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The Bluegrass Blues Podcast: Episode 7 · The Bluegrass Blues Podcast

0:00
This is the seventh episode of the Bluegrass
0:02
Blues podcast. I'm Jesse. And I'm Amy. This week
0:12
we're going to talk about health care, partly
0:14
because I was in the hospital last week and it
0:17
was a very weird experience. The basic trend
0:23
was that on Wednesday I was just out of it. I
0:30
was told I woke up and that I was just making
0:34
no sense at all, just not communicating. Then
0:38
I was told that I was actually taken downstairs
0:40
to an ambulance. I don't remember any of this.
0:44
All I know is that I went to bed on Tuesday and
0:47
I woke up on Thursday. Then I was in a hospital
0:50
bed, had no idea how I'd gotten there, had no
0:53
idea why I was there. The thing about being in
0:57
hospitals is that, you know, you're in bed all
1:00
the time. You're dependent on the nurses, and
1:03
the nurses and doctors, they were very good.
1:07
They were on top of everything. The only problem
1:09
was no one can tell me what went wrong. Like
1:14
I said, it was incommunicative. They thought
1:17
it was a stroke, but it wasn't a stroke. I was
1:20
pretty lucid by Saturday. I could talk and I
1:24
knew where I was and I was ready to go home.
1:26
But again, they just never figured out what had
1:29
happened in that two -day span. And it's kind
1:35
of the second time I've been hospitalized. I
1:37
was in the hospital in D .C. once because I had
1:41
this pain in my chest. But it wasn't a heart
1:44
attack and they weren't able to determine what
1:46
that was. So the point here is that health care
1:51
is very important to people. I know that I'm
1:55
fortunate in that I'm on Medicare and I have
1:58
all the supplemental insurance that I need. But
2:02
there is the recent developments with the big
2:07
bullshit budget bill is that. a lot of people
2:11
are going to lose their health care coverage.
2:12
And I was just looking into certain things. I
2:15
wanted to go by congressional district, if that's
2:17
okay with you, and talk about who voted for the
2:22
bill. Well, let's go to the cut to the chase.
2:25
There were two Republicans in Kentucky who voted
2:28
against the bill. That was Rand Paul and that
2:30
was Tom Massey. Massey's in the fourth congressional
2:34
district right next to Louisville. I wanted to
2:38
see, like, I know that all the other Republicans
2:41
in the state voted against it, and the only Democrat
2:44
in the state in Congress, Morgan McGarvey, voted
2:47
for it. I'm sorry, voted against it, and Republicans
2:52
voted for it. But it's just cutting through each
2:56
of these listings. Like, I'm looking at, where
3:00
did I get this information from? But in the first
3:03
congressional district. That's James Comer. And
3:08
there were 235 ,000 people covered by Medicaid,
3:13
or 32 .4 % of the district. And Comer won his
3:19
election with 75 % of the vote. In the second
3:22
congressional district, that's Brett Guthrie,
3:24
234 ,000 people are covered by Medicaid, or 30%,
3:29
or almost 31 % of the district. And Guthrie won
3:32
his election by 73%. In the fifth congressional
3:36
district, Hal Rogers, who has, let's see, 316
3:41
,000 people are covered by Medicaid in Hal Rogers'
3:45
district. That's 44%. And he won the district
3:49
by 100%. He got every vote in the last election.
3:53
But his district has the fifth highest poverty
3:56
rate in the nation. Right, that's a very Appalachian
3:59
community, very poor. Yeah, and the sixth congressional
4:03
district is Andy Barr, that's around Lexington.
4:08
Almost 200 ,000 people are covered by Medicaid
4:11
there, and that's 26 % of the district. The thing
4:17
that gets me is that these are very poor districts.
4:22
They overwhelmingly voted for the people who
4:24
are hurting them. And I have to wonder what's
4:28
going to happen in the next election cycle. Because
4:30
as we've discussed many times on this podcast,
4:33
the Republicans aren't holding town hall meetings,
4:37
so they don't want to hear what the constituents
4:38
have to say. Plus they're delaying this. They're
4:44
delaying the effects of all this until after
4:46
the midterms. But people know that they're going
4:49
to lose their... How do people know that? How
4:52
do they know it? How do they find out their news?
