Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Don Lemon Arrest Fallout, School Closures, and the True Cost of Convenience
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: Hey, guys, our back. Normally the show, but normal it
- 0:10Speaker 1: takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary Calthy Camp.
- 0:13Speaker 2: And I'm Carol Markowitz. How was your weekend, Mary Catherine,
- 0:16Speaker 2: let's banter.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Oh, it's pretty good.
- 0:20Speaker 3: Did a little adventure out in the country.
- 0:23Speaker 1: I had a panel to do the country.
- 0:26Speaker 3: It's like thirty five minutes from here in Virginia, but
- 0:30Speaker 3: it is for rigid here. Like I was like, maybe
- 0:33Speaker 3: we could go ice skating. It's fourteen degrees. No, we're
- 0:36Speaker 3: not going ice skating.
- 0:37Speaker 2: Does that happen like in the backyard?
- 0:39Speaker 1: Yeah, possibly on any street in DC. Actually yes, I.
- 0:43Speaker 4: Actually have a friend in Virginia who posted a picture
- 0:45Speaker 4: of her daughter's ice skating in the backyard.
- 0:48Speaker 1: So yeah, it could be done.
- 0:50Speaker 2: It could be I went to Las Vegas.
- 0:52Speaker 4: It was a very good time, A nice, necessary little
- 0:56Speaker 4: break for a friend's birthday.
- 0:57Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 0:58Speaker 4: I saw a Wizard of Oz at the sphere, my
- 0:59Speaker 4: friend time at the sphere.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Have you been No, I have been near the sphere,
- 1:04Speaker 3: but not in the sphere, and it is impressive even
- 1:07Speaker 3: from the outside.
- 1:08Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really cool. I mean it was a
- 1:10Speaker 4: really interesting experience. So yeah, Vegas a little bit dead though,
- 1:15Speaker 4: a little bit dead, and I feel like I'm going
- 1:17Speaker 4: to maybe write something on it because I love Las
- 1:19Speaker 4: Vegas and I haven't been since twenty nineteen and we
- 1:22Speaker 4: used to go every single year, and they broke us
- 1:24Speaker 4: by having the mask mandate a little too long, and
- 1:27Speaker 4: I was just imagining myself in a casino with the
- 1:30Speaker 4: mask on, and like, I mean, let's be real, like
- 1:33Speaker 4: covids the least of your problems, like.
- 1:37Speaker 1: We are in the place, let us do it.
- 1:41Speaker 4: Like one time they tested poker chips and you cannot
- 1:43Speaker 4: even imagine the substances like on the chess, so so
- 1:48Speaker 4: like please, like masking was unnecessary.
- 1:51Speaker 3: It's all about risk analysis, you know, imagine that.
- 1:55Speaker 4: All right, we'll get some more more on risk analysis
- 1:58Speaker 4: and ongoing stupidity in the second topic, but for right now,
- 2:03Speaker 4: over the weekend or since our last episode, in any case,
- 2:06Speaker 4: Don Lemon has been arrested and he seems like he
- 2:11Speaker 4: is having the time of his life. Have you seen
- 2:14Speaker 4: this man happier since he's been arrested.
- 2:17Speaker 3: I mean, look, the career has not been great since
- 2:21Speaker 3: he was ejected and rejected by CNN for repeatedly being
- 2:26Speaker 3: a problem on air.
- 2:28Speaker 1: Particularly with female coworkers.
- 2:30Speaker 3: And so yeah, no, I think this is a moment
- 2:33Speaker 3: where he's happy to become a martyr.
- 2:36Speaker 1: And we can discuss the legal issues here.
- 2:39Speaker 3: But of course his fellow journalists, even those who he
- 2:43Speaker 3: mistreated at CNN, are happy to jump in and say.
- 2:46Speaker 1: Trump is just after journalists here.
- 2:48Speaker 3: But I think there's a real I know that journalists
- 2:51Speaker 3: don't observe the other part of the First Amendment, which
- 2:54Speaker 3: is for.
- 2:55Speaker 5: Of course freedom religious practice.
- 2:58Speaker 3: But the problem is that if what's in the indictment
- 3:02Speaker 3: is corre, you know, if what's in the evidence they
- 3:05Speaker 3: gave the grand jury that produced this indictment is correct,
- 3:07Speaker 3: his non speech behavior collided with and violated other people's
- 3:14Speaker 3: speech and First Amendment behavior.
- 3:17Speaker 5: Right on private property. Not to mention that he may
- 3:21Speaker 5: have been asked to leave. I think he was asked
- 3:23Speaker 5: to leave on camera by the preacher. So like, there's
- 3:28Speaker 5: this continued conflation.
- 3:30Speaker 3: Although I understand that there might be a risk here
- 3:33Speaker 3: for journalists, there's this continued conflation of non speech behavior
- 3:37Speaker 3: and speech behavior.
- 3:39Speaker 1: On the left. They're just like, we get to do
- 3:41Speaker 1: things and you shut up.
- 3:42Speaker 2: You just take it, right.
