Latest / The Opinionated Ogre Podcast / Ep. 8: Biden On The Rise, Media Sabotage, And The Future Of American Climate Migration

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Ep. 8: Biden On The Rise, Media Sabotage, And The Future Of American Climate Migration · The Opinionated Ogre Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Opinionated Ogre Podcast,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: your weekly rampage to current events with a little snark,
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: a bit of foul language,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: and a lot of strong opinions.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take a moment to give this podcast a five-star rating wherever you're listening to
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: it and share with your family and friends.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes every Wednesday,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: and don't forget to visit the Opinionated Ogre newsletter on Substack to vote for
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: next week's main story.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Episode 8 of the Opinionated Ogre Podcast.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the episode for June 26,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: 2024,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: and I'd love it if you'd click that like and share button to help get the word out.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a packed show this week.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: First up is some breaking news from the Supreme Court, just breaking this morning.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Corporate America, followed by Corporate America abandoning Donald Trump.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know exactly how desperate the press is to help Trump.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The convicted felon.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're also seeing how desperate Republicans are because convicted felon Donald
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Trump is such a shitty candidate.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we also now know why both the press and Republicans are panicking as Joe Biden
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: takes the lead in national polling.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's some really tasty news about Alex Jones and Infowars.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And once we get through all of this.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: With that, we'll move into the less cheery part of the show, this week's main story.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: The coming mass migration as tens of millions of Americans flee parts of the nation
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: that are quickly becoming uninhabitable.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: As I've mentioned before, you don't come here for me to sell you rainbows and sunshine.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You come here for a weekly dose of reality, and the opinionated ogre delivers.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, let's get to it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for the Ogre Nation News Update.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: We interrupt this regularly scheduled Penny-Dated Ogre podcast with some
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: interesting news about the Supreme Court.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Two decisions were dropped today.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The first was Murthy v. Missouri.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read this directly from SCOTUSblog.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: A dispute over the government's communications with social media companies during
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: the 2020 election season and COVID-19 pandemic,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: the court holds that challengers,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Two states and five social media users do not have a legal right to sue.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Basically,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Republicans were bitching and moaning that the government,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: in this case it was the Trump government,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: but they were talking to social media companies and asking them to uphold their
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: terms of service.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't pressuring them.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't threatening them.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not a First Amendment case.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were just saying, hey, listen, you've got stuff on your site that's really dangerous to the public.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Could you please uphold your terms of service and not do that?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, sites like Twitter and Facebook complied.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they, you know, pulled that stuff off because, again, it was against their terms of service.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Republicans lost their shit over this.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: They screamed it was censorship because they want that misinformation out there, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really important to understand,
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: the people screaming the loudest are the people who are explicitly fighting to keep
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: misinformation out there that gets people killed.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they're fighting for.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But social media companies are private entities.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: They can keep on or pull off whatever they want.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone, including the government, saying, hey, could you pull that off?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they can say yes or no, as long as no pressure is being applied to them, which there wasn't.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was no threat.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There was no pressure.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have to do that, or they can do that.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if they do, it's fine.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But Republicans are desperately trying to keep the government,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: especially now that Biden's president,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: they're desperately trying to keep it so the government doesn't contact
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Social media companies say,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: you've got Russian misinformation or hey,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: you've got Chinese association or hey,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: this video of Joe Biden eating a live baby.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's fake.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Could you not do that, please?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: They want that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: They want that fake stuff out there.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it was 6-3, and that didn't work out so well for certain Republicans on the Supreme Court.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it was Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a big fuck you to them.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a huge fuck you to Matt Taibbi.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: The entire premise of his Twitter files bullshit was...
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: was that this was censorship of some sort.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: That the government asked,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: actually it wasn't even the government,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: he was saying that the Biden campaign,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: asking them to not show pictures of Hunter Biden naked.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: because that's a violation of their terms of service, was a huge censorship scandal.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was government censorship,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: even though the Biden campaign was the Biden campaign,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: not the Biden administration.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing was just really gross and disgusting.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Matt Taibbi is a lying sack of shit.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So fuck you, Matt Taibbi.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway...
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: The second ruling for today was not great.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: This one was Snyder v. United States.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this, again, from SCOTUSblog.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Federal law, the court writes...
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: the Republicans on the court rights,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, what they're saying is Republican states will just allow Republican officials to be bribed.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: As much as they want.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Republican state senators and Republican governors and Republican mayors can do
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: the bidding of billionaires.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then afterwards, the billionaires can give them as much money as they want for services rendered.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: They can't pay them before, but they can pay them after.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it reverses the quid pro quo.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's legal,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: unless Congress passes a law saying it's not,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: which of course isn't going to happen because Republicans want the corruption.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And of course they won't do it at the state level in Republican states because they want the corruption.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this is way worse than Citizens United.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is literally,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: all they have to do,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: all these rich people have to do now,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: corporations have to do is say,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know...