4:55
Well, they find out from Fox and places like
4:58
that, or the Trump voter votes for that. But
5:00
there are going to be instances where hospitals
5:04
are going to close. They're going to have to
5:05
close because the funding won't be there. And
5:08
there are things happening now in the administration
5:11
that will make health a huge issue in the next
5:16
couple of years. Like we discussed earlier this
5:19
week that the measles are back. The measles were
5:22
gone in the back because you have this insane
5:25
health secretary who thinks that vaccines are
5:28
the causes of just weird diseases that they don't
5:32
cause. He's completely gutted the people who
5:34
are doing the research. The administration itself
5:37
is gutting funds to universities because of their
5:41
political stand, which like has, it's just, we're
5:48
in. The process of just completely being dismantled
5:53
uh as a country and by by these guys and to be
5:58
very clear 1 .2 million Kentuckians are probably
6:01
going to lose their health insurance and a lot
6:03
of those are kids but again they're not going
6:06
to lose their health insurance until after the
6:08
midterms but I'll tell you what's happening now
6:10
is we Kentucky faces the nation's highest number
6:15
of rural hospitals at risk of closure so what's
6:19
going to happen is they can't plan the hospitals
6:22
aren't going to be able to plan for future funds
6:24
so they are going to start well they have to
6:28
dismantle because they have no funding and and
6:30
you know if you're in a poor district like um
6:34
um what was it like um what was i saying the
6:38
worst district the the hal rogers if you're in
6:41
hal rogers district and You are about to lose
6:46
your, you're going to lose your Medicaid. You're
6:48
in the highest poverty area of the state and
6:51
you're going to lose your hospital. Well, I guess
6:54
it won't matter because you won't be alive to
6:56
vote in the next election. I'm sure he's looking
6:58
at it. Maybe he's looking at it that way. Maybe
7:00
he's just a ghoul. Or maybe all the Republicans
7:03
who have voted for this are. are ghouls i just
7:08
want to be clear too that we're talking about
7:11
children and families women especially those
7:14
of reproductive age living in small towns and
7:17
rural areas people with disabilities low -income
7:21
seniors on medicare veterans and legal immigrants,
7:27
as well as victims of domestic abuse. And what
7:30
else is going to happen is these work reporting
7:33
requirements. Most a lot of the people that are
7:35
on Medicaid are working already, but now they're
7:38
not going to be able to navigate red tape. So
7:41
a lot of them are going to be projected to be
7:44
uninsured because of the red tape. And then the
7:47
other thing is we're going to have copayments
7:50
now up to $35 per visit. So now we're going to
7:55
see a resurgence of medical debt, which Medicaid
7:58
expansion was intended to help people avoid.
8:02
Right. And the thing is that, again, all of these
8:05
things that are happening, this has been Trump's
8:08
and the Republicans' effort to undo Obamacare.
8:11
That's what it comes down to. And I'm going to
8:13
say it's a racist action that they're doing because
8:16
they don't want the black guy to get credit for
8:19
anything. They've been against Obamacare ever
8:21
since it got passed. They gave it the name Obamacare,
8:24
deceiving people into thinking that, well, that
8:28
the Affordable Care Act was something else that
8:30
wasn't going to be touched, but Obamacare was
8:33
going to be eliminated. I don't think Trump would
8:35
have become president had we not had a black
8:38
man as president prior. Well, Trump made it so
8:41
that he fired the racism that was going on because
8:45
of the whole birth certificate issue. That was
8:49
pure racism. Obama was born in Hawaii. He was
8:55
born in Hawaii. That's an American state. He's
8:58
an American citizen. There's no question about
9:00
it. Everyone knows it. But Trump then decided
9:03
that this is going to be an issue that I can
9:05
harp on for the next four years. So the platform
9:07
is racism and then blatant sexism because of
9:11
Hillary's emails, quote, emails. Right. Well,
9:14
and also the lack of responsibility on the part
9:18
of the major media outlets, too. The desire to
9:23
equivocate whatever Trump did with whatever Hillary
9:26
did, even though Trump was committing crimes.
