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Beautiful Bills Bring Grim Realities · Stuff Keeps Happening

0:00
Hello. I stood with my ex during her gommage,
0:03
but stuff still happened. So what's up? Buckle
0:08
up, strap in, grab a pal on the butt. Let's talk
0:11
about the tax bill and get consent before grabbing
0:15
your pal on the butt. Unless it's a dog. So here
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in the United States of America, we are watching
0:21
as our government is trying to pass a new tax
0:23
slash spending bill that has a lot of bad shit
0:26
in it. It's so bad that Republicans, who are
0:29
the only party that are drafting and voting on
0:31
this bill, can't even pass it. Let's back up
0:35
and talk about this big, beautiful bill. It's
0:37
not very beautiful. So Trump has been talking
0:38
about wanting to pass one big, beautiful bill.
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He has this weird fixation with, like, making
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all legislation happen in one big drop. I don't
0:46
know why. But because of that, Republicans have
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unironically called this bill the Big Beautiful
0:50
Bill Act. Very cringy. This bill is over a thousand
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pages, and they're trying to pass it through
0:56
reconciliation, which is essentially an administrative
0:58
process that would allow them to pass it without
1:00
getting any votes from Democrats at all. For
1:03
the House, I want to be clear. We're talking
1:05
about the House of Representatives. This still
1:07
has to get past the Senate, which is... A very
1:10
different process. But as of right now, the bill
1:12
is out there. It's over a thousand pages long
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and contains a ton of stuff. And everyone is
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saying that it contains everything or doesn't
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contain everything. I tried my best to get an
1:21
actual list of what I felt was the most meaningful
1:23
points from it from the bill itself. So this
1:26
is not not hearsay. This is not I heard this
1:29
is what's actually in there. Here we go. About
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five trillion dollars in tax cuts. And most of
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that's going to go to the super rich because
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proportionally. That's where tax cuts give the
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most dollar per point. So a $5 trillion tax cut,
1:41
they're going to try to make up for that with
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a bunch of cuts elsewhere to the spending budget.
1:45
We'll get to that for a second, but first, not.
1:47
cutting back spending a $60 billion bailout for
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farmers. An $800 billion reduction in spending
1:53
on Medicaid, which is, to be clear, a thing that
1:56
Republicans very loudly and very clearly said
1:59
they would not do. With this reduction in spending
2:01
on Medicaid, they've got increased work requirements
2:04
for getting Medicaid. It also aims to defund
2:06
Planned Parenthood via Medicaid. And independent
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estimations note that 7 .6 million citizens will
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lose their health care if this goes through.
2:14
That has given some Republicans some... because
2:16
that's enough people to lose an election. It
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includes a temporary increase to the standard
2:21
deduction for taxes and a bit of a bigger deduction
2:25
for high -tax states like New York. It contains
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a temporary exclusion of tax on qualified tips
2:30
and overtime. That is not all of them. That break
2:35
will only last during Trump's term through 2028,
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so it's a temporary break on... stuff that still
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has other requirements around it. It shifts a
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lot of the cost of SNAP or food stamps from the
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federal budget to state budgets. States don't
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currently pay a whole lot for SNAP. The Fed does.
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This moves it down to the state level, which
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frankly is going to destroy some state economies.
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For people on food assistance, they are working
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to increase the age at which you no longer have
3:00
to work to receive food assistance from 54 to
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64. It also removes a provision that exempted
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adults from the work requirement if they had
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a child under the age of 18. that limit is now
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seven so if you are a parent who has a young
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child and you need food assistance you will now
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need to work after that child is the age of seven
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otherwise you won't qualify and when i say work
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i mean like there are work requirements like
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minimum requirements that are going to vary by
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locale most people who are on food assistance
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still do have to go do things. They're not just
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sitting around collecting a check. That's not
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how that works. It removes a $200 tax on gun
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silencers that's been in effect since 1934. Really
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tackling those top of mind problems like... taxes
3:44
on gun silencers. It gives the president the
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ability to designate that nonprofits are terrorist
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supporting organizations so that he can remove
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their tax exempt status. It throws a few hundred
3:54
billion dollars into very Trumpy efforts like
3:56
his deportation efforts and his concept of the
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Golden Dome, which is a missile defense system
4:02
like the Iron Dome, but it's Trump. So it's the
4:05
Golden Dome. It expedites approvals and sale
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of hundreds of thousands of acres of public land
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for mining, drilling, and logging. Increases
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the estate tax threshold about a million dollars
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from about 14 million to 15 million dollars.
