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Normally Podcast: Election Day Approaches... · Normally

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey guys.
0:05
Speaker 2: Here we are back again on normally the show with
0:08
Speaker 2: normalist takes for when the news gets weird.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm Mary Catherine.
0:11
Speaker 3: Young and I'm Carol Markowitz.
0:14
Speaker 2: We're getting close to election day, so we're going to
0:16
Speaker 2: do horse race. What's going on in the horse race? Carol, Well, it's.
0:21
Speaker 3: The top question I get from people, you know, not
0:24
Speaker 3: even in politics. Friends of mine text and say, what
0:27
Speaker 3: do you think is going to happen? And I think
0:29
Speaker 3: people love this conversation. I love it less in like June,
0:33
Speaker 3: but in October, like, let's do it, you know, why not,
0:37
Speaker 3: Let's lean right into the numbers. And I would say,
0:40
Speaker 3: you know today we're recording this a day in advance.
0:43
Speaker 3: Its October twenty third. It's a Donald Trump race to lose,
0:48
Speaker 3: and obviously anything could happen. And what I tell everybody
0:51
Speaker 3: who texts me is it all comes down to turn
0:54
Speaker 3: out cheesy as that may sound, but to get your
0:58
Speaker 3: voters to the polls, and that is really the name
1:00
Speaker 3: of the game. It doesn't matter how many amazing appearances
1:03
Speaker 3: you have or how many celebrities come out for you.
1:06
Speaker 3: It matters which voters show up to.
1:08
Speaker 4: Actually cast their votes.
1:10
Speaker 3: So looking at the real clear averages. Again, it is
1:14
Speaker 3: very much Donald Trump's race to lose. If you look
1:18
Speaker 3: at Michigan one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
1:22
Speaker 3: ten polls two ties one for Harris, the rest for Trump.
1:26
Speaker 3: And there are a range of polls, you know, the
1:29
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, Trafalgar. So it's not like
1:34
Speaker 3: it's only one side or the other. It really is
1:38
Speaker 3: a mix. And so the number one state, of course
1:41
Speaker 3: that everybody's watching is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, the last ten polls
1:46
Speaker 3: have three for Harris, the rest for Trump. I think
1:51
Speaker 3: the Trump campaign should be feeling pretty good right now. Again,
1:54
Speaker 3: I hope that they're devoting massive resources to outreach to
1:58
Speaker 3: get people to come vote. I think that's something that
2:00
Speaker 3: the Democrats do very well. Republicans play a little bit
2:04
Speaker 3: of catch up with that. But this is the first
2:06
Speaker 3: election that I've seen Republicans take early voting very seriously. Currently,
2:11
Speaker 3: Republicans in Florida are up on early voting, up on Democrats, which,
2:15
Speaker 3: even though Florida is a deep red state at this point,
2:19
Speaker 3: still is a surprising thing because Republicans tend.
2:22
Speaker 4: Not to vote early.
2:23
Speaker 3: They are very much the party of vote on election day.
2:26
Speaker 3: So the fact that this is shifting is a good
2:28
Speaker 3: thing for Republicans, and so I think, you know, Trump
2:32
Speaker 3: campaign campaign ship feel pretty good right now.
2:35
Speaker 2: Nevada is a place where early voting is looking extremely
2:38
Speaker 2: good for Republicans. Now that does not mean every single
2:42
Speaker 2: Republican who votes is not necessarily voting for Trump, but
2:45
Speaker 2: you get a good sense of where votes are coming
2:47
Speaker 2: from in the early voting, and what used to look
2:50
Speaker 2: like an urban Clark County, Las Vegas firewall for Democrats
2:55
Speaker 2: has turned into a rural firewall for Republicans from the
3:00
Speaker 2: outlying areas of Nevada. If that pattern holds in other places,
3:05
Speaker 2: that is not great for Democrats. Nevada is a place
3:09
Speaker 2: where embracing early voting and looking at some early voting
3:14
Speaker 2: data is more predictive of what might happen than other places.
3:17
Speaker 1: It's hard to read early voting data.