9:31
He was just flat out committing crimes. And Hillary
9:35
was doing policy. And, you know, policy isn't
9:39
exciting. People don't like to hear about it.
9:41
They just want things to get done. But when you
9:44
have someone who's essentially just appealing
9:47
to the reptilian brain. of his followers, where
9:51
everything is just us against them. They're bad,
9:59
I'm good. The words that they use, he's saying
10:02
exactly what I'm thinking. It's that kind of
10:05
thing where he... reinforced the racism that
10:10
was out there. And I think back in the days when,
10:14
you know, whenever someone would say something
10:16
about race, someone else would say, why do you
10:20
have to make everything about race? The whole
10:24
thing is everything has now become about race.
10:26
It's about immigration. It's about how do you
10:31
treat people? Who's going to stay in the country?
10:33
Who's going to do jobs? What kind of jobs are
10:36
out there? You know, black jobs was definitely
10:38
a racist statement by Trump because I don't know
10:43
why. I knew what he was saying, and the farmers
10:46
in the world knew what he was saying, that he
10:50
was going to get rid of the immigrants so black
10:52
people would go back in the fields and, you know,
10:54
pick the crops and chop the cotton and do all
10:58
the farm work. were the quote unquote black jobs.
11:02
Right. So, you know, that's racist. But again,
11:05
he was appealing to the racism that was pervasive
11:09
in the country. Right. And he won with it. So
11:12
he did. And let's go back to health outcomes
11:14
because this big, horrible, what did you call
11:18
it? Big bullshit budget bill. So another social
11:23
determinant of health, of course, is. is food
11:26
security right so the kentucky center for economic
11:30
policy estimates that 50 000 kentuckians will
11:34
now be at risk of losing their SNAP benefits.
11:38
It used to be called food stamps. And this is
11:40
at a time when about 16 % of Kentuckians are
11:44
already considered food insecure. And the Commonwealth
11:48
of Kentucky is among the 10 hungriest states,
11:52
right? So we're going to see people lose or see
11:56
a decrease in benefits. Some schools are probably
12:00
not going to be able to continue offering free
12:02
meals to all students. Food banks are going to
12:05
have stricter restrictions on who can seek their
12:08
assistance, etc. So, you know, again, so now
12:12
we've got people that are not going to have health
12:15
care and they're not going to have food. Not
12:18
just nutritious food, like food. Right, yeah.
12:22
Starvation. We're talking starvation in Kentucky.
12:25
And that also carries on to the health care aspect
12:28
because when you don't have food, you have to
12:30
go to the hospital because you're not getting
12:32
the nutrients you need to survive. Right. And
12:34
then we're not going to have the rural hospitals
12:35
because they're not being funded. They're going
12:37
to be closed. So, you know, it's just, I cannot
12:42
imagine why this bill passed other than, well,
12:46
there is a reason why this. passed and it's because
12:49
the cuts in the benefits will go back to the
12:54
top 1 % of earners. Right. You know, if you're
12:59
a top 1 % of the earner in the country, you earn
13:01
half a million dollars or more per year in Kentucky.
13:05
And that's equal to the total proposed cuts to
13:08
Medicaid and food assistance in what they'll
13:10
get back in those tax cuts. So, you know, it's
13:13
another example of, it's a reverse Robin Hood.
13:17
It's the rob from the poor and give to the rich.
13:20
Well, and the other thing is the dumbing down
13:23
of America, which we've been seeing for decades.
13:26
But right now, there's now an $87 million federal
13:31
education funding freeze that is leaving all
13:34
of the Kentucky school districts in bad situations.
13:38
You know, the $87 million in federal funds for
13:41
Kentucky was approved by Congress and signed
13:43
by Trump in March of 2020. But then on June 30th,
13:48
the U .S. Department of Education said the funds
13:51
were being frozen while under review. And so
13:55
our school districts, while they're working this
13:57
summer to plan for the next year, are in complete
13:59
disarray. And they're going to be losing millions
14:03
of dollars for instruction and student support,
14:06
academic enrichment, etc. So not only are we
14:10
going to continue to get sicker. And we're going
14:13
to get poorer and we're going to get dumber.
