Latest / Stuff Keeps Happening / Incoming Government Shutdown?

Transcript

Incoming Government Shutdown? · Stuff Keeps Happening

• 0:00
  Hello, I finished researching my unit upgrades,
• 0:04
  but stuff still happened. So what's up? Dear
• 0:08
  listener, I want to start by just saying there
• 0:10
  was a lot of stuff that happened in the past
• 0:12
  like 24 hours. Regarding death, lots of shootings,
• 0:17
  not great. I haven't really covered a lot of
• 0:20
  mass shootings recently, in part because they
• 0:22
  just happen constantly. The US has had quite
• 0:26
  a few so far this year, as we do every year,
• 0:29
  but It's still awful. Longtime viewers will actually
• 0:32
  know that what is now referred to as lightning
• 0:35
  round in this show was once called rapid fire
• 0:38
  and I changed the name because of how frequently
• 0:40
  I was saying that in juxtaposition with talking
• 0:43
  about mass murder in my own country. So while
• 0:46
  there were several high -profile mass shootings
• 0:48
  over the weekend I'm just I'm just gonna move
• 0:52
  forward. There's so much other stuff to talk
• 0:53
  about and these happen all the time and I hate
• 0:56
  that I'm saying that but that's Just wanted to
• 0:59
  level set stateside. New York City Mayor Eric
• 1:02
  Adams is joining Dropout TV. Wait, that was misinformation.
• 1:07
  New York City Mayor Eric Adams is dropping out
• 1:09
  of the mayoral race. So you may recall that there's
• 1:12
  been four dudes running for mayor of New York
• 1:14
  City. Zoran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams,
• 1:17
  and Curtis Lewa. Now, discounting the guy who
• 1:20
  wears a beret all the time and made up crimes
• 1:23
  that he stopped in the past, we've got three
• 1:25
  guys. Eric Adams, Andrew Cuomo, and Zoran Mamdani.
• 1:29
  Mamdani is leading in the polls by a double -digit
• 1:32
  number of points, and Andrew Cuomo is a disgraced
• 1:35
  sex pest, and Eric Adams is a criminal. I don't
• 1:38
  know what we expected. I don't know what anyone
• 1:40
  expected from electing an NYPD official to the
• 1:43
  position of a politician in charge of New York
• 1:46
  City. You got the crimes that you voted for I
• 1:50
  that's just crimes But anyway, Eric Adams has
• 1:53
  dropped out probably because somebody bribed
• 1:54
  him to do that. He loves taking bribes which
• 1:57
  just leaves three dudes left and despite Zoran
• 2:01
  Mamdani having a double -digit lead in the polling
• 2:03
  despite Quinnipiac which by the way apparently
• 2:06
  is pronounced Quinnipiac despite Quinnipiac putting
• 2:09
  out a poll showing that even if Eric Adams dropped
• 2:11
  out Mamdani would still have a 20 -point margin
• 2:14
  Top Democrats have still not endorsed it. Chuck
• 2:17
  Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries took time away from
• 2:19
  impotently tweeting at Trump to not endorse a
• 2:23
  generational figure in their own party. Mamdani
• 2:26
  expanded the electorate and is leading over basically
• 2:29
  every demographic in the polls, and they're like,
• 2:32
  well, you know, we just don't know who to endorse.
• 2:34
  Could be anyone. I don't know. Maybe they just
• 2:36
  see more of themselves in the disgraced sex pest
• 2:39
  than the charismatic leader. That would make
• 2:41
  sense. Given how ineffective they've been. Anyway,
• 2:45
  mom Donnie looks like he's almost definitely
• 2:46
  going to win the race because obviously like
• 2:49
  Obviously, but we haven't quite gotten there
• 2:52
  yet I I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few
• 2:54
  more tricks up the sleeves of the donor class
• 2:56
  like at the end of the day All of this is happening,
• 2:59
  at all, because the Democrats are more interested
• 3:01
  in sticking to their donor -first agenda than
• 3:04
  anything else. They'd rather refuse to do the
• 3:06
  easiest political endorsement in history than
• 3:09
  go against what their donors are telling them
• 3:11
  to do. Because for a good chunk of the Democratic
• 3:13
  Party, that's all it's about. It's about seniority,
• 3:16
  and it's about donor relations. Everything else
• 3:19
  is details. Weird why people don't like the Dem
• 3:22
  Party. Like, at all. Like, cool, they're not
• 3:25
  fascists. Unfortunately, the fascists are delivering
• 3:28
  for the people who want that. They're making
• 3:30
  good on the whole doing awful things thing, which
• 3:35
  is what their supporters want, and that's why
• 3:37
  they have supporters. Weird. So let's move on.