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you kill this bill, we'd really appreciate it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So much.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So very, very much.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then they'll go undo it, and then they'll get a huge, fat paycheck.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's now completely open season for the oligarchs to just completely purchase state legislation.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the Supreme Court just opened the floodgates.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is way, way worse than Citizens United.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Citizens United is bad.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is a thousand times worse.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now back to our regularly scheduled podcast.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this week, let's start off with some rainbows and sunshine.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It can't always be just doom and gloom around here.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not for nothing, Republicans are a bunch of fascist scumbags being led by a fucking moron.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, we really do have the upper hand.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: For instance,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: despite the press blatantly lying to the public about how corporate America is
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: tripping over itself to support Donald Trump,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: the convicted felon,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not one Fortune 100 CEO is backing him.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Fortune 100 countries,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: companies,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: and they might as well be countries,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: those are the biggest of the big companies,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're literally the top 100.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: None of the CEOs from those companies are backing Trump.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible, but not 100% confirmed, that no Fortune 500 CEOs are backing him either.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely the top 100, and I think the next 400 after that are also not backing him.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here is Chief Executive Leadership Institute CEO Jeffrey Sonnenfeld explaining why
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: and how unusual this is.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: We look back into the data and we're looking at this now for the last four months,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: we've been pointing out that there are no Fortune 500 CEOs who are supporting
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: former President Trump.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a historic break going back to
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: to William Howard Taft and through Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan and the Bushes
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: and everything is that it's been anywhere from 40% to 60% public and financial support.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's zero now, and it was zero in 2016.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the Trump economic package frightens them.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's extremely inflationary.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: The tariffs, 10% across the board on all imports, that's just crazy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: It'll lead to a 3% increase for sure in inflation and plunging the GDP.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's before retaliatory gestures, the increase in the deficit.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to cut $5 trillion of taxes with no commensurate cut in expenditures.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: So these are problems.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't believe in the independence of the Fed.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say to the CEOs?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of CEOs who are watching us now, probably watching you speaking, saying, but you know what?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the Biden administration when it comes to the regulatory regime right now.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I worry about the tax policy and what's going to happen if the Trump taxes roll off
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: in 2025 and what that debate looks like.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are folks, as you said, 70% of the CEO community, Republicans,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do they turn out to be reluctant Biden voters?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do they not vote at all?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, where do you think they land?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: They'll be reluctant Biden voters.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: They don't want the fabric of society pulled apart.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of things there.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that the CNPC guy, whose name I do not know because they didn't post it on the screen.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going back to find it because I don't really give a shit.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love how he tries to put in his own little counter narrative of,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: but these CEOs,
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: they're not going to like Joe Biden's policies and they're going to want his tax cuts.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Sonnenfeld just shuts him down.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, they're still going to be reluctant.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: they're not going to love Joe Biden,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: but they're still going to vote for him because they don't want to see the country
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: pulled apart because Donald Trump is a fucking fascist.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And also, he's just bad for business.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what it comes down to.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of right wing billionaires throwing in with a convicted felon because
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: right wing billionaires are,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: at their core,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: fascists who think the rich should rule like unaccountable kings.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the people running companies who actually need a functioning economy look at
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Trump as a danger to both their wealth and the long term viability of the markets
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: they need for their companies to thrive.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chaos is good when you're rich.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's always the potential for profit, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a Ferengi thing, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Ferengi rules of acquisition.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: But too much chaos is damaging, and Trump is nothing but chaos.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's no stability at all.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to plan six months ahead,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: never mind five years ahead,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: because no one knows what laws he's going to decide to ignore or what trade war
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: he's going to start the next day.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Constant chaos is corrosive to good business.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Only those who are protected by the regime flourish,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: and that's not business,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: that's organized crime shit.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There could only be so many oligarchs in a kleptocracy,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: and you're always one bad day from falling out of an open window.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Believe me, these CEOs look at how Russia conducts business, and they are not interested.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, will they come out swinging for Biden?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: It would be nice if they did, but it's doubtful.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But they're definitely not going to rally behind Trump,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: which deprives them of their money and their power and their influence.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he needs all of that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Rachel Maddow did a whole segment about this on Monday,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: and she punctured the myth that both the GOP and their most reliable ally,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: the mainstream media,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: have been spitting about Trump and his business savvy.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's an astonishingly shitty businessman who has bankrupted literally every business he's ever touched.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The only reason his real estate empire hasn't fully collapsed is because his father bailed him out.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then the American mafia...