14:16
Right. But the the Republicans, I believe, really
14:20
feel that a dumb constituent is the best constituent
14:23
to have, because if people don't know what's
14:27
going on, they're not going to vote against it
14:30
and they're going to vote against their interest,
14:31
which is what's happened in this past election.
14:36
You know, I just again, I look at the numbers
14:38
and and. He, what was it, Hal Rogers won by 100
14:43
% of the vote. Right. And he's in the poorest
14:46
district, and he has screwed over his constituents.
14:49
He's not only screwing them over. He's going
14:51
to kill his constituents. Right, yeah. They're
14:55
going to die. Yeah. And, well, I guess this is
14:59
not a good transition, but I'm going to do it
15:01
anyway. This raises the question of why Kentucky
15:04
Democrats can't do anything to stop this. I've
15:08
complained many times about our congressman,
15:12
who I call Morgan McGreevey, and I know his name
15:15
is Morgan McGarvey. It's for those who think
15:18
I'm just not being aware of it. He should be
15:21
out, and I've said this before, he should be
15:23
out in the districts like in Rogers District
15:27
and in Andy Barr's district and Brett Guthrie's
15:31
district and doing the town hall meetings that
15:34
people aren't doing representing their constituents.
15:39
Because, you know, I've seen stories about they
15:43
do it in California and a Democrat will go into
15:45
a Republican district and get a standing ovation.
15:50
I think our Democratic state lawmakers should
15:52
be doing it as well. Oh, yeah. And why aren't
15:56
they doing it? That's another question. Why isn't
15:58
the Democratic leadership, who are the Democratic
16:01
leaders in this state to begin with, but why
16:04
aren't they taking advantage of this moment?
16:08
Because these are... These actions are things
16:12
that are going to hurt Kentuckians more than
16:15
anything. These are the big things that really
16:19
matter. We're really seeing a vacuum of not only
16:22
state... democratic leadership, but certainly
16:24
national democratic leadership as well. Right.
16:28
Yeah. And well, that also goes back to, I'm going
16:32
to raise another name here, and it's the Mamdani,
16:36
the candidate for mayor of New York, who's...
16:41
a socialist, a democratic socialist like Bernie
16:45
Sanders, like Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez. And
16:48
Muslim. He's Muslim, and he's born in Africa,
16:51
so he's an immigrant. And the racism that's going
16:55
on right now just aimed at him. is amazing and
17:01
this is New York like the liberal center of the
17:03
world but the New York Times has already decided
17:06
that they're going to go after him because he
17:07
did this big piece last week on the fact that
17:10
when he was applying for college he was marking
17:13
off the box that said he was African -American
17:15
and that he was Muslim and they were saying oh
17:18
he was trying to get all the boxes but He explains
17:21
very clearly that, well, I was born in Africa.
17:24
I was born in Africa. I'm an American. I'm African
17:27
American. I'm a Muslim. What am I supposed to
17:31
do? But the Times is treating this like Trump
17:34
would treat it, like they're going to make him
17:36
someone who's foreign, someone who's not an American,
17:39
someone you can fire your racism at, but they're
17:44
doing it in a way where you can't call them racist.
17:47
Whereas Trump didn't care. The other problem
17:50
here is the conflation of anti -Zionism or just
17:55
even anti -Bibi -ism. You know, anyone who is
17:59
against what Netanyahu and his war cabinet has
18:04
been doing to decimate the Palestinian population,
18:08
they're all considered anti -Semites. You know,
18:12
and it's rich, right? Donald Trump, just last
18:17
week at the Iowa fairgrounds in Des Moines, drew
18:20
criticism for using the anti -Semitic term Shylock
18:24
to describe some bankers. You know, think of
18:28
this. This is what he said. No death tax, no
18:31
estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing
18:34
from, in some cases, a fine banker, and in some
18:38
cases, Shylocks and bad people. So, you know,
18:42
Shylock, it comes from Shakespeare. Merchant
18:47
of Venice. Merchant of Venice. And these are
18:50
corrupt money lenders and they're Jews. And so
18:54
for centuries, this has been an anti -Semitic
18:58
trope. And what's so interesting to me is the
19:02
lack of institutional Jewish agencies condemning
19:07
the statement. you know, right after them praising
19:11
Trump for bombing Iran. Right, yeah. And, you
19:16
know, that also goes back into the fact that
19:18
neo -Nazis are marching all over the country
19:21
right now. There was a march in Louisville on
19:23
the 4th of July. And it's, again, there's this...