• 3:40
  Over in Iowa, the Des Moines School District
• 3:44
  Superintendent has been arrested by ICE. For
• 3:47
  those not in the states, as a reminder, ICE is
• 3:50
  Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are
• 3:52
  an agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
• 3:54
  They are the ones who are essentially a private
• 3:56
  army for the administration currently going after
• 3:59
  immigrants and people that they claim are illegal.
• 4:01
  In this case, they arrested Dr. Ian Roberts,
• 4:04
  who is a 20 -year veteran educator working in
• 4:07
  Iowa as the superintendent of their largest school
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  district. ICE claims that he is here illegally,
• 4:11
  and they also really want you to know that when
• 4:13
  they were chasing him down, he fled and apparently
• 4:16
  had money and a gun on him, which I guess is...
• 4:20
  Illegal? That's just like, so not a crime! They
• 4:23
  claim he's a threat to public safety, which has
• 4:25
  been met with complete pushback from the community,
• 4:27
  which is like, what the fuck, this guy rules.
• 4:29
  Everyone who worked with him has been blindsided
• 4:31
  by this, and the institutions that actually employed
• 4:34
  him said that they did multiple different background
• 4:37
  checks to look into criminal records and citizenship,
• 4:40
  and there were no issues. But he is black, and
• 4:43
  he was born in a different country, which apparently
• 4:46
  is enough to detain a man on the street. We don't
• 4:48
  know a whole lot more right now. He's been taken,
• 4:50
  he has retained a lawyer, and local communities
• 4:53
  have been outraged by this. Regardless of anything,
• 4:56
  this very much is the federal government coming
• 4:59
  into a district in a state, abducting a key political
• 5:03
  figure, and no one knows why. I can now safely
• 5:06
  walk the streets without worrying about a veteran
• 5:09
  educator teaching things to the youth. Cool.
• 5:13
  What a real country. The other thing that our
• 5:16
  government is really good at doing aside from
• 5:17
  abducting people is shutting down, which might
• 5:19
  happen tonight. The US federal government is
• 5:22
  potentially going to shut down as the Republicans,
• 5:24
  who, again, control all three branches of government,
• 5:27
  are blaming the Democrats. Now, don't get me
• 5:30
  wrong. I love blaming the Democrats, too. It's
• 5:32
  a national pastime. But you're in control of
• 5:34
  the entire fucking government. Essentially, the
• 5:36
  budget is about to run out, and Congress needs
• 5:38
  to pass a budget. And so Republicans have made
• 5:40
  a bill to keep the government open, but it was
• 5:42
  crafted entirely by them and doesn't include
• 5:44
  anything for the Democrats. And Democrats are
• 5:46
  like, we want concessions. And Republicans are
• 5:49
  like, no. Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate
• 5:52
  for this to pass, and they don't have 60 votes
• 5:54
  because they don't have 60 senators. So they're
• 5:56
  essentially saying we demand that you capitulate
• 5:58
  to a one -sided piece of legislation, and if
• 6:01
  you don't, we're gonna blame you for it. This
• 6:03
  is not... unusual, this is usually just like
• 6:06
  if there is a party that's fully in power they
• 6:08
  do this, like they blame the party that's the
• 6:10
  minority party for being obstructionist. In reality,
• 6:13
  this is in theory supposed to be where bipartisanship
• 6:16
  comes into effect, but bipartisanship doesn't
• 6:19
  exist. And so instead, we are all just wondering
• 6:21
  what the fuck's gonna happen tomorrow. So, if
• 6:23
  it does go through, which at time of recording
• 6:25
  it's very likely, it very well could change by
• 6:27
  tonight, but who knows? Here's what to expect.