3:19
Speaker 2: So beware, but Nevada is one of the places where
3:22
Speaker 2: the change has been most obvious. North Carolina is another
3:26
Speaker 2: place that is really emphasizing early voting. Virginia will as well,
3:31
Speaker 2: though that's not really a battleground state. But we have
3:33
Speaker 2: youngkin so he's she has pushed this, so the messaging
3:36
Speaker 2: has changed for Republicans, which it needs to. It needed
3:40
Speaker 2: to a while ago. The other thing I wonder is
3:44
Speaker 2: when it comes to horse race, I do think the
3:46
Speaker 2: momentum is ticking in Trump's direction, but I use the
3:49
Speaker 2: term ticking because it's not. It's ain't a big momentum shift, right,
3:55
Speaker 2: So I want to be careful about taking like tiny
3:57
Speaker 2: shifts in data astive of something. And I try to
4:02
Speaker 2: be honest about the fact that I've learned many times
4:04
Speaker 2: over in the past several cycles that my predictors don't
4:08
Speaker 2: necessarily pan out because each one of them keeps getting
4:10
Speaker 2: ticks knocked off, And hey, you know, better to have
4:16
Speaker 2: mo than not rights, that's.
4:19
Speaker 1: Where you want to be.
4:20
Speaker 3: I also think it's good that nobody's comfortable, because I
4:24
Speaker 3: think Republicans got very comfortable with the red wave during
4:26
Speaker 3: the midterm, and I think it made people stay home.
4:29
Speaker 3: The idea of we're definitely going to win is one
4:32
Speaker 3: that causes people to stay home. So it's a good
4:35
Speaker 3: thing for both sides that that is not the vibe
4:38
Speaker 3: very much, not the vibe right now, and it really
4:41
Speaker 3: depends what happens going forward and who's able to run
4:46
Speaker 3: that gootv operation, which is what this is all about.
4:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, the twenty twenty two red wave famously did not
4:52
Speaker 2: come ashore. One of the reasons for that was that
4:55
Speaker 2: Republicans a had these early voting and absentee voting problems
4:59
Speaker 2: where they were lagging. And two they had to be
5:02
Speaker 2: charitable candidate quality problem problems in a lot of the
5:05
Speaker 2: Senate and House races. Senate in particular, where candidates who
5:08
Speaker 2: were like a little too outside the mainstream for normy
5:11
Speaker 2: voters were bringing down the whole ticket. They have a
5:13
Speaker 2: lot fewer of those problems now, particularly in Senate races
5:17
Speaker 2: where the candidates have been very recruited from a very
5:20
Speaker 2: good pool, so that might matter. And then for our
5:24
Speaker 2: normy listeners who don't pay attention to polling all the time,
5:27
Speaker 2: one of the things about these polls that we talk
5:29
Speaker 2: about is that they're guessing what turnout will look like.
5:33
Speaker 2: So that's one of the issues in predicting elections is
5:36
Speaker 2: that every time these guys go out into the field
5:38
Speaker 2: with a pole, they're playing a guessing game about who
5:42
Speaker 2: might show up. So this early voting in rural areas
5:44
Speaker 2: might tell you, oh, yeah, they've solved this problem from
5:47
Speaker 2: the past, So.
5:49
Speaker 4: That's exactly it. Right.
5:51
Speaker 3: Also, looking back at that midterm election, I was worried
5:54
Speaker 3: about it, and I was worried about it, not because
5:57
Speaker 3: because I'm a seer of the few sure or anything,
6:00
Speaker 3: but I was looking at this. Even even the candidates
6:03
Speaker 3: who weren't let's say, challenged with problems, they were running
6:08
Speaker 3: on their biographies. I looked at like their websites and
6:10
Speaker 3: it would be like he's a marine or you know,
6:14
Speaker 3: just all these like nobody votes on biography. I think
6:16
Speaker 3: that's one of the main things. And Republicans, I feel like,
6:19
Speaker 3: almost fall forward the biography thing a little bit too
6:22
Speaker 3: hard because they think, like, oh, look at this candidate,
6:24
Speaker 3: he's got all this experience. People don't really care.
6:26
Speaker 4: They want to know what you're going to do.
6:28
Speaker 3: And I think this election has been much more and
6:31
Speaker 3: particularly because it's been a Biden Kamala presidency for this
6:35
Speaker 3: whole time, where this is what we're going to do,
6:37
Speaker 3: this is how we're going to be different, and I
6:39
Speaker 3: think it matters.
6:40
Speaker 2: We'll be right back in just a moment on normally,
6:45
Speaker 2: here's what's going on on the trail in Detroit yesterday.
6:49
Speaker 2: I'll hand it to the Kamala Harris campaign for having
6:52
Speaker 2: a pretty cool event. This is one of those events
6:55
Speaker 2: that this is Democrat privilege.
6:57
Speaker 5: Right.
6:58
Speaker 2: You get the big stars, you get at the rallies,
7:01
Speaker 2: you get Megan, these Stallon Stallion concerts, and.
7:06
Speaker 1: You can promise people Beyonce's going.
7:07
Speaker 4: To show up.
7:08
Speaker 2: But I will never stop talking about her. I will
7:10
Speaker 2: never stop talking about how she didn't show up. But
7:13
Speaker 2: in this case, someone did show up. Eminem came to
7:16
Speaker 2: a Detroit rally last night. He doesn't come out a lot,
7:20
Speaker 2: certainly for this kind of thing. And then he was
7:23
Speaker 2: followed by the act of former President Barack Obama. And
7:28
Speaker 2: let's just play a little bit about from Obama from
7:30
Speaker 2: this rally.
7:31
Speaker 6: I gotta say, you know, I have done a lot
7:35
Speaker 6: of rallies, so I don't usually get nervous, but I
7:41
Speaker 6: was feeling some kind of way following Eminem. Now I
7:47
Speaker 6: notice my palms are sweating these week as a heaven
7:55
Speaker 6: my sweater runner, Mom Spagetti, I am a surface, not
8:01
Speaker 6: a tomb and run.
8:02
Speaker 1: It for drop bomb, Okay, we get it.
8:11
Speaker 4: Me for Phone.
8:11
Speaker 6: I was gonna jump out.
8:12
Speaker 1: You know, as you know, Carol, his sticks not for me.
8:16
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not the honest, but I enjoyed the
8:19
Speaker 2: beginning of that.
8:20
Speaker 1: I think I would have cut it a little sooner.
8:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, he just de helps himself so much. It's so obvious.
8:28
Speaker 3: He's like, I am the best.
8:29
Speaker 1: Look at me, go, He's really I could.
8:32
Speaker 4: Do that wrap okay, and does so.
8:35
Speaker 2: He was really feeling himself as as he often does.
8:40
Speaker 1: But what do you think about the celebrity gatherings? Do
8:44
Speaker 1: they work?
8:45
Speaker 4: Yeah?
8:45
Speaker 3: I don't think they work, but you know, whatever, again,
8:48
Speaker 3: good for them. I used to have a thing on
8:51
Speaker 3: my blog, which is how I got into this business.
8:54
Speaker 3: I had a blog, and I used to have a
8:55
Speaker 3: thing Eminem is a Republican, and I would be like,
8:58
Speaker 3: Eminem's a Republican exhibit one, but one hundred, Like I
9:01
Speaker 3: had a whole bunch of these, because he's so obviously
9:04
Speaker 3: a Republican, Like, how does he not know that? And
9:06
Speaker 3: it appears twenty years later he still has no idea.
9:09
Speaker 1: I have to look this up. I didn't know.
9:11
Speaker 3: About this is unfortunately offline. I wish, I wish I
9:14
Speaker 3: had kept it somehow, but I had no idea what
9:16
Speaker 3: I was doing. So but it was things like you know,
9:19
Speaker 3: he would he would talk about how much how much
9:22
Speaker 3: tax does the government take or just all kinds of
9:24
Speaker 3: things like you'd make comments and I'd be like, that's
9:26
Speaker 3: because you're a Republican, Like.
9:28
Speaker 1: You know, well what it is.
9:30
Speaker 2: It is funny to watch people like him, funny slash
9:34
Speaker 2: weird to watch people like him and Howard.
9:36
Speaker 1: Stern the ultimate rebels.
9:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, just line up at the mic to be like
9:42
Speaker 2: the people who are in power, who run everything. So
9:45
Speaker 2: I used to tell you should distrust, you need to
9:48
Speaker 2: throw everything you have behind them.
9:50
Speaker 4: Right right.
9:51
Speaker 3: I support them, and.
9:53
Speaker 2: I understand that Democrats still retain some of this like
9:57
Speaker 2: rebel brand.
9:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, but don't know where it comes
10:01
Speaker 3: from at this point.
10:02
Speaker 2: I mean, they're very much the We literally have a
10:05
Speaker 2: disinformation board inside the government and tell you what to do.
10:10
Speaker 2: One last thing, Carol, have you heard that Harris herself
10:14
Speaker 2: is taking days off from the trail in the last
10:17
Speaker 2: two weeks of this election. I find this shock actually
10:21
Speaker 2: shine boggling.
10:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has this whole thing where Donald Trump is
10:25
Speaker 3: too old and he's getting tired, and like he's out
10:27
Speaker 3: there all the time talking to everybody. There's a story
10:32
Speaker 3: right now that he's gonna he's going to be doing
10:33
Speaker 3: the Joe Rogan show that you and I talked about
10:36
Speaker 3: in previous episodes, where you know, Kamala Harris was rumored
10:39
Speaker 3: to do it, but like Beyonce never came out. Let's just.
10:45
Speaker 2: He beat her to McDonald's. He beat her to Joe Rogan.
10:48
Speaker 2: I don't think he's going to beat her to booking Beyonce,
10:50
Speaker 2: but know, but he.
10:51
Speaker 3: Could book he could Yeah, he could just say he's
10:53
Speaker 3: bringing out Beyonce and never bring around Yeah. Right, So
10:57
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how she's able to do
11:00
Speaker 3: that or think that that's okay. If her supporters are
11:03
Speaker 3: fine with that, that's fine. But at the same time,
11:06
Speaker 3: saying that Trump isn't working hard enough or he's lost
11:08
Speaker 3: a step, I mean, come on.
11:10
Speaker 2: Well, each of them is. Campaigns are going to shift quickly.
11:13
Speaker 2: You're going to do some events not do other events.
11:15
Speaker 2: I get that, but full days off the trail seems
11:19
Speaker 2: very crazy dangerous to me. It seems Hillary's skipping Wisconsin
11:23
Speaker 2: level dangerous. You want to, as Tim Walls might understand
11:28
Speaker 2: as a coach, you want to leave it all on
11:30
Speaker 2: the field.
11:30
Speaker 1: You do, right, that's what you want to do.
11:32
Speaker 3: Also, just one more one more point, because this is like,
11:35
Speaker 3: this is the horse race, what it's all about right now?
11:36
Speaker 5: Right?
11:37
Speaker 3: But the campaign issued a statement that they were taking
11:41
Speaker 3: like a red state break or they were going to
11:44
Speaker 3: like Texas and some other red states, and it's like,
11:47
Speaker 3: why why are you doing that?
11:49
Speaker 1: Because is it for house races?
11:51
Speaker 4: Like what is it?
11:51
Speaker 3: Ha? It must be I know for sure that they're
11:54
Speaker 3: campaigning for all read in Texas for the Senate against
11:58
Speaker 3: Ted Cruz, but that seems like a waste of time.
12:02
Speaker 3: I think Ted Cruz is going to win comfortably, and
12:05
Speaker 3: I think that you have your own race to run,
12:07
Speaker 3: So why are you doing this red state extravaganza when
12:12
Speaker 3: you know it gives the sense of like they've given up,
12:14
Speaker 3: which is wild.
12:17
Speaker 2: It's very it's a weird look. There was another bad
12:20
Speaker 2: look in the state of Missouri, I believe on the
12:23
Speaker 2: campaign trail what happened there.
12:25
Speaker 3: So Lucas Kouhons, who was running for US Senate against
12:28
Speaker 3: Josh Holly, posted some pictures on his x account and
12:32
Speaker 3: they were pictures of him shooting with Adam Kinsinger, who
12:37
Speaker 3: was a Republican US congressman who's become a big never
12:40
Speaker 3: Trump guy, very active and frothy on the X platform.
12:45
Speaker 1: Rothy is a good word for it.
12:47
Speaker 3: So Kon's posted some pictures and he wrote, great day
12:50
Speaker 3: at the range today with my friend Adam Kinsinger. We
12:53
Speaker 3: got to hang out with some union workers while exercising
12:56
Speaker 3: our freedom. Always have your first aid kid handy. Shrapnel
12:59
Speaker 3: can always fly when you hit a target like today,
13:02
Speaker 3: and you've got to be ready to go. We had
13:04
Speaker 3: four first aid kids, so we were able to take
13:06
Speaker 3: care of the situation. And I'm glad Ryan is okay
13:08
Speaker 3: and was able to continue reporting Mary Catherine. They shot
13:12
Speaker 3: a reporter.