- 3:44Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really unbelievable. To hear some of the explanations
- 3:49Speaker 4: for this. James Saraweki, who wrote a book called The
- 3:53Speaker 4: Wisdom of Crowds and like really has none of his
- 3:56Speaker 4: own it, tweeted, are you seriously arguing that a journal
- 4:00Speaker 4: to embedded with civil rights protesters in the nineteen sixties
- 4:02Speaker 4: while they planned acts of civil disobedience and then accompanied
- 4:05Speaker 4: them to cover those acts of civil disobedience would be
- 4:08Speaker 4: persecuted for doing so. And our friends Steve Miller Redste's rights.
- 4:13Speaker 4: Don Lemon in this analogy is the guy going along
- 4:15Speaker 4: with the clan and filming as they fire Bama Church, Like.
- 4:19Speaker 2: You're not the good guys, You're not.
- 4:21Speaker 4: You disrupted a church service. You're not the good guys.
- 4:23Speaker 3: Well, a couple things here, So this is under the
- 4:26Speaker 3: he's being charged under Freedom of access to clinic entrances
- 4:29Speaker 3: the Face Act. Yeah, and part of this law requires
- 4:33Speaker 3: that you also adhere to these rules in places of worship.
- 4:37Speaker 3: And this was kind of a deal between the left compromise, right,
- 4:40Speaker 3: like want you want this area clear? We want this
- 4:43Speaker 3: area clear.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Right, So it's in the law.
- 4:46Speaker 3: And then a lot of people on the left are saying, well,
- 4:49Speaker 3: this law is probably unconstitutional. Well, that's interesting because the
- 4:52Speaker 3: Biden administration used it freely against people who were sitting
- 4:55Speaker 3: outside of marshing clinics. By the way, some of whom
- 4:59Speaker 3: were black activists. So miss me with the this is
- 5:02Speaker 3: racist Jamiroho argument, which of course she deployed immediately. I
- 5:09Speaker 3: am willing to look at this and go, okay, this
- 5:12Speaker 3: could pose risks for journalists who are embedded.
- 5:14Speaker 1: But here's the problem.
- 5:16Speaker 3: If this is not prosecuted evenly on both sides, then
- 5:22Speaker 3: you end up with not a standard at all for
- 5:25Speaker 3: what journalists can do and whether they can step in
- 5:27Speaker 3: the line. So on January sixth, several journalists whose video
- 5:32Speaker 3: was used by The New York Times HBO were charged,
- 5:37Speaker 3: less charged, given sentences, and it was largely because they
- 5:41Speaker 3: were considered right of center independent journalists so that didn't count.
- 5:47Speaker 3: Or they were just very willing to say you crossed
- 5:50Speaker 3: the line and therefore your journalism status does not protect you,
- 5:55Speaker 3: which is true. I mean even fire, which is like
- 5:57Speaker 3: the you know, freedom of speech orgzations like journalists do
- 6:01Speaker 3: not have a special license to break generally applicable laws.
- 6:04Speaker 2: That's right.
- 6:05Speaker 3: When the pastor of City's church asked women to leave
- 6:07Speaker 3: he no longer had the right to stay.
- 6:09Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
- 6:10Speaker 4: Yeah, that's you know, like forget about it being a church.
- 6:13Speaker 4: It's private property. Like you don't get to just invade
- 6:16Speaker 4: someone's house and yell at the in their face because
- 6:18Speaker 4: you don't like them. Like, it's just kind of not
- 6:20Speaker 4: how the First Amendment works. Among other amazing commentary over
- 6:25Speaker 4: the last few days, the CEO of The Atlantic tweeted
- 6:28Speaker 4: the statute under which Don Lemon was arrested may well
- 6:31Speaker 4: be unconstitutional. It's also not clear that he even violated it,
- 6:35Speaker 4: and if he did, his First Amendment rights still outweigh it.
- 6:37Speaker 2: It's like it's like the meme done in Twitter form.
- 6:42Speaker 2: I mean, you know it's not happening. It's good that
- 6:45Speaker 2: it's happening.
- 6:46Speaker 4: All that, how to use feed all that with a
- 6:48Speaker 4: straight face.
- 6:49Speaker 3: I just want to mention that the guys from January sixth,
- 6:51Speaker 3: because I think it's worth mentioning. And look, if it
- 6:53Speaker 3: was determined that they went overline again, you're not protected
- 6:56Speaker 3: from criminal activity. But it's like, we have to do this.
- 6:59Speaker 3: Even Stephen Horn, President Biden's DJ arrested him. He was
- 7:04Speaker 3: sentenced to twelve months probation at two K fine and
- 7:06Speaker 3: ninety hours community community service. The judge in the case
- 7:09Speaker 3: did not allow his evidence that he was a journalist
- 7:12Speaker 3: to be introduced because he said it was irrelevant to
- 7:15Speaker 3: whether he had broken the law. And then there's another guy,
- 7:17Speaker 3: Stephen Baker, who I think now works for The Blaze,
- 7:21Speaker 3: but was an independent videographer and hogger. And he, three
- 7:27Speaker 3: years after it, was arrested and charged with several misdemeanors.
- 7:31Speaker 1: Like right, and they.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Love that, they love that. They're like could not get
- 7:35Speaker 2: enough of that.
- 7:36Speaker 4: And now it's like, you know, Don Lemon was at
- 7:38Speaker 4: some event and he was like applauded and he stood
- 7:41Speaker 4: up and I'm telling you again, this guy's having the
- 7:43Speaker 4: time of his life, like just because his hands up
- 7:46Speaker 4: and like just like yeah, you know, I'm fighting for
- 7:49Speaker 4: all of us.
- 7:49Speaker 2: Like bro, click, Seriously, can we.
- 7:53Speaker 3: Play a little bit actually from Abby Phillips show, Oh yeah, CNN,
- 7:58Speaker 3: where Lydia moyne, hand right leaning commentator The New York
- 8:03Speaker 3: Post has you know, actual information about the indictment and
- 8:07Speaker 3: is refuted by Philip who actually doesn't know what's in
- 8:11Speaker 3: the indictment.
- 8:12Speaker 1: So let's hear a little bit of that.
- 8:15Speaker 6: The question is, is he a protester or a journalist,
- 8:18Speaker 6: and the indictment obviously suggested that he posted himself at
- 8:21Speaker 6: the main door he prevented people from exiting.
- 8:24Speaker 7: But ultimately that it does not say that the indictment
- 8:27Speaker 7: it says that protesters did that. It names other people
- 8:30Speaker 7: and actually say that.
- 8:32Speaker 6: But I just want to respond because you accuse me
- 8:34Speaker 6: of mischaracterizing the indictment. This is actually a quote from
- 8:37Speaker 6: the indictment that Lemon posted himself at the main door
- 8:39Speaker 6: of the church, where he confronted some congregants and physically
- 8:41Speaker 6: obstructed them as they tried to exit, challenging them with
- 8:44Speaker 6: facts about US immigration policy.
- 8:46Speaker 1: So that is what the indictment says.
- 8:47Speaker 6: I'm not stating whether I agree with that, but that's
- 8:49Speaker 6: what the indictment says.
- 8:50Speaker 7: So look, you know they also characterized him as intimidating
- 8:53Speaker 7: a pastor who he was calmly interviewing, so I think
- 8:57Speaker 7: we also have to the characterization of him conducting journalism
- 9:01Speaker 7: is also something to be questioned.
- 9:03Speaker 3: Mmmm, even if you're not right, Yes, yes I got
- 9:07Speaker 3: it wrong, Yes I said you were messing it up,
- 9:10Speaker 3: Yes you corrected me, and yes I'm still right.
- 9:15Speaker 2: It's all amazing being a CNN. Oh my gosh.
- 9:18Speaker 3: Also, it is worth considering again that this went through
- 9:23Speaker 3: several levels, and everybody says that the magistrate judge rejected
- 9:26Speaker 3: this and then they went but he said, you know,
- 9:28Speaker 3: take it to appeals. They take it to appeals, which
- 9:30Speaker 3: is the system we have, and then they take it
- 9:32Speaker 3: to a grand jury. Yeah, and it seems in several
- 9:36Speaker 3: cases everyone like the person involves it, says both Tapper
- 9:41Speaker 3: and Stephanopolis. This is report our friend Margot Cleveland reporting
- 9:45Speaker 3: at the federalists. Both Tapper and Stephanopolis on their shows
- 9:47Speaker 3: ignored the fact that a federal appellate judge found the
- 9:50Speaker 3: government had already clearly established probable cause, and that was
- 9:54Speaker 3: before prosecutors went to the grand jury, which was now available,
- 9:57Speaker 3: where the jurors presumably soft for themselves. What limit is
- 10:00Speaker 3: producer did. One of the strikes against Leomen is of course,
- 10:03Speaker 3: that whatever he did, he was filming himself doing it,
- 10:07Speaker 3: and he was at times obstructing people. He was not
- 10:11Speaker 3: leaving when asked, and he was before this planning the
- 10:15Speaker 3: operation with the protesters, which cuts against as it did
- 10:19Speaker 3: in the estimation of judges in some of these j
- 10:22Speaker 3: six cases against the idea that you were merely journalists, right,
- 10:26Speaker 3: although I would note that another guy who was at
- 10:29Speaker 3: the head of the pack on j six, who sold
- 10:31Speaker 3: his stuff to The New Yorker and was left of center,
- 10:33Speaker 3: magically he got a bunch of journalism awards.
- 10:35Speaker 2: Right.
- 10:35Speaker 4: It's incredible, Yeah, odd how that happens.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 10:41Speaker 4: Also, in the last few days, since we're talking about Minneapolis,
- 10:45Speaker 4: pro Publica has named the agents involved. I find that
- 10:49Speaker 4: a little questionable because obviously the agents are going to
- 10:53Speaker 4: get some level of harassment. But what everybody's kind of
- 10:59Speaker 4: pointed who is so interesting about it is that both
- 11:02Speaker 4: of the agents involved in the shooting last week of
- 11:06Speaker 4: alex Pretty are both Latino, And for some reason that's
- 11:11Speaker 4: like a surprise to a lot of people. As many
- 11:13Speaker 4: people have pointed out on x a high percentage of
- 11:15Speaker 4: both ICE agents and Homeland Security agents are actually Hispanic.
- 11:21Speaker 3: So yes, a couple months ago, I think it was
- 11:24Speaker 3: crystal Ball saying to Jennifer Welch that they could not
- 11:30Speaker 3: fatom minorities who work for these agencies, and both in
- 11:35Speaker 3: twenty twenty and now I have thought it's very strange
- 11:37Speaker 3: how happy liberal commenters are to admit that they have
- 11:40Speaker 3: never interacted with working class minorities, because if you ever have,
- 11:45Speaker 3: you would know. There's a bunch of people in local
- 11:49Speaker 3: and federal law enforcement, and particularly with Border Patrol, which
- 11:53Speaker 3: operates a lot on the southern border. Many of those
- 11:57Speaker 3: officers are going to be Latino and they don't know this,
- 12:02Speaker 3: or they pretend like Abby's doing. You don't inform yourself
- 12:06Speaker 3: because it would prevent you from having your white supremacist
- 12:10Speaker 3: view of ICE as a white supremacist organization, right.
- 12:15Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's it.
- 12:16Speaker 4: They have a point of view and they don't want
- 12:18Speaker 4: anything to ruin that point of view. So, yeah, to
- 12:22Speaker 4: come down to South Florida, I'll introduce you to some
- 12:26Speaker 4: members of various Spanish communities that do not believe what
- 12:30Speaker 4: you believe.
- 12:31Speaker 1: It's shocking.
- 12:33Speaker 3: One lefty, by the way, I noticed last night was
- 12:35Speaker 3: already doing the Hispanic officers or white supremacists, Hispanics executing
- 12:40Speaker 3: whites in the name of racially purifying America.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Welcome to hell.
- 12:44Speaker 2: What I don't.
- 12:46Speaker 1: Know, but look, this is part of what.
- 12:49Speaker 3: Yeah, my estimation of the facts of the case don't
- 12:53Speaker 3: change based on the race of the those same same Yeah,
- 12:58Speaker 3: for identity politics, leftists, what's happening here.
- 13:02Speaker 1: Guys, you do have to contend with these.
- 13:04Speaker 4: Facts, that's right, and they don't want to, so they
- 13:08Speaker 4: won't and nobody will make them.
- 13:10Speaker 2: And that's where we are. We're going to take a short.
- 13:13Speaker 4: Break and be right back with more on normally and
- 13:16Speaker 4: school closures.
- 13:18Speaker 2: Why do they happen? And Mary Catherine, we'll find out.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Be right back.
- 13:24Speaker 3: All right, we are back on normally with them some
- 13:27Speaker 3: more news about how it turns out when you break
- 13:30Speaker 3: these social habits and agreements about having functioning cities or
- 13:35Speaker 3: schools or Vegas working without masks, that a lot of
- 13:39Speaker 3: people forget how.
- 13:40Speaker 1: To do these things.
- 13:42Speaker 3: And the East Coast is at least its major blu
- 13:45Speaker 3: run cities and metropoli.
- 13:47Speaker 1: Is that how you do?
- 13:50Speaker 4: We'll accept it.
- 13:51Speaker 3: They are not operable right now because in the DC
- 13:55Speaker 3: area and.
- 13:56Speaker 1: New York there was a snowstorm at this point. Granted
- 14:03Speaker 1: it was there was sleet, there was ice.
- 14:06Speaker 3: The complaint that many municipal services are making is, hey,
- 14:10Speaker 3: this is forming this very icy snow crete that we
- 14:13Speaker 3: cannot possibly remove without heavy machinery.
- 14:17Speaker 1: But the point is a bunch of.
- 14:19Speaker 3: People pay really high taxes for place to live in
- 14:21Speaker 3: places that are not functioning right now.
- 14:23Speaker 1: They're just not functioning.
- 14:24Speaker 4: Yeah, and look, I understand the argument that this is
- 14:27Speaker 4: an extraordinary event. I understood that argument during COVID too.
- 14:32Speaker 4: What I don't understand is why schools are the only
- 14:35Speaker 4: thing still closed.
- 14:37Speaker 2: How come life goes on everywhere else.
- 14:39Speaker 4: I mean, your restaurants are open, right, businesses are open,
- 14:42Speaker 4: you go, everybody's back to work.
- 14:43Speaker 2: Only schools remain closed.
- 14:45Speaker 1: And here's the thing.
- 14:46Speaker 3: In DC, they actually it's like pick your own dysfunction
- 14:49Speaker 3: around here. So Virginia got the roads plowed for the
- 14:51Speaker 3: most part.
- 14:52Speaker 1: DC. No, I mean, it is frightful in the city.
- 14:57Speaker 3: But DC did open schools for a couple days at
- 15:00Speaker 3: the end of last week, and oh the unions were
- 15:03Speaker 3: so mad. And then we've got Maryland, which did neither.
- 15:09Speaker 2: Maryland's like, we'll let you know.
- 15:12Speaker 3: So here we are with again these every single day
- 15:17Speaker 3: of learning loss compounds what they lost during COVID. Like
- 15:22Speaker 3: people have not reclaimed that we're not starting from zero,
- 15:26Speaker 3: we're starting from negative further in DC because the all
- 15:32Speaker 3: the sidewalks are iced over. Muriel Bowser, the mayor, was
- 15:37Speaker 3: just like, we're gonna stop ticketing people for not clearing
- 15:40Speaker 3: their walks, So anybody who abided by the rules, of
- 15:44Speaker 3: course as a sucker, because now.
- 15:45Speaker 4: Losers about that.
- 15:48Speaker 1: They started a pop up system for salt.
- 15:51Speaker 2: Oh this is so good.
- 15:54Speaker 3: You come get your bucket because they're not doing it again.
- 15:59Speaker 3: This is all sort of it's a one party rule place.
- 16:02Speaker 3: So everyone will probably survive it and move on to
- 16:06Speaker 3: the next disaster where they once again deprive everyone of
- 16:10Speaker 3: services that they pay for.
- 16:12Speaker 1: But most importantly schools.
- 16:14Speaker 4: Yeah, and unions will of course continue to run the place.
- 16:17Speaker 4: Jen Saki, who was, you know, the spokesperson for the
- 16:21Speaker 4: Biden administration, tweeted, wrapping my head around schools in Virginia
- 16:24Speaker 4: being closed for another day when it hasn't snowed in
- 16:27Speaker 4: a week, and this is what it was like making
- 16:29Speaker 4: our way home to school growing up in the Northeast.
- 16:31Speaker 4: And she posted this video of its people climbing a
- 16:33Speaker 4: snowy mountain. I mean, my response to that was, like,
- 16:36Speaker 4: remember when Randy Weingarten was in the White House on
- 16:38Speaker 4: day one of the Biden administration. This is related, Like,
- 16:42Speaker 4: this is what it is. It's the teachers' unions controlled
- 16:45Speaker 4: Democratic Party, and they get whatever they want. And if
- 16:48Speaker 4: there is a little bit of snow on the ground
- 16:50Speaker 4: and life has returned back to normal for everybody else.
- 16:53Speaker 2: They get to keep schools closed.
- 16:55Speaker 4: And this is what happens when you let a special
- 16:58Speaker 4: interest group run your political party.
- 17:00Speaker 2: And that's where the Democrats are.
- 17:02Speaker 3: By the way, there was one great account of a
- 17:05Speaker 3: snowplow had made a snow mountain and the debris blocked
- 17:11Speaker 3: a DC speed camera and wouldn't you know what, Public
- 17:14Speaker 3: Works got out there to dig that speed camera out.
- 17:17Speaker 2: That was important to do.
- 17:18Speaker 1: Huh, that was important to do.
- 17:21Speaker 3: But also, like DC has a little bit more of
- 17:23Speaker 3: an excuse because mid Atlantic less snow.
- 17:26Speaker 1: What is New York doing? Right?
- 17:28Speaker 2: What is going on in New York?
- 17:29Speaker 4: And we gave that man, we gave Mom Donnie's some
- 17:31Speaker 4: credit last week.
- 17:32Speaker 2: For clearing the snow, and then it.
- 17:34Speaker 4: Got a little bit more snow and they completely lost
- 17:37Speaker 4: the plot.
- 17:39Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's like mountains of trash because trash has
- 17:43Speaker 3: not been picked up again. I do think this is
- 17:46Speaker 3: sort of the the ice versus ice contrast.
- 17:50Speaker 1: So the very big sort of ground swell among liberal.
- 17:55Speaker 3: Activists against ice and immigration enforcement, which by the way,
- 17:59Speaker 3: is having public impact, and we should acknowledge that. But
- 18:02Speaker 3: you see it that the Grammys like everyone speaking out
- 18:05Speaker 3: about right right, very very dramatic signally display at the
- 18:10Speaker 3: Grammys compared with how liberals actually govern and can produce
- 18:18Speaker 3: results is just sort of in a nutshell what liberalism
- 18:23Speaker 3: or progressivism, I would say, has become and it doesn't
- 18:27Speaker 3: serve people on a day to day basis. I also
- 18:29Speaker 3: loved that a bunch of a whole group of cyclists
- 18:33Speaker 3: did a big ride about, you know, an anti ice
- 18:36Speaker 3: ride around DC, and I thought to myself, huh, a
- 18:39Speaker 3: bunch of really rich white people on very expensive bicycles
- 18:42Speaker 3: taking up the half a lane that the DC government
- 18:46Speaker 3: has managed to plow so that they can do their
- 18:48Speaker 3: signaling and no one else could drive to work.
- 18:51Speaker 2: Right. Amazing guys, the half a leane. I really like that.
- 18:56Speaker 4: Meanwhile, also in New York City, the death toll from
- 18:58Speaker 4: freezing weather is now sixteen homeless people, thirteen of whom
- 19:03Speaker 4: have died of hypothermia. This is from Mayor Mumdanni directly,
- 19:06Speaker 4: and as I'm reading this, I'm like, well, that's one
- 19:08Speaker 4: way to end homelessness, So yes, this must be what
- 19:12Speaker 4: he meant, just like Cuomo solved coma man we're really
- 19:19Speaker 4: going to get in trouble for Yeah. The thing is
- 19:23Speaker 4: is that, like, none of this is compassionate. These people
- 19:25Speaker 4: are supposed to be compassionate. This is not compassion. Letting
- 19:27Speaker 4: people freeze to death because they're too mentally ill to
- 19:30Speaker 4: realize that they need to find shelter is not compassion
- 19:33Speaker 4: And that's why you need to force people indoors during
- 19:37Speaker 4: times like this. You can't just let them die in
- 19:39Speaker 4: the streets. And the idea that we need to be
- 19:42Speaker 4: saying this is beyond And you know what's having the
- 19:45Speaker 4: greatest time about with all of this is ex Mayor Adams.
- 19:49Speaker 2: He is tweeting at Mamdanni regularly.
- 19:52Speaker 4: He's like, I left us surplus. I, you know, had
- 19:55Speaker 4: set up the budget, I did all this stuff. I
- 19:58Speaker 4: don't know why New Yorkers are checked that, man, I
- 20:00Speaker 4: really don't.
- 20:01Speaker 1: I mean, well, he's not great.
- 20:02Speaker 4: He's not, but he's the best by a mile of
- 20:05Speaker 4: the whole field.
- 20:06Speaker 3: And the record had gotten better, like the results on
- 20:09Speaker 3: the ground had gotten better.
- 20:11Speaker 1: I mean, I think he's right to point out, especially
- 20:12Speaker 1: about this.
- 20:13Speaker 3: One, that Mamdanni's policy change on homeless encampments is directly
- 20:20Speaker 3: related to these deaths.
- 20:21Speaker 1: Yep.
- 20:22Speaker 3: Because they changed the rule, people were not going out
- 20:25Speaker 3: and trying to get people to shelter. You are allowing
- 20:29Speaker 3: this because you feel that it's compassionate, but as you
- 20:32Speaker 3: note Carrol, it ends in death, which is not compassionate.
- 20:35Speaker 3: I should also note, by the way, did you see
- 20:37Speaker 3: that out of Seattle, a couple of years after the
- 20:40Speaker 3: twenty twenty autonomous zone, if you recall that the activists
- 20:44Speaker 3: took over part of Seattle, a young man was murdered there. Yeah,
- 20:49Speaker 3: and Seattle was just sued for negligence by his family
- 20:52Speaker 3: because you know, the police are supposed to police the
- 20:55Speaker 3: streets and the government is supposed to have control over
- 20:57Speaker 3: these things, and it did not. They wanted two million
- 20:59Speaker 3: dollars settlement. Now that just means that taxpayers in Seattle
- 21:02Speaker 3: paid to not use the roads that are theirs and
- 21:05Speaker 3: then also endure to tragic death. And then also we'll
- 21:09Speaker 3: pay for that negligence.
- 21:12Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a win for somebody, definitely.
- 21:16Speaker 3: I just I'm going to become a one issue voter
- 21:18Speaker 3: on like you hippies don't own these streets.
- 21:20Speaker 1: They belong to people who pay taxes and drive.
- 21:22Speaker 3: Cars, also read books to issue voter.
- 21:27Speaker 2: Reading is good. Let's teach kids to read.
- 21:31Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going back to basics, folks. Roads are for driving,
- 21:34Speaker 1: schools are for reading books.
- 21:36Speaker 4: Yeah, and don't over order the Uber eats. But we'll
- 21:38Speaker 4: get into that in the next segment. Next we'll be
- 21:41Speaker 4: right back with more on normally and how Uber eats
- 21:45Speaker 4: maybe use it sparingly. We are back on normally and
- 21:52Speaker 4: a really crazy article in The New York Times a
- 21:56Speaker 4: few days ago called Freedom with a side of Guilt,
- 21:59Speaker 4: how food livery is reshaping meal time and how almost
- 22:03Speaker 4: three of every four restaurant orders in the US are
- 22:07Speaker 4: ordered to eat at home. I found this article top
- 22:11Speaker 4: to bottom Bananas. I mean it opens up with this.
- 22:14Speaker 4: There's pasta in the pantry and jarred sauce in the refrigerator.
- 22:17Speaker 4: So what compels Kihley Reedy to keep having spaghetti with
- 22:20Speaker 4: marinara delivered from the restaurant down the street for several
- 22:24Speaker 4: times the cost of cooking the dish herself?
- 22:26Speaker 2: Bananas? What are you ordering?
- 22:28Speaker 3: What?
- 22:29Speaker 2: I'm so confused.
- 22:30Speaker 4: Look, I love to order, and I am a big
- 22:33Speaker 4: ordering in person less since we moved to Florida because
- 22:36Speaker 4: there just aren't as many options as there were in Brooklyn.
- 22:39Speaker 4: I ordered my groceries, I get it. I treat it
- 22:42Speaker 4: as a luxury because I am time constricted. Yesterday I
- 22:46Speaker 4: ordered a full like Instacart order on the plane, delivered
- 22:50Speaker 4: to my house when I got off. You know, when
- 22:52Speaker 4: I got to my house after coming home from.
- 22:54Speaker 2: The airport, I had groceries. It was great.
- 22:57Speaker 4: But this ordering spaghetti Marinara from the local restaurant when
- 23:01Speaker 4: you have a jar of sauce in the fridge and
- 23:03Speaker 4: Marinira's sauce is also like the easiest thing in the
- 23:05Speaker 4: world to make. This does not compute for me at all.
- 23:09Speaker 3: So the stats on this are crazy. From her own accounting,
- 23:12Speaker 3: from her roughly fifty thousand dollars annual salary as a
- 23:16Speaker 3: data processor in San Diego, MS Reedy thirty four, grown
- 23:22Speaker 3: thirty four, This is not a twenty one year old. Okay,
- 23:25Speaker 3: thirty four spends at least two hundred to three hundred
- 23:28Speaker 3: a week on food delivery ordering in has eaten away
- 23:31Speaker 3: at her savings, you think, yeah, and letter to socialize
- 23:35Speaker 3: yes less. She tips generously, but worries that the delivery
- 23:38Speaker 3: drivers are poorly paid. Okay, let's take the lower end.
- 23:41Speaker 3: Two hundred dollars a week is roughly ten thousand dollars
- 23:46Speaker 3: a year, and she bakes fifty k In no universe
- 23:53Speaker 3: should that be acceptable behavior that we like encourage, right,
- 24:00Speaker 3: Hughes and I appreciated met Iglesias, who is a left
- 24:04Speaker 3: of center guy, grabbed this part and was like, we
- 24:09Speaker 3: should probably admit that some of the affordability problem is
- 24:11Speaker 3: that people just simply are living like this.
- 24:13Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's the whole thing, Like you're not allowed
- 24:16Speaker 4: to say that out loud.
- 24:18Speaker 2: Is that people.
- 24:19Speaker 4: Spend in a way that they simply have never spent before.
- 24:23Speaker 4: There's so many things that I just think are out
- 24:26Speaker 4: of control about this.
- 24:27Speaker 2: Kind of thing.
- 24:28Speaker 4: There's a guy in this article who does Uber Eats
- 24:33Speaker 4: delivery because he's in debt from all of his Uber
- 24:36Speaker 4: Eats delivering ordering.
- 24:38Speaker 1: That's correct, Carol, I just.
- 24:42Speaker 2: I'm so confused, he says.
- 24:44Speaker 4: You know, he complains, it can certainly feel like I'm
- 24:46Speaker 4: one of those robots and not an actual person who
- 24:49Speaker 4: has to go at a restaurant, pick up the food
- 24:50Speaker 4: and drive it to your house, he says. But he
- 24:52Speaker 4: keeps delivering because he likes the flexible hours. Another reason
- 24:55Speaker 4: mister Lane stays at it is to pay off his
- 24:58Speaker 4: debt from ordering too much food delivery, Like if you're
- 25:01Speaker 4: already gonna leave your house to go deliver food, like
- 25:04Speaker 4: just pick up some food.
- 25:09Speaker 1: That's like a Black Mirror episode right like this, and.
- 25:11Speaker 4: If you delivered it to yourself.
- 25:15Speaker 3: I do think this is again, this is a habit
- 25:18Speaker 3: that people lost during the pandemic. They used to cook more,
- 25:24Speaker 3: they used to go to restaurants more. The restaurants made
- 25:28Speaker 3: a little bit of a deal with the devil during
- 25:30Speaker 3: the pandemic, saying, okay, well they won't let the government
- 25:33Speaker 3: won't let us do anything else, so we're going to
- 25:35Speaker 3: deliver food. Never mind for the laptop class, the people
- 25:40Speaker 3: who actually had to do the delivering, just like all
- 25:41Speaker 3: the essential workers during the pandemic.
- 25:45Speaker 1: But then we get into this habit, and.
- 25:47Speaker 3: You know, we do more delivery than we used to
- 25:50Speaker 3: pre pandemic, just as we do less going to movies.
- 25:54Speaker 3: Another thing that suffered from this, just like people don't
- 25:57Speaker 3: know how to make schools work. You know, these are
- 26:00Speaker 3: all habits we acquired and jettisoned the old ones, which
- 26:04Speaker 3: it turns out we're much healthier for pocketbooks than probably
- 26:08Speaker 3: our souls. There's one person in here. Granted he probably
- 26:11Speaker 3: makes more than the fifty K check, he has two kids,
- 26:15Speaker 3: and he spends seven hundred dollars a week to order in.
- 26:20Speaker 2: I like, it's just baffling to me.
- 26:25Speaker 4: And again, I'm I'm in for the you know, saving
- 26:27Speaker 4: the time and if you have the money to do it.
- 26:30Speaker 4: But I prefer eating at home. I prefer cooking at home.
- 26:34Speaker 4: It's easier, it's healthier, it's tastier a lot of the time,
- 26:37Speaker 4: Like all of that just is it's better. And if
- 26:41Speaker 4: you're going to order in, like maybe, yeah, go step out,
- 26:44Speaker 4: go see what the world is like out there, Go
- 26:46Speaker 4: eat at the bar at your favorite restaurant and see
- 26:50Speaker 4: people in real life instead of just staring at your
- 26:52Speaker 4: four walls.
- 26:54Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think, and I you know, I don't.
- 26:56Speaker 3: I try not to be too much of a gen
- 26:59Speaker 3: z dumper honor.
- 27:01Speaker 1: I mean they get plenty of that. Yeah, I mean
- 27:05Speaker 1: there's this one woman, I yelled.
- 27:06Speaker 3: Sophomore said there's almost always a delivery driver outside her dorm,
- 27:09Speaker 3: even though undergraduates living on campus.
- 27:11Speaker 1: Are required to pay for a meal. Player.
- 27:14Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you are paying twice to eat food in college,
- 27:19Speaker 3: and then you're graduating with a bunch of debt, and
- 27:22Speaker 3: then you're telling the rest of us, we need to
- 27:24Speaker 3: forgive that debt. They also all these people have some
- 27:27Speaker 3: white concerns about the environment. That was the funniest part
- 27:32Speaker 3: statement of workers. The trash that piles up from these deliveries.
- 27:36Speaker 3: But they're still going to keep doing it right.
- 27:38Speaker 4: They're doing it insane quantities, and they're like feeling guilt
- 27:42Speaker 4: about it.
- 27:42Speaker 2: That's the other thing.
- 27:43Speaker 4: Like I but when I order food, I do not
- 27:44Speaker 4: feel guilt about it. Like, just get over it. Like,
- 27:46Speaker 4: if you're going to do something like that, just do it.
- 27:48Speaker 4: Don't give us a whole story about it. There was
- 27:52Speaker 4: an article in New York magazine back in I don't
- 27:55Speaker 4: know even no One a few months ago.
- 27:57Speaker 2: I haven't opened on my screen, but it doesn't have
- 27:58Speaker 2: a date.
- 27:59Speaker 4: But it was about how a lot of people are
- 28:02Speaker 4: paying for the Coachella concert with like a payment plan.
- 28:06Speaker 4: And of course this article gets into how expensive Coachella
- 28:09Speaker 4: has gotten and how it's benefiting, you know, the richest people.
- 28:13Speaker 4: The Coachella CEO is a conservative billionaire, blah blah blah.
- 28:17Speaker 2: But like the argument that maybe.
- 28:19Speaker 4: You shouldn't go to Coachella if it requires you getting
- 28:21Speaker 4: on a payment plan for it never enters.
- 28:24Speaker 1: The scope here.
- 28:25Speaker 2: And that's the thing.
- 28:26Speaker 4: If you can't afford this kind of thing. And I've
- 28:28Speaker 4: had many times in my life where I could not
- 28:30Speaker 4: afford certain luxuries. I didn't do them, and I've been
- 28:34Speaker 4: in debt. I've definitely had, you know, times in my
- 28:38Speaker 4: life where things were really tough.
- 28:40Speaker 2: You have to just get on a path where nobody
- 28:45Speaker 2: needs to tell.
- 28:45Speaker 4: You you don't need to live like this. This is not normal,
- 28:48Speaker 4: that's the whole thing. It's not normal. The people you're
- 28:52Speaker 4: seeing on social media who are ordering Uber eats and
- 28:54Speaker 4: going to Coachella and whatever, that's not normal. That's not
- 28:57Speaker 4: the way that young people lived. And you need to
- 29:00Speaker 4: be able to kind of put yourself first and not
- 29:03Speaker 4: get yourself into debt over trying to emulate people who
- 29:06Speaker 4: have a lot more money than you.
- 29:08Speaker 1: Also, I'm thankful for Caleb Hammer. Familiar with him.
- 29:12Speaker 2: Great, I've liked him for so long.
- 29:14Speaker 3: Yeah, he does a YouTube show is very popular called
- 29:17Speaker 3: Financial Audit.
- 29:18Speaker 1: He is the Dave Ramsey of our generation, and lord,
- 29:21Speaker 1: do we need one or not? Urginaries. I guess he's
- 29:25Speaker 1: younger than I.
- 29:26Speaker 4: A generation or two under us Mary Kathy, but that's okay.
- 29:28Speaker 1: But he is I'm between Ramsey and Hammer.
- 29:33Speaker 3: But he is inevitably finding people who live like this,
- 29:37Speaker 3: who frankly do a lot of fraud for their benefits,
- 29:42Speaker 3: and as a result he has become because he's just
- 29:44Speaker 3: a financial responsibility guy sort of write coded and he
- 29:48Speaker 3: pushes back on that he's just like, I'm trying to
- 29:50Speaker 3: help these people. But I do think our willingness to
- 29:54Speaker 3: say in public that living like this is not the
- 29:58Speaker 3: expectation that twenty.
- 30:00Speaker 1: Something should have.
- 30:01Speaker 2: It's just not normal.
- 30:02Speaker 3: No, it's and it's not responsible, right, and it cannot
- 30:06Speaker 3: go on in perpetuity, particularly if I'm paying your bills exactly.
- 30:11Speaker 4: Yeah, no more of this, No more Uber East guys.
- 30:14Speaker 4: Chill out, y'all.
- 30:15Speaker 2: Well, thanks for joining us on normally.
- 30:17Speaker 4: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
- 30:20Speaker 4: you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
- 30:22Speaker 4: normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
- 30:26Speaker 4: things get weird, act normally