• 6:30
  A lot of government services will stop. Basically,
• 6:32
  anything that's not considered essential will
• 6:34
  stop. If you depend on a specific government
• 6:36
  service and you are concerned about it being
• 6:38
  halted, I recommend searching to see if that
• 6:40
  is considered essential or not. Some government
• 6:42
  employees are going to be essentially just put
• 6:44
  on leave. Some government employees are going
• 6:46
  to have to continue to work without pay and get
• 6:48
  back pay later. But mostly, it's just going to
• 6:50
  be very expensive. Like, it's not cheaper to
• 6:53
  shut down. Because all of the problems that accrue
• 6:56
  while we're shut down need to be handled and
• 6:58
  the back pay and it's a mess. The other thing
• 7:00
  that we're watching right now is that Trump is
• 7:02
  seemingly positioning a threat to fire a ton
• 7:06
  of federal employees as leverage against the
• 7:09
  Democrats. Like he has instructed his people
• 7:11
  to essentially draft up plans to fire mass numbers
• 7:14
  of federal employees if the government does shut
• 7:17
  down. Which essentially is just Trump using American
• 7:20
  workers' livelihood as a bargaining chip. against
• 7:23
  the Democrats to ensure that the Democrats vote
• 7:25
  for a bill that is deeply unliked by the American
• 7:28
  people? Bipartisanship in action. And on the
• 7:31
  topic of firing a ton of federal employees, they
• 7:33
  already did that. And it's been bad. Elon Musk's
• 7:36
  Doge efforts to fire a ton of government employees
• 7:39
  resulted in the government having to rehire a
• 7:41
  bunch of them, essentially creating a seven -month
• 7:44
  -long taxpayer -funded paid vacation for the
• 7:47
  people that Doge claims they fired, at least
• 7:49
  for a good portion of them, because they have
• 7:50
  to bring people back in because they fired too
• 7:53
  many people and now they can't function properly.
• 7:55
  And they're like, whoops, how could nobody have
• 7:58
  seen this coming? Anyway, none of this releases
• 8:00
  the Epstein files, which is... Interesting. Hello,
• 8:03
  dear listener. If you like what I do and you
• 8:04
  want to help me keep doing it, you can check
• 8:06
  out iSupport .dev. It's got links to my Patreon,
• 8:09
  my Ko -Fi, my YouTube membership stuff, my merch
• 8:12
  store, and then also just sharing my content.
• 8:15
  Goes a really long way. I'm also on a whole bunch
• 8:17
  of social media places. Follow me wherever the
• 8:19
  social media is. I'm probably there. Moving on.
• 8:23
  Elsewhere. Venezuela is preparing for a potential
• 8:25
  invasion from the United States of America. Images
• 8:28
  have been surfacing around the internet of elderly
• 8:30
  people in Venezuela in militia training, carrying
• 8:33
  guns crawling through the dirt. The US has now
• 8:36
  extra judiciously killed 17 Venezuelan citizens
• 8:39
  using military force. These boats that they keep
• 8:43
  claiming that they're bombing that are drug boats
• 8:45
  have not been proven to be drug boats and are
• 8:48
  just us murdering foreign civilians. And so now
• 8:51
  Venezuela is like, well, you're positioning a
• 8:53
  lot of boats on our coast. You're shifting aircraft
• 8:55
  to bases closer to us. We're going to prepare
• 8:58
  for war. Now, obviously, if the U .S. decided
• 9:01
  to do a full out invasion of Venezuela, the militia
• 9:05
  wouldn't do a whole lot. But and I want to be
• 9:08
  hyper clear about this one. for everyone who's
• 9:10
  outside the US. We don't want this. There may
• 9:14
  be a small contingent of weird losers who are
• 9:19
  like gung -ho about the idea of rooting out Whatever
• 9:23
  fantasy has been woven by Trump, but the average
• 9:26
  American is losing the ability to afford rent,
• 9:29
  food, and medicine. We're not walking around
• 9:31
  hoping that we launch new war fronts into other
• 9:34
  countries. Our leadership does this because it's
• 9:36
  what keeps the money flowing. We don't want this.
• 9:39
  Like, even Trump supporters, one of the things
• 9:41
  they kept pointing to with him was that he wasn't
• 9:43
  going to start new wars. Obviously, that's a
• 9:46
  bullshit statement. But still, even his own supporters
• 9:50
  were excited about the idea of no new wars. As
• 9:53
  of now, we're not actually at war, although the
• 9:55
  leadership of Venezuela says that we're in an
• 9:57
  undeclared war. International eyes are watching
• 10:01
  this closely and aren't happy with how the US
• 10:03
  has been acting recently, to put it a little
• 10:05
  mildly. Let's move over to the flotilla making
• 10:08
  its way to Gaza. There's been a few of these
• 10:10
  now, but essentially activists have put together
• 10:12
  a large flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to
• 10:16
  bring to Gaza. Dozens of ships representing 44
• 10:18
  different countries are bringing aid in this
• 10:21
  flotilla, and the flotilla has come under attack
• 10:23
  by the Israeli military. After initial reports
• 10:26
  of drone attacks from the Israeli military on
• 10:28
  the flotilla, NATO countries have deployed warships
• 10:31
  to support the flotilla. Spain and Italy at this
• 10:35
  point have both sent multiple ships to support
• 10:37
  the flotilla, and the Italian Minister of Defense
• 10:40
  is quoted in saying, Israel has been using drones
• 10:48
  to drop flares and other explosives and some
• 10:50
  kind of flammable chemicals on these ships. They
• 10:53
  also committed a major war crime, which is they
• 10:56
  jammed their radios and forced Abba to play through
• 11:00
  the ship's radios. Also forced starvation. Israeli
• 11:03
  media is trying to label the flotilla as terrorists.
• 11:05
  They even tried to say that Hamas organized this.
• 11:08
  They want to say they're terrorists so they can
• 11:09
  get away with just killing them or holding them
• 11:12
  in, quote, terrorist -grade prisons. But since
• 11:15
  Israel is an international pariah at this point,
• 11:18
  most countries aren't having that. And like I
• 11:20
  said, warships supporting the flotilla. The Fotillas
• 11:23
  should reach Gaza this week, so we'll find out
• 11:26
  if they are finally successful or if Israel pulls
• 11:28
  some other bullshit. One other note on Israel,
• 11:31
  actually. So Microsoft has a contract with Israel's
• 11:33
  military to give them cloud infrastructure to
• 11:36
  do their Israeli military stuff. As a reminder,
• 11:39
  Google, Microsoft, Amazon, they're defense contractors.
• 11:42
  They provide infrastructure for war. Anyway,
• 11:45
  The Guardian reported that apparently Israel
• 11:47
  had used Microsoft's cloud. to perform mass surveillance
• 11:51
  on Palestinians. And Microsoft was like, oh,
• 11:55
  oh, we looked into that and that might be true
• 11:56
  actually. Oh, oh, hey, no one could have seen
• 12:00
  this coming. Oh, maybe we'll pause their account
• 12:04
  while we investigate further. So Microsoft has
• 12:07
  like paused the contract with the Israeli military,
• 12:10
  specifically regarding defense efforts. They
• 12:12
  still have other contracts with Israel in general.
• 12:14
  But finally, after months of external and internal
• 12:18
  protests for Microsoft, they've finally done
• 12:21
  something. All it took was being associated with
• 12:25
  what is now labeled by the UN as a genocide.
• 12:29
  Over in China, no bummers, the Chinese government
• 12:32
  is expanding censorship efforts to prevent social
• 12:35
  media from being too sad. Essentially over in
• 12:38
  China, there is a growing sentiment, wouldn't
• 12:39
  you know it, among young people who feel like
• 12:42
  hard work won't really get you anywhere. And
• 12:44
  so there's been a lot of pessimism and nihilism
• 12:46
  in social media, and the Chinese government is
• 12:48
  like, that's not good for the future. China's
• 12:52
  no stranger to clamping down on speech to direct
• 12:54
  public sentiment, but it's kind of an obtuse
• 12:57
  way to go about things. They're basically saying,
• 13:00
  hey, sentiment is bad right now, so let's just
• 13:02
  crush bad sentiment, rather than... fix what's
• 13:05
  causing the bad sentiment. Sound familiar? So
• 13:08
  they're starting a two month long initiative
• 13:10
  where they're gonna basically go after various
• 13:11
  social media platforms and say, hey, you have
• 13:13
  to actually prevent all this negative pessimism
• 13:16
  or you're gonna be fucked. They're not like going
• 13:18
  after individual people and being like, you're
• 13:21
  a sad person. Go to jail! That's not what's happening.
• 13:24
  Something pretty interesting here though is that
• 13:26
  it essentially means that the Chinese government
• 13:28
  has formally acknowledged this souring sentiment
• 13:31
  among young people, which is not something that
• 13:33
  they're usually excited to do. The fact that
• 13:35
  they have made a formal program to tackle it
• 13:37
  means that they're signaling we're aware and
• 13:40
  acknowledging that we have a problem on our hands.
• 13:42
  And China doesn't tend to like to show the world
• 13:45
  that they've got problems on their hands. Now
• 13:47
  I can't help but think about how... China's trying
• 13:50
  to crush negative sentiment on the internet,
• 13:51
  and over in the US, there is currently a massive
• 13:54
  effort to chill -free speech that might be critical
• 13:58
  of the current administration, or critical of
• 14:00
  America, or really critical of anything. Major
• 14:02
  tech companies have been cozying up to the current
• 14:04
  administration. Fuck, Tim Cook giving Trump a
• 14:07
  golden trophy? Like what? Remember, the social
• 14:11
  media companies are not there to provide a service
• 14:14
  for you to be able to have your reach and platform.
• 14:17
  They are there to make money. In the future,
• 14:19
  I plan to make some videos about how you can
• 14:21
  be a more independent digital citizen, so if
• 14:24
  that is interesting to you, let me know in the
• 14:26
  comments, or reply, or at me, or something. Reach
• 14:29
  out! Let me know that you want to see that. GAME
• 14:32
  IT! Stardew Valley 1 .7 is gonna be a thing,
• 14:35
  but don't get hype, but I mean you're gonna get
• 14:37
  hype. Stardew Valley is just one of those games
• 14:38
  that has been getting updates consistently for
• 14:41
  free since its release well beyond what anyone
• 14:45
  expected. I would say like Stardew Valley and
• 14:50
  No Man's Sky. I don't know what else comes close.
• 14:53
  I'm genuinely curious. If you have another game
• 14:55
  you can think of, let me know. But Stardew Valley
• 14:57
  1 .7 has been confirmed, and developer Concerned
• 15:00
  Ape has said that he doesn't want to hype it
• 15:01
  up too much, but it is gonna be a thing. I will
• 15:04
  say that when 1 .6 was confirmed, and he also
• 15:08
  said he didn't want to hype that up too much,
• 15:10
  it finally dropped with a massive amount of content
• 15:13
  and a complete overhaul for modding utilities
• 15:15
  for the community. So Concerned Ape saying that
• 15:18
  a new patch shouldn't get too much hype is evidence
• 15:21
  that we should get hype. Sorry, dude, you did
• 15:24
  this to yourself. EA Sports. It's deeply unethical.
• 15:28
  Jared Kushner, Silver Lake, and Saudi Arabia
• 15:30
  are going to be the new owners of Electronic
• 15:33
  Arts, a massive game publisher. EA, who is well
• 15:37
  -hated for a lot of reasons, makes FIFA and Madden.
• 15:40
  They're gonna be fine, but a joint venture that
• 15:43
  includes Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia's public
• 15:46
  investment fund is gonna be taking EA private
• 15:50
  for a record -setting $55 billion. What does
• 15:53
  this mean? Not a ton, probably. I mean, EA is
• 15:57
  a shit company, and now they're just kind of,
• 15:59
  like, solidifying that and going private? Like,
• 16:03
  being privately shitty? I genuinely do not know
• 16:06
  if this makes them any worse. Just being associated
• 16:08
  with Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia's investment
• 16:11
  firm. Is EA even shittier now, or are they...
• 16:14
  is this less shitty? At the end of the day, massive
• 16:17
  corporations taking private by private equity.
• 16:19
  This just kind of keeps happening. I'm not, I'm
• 16:21
  not too broken up about it because I don't remember
• 16:23
  the last time I played a game that EA published.
• 16:25
  I guess The Sims? The Sims is also won, if you
• 16:28
  like The Sims. If you like The Sims, you are
• 16:30
  now supporting Jared Kushner. I'm so sorry. Sony
• 16:33
  had their big games announcement thing streaming
• 16:35
  thingy called State of Play recently. There was
• 16:37
  a bunch of announcements. Here's a few of them.
• 16:39
  Gran Turismo 7, it's gonna be a thing, seven
• 16:41
  hole Turismos. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
• 16:44
  is coming to PlayStation. If you haven't played
• 16:47
  Microsoft Flight Simulator, it's bonkers. They
• 16:50
  have like the entire world mapped out in like
• 16:53
  three dimensions. You can crash a plane into
• 16:55
  your own house. Nioh 3, Nioh? I've never played
• 16:58
  that game. They announced some PlayStation branded
• 17:01
  wireless speakers. Okay, and a bunch of remasters.
• 17:06
  Deus Ex remastered, Dynasty Warriors 3 remastered,
• 17:09
  a bunch of remasters. I'm gonna link to the full
• 17:11
  announcement of everything in my newsletter.
• 17:13
  You can check that out in the description. Lightning
• 17:15
  round! Non -peer -reviewed alert! This is not
• 17:19
  a peer -reviewed paper I'm about to talk about,
• 17:21
  so don't take it as gospel. But researchers have
• 17:23
  submitted a paper for peer review which looks
• 17:25
  into the role of LLMs like ChatGPT in encouraging
• 17:29
  people to continue to be shitty. You know, like
• 17:32
  when people go to an AI and they're like, this
• 17:34
  situation happened. Am I the bad guy? And the
• 17:37
  AI is like, no, you did everything perfectly
• 17:41
  right. And everyone who told you to stop punching
• 17:44
  them in the dick was just being too sensitive.
• 17:47
  You're absolutely right. Punching people in the
• 17:49
  dick is a love language. A literal school child
• 17:52
  dismantled a gun that his friend brought to school.
• 17:56
  He was concerned about the danger of the gun
• 17:58
  and had experience in hunting with his family.
• 18:01
  So this school child dismantled the gun to remove
• 18:04
  the threat. He was then expelled because he didn't
• 18:07
  tell a teacher about the gun. We are really good
• 18:09
  at teaching our children the best lessons. Spaceballs
• 18:12
  2 is in production. I didn't know this was happening,
• 18:15
  but it's in production. And finally, for today,
• 18:17
  Dominion Voting Systems, who's been in a lawsuit
• 18:19
  with Rudy Giuliani for a while, has settled the
• 18:22
  lawsuit, which was a $1 .3 billion lawsuit. with
• 18:25
  confidential outcomes. We don't actually know
• 18:28
  what the settlement was, but that has been settled.
• 18:31
  Notably, Giuliani has had to sell everything
• 18:33
  he owns, because the dude's bankrupt and dying.
• 18:35
  Thank you so much for listening to today's episode
• 18:37
  of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to SKH .News for
• 18:39
  sources, bonus content, and a button that charges
• 18:44
  Rudy Giuliani $1 .3 billion more. My name is
• 18:47
  Endeavorance. We'll talk again soon. Take care,
• 18:51
  and be well.