13:13
Speaker 2: They like, you jured a reporter, guys, I feel like
13:18
Speaker 2: we're this's a Republican event.
13:19
Speaker 1: It would be a large, large news story.
13:23
Speaker 3: He posted it like, had such a fun day shot
13:25
Speaker 3: a reporter? What are you guys up to?
13:29
Speaker 1: Great day at the range? Yeah, I do not think
13:31
Speaker 1: it was a good day at the range.
13:33
Speaker 2: A couple things. I ran this by my in house
13:35
Speaker 2: firearms expert. As many people noticed, and I noticed. I mean,
13:39
Speaker 2: I'm not a super firearms expert, but you notice they're
13:41
Speaker 2: shooting at what looked like steel plates. Yeah, very very
13:45
Speaker 2: close to them, with very large, long guns of relatively
13:51
Speaker 2: high power.
13:53
Speaker 1: This seems like a problem just to start with.
13:56
Speaker 4: Right.
13:56
Speaker 2: At one point, Adam Kinsinger definitely has no eye protection on.
14:00
Speaker 1: He's wearing it on his head his head.
14:03
Speaker 2: At one point the photographer is down range from the
14:07
Speaker 2: firearms unwise, which especially given what we've seen in the
14:11
Speaker 2: safety realm here, I wouldn't do. I think what happened
14:14
Speaker 2: is that they were shooting irresponsibly. This happened, and they
14:19
Speaker 2: realize it's going to be a story, and because he's
14:22
Speaker 2: a Democrat running for Senate, he's like, I can probably
14:24
Speaker 2: get away with this if I just frame it like
14:26
Speaker 2: I did first aid, So look at me. When in fact,
14:30
Speaker 2: you're shooting probably with the wrong guns. You're shooting at
14:34
Speaker 2: targets you shouldn't be shooting at you're shooting my in
14:38
Speaker 2: house firearms expert noted, probably with the wrong kind of AMMO,
14:42
Speaker 2: because if you're shooting at a plate like that, you
14:44
Speaker 2: have different kinds. One that's going to basically disintegrate upon
14:47
Speaker 2: hitting it and another that might create shrapnel.
14:51
Speaker 1: He also noted that.
14:52
Speaker 2: There looked like there was one gun on that in
14:55
Speaker 2: that lineup that the ATF had recently tried to ban.
15:01
Speaker 3: Amazing.
15:02
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many things wrong with it.
15:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm new to shooting. But the thing that
15:08
Speaker 3: I have learned more than anything else is how important
15:11
Speaker 3: gun safety is and how gun enthusiasts take safety so seriously.
15:16
Speaker 3: The not wearing his glasses and just having them perched
15:18
Speaker 3: on his head gave very much like when the Democrats
15:21
Speaker 3: used to implore us all to wear masks, but then
15:24
Speaker 3: would constantly be seen with the mask on their chin.
15:27
Speaker 3: Very similar vibes there. It just all around. I think
15:32
Speaker 3: that a second look at taking away guns, maybe just
15:34
Speaker 3: from Democratic politicians and their friends, I might be on
15:39
Speaker 3: board with this now.
15:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is actually like I do occasionally rant about
15:44
Speaker 2: how once every Memorial Day or Fourth of July, a
15:47
Speaker 2: bunch of Senate candidates who've.
15:48
Speaker 1: Never grilled try to grill yes, right, and they screw
15:51
Speaker 1: it up.
15:52
Speaker 2: They're always like they just took an apron out of
15:54
Speaker 2: the package and still got creases in it. They don't
15:57
Speaker 2: know how to put things on the grill. They don't
15:59
Speaker 2: know how to hold atla. But the thing is, when
16:01
Speaker 2: you hold a spatula.
16:02
Speaker 1: Wrong, you're not going to kill anyone.
16:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would just say they need to take
16:08
Speaker 2: their once a year shooting event more seriously than there
16:12
Speaker 2: once a year grilling event.
16:14
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's absolutely right. But what's so interesting about
16:18
Speaker 3: this also is that this is yet another Democrats try
16:22
Speaker 3: to appeal to gun owners. We had Tim Walls awkwardly
16:25
Speaker 3: trying to load his shotgun. They're very much trying to
16:28
Speaker 3: say we are okay with guns, which has not been
16:32
Speaker 3: the message all along from Democrats. And I think that
16:35
Speaker 3: this is marks a shift for sure, not a great
16:38
Speaker 3: shift again because they look so awkward and we are
16:40
Speaker 3: doing it, but a shift nevertheless.
16:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there is there's something weirdly comforting always
16:46
Speaker 2: about the fact that right before an election Democrats start
16:48
Speaker 2: pretending to be Republicans.
16:50
Speaker 1: Hmm.
16:51
Speaker 2: It's like, yes, okay, like I guess, I guess there
16:54
Speaker 2: is still an understanding that it's basically a center right
16:57
Speaker 2: country world. Yeah, and they have to sort of make
17:01
Speaker 2: us stop to that, and whether people believe them is
17:03
Speaker 2: a whole other issue. Give us a second, we'll be
17:07
Speaker 2: right back on normally. Shall we close with what we're
17:12
Speaker 2: still mad at Bro?
17:14
Speaker 3: Still mad at Bro? Tell us?
17:16
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, so I'm mad about a couple things. Unfulfilled
17:20
Speaker 2: promises right, business left undone and when it comes to
17:25
Speaker 2: the federal government, there's plenty to just from. Let's start
17:28
Speaker 2: with a little Pete Budagic quote. I believe we have
17:33
Speaker 2: a clip of him speaking my.
17:35
Speaker 5: Hope and expectation. I see our very youngest attendee back there.
17:39
Speaker 5: How old are you they three weeks? Congratulations. So by
17:46
Speaker 5: the time that infant is able enough to old enough
17:51
Speaker 5: to ask us what we were doing in the early
17:52
Speaker 5: twenty twenties to set up this country for success, they
17:57
Speaker 5: won't know a country. And my kids, who are three
17:59
Speaker 5: right now, won't know a country that didn't have high
18:03
Speaker 5: speed rail and excellent passenger rail. And I think that's
18:06
Speaker 5: a legacy we can all be very proud of. So
18:08
Speaker 5: thank you for everything you've done to get us here
18:10
Speaker 5: and saving a seat at that ribbon cutting in twenty thirty.
18:12
Speaker 2: Place twenty thirty sure, fact check, this will not happen, ever,
18:19
Speaker 2: And this will not happen because we can look at
18:22
Speaker 2: other high speed reel projects outside of the state of Florida.
18:26
Speaker 2: By the way, we're actually high speed rail has been
18:29
Speaker 2: built rather quickly because under good governance you can do it.
18:32
Speaker 2: But neither the federal government nor the state of California
18:35
Speaker 2: qualifies for that sort of thing.
18:37
Speaker 1: So in California, let me just read you.
18:40
Speaker 2: This is a twenty twenty four story from Reason magazine,
18:42
Speaker 2: which is always keeping up with this issue. Yeah, the
18:46
Speaker 2: boondoggle that is Californian high speed rail. When Californians were
18:50
Speaker 2: first pitched in two thousand and eight on the idea
18:52
Speaker 2: of a high speed rail line connecting San Francisco and
18:55
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, the price tag was an estimated thirty three billion,
18:58
Speaker 2: and about seventy five percent of those costs would come
19:00
Speaker 2: from federal taxpayers or private sources. That was the assurance
19:04
Speaker 2: at the time. On Tuesday, the project's CEO told state
19:07
Speaker 2: lawmakers and Sacramento that another one hundred billion, yes, in
19:11
Speaker 2: addition to what state and federal taxpayers have already contributed,
19:13
Speaker 2: would likely be needed to finish the project. Meanwhile, there's
19:18
Speaker 2: still no timeline for when passengers will be able to
19:21
Speaker 2: take the train due to ongoing environmental reviews. That's basically
19:25
Speaker 2: like one bridge built of the.
19:29
Speaker 1: Hire thing that since two thousand and eight.
19:33
Speaker 3: Right, So yeah. In twenty eleven, one of my favorite
19:38
Speaker 3: X accounts, Polymath, tweeted prediction high speed rail will never
19:42
Speaker 3: come about because environmental regulations will derail construction about California.
19:47
Speaker 3: And a few days ago, when the peak Boodha Judge
19:49
Speaker 3: comments came out, he quoted Buddha Judge with the kids today.
19:52
Speaker 4: Will never know blah blah blah height in America without
19:54
Speaker 4: a high speed rail and.
19:56
Speaker 3: Polymat said counterpoint. When I wrote the tweet below, I
20:00
Speaker 3: zero children. Now I have three and the oldest is
20:02
Speaker 3: in high school next year. California still does.
