Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Political Violence, Media Double Standards, California’s Wealth Tax & USAID Fallout

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Political Violence, Media Double Standards, California’s Wealth Tax & USAID Fallout · Normally

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, you know that normally it still normal. It takes.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: But when the news it's weird, it's still weird. I'm
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Mary Cavana, it remains weird.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I am Kyle Michael. Yeah. I mean, you know, we
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: recorded an extra special episode of Normally or what Happened
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: at the White House Correspondence Dinner, and I feel like
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we still have a whole topic to talk about today
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: about it?
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, these news cycles shift quickly, partly because
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people in the press want
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: to get off the subject of the idea of any
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Republican being a victim of anything which is Look, I
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: noticed this. The first time I noticed this, I'd be
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: interested in your take too, was after the Gabby Giffords
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: shooting in twenty eleven. I was covering that event as
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: it happened, Like I happened to be the person on
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: staff at the Daily Caller who saw it happen live
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: on TV and started jumping to to gather information as
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: best I could. And I remember watching the narrative turn
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: and getting sick to my stomach immediately because people just
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: so much, so many people in the press went full
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: force into this is the right's fault. This is the
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: right's fault for speaking, for saying the wrong things. This
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: is Sarah Palin's fault for.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Having this map.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: And I thought, there's no, absolutely, no indication any of
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: this is real, and yet it dominated the news coverage,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: and from that day forward, every attempt on anyone's life,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: any event of this sort, everyone rushes to their corner,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: they attempt to pin it on someone, and frankly, I
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: want information so we know who's doing it and why,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: because I don't want to have collective guilt for things
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: that are not my fault.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I really don't.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The difference I would say since then is that we've
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: had such an uptick in this kind of thing with
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: President Trump that it's almost impossible to not point at
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the left and say, you know, you're saying this stuff
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: about him, You're calling him a pedophile, a rapist, a trader.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And then the attempted alleged killer puts it in his manifesto.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: There is much more of a direct connection. Like Gabby
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Gifford's shooter had never seen Sarah Palin's map that was
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: like made up out of nowhere, But there's going to
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: be evidence that the guy you arrested for the attempt
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: at the White House Correspondence dinner. Will have seen and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: will have heard democrats or talking heads or et cetera
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: talking about this stuff. We talked about it in our
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: special episode. But he didn't sound fringe. He didn't sound
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: like a crazed redditor.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: He sounded like.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: He watches any number of mainstream sources. And if that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that's where the mainstream is now, like, what is fringe anymore?
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: No?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I think you're right.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: He seemed to be a very sort of elite, learned,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: downwardly mobile perhaps person who got radicalized and was fairly
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: lib as far as we can tell, and consuming mainstream
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: sources as you say, and retweeting all of those in
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: his feeds. I mean, I think there's a pretty easy
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: metric for like, oh, should we consider whether one side
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: is or There's two pretty easy metrics. One, people have
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: attempted to kill Donald Trump so often that I forgot.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: There was an attempt two months ago in which a
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: man was killed at mar A Lago when he was
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: armed and stormed the facility. The president luckily was not there.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: The Secret Service took this guy out. He was a
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: North Carolina guy, And yeah, that one didn't even get
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: a news cycle.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm mentioning that one in something I'm writing for
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Fox because I think it gets so memory hold and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: it's so just not in our conversation at all of
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that guy. Another one that you mentioned lot, that I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: almost never hear elsewhere is the Iranian plot to kill
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump that was several years ago now, but that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't even get a mention. That's not even included in
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: all the assassination attempts on him.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: And now bring us what's like five Like so.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I think that if there are so many that you're
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: forgetting ones that happened, perhaps we should be looking to
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: what is the issue with that? And then there's the
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Luigi Mangioni valorization.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: And this is just like these are not.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Very many examples, like off the top of my head,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: I can come up with these.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That is a project of the left. I'm sorry, we
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: have nothing to do with that.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: There are many academics, elite writers, people in media spaces
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: who explicitly endorse or sympathize with political violence as a
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: tool for change. Has Sanpiker was just doing it on
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: The New York Times on a podcast last week Yes
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: week and everybody giggled about it. It's not a it's
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: not something you should giggle about. But I do think
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: it is too often sympathized with and rationalized as a
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: response to an extraordinary disturbance in the duly elected president
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: who they don't like, right.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And that is a bad message.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: And I do not appreciate people who carry that message
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: turning around to me and saying, well, we would never
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: How dare anyone suggest that we would carry this message
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: like you just did?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I just I just listened to it.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Emma Joe Morris posted this yesterday and it really