19:30
overwhelming amount of racism and anti -semitism
19:33
and sexism going on anti -islamism and anti -immigrantism
19:38
right yeah it's and it's all it all comes from
19:42
the top it started with the they're eating the
19:44
dogs they're eating the cats and instead of people
19:48
condemning him for saying it they were just saying
19:50
oh this is a an interesting political move and
19:53
that's the problem with the coverage it's been
19:57
I saw an ad or some kind of little graphic drawn
20:03
up of a bird with a fish in its mouth. And the
20:09
caption was, brave bird saves fish from drowning.
20:13
And they described that as, that's the way the
20:19
American media is covering things these days.
20:21
Where, you know, they're obviously... looking
20:25
at it in a way that makes no sense to the normal
20:29
person, or maybe it does make sense in their
20:32
minds, but it's a way to not criticize Trump
20:35
because they're afraid of getting sued. And like
20:40
CBS is getting sued, they're going to probably
20:44
back down and pay out millions of dollars. Others
20:47
have been sued and have paid millions of dollars.
20:50
they should be standing up for it but i i think
20:52
i see what's going on here because the supreme
20:55
court is now um uh ruling against newspapers
21:00
so it's just going to be something consistently
21:04
happening and um let's make a transition here
21:08
because i think one of the issues that was raised
21:11
last week or one of the things that we talked
21:13
about in our last podcast is Where do we go for
21:17
information? Who do we listen to? So I did a
21:20
quick thing last week and I had time to think
21:23
about it for the past few days. And I think I
21:27
want to add a few more just to my list. My favorite
21:31
podcast is the Professional Left podcast with
21:34
Driftglass and Blue Gal. It's a couple who live
21:38
in the cornfields of Illinois. They're not...
21:43
They're not media people at all. One worked in
21:47
Chicago government. They went through a lot when
21:51
Bush was president because they went through
21:55
unemployment. They went through the issue of
21:58
trying to get medical help through Medicare or
22:03
Medicaid. And they were also very full of anxiety
22:08
when the Republicans kept trying to destroy Obamacare.
22:11
But the thing I like about them is that they've
22:14
given the best description of the Republican
22:17
Party. And the thing that they remind people
22:21
of is that things you're seeing today are things
22:24
that have been happening for years. And you have
22:27
to think back to when things like this happened,
22:29
because the stuff that's happening now traces
22:32
back to the era of Ronald Reagan and Richard
22:35
Nixon, also traces back to the era of Newt Gingrich,
22:38
where the Republican attack on Democrats. went
22:44
from being like we're the loyal opposition to
22:47
their baby killers and that's you know that's
22:51
you have to realize that when the right has been
22:56
inundated with this stream of vitriol by people
23:02
like rush limbaugh and all the hate radio guys
23:05
and where it's at the point where parents are
23:10
deciding to punish their children by calling
23:12
them Democrats. It's ingrained in people now
23:17
to think that this is the way it should be and
23:20
it wasn't always this way. So they keep reminding
23:23
us of the things that Republicans have done over
23:26
the years, the contradictions in what they say
23:29
and the lack of empathy of Republican voters,
23:34
that it's more about cruelty than it is about
23:37
being humane to people or actually doing the
23:42
things that the Bible says to do. That, you know,
23:46
there's this, almost like this new Maga Jesus,
23:50
where it's, if you saw the movie, what was it,
23:54
where George Carlin played Cardinal and Alanis
23:59
Morissette played God. And there was this whole
24:03
idea of bringing up the good boy Jesus kind of
24:11
thing, where Jesus is with thumbs up and smiling.
24:14
But they remind us of where history has been,
24:20
and they have this weekly segment called No Fair
24:24
Remembering Stuff, and they will... Give us a
24:27
historical reference to those things. So that's
24:29
my favorite part. Dogma. Dogma, right, yeah.
24:33
The next podcast I like is Acquired. It's the
24:39
host are Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. And
24:43
they're talking about just the business world,
24:46
the history of a business. And their podcast
24:48
will go like for hours. I listened to one on
24:53
the New York Times. In the course of explaining
24:56
the history of the New York Times, they explained
24:58
why Fox News succeeds and how the New York Times
25:02
partially were responsible for Fox News' success.
25:05
Also, they revealed in the history of the New
25:09
York Times that the New York Times owner was
25:11
one of the founders of the Republican Party back
25:14
in the 1860s when the Republicans were anti -slavery.
25:18
So, you know, they get these great history lessons
25:21
on major league sports. on luxury retailers,
25:26
and on the tech sector. So that's definitely
25:30
worth listening to if you want to understand
25:32
business. In terms of substacks, I read Paul
25:38
Krugman, who used to work for the New York Times.
25:40
I still can't believe that the New York Times
25:43
would get rid of a Nobel Prize -winning economist
25:46
and not let him write what he wanted to write.
25:49
That makes no sense at all. But that's what they
25:54
did, so now he's on Substack. Robert Reich, who
25:57
was the former Secretary of Labor during the
25:59
Clinton administration, he does a regular weekly
26:04
podcast, and he's constantly writing stuff on
26:10
Substack, just noting the horrors of the Bush
26:14
administration. There's another one. Mark Jacobs
26:19
has... a Substack called Stop the Presses, and
26:23
it's a weekly newsletter on how the right wing
26:26
has exploited the weakness in American journalism.
26:30
He used to work for the Chicago Tribune and Sun
26:33
Times, and his stuff is really good. And there's
26:37
another guy called Jeff Tedricks who's on Substack.
26:40
There was a website years ago called The Smirking
26:43
Chimp, and it was a very... liberal website and
26:47
one that was not shy about using foul language
26:51
to describe the opposition. And this guy, Cedric,
26:56
goes after Trump every day. And it's like you
27:00
can expect a thousand words from him every day
27:02
on how horrible Trump is. So those are the things
27:05
I'm reading and listening to. And I would advise
27:07
people to look at those if they if they want
27:10
to. expand their media diet because I you know
27:14
I still look at headlines from various news organizations
27:17
I know what's going on when it's happening but
27:20
I'm I we've discussed this before too where I'm
27:25
annoyed at the the wave the seriousness of what's
27:29
happening today and then turning to a story about
27:33
something completely frivolous it's like are
27:35
you are you not aware of what's going on in the
27:37
world today so Those are my picks for favorite
27:42
podcast. And yeah, that's for me. And I would
27:48
add Heather Cox Richardson to that. I think she's
27:51
amazing. A lot of us are following her. And I
27:55
watch Fox News every three or four days because
27:58
I want to know what garbage and lies they're
28:02
telling so that I can try to understand voters
28:07
better. It's mind -boggling to me, though. But
28:11
unlike Jesse, I don't spend my time listening
28:14
to political or business podcasts. For my sanity,
28:18
I am a naturalist, and I'm out in the woods a
28:24
lot, and I volunteer. I'm a volunteer naturalist
28:28
at Bernheim Arboretum and Forest. And again,
28:32
for my sanity, I have to be out in nature. And
28:35
so for you fellow nature, lovers um i've got
28:41
some podcasts to recommend to you uh one is called
28:44
in defense of plants um and it's it's terrific
28:49
another's called bugs need heroes that bugs are
28:54
very maligned and they need heroes and we need
28:58
bugs well except for mosquitoes we don't yeah
29:00
we don't like mosquitoes yeah they suck and ticks
29:03
i hate ticks i just got a tick bite and it's
29:06
It's very scary. Mosquitoes are the biggest killers
29:09
of humans. That's true. Every bug but mosquitoes
29:13
and ticks. Just the zoo of us is quite nice,
29:18
as is backyard ecology. For me, I'm just really
29:26
geeking out on nature and learning new things.
29:30
I did learn something really sad about how...
