Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: AOC Says Something, Bernie Gets Mad, & Randi Lies AGAIN

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Normally Podcast: AOC Says Something, Bernie Gets Mad, & Randi Lies AGAIN · Normally

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome back to normally the show with
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: normalish takes for when the.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: News gets weird. I am Mary Catherine.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Ham and I am Carol Marco. It's him, Mary Catherine.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: How was you again?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Oh it's pretty good, uneventful.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I have the annual denial that I have seasonal allergies,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and then acceptance that I have season's seasonal allergies because
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I am young and vibrant and no thing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: bothers me, and then right around mid March or late March,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what's wrong with me?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, that takes some zerts head girl.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's youth related. My middle son
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: has had it real bad his whole life. We moved
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: to Florida three years ago. It largely went away. We
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: were like, oh, Florida's the best. This is you know,
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: all fixed this year came back with vengeance they were
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Florida was like, no, actually, we have all the pollen
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: here and you will suffer.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the different kind of pollen. Will you save you?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: See, my pride comes from living in North Carolina and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Georgia before coming here. So I was like, Paul can't
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: touch me, and it turns out here it can pollen man.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there's a lot of news today. Our first
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: story is the Bernie AOC rally, and they had a
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: rally that had spillover crowds.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: My normy husband pointed out, like they only reserved arena
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: for eight hundred people and then they got like more
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: than that, and so it's like not these humongous numbers
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: that it seems to be. But anyway, the Wall Street
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Journal reports they initially reserved a space at their first
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: stop of Omaha, Nebraska that could hold eight hundred people,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: but had to move to our bigger venue so thirty
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: four hundred could attend. Bernie said, this is insane. I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: not running for anything, and two time presidential you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: the two time presidential candidates set in an interview. People
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: are outraged and they're frightened, and they want to fight back,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: and this is one form of beginning that struggle to
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: fight back. Maybe maybe or Bernie has always had a
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: very passionate fan base, and I think that that passionate
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: fan base is looking for something to do right now,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: and they love coming out and hearing from Bernie and
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: the new Bernie AOC.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were in several places, so I think they
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: were in Nebraska, They went to Denver, Colorado, and they
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: were in Tempe, Arizona, where AOC will give you a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: little taste of what the messaging was like. Here she
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: is talking about the fight Oligarchy tour, and we'll talk
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: about the clumsiness of that phrase in a moment.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: But first, AOC, we need a Democratic party that fights
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: harder for us too.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: But but that means here's what that means. That means
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: our commune, each and every one of us choosing and
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: voting for Democrats and elected officials who know how to
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: stand for.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: The working class.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: And Tempe, I want to give.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: You your flowers for a second, because you all have been
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: working over time to make that happen. In fact, one
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: shown that if a US senator isn't fighting hard enough
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: for you, you're not afraid to replace her with one
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: who will and win.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: And that's how you.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: Got two fantastic senators and Mark.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Kelly and Reuben Diego.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So a couple things that was shots fired at Kirsten Sinema,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: by the way, was up all of her former colleagues
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: for having been for taking out the filibuster.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And now they need it. And so she was.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Lighting up AOC for her hypocrisy and convenient change on
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: this issue just last week on X.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So that's partly where this is coming from.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Hereson Cinema is no longer a senator because the Democratic
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Party was like, she seems very reasonable.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Get her out of here and have that.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So another thing that I noticed about this clip in Arizona.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Behind her, you have white women wearing a tax the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Rich t shirt, what looks like a Union T shirt,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a rainbow T shirt, and a one Amacha Latte t shirt,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: one which came with the pink hair in the front.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: This is the picture of the base that wants to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: be enthused, that wants to come out, that wants to
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: really fight. And how do you take that message, which
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I think, honestly, I think Bernie and AOC a better
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: messengers than establishment.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Folks at the shoint probably, But how do.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: You take that and connect it with regular people who
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: are not the people standing behind AOC and that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: That's their big problem there?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, are you know Bernie's a normal guy.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think Bernie's a normal guy. He really hates billionaires.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, he really hates billionaires, hates them, could not
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: stand them. Multimillionaires though he hates them a little less.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: He talked about his net worth on the Lex Friedman
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Show a few years ago. Let's roll that clip.