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Russian mafia.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Trump is incompetent.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And real CEOs,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: not fascist billionaires trying to end democracy so they can rape little girls with impunity,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: real CEOs recognize Trump as a clown who will crash the economy.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, speaking of the press, we're moving on to our next bit here.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Media Matters continues to be one of the most vital watchdogs of our generation.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: They took the time to review the last several months of how the press has covered both Trump and Biden.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we knew that the press has had its thumb on the scale for Trump.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But now we have the numbers for how hard the press is pushing the Biden age plot.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: We already knew it was bad, but it's important to be precise about this stuff.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know the extent of the problem before you can address it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's Media Matters.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Media Matters has reviewed articles in five of the top U.S.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: newspapers by by circulation.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Washington Post,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Wall Street Journal,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: The New York Times,
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Los Angeles Times and USA Today that focused on either or both Biden.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: and Trump's age or mental acuities from January 15th when the Iowa caucuses were
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: first held as the first contest in the 2024 election cycle through June 17th.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that was just like a little over a week ago.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at six months here.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We considered an article to be focused on a candidate's age or mental acuity when
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: it mentioned a candidate's age or mental acuity in the headline or lead paragraphs.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some articles mention both the candidate's age or mental acuities in the headline
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: or lead paragraphs,
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how they determined which articles they were going to use for this.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: We found 144 articles focused on either or both Biden's and Trump's ages or mental
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: acuities in the period study,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: with 67% focused just on Biden's age or mental acuity and only 7% on just Trump's.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was some overlap where they did both, but...
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: overwhelmingly, they were just talking about Biden.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a 10 to 1 ratio when we've all been watching Trump suffer from cognitive
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: collapse for the last six months.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important to put this in context.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden has always had a problem with gaffes.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that pissed off the press so much in 2020 was that he didn't
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: deliver a string of embarrassing slip-ups for them to turn into front page stories.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: It drove them fucking crazy.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Biden also has a stutter, and he's had it his entire life, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a known thing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when the press tried to make a thing out of it,
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: they got slapped down so hard,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: they just kind of stopped.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is only so much you can poke at someone having a speech impediment before
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: people get really,
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: really pissed off at you for doing it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So instead,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: they settled on,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: he's old,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: and started to question his mental fitness through insinuation,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes not even insinuating,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: just flat out saying it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: if you look at interviews with Trump from the last 20 years,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: and if you go back 20 years ago,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: before he was a convicted felon,
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was fine, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was still an awful person and maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: but he could carry on a normal conversation.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: He answered questions.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: He stayed on topic.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was still a lying sack of shit, but he was coherent.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: By 2016, he wasn't great.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: He kind of rambled.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't as coherent.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said crazy shit as opposed to just lying.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: 2022 was worse.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But now?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now he can't finish entire sentences without a teleprompter.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: His speeches lurch all over the place.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: He starts one thought, skips to another, ends on a third.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's gibberish.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's before we even get to the slurring words and forgetting what he was
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: saying and the severe mispronunciations.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Unlike Biden, Trump does not have a lifelong speech impediment.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: These verbal misfires are a recent development,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: and they've gotten significantly worse in just the last six months.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've all fucking seen it, and the press will not fucking talk about it.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because they hate Joe Biden.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Biden's presidency, not personally, right?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a personal thing.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's a nice guy.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: No one hates Joe Biden personally.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: They hate him professionally.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Biden's presidency has been stable and competent and free of drama.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's terrible for a press addicted to scandal and corruption and crisis.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: No one is winning a Pulitzer writing about Joe Biden's record-breaking economy.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: No one is getting a book deal to write about how Joe Biden cut wealth inequality.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: No one is selling newspapers with headlines like, Joe Biden fixes America's bridge.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I long for the day when Joe Biden and Democrats make politics so boring that no one
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: reads my newsletter about paying down the national debt and fully funding public education.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the difference between me and the mainstream press.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would be thrilled to report on boring good governance.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: The press loathes that and wants to return to 24-7 chaos.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why Trump can shit himself on stage and the headlines the next day will
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: ask whether or not both candidates are wearing diapers.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: When this is over and Trump flees the country to declare himself as a president in
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: exile in Russia,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: the mainstream press needs to have a reckoning.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: They keep bringing us to the brink of fascism for the pettiest of reasons.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if they cannot fulfill their constitutional duty to inform the public and
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: safeguard it from tyranny,
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: then they've outlived their usefulness as an institution.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: You need your kidneys,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: but if they become cancerous,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: you don't keep them because that's how you've always done things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: You remove them and replace them.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we are rapidly approaching the cancer stage with American media.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not sure about that,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I point out that the New York Times,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: which has been putting out constant,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: constant articles about Biden's age,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: just put out another one.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And who wrote it?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their fucking art critic.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: The art critic wrote an article complaining about Joe Biden's age.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: When you get to the point where you even have your art critic who should not be
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: writing about presidential politics,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: When that person is doing it because you know the person who owns the newspaper, A.G.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Schultzberger, is pulling the strings, and that's fucking ridiculous.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you get to that point, you're not just being obvious.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're being so cartoonishly obvious about what you're doing that you need to