20:05
Speaker 4: Not have a high speed rail.
20:07
Speaker 3: So you know, don't hold your breath.
20:08
Speaker 2: You can just look at the evidence before you, more
20:11
Speaker 2: evidence before you. Kamala Harris, I don't know if you
20:13
Speaker 2: know this.
20:14
Speaker 1: Carol was in charge of a rural broadband program.
20:18
Speaker 3: I'm sure she was.
20:20
Speaker 1: Going to bring the broadband to the to the people.
20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, she lamented. Recently, This is the Wall Street Journal
20:27
Speaker 2: reporting that in America it takes too long and it
20:30
Speaker 2: costs too much to build. Consider Miss Harris's record. The
20:34
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal says, in twenty twenty one, she agreed
20:36
Speaker 2: to lead the administration's forty two billion dollar plant forty
20:39
Speaker 2: two billion dollars for expanding high speed internet to millions
20:43
Speaker 2: of Americans. That year, she tweeted, quote, we can.
20:46
Speaker 1: Bring broadband to rural America.
20:48
Speaker 2: Today Today, Today, nearly three years after Congress hass the
20:53
Speaker 2: Infrastructure bill that created the program, not one home or
20:57
Speaker 2: business has been connected through it. The Biden administration recently
21:01
Speaker 2: confirmed that construction projects won't again until next year at
21:04
Speaker 2: the earliest, and in many cases not until twenty twenty six,
21:08
Speaker 2: in which case maybe we could just stop them and
21:10
Speaker 2: go with starlink because it takes like a day.
21:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know the forty billion. Do we still
21:15
Speaker 3: have that forty billion?
21:16
Speaker 1: But I'm not we don't.
21:18
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's gone. It's like it's actually on the
21:20
Speaker 2: Chinese spy balloon, floating, floating away.
21:25
Speaker 1: No, it's it's crazy and some of the reasons for
21:27
Speaker 1: it are even crazier.
21:28
Speaker 2: So of course, in California, the high speed rail problem
21:31
Speaker 2: is largely environmental reviews, and they just can't get through
21:35
Speaker 2: that gauntlet, and you know, just general government and competence.
21:40
Speaker 2: But the Wall Street Journal reports, instead of focusing on
21:42
Speaker 2: delivering broadband to unserved areas, the administration has used the
21:45
Speaker 2: program to advance a wish list of political goals. It
21:48
Speaker 2: has adopted regulations that include diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements.
21:52
Speaker 2: Climate change rules, price controls, preferences for union labor, and
21:56
Speaker 2: schemes that favor government run networks. The administration has been
21:59
Speaker 2: handed out wins to favored political groups rather than delivering results,
22:04
Speaker 2: no surprise everyone, right.
22:07
Speaker 3: Also, California has that weird thing where years ago, I
22:10
Speaker 3: was playing poker at one of their casinos and as
22:13
Speaker 3: I go to cash out my chips, it says, you know,
22:14
Speaker 3: these poker chips might cause cancer. And I was like, WHOA,
22:18
Speaker 3: what the hell is This? Turns out everything in California
22:21
Speaker 3: might cause cancer.
22:22
Speaker 4: So I think they just are.
22:23
Speaker 3: Probably still working on putting all the labels on all
22:26
Speaker 3: the high speed internet this might cause cancer, and that
22:29
Speaker 3: takes a.
22:29
Speaker 4: While, America.
22:30
Speaker 1: It doesn't take a while, you know, I don't.
22:32
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, like people drive to western North Carolina with a
22:34
Speaker 2: Starlink in their trunk for two hundred and fifty bucks
22:36
Speaker 2: and they're like, let's just let's hook up some broadband.
22:39
Speaker 2: I should note, and I think we noted it before,
22:41
Speaker 2: that Elon Musk's Starlink has been refused some federal contracts
22:46
Speaker 2: based on the idea that it's not fast enough service. Right,
22:49
Speaker 2: And I would just say that forty two billion dollars
22:51
Speaker 2: in three years later.
22:53
Speaker 1: Maybe it is fast enough, so let's just take it.
22:55
Speaker 3: Let's just you know, slow internet whatever.
22:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it might do the track well.
23:02
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
23:06
Speaker 3: and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
23:09
Speaker 3: in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
23:13
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally