
10:25
room about like not fucking with birthright citizenship
10:28
But this can affect everything any policy that
10:31
Trump wants to put out There's gonna have to
10:34
be a lawsuit pushing back on it specifically
10:37
covering you It's gonna cost a ton of money and
10:39
the point is to overload the system so that nobody
10:41
can actually stop them Now, were there a lot
10:44
of nationwide injunctions recently and a massive
10:46
spike? Yeah, there was absolutely an anomalous
10:49
spike in nationwide injunctions in recent years,
10:53
starting with Obama. So I would point your attention
10:57
to one Mitch McConnell, who famously weaponized
11:00
the courts against the presidency. And now that
11:03
they don't like that it's happening against Trump
11:04
as he's trying to just trample on people's rights,
11:07
They got rid of it. Thanks, Mitch. Your entire
11:10
political career has been spent screwing over
11:12
the next generation. Rot in hell. Regarding the
11:15
Iran bombings. There, you know, we bombed Iran.
11:18
There was a war between Israel and Iran. Well,
11:21
Israel was bombing Iran. Long story short, that's
11:24
simmered down for now. We don't know what the
11:27
actual impact of the strike was. US intelligence
11:29
is reporting both a unilateral success and questionable
11:33
success. International aid groups say that the
11:36
uranium that was enriched in Iran is likely fine,
11:39
likely got moved somewhere else, so we have no
11:41
idea. What actually was accomplished, if anything,
11:44
but after there was a ceasefire put into effect,
11:46
Israel decided to up their attacks against Iran
11:49
in the final hours before the ceasefire actually
11:51
went into effect, just to do as much damage as
11:54
they could. And then they just kind of ignored
11:56
the ceasefire for a while. Iran also struck back,
11:59
and so Trump got big mad, and now famously went
12:02
on TV and said the F -bomb, which is to say Far
12:06
-Quad. He went on TV and said Israel and Iran
12:08
have no idea what the fuck they're doing, and
12:10
it was the most relatable he's ever been. The
12:12
US is planning to restart talks with Iran about
12:14
their nuclear program, the talks that Trump killed
12:16
in his first term. It doesn't look likely that
12:19
Iran is going to be willing to play ball. They
12:21
are not going to accept the US's terms about
12:23
having basically no enriched uranium. Regarding
12:26
ICE bullshit, there's three quick things I'm
12:29
going to touch on. The first is Kilmar Briego
12:31
-Garcia, the man who was quote unquote mistakenly
12:34
deported by the US government to El Salvador
12:37
to a death camp. He's back on US soil because
12:39
the US government is trying to charge him with
12:41
a crime to undo their mistake. That's not how
12:44
that works, but while he's now on US soil, he
12:46
has petitioned to go at least to his home district
12:49
to be where his wife and kid is. That has been
12:52
denied, and a spokesperson for the Justice Department
12:55
said that Kilmar will, quote, never go free on
12:58
American soil. This man has not been found guilty
13:02
of anything. Meanwhile, ICE is still abducting
13:04
people off of the street. One notable story of
13:06
thousands is an Iranian woman who's been living
13:09
here for 47 years was abducted by ICE while she
13:13
was out front of her home gardening. She had
13:16
tried to apply for a visa. It was denied, but
13:18
she was issued a stay of removal and she had
13:21
met the requirements to not be removed consistently.
13:24
For nearly 50 years, she tried for citizenship
13:28
and was denied. They didn't let her because of
13:30
technicalities. And people are just like, what
13:32
the hell happened to my nice neighbor who was
13:34
just a part of my community? She was gardening.
13:37
And then finally, there's the JD Vance meme situation.
13:40
So... A 21 -year -old Norwegian guy named Mads
13:43
Mikkelsen, not the actor, was coming to the United
13:46
States of America. Freedom. As he got to our
13:49
freedom center, the border control, they asked
13:52
for access to his phone. which is fucked, and
13:55
on his phone they found a widely shared meme
13:57
of JD Vance, and that pissed off the officer
14:01
for some reason. They took the guy into an interrogation
14:03
room, interrogated him, put him into a holding
14:06
cell for hours with no food or water, they forced
14:08
him to give a blood sample and fingerprints,
14:11
and then deported him to Oslo. I shit you not,
14:14
the US maintains that it wasn't the JD Vance
14:17
meme that got him deported, but was instead the
14:19
fact that he said that he had previously used
14:22
cannabis in a country where cannabis was legal.
14:26
The US technically can deny you for drug use.
14:29
And they did that. Who knows what this man could
14:32
have been capable of. He smoked the ganja in
14:37
the past. You're telling me weed makes you time
14:40
travel? Obviously dangerous. Get him out of here.
14:43
World stuff! This is a brutal episode. I'm so
14:46
sorry. I promise there's cool stuff at the end.
14:49
There have been many reports of people in Gaza
14:51
being mowed down at aid distribution sites. There's
14:54
an organization that is backed by the US and
14:57
Israel that's supposed to be distributing aid
14:59
to people in Gaza. But instead, when people in
15:01
Gaza have been going to these sites, there have
15:03
just been bullets sprayed into the crowd. Hundreds
15:05
have been killed and the international charity
15:07
Save the Children has said that the vast majority
15:10
have been children. killing children at aid distribution
15:14
sites. I wonder why people aren't thrilled with
15:16
Israel right now, but I also want to be very,
15:18
very clear that it's IDF and US, quote, defense
15:22
contractors, private military forces from the
15:25
US. But we're not involved in Japan. The character
15:29
limit has been reached. In 2017, there was a
15:31
guy known as the Twitter Killer. He was a serial
15:33
killer in Japan who lured women to his house
15:36
and murdered them. He used Twitter to find women
15:39
who were depressed or conveying suicidal ideation,
15:42
and he said that he wanted to offer help. That
15:44
help being killing them. Now, when he was arrested,
15:47
his attorneys tried to argue on his side that
15:49
he had permission to kill them. It was murder
15:51
with consent. He took issue with this and clarified
15:54
that he did not have consent to kill them. Don't
15:56
put that evil on me! I didn't get consent! He's
15:59
dead now. They killed him. Capital punishment.
16:02
In China, the women be horny. Can't believe I
16:06
get to talk about... So, okay. Boy's love. Boy's
16:08
love is a genre of fiction that is mostly written
16:12
by women for women and stars male protagonists
16:15
in a homoerotic relationship. This has been surging
16:18
in popularity among women in China and the Chinese
16:20
government is not particularly happy about it,
16:23
labeling it obscene. And so multiple authors
16:26
of Boy's Love content in China have had visits
16:29
from authorities that either interrogate them
16:31
or actually charge them with obscenity. It's
16:34
apparently sparked a bit more of a debate about
16:35
the role of the government in policing morality,
16:38
but largely it's just fucking whack that I'm
16:41
talking about Boy's Love novelists in the context
16:44
of global... politics, because there's like legitimate
16:48
overseas havens for hosting boys love content
16:51
so that people in China can read it. Shit damn.
16:54
I'm telling you, these women be horny. Cool stuff.
16:57
Let's do cool stuff. Just cool stuff from here
16:59
on out. Maybe. I didn't look ahead, actually.
17:02
Exoplanets. The James Webb space peeper has done
17:04
another amazing feat and took a photo of an exoplanet
17:08
for the first time. Context. Exoplanets are hard
17:11
to see. Because they're really far away and you
17:13
have to squint. They're usually by a star, and
17:15
if you look at a star, it's bright and kind of
17:18
overshines everything else around it. Kind of
17:20
like my head. But given how powerful the Jimmy
17:23
Wimmy Telescope is, they were able to actually
17:25
filter out the light from the sun and get an
17:28
image of like a Jupiter -ish planet. So that's
17:31
cool. If you've ever seen a photo of an exoplanet
17:33
before, you haven't. That's an illustration.
17:35
It's a mock -up. We don't have that technology.
17:38
Meteors over Atlanta, free band name for anyone
17:41
who wants that. Yeah, there was a massive fireball
17:43
spotted in the sky over Georgia, seen here as
17:46
a part of 7 -Eleven's increased marketing budget
17:48
apparently. But for real, a meteor fell out of
17:50
the sky and rammed through someone's roof all
17:54
the way through their floor into the concrete
17:55
of their home, which... Thankfully nobody was
17:58
harmed, but holy shit, new fear. People were
18:01
scrambling to figure out what exactly that was.
18:04
Of course, there was just a fireball in the sky
18:05
caught on some dash cams, and a bunch of weather
18:07
radars were like, is that lightning? There's
18:09
no storm happening. But we eventually figured
18:11
it out. God hates us. Hey, let's talk about ad
18:14
block for your face. A Belgian software developer
18:16
has used artificial intelligence and augmented
18:18
reality glasses to make a prototype of real -world
18:21
physical ad block. It streams video from the
18:24
glasses to an AI that tries to detect what is
18:27
and is not an ad, and if it sees an ad, it projects
18:30
just like a red box over it and says, like, this
18:33
was an ad. This is a prototype. This is not anywhere
18:35
near an actual product. I do want to note that
18:38
it uses Google's AI to do the computation, which
18:40
is hysterical because Google is literally an
18:43
advertising company. but also dystopian as fuck.
18:47
Neat, though. Lightning Round. Facebook and Meta
18:49
are testing a system that will feed your phone's
18:52
images up into their AI, even if you haven't
18:54
uploaded them to the app. They're saying this
18:56
is a test, and they're saying that it is not
18:58
currently being used to train their AIs. Currently.
19:01
They're bringing back the Spider -Man trilogy.
19:04
There's an extended cut of the Spider -Man trilogy
19:06
coming to theaters, like the original. Edward
19:08
Corastine, the guy who called himself Big Balls
19:11
who worked at Doge, has resigned. America lost
19:14
a great asset today. That's not true. Speaking
19:18
of dumb resignations, the president of the University
19:20
of Virginia resigned under pressure from the
19:23
Trump administration. Because he's a big weenie.
19:26
Protect your wallets! The steam summer sale is
19:29
going on right now. Send help. After the Key
19:31
Bridge in Baltimore got mostly destroyed last
19:34
year, they are finally demolishing the rest of
19:36
it. And finally for today, it was looking like
19:38
Texas was going to have a complete ban on all
19:40
THC products, but Governor Abbott actually managed
19:43
to veto it. This is very dangerous because now
19:46
someone might have THC in Texas and thus become
19:49
a national security threat, and we must deport
19:51
them all to Oslo. Thank you for listening to
19:53
today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head
19:56
to skh .news for sources, bonus content, and
20:00
that good old -fashioned Texas THC. My name is
20:04
Endeavorance. Thank you so much for being here.
20:06
Take care and be well.