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: fucking suffer some consequences for that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds kind of Republican-ish,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: but these people really are trying to put a fascist in office who will end
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: democracy and get hundreds of thousands,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: if not millions of people killed.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we can't fucking tolerate that type of behavior.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care about who these fucking people think they are.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're not acting like the free press.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're acting like the PR firm for the Republican Party.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that can't be tolerated.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've mentioned cancer, so let's move on to our next story, the Republican Party.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Republicans are already planning for a Trump loss.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know this because they keep telling us so, loudly, and a lot.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is from MSNBC.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: the RNA recording from the mainstream press is not lost on me,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: but until you get a new set of kidneys,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: you have to pee with what you got.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: The cycle of lies that drove the January 6, 2021 insurrection is again underway.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Five months before the 2024 election,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: claims that only fraud could explain a future Donald Trump defeat are already
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: commonplace in the right-wing media ecosystem.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Fox News stars and Trumpist influencers are priming their audience to listen if
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Trump once again,
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: not if,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: when,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Trump once again claims an election was rigged,
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: quote unquote rigged,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: against him and to come to his aid.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, Greg Gutfeld keeps telling his moron viewers that there's no way Biden can win.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously Democrats are planning something.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is MSNBC again.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Gutfeld reiterated the point the next day,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: saying that if Democrats,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: somehow pull this out by using,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: shenanigans to win,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: quote,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to deal with a public that doesn't buy the election.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nuh-huh.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jesse Waters is crying rivers of hot tears about millions of immigrants coming into
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: the country,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: and you never know how many of them are going to vote.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: None, because it's illegal, and it's really hard to get away with that sort of thing.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: We know this because Republicans keep getting caught doing it.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's really funny to watch.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: They keep screaming about election fraud, and it's them.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones doing all the election fraud.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Laura Ingraham is banging on the same drum.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats will steal the election.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to cheat.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you should know what I'm going to say next.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know the words, so say it with me.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every Republican accusation is a confession.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Republicans have been extremely brazen about their plans to steal the election after Trump loses.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's why they're making so much noise about Biden having to cheat.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: They know Trump is going to lose.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: By convincing their cult of fascists that Trump was cheated again,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: they can justify literally anything to fix the stolen election.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lawsuits would corrupt judges?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tampering with the ballots after the election?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Attacking ballot counting locations and burning hundreds of thousands of ballots in blue districts?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're all fake anyway, right?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if none of that works, just stage another violent coup.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're the good guys and Democrats are evil.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: That means murder is permissible.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: That means anything is permissible.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking back America from an illegal takeover.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that all completely reversed and asked backwards?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But these are the lies they tell themselves to justify overthrowing an election
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: they know they're going to lose.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And how do they know they're going to lose it?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's our next topic.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, Joe Biden took the lead in the national polling for the first time.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be forgiven for not noticing because the press,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: which has written numerous screaming front page articles about Trump being in the lead,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: somehow overlooked Biden taking the lead.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: They might have been a little busy not paying attention to Trump's cognitive
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: collapse so they could write about Biden's age and they just forgot to mention it.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's been almost a month since Trump was convicted of 34 felonies,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: and that is obviously having an effect.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Also,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: we're starting to get to the point of the election cycle where people who have not
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: been paying attention wake up and look around.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: also,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: with the campus protests petering out while somehow becoming even more anti-Semitic
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: than before,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: public hostility towards Biden is not quite what it was a few months ago.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel just terrible for the rat fuckers of the alt-left.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: They worked so hard for this.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Biden's in the lead nationally.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: More important, he's in the lead in Michigan, tied in Pennsylvania, and ahead in Wisconsin.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think Trump is going to win in Pennsylvania again after the explosion of
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: union wins in the last four years,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: you're insane.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: With those three states, Biden wins.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is just gravy.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Trump has no real way to gain ground or expand his coalition.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're talking about how they're going to flip New York and they're going to flip New Jersey.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is crazy talk.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who are blustering.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, they're bluffing.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fear and panic talking.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: They ain't flipping no states.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be luck.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: The only states they can possibly win are the swing states,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: and any state that's reliably blue is not flipping.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're just not in a position to do any of that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it's really important to understand that Trump has been seriously
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: underperforming compared to the polls all year long.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: He polls well, but then voting on the ground is really bad for him.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen this in the primaries the entire time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing happened in 2020.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it looked closer than it was and then Biden crushed him.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say for certain why polling is so broken these last several years.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of theories.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a lot of people looking into it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: No definitive answer.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they obviously have not fixed it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: But remember this one extremely important thing.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: The better Joe Biden does in the polling, the less coverage that polling will get in the press.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Guaranteed.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: two months from now,
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: if you are not hearing a goddamn thing in the New York Times or the Washington Post
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: about national polling...
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Go take a look at FiveThirtyEight.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go looking at RealClearPolitics.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Never go look at RealClearPolitics.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: They allow themselves to be flooded with right-wing polls to skew the results.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: They do it on purpose.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, go check FiveThirtyEight.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nate Silver does not work there anymore.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's been fired a long time ago.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: FiveThirtyEight is legit.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Go check FiveThirtyEight and you will be utterly unsurprised to find Biden in the lead,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: which is why you won't hear anything about it in the news.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: this is why the press,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: the GOP,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: and Trump are all in a frenzy lying their asses off about Biden.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: All of their bullshit is failing to keep him from pulling ahead of a convicted
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: felon with crippling cognitive issues.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's freaking them the fuck out.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that was fun.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to cap off this segment with something even more fun, though.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: InfoWars is getting nuked from orbit.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tee hee.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you'll recall,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: human shit stain Alec Jones used his platform at Infowars.com,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: and he spent quite some time telling his audience of fellow human shit stains that
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: the massacre of Sandy Hook was fake.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sandy Hook,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: is where 20 kids between the age of six and seven,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: along with six adults,
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: were murdered by yet another human shit stain with an assault rifle.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: the kind Republicans worship because they think it will allow them to overthrow the
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: government in the Civil War,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: but actually only allow soulless monsters to kill rooms filled with little kids in seconds.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Alex Jones has spent decades selling hate and paranoia to assholes,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: but this time he crossed the line and he was sued after his cult harassed the
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: families of these dead kids for years.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jones lost, and he lost big, to the tune of $1.5 billion.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: He tried to hide his money.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: He tried to declare bankruptcy.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: He tried every sleazy scumbag move to avoid paying what he owed.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me again.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: But none of it worked.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now the final blow.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is from The Guardian.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee has signaled intentions to liquidate assets
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: belonging to Alex Jones,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: including the media platform InfoWars,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: as part of the conspiracy theorist's bankruptcy proceedings.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: The proposed liquidation is meant to help pay a $1.5 billion in lawsuit judgments
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jones owes for repeatedly calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean InfoWars will vanish.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you some right wing billionaire will buy it because InfoWars is a very
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: useful tool in pushing out extremist propaganda.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jones has suggested that he will end up working there as an employee.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But how long do you think that'll last?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or will it even happen?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's an unstable asshole who has serious mental issues and uses a number of untested vitamins, a.k.a.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: drugs.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And good luck with HR, buddy.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's already lost a $1.5 billion lawsuit.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who would be stupid enough to risk having him on their payroll?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: without Jones,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: InfoWars will just be another shitty far-right website pushing junk for stupid people.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone will make something of it.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: But for now, Alex Jones is off the air.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Boo fucking hoot.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that is it for the Ogre Nation news update.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's time to move into the Ogre Opinion.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part of the show where I focus on a single topic for a deeper dive.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: As mentioned at the beginning of the episode,
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: this week the topic is the coming American climate migration.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: You should know that if you've been paying any attention whatsoever...