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If your family doesn't have that much money,
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this doesn't apply to you. So... This doesn't
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apply to me. It also establishes a MAGA investment
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account for babies born between 2024 and 2028,
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so Trump's presidency, in which the state will
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put $1 ,000 into the account and then you can
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contribute to it and it grows like a baby 401k.
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It's literally called a MAGA account. They changed
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the acronym to not have it be Make America Great
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Again, but it's literally called a MAGA account.
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So, you know, it's got that stuff in it. Is it
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going to pass? Probably not. Like I said, there
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are already Republicans who are like, this goes
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way too far. Like it doesn't, this does not pull
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back on spending. This is going to just skyrocket
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our debt. It's going to remove people's ability
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to access insurance. It's going to make it harder
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to get food assistance. It just takes things
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away while giving tax cuts to the rich. It's
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what they always do. We knew this was going to
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happen. But anyway, that's what's in that bill.
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Let's move on. Kind of tired of talking about
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tax bill legislature. I want to go back to talking
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about tax bill legislature. A woman in Georgia
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is being kept alive against her family's wishes
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because she was pregnant when she died. Adriana
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Smith was about nine weeks pregnant when she
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had a sudden medical issue that resulted in her
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death. It was it came out of nowhere. Family
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devastated. But because Georgia has a quote unquote
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fetal heartbeat bill, which as an aside, that's
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not a heartbeat. That's that's not what a heartbeat
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is. But because they have a quote unquote fetal
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heartbeat bill. the fetus has personhood. So
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this woman has been declared brain dead and the
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hospital has her on life support and the family
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can't stop them. She's now at about 20 weeks.
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We don't know how long they're going to be keeping
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her alive. We don't know what's going to happen
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to the baby. They don't even know what the baby
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is going to be OK. This is not healthy for anyone
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involved. But Georgia passed this law in 2019.
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And then when Roe v. Wade was overturned, it
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went into effect. And so now at six weeks. a
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fetus is considered a full human being with rights.
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That thing that every medical professional disagrees
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with? That thing. If you lack a uterus, you might
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not know that most people don't even know that
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they're pregnant until like four to ten weeks
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into their pregnancy. It can go as long as 20
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weeks without even knowing that you're pregnant.
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It's all over the map. But six weeks? You're
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not even going to have a chance to find out.
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Roe v. Wade was overturned on the cynical sentiment
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that states wanted to be able to choose whether
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or not abortion should be allowable. And every
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state that it's been on the ballot has passed
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with flying colors. This is because no one wanted
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it to be up to the states. We were happy with
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how it was. Overturning abortion rights was a
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deeply, deeply unpopular move. And it was never
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about states' rights. Republicans in Missouri.
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are currently trying to overturn a constitutional
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amendment that the population voted for that
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enshrined abortion rights. No joke, the state
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voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution,
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and they're trying to get it overturned against
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the will of the people. Which is about as not
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states' rights as you can get. I feel like there
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was once a political party that was against a
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nanny state having too much overreach into your
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personal life and medical decisions. I don't
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know where they went. Can they come back? This
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past week, over two dozen people were killed
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in Kentucky and Missouri as harsh storms and
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tornadoes tore through the area. Hundreds of
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thousands of people are without power and crews
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are working around the clock to try to restore
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power, find people, help people. Can those people
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get a round of applause? Can we get more, just
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more general appreciation and recognition for
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the people who, in the face of catastrophe, abandon
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their own comfort to help others? Can we do that
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more? Now, unfortunately, it does seem like this
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disaster was made worse by the fact that Doge,
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in the current administration, recently made
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a bunch of cuts to NOAA, N -O -A -A, the government
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wing that tracks the weather. In fact, one day
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before the storm, the New York Times posted an
8:08
investigative report into the cuts at NOAA and
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specifically listed Jackson, Kentucky as one
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of the locations that was the most desperately
8:16
understaffed. That's one of the places that got
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hit. So the timing doesn't look good. There were
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delays in getting out the warnings and there's
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reductions in staff at the places that give out
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those warnings. Between this and the FAA cuts,
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can we stop getting rid of people whose job it
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is to maintain national safety? I want to be
8:35
able to go see my friends via air travel and
8:38
via having them still be alive. Hey, if you like
8:41
what I do, I could really use your help. I need
8:44
to eat. I need to live, and that costs money.
8:48
And so if you want to support me, you can head
8:50
to merchfrom .dev. You can get yourself a Skulls
8:54
Keep Happening denim jacket or a bunch of other
8:57
stuff. Or if you want to get more of a digital
8:59
sort of package from me, that sounds suggestive,
9:04
you can head to patreon .com slash Endeavorance,
9:07
and you can support me. Any tier gets access
9:10
to everything, and there's a whole bunch of content
9:12
with much more on the way. Thank you so much.
9:15
Back to stuff. All right, I'm done with the United
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States for this video, but also at large. Let's
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go on to the world. All of the world. Well, some
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of the world. You may remember last November.
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That's fun. In New Zealand, there were some indigenous
9:26
members of parliament who stood up and performed
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a haka. If you're not familiar, it's like a ceremonial
9:32
dance thing. I don't actually know how to describe
9:35
it. It's fucking rad. It's like somewhere between
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a showing of pride and celebration or intimidation.
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It has a whole bunch of purposes, but... Yeah,
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so they did a haka in the parliament on the floor.
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It was a protest against legislation and the
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entire world saw it and was like, that's rad,
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that's sick. But now the New Zealand parliament
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is looking into punishing the people who participated
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in that. They want to suspend them for a few
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weeks, which is like an unprecedented punishment.
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But don't worry, they're justifying it to themselves.
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Quote, we intend to leave members in no doubt
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that the behavior discussed is not acceptable
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and that the intimidation of other members of
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the House is treated with the utmost seriousness.
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That seriousness, that utmost seriousness, also
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includes a complaint that during the haka, it
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looked like one of the members of parliament
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made... A gun shape towards another. Very serious
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concerns. Anyway, I don't know. I'm going to
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side with the indigenous people who are protesting
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using their culture on the land that their culture
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is from that was colonized. I'm going to stand
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with them on this one. Eurovision happened again.
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Eurovision is like a big old song contest. It's
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like somewhere between the Olympics and Glee.
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Bunch of European countries come together, perform
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songs, and then there's an audience vote and
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a judge vote. Austria won. Good job, Austria.
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But notably, second place was Israel, who had
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an outsized amount of audience votes compared
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to their judge votes. So there's probably nothing
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there. We don't really need to look into that.
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That's nothing. But I do want to take a deeper
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dive into this little country that got second
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place. See what they're up to. Oh, they're continuing
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to carpet bomb Gaza and destroy lives. They've
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been continuing their next wave of just eradicating
11:19
Gaza. from the map. I can't even keep tallies
11:22
anymore. I'm seeing articles of 100 people killed
11:26
in an airstrike last night. And the next day,
11:27
another 93 were killed. Hospitals are shutting
11:30
down. There's virtually no hospitals left for
11:32
them to go to. It's basically the end. I've been
11:35
covering Israel's assault on Gaza for over a
11:38
year. And the number of times that I've got up
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in front of this camera and talked about the
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number of children that have been killed, the
11:44
amount of atrocities being committed, the fact
11:46
that virtually the entire world agrees that this
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is a genocide, ethnic cleansing, that the leadership
11:54
of Israel need to be held accountable for their
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actions. Nothing, nothing changed. The United
12:00
States of America has a vested interest in Israel
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existing, largely from a geopolitical foothold
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perspective, but also pretty much equally from
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a death cult fulfillment perspective. It is critically
12:14
important to the ethos of evangelical Christians
12:16
in America. to have Israel be established and
12:20
sustained. There are a reason that Christian
12:22
groups are pushing so hard for Israel to exist.
12:25
It's not because of their good graces towards
12:27
Jews. Because again, Israel is not synonymous.
12:32
with Judaism. And so while I don't want to be
12:34
a doomer, I don't want to be like, oh, there's
12:36
nothing we can do. There's kind of nothing we
12:38
can do. The damage has been done. And we're at
12:41
the point now where the Trump administration
12:42
is toying with an idea of just resettling a million
12:45
people from Gaza because Israel wants it and
12:48
they got to get what they want. Anyway, congrats
12:50
to Israel for their second place in the singing
12:52
competition. It's a shame that we couldn't preserve
12:56
the millions of souls living in what's supposed
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to be a sacred land. Technology. Stuff keeps
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happening. We'll be back after I talk to you
13:07
about white genocide in South Africa. Beep boop.
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I'm a robot. Okay, backstory. Twitter has the
13:13
option to tweet at Grok, which is XAI's version
13:16
of ChatGPT. XAI is Elon Musk's AI company that
13:20
also technically now owns Twitter. It's a whole
13:22
thing. My cord is stuck on a button. Fixed it.
13:25
Anyway, it's a whole thing. Recently, starting
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around like 3 a .m. one night, Grok started to
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just include phrases about white genocide in
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South Africa in response to everything. You can
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ask it about anything. I saw one that was asking
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about like baseball contracts and it was like,
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ah, yes, this is an interesting baseball contract.
13:43
But on the topic of white genocide in South Africa,
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blah, blah, blah. And it was just that for like
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every response, just everywhere. It was out of
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nowhere bringing up white genocide in South Africa,
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which at this point, I want to make it very,
13:56
very clear. There is no white genocide happening
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in South Africa. This is a bullshit made up conspiracy
14:02
theory pushed by you guessed it. Elon Musk, among
14:05
many other folks on the right. And it's also
14:07
tied up with Trump having recently brought in
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a handful of quote -unquote refugees from South
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Africa who, shocker, were all white and got expedited
14:16
entry into the country. So, of course, everyone's
14:19
like, oh, weird. Elon Musk's AI is suddenly telling
14:22
everybody about white genocide in South Africa.
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And so it was so blatant that XAI had to actually
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put out a statement in which they were like,
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well, a rogue employee. edited the system prompt
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for the ai at 3 15 a .m we're looking into it
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a rogue employee yeah so to make things funnier
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they decided to try to save face by publishing
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their system prompts to GitHub, the open source
14:47
coding platform. So they're like, the world can
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see. It's an open source thing. So someone decided
14:53
to open up a pull request, which is a suggestion
14:56
for a change to the code, to re -add the line
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about white genocide and always talking about
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white genocide to the AI system prompt. And someone
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at XAI approved that change. It was a joke. The
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person who made the change was like, this is
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a gag, but it got included. It was later reverted.
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But what? So here's a privately held company
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with direct ties to the White House who's building
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an AI and for some reason can have a rogue employee
15:22
completely upturn the entire system and try to
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shill fabricated stories. Furthermore, they have
15:28
some rando just approving poll requests on public
15:32
open source projects that could potentially be
15:34
detrimental to said project. I have spent...
15:37
half of my life working in the tech industry
15:39
that is not how any of this is supposed to work
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you're not supposed to be able to just have one
15:45
guy make changes to the production systems at
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three in the morning without anyone knowing that
15:51
is mind -boggling to me and so here we have a
15:54
very direct look at why we should not trust ai
15:57
models for all of the the shrieking and pearl
16:00
clutching about deep seek ai that came from china
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and how it's got propaganda here is An American
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AI company directly getting caught with their
16:11
pants down, having attempted to do that. And
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specifically, it's an AI company that Elon Musk
16:16
himself says is supposed to be anti -woke and
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quote -unquote maximally truth -seeking. Maximally
16:22
truth -seeking, except when you need to, you
16:24
know... nudge the truth in the direction that
16:27
you want it to go. Microsoft plans to lay off
16:29
about 3 % of their workforce in June, about 6
16:31
,000 people. They're trying to reduce the complexity
16:35
of their company in order to best position the
16:38
company for success in a dynamic marketplace.
16:43
I am so glad. I said that I worked in tech for...
16:46
I'm so glad I'm out. My God. Microsoft has been
16:49
laying people off left and right for the past
16:50
few years. This is more of that. I do want to
16:53
note that Microsoft recently beat their quarterly
16:55
earnings expectations in April. So, yeah, you're
16:59
really tightening the belt there. Okay, let's
17:02
get uplifted. I found a good one. I found a good
17:05
one. So aside from not having white genocide
17:09
in South Africa, there's also good research happening.
17:12
Researchers in South Africa have found two new
17:14
genetic signals that can help better identify
17:16
breast cancer in black African women. So we know
17:20
that medical science is way behind on women and
17:23
black people. So black women especially have
17:26
it real bad in the medical science field, both
17:29
as researchers and as patients. However. There
17:32
was recently a genome -wide association study.
17:36
Don't know what that means, but cool. The study
17:38
revealed these new genetic identifiers, which
17:40
could help create medicine to target specific
17:43
cancer cells that exhibit these identities, which
17:46
is cool. I also learned that Africa has the most
17:51
genetic biodiversity among people living there.
17:53
So that's cool too. Game it! Okay, so GTA 6 was
17:58
delayed, right? Like, I talked about that last
18:00
time. But now a bunch of companies are scrambling
18:03
to figure out what to do with their games that
18:05
were supposed to release around the new release
18:07
date for GTA 6. Grand Theft Auto 6 has been one
18:11
of the most anticipated, if not the most anticipated
18:13
piece of media maybe ever. Like, so much so that
18:17
there is a meme of just like, we got whatever
18:20
before we got GTA 6. Like, it's... It's been
18:23
in the zeitgeist, but it was recently delayed.
18:25
And, you know, that that level of anticipation
18:28
being pushed back to spring 2026 means that a
18:31
bunch of other games that were supposed to come
18:33
out in spring 2026 are now like, oh, oh, I don't
18:37
want to deal with that. So we'll see if there's
18:39
a if there's a game you've been looking forward
18:40
to and that's supposed to come out around that
18:41
time. Maybe maybe check in on them. EA. is doing
18:46
a return to office now. Electronic Arts, the
18:48
behated game publisher, has said that their employees
18:51
are going to have to come back into the office
18:53
for at least three days a week, and they are
18:55
no longer doing remote hiring. This, of course,
18:58
uproots a bunch of people's lives and plans and
18:59
work -life balance and everything. And also,
19:03
insult to injury, we pretty much know now that
19:05
there's not much of a difference between remote
19:08
work and in -person work. So this is not going
19:11
to do a whole lot. I'll tell you one thing, actually,
19:13
it will do a whole lot. Because studies have
19:15
shown that return to office plans basically just
19:18
result in a bunch of employee turnover, which
19:19
for EA, maybe that's for the best. Well done,
19:23
EA. Bungie is running a marathon. This one's
19:26
personal. So Bungie, game developer Bungie, they
19:29
developed games, they made Halo, they made Destiny.
19:32
They're in hot water. So I am a loser. I play
19:36
a lot of Destiny 2. And for a long time... People
19:39
who played Destiny 2 were begging for Bungie
19:42
to do anything in the player versus player arena
19:45
space. Like, there is a player versus player,
19:47
like, game mode. It's just been atrophying. So
19:49
for, like, years, players were asking for something.
19:52
And Bungie was like, hey, PvP people. We've got
19:55
something for you. It's a new game that we're
19:57
building. Not, not, we're not fixing the, we're
20:00
going to make something different entirely, which
20:02
pissed a lot of players off because they didn't
20:04
want that. They just wanted like, I don't know,
20:05
a new map maybe. So Bungie announces Marathon,
20:08
a new extraction shooter game, which is a new
20:11
type of game that I don't fully understand, but
20:13
it's basically like a battle royale, but with
20:16
like RPG and looting mechanics. Long story short,
20:19
nobody wants this game. And then they released
20:22
a preview and people started playing the game
20:24
and the reviews were very lukewarm. And then,
20:26
and then during the preview, an artist pointed
20:29
out like, hey, that's my art. It turns out Bungie
20:32
used stolen art assets in the game and then they
20:35
admitted to it. And now they're just getting
20:36
dragged. So here's a game that people weren't
20:39
really thrilled about the announcement of that
20:41
then the first preview was not inspiring and
20:44
then also contained stolen artwork. And Bungie's
20:47
just been laying people off left and right. Like,
20:48
it's really, it's not going great. I just wanted,
20:51
I don't know, like, a capable ranking system.
20:55
I just wanted, like, reasonable matches without
20:58
cheaters. That's literally it. I don't know.
21:00
Lightning round! A Mexican Navy vessel crashed
21:03
into the Brooklyn Bridge, killing two people
21:05
on board and injuring 19 others. The vessel was
21:08
here on a goodwill mission. Oops. The US no longer
21:11
has a perfect credit rating, just like the rest
21:14
of us. A kindergartner in Pennsylvania brought
21:16
jello shots to school, but don't worry, he brought
21:19
enough for the whole class. Oh, he brought enough
21:21
for his friends, but I wanted to make the joke.
21:23
Anyway, yeah, a kindergartner doing jello shots.
21:25
That's a new one. A plantation house in Louisiana
21:28
burned to the fucking ground. I'm just gonna
21:30
say that again. A plantation house in Louisiana
21:32
burned to the fucking ground. One more time.
21:36
A plantation house that held slaves. In Louisiana,
21:40
burned to the ground. More of that. Also Louisiana,
21:44
10 inmates recently escaped from a New Orleans
21:47
jail. Three of them have been caught, seven still
21:49
on the run. A fertility clinic in Palm Springs
21:52
was bombed. FBI is saying that they're investigating
21:54
it as an intentional act of terror. I've seen
21:57
murmurings about the person who did it being
22:00
like an anti -being -born, like mad about being
22:04
alive kind of person. unclear. And finally for
22:06
today, my dog was very wiggly this morning and
22:09
I gave him some good belly rubs. Thank you so
22:12
much for listening to today's episode of Stuff
22:14
Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for sources,
22:16
bonus content, and a thousand more pages of tax
22:20
code. My name is Endeavorance. I'll be back on
22:23
Monday. Take care and be well.