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: Do I own three residences? Yeah?
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: I live here in Burlington, Vermont. We live in a
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: middle class and they would guess what. I'm the United
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: States Centator and I own a home in Washington, d C.
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: And guess what, Like many thousands of people in the
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: state of Vermont, I have a summer camp. It's a
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: nice one on Lake Champlain. That's it. Now, how did
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: I get the money? I wrote two best selling books,
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: including this book on capitalism, and I make kind one
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: hundred and seventy five thousand to you. And that's more
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: or less how I became the zillionaire that I am.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: As opposed to the billionaires who killed little babies and
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: drank their blood. That's how they made their money. He
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: made his money via capitalism, so he.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Should be able to keep his money because he did
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it doing the right thing right.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: And that's the only way you're allowed to keep your
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: money is if you are Bernie Sanders, and you do
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: it the way he does it. And even if you
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: do it the way he does it, he still might
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: not like that because you might have the wrong opinions.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: You might have written the pro capitalism book as well.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: No, you can't do that as.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: You committed capitalism.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I think one of the problems for them is they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: try to reorganize. And I don't think people are off
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: base here. Politico's comparing it to the Tea Party anger
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of the early Obama years. The people who are coming
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: out are angry at establishment Democrats. Those establishment Democrats, to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: some extent, as we saw with Schumer and the government
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: shutdown fight, are sort of handcuffed by the impotence of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: not being in charge of anything in Washington, right, and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: also sort of handcuffed by the fact that they love
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a really powerful executive and then they handed all that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: power to Donald Trump.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah oopsie, yeah oops right. So, and that also explains
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: why they're so excited about these attacks on Tesla, because
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: it seems like doing something like, look, they're doing something.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: They're firebombing Tesla manufacturers, they're keying Tesla cars. They're really
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: showing that Elon Musk of course, and I've been loving
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: following the Tesla stock because it looks like Tim Walls
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: really did call the bottom of it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: But that's very it was.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: It was two twenty five when Tim Walls was super
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: excited about the stock dropping. It's two seventy one today
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and climbing. Literally, we should have bought the dip when
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Tim Walls talked about.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: It, He's like our new Jim Kramer. It's the opposite
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Jim Kramer.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Politico noted congressional Democrats have typically enjoyed higher popularity with
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: their voting base than their Republican counterparts, but the trauma
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty four presidential election defeat appears to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: have ruptured that reallyationship. Congressional Democrats are now underwater with
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: their own voters in approval ratings, and this is the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: first time that's happened in this particular poll's history, and
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that super majorities of them want them to do more
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to fight Donald Trump. This is different from twenty seventeen
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: because they got real excited about how the party resisted
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, but resisting didn't work, and it's not
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: working now, so they're less satisfied.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Pink hats back out. I don't think there's anything wrong
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: with that. Go go on to march kids do it.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: They need something, but they don't know what the thing is,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: which is again I think to your point, why they
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: end up oops burning Tesla's like that doesn't seem like
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a great idea. Bernie, for his part, was asked about
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: some of the intra party conflict in the lightest way
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: possible by Jonathan Carl. Let's run that clip and see
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: how he reacted.
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: She and sphy is young people all over the country.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Would you like to see her joining the Senate?
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: Right now? We have, as I said, just a whole
• 9:02
  Speaker 6: lot of people in the Congress. Okay, got it?
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: And thanks way, I got one that's important.
• 9:07
  Speaker 6: Well, I asked you, okay, you know you want to
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: do nonsense nonsense.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: No, I don't want.
• 9:12
  Speaker 6: To talk about inside the beltway stuff. I got thirty
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: two thousand people. I was just asking me about AOC
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: because she was well, everything fine, but I don't want
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: to talk about this.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I might even think that he was being asked about
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the INJA party stuff. I mean, I guess if you could,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: he could have seen it as a do you like her?
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Do you like Chuck? Schumer, But actually what he came
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: off as is anti AOC to me. He came off
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: as not liking her and not wanting to talk about her.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: It could have it was such a layup. He could
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: have said anything. He could have just said, sure, down
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: the road, she would make a fantastic senator.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Anything was possible, anything would have been better than this,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: which brings attention to this and sort of reveals just
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: how sensitive a subject it is, maybe not just for him,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: but for everyone in the Democratic Party, because the question
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: would you like to see in the Senate implies that
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Schumer might not be there, that Schumer shouldn't be at
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the top of the party. But again in the most
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: friendly and innocuous way possible, and you could have just
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: been like, oh, up and come, or love to be
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on the trail of or just dance around it. I
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: think this is a problem for Democrats going forward. They
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: do not face adversarial press, so when asked very easy
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: questions that you should very easily anticipate, they end up
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: doing this, which I don't think bodes well for the teamwork.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: And John Carl was like, what, no, come.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Back, you want to do nonsense, nonsense, I just looked
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it up.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer is seventy four years old. I'm sorry. I
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: know he's not Mitch McConnell eighty three or Nancy Pelosi
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: eighty six or whatever eighty four, but these people are
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: getting up in age. It's not even crazy to say,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: should AOC be Senator after Chuck Schumer is done with it?
• 10:56
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I just I don't know. Again, did you I feel
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: the Bernie AOC strife there? I felt like when I
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: saw that clip, I thought, wow, Bernie doesn't like her,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: and then you know, I thought about all the other possibilities,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: but that was my first thought.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: No, that's interesting because you know they seem to have
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: made some agreement that they are mutually beneficial to each other.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Sure that she's the new face of Bernie, which, let's
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: be serious, they do need they do. Bernie has this
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: fan group, but you know, he's older and irascible. He
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: might be annoyed that his fan base is turning to her.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I suppose exactly.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Right, and I to get to write another bestseller about
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: capitalism if she's there. Yeah, about having a capitalism is obviously.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I am on record that AOC, despite seeming quite silly
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes and being quite wrong should not be underestimated because
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: she's a pretty good speaker, can be pretty good on
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: social media, has some has a few chops. I think
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it's decent at speaking to the working class and middle class,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and like hitting some notes that other Democrats are not
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: so good at hitting anymore, including the other day at
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: one of these rallies, she said, you know, I'm for
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: these things because I was a waitress. I understand what
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: it feels like to be left behind, and so I
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: think that message could be powerful in some places. It's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: not backed up with a lot of experience doing other things.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: And the longer she's away from that life, the more
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Washington she's becoming. There's just no doubt that the AOC
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: who came out as the bartender from the Bronx or
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Queens is not the woman we see today. In fact,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: she drove a tesla. I wonder if she still drives one.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: She drove her tesla while visiting Florida during the pandemic.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, she did what she know might be moving. It
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: might be a way to move more to the middle.
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: Well.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I think her Met Gala appearance with her stupid tax
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the rich dress, which by the way, was also, like
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I think twenty twenty one their first event back, and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: they were pretending like they were COVID safe when they
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: were not at all. They built an entire outdoor space
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: that was a building so that we could have a runway.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: The right inside outside.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I think that was her peak elitist, democrat, clueless spot.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And since then she's done some work to be more normal. Right,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: she really got out over Skis on that one. I think, well,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: we'll see.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: We'll see if she challenges Schumer or if she just
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: waits it out, which is again not the worst idea either.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: But yeah, is a senator AOC from New York a possibility?
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: I think it might be. We're going to take a
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: short break and come right back with normally.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: You know that we love to talk about the education
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: on this show, Yeah, we do. The Department of Education
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: met with an aggressive new executive order from Donald Trump
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: last week that we haven't discussed in depth, but it
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was entitled Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States and Communities.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And what it does is it empowers Linda McMahon, who
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: is the newly minted Education Secretary, to dismantle and transfer
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: out of the Department of education as much money and
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: as many duties as possible so that it is not
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: running through a federal bureaucracy. Noting that taxpayers spent around
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: two hundred billion at the federal level on schools during
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic, on top of more than sixty
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: billion they spend annually on federal school funding. This money
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: is largely distributed by one of the newest cabinet agencies,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and basically it concludes.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: We haven't gotten a lot out.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: That's right. Their budget is close to seventy billion a year,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: So what are we getting for it? Who gets that money?
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: All of these are great questions, and I think that
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: that's the goal here. I think a lot of people
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: are misled to believe that the end of DOE means
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: no funding for you know, schools, and they always try
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: to say, like, oh, the free lunch programs or whatever
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: will not be funded, and schools are primarily funded by
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: state governments.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Well, free lunch is USDA. That's the entirely difference that's
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: always slipped in there.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: The average per state is around eleven percent from the
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: federal DOE. Some states get a little more, but you
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: could still have that funding, just not through the boondoggle
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: of the Department of Education.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Well, and the executive order also notes that the Department
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of Education, though it does not actually educate anyone and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: sort of funnels money, contains a pr office that includes
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: over eighty staffers at a cost of more than ten
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: million a year. Oh yeah, so, like, I'm happy to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: take that off the top. Caroline Levitt was asked about
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: this on the outside of the White House and said
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: what many of us think, which is the Department of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Education was founded in nineteen seventy or nineteen seventy nine,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and since then we have spent more than three trillion
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: at this bureaucracy. What has been the ROI for the taxpayer?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Our children's testcores are incredibly concerning when it comes to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: literacy rates, math and science test scores. I do think
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that there's power in returning this money and these decision
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: making processes to the states without strings attached. I believe
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Florida in the past, under Desanta's has tried to refuse want.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: To send the money back.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I love that guy. The only person in America is
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: What, I want you to take this giant chunk of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: cash back to Washington, because we don't want it to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: need your strings here.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Amazing. Yeah, he's so good, that's so Yeah. And look,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Democrats keep throwing kind of nonsense at this plan. Madeline Dean,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: who is a congresswoman in Pennsylvania, said, what you do
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: want is an educated electorate, not if you're Donald Trump
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and a cult like like members. They want citizens who
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: are not educated. And of course uneducated is what we
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: have now. So maybe that's you know, he's trying to
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: actually get people educated. I think we've thrown these numbers
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: out before, but in New York, for example, only twenty
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: three percent of eighth graders of provision in math, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: numbers only a little bit better for reading at twenty
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: eight percent, and a third of the kids just don't
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: go to school. So and these are education we won't
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: miss you.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are exacerbated trends, almost entirely caused by COVID
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: provisions that went on way too long. It were a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: racket for teachers unions, right and the teachers union leaders
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: who caused many of these problems.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: We were on a bad trajectory.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: To begin with, but they caused and exacerbated many of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the problems, especially absenteeism and some of this learning laws.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: So when they said school was not essential, people believe them.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what happened there, and we told them while
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that was happening, that that would happen.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: They are, of course very angry about.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: This, But I would note that it is states that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: have led the way when it comes to the few
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: bright spots education in our country, Louisiana, Mississippi, this sort
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of Southern surge of literacy.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: It's because those states.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Made curriculum changes that were not dictated by the federal government,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that were dictated by evidence based research that perhaps we
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: should be teaching children to actually read with phonics that
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: would be safe. Yeah. The extent to which those guys
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: get more power and other states can learn from them,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: huge thumbs up.
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I caught Randy Winegarden's giant lie this week talking to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Brandon Heeler at CNN.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Let's run that for the parents who remember the COVID.
• 18:41
  Speaker 9: COVID was a terrible time for us, and as you
• 18:44
  Speaker 9: know because I was on your show a lot and
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: other shows, I wanted schools to be reopen as early
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: as April of twenty twenty. The issue was the fear
• 18:56
  Speaker 9: and the issue was to safety issues. But COVID has
• 18:59
  Speaker 9: really hurt in so many ways. But this has been
• 19:02
  Speaker 9: a Republican talking point for a long time, ma'am.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: To be fair to her, a lot of Republican talking
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: points from COVID are just the truth.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I really bother her.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Our talking point is the truth when it comes to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: teachers unions fighting to keep schools closed.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: In fact, our friend.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Tom Elliott over at Graveyan has a giant supercut of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Randy Winegarden talking talking about this and debating current Randy
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Wine Garden.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: So I just want to play a few of those
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: real quick.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 19:35
  Speaker 9: Remote and hybrid are really the only two ways you
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: can reopen schools safely.
• 19:44
  Speaker 10: We've got at the Lady School opening, because if you
• 19:47
  Speaker 10: don't have the mask, how are you going to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 10: able to do this. There's a huge difference between working
• 19:52
  Speaker 10: in Walmart and working as a school.
• 19:55
  Speaker 7: You know, even a situation like Florida where it was
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: pretty clear that schools should not reopen and where Miami
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: schools did not reopen because you had people who were
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: courageous and who were willing to divide.
• 20:08
  Speaker 9: De Santosi's denials.
• 20:10
  Speaker 11: And why are they closing now, Martha.
• 20:14
  Speaker 8: They're closing now because what the city said, and frankly,
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: what lots of other places are also seeing is a
• 20:24
  Speaker 8: huge skyrocking increase.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Now, you're not listening to me.
• 20:29
  Speaker 11: What they're telling us though, is that the wisest scientific
• 20:32
  Speaker 11: move is to have children in school.
• 20:34
  Speaker 8: Because that they're trying to figure out a regional, a
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: regional way of opening and closing like they did after they.
• 20:43
  Speaker 11: Don't need to close it in the middle, don't need
• 20:45
  Speaker 11: to close is the point marka that when you hit
• 20:47
  Speaker 11: that there. It as a measurement established by the teachers
• 20:50
  Speaker 11: Union over the summer in order to reach an agreement
• 20:52
  Speaker 11: to reopen in the first place, was a three percent threshold.
• 20:55
  Speaker 8: The mayor set the three percent threshold. What the teachers
• 20:58
  Speaker 8: Union did in New York City afterwards was to say,
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: these are the safeguards that we need, and this is
• 21:04
  Speaker 8: the testing.
• 21:05
  Speaker 11: We need, given that all of these experts and scientists
• 21:08
  Speaker 11: say that children are safer in school. It's worked across Europe,
• 21:11
  Speaker 11: it's worked across the UK. They never closed their schools
• 21:14
  Speaker 11: during their second spike, and now they're in recovery, they're
• 21:17
  Speaker 11: down ten percent and the kids are not missing out.
• 21:19
  Speaker 8: And what they did and what they did in Europe
• 21:24
  Speaker 8: and what they did in New Zealand is that they
• 21:27
  Speaker 8: had national leadership that closed that, that did mass that
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: actually closed the bars, that did some of those things.
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: The stimulus.
• 21:38
  Speaker 11: Yeah, given all that, they still say the kids are
• 21:40
  Speaker 11: safer and they're connected Martha, the numbers rising, But don't
• 21:44
  Speaker 11: they're safer in school?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I've re tweeted that with the note that I always
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: want to say is that it wasn't just school year
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty that she tried to keep schools closed. She
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: actually tried to keep schools closed for another school year
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. In summer
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: of twenty one, she said, we will try to open
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: schools in September. Now, as everyone knows, schools were already
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: open in places not under Randy Wingarten's control. She was
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the one literally blocking schools from opening. She rewrote CDC
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: policy so that schools couldn't open. They wanted to change
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: the distance from six feet to three feet, which is
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: all a bunch of nonsense. Six feet, three feet, two
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: feet one foot. It makes no difference at all, None
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: of it had any scientific basis, and we knew this
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: at that time already she was able to stop the
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: CDC from making that change, which at the time I noted,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: you can't have even three feet of space in New
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: York City public schools, for example. So it was only
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: places that were that she was allowed to influence that
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: still had closed schools, and she was trying to keep
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: them closed for a second or really a third school year.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she did do that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: They all did this dishonest dance where they're like, oh,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: they would often, you know, perfunctorily say it is my
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: heart's desire to have schools open, obviously, but also, screens
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: are fine, your kids are doing fine, everything's good. We
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: just need a boatload more money and a bunch of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: precautions that you won't possibly able to be able to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: take within this timeframe, and then we'll totally go back.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And then in places like where I live, they got
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: basically everything they wanted, and they still did not go
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: back to school because the union heads were like, ah,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: not enough.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Still need more.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And then it was like, okay, but now we're
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: gonna we're gonna need vaccines. You know, we can't go
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: back until there's vaccines, and then there were vaccines, and
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: they were still like, but the kids don't have vaccines,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: so they.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Were like the vaccines were too quick.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: No, it's it's mind boggling to watch these people argue this.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And I just always want to mind people that the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: folks who are complaining the hardest about the Department of Education,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: which does not educate students and largely does not even
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: fund educating students being closed, are the same people who
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: were happy for millions of students to be out of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: school for eighteen months.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. They didn't care. Then they want to
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: pretend that they care now. I don't believe them. I
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: just don't believe them. There are a bunch of liars.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: The fact that Randy Weingarten is trying to rewrite what
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: she did during the pandemic, You and I are never
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: going to let her do that now.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And I think Becky Pringle, by the way, who's the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: head of the other major teachers unions, she was a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: little bit more saying the quiet part out loud because