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the lower 48 states of the U.S.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: have been getting hammered by heat for the last week.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And heat wave is expected to persist in large parts of the country well past the Fourth of July.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Temperatures have been reaching into the triple digits and the heat index,
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: the combination of heat and humidity in the shade,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: That bit's important, so remember it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: In the shade.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hit levels that were life-threatening to small children, the elderly, and those in poor health.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: For the purposes of this conversation,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: we're just going to ignore all the climate change Republican denial bullshit.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not relevant here.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: we all know climate change is real we also know that it's going to get worse
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: because we're not reducing the use of fossil fuels quickly enough to avoid the
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: worst of the effects even if we ended our dependence on fossil fuels right now
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: we're still looking at decades of increasingly extreme weather events floods
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: droughts storms fires heat waves and
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: paradoxically, deep freezes, and on and on and on and on.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: What will end up happening is that parts of the country will become less
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: accommodating to large swaths of the population.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Other parts will become flat out dangerous.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Still others will become simply uninhabitable.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: It won't happen all at once, but it will happen.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when it does,
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: millions of Americans will be forced to move,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: becoming climate refugees within their own country.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: What will that look like?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: How disruptive will it be?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: How will we deal with it?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a bit of a primer from the Washington Post.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: In an article discussing how a heat wave has blasted most of the planet at the same time,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Werner,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: had this to say about what's happening in the U.S.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Climate change isn't just making high temperatures and other extreme events more likely, Werner said.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It also makes every disaster that occurs more intense.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Werner's research has found that heat waves like the one unfolding in the United
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: States are now roughly 2 to 3 degrees Celsius,
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: or 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: hotter because of how humans have altered the planet.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, imagine the difference between, you know, a 98 degree heat wave and a 103 degree heat wave.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's significant.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: 98 degrees is bad.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: 105 is 103 is a lot worse.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Strong hurricanes are at least 40% wetter because of the warmer atmosphere that can hold more moisture.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And storm surges are unfolding in oceans that are in some places more than a foot
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: higher than they were half a century ago,
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: allowing floodwaters to reach heights never before seen.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that hurricanes are getting wetter.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the last couple of years,
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: we've seen several cities drown because of rainstorms unlike anything that we're
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: familiar with.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not just from hurricanes,
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: but from regular storms that dumped so much water so quickly that it overwhelmed
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: all of the local infrastructure.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: In 2022,
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: the Midwest spent an entire month drowning as storm after storm after storm poured
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: billions of gallons of water over several states,
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: leaving dozens dead and billions in property damage.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: What were once-in-a-century floods are occurring every decade.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sea levels are rising and wiping out coastal communities.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have multi-year droughts so severe that states are fighting over water rights.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have heat waves that aren't really heat waves, but just the new normal for summer.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: The running joke is that this is the hottest summer of your life.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's the hottest summer of your life so far.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or worse,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: you'll look back in 20 years and fondly remember how cool and comfortable the
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: summer of 2024 was in comparison to the blasted hellscapes summers are going to be.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: ProPublica,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: not a publication known for hysterical overreaction,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: put out an article a few years ago that most people completely ignored because they
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: either did not understand what they were looking at or they didn't want to
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: understand what they were looking at.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: The article is titled, New Climate Change Map Shows a Transformed United States.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll link to it in the show notes.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives a projection for how the climate will change across the nation over
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: the next 20 to 40 years.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's well within most of our lifetimes.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the picture is not great.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: For instance,
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: large chunks of the southwest and to a lesser degree,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: the south becomes all but inhabitable with upwards of 26 weeks out of the year at
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: or above 95 degrees.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm going to repeat that in case you didn't quite get it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: 26 weeks out of the year.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's half the year that's going to be at 95 degrees or more.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking at burning hot summer lasting half the year.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's fun.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: The wet bulb map, however, is even worse.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wet bulb,
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: if you're not familiar with it,
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: is different from heat index and actually a little more useful when determining how
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: dangerous the weather is.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's similar in that it measures heat and humidity,
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: but instead of being in the shade,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: wet bulb is out in the sun.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you won't always have the luxury of sitting under a tree when you're going out about your day.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just heat is bad, right?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: But your body has ways of cooling off.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: You sweat.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when the humidity is too high, you can't sweat anymore.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And your body no longer has any way of shedding that heat.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you're in immediate danger of heat stroke and death.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: When the heat bulb, when the wet bulb gets too high...
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're stuck.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have to be outside for more than a few minutes,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: 10,
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: 20 minutes,
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: even that,
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: that's a problem.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you are,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: if you're young,
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: if your health is compromised or if you're old,
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: that places you in serious danger,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: especially if you're exerting yourself in any real way.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with climate change, the wet bulb map is extreme.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Midwest will have entire weeks during which the weather will be deadly.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: So will the South and the Southwest.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: The East Coast, and I was a little surprised to see this, the East Coast from Virginia down to Florida.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is on the ocean, right?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: You think it's the ocean, cool breeze.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, the East Coast from Virginia down to Florida is really, really bad.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Although the coast going up to the north.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: not a whole lot better so you know pretty much the entire east coast is going to be
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: in trouble it's just really bad going down from virginia down to florida while
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: that's going on the entire west side of the country and i don't mean the west coast
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: i mean from the rocky mountains to the pacific is going to be on fire
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: as massive wildfires rage out of control every single year.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Drought and increasing temperatures are going to turn these massive forests that
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: are all over the west side of the country into enormous piles of fuel waiting for
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: the slightest spark.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It could be man-made, it could be intentional, or it could just be a lightning strike.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be impossible to prevent.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of drought,
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: the Colorado River is continuing to dwindle,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: leaving several states without enough water.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Mississippi River ran low enough last year that salt water from the ocean flowed up north.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Normally,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: the Mississippi runs north to south,
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: and it runs hard enough to push the seawater,
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: to keep the seawater from pushing up,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a constant battle at the mouth of the Mississippi.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once the river runs low enough,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: because there's not enough fresh water coming into it from its tributaries,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: the ocean starts pushing in because water pressure.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it does.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: it ran up enough that it threatened to taint the water supply of a major city like New Orleans.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind all the smaller communities all along the way.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's over for now.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: But with the changing climate in the region,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: that's going to get worse,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: possibly becoming an annual problem.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And once the saltwater gets into the water supply, it's really hard to get it back out.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's going to be a problem.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it kills all the vegetation.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Those are freshwater plants, freshwater marshes.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't survive with its saltwater.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not they can't handle it.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's saltwater.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Moving back west.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Las Vegas cannot possibly continue to support its booming population for another 20
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: years as the drought crushing the Colorado River refuses to end.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Arizona, the entire state, is in trouble.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: New Mexico is in trouble.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Florida is slowly becoming tropical instead of subtropic.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: making it less hospitable to people with health conditions like,
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: all of the old people who like to retire there.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and for some reason, they're in the middle of a multi-year drought as well for some reason.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what's going on there.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's Florida.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's all swamps.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: You would think that Florida does not have droughts,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: but they have,
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: and it's been going on for quite some time.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is just a tiny little snapshot of how various parts of the country are
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: becoming unstable and unsuitable for large cities and communities.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: The United States has the third largest population in the world with a little over 330 million people.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to pack up and move to another country like so many other climate
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: refugees have been doing.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we going to go?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fortunately, and somewhat unfortunately, we're a really large country.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're the fourth largest country by land area in the world.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have an awful lot of elbow room.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what would that kind of migration look like?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: As the South becomes less hospitable, the Mid-North will become more temperate.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: The northern states will become warmer, but they're still going to have their own problem.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be getting smashed with more frequent deep freezes as the polar
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: vortex becomes unstable,
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: unleashing frigid Arctic air that was once kept trapped by stable climate.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not really sure how that works, here's the thing.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Picture the North Pole, right?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: You got a nice little circle sitting on top of the planet.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: big ball of frozen air because it's a north pole right it's super cold that's
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: always not always but it's been kept it's kept trapped up there by essentially a
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: fence a wall of slightly warmer air that circulates around it called the polar
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: vortex it's a physics thing a temperature thing whatever the warmer air keeps the
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: cold air from spilling out
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: As the frigid cold air becomes just a little bit warmer,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: we're not talking warm,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: we're talking less deep cold.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: As the difference between the polar vortex,
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: that wall of air,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: as the difference between the two becomes less,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: there's less of a difference,
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: the polar vortex becomes unstable, right?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: The wall is no longer quite as strong as it was, and that allows the polar air to spill out.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: As long as the polar air was really,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: really cold,
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: it was trapped by the not quite as cold polar vortex.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: As it warms up, it can break through the wall.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we keep getting these big blobs of insanely cold air spilling down
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: over Canada into the United States.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happened a couple of years ago when you had like negative 30,
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: negative 40 degrees in Wisconsin and North Dakota.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's insane and incredibly dangerous.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not something that happens very frequently, except now it is happening way more frequently.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that happened recently.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Once a century or so.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's happening every couple of years and it's going to start happening more frequently,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: like a lot more frequently.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter how much the planet warms up.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: The North Pole will never actually be warm.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it will be warm enough where that sort of thing will become extremely frequent.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: It can start happening multiple times a year.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, it's not the worst thing if it happens in the middle of summer here.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you drop frigid air into a heat wave.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to kind of cancel out into a nice spring day.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to have negative 30 degree weather in the middle of July in Wisconsin.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's going to start happening more frequently in the fall.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to start happening more frequently in the winter because that's just how it works.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: It breaks loose and it spills out and it's devastating.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not going to be nearly as frequent as the heat waves.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess freezing cold for a few weeks out of the year is better than months and
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: months of intolerable heat.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, I suppose, but still not great.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: The main effect of this is going to be that people are going to move.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: The wealthy will, of course, be the first to leave.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what always happens.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be the ones they've got the money and the means and they go whoosh off they go.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a new version of white flight as the rich and upper middle class
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: families who,
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: are overwhelmingly white flee to safer parts of the country.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: The groups left behind,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: which are going to be minorities who don't have money,
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: the poor and the elderly,
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: people who don't want to move or really aren't capable of it because when you're
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: like 75,
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: 80 years old,
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: it's hard to pack up and move.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Those groups are going to be left behind to face increasingly dangerous weather
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: with less of a tax base to deal with it.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you think southern states are poor now,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: wait until the great white migration takes place sometime in the next 20 to 30 years.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they're going to call it that, but they should.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if they do, I'm the first one that said it.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: So just remember that.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we spend the next three decades working on ending wealth inequality,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: it's not going to be fast enough to fix centuries of built up structural racism.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: So southern states are going to be screwed.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Northern cities are going to be hit hard as millions of people are going to be flooding up north, right?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, you know, less well-off people are going to be moving up there as well.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to be trying to find a safe haven.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Housing is already an issue in major cities, right?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even minor ones.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's not going to be enough jobs.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Social services will not be able to keep up.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, this is not going to just be big cities like New York.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be all of them.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Blue states and red states.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking at Dayton, Ohio.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Indianapolis in Indiana.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Billings, Montana.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're all going to see an influx of climate refugees from the south and southwest.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: The social and economic disruption will be extreme.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Transportation infrastructure is going to be overwhelmed,
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: as more cars than these cities were designed to accommodate will take to the roads.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: The same will go for public transportation,
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: even for cities that have really robust transportation systems like New York.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Cities controlled by Republicans,
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: where they deliberately kill public transportation in service to their idiotic
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: anti-government ideology?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have fun with that.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Health care is also going to be strained as hospitals find themselves with too many patients.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not because more people are going to get sick necessarily,
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: but because there simply won't be enough hospitals for the number of people who are
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: going to be living there.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Schools will be overcrowded for the same reason as classrooms fill up with children
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: from other parts of the country.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even the wealthy are going to have some trouble as their private schools fill up
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: with kids from other rich parents fleeing from the inhospitable climate.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: We could, of course, plan ahead for this.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: As I've said in other various articles I've written over the years,
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: if I know this is coming,
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: so do other much smarter people.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just some schmuck at a computer with no specialized knowledge.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: We will, however,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: not do a goddamn thing to prepare, because we are not a particularly proactive species.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are reactive.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: We wait until the disaster is happening, and only then do we do something to mitigate the effects.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly so the rich are not inconvenienced.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: However, it's not all bleak horror and terrible ruin.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden and Democrats are already pouring billions into America's aging energy grid,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: meaning that when these new areas have sudden population surges,
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: they're going to be able to better handle the power demands.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: We are reaching a tipping point.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: where many cities are starting to crack down on companies buying all the available
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: housing and renting them out at outlandish prices.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: Biden's Federal Trade Commission is targeting landlords and property managers for
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: collusion and price fixing.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be a whole lot longer before this federal action on the rich
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: sweeping in and buying all the houses in the city,
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: depriving families of the chance to own a home of their own.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be enough to solve the housing problem necessarily,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: but it's a huge step in the right direction.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years from now,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: teleworking will be far more standard so people won't have to commute,
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: especially on dangerously hot days.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: The same goes for students.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Virtual schooling is not ideal.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it'll be safer than coming in during extreme heat waves that last weeks and weeks and weeks.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Still,
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: there will be a lot we have to adjust to,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: and it's going to be messy,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: and it's going to be painful.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: Urban congestion is no joke.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was one of the reasons we moved out of New York City.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fun to contemplate that where we live in Northern Virginia is a relative
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: safe zone,
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: and that's almost certainly going to see a massive surge of population in 50 to 20 years.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, hooray for spending my golden years packed like a sardine.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what are you going to do?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you live in the south of the Midwest, I'm not saying pack your bags today and run for the hills.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: But be aware that things are going to get increasingly unpleasant in your neck of
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: the woods in the coming years.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: It might be gradual.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: It might not.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Climate change is unpredictable.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it will get worse.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have to be there when it does,
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: now might be a good time to start looking for the exit before the mad dash with
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: everybody else starts.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: As always, the best way to keep things from getting even worse than they already will is to vote blue.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats may not go carbon-free tomorrow, but they'll get us there.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Republicans, on the other hand, will outlaw solar panels and electric vehicles just to make the libs cry.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even imagine what the projections look like for an increase of fossil fuel use,
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: so let's not find out,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: yeah?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for this week's show.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are 131 days left until the 2024 election.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Vote blue like your life depends on it,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: because if you live in the parts of the country that climate change is going to hit
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: the hardest,
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: it almost certainly does.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Opinionated Ogre podcast, like the Substack newsletter, is free.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: There will never be a paywall,
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: but there's still a lot of loving effort put into delivering this content for you
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: to enjoy.
• 54:37
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• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your support makes all of this possible, and I cannot thank you enough for being part of the Ogre Nation.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.