Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Two: Californication

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Episode One Hundred Two: Californication · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and two of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Nearly every
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aspect of the Death of Journalism is wrapped up in one local Los Angeles interview
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with Gavin Newsom while he was in China. The COVID recriminations weirdly continue,
0:19
is rationality now actually winning? And the Zigler Family Halloween experience will likely put
0:25
a smile on your face. I'm known as the Dutch Digital marketing Man.
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is the Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. If you want to grow your business,
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Peter can help. That's the Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. And hey,
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thanks for sponsoring the show. If I could tell only one story this
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week to illustrate the death of journalism. It would definitely be what happened with
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California Governor Gavin Newsom while he was just recently in China on a pr jaunt
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that clearly, at least in some way, shape or form, was intended
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to bolster his potential presidential credential should he need to be called out of the
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bullpen to take over for a flailing Joe Biden the twenty twenty four presidential campaign.
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Now, there are a lot of different aspects to what happened here,
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and it's almost really honestly, I could not have asked for a series of
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circumstances that are or more well attuned to what this podcast asked us all about
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in so many different ways. So let me try to break it down for
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you. So, Gavin Newsom, of course, whom I loathe, goes
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over to China and he needs to bring at least one media person with him,
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And as far as I can tell, the media person that he chose
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or somehow got chosen to take this trip to China with him was the goblin
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name of Elec Michaelson, who is the main anchor person on the Fox television
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affiliate here in Los Angeles, now. I have spoken about Elec Michaelson previously
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on this podcast for a couple different reasons. Now, interestingly, he is
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a former colleague and friend of our former co host on this podcast, Liz
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Habibe. Liz worked at the same Fox affiliate in Los Angeles as a sports
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anchor, and she and Elick had a good relationship. Elick has spoken highly
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of Liz, and Liz was a bit disappointed at how Eleck handled when she
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left a Fox, but that's kind of part for the course when it comes
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to the media business. And partially because of the fact that Liz and Elec
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had a relationship, and because of the fact that I live in the Los
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Angeles TV market, and because of the fact that I am very prone to
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reaching out to members of the media, especially those I disagree with with my
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critiques, and because Elec interestingly is very open at least for me to being
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critiqued, I have created I guess you would call it some sort of a
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weird relationship myself with Alec Michaelson. We've had one extensive phone conversation, but
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mostly the relationship is over Twitter direct message, and for the last three plus
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years, since the start of COVID. I wouldn't say this began right at
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the start of COVID, but somewhere in the middle of COVID, so probably
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a little over two years. I have been direct messaging Eleck whenever I felt
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particularly outraged by something that either was happening or not happening, either in his
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broadcast or on his television station, what have you. Not that he's responsible
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for everything that happens at the Fox affiliate in Los Angeles, but he is
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the main anchor person and in so many different ways, I believe that Elick,
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who I think is a good guy. Let me emphasize this. This
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is what makes this so interesting. Elick is kind of the personification of so
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many problems in the news media, especially the local television news media, and
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all of them, just about all of them were illustrated in what happened with
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regard to this Gavin Newsom trip. Now a couple more thoughts about elec.
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Elick is clearly liberal. He clearly has a great affinity for Gavin Newsom,
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and Gavin Newsom clearly likes Eleck and gives Elick a lot of access. They've
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even joked with each other on Twitter about the kind of relationship they have and
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the access that Alec gets from Newsom, and this drove me crazy, especially
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during COVID when Newsom was a king and delivering all these nonsensical edicts. And
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you know, and what's really really fascinating about this whole situation is Elck and
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I have talked a lot about the whole COVID situation, and Alick even acknowledged,
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without really any hesitation, that my theory about what Fox should have done
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during the pandemic was right. I told him, I said, you know,
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you guys really missed an opportunity. And I had had conversations with Lizabeb
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about this, and she was still on Fox eleven here in Los Angeles at
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that time. I said, not only would you have been right if you
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had been COVID contrarian, but your ratings would have gone through the roof,
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not to mention, you would have done the right thing. And Elec basically
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agreed with that. And he had been doing a special with Doctor Drew.
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Doctor Drew, you know, the famous TV doctor who at the beginning,
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very very beginning of the pandemic was very contrary and then he got scared,
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and I believe got intimidated and completely flipped, and now he's completely flipped again
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once the smoke cleared, which is another classic case of how the media dynamic
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worked during COVID and why this all happened the way that it did. And
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so what makes Alec interesting to me is one he acknowledges reality. He is
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a nice enough guy to try to do his best. I do believe he's
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sincere, which puts him way ahead of the most of the rest of the
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morons, especially in the local media, but even now in the national news
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media. So he's sincere. He's trying to do the best he can,
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but he's incredibly liberally biased and very biased towards Gavin Newsom. So he takes
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this trip with Gavin Newsom to China. Now I don't know the circumstances of
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the trip. I would love to be able to find out more about how
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this trip came to be, because Elick apparently went by himself, which is
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another aspect of the death of journalism, because, as we're going to get
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to momentarily, there were all sorts of technical problems with Eleck's report from China.
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He acknowledges these publicly. The audio sucked the video and lighting sucked because
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he went on this trip alone, which I have to believe was a financial
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decision. That here we have the second largest market television market in the country,
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Los Angeles, the Fox affiliate, the governor goes to China, and
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either they send Elec Michaelson. I actually have a suspicion. This is purely
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just a suspicion. I have nothing to back this up, that maybe eleg
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went on the dime of the state of California, either directly or indirectly,
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or who knows, but it is the whole thing felt very weird to me.
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But he did not have a crew with him, and Elk as an
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anchor person, he's not He's not trained or qualified in these kind of situations
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to be handling the technical aspects of this. And so there were some technical
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problems, specifically with the interview that Michaelson did with Gavin Newsom. So that
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shows, by the way, the economic issues that are related to the news
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media. I mean, in the olden days, this would have been a
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situation where a television station would have been able to send two, three,
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four people, but that's not the case anymore, even in Los Angeles,
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especially if you're going to be given this kind of access to the governor of
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California as he makes this historic trip to China. And let's be clear,
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the trip to China, I think is absolutely related to a potential presidential run,
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but the fact that it's China and the fact that this was really a
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pr coup mainly for China, because Newsom was sucking up to the Chinese on
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every possible level. The only news that got broken really was the Newsom ran
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over a poor little kid playing basketball and then tried to do his best to
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make it look like it wasn't as bad as it really was. You know,
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new some claims and did claim in his interview with Alec Michaelson that,
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you know, it was great to talk to the Chinese about the number one
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face issue facing humanity, which is climate change, which of course is a
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complete ridiculousness and absurdity, and to joke, it's outrageous, it's incredibly dangerous.
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But the substantive issue there is that old Wait a minute, so then,
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what concession did you get from the Chinese governor? Do some because the
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Chinese are basically the worst offenders when it comes to what you believe is the
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religion of defending the religion of climate change, global warming. We can't do
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anything, even in theory, even if everything they say is about this is
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right, which is clearly not. You can't do anything about global warming climate
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change without India and China because they're among the worst defenders, probably the worst
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defenders, depending on how you define it. And there's no talk about any
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sort of concessions or even thought of concessions from China to go along with this
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boondoggle because they probably understand that it's a boon doggle. What's like they understand
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that COVID was a boon doggle because of course COVID originated in China. So
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you got Gavin Newsom basically doing the work for the Chinese Communist government and trying
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to bolster his own foreign policy credit in case he has to get called out
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of the bullpen to replace Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, you know, gets
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bypassed somehow, And so Elec. Michaelson finally gets his interview. He was
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over there for like a week with Gavin Newsom. He finally gets his interview
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with Gavin Newsom, and like I've already implied, the technical aspects of the
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interview a terrible. The audio is bad, the lighting is bad. But
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I'm much more concerned with the substance of the actual interview. And of course,
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you know, Eleck lets Newsom spew his garbage on China and climate change
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and all this, and then he also asks him a question about the COVID
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response. I presumably because he's in China, which was the origins of COVID.
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I guess that's in his mind was the excuse for asking Newsom a COVID
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question, which you know, Newsom has been asked very very very very few,
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if any, real questions about the response to COVID in the past three
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plus years. And let's be very clear, I've said this many times,
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but it bears repeating. There is no COVID lockdown in America, at least
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not to the extent that had occurred without Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom started at
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all by shutting down the large estate and that created the domino effect. And
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he did so based upon a complete and total lie where he claimed in a
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letter to President Trump that over twenty six million Californians would get COVID in an
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eight week period. Nothing even remotely close to that happened. And it wasn't
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because of the lockdown and the restrictions. It was because the projection was completely
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and totally absurd, which is exactly what I wrote the next morning for Mediaite
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as a senior columnist, one of the many columns I wrote in that period,
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ripping gaven Usom, all of which turned out to be basically one hundred
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percent vindicated in every possible way. So Newsom is the key person here,
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and Michaelson asks him very tepidly about what we learned and what we did right.
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Use you got to add that, you know, you can't ever say,
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but no one ever says what we got right, but you have to.
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You have to imply that we got some things right, but you know
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what, we also probably got some things wrong. And what do you think
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those things are? And so he's tepidly, and I'll give him some credit
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for at least trying. And by the way, I'm going to get to
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this momentarily, he tries to convince me in Twitter direct messages that that he
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did his best under difficult circumstances, and it even implies that he asked the
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question partially because of me, so he asked the question, Uh, but
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let me let me back up on that. As far as you know my
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role in this, I've always viewed whatever impact, very very very very little
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impact I can have as being a pain in the ass to some of these
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people. Now, you used to be able to have some packed in that
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way, because there used to be a conscience, and there at least to
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be used to be a feeling among most media people that they had to at
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least pretend to be fair. In the vast majority of cases, I have
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found that doesn't work anymore because they don't have a conscience, that they just
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don't give a shit, and there's no accountability, and we've left the gravitational
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pull of the rational Earth and none of the old rules matter anymore. But
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with Alex, he still seems to actually care. And so because of that,
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I feel like I have an obligation to just be a pain in his
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ass so that maybe, maybe, just maybe, in the right opportunity,
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the correct question or something close to the correct question will finally be asked and
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maybe something good will come of that. And so here was the effort that
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Elex made with Gavin Newsom, and this response just basically sent me over the
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edge. I also think it's not just infuriating, but it's also important because
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remember, at the end of this month, Gavin Newsom is still scheduled to
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do a debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a debate which I think is
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actually more important than anything that the Santis is likely, unfortunately to do in
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the presidential campaign, which seems doomed to Donald Trump being the nominee. And
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so from a historical standpoint, I think what DeSantis has the opportunity to do
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with Newsom is exceedingly important. But it's also, as you're going to hear
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in this clip. Although the audio sucks, you're gonna hear it's also very
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dangerous because Newsom is insidious, Newsom is a snake, and Newsom is very
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skilled at using statistics instead of arguments. He never uses any sort of logical
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argument or any semblance of rationality at all. It's always about satistics. And
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as Mark Twain allegedly famously said, there are lies, there are damn lies,
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and then there are statistics. I would have added one more category.
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There are lies, there are damn lies, there are statistics, and then
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there are Gavin Newsome statistics because those are the most insidious. And here is
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Gavin Newsom using ridiculous statistics, not answering the questions, gas lighting in the
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extreme when it comes to the issue of closing schools, trying to claim that
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he didn't close schools, which is just flat out a absolute one lie.
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And here was that key clip that when I saw on Twitter, basically sent
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me over the edge. This is Gavin Newsom in China with Fox anchor person
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Elec Michaelson. One thing that's been brought up a lot this week is COVID
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within the context of the fact that there hasn't been as much communication between the
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two countries because of COVID and because of the politics of COVID. Afterwards,
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you've thought about a lot what we did right and what we did wrong because
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there could be another pandemic. When you're a governor and you got to do
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this again, what do you think was the biggest lesson learned in terms of
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what we did wrong that maybe you would do differently the next time around.
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I I'm not consumed by what we did wrong. I'm consumed a little bit
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more about what we did right. I mean, we led the nation in
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terms of I mean, there's no large state that outperformed. California one of
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the top performing states in terms of health, wealth, and education. Let
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me be specific about that. On a per capita basis, the number of
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people lost their lives in California substantially lower in places like Texas. In Florida,
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we outperformed in wealth, We contracted at a smaller rate in twenty twenty,
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we expanded at a faster rate our economy in twenty twenty one, and
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we had less learning loss than states like Florida and elsewhere, So we outperformed
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the rest of the nation in that respect. I think we should acknowledge that.
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Number two. We all should acknowledge at the time, we didn't know
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what we didn't know, and we're experts are geniuses in hindsight, though I'm
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not sure that we're as smart as we could be, because we've never done
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the kind of exercise of humility and accountability to really look back. Right now,
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the only things that have been done to look back on what could have
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been done better or smarter are done in a partisan lens, save what we're
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trying to do in California. I led an effort about nine months ago.
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It was a year ago. Down in Sunning lens brought world experts. We
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interviewed people around the world about California's approach to COVID. We said, what
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did we do right? What do we do wrong? Convened for three days
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with these world leading experts, and we have a report that we're looking forward
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to publishing on areas where we could have proved to substantively answer that question,
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not emotionally answer that question through eight objective lens, not a partisan and some
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of it, I mean schools shut down too long. I mean in certain
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parts of the state, in certain parts of the state they were open,
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and we gave local control. Remember California's one thousand and fifty school districts.
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We have a local system, the local control funding formula to constitutional construct.
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It allows localism, and we advance localism. We don't have command and control.
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So the question is do we want to shift that policy and allow a
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dominant force in Sacramento to determine the fate of local school districts. We allowed
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that local control and in some cases it was yes, they waited too long.
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In other cases they didn't. But the point is this, if the
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purpose was to keep people in schools because we wanted to aid in their learning.
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It's an interesting fact, isn't it. The states like Florida are out
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there saying we opened up earlier, and yet they did worse in academic achievement.
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They had more learning loss in every single category, fourth grade reading,
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fourth grade math, eighth grade reading, eighth grade math. Forgiving in one
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category, we tied in every other category, Their students fared worse than in
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California. These are facts, and that's why this is not an emotional topic.
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We have to, I think, come out of this with a sense
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of humility. Absolutely I'm naive about he could have done differently or better,
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but also little grace that California tended to do a little bit better than most
20:07
other states. Now, there's so much to address in that clip, and
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I don't have the time to get into all of it, but let me
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just hit a couple of important points. First of all, on the statistics,
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and this is Newsom's go to move. He does this all the time,
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and he knows, he knows that time is very very limited and that
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usually the people questioning him are both stupid as well as in the tank for
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him. So and they're not going to be prepared to immediately rebut his bullshit
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statistics. Okay, and rebutting these statistics takes time, and oftentimes, will
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you set an interview, for instance, in an interview, you have very
20:53
limited time. Even though this wasn't live on television, but Alex told me
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he had very limited time. This is an excuse Alex uses with me all
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the time, but I understand that it's real. You have limited time,
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and if you try to interrupt, you're going to sidetrack the interview. You're
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not going to get any answer, and you're going to be in dangerous territory,
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especially when you're already on Gavin Newsom's team to begin with. So the
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statistic strategy is a very good one from Newsom. He understands what he can
21:23
get away with, and it sounds so authoritative. You know he wouldn't be
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lying well by the way, he might not technically be lying. I don't
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even know some of these stats that he's referring to with regard to the education
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results, especially comparing California to Florida. There's absolutely no possible way. I
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don't know what stats he's referring to. There's absolutely no possible way. The
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California is doing better post COVID academically than Florida is in any sort of fair
21:52
comparison. It's just it goes against all logic, all common sense, and
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frankly, the statistics I have seen with regard to California performance specifically on standardized
22:04
tests and grades has been terrible post COVID, as logic would dictate. So
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that's just a that sounded like a fabrication. But let me address the issue
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of the COVID stats. All right, this drives me crazy too. California.
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Yes, he is correct that if you look at the largest states,
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the percentage of people who died, not the wraw numbers, but the percentage
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of people who died is slightly better than other large states. Now, California
22:38
still had by far the most COVID cases, by far the most deaths,
22:41
but it has the largest population, something that Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand
22:45
every single time he claims it. Florida had the third worst numbers when it
22:51
came to COVID deaths, which is just ridiculous, especially given the age of
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Florida's population. All Right, so I fully acknowledged that what the basic of
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basics of what Newsom is saying there are true. I would one say it's
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not relevant one, because the numbers aren't dramatic enough for it to really prove
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anything. That's number one, because inherent in that is the idea that if
23:18
all these restrictions and all the lockdowns and the school closings and everything else,
23:22
if that had really made a difference, it wouldn't even be close. It
23:26
wouldn't even be close. California would be so far ahead of, for instance,
23:32
Florida that it would be stark that, you know, anybody could see
23:37
it, no matter how dumb you are, you'd be able to look at
23:40
it and go, oh my gosh, look at that. But that's not
23:42
even close to the case. It's it's actually a judgment call, you know,
23:48
it's it's a ball or a strike on the edge of the plate as
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to whether or not California did any better than Florida or anybody else. That's
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that's the fact, based upon the state and the data that we have.
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But there's a problem even in the data. There's a massive problem. A
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couple of them. Number One, we now know that California had COVID well
24:14
before anybody else did. Which makes perfect sense because obviously it came in from
24:18
Asia, and the port from Asia to the United States is California, all
24:23
right, So the scientists have proven time and time again that covid was in
24:30
California, probably in the late portion of twenty or twenty nineteen, before twenty
24:37
twenty, ever even began in that November December period. We don't start legitimately
24:42
counting covid cases and deaths until March of twenty twenty. That gave California at
24:53
least three or four months where covid is is starting to spread all of the
25:00
state where there's no data, there's nothing that effectively gave California a statistical head
25:10
start where the virus was running through California. We didn't even know it.
25:15
We weren't even noticing it. We were having all sorts of massive events in
25:19
early twenty twenty all over the state, including the Los Angeles Marathon at early
25:26
March of twenty twenty, and no one even cared or even bothered Nancy Pelosi's
25:33
telling people to come to Chinatown in San Francisco. I mean, nothing was
25:38
happening as far as we could tell. But statistically, we're not taking any
25:45
of those statistics yet, so California got a head start, so a lot
25:48
of those deaths people that would have been counted as deaths a few months later
25:53
never got counted as deaths. That's number one. Number two, it is
26:00
clear from the worldwide data that for whatever reason, people of Asian descent have
26:06
a lower vulnerability to death to COVID. Now, who knows why that is.
26:11
I have absolutely no idea. I mean, obviously it originated in China,
26:15
maybe that has something to do with it. For whatever reason, Statistically
26:21
there is an absolute correlation and seemingly a correlation between Asian people, people of
26:29
Asian descent, and lower death rates. Well, California has the highest Asian
26:33
population in the United States, over twice what the percentage of Asian population is
26:41
throughout the rest of the country, so that helped with regard to the death
26:45
numbers. And again the death numbers are not that significantly different, nowhere near
26:52
what would would would have needed to be justified by the massive catastrophicron in two
27:00
year plus lockdown that was inforced on California by our King Gavin Newsom. So
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what I just explained there is it takes a lot of time, It takes
27:15
a lot of detail, it's a lot of it's politically incorrect because you're not
27:18
allowed to reference the fact that maybe Asians for some reason had a lower vulnerability
27:25
to dying of the virus. I mean, so that's not realistic for anybody
27:30
to go, hey, wait a minute, let's take a look at that
27:33
stat that you just gave. Now, in a rational world where journalism wasn't
27:37
dead, somebody might do that later and say, hey, let's take a
27:41
look at what Gaven Newsom said. Let's fact check what Gavin Newsom said.
27:45
That's not going to happen. No one's capable of that. No one has
27:48
the agenda or the self interest to do that. They're all on his side,
27:52
especially in the media here in California, and so none of that ever
27:56
gets done. And so instead Newsom gets to lie effectively via statistics with impunity.
28:03
And I got to tell you, I'm nervous about that DeSantis debate.
28:08
This is not DeSantis' best forum. I don't trust the fact that Sean Hannity
28:12
is going to be the moderator because Hannity is a moron, and it gives
28:17
Newsome kind of the psychological advantage of Hey, I went on Foreign Soil.
28:23
It was an away game for me. I went on Fox News Channel with
28:27
Sean Hannity as the host, and I still kicked the Santus's ass because I
28:30
was spewing all these bullshit statistics that no one's ever going to correct. So
28:37
if I was advising DeSantis, this would be the the number one issue that
28:42
I would be trying to prepare him for. Is this this spewing of bullshit
28:48
statistics. There's got to be some way to combat that. And I'm I'm
28:52
not one hundred percent confident that that Newsom isn't going to be able to come
28:57
out of this victorious against the same and this basically because of lies, and
29:02
because you know, the vast majority of the mainstream news media is deeply invested
29:07
on his side, especially when it comes to COVID and and you know,
29:11
the idea that Newsome didn't shut down the schools is just embarrassing. That that
29:15
is something that absolutely positively should be fact checked and should have been fact checked
29:22
immediately by Alec Michaelson or at least by somebody else at Fox eleven once they
29:27
ran this interview. Of course, none of that happened. And when I
29:30
saw what I just played for you. I was enraged, because you know,
29:34
this has been building up for years. I've been very very patient with
29:38
Alec Michaelson because he keeps telling me, you know, I didn't get the
29:42
opportunity. I promise I'll try. I promise, I'll try. And I
29:45
immediately sent him the clip and I'm like, that was pathetic. That was
29:51
pathetic, And he didn't disagree with me. I mean, that's why I
29:56
like Alec, because he acknowledged that, you know, effectively, it wasn't
30:02
what it should have been. He claimed that he didn't have enough time,
30:04
and I'll actually read to you what he wrote to me. Covid wasn't even
30:07
supposed to be part of this conversation. I threw it in there for you
30:12
and others who won him on the record, and of course all it does
30:17
is lead to you and others criticizing me publicly for doing so. Dot dot
30:22
dot, but such is life. Now. For the record, I asked
30:27
Elec to come on the podcast. He said he would be happy to,
30:30
but he needs approval from his bosses, to which I said, well,
30:37
I'll send you the official email request, but there's no chance that you're going
30:41
to get approval to come on this podcast, if only because of the Liza
30:45
b bangle. Also, his general manager hates my guts from our time together
30:51
in Louisville, Kentucky, where I infamously dated his morning show host. So
30:56
there's no chance that Alex is gonna get approved to come on this podcast.
31:00
I sent him the email with the official, very nicely worded do a respectful
31:07
interview about the coverage of gavenusm blah blah blah, and then I asked Alex
31:11
separately to please let me know when they reject the proposal or he has not
31:18
done so yet. In fact, he hasn't even acknowledged receipt of the proposal.
31:22
But I am not holding my breath for Alex to be able to come
31:25
on this podcast to explain exactly what did and did not happen with regard to
31:30
Gavin Newsom in that situation, or frankly globally, because this has been an
31:34
ongoing problem. And then you know, there are people and I don't know
31:38
this, but this would be a question I would ask if he ever did
31:41
come on the podcast. There are people who who responded on their own when
31:45
I shared that clip that Alex might be trying to get a press secretary job
31:51
with Newsom if Newsom ever becomes president. That's not a far fetched idea because
31:56
it's very clear that whether it's conscious conscious, it's very clear that Alec likes
32:01
Gavin Newsom quite a bit. But he still has that conscience. That's why
32:05
I like him. He still has a semblance of a conscience somewhere in there
32:08
where he understands, you know, what he should be doing. He's just
32:13
not able to do it. One because in his claim of logistical concerns,
32:17
and also I believe because of his bias not just politically, but also his
32:22
bias in basically being charmed by his buddy Gavin Newsom. So you know,
32:29
that to me encapsulates so much of what's wrong with journalism. And the bottom
32:36
line is that Newsome gets away with this, He gets away with gas lighting
32:39
on the number one issue that's ever occurred in the modern history of the state
32:44
of California and probably the United States of America, which was the entire response
32:49
to COVID, and he gets this remarkable, basically pr effort on his behalf
32:58
with his his propaganda trap to China, and I absolutely positively believe that it's
33:04
at least as a backup plan to try to bolster his credentials should he need
33:10
to enter the presidential race if Joe Biden were to drop out of it.
33:16
Now, as far as the larger issue of COVID is concerned, in episode
33:22
number one hundred and one, I went through a series of very odd,
33:27
almost weird, what I would call oops stories or forgiveness stories that has suddenly
33:35
broken out into the news media regarding the reaction to the COVID panic. And
33:39
I have to say, as someone who obviously was a contrarian right from the
33:45
beginning and has been screaming bloody murder for years, that we got this totally
33:50
wrong and in a very very dangerous way that is going to change America forever
33:54
and has set up the Left to do the exact same thing with climate change
33:59
and global warming. Is Gavin Newsom is proving on almost a daily basis that
34:06
I don't have a great explanation for why this is happening. I mean,
34:08
it's it's almost strange. I don't know how to handle good news what seems
34:13
like good news after so many years of bad news on this front. But
34:19
you know, the reality is that there's there has been a lot of good
34:22
news in the last week or two when it comes to people finally realizing or
34:28
trying to acknowledge, or at least in some way acknowledging, that we screwed
34:31
it up on COVID, and I dealt with a bunch of those stories in
34:37
episode number one hundred and one. Well, there are a couple of more
34:39
that have happened since the taping of that episode. We have the New York
34:45
Intelligencer with a column written by two different people. COVID lockdowns were a giant
34:52
experiment, is their headline. It was a failure, a key lesson of
34:57
the pandemic. That's the new your intelligence or a liberal news organization. We've
35:04
got Neil Ferguson, who is not that well known in America, but in
35:09
the UK and worldwide. He had enormous influence at the beginning of COVID,
35:16
and it was his death projection, which this is going to shock you,
35:22
was way way way off that really dictated so much of the reaction, especially
35:30
in the Western world. And this guy turned out to be a fraud in
35:35
himself. He got caught breaking COVID restrictions. Everything he said was wrong,
35:40
and he got questioned this week, and he's taking the same tact that Daven
35:45
Newsom did with school closings. It's basically, who me, what lockdowns?
35:51
Me? No, No, I was just trying to tell you what I
35:53
thought might happen. I had nothing to do with the actual imp implementation of
35:59
the lockdowns, which of course is all bullshit. I mean, Fauci has
36:01
done basically the same thing, contradicting himself saying I never locked down the country.
36:07
I never, and then also having said that the country was locked down
36:12
on my on my advice. I mean, whatever fits these people's agenda at
36:16
the moment is what they're going to say. But it's remarked, we do
36:20
seem to have hit a critical mass here of stories from various different outlets that
36:27
is starting to create a counter narrative. Now, is it going to win
36:31
the day? I don't know, but I'm certainly happy to see that it's
36:35
happening. I don't have a great explanation for why it's happening from a news
36:39
standpoint. The only thing that I can think of, and this, you
36:44
know, doesn't make a lot of sense based upon the way the last three
36:46
years have gone. But it's The best I can come up with is that,
36:50
you know, a couple of months ago, they were trying to get
36:52
the band back together for one more COVID surge, and I kept saying,
36:58
what are you talking about? But there is no COVID serge, there's no
37:01
sign of this, and the data whatsoever not to mention that COVID is nowhere
37:05
near as dangerous as it was in the spring of twenty twenty. It's now
37:09
basically just a cold and there was a whole series of stories like, oh,
37:15
here comes COVID again, here comes COVID, and it did not materialize.
37:20
Nothing ever happened in the data. Now we haven't had any stories that
37:24
I've seen that said, oops, we screwed up again as far as that
37:29
specific projection. But it's possible that and maybe it's just coincidental that, you
37:37
know that one last time that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's
37:40
back type of thing where they were wrong yet again. And now some people
37:45
are going, Okay, wait a minute, you know what, when we
37:49
look back on this thing three years plus later, we screwed up. And
37:53
maybe that's the simplest answer. Maybe it's out comes razor that Over time,
38:00
the dust settles the panic subsides, people have enough time to be able to
38:06
think about this, and the few people that are capable of rational thought and
38:09
are honest enough with themselves go, you know what, we could have done
38:14
this better. I also think that there's the political aspect of this. Once
38:17
you take Donald Trump out of the equation and Tim Robbins, the actor who
38:23
is one of the few liberals who has done a real, legitimate, sincere
38:28
mia culpa on his COVID position, I thought he said this better than anybody
38:34
else. We discussed this briefly in the podcast when it happened, but he
38:37
openly admitted for all intents and purposes that there was almost a magic moment once
38:46
Trump was no longer in office, where the scales fell from his eyes.
38:52
These are my words describing what he said, and he realizes what the hell
38:55
are we doing? Because without Trump and off for a lot of liberals,
39:01
all of a sudden they were able to see reality. Now, sometimes it
39:06
took way too long. For Robbins, it seems to have been almost immediate.
39:10
But I've said from day one that the number one problem here of many
39:15
was that liberals were seeing COVID through the prism of Trump's reelection bid, and
39:21
once Trump is no longer part of the equation from a national reaction standpoint,
39:27
then all of a sudden, it's a lot easier for people to see the
39:30
truth and the reality of the situation. And I will always always believe that
39:36
Trump's influence here was far greater, far more insidious and corrupting than conservative's.
39:44
Even COVID contrarians are willing and able to understand. And Ron DeSantis, who
39:51
is now finally going after Donald Trump a little bit more harshly when it comes
39:55
to COVID response, it's probably too little, too lo. But Miron Desanders,
40:00
in a podcast interview just a couple of days ago, said this in
40:07
a very succinct and very effective and very truthful fashion. And this is something
40:13
that I had been trying to get across to people for the last several years,
40:17
which is it wasn't just that Trump shit the bed in the initial panic
40:23
and and gave up his presidency to Fauci, which was huge. I mean,
40:28
he addocated effectively the authority of his presidency to Fauci. He put Fauci
40:34
out on a massive, massive stage, made him into a huge celebrity.
40:37
That's what gave him media power and for all intensive purposes. It was the
40:43
you know, the most devastating trojan horse situation in the modern history of politics,
40:47
where Fauci ends up becoming for all intensive purposes the facto president and Trump
40:55
is essentially out of office and flailing. But it was even worse than that
41:01
because to the extent that Trump was seen it's Trump got the worst of both
41:07
worlds. He was seen by the left as the guy who was claiming that
41:12
we should put bleach into our bloodstream, which he never actually said, although
41:15
what he said was stupid. But you know, he was seen by the
41:19
left as the anti science guy, the anti mask guy, which is why
41:23
they loved masks. If Trump had mandated masks, liberals would never ever have
41:30
been into masks. Ever, that's one hundred percent fact. But he,
41:35
you know, he was so he was seen by the left as the anti
41:37
science guy. Yet to the extent that he was on Fauci's team, which
41:44
he was at various points, especially early on in the pandemic, and even
41:50
you know, towards the end of his own presidency is Desantus is going to
41:52
tell you here in just a moment that made it much much more difficult Republicans
42:00
nationwide to reverse course because the median narrative was, well, even Donald Trump
42:12
is against what these idiot Republicans are trying to do in states like Georgia and
42:17
Florida and South Dakota, even Donald Trump, and that's devastating. It's devastating
42:23
from a median narrative standpoint. It's even devastating from the cult perspective because Trump
42:29
runs a cult. And so if if your cult and the cult was I'm
42:32
sure confused as hell during COVID because Trump was saying something different every third day.
42:37
But if even your cult in the middle of a panic isn't one hundred
42:42
percent on your side because they think they're supposed to be listening to Donald Trump
42:45
and not to you, it diminishes your base of support when you're trying to
42:52
do something incredibly courageous and dramatic, like be the first or one of the
42:58
first states to open up in the midst of this, you know, alleged
43:02
horrendous worldwide pandemic. And Ronda Santis gets this because he lived it, and
43:08
Ronda Santis probably too little too late, I think this should have been right
43:14
at the beginning of the campaign. This should have been the campaign theme if
43:16
you were you know, it may not have worked, but at least it
43:20
would have had a shot, and at least it would have been based in
43:22
truth. So what you're gonna hear here is Ron de Santis effectively making the
43:28
exact same argument that I've made for years when it came to the issue of
43:32
Donald Trump. And it also this, this SoundBite is an important one from
43:37
the standpoint of how different the Santus administration would have theoretically been when it came
43:44
to accountability for those that were wrong about COVID's something that Donald Trump cannot and
43:52
would not be part of it even if he got elected, because he was
43:55
literally a huge part of the original COVID panic. So here is Ron DeSantis
44:00
on that podcast to which I referred though it was a very tough season where
44:06
you know, even Obama by none of these guys had prepared for a pandemic.
44:09
The only one that knew a pandemic was coming was a guy nam Bill
44:12
Gates. Everybody else as well, Well, yeah, but here's the thing,
44:15
you don't know that's true, And I think there was a lot of
44:17
uncertainty in March of twenty twenty. The question is what about November of twenty
44:22
twenty, December, January of twenty twenty that should he have done? What
44:27
should you? He should have fired Fauci. He should have held these people
44:30
accountable for being wrong, for lying to the public on all these different issues.
44:36
The corrupt medical swamp in DC was a total disaster. I'll tell you
44:40
what they also shouldn't have done. January of twenty twenty one, last few
44:45
weeks in office, they're sending me missives from the White House Task Force saying,
44:50
impose a mask mandate close restaurants. Dude, And I'm just thinking to
44:53
myself. And the media here would use it as fodder. They would say
44:57
decantus is not following the Trump White House Task Force, and I wasn't.
45:01
That's a true, but they use the media use that as a wedge.
45:05
So I think that the whole faucty. And here's I think the issue for
45:08
the election going forward is I'm the only one running that is talking about bringing
45:13
accountability for what happened to this country during COVID. It's one thing to make
45:16
a judgment call that's wrong, but it's another thing to ignore evidence. It's
45:21
another thing to lie when you tell people like CDC did that if you take
45:25
an m and RA shot, you will not get COVID, and you still
45:29
stand by that when it's obvious that people are getting it. When you're having
45:32
the FDA approve an m and RA shot for six month old babies where there's
45:37
no evidence that that's benefiting them. This is a swamp. This needs to
45:43
be cleared out. I will do that. Here's a concern. So many
45:45
great points there by Ronda Sanders, but I just really want to emphasize what
45:50
he said there about how the media used Trump to intimidate Republican governors and local
45:59
officials, and rond de Santis, to his credit, was not intimidated.
46:04
But even to the very end of the Trump administration, they were still trying
46:09
to get Rond de Santis to get back on board with the COVID restriction bullshit,
46:16
including mask mandates. I mean mask mandates. In January of twenty twenty
46:24
one. We already knew way before then that mask mandates didn't do anything,
46:30
But by then we had almost a year of unprecedented real world data proving that
46:37
mask mandates do absolutely positively nothing, and the Trump administration was wrong, and
46:45
they were used as a weapon by the media against Republicans like Brian Kemp and
46:52
like Rond De Santis, who were trying and eventually did do the right thing
46:59
to save the country from this catastrophe. And Trump deserves blame for that.
47:05
But of course the right wing media won't make that argument because they don't want
47:09
to offend the Trump cult because that would imperil their business model and are there
47:15
in lies the problem and there in lies the death of journalism. But I
47:21
do have to get back to this very for me unusually optimistic standpoint and viewpoint,
47:28
that is it possible that we're now winning this argument? Is rationality actually
47:35
winning the COVID argument? I don't want to. I'm very hesitant to come
47:40
to any optimistic conclusions about anything in life, especially in this realm. And
47:46
I don't think we're anywhere near one hundred percent winning yet. But it does
47:51
feel like we may be in a position to where at least if it happens
47:57
again. And by the way, I to mention this during the Michaelson Newsome
48:01
interview, what the hell was Michaelson doing referencing that we could have another pandemic
48:07
during Newsom's second term in office, which only has three years left. What
48:13
the hell are you doing planning that seat, Alec? That would definitely be
48:15
something that I would ask him if he ever came on this podcast. But
48:19
the point is, you know, my great concern has always been what happens
48:22
the next time they try this. Of course I've already said many many times,
48:29
they already are trying it, just in the realm of climate change,
48:31
global warming, which is way way more difficult to disprove than the issue of
48:39
COVID and the restrictions related to that, because the data is much much better
48:45
and much more real time, and climate change is the is the perfect branding
48:52
now because no matter what happens in the weather or the climate, it's evidence
48:57
that they're right. It's literally impossible to disprove. But when it comes to
49:02
the legacy of the reaction to COVID, I do think there's now a foothold,
49:08
at the very least, there's a foothold that if in fact, something
49:12
like this is tried in this same realm again that I do think there's going
49:16
to be a hell of a lot more pushback, and it's going to be
49:19
a hell of a lot more difficult to duplicate the same thing, which might
49:22
be why they're not doing it in the form of a virus, but rather
49:27
in the form of climate change global warming. Climate change global warming gives them
49:31
way more economic power in the long run and is much much much more difficult
49:37
to disprove and combat than would happened with regard to COVID. But there's still
49:45
important points to be made here, and there's still some progress that seemingly has
49:49
been made with regard to the legacy and the ultimate lessons of COVID, And
49:57
I have to say that one of the reasons why our side is now starting
50:02
to score some points, why there's a foothold, why there's traction, why
50:07
it is that the next time won't be nearly as easy for them as it
50:14
was in twenty twenty, is because of Elon Musk. Now, I've been
50:19
very critical of Elon Musk at times. I'm very very conflicted about Elon Musk.
50:24
I think that he is a very smart guy. I think he seems
50:29
well intentioned, but I also I don't trust people in general. But I
50:34
don't trust him partially because I think he's so damn busy and he has his
50:38
fingers and so many different pots, and there's nobody around him to tell him
50:43
this is a bad idea because he's he's so rich, and he's so powerful,
50:46
and he's so famous, and he seems to make decisions by the seat
50:51
of his pants. He seems reckless at times. He's very unpredictable. He'll
50:55
change his mind on a dime, which can be both good and bad.
51:00
I hate the way that he handled Ron de Santis's announcement. I was very
51:05
very critical of him for that. That felt like him being reckless and having
51:09
Twitter do something they weren't prepared to do, and I think it very much
51:14
damaged the Ron de Santis brand and the presidential campaign. Was it the reason
51:19
why Trump's going to be the nominee? No, But Musk has done lots
51:22
of things that, either directly or indirectly, has helped the Trump campaign.
51:27
The promotion of Tucker Carlson by Elon Musk, which he probably sees as in
51:32
his self injuriest because he wants Twitter or x to become a video platform and
51:38
Tucker helps that agenda. But there's no question that the promotion of Tucker Carlson
51:45
after his firing from Fox News channel helped the narrative of the Trump campaign,
51:52
and of course Elon Musk brought Trump back to Twitter, which he's only used
51:57
once and that was to show his infamous mugshot. But there's been all sorts
52:00
of things that Musk has done, either intentionally or unintentionally, directly or indirectly,
52:05
that have helped Donald Trump. So you know, I have lots of
52:08
reasons to be very skeptical of Elon Musk. I want to like him,
52:15
and he did an interview with Joe Rogan which was very There were so many
52:22
aspects of this interview that are amazing, and I'm going to play actually two
52:25
rather long clips from this interview, mainly because it's just so golden, and
52:32
also because I think it's so brilliant. I mean, there's so many elements
52:37
of Elon Musk that I like, and he at times really is super smart,
52:45
especially for a guy, you know, who didn't grow up in the
52:49
same culture as certainly as I did, and yet he understands American liberalism exceedingly
52:58
well. And he has some in sites into American liberalism that I think are
53:05
really really important. And Musk did this interview with Joe Rogan now here we
53:09
have, you know, the richest man in the world and the guy with
53:13
the most probably influential podcast in the world. And the video of this is
53:19
particularly funny because it's Halloween and Rogan is wearing a blonde wig, and it's
53:25
clear that I think both of them are are high on something, whether it's
53:32
it's marijuana or whatever. And I'm not sure what Musk is drinking during this
53:38
interview, but they are both exceedingly relaxed, and that in this particular case
53:46
allowed for some really brilliant insights. And there are two basic subjects that they
53:53
tackle that I want to share with you. The first clip deals with the
53:58
issue of why e Elon Musk bought Twitter, which I think is absolutely positively
54:06
a huge part of why it is that the legacy of COVID is going to
54:12
be more historically accurate than I had feared a couple of years ago. And
54:17
it's very clear after you listened to these two clips that had Elon Musk owned
54:22
Twitter in early twenty twenty, that the COVID response would have been vastly,
54:31
vastly different, because the left and the COVID lockdown people would have lost a
54:38
massive bullhorn and the contrarian people would have had a fair shot and would not
54:46
have been censored, and the truth may have had a real chance of winning
54:52
because there would have been legitimate resistance. See, that's the only way that
54:55
the COVID panic could win was if there was no reason existence. And when
55:00
Trump abdicated, that ended all real resistance. Well, if Musk had own
55:07
Twitter back in early twenty twenty, I really do believe history would have been
55:14
very, very different. Now, the cynic in me listens to what you're
55:17
about to hear, and I go, here's a guy who appears to be
55:22
high, who is at least somewhat rationalizing a horrendous business decision in buying Twitter.
55:30
Now, I mean, imagine being rich enough to where you could buy
55:34
this massive I don't even what you call it media platform, lose tens and
55:40
tens of billions of dollars. I mean, he way overpaid for Twitter.
55:46
I said this at the time, I mean to a ridiculous degree. Now,
55:51
is it possible he may end up turning it into something in the long
55:53
run that's different than what it is, and it may end up making him
55:57
a boatload of money. Sure that's possible, but as of right now,
56:01
This is the guy who lost tens of billions of dollars, both in overpaying
56:07
for Twitter at the time and then loss of value of Twitter, partially because
56:12
of the laf's attacks on their advertisers. But there's no question from a purely
56:16
financial standpoint, buying Twitter was a terrible decision. But Musk has so much
56:22
money he doesn't seem to care. And so there's part of me that when
56:27
I listen to this, I go, this is a guy who's coming up
56:30
with a much better narrative to explain why he made this horrible business decision.
56:35
That's the cynic in me, The romantic in me thinks, wow, this
56:39
is awesome. This is a guy who has so much money he just doesn't
56:44
care that he made a terrible business decision, and he believes that it was
56:47
in the best interest of humanity for him to buy Twitter. Now the truth
56:52
is probably, as is usually the case, somewhere in the middle. But
56:57
I very much enjoyed these two clips. This is the first one with Joe
57:01
Rogan and Elon Musk on why he bought Twitter and the real motivations and the
57:07
real impact of that purchase. What was it ultimately that led you to make
57:14
the decision to do it. I mean, this is going to sound somewhat
57:23
melodramatic, but I was worried about that it was having a corrosive effect on
57:29
civilization, that it was just having a bad impact. And I think part
57:39
of it is that it's where it's where it was located, which is,
57:43
you know, downtown San Francisco. And while I think San Francisco is a
57:47
beautiful city and which should really fight hard to kind of write the ship of
57:53
San Francisco, if you've walked around downtown San Francisco, right near the x
57:59
f K Twitter headquarters, it's a zombie apocalypse. I mean, it's rough
58:04
if you have been in that area, not lately. I've heard it's crazy.
58:08
I've heard it's crazy. I've heard you really can't believe it until you
58:12
actually go there. You can't believe until you go there. So you have
58:15
to say, well, what philosophy led to that outcome? And that philosophy
58:20
was being piped to earth, So, you know, a philosophy that would
58:25
be ordinarily quite niche and geographically constrained so that that sort of the fallout area
58:32
would be limited, was effectively given an information a weapon. Information technology weapon
58:44
to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of both. And
58:49
the outcome of that mind virus is very clear. If you walk around the
58:52
streets of downtown San Francisco, it is the end of civilization. And it's
58:57
not just propagating the mind virus but suppressing any opposing viewpoints. Yes, well,
59:04
in order for the virus to propagate, it must suppress posing viewpoints.
59:07
So because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, correct, Yeah, I mean
59:13
you, I mean you've you've felt the virus. Yeah. Yeah, people
59:19
will try to cancel you so many times. That's fascinating. Yeah. Now,
59:22
I don't think you're melodramatic at all. I now the second clip I
59:27
want to play from Rogan and Musk is even a little bit longer, but
59:31
it's no less glorious. And it starts off dealing specifically with the issue of
59:37
COVID and and Musk drops a few nuggets that, based upon his reading of
59:45
reality having purchased a company, that that things before he took over were even
59:51
worse than we realize when it comes to the issue of censorship. But maybe
59:55
the most interesting thing about what Musk says deals with liberal elites and specifically Silicon
1:00:04
Valley and the impact that Silicon Valley has or had, which is so completely
1:00:09
outsized to what it should be. And this goes kind of to one of
1:00:15
the topics I discuss a lot on this podcast, which is the influence of
1:00:19
California and how California and it's very corrupted, cancerous culture tends to shift like
1:00:28
the weather does, from west to east, and that it takes over you
1:00:32
sometimes usually skips over flyover country, but from the west coast to the east
1:00:38
coast, and then the walls seem to be closing in on the middle of
1:00:43
the country, the California cation of the country itself. And that's even before
1:00:47
Gavin Newsom runs for president. And so the influence of a relatively small number
1:00:54
of people in a very small area of California is completely and totally outsized.
1:01:00
And Musk's evaluation one of that reality and to why it is I found to
1:01:07
be fascinating and important, and so I'm gonna play a much longer clip than
1:01:14
I normally would, but here is once again Joe Rogan and Elon Musk.
1:01:17
That was one of the things about the old Twitter was the propaganda and the
1:01:24
adherence to whatever the CDC was saying, and the dismissing of legitimate scientists,
1:01:32
guys like Jay Battachara from Stanford and legit guys. Yes, and they were
1:01:38
suppressing them and even banning them. They banned Alex Berenson. I mean it
1:01:44
was wild. They banned Alex for essentially reading peer reviewed papers. Yeah.
1:01:51
No, I mean all Twitter was basically an on of the government. Yeah,
1:01:55
So was that shocking? Like what was that like? Because that,
1:01:59
to me that was the most bizarre was the Twitter files when you let Schellenberger
1:02:02
and Matt Taibe and all those guys get into Twitter and the response where Matt
1:02:07
Taibi gets audited, I mean, which is just wild. I mean it's
1:02:12
just so blatant and so in your face. Yeah, that's weird. No,
1:02:15
I mean yeah, the really which and by the way, Jack didn't
1:02:22
really know this, but the reader which Twitter was simply an arm of the
1:02:27
government, was not well understood by the public and it was there was no
1:02:32
it was whatever the official government. It was like Pravda basically, you know,
1:02:37
it's a state publication. It's the way to think of old Twitter.
1:02:39
It's a state publication. And was the justification from their perspective that they are
1:02:45
progressive liberals. They have the right intentions. It's important that they stay in
1:02:51
power. The progressive liberals stay in government and power because this is the this
1:02:55
is their There was there was, uh, basically oppression of any any views
1:03:04
that would even I would say could be considered middle of the road, but
1:03:07
certainly anything on the right. I'm talking about like like far right. I'm
1:03:13
just talking mildly right. The people like Republicans were suppressed at ten times the
1:03:16
rate of Democrats. Now that's because old Twitter was fundamentally controlled by the far
1:03:23
left. It was like completely controlled by the far left. And that's why
1:03:30
I say, like, like San Francisco Berkeley is a niche ideology. It's
1:03:35
hard to say, like is there a place that's more far left than San
1:03:37
Francisco Berkeley? Maybe Portland, maybe Portland. But it's like it's a great
1:03:42
yeah, It's like it's like it's those two places one of the most far
1:03:47
left places in America. Yes. So from their standpoint, everything is to
1:03:53
the right, including moderates right right. So now if you internalize a far
1:04:01
left position, everything seems wrong to you that if that is not far left
1:04:09
right, And so they naturally oppressed any anything that didn't agree with their views.
1:04:15
That's why I say that it was an accidental far left information weapon.
1:04:20
So uh, because it's like Silicon Valley attracts the smartest engineers, the smartest
1:04:29
sort of technologists and programmers from around the world. They created an information weapon
1:04:35
that was then harnessed by the far left, who could not themselves create the
1:04:40
weapon, but happened to be collocated where the technologists were. It happened to
1:04:45
be aligned politically with the people that possessed it. The technologists generally are moderate
1:04:50
maybe moderate left, but they're they're not they're they're they're not far left.
1:04:56
That's why I say San Francisco Berkeley, it's it's it doesn't even extend to
1:05:00
South San Francisco or even to Palo Alto. So so s F Berkeley is
1:05:04
the most far left, perhaps you know, in a competition with Portland.
1:05:10
But I'd say SF Berkeley is more far left even than Portland. That like,
1:05:14
literally in America, it's we're talking about an area that's maybe a ten
1:05:18
mile radius, and so that the normally the the effects, the negative effects
1:05:25
of a far left ideology, that is, would be geographically limited. To
1:05:29
a ten mile radius. That's like not it's small, Like any Any bad
1:05:34
effects of that ideology would be geographically constrained under normal circumstances, and have been
1:05:41
in the past. But when you have basically a technology technological megaphone, which
1:05:48
which was quitterrant and social media in general, suddenly the far left are handed
1:05:55
a megaphone to earth at an incredibly powerful technology weapon that they themselves could not
1:06:01
create, but they happen to be co located with the technologists who created it
1:06:09
by accident. I hope you enjoyed both of those clips as much as I
1:06:14
did. Again, partially it's because I think both of them are at least
1:06:15
somewhat high, and I do find it interesting because Rogan to me is the
1:06:21
ultimate gut guy. Like, he's not very intelligent, he's not particularly articulate,
1:06:29
but he's got a very good gut, and Musk is so cerebral,
1:06:34
and yet their chemistry seems to be really good. Again, that can happen
1:06:39
when you're both high, I guess. But what Musk said there, I
1:06:43
thought was brilliant and dead on and gives me at least some semblance of hope.
1:06:50
I'm always looking for some semblance of hope when sifting through the carnage and
1:06:56
the muck of the daily news cycle, which can be incredibly depressing. But
1:07:02
I do think that that Musk is at least a guy who is well intentioned.
1:07:06
You could not as cynical as I am. You cannot do and say
1:07:12
the things that Musk did those two clips without at least being somewhat sincere.
1:07:18
Now, will you know the impact be what he wants? Will he make
1:07:23
mistakes? I'm sure he absolutely will. I think he already has, especially
1:07:26
with regard to Donald Trump. You know, if Trump were to become president
1:07:30
again, it would be very interesting to see how Musk would would handle things.
1:07:34
And again, I'm always going to be a cynic. You know,
1:07:38
Elon Musk is benefiting tremendously from having purchased Twitter from his own selfish perspective,
1:07:45
because he has a massive megaphone for any cause that he is in favor of,
1:07:50
as well as a huge incentive for any media outlet to do a pro
1:07:57
Elon Musk story, because all they have to do is put it out there.
1:08:01
Musk shares it on Twitter, it gets tens of millions of views,
1:08:06
and that media atlet wins for the day, the week, or the month.
1:08:11
It's basically the same phenomenon that used to happen with the Drudge Report.
1:08:15
There were news media outlets during the heyday of the Drudge Report that would do
1:08:19
stories that they knew Matt Drudge would like so that he would link to them,
1:08:25
which would give them massive traffic on that particular day or that particular week,
1:08:30
and that that would be a win for them. So Musk is going
1:08:34
to get a lot of benefit from owning Twitter that he's not acknowledging there.
1:08:40
It's not a purely altruistic endeavor for him to throw away tens of billions of
1:08:45
dollars on this, but I will acknowledge that as of right now, especially
1:08:50
since it seems like the COVID narrative is at least somewhat changing in the positive
1:08:55
and truth based direction, I will give him at least some credit for that,
1:09:00
and it gives me hope for the future in preventing anything like that from
1:09:04
happening again. Now, I wish you would get on board more strongly when
1:09:08
it comes to climate change global warming, because I really do believe that that
1:09:12
is the next battlefield. Now. I promised at the top of the podcast
1:09:16
that I would tell the story of our Halloween experience at the Ziggler House.
1:09:21
And you know, a lot of my stories tend to have negative endings,
1:09:28
this one, I think as a pretty good ending and one that I think
1:09:30
also illustrates a larger reality for what we're facing, especially when it comes to
1:09:36
the holidays. But here's the basic story. Halloween is a very important day
1:09:42
in the Zigler family. I have two daughters who love to dress up,
1:09:46
not unusual. I have a wife who has always loved Halloween from the time
1:09:53
she was a very little child, largely because she was not allowed to have
1:09:56
candy at any other time than Halloween, which is something that I think has
1:10:00
been lost in the modern Halloween. We've kind of watered down. We watered
1:10:03
down everything in our culture, but we've watered down the magic of Halloween because
1:10:09
getting candy is not a big deal anymore, and even the trigger treating aspect
1:10:15
of this is not that big of a deal anymore, because there's all sorts
1:10:16
of other events. There's trunk or treating and events in local parks, and
1:10:23
we elongate everything, and you know, it used to be that, you
1:10:27
know, Halloween was basically a two hour tops window where you know that was
1:10:31
the only time you were going to get candy during the whole year, and
1:10:35
you had to make the best of it. That's not really the case anymore,
1:10:41
although much to my pleasant surprise, based upon our experience this year,
1:10:45
trigger treating, even in the suburbs of Los Angeles, is still alive and
1:10:50
well. And I like the trigger treating aspect of this. Not because I
1:10:55
enjoy the trigger treating. I mean as a dad, you know, I'm
1:10:59
just there for my kids to have a good time, and it's a little
1:11:02
bit of a pain in the neck. There's a lot of nervousness surrounding things
1:11:05
that could go wrong. But I'm someone who loves the communal experience of the
1:11:10
whole thing. I'm basically always rooting for communal experiences in this day and age,
1:11:15
because I think our country, especially here in California, has a dearth
1:11:19
of them. They're fading fast. I talk all the time about media fragmentation
1:11:26
taking away communal experiences. All we have left is basically the Super Bowl.
1:11:30
I've even rooted for before I started to hate the NFL, rooted for the
1:11:35
ratings of the Super Bowl to be as high as possible because at least for
1:11:40
four or five hours one Sunday every year, We're all on the same page,
1:11:45
doing the same thing. We're united, at least in a very small
1:11:49
and small way for a short period of time. There are very few situations
1:11:55
like that in America anymore, and very very few situations where you get out
1:12:00
into your community and you meet strangers and you know, we're all sharing the
1:12:04
same communal experience. So that from that standpoint, I like trigger treating,
1:12:11
and because my kids like it, you know that that gives me some semblance
1:12:15
of joy as well. However, thanks to COVID, which is the theme
1:12:18
of this entire episode of the podcast, I guess I have PTSD when it
1:12:25
comes to Halloween. I didn't fully realize how much PTSD I had with regard
1:12:30
to Halloween until this particular year, which I'll explain momentarily. But back in
1:12:38
twenty twenty, you know, Halloween, late October October thirty first, twenty
1:12:43
twenty, well after we should have moved on from COVID restrictions, we had
1:12:48
Halloween as we normally do, which was always to go to my wife's home
1:12:56
or her childhood home where her parents still live Glendale, California, where their
1:13:02
neighborhood is one of those neighborhoods that really goes all out for Halloween, that
1:13:06
basically there's a street that essentially there's ninety percent participation. Almost everybody goes to
1:13:14
great lens to decorate their house, everybody's outside giving candy, and there's a
1:13:20
massive crowd of trigger treaters. So instead of having to guess or is this
1:13:26
house open, is this house not open? Which can be very difficult at
1:13:30
times, you know, basically, there's one street where everybody knows. Essentially
1:13:34
everybody's giving away candy and you're going to have basically a party. And that
1:13:39
had always been our Halloween experience ever since we had kids. But in twenty
1:13:45
twenty, we knew that there was not going to be the same Halloween experience.
1:13:53
And I'm still this day, I'm never one hundred percent sure, you
1:13:56
know, was this a communication error because I'm dealing with elderly grandparents of my
1:14:01
kids who didn't do a great job of reconnaissance, or was this a situation
1:14:06
where no one wanted to fully admit that they were caving in to COVID and
1:14:13
not doing Halloween that year, or somewhere in between. But anyway, bottom
1:14:19
line was, we had very low expectations. We knew that there wasn't going
1:14:24
to be the normal Halloween experience, even though it should have been in twenty
1:14:30
twenty. But and while I had fears that it was going to be a
1:14:33
disaster, even I was stunned by what a complete and total disaster Halloween twenty
1:14:40
twenty was. I mean it was. It was brutal. It was gut
1:14:45
wrenching, especially considering the fact that it was Diana, my younger daughters,
1:14:49
essentially her first Halloween. She's three years old and God lover her. I
1:14:54
mean, what she put up with that first Halloween. I can't believe she
1:14:58
doesn't hate Halloween. Amazing, because I mean, my daughters had doors literally
1:15:02
slammed in their face from houses that were fully decorated for Halloween. How dare
1:15:09
you come to our house during a COVID pandemic. Akay, this is late
1:15:15
October by this point, and by the way, it should also be pointed
1:15:17
out this was a time period where COVID was at very very low levels in
1:15:23
Los Angeles to begin with, not to mention that we're outside and all these
1:15:26
other things. It was all insane, And so this was a really really,
1:15:32
really bad experience that had a massive impact on me. I mean,
1:15:39
I was enraged, I was sad for my daughters. I was incredibly depressed
1:15:45
about the state of society. And I was also very very concerned about what
1:15:51
it was going to mean for Christmas, because you know, Halloween is a
1:15:57
big deal, but that's nothing compared to Christmas. And I've told this story
1:16:00
before, so I'm not going to go into all the details of it.
1:16:03
It's a great story. Maybe I'll tell it again and it's full glory as
1:16:09
we get closer to Christmas. But the short version of the story is that
1:16:14
because of the horrible experience of Halloween and twenty twenty, I knew that I
1:16:20
needed to do something to try to save Christmas. And specifically in our neighborhood,
1:16:28
we have an area on a couple of different streets that really go all
1:16:32
out on the Christmas lights. It's a whole thing. And you know,
1:16:38
for basically twenty five nights a year, from December first through Christmas, maybe
1:16:43
a couple days after Christmas. You know, this is something that people do
1:16:45
every single night. Now, no one does it as much as we do,
1:16:49
and that's our entire December. Any night where the weather allows and we
1:16:54
don't have anything else going on, we go walking those lights. It's a
1:16:58
huge part of our Christmas celebration and it's something that we do as a family
1:17:03
for the basically the entire month of December. And I knew post Halloween that
1:17:10
that tradition was going to be in big trouble, especially since I knew that
1:17:14
the house that had started that whole thing was a huge Biden supporter because they
1:17:18
had a massive Biden flag outside their house, and so I knew that house
1:17:24
wasn't going to do it. I just knew it. And so I knew
1:17:29
that there was going to be a movement to kill the Christmas lights. It's
1:17:31
insane as that seems, especially in retrospect. And so what I did was
1:17:36
I with my daughter Grace, who was what I guess seven or eight years
1:17:43
old at the time, we constructed a letter that was based on the idea
1:17:50
that this was like literally the day after Halloween, two days after Halloween,
1:17:56
you know, basically telling the story of our terrible Halloween experience and how important
1:18:01
the Christmas lights were to us, and that could you please consider continuing the
1:18:08
Christmas light tradition this year and then Grace, my daughter signed all these letters.
1:18:16
We put it on, you know, Christmas the stationery, and she
1:18:20
even from memory, had you know, remembered some of the houses and what
1:18:27
their normal Christmas display was, and she put little pictures of those at the
1:18:30
bottom of the letter. And so as a family, we went out and
1:18:34
to each and every one of these houses, at least as many as we
1:18:36
could get to. We put these letters in their mailboxes, basically pleading on
1:18:43
behalf of this eight year old girl to please do Christmas lights again. And
1:18:53
it worked. It worked remarkably well, so well that when we finally did
1:19:00
that first walk of the lights, much to my surprise, because I was
1:19:05
really nervous. I was really nervous. I mean, I knew the Biden
1:19:10
lady wasn't going to do it, and she was a cornerstone at keystone to
1:19:12
the whole thing. But virtually every other house, in fact, even some
1:19:16
houses that hadn't done it previously participated that particular year. And one house even
1:19:24
created and made it as the centerpiece of their Christmas display of their Christmas lights
1:19:30
a sign that said Merry Christmas, Grace, referencing our daughter and the letter
1:19:36
that they had gotten and we had people that cried when we met them over
1:19:42
the letter and you know how much it meant to them, and blah blah
1:19:46
blah. So that was really an extraordinary experience and one of the very very
1:19:54
few things that went right in twenty twenty because of what ended up happening with
1:19:59
the Ristmas lights. So now fast forward to Halloween twenty twenty three. My
1:20:04
wife's mother, my wife's parents are hanging in there, but they're not doing
1:20:10
well physically. My wife's mother, who normally hosts us for Halloween so that
1:20:15
we can go to this community Halloween event, made it clear that she was
1:20:18
just too tired to do it this year. And you know, obviously,
1:20:24
once you make that decision, that's usually it. That's usually the end of
1:20:28
that particular tradition, because you know, if you're not able to do it
1:20:31
this year, then why are you going to be able to do it next
1:20:34
year? And of course, now Grace is eleven years old, and you
1:20:39
know, we're running out halloweens and real fast. And so for me it
1:20:45
was weird because my wife didn't seem to be that sad about it, but
1:20:48
for me, I was sad about it because we had this whole tradition,
1:20:51
you know that where my daughters come down their staircase once they have dressed in
1:20:56
their Halloween costumes, and we take videos of the whole thing, know,
1:21:00
and Grace really loved that whole that whole scene. She's a very she's a
1:21:03
drama queen, so she and she's super into every year's costume and and so
1:21:10
that wasn't going to happen this year, which was kind of sad, but
1:21:13
my wife was My wife was actually like, you know what, it's better
1:21:16
that we ended while my parents are still alive than to have it be associated
1:21:20
with their deaths. I'm like, okay, all right, that kind of
1:21:24
makes sense. And so we need a new plan. And the plan that
1:21:30
we were creating, and our neighborhood where we live is very poorly designed for
1:21:36
Halloween. It's almost like someone hated Halloween because you can't get to the front
1:21:42
door of anybody in our direct neighborhood without not, you know, knocking on
1:21:46
a gate or it's just very inconvenient. And we didn't know what to do.
1:21:53
And Grace has a best friend she wanted to go Halloweening with a trick
1:21:56
or treating with and that was creating all all sorts of confusion and consternation.
1:22:03
And I realized I was starting to have flashbacks to twenty twenty because I'm also
1:22:09
well aware, as I've already alluded to, you know, at eleven years
1:22:13
old, even though Grace loves Halloween, you know, we're down to the
1:22:15
end here. This is this is it. We got maybe one or two
1:22:18
more, you know, full on halloweens. It might be extended slightly because
1:22:23
she has a younger sister in Diana, but you know, I really I
1:22:28
want to make sure that this doesn't end in disaster. And I have all
1:22:31
these fears that are still latent in my brain from the twenty twenty COVID experience,
1:22:38
and so I'm expressing my concerns. Is a couple of days before Halloween.
1:22:44
I'm expressing my concerns at the dinner table that you know why I'm worried
1:22:49
about what might happened this year on Halloween, and I reference the twenty twenty
1:22:57
disaster. And this was one of those moments that, you know, very
1:23:01
rare moments that makes you feel like, Okay, maybe I'm doing something right
1:23:05
as a dad. Because Grace comes up to me and says unprovoked and with
1:23:13
no reference to the story I've already told you, she says to me.
1:23:17
But Dad, if we hadn't had the Halloween experience in twenty twenty, we
1:23:26
wouldn't have saved Christmas. Wow, Okay, that's great, all right.
1:23:39
So so at least Grace remembers that finally, probably because the sign that gets
1:23:45
put up. That sign has been up there every single year since so and
1:23:50
it's apparently such a big deal to the people who made the Merry Christmas Grace
1:23:55
sign in the Christmas display that we wrote them another last year saying, look,
1:24:00
we understand if you don't want to keep doing this, you know,
1:24:05
don't feel any obligation to do so, but we'd like to have the sign,
1:24:11
and they wrote back to us saying, yeah, we appreciate the letter,
1:24:14
but we want to keep doing this. So hopefully, presumably once again
1:24:20
in this particular Christmas season, we're going to get the Merry Christmas Grace sign
1:24:25
at the centerpiece of one of the Christmas displays on our nightly walk, which
1:24:29
I'm sure we'll make Grace very happy. But the fact that Grace remembered it
1:24:34
and also put it together in that way because that's an important lesson in life.
1:24:39
That's an important lesson in life because sometimes things that happen that are bad
1:24:44
actually turn out to be pretty good, and oftentimes things that seem good at
1:24:48
the time in the end turnout to be pretty bad. So she not only
1:24:54
remembered and connected the Covid situation to what happened with Christmas, but she also
1:25:00
think has learned at least ovidly learned that important lesson with regard to how things
1:25:04
can often turn out the opposite of the way it seems that they might.
1:25:10
It also raises another issue, which deals with the nature of holidays and how
1:25:15
they are changing. Because this morning I did not making this one up either.
1:25:24
This morning, Grace comes into my room at the Krack of DoD and
1:25:29
says to me, in a couple of days, it'll officially be Christmas.
1:25:35
And I'm thinking, how the hell did we get to this point where Christmas,
1:25:41
which used to start on Black Friday after Thanksgiving, or at the very
1:25:45
least, you know, when Santa Claus makes his appearance at the end of
1:25:49
the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that used to be the mark for when Christmas begins.
1:25:57
Now I'm seeing on Twitter, people are already talking about it's Christmas season
1:26:01
the day after Halloween. In fact, that might end up being what Halloween
1:26:06
becomes is the beginning of Christmas season to a lot of people. And this,
1:26:12
to me is a classic example of the slippery slope which I talk about
1:26:16
all the time. This is how change gets made in society without people ever
1:26:20
making any decision to make that change, or maybe even realizing that that change
1:26:26
is happening. Where once the line in the sand is breached, that line
1:26:32
in the sand being Black Friday, and once Black Friday was no longer a
1:26:36
thing, and once the department stores were no longer that powerful and no longer
1:26:43
had a massive self interest in maintaining Black Friday, it was the floodgates were
1:26:49
open, and Thanksgiving got obliterated, and now we're starting Christmas at the beginning
1:26:57
of November. And that, by the way, in Grace's mind, Christmas
1:27:02
begins when co FM radio station in Los Angeles, which is one of those
1:27:09
stations that was at the forefront of this whole phenomenon of going all Christmas music
1:27:14
on a pop station from basically mid November till January. Once they turn onto
1:27:20
all Christmas music, all the time. In her mind, it's Christmas season.
1:27:26
I mean, we even have a phrase in our house, too much
1:27:29
Christmas. Whether it's at the beginning of Christmas or at the end of Christmas.
1:27:31
I'm always trying to preserve because you know, the more you have of
1:27:35
something, the less special it is. Right, So if you're celebrating Christmas
1:27:41
for two months, then it gets diluted to the point where nothing is special.
1:27:46
And that's really where we are as a culture. Now. We're out
1:27:50
of boredom or whatever, I don't know what it is. And once the
1:27:54
financial incentives changed, Thanksgiving got obliterated. Christmas now goes on for two months
1:28:01
or if you're on the Hallmark channel, basically three months, and it's not
1:28:05
special anymore. So I think something has been lost there. Not to mention
1:28:10
that it gets particularly ridiculous here in southern California when November is often our hottest
1:28:15
month of the year and people are already celebrating Christmas. But anyway, our
1:28:21
Halloween was good. If you're on social media, you can see our photographs.
1:28:28
Grace was Sailor Moon, the Japanese anime character heroin of which I have
1:28:36
no real understanding, but she loves sailor Moon. My younger daughter was Princess
1:28:42
Peach from the Mario movie, which I took her to see earlier this year,
1:28:46
and so I was Mario and she was Princess Peach, which she really
1:28:50
seemed to enjoy, and my wife was Luigi to go along with the Mario
1:28:57
theme, and so we all had a good time. There was no twenty
1:29:00
twenty disaster repeat, and so hopefully we still have at least one or two
1:29:05
more full halloweens before Grace becomes a teenager and this is all a thing of
1:29:11
the past. Now. A programming note, as I've already alluded to,
1:29:17
as we start to transition this podcast to something that is very likely going away
1:29:24
at the end of January twenty twenty four, I'm going to be a little
1:29:28
bit more liberal with the scheduling and my time off. And next week I
1:29:34
am playing in the California State Amateur Championship for Senior golfers, which I qualified
1:29:41
for a couple of weeks ago. That will prevent me from doing an episode
1:29:45
for sure at the beginning of next week. Hopefully it'll prevent me from doing
1:29:50
an episode at all next week if I make the cut, which I hope
1:29:56
to, although it's a difficult cut to make. Bottom line, there's a
1:30:00
decent chance, pretty good chance that we're not going to have a podcast episode
1:30:05
next week, and part of that equation is that there's a Republican debate next
1:30:11
week. It's kind of pointless since Trump, once again, as I've predicted
1:30:14
many many times, is not going to be part of that debate, and
1:30:16
it's basically a debate for the second place position mine. I anticipate that that
1:30:23
will basically be a debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to see who is
1:30:29
going to be the stronger second place position holder as we head into Iowa and
1:30:35
New Hampshire. You know, both sides are going after each other pretty hard
1:30:40
at this point. I think it'll be mostly pointless. I don't think it'll
1:30:44
have a large audience. I'm sure that there'll be some things that happen there
1:30:47
that are worthy of comment, but it's scheduled for a Wednesday night, and
1:30:53
we do our podcast normally on Wednesday mornings. So unless something really dramatic happens,
1:31:00
I guess is I'm going to wait until the following week to do a
1:31:02
wrap up of whatever may or may not happen that's significant in that particular debate.
1:31:09
I'm sure I'll eventually get to it. Bottom line is there's a decent
1:31:13
chance that there will not be a new podcast of the Death of Journalism,
1:31:17
at least on a new episode of that podcast next week, although it is
1:31:20
possible based upon what happens in my golf tournament and in the news cycle.
1:31:26
One other thing to keep an eye on things that will happen during that time
1:31:31
period. Damar Hamlin, the member of the Buffalo Bills who died on the
1:31:36
field at the very beginning of this year in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals,
1:31:42
is probably going to be the focus of a lot of attention this weekend
1:31:45
because he's coming back to Cincinnati, the site of where he basically died on
1:31:50
live television and then was revived after cardiac arrest. He's not really playing for
1:31:57
the Bills this year, and there's not really he's a great explanation for why
1:32:00
he's not playing. I mean, he was never a star player, but
1:32:05
there's no question that his role this year has been greatly diminished. Now.
1:32:11
Of course this causes a problem, not that they care, because the media
1:32:15
doesn't make any Damn sense on the entire Hamlin story from the beginning. I
1:32:19
mean, we're told to this day, at least by Hamlin, although no
1:32:24
doctors that treated him, that he suffered from Komoshio cordis, which is this
1:32:30
blunt impact to the heart at a horrendously poorly timed moment that stops the heart
1:32:38
unless it's you happen to have a defibrillator right there and you're able to jolt
1:32:43
it back into rhythm. There's nothing about what happened with Hamlin that it's consistent
1:32:47
with komoshio cordis at all. In concluding the fact that while he's made a
1:32:53
seemingly full recovery, he's not made a good enough recovery for him to be
1:32:58
playing at the same level that he was playing at previously, or at least
1:33:01
for the Bills to be confident enough to play him the way that he was
1:33:05
playing previously. Because if it was really komoshio cordis, that has no impact
1:33:11
at all on your athletic ability going forward. There are people who have suffered
1:33:16
from Komosho cordis. Professional professional hockey player played almost immediately after having a case
1:33:25
of komoshio cordis and that was a puck directly to the heart, which is
1:33:29
not even close to what allegedly happened to Damar Hamlin. I have said from
1:33:33
the very beginning Kmmosia Courtis made absolutely no sense, and if it really is
1:33:38
Komosho Cordis, football has a massive problem because that was a fairly normal tackle
1:33:43
and football players are well protected around the heart. There was no blunt object,
1:33:47
and the reality is it wasn't Kmoshio Cortis, and the fact that Hamlin
1:33:50
has tried to claim that it is is very very very very suspicious to me,
1:33:55
and consistent as is the incredibly bizarre interview he gave to Michael s straehand
1:34:00
over Super Bowl weekend earlier this year, consistent with the idea that this really
1:34:04
was at least somewhat related to the vaccines, and that no one wants to
1:34:08
say that. I mean, that is the Akham's razor explanation, even though
1:34:13
it sounds somewhat conspiratorial, because there's absolutely no way that the explanation we have
1:34:17
been given is in fact true, and it'll be hilarious, I'm sure to
1:34:23
see the media coverage of Hamlin this weekend. Returning to the scene of his
1:34:28
death and there will. You know, the funniest part of this is the
1:34:32
media really hasn't bought fully the Kommosho Cortis thing. They just ignore it because
1:34:39
they know that that causes problems too. Well wait a minute, so is
1:34:43
this a problem that football has. We've got the concussion issue, and we
1:34:46
have the Komoshio Courtus issue. My god, why would anybody allow their kid
1:34:49
to ever play football again? No, no, no, no, We're
1:34:53
not going to go down there that path. But we're also not going to
1:34:57
we're not going to consider any other possibility, like, for instance, this
1:35:00
is very very consistent with what has been seemingly happening in very very small numbers,
1:35:06
but still significant numbers with regard to the reaction to the vaccines, which
1:35:13
again, you know, I'm a vaccine I'm vaccinating myself, I'm in favor
1:35:18
of vaccines in general. I was very much against the mandates. I just
1:35:21
want the truth. I just want the truth. And I have absolutely no
1:35:27
faith in the National Football League or the sports media, or the news media,
1:35:30
or the medical establishment to ever get to the truth of what happened to
1:35:34
DeMar Hamlin, which you could argue was the most dramatic moment by far to
1:35:40
happen on television this entire year, and we're not even close to getting to
1:35:44
the truth of what really happened, or even a narrative that makes any goddamn
1:35:47
sense. And so I anticipate there being some news coverage of Hamlin this particular
1:35:53
weekend, and since I won't be doing a podcast episode at the beginning of
1:35:56
next week, I wanted to at least get ahead of the game throw that
1:36:00
out there for whatever that is worth. So that'll do it for this episode
1:36:04
of the podcast. Once again, probably not going to have a podcast episode
1:36:08
next week, but we'll be back with two episodes the following week, as
1:36:12
is always the case. Please subscribe, rate and review, and share this
1:36:15
podcast with others. If you share it on social media, please tag me.
1:36:17
I'll be happy to share it with my followers on Twitter my friends on
1:36:21
Facebook. Until next time, whenever that might be. This is episode number
1:36:26
one hundred and two of the Death of Journalism Podcasts, and my name is
1:36:29
John Zickler.