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: struck me. She said, sorry, guys, but it's going to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: take more than a building a ballroom at the White
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: House to address the radicalization problem we have on our hands.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, listening to garden variety
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: millennial yuppies who sound like isis and I know exactly
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: what she's talking about, like we've all been there where
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: we're listening to upper middle class people say things like
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: someone should take Donald Trump out or worse, really disgusting,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: horrible things I can think of, like people who were
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: happy when Charlie Kirk was assassinated people who were said
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump was not murdered at Butler. I mean
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: they were saying it out loud and openly, and it
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't like something they were embarrassed by or thought other
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: people would be horrified by. I just you know, we
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: talked about it again last episode also. But I understand
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that the right has problems. I understand that we have
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: our freaks and our gules, but it seems like we
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: policed them so much better than the left does. That
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to the point where I don't even know that that
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: isn't mainstream on the left anymore. I'm not sure what's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: fringe and what's mainstream on the left any well.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: As our friend Bridget Fantasy says, for the media, there
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: is no such thing as too far left in this country.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Too far right is like me right, So you know,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: so there is there's an imbalance in how much outside
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: media corrective the left coalition is going to get. That
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean there aren't bad actors on both sides, of
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: course there are, But as you and I noted, the
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: bad actors who are quote unquote of the alt right
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: get elevated by the same people who are elevating the
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: bad people on the left, So you've.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Got to trying to minimize them. And they're like, no, no,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: let's put them in the New York Times.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: No, because we want to pin them on you. So
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: we're going to do a full feature on Nick Fuintes.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: You know, I have followed this stuff for a long time.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I was two blocks from the congressional baseball shooting, the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: shooter who was explicitly lefty political, who attempted to massacre
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: an entire softball team of Republicans.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: People don't remember his name.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: People don't know what that date was, because that would
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: if that had been a team of Democrats, that would
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: be a national conversation. It'd likely be a national holiday
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: on which we mark how we are committed to opposing
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: political violence in my neighborhood. A year after it happened,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: not one observance, not one concern about it. I wrote
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: about it at the time and got in trouble with
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: my bosses at CNN for pointing out that the coverage
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: of this was quite scant after two days. And there
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: just is a genuine difference when the press has to
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: wrestle with the idea that someone ideologically aligned with the
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: left is wreaking this havoc.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: They do not want to do.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It right, and I think that they have to be
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: careful because again, we do have our own crazies on
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: our side, and they will be motivated by the open
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: disdain for people on the right, like that we're not people,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: that what happens to us doesn't matter. I think that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: they are being careless about this because the crazies on
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: our side will take the lesson that violence is the answer.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, I said this on said Rosenberg shows
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: today and he said, oh, you know, it's not both sides. Like, no,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: it's not both sides, but that doesn't mean it won't
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: become both sides. It could easily become both sides. I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: could think of lots of examples where we were like,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: if you don't stop doing this, are side's.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Going to stop doing it?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Like the the interrupting public figures and restaurants and stuff
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Guess what happened. That's what the right started doing too.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: We were like, maybe let's not have this happen so
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that we can all live in a society where public
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: figures can go out to restaurants.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Nope, they didn't want to live like that. Now we
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: live like this.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Well, and then we find out, of course that some
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: of the formerly identified as right wing violence that unite
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: the right was in fact funded by left fighting groups,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: And you're like, well, it's just all of this an
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: attempt to create the fiction that only one side does this,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: when in fact I can see with my eyeballs that
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: the opposite.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Side that tells me only one side does.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: It is doing it all the time, and then also
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: writing about how great it is that it happens, or
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: how understandable it is as a reaction to oppression or
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: whatever the thing of the day is. But it's very
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: hard for anyone in the press to argue with a
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: straight face that they treat political violence against someone like
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Trump as seriously as they do the other direction. And
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: I think, frankly, the moment that we had post Butler,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: where there was unification about oh my gosh, this is horrifying,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: short though it was, it was a pretty serious moment
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: where we all went, oh my gosh, like take a
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: deep breath, we were really spared from this terrible catastrophe.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: I think that helped Donald Trump electorally, and that is
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: something that in that space regret, yea.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Because you could see it's not the same this time
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that it's full on not the same. We have a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: clip of Donald Trump on CBS talking to narro' donald
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and she went with this.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: The so called manifesto is a stunning thing to read.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Mister president. He appears to reference a motive in it.