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: she said, like, what about all these jobs for my
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: union members that are getting cut? It's like, okay, see,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that should not be your first priority, or at least
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't tell people it is.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: But parents have picked up on this.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we'll be right back on normally our third story. MAGA,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Aligned Influence all posted very similar content over the weekend
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: arguing that Snap benefits and that's what they call food
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: stamps now, should extend to soda. There. You know, the
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: new MAHA movement Make America Healthy Again is trying to
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: get rid of the ability to purchase soda with your
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: food stamps. And you know, I'm kind of you know,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be a very middle ground on this
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: whole story because I'm torn about the ability to use
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Snap for soda. I actually don't drink soda, which is
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I've got a lot of advices, but not that one.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I get it, it's empty calories. Why should you have
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: it subsidized for you by the government. But then I
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: just feel like there's so many other things, like should
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: they be able to buy Skittles, Like there's a lot
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: of other questions about what Snap benefits should be used for.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: If you want to go the whole distance, I don't
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: think it should just be soda. I think it should
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: be like maybe you're only able to buy certain items
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: with it, but that's going to be just so difficult,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: and I don't know that this is the right way
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: to go. Several of the influencers pointed out that Donald
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Trump enjoys his diet coke. I occasionally you will have
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: a diet coke. I get it, Donald. Why should poor
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: people not get to And the fact that all of
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: these people are on the right is what's kind of
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: interesting about this story, because they're there to pressure Donald
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Trump and his administration not to follow this idea. I
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: don't know. I'm sort of a mix on this. What
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: do you think?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, I'm I apologize for being squishy, but I'm
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: sort of in the middle with you on the snap
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: benefits because it is I understand the logical argument. They're like,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: should this just be for staples and should we not
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: have it for these kind of things?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: And you use your own.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Money for that kind of shit, right, But then you
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: get into the question of yet, what are the categories
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that are going to be cut? And then you get
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a giant lobbying effort, as we're sort of seeing there
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: when anything tries.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: To get cut. So let's put that aside.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting to watch an independent reporter
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: uncover this.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: By the way, it was a Nick sord Or wrote
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: out who spotted this.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I think one of the lessons is that you're not
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: going to get away with this stuff when you are
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: challenging a Trump or a DeSantis, people who other right
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: leaning folks are invested in. I think you're going to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: get found out if you don't say what you're doing.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I don't really mind people saying these kind of things,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: even if they're paid. If they say that's what they're doing,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: that's right, right. There's a lot of squishiness or like
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of blurred lines in social media and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and all these places about you know, endorsements
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and sponsorship and like, as long as you're making clear
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to me what you're doing, yeah, I'm fairly comfortable with it.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: But be ready to be found out, I think right,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Think it's better to say I actually believe this already
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: and being paid to say this because I believe this.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: I've been accused a number of different times in my
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: career being paid to say something. I have never once
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: taken a penny from anybody. But again, I am sympathetic
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: to these influencers because I do get paid to give
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: my opinion, So I am paid to tell you what
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I think. I'm just not paid by the individual interests.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And I get that this is sort of the wild
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: West and they don't really know how it's supposed to go.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So I think that, you know, kind of going forward.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: And I maybe I'm sympathetic because I followed a few
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: of these people, but I was also I have been
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: sympathetic in the past to people I don't agree with
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: that I felt, were they see this as a way
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: to make money saying what they already believe they were
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: already going to do, right, Yeah, So I get that argument.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I do, but it's just you have to kind of
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: look at it as you're blowing up your reputation. Yes
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: you might already believe it, but unless you disclose it,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: you are just putting yourself in a jam. Christina Pshaw,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: who works for Rond DeSantis and has had some very
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: interesting things to say about this is She tweeted, Here's
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: how I see it. Influencers are the new generation of advertisers.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Advertising It isn't unethical in itself, but it can be
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: done unethically. Influencers that promote products, and brands legally have
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: to disclose paid partnerships in their content, and that's you know,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: she said, it's common on other apps like TikTok and Instagram,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: but there's no such regulation for politics and policy, and
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: it might be tricky to regulate. So I think it
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: has to be kind of pressure from the audience to
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: say you can't do this without telling us you're doing this,
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: even if and again, I think it would be just
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: as strong to say I don't want to see government
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: cutting down, you know, or making policy where they for
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: what's better best for us. Now, of course, Maha was
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: instrumental in winning Trump this selection, so I think it's
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: kind of a tough to argue right now to say, oh,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: I don't think the government should get involved in what's
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: healthy and not healthy, when literally that argument the government
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: should get involved in telling us what's healthy and not
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: healthy just one an election one.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I think you're right.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: There is an interesting part of this that is the evolution,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and honestly, I'm sort of part of it. Right Like
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: when journalists Lee Fong was reporting that this happened in
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the past where in New York then Mayor Michael Bloomberg
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: proposed size restrictions on sugary drinks, and the NAACP and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Hispanic Federation opposed the regulation without disclosing financial connections to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola. The thing is back then that many years ago,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: you could have had me for free.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: For big soda. I was like, I love soda, it's great.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Stop restricting sizes.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: No, I didn't even drink soda, and I still was
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: pro not restricting sizes because I thought, like, stay out
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: a big government. I still do. I still kind of
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: think that, I you know, but I understand that there's
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: a large segment of the pipeloe that doesn't agree made
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: thinks the government should be involved in it. And those
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: people just won an election.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Well, and I also like have been the person that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: at least on my personal health decisions, has changed a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: lot since then, Right, Soda can be really bad for you.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I love a coke every now and then. But I
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: did realize at one point that I had been dehydrated
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: most of my life because I was just like drinking
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: coke all the time.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: That's all of us going from the nineties now, like
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: we just didn't drink any water ever.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So like if I as a personal liberty person who
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: still doesn't want a bunch of mucking around with sizes
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and what people can buy at the convenience store. But
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: if I have changed to that degree, then there is
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a large segment of the voting public who's very happy
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: for government to meddle.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: So I think that political consideration is a huge part
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of this, right.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Last thing I'll say is that I also see this
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: as an opportunity and I think again, Christina Pshaw said
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: something along these lines. But it teaches you to be
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: more skeptical. Why are your favorite influencers arguing something is
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: somebody paying them? And I think that if you consume
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Internet at high levels, you kind of start to realize
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: that there are people getting paid for their opinion to
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: say certain things. Maybe they believe it, maybe they don't.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: But it teaches you to be kind of more aware
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: of this kind of thing and to again be discern
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: for yourself whether or not this is real or this
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: is paid for content.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is one of the things I tell
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: when people ask me about media literacy, or I'll talk
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to college students, and like, the hard and correct answer
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: is that it's your responsibility to understand what you're consuming
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: in media, and it's become very, very difficult, which is
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: why I think disclosure is helpful. It follows the same
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: ethical guidelines that like say, lawyers and journalists should follow,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: although we see that journalists often don't disclose their conflicts
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of interest, but it helps people understand what they're dealing with.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Just as you and I we disclose what our ideological
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: leanings are so that people can judge what they think
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of our dissection of the facts.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Everyone has a bias, let's just be open about it. Yeah,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: all right, Well, thanks for joining us on normally. Normally
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at Normallythepod
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when things
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: get weird, act normally