29:34
80 to 100 year old white oak trees and the white
29:39
oak tree is the queen of the forest. She is like
29:44
the big producer of habitat and nourishment and
29:48
all the things and the bourbon industry cuts
29:52
down 80 to 100 year old white oak trees and makes
29:57
bourbon barrels out of it and they're used one
30:00
time. one time so we've we've got a real problem
30:05
and you know none of us knows this did any did
30:07
any of you listeners know that we have this real
30:11
problem of like chopping down all these old white
30:16
oak trees for bourbon barrels then there's a
30:18
whole secondary market apparently bourbon you
30:21
can only use the oak barrel once but in scotland
30:24
or ireland the scotch whiskey there's a whole
30:28
secondary market for these oak barrels so i learned
30:31
that so i'm you know i learn a lot about you
30:33
know climate change yes it's real and the impacts
30:37
on nature and about trees and shrubs and insects
30:41
and flowers and soil and and all the things that
30:47
we need to sustain life on this planet. And,
30:50
you know, frankly, I really do believe that Musk
30:52
in all of his shirts that he wears about colonizing
30:55
Mars, I mean, he really is. They do not care.
31:00
And I wouldn't just say it's Musk and his new
31:02
party. I mean, these people want us dead, guys
31:06
and gals and theys and thems and all of us. I
31:09
mean, they want us dead. So we've got to step
31:13
up and fight. We really do. It's up to us. I
31:16
know that we are looking for leadership, but
31:19
we've just got to show up. and protest and write
31:23
i did get a recent uh letter back from ran paul
31:27
and from mitch and they were both bullshit but
31:29
i felt good writing to them and making their
31:32
staff people like respond to me and they are
31:35
looking at the numbers of people that are really
31:38
upset and then you know they're going to kill
31:40
people and then you know we'll see what happens
31:43
i will give ran paul credit he did vote against
31:45
the bill he did and so you know i'm sure there
31:49
was a reason that i probably wouldn't agree with
31:51
but all that debt i mean i'm a you know i'm a
31:55
former investment banker i rated municipal bonds
31:58
at moody's investor service the debt it's serious
32:01
you know explain that please the debt what do
32:04
you mean well i mean this big bastardly oh yeah
32:09
you know it's the bullshit bill is is going to
32:11
increase our debt by you know trillions of dollars
32:14
and we're just going to be paying interest on
32:18
on this increased debt and never get to the principal
32:21
but there you know there is a way to remedy this
32:24
and it it worked back in the 20th century where
32:30
you just tax the rich You know, we've been through
32:33
this era of, you know, the super rich who are
32:37
just going to take all the money and screw everybody
32:40
over. It was called the depression in the 1920s.
32:43
And it's interesting. We're sort of in that depression
32:45
kind of mindset right now. And we're in the 2020s.
32:49
So 100 years ago, the rich were exploiting capital
32:55
and putting people in poverty. people had no
33:01
like job protection at all they had to work seven
33:04
day weeks um there were really no unions of any
33:08
uh import and there was no such thing as social
33:12
security or medicare and the country almost collapsed
33:16
and now we're back to the I won't call it the
33:20
roaring 20s because that's what it was called
33:23
in the 20th century. But we're in the 20s again.
33:26
There's all this turmoil in the 20s of this century.
33:31
And it's the same scenario. It's very rich people
33:37
doing as much as they can to get more money for
33:40
themselves, taking it away from poor people,
33:43
and telling poor people that it's not... It's
33:47
their fault for being poor. It's not our fault
33:51
for being rich. So, and you were talking about
33:55
Elon Musk, you know, he's back in the news again.
33:58
He's still battling Trump and, you know, it goes
34:02
back to the Epstein files, which disappeared
34:06
mysteriously. But Elon has this thing with, he's
34:13
always been in... interested in AI and in things
34:17
like ChatGPT. And he was trying to take over
34:21
ChatGPT when Sam Altman was forced out last year,
34:24
but that didn't happen. So what he did was he
34:28
went to Twitter, bought Twitter, has its own
34:31
ChatGPT program called Grok. And last week, well,
34:41
this week, Grok just completely blew up into
34:43
this rage of anti -Semitism, describing itself
34:48
as Hitler. And it was programmed by Musk. So
34:56
if that's what it's spewing out, then that's
34:59
what he believes. uh he just decided he's going
35:02
to take off the filters and let it go crazy and
35:05
that's what it did and the result this week has
35:08
been that the ceo of twitter or x has left linda
35:15
yaccarino only was there for two years i think
35:19
anybody who was aware of her being hired there
35:22
knew that she was going to be gone in a couple
35:23
of years i was in san francisco when she was
35:26
hired and you know it her grok was also like
35:31
making these really lewd sexual references to
35:35
her as well so there's the racism there's the
35:39
anti -semitism and there's the sexism that is
35:43
the core of elon musk these days so that's where
35:47
we're i'm not sure what my point was there but
35:50
it's just something that we're putting too much
35:55
faith in very rich people and you know it's almost
35:59
like Blanche DuBois requiring the kindness of
36:03
strangers where you know if you just be quiet
36:07
people will see that you deserve to be treated
36:11
fairly and then they'll do the right thing and
36:14
people won't do the right thing. But we will.
36:18
We will. There's a lot of people doing the right
36:20
thing. Right, wrong, morals. It's tough. But
36:24
I really do think these people are on the wrong
36:27
side of history, Jesse. It is not good to kill
36:31
people. It is, you know, and if you're a real
36:34
Christian, which I am not, and neither are you,
36:36
you know, you feed the poor. You know, you feed
36:39
the hungry. Well, that's the basis of Christianity.
36:42
Right. It's in the book. It's right there. This
36:45
new Jesus that people are praying to, I don't
36:51
know. It's Magga Jesus. I think you're deluded.
36:54
Yeah. It's a Magga Jesus, and it's one who doesn't
36:58
believe in compassion. It believes that the poor
37:02
are just a scourge on the earth. And they, but
37:06
it doesn't apply to them when the bad things
37:10
happen to them. And there's, I've seen these
37:13
videos of people who are like calling for people
37:18
to get together to protest this administration.
37:20
And then you look at their history and they were
37:23
the ones. Calling for Trump to be president.
37:26
Yeah, but I'm okay with that. Like, I want more
37:28
people to peel off of this mega universe. You
37:33
know, before they die. I mean, I don't want you
37:35
to die. So join us. Like, we cannot let this
37:40
administration do. what it's doing to our immigrant
37:44
neighbors, to poor people, to black people, to
37:48
white people, to women. Let's all stand up against
37:52
this. Yeah, and let's stand up against things
37:54
like ICE raids. So I just heard today on NPR
37:59
that the budget for ICE now is the largest. Yes.
38:04
budget ever police force budget that's ever been
38:07
instituted in the country and they were active
38:10
in cincinnati i think this past weekend um it's
38:15
and i think the people who were going back to
38:18
the neo -nazi march i think the people who are
38:21
in ice are probably the people we would have
38:23
seen at that march um and you know this whole
38:28
idea of going around masked These are probably
38:32
the same people who were saying that we can't
38:34
wear a mask during COVID because you're defiling
38:40
our rights. Right, and the hooded masks of the
38:45
last centuries, too. Well, if you looked at the
38:49
march with the neo -Nazis in Louisville, they
38:52
were wearing these white cloths in front of their
38:54
faces. all dressed in the same kind of khaki
39:00
pants and dark shirts and baseball caps. And
39:05
these are the people who were marching back years
39:08
ago when, what was the one where Trump said that
39:12
there were good people on both sides? Charlottesville.
39:15
Charlottesville, yeah. And these are the people
39:18
that basically stormed the Capitol on January
39:22
6th and have all been pardoned. Yeah. Right.
39:25
So, you know, and I believe that the ice people
39:28
are former January Sixers. Yeah. So. All right.
39:31
Well, it is tough to end on a positive note.
39:34
Things are pretty dire. But again, small acts
39:37
of kindness get out in the woods. use your Five
39:41
Calls app, join a protest, do a letter -writing
39:44
campaign. Let's make sure that we get good people
39:48
elected for the midterms. Yeah, so let's get
39:50
our Democratic leaders to actually lead. Yeah,
39:54
that would be nice. That would be nice. Yeah.
39:55
So I guess we'll wrap it up now. See you next
39:59
time. Yep. Thanks, everybody. Our closing music
40:06
is by John Chamberlain. Thank you.