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: He writes this, quote administration officials, they are targets. And
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: he also wrote this, I'm no longer willing to permit
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: a pedophile, rapist, and trader to coat my hands with
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: his crimes. What's your reaction.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Well, I was waiting for you to read that because
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I knew you would, because you're you're horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: he did write that, I'm not a rapist. I didn't
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: rape anybody.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: I think he was referring to excuse me.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: sick person. I got associated with a stuff that has
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: friends on the other side of the plate are the
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: ones that were involved with let's say Epstein or other things.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: interview and they'll probably read the manifesto. You know it's
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: a sick person, but you should be ashamed of yourself
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: reading that because I'm any of those things. You shouldn't
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: be reading that in sixty minutes. You're a disgrace. But
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: go ahead, let's finish the interview.
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: The other thing that he wrote in.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: The disgrace, I have to agree. I thought that was disgraceful.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I thought that was fake and ridiculous. Oh you think
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: he was talking about you? Like, you know, what do
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you think he was talking about? Who do you think
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: he meant in that manifesto? And if you don't know,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: then you don't have the role of talking to the
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: president and interviewing him after an incident like this. You
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: don't have the capability to deliver what you need to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: deliver in that moment, which is information to the American people,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the unity to the American people.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: You're you're just you know, miss cast for this moment. Okay.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: I have a hypothetical to ask if a crazy racist
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: right winger had attempted to assassinate President Barack Obama two
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: days later, would you have President Barack Obama sitting across
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: from you and read from the racist manifesto accusations of
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: well sir, he does make the point that you were
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: born in Kenya and that you you know whatever about
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: his skin color or what have you, and just read
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: it out to him as if there was some sort
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: of substantive point there.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Right, No, you would not imagine that, you wouldn't do that,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And it is it's this turn that's made very quickly
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: to blaming the victim.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: And I don't I don't care if it's the person
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I disagree with most in the world, in this country,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: if someone tries to silence you in the ultimate way,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: the ultimate attack on democracy and free speech, by trying
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: to shut you up by killing you, we're standing together
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: for at least a day or two, you.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Would me, Yeah, doesn't that be forever.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Somebody takes a shot at any any leftist, any democrat,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be defensive of them.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: And by the way, I think we have been on
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: this show when in particular Governor Josh Shapiro was targeted,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: his home targeted, and by the way, that ended up
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: being a jihad friendly, free Palestine, left leaning person.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what I'm saying. Yeah, And we did,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: and we stood with him before we knew that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, no, had it been I mean we thought it
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: would be that honestly, But but had it been a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: right winger, we wouldn't have been like, well, you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he has the wrong policies. So I guess it's okay.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Like it just it's not okay. It's not okay.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: It's not okay. Looting's not okay. Robbing people is not okay.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Murdering people is not okay just because you're not getting
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: your way.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Violence is not speech. Nope, let's leave it right there.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a short break and come right
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: back with more on Normally.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: We are back on.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Normally, where news out of California that the Wealth Seizure Act,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the one that they have going on the ballot in
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: November to take a cut of a billionaire's earning that
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: is not income, just wealth wealth tax. It has made
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: its way on the ballot. And why that's interesting is
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: because the tax is retroactive. It starts from January first
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of this year, and several billionaires left in December while
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: posting like hey, I left on December twenty third, like
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: just making sure that everybody knows that they that they
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: were out before that tax would become active. Now, what
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was interesting about that is a lot of people were saying,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: why are they leaving now? The ballot measures not even
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: we don't even have enough signatures yet. We don't know
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: if it's getting on the ballot, and then if it
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: does get on the ballot, we don't know if the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Californians are going to vote for it, and if they
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: do vote for it, we don't know that the governor
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: is going to side it into law. And we were like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: m pretty sure that all of that's going to happen.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: So step one has been achieved.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: The wealth tax is now on the ballot in November.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: They have enough signatures, and that's why so many billionaires
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: got out of there and so many multimillionaires because they
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: know what happens. They know once they can't confiscate what
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: they need from the billionaires, they are going to come
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: down the ladder to the other wealthy people in the state.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It's atrocious, another leftist, ridiculous proposal.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes where like these people deserve what
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: they get.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: A lot of these people who have left are Democrats,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and they sat by while California became ever more blue,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and then when it was going to hurt them, they
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: finally left.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And I hope they've learned a lesson.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I hope they don't come to places like Florida and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: continue to vote for the Democrats, who are going to
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: be more moderate than the full on communists they left behind.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole thing is just based on economic nonsense,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: on this myth that the rich don't pay their fair share,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: when in fact, particularly federal income, the top one percent
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: pay a huge percentage, top fifty percent to pay a
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: huge percentage, and the elites in this country just treat
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: it like it doesn't exist. There's another fiction that's dangerous,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: which is that if you confiscate all this wealth, you
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: will actually be able to pay the bills of California
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: or the federal governments.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: You can confiscate all day, and all you'll do is
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: end up killing wealth and wealth creation. You will not
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: actually cover your bills in California. That's partly just because
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: they're defrauding the system at every moment, and we'll just
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: defraud it more and more in response to more and
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: more money.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: But this is no way to.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Run an economy. This is a giant economy. And I
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: do enjoy the cell phone where they were like, we're
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: going to make it retroactive January first, so you guys
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: can't get out of this, and they were like, I
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: think we'll get out.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Of it now, and that is a rational move.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: And by the way, I would remind everybody that the
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: federal income tax was originally supposed to be only for
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: rich people too, So.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: How that work out?
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: We'll see whether that maintains. But you know, it's funny.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Because people percentage guys don't worry about grown it won't
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: get Some people.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Have stayed, some very very wealthy people among them Chamath
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: from the All In podcast, and you know he tweets
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: about this tax all the time, but he is staying
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and seeing what's going to happen. I'm kind of curious
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen too. How are they going to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: do it? Are they going to make so one of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the questions was like a lot of these very very
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: wealthy people their wealth is in stock of their company.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Are they going to be.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Forced to sell that stock in order to pay this
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: wealth tax? And the damage that that's going to do
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: to the California economy.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a reason that Lacker's curve.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: You know, the more you tax people the less money
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you end up making for your state. It remains relevant
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to this day is because it never works. This just
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it never works. And like, like you said, they have
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: so much corruption.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: And floor in a path.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Sorry, they have so much corruption in California that they
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: can't know where that money is going. Recently we told
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the story on here that more people had applied for
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: unemployment insurance in California then live in California than more
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: than the adults that they have in California.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: That kind of thing is.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Not going to be solved by any tax and I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: don't know how that they're going to manage that, And
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know how Gavin Newsom takes that message nationally like.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Hey, this state is completely not functioning, make me your president.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Well, and it's treated as radical to say, hey, before
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: you take more money from us, could you guys make
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: sure that you're not just giving it away to Romanians
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: via the unguarded unemployment.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Insurance program we have.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: And it's like they're like, no, that would be a
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: grave sin to determine whether we're doing this correct, Like
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: how could we do that? The tex Newswatcher, it's the
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: most reasonable request on the plan, and it is treated
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: like radicalism.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, good luck with that California. You know we
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: have friends in California, you and I. I root for
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: our friend Alicia Krause, probably more than anyone, because she's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: staying and fighting and I love that.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: But this is not good. But she and she and
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the all in guy. I will, I will donate.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I will donate to their effort to fight this tax
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: I will. I would love for it to lose. I
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: would love for Steve Hilton to win. It would be
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: good for a Republican to take the wheel, arrest the
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: wheel from Gavin.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Newsom and straight things out a little bit.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: I will attempt to support them in that. But it's
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: also just another lesson. As you note, don't put it
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: past them, man like, don't assume they're not going to
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: do crazy things, just like in Virginia.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Don't assume they're not going to do it. They're going
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to do it. They're going to do it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: All right, We're going to take a short break and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: be right back with one more segment of Normally.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: All right, back on Normally with an update from The
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: New York Times on usaid. Now you'll remember that this
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: agency that was sort of adjacent to the State Department,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: what was kind of going rogue and doing its own
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: thing for a long time, giving a bunch of federal
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: money to NGOs that did sometimes we're not even sure
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: what work they do. But you'll remember that we were
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: told that this was a huge disaster to even look
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: at USAID funding. The New York Times puts this story
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: up a year after USAID's death. Fired workers find few
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: jobs and much loss. People have plowed through savings, cashed
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: out retirement funds and moved in with relatives. Former USID
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: workers estimate that less than half found full time work. Okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: so this is a great excerpt from it, just to
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: give you a flavor, and Daniel Friedman writes, every sentence
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: of this article makes me want to vote for Trump again.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: So it says, but all those interviewed said they were
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: still incredulous that an agency that amounted to less than
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: one percent of the federal budget had been so quickly
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: obliterated and reduced to a skeletal operation within the State Department.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: You know, they thought they were doing all this good.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: They said they were still burning from President Trump's characterization
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of them as radical left lunatics. And then we have
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: a quote. I'm a queer, brown immigrant, said Adrian Musseurov
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: fifty five, a Navy veteran and former senior usad advisor
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: in global health who was involuntarily retired last July. It's
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: like the quote, the quote suggests that you self identify
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: as a radical left person. We find out in it,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: for instance, that one woman was making two hundred and
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: seventy two thousand dollars a year at the head of
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: an NGO, and even The New York Times must concede
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: at times during this art during the reporting of this article, like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: it's unclear how much good these individual NGOs did on
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: the ground because a lot of this money went to
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: American contractors, right, it's just funneling through various organizations. But
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: I do find it interesting that they just that they
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: think these are the sympathetic character of this story, right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And you know, the thing is, like a lot of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: people were saying, you know, don't mock these people. It's very,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: very hard to start over again in your fifties and plus,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and these people are real people, and don't make fun
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of them, which I completely understand.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: And it is hard to start over.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I remember when people were being fired for you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: automation reasons, and a lot of journalists suggested learning to code,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and you know, we didn't like that very much.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: So not making fun of these people at all.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: They had jobs that they thought would last forever, but
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: those jobs were deeply unnecessary.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And subsidized to an incredible jat subsidized.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Do I believe if you had to make an appeal
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: to free people and donors or the free market, that
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: that woman's job was right two hundred and seventy two
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: k a year.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: But I don't think you'd find that deal.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I don't think you'd find that deal if you didn't
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: have taxpayers to take from to make it happen exactly.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And you know, look, you can feel for people in
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: all different difficult situations. There was unrelated to this, but
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: there was a tweet today from an account called fintech
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Frank that posted a Goldman Sachs report that forty percent
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of people earning five hundred thousand plus dollars per year
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: say that they're living paycheck to paycheck. I don't feel
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: sorry for those people, Like I get it you're doing
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: something that's making your life difficult, but you can't feel
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: sorry for everyone. And the fact is that a lot
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of this USAID stuff was very scammy, very unnecessary, and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: now we're sort of seeing the results of that that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff really didn't matter.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this happens over and over again. By the way,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: we were all going to die because of net neutrality.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: All these people were going to be kicked off Obamacare
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: and have nothing at the end of last year of
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: our Lord twenty twenty five. And I don't know if
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: you haven't, have you noticed all of the cries from
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: the very real people who were on those extra Obamacare subsidies. No,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: because that was used for that fight in that moment,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: and most of those extra subsidies, as we discussed, that
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: were established during the COVID era, were scammy or were
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: for very rich people who had decided to retire early
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: because they could get you to subsidize.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Their health insurance.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: So there is not this outcry of very real victims
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: because that pool wasn't there. We're told that these things
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: are dire at every turn, and it doesn't mean that
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: zero people are at a disadvantage. It just means that
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: the way they trump these things up should be looked
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: at with a skeptical eye because it happens every time.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, scammer rama. Well, what was the most recent one?
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Oz, who's head of the Medicare and Medicaid CMS. He
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: announces that, Yeah, we pulled all this funding from all
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: these hospices in California and we haven't gotten one call
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: from one person concerned about amaze how their real relative
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: is being treated in the hospice.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, scams in California, they go naturally so well together. Well,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally