Latest / Before You Speak / Before You Speak | Episode 32 | For Profit Prisons

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Before You Speak | Episode 32 | For Profit Prisons · Before You Speak

• Derek Peterson: What's up y'all? Welcome back to the Before You Speak podcast. I'm your host, Derek Peterson, just processing the fire hose of my news feed with ⁓ this guy over there. Elwyn: Do I need to move closer? Derek Peterson: Yes. Just get your nose right in that camera. Elwyn: Hey everybody. I am I am Elwyn and the fire hose of my news feed is delightly delightfully filled with the boos of Knicks fans thundering down around Donald Trump last night at Madison Square Garden. Derek Peterson: You know, it conveniently not shown on television, but ⁓ very conveniently showing up in like from every angle possible, all over the internet, elsewhere. So, you know I Elwyn: And c and conveniently buried during the national anthem. I've I fucking love that somebody had to sit there and make the decision, like, ⁓ he's really gonna get booed. We don't want that. Let's let's show him and join the national anthem. Because maybe people won't boo someone had to like that's it someone had to constantly there was like a meeting probably about that and fucking memos and shit. Like it's really gonna get tarred. Let's let's hide this. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Of course. Dude and yeah, and every person in the world was at that game like every famous person that has any connection to New York was like ⁓ all over that game yesterday. Including my old boss, Irving Azoff, was sitting underneath the basket there. So, you know, he has courtside Lakers tickets, but ⁓ I was surprised to see him over there for the Knicks. Like, come on, bro, what are you doing? You know? Thought you were Lakers, whatever. Elwyn: I think New York's the biggest basketball town in the world. Derek Peterson: I hate it. I can't stand Jim Dolan. I yeah, I I I hate will never root for the Knicks for that K for that reason. But y the series has been great. Jalen Brunson is ⁓ s that dude can ball. when we see guys that are that size, it reminds me the last time I saw somebody that size that was this good was Steph Curry. ⁓ and it's just rare because it the amount of skill and Elwyn: ⁓ Jim Dolan's terrible person. Derek Peterson: thought it takes to elevate and get through traffic ⁓ at that size is just a different level of commitment to the game. You know, like Wemby's committed to the game, but he's also like a athletic specimen. Same with LeBron James. Like you just it's not for a lack of commitment, but when you have a guy like Jalen Brunson, the amount of work you have to do is significantly more to be at that level. And it's just it's it it's Probably the most impressive thing I've seen in these playoffs. So it's been fun to watch. and now I hope the Spurs win in seven. So Elwyn: I can I'll tell you, you know, I spent the first 40 years of my life, 41 years of my life in New York, and I love sports. I really I love sports that went on before I was alive. I love sports during the time I was alive. And I can tell you with complete confidence that if the Knicks win this, Jalen Brunson is is now the the basketball face on New York Mount Rushmore sports heroes. The only reason he's not there yet is because they don't have a title, so you have to give it to like Walt Fli Ralt Frazier or Willis Reed. But he's he's right there. He's right there with Marc Messier, with whoever you want to pick from the Yankees in baseball would be a Yankee. ⁓ you know so he I d you know, I had this conversation. I wouldn't put Eli Manning up there 'cause I think you gotta go with L T or Joe Namath. But ⁓ you know Derek Peterson: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, everyone. Eli Manning who was also courtside last night. Elwyn: The world is a better place because Eli Manning is alive to roast Tom Brady. Like we're we're all we're all better off because Eli Manning beat Tom Brady twice in the Super Bowl and we'll never let him forget it. So Derek Peterson: That is ⁓ it with like eight and eight teams too. Like those teams were those Giants team going into the playoffs were like not expected to be get as far as they they just got on a heater at the end of the year and and rolled through the playoffs, which is and then dude, some of those catches are just unbelievable too. Like they it's like a it's a damn miracle. So like th those that that's the best like you see like some s some titles are won with like Elwyn: ⁓ yeah, then it's Derek Peterson: ⁓ an amazing quarterback. Other titles are won with like just incredible defense. New York's titles were one with just they were miracles, like literally miracles. So Elwyn: I mean certainly the the helmet catch, right? Like it's a miracle that he got out from that from that sack. It's a miracle that the guy caught it, the Tyree caught it. And you know, you hear the the ref talk and the Patriots and they're like, We were looking at the ref, like, blow the fucking whistle. And the ref was like, Yeah, no, I was like inhaling to exhale through the whistle. Like I w I was milliseconds away from blowing that play dead. Derek Peterson: Yes, yes. Elwyn: And instead it's like one of the most famous catches in NFL history and ruins Tom Brady's perfect season and decades of, you know, people handing Tom Brady Brady jerseys signed by Eli Manning just to watch him get really mad. Derek Peterson: It's so great. It's so great. ⁓ well, let's jump into the news. ⁓ I think ⁓ I would like to start with you know, the Epstein files aren't getting talked about enough. ⁓ they've kind of fallen out of the news. And then ⁓ just this week I saw an interview with Ivanka Trump, which dude, the lack of ⁓ just character around Like talking about buying your own island and just in a way that is just like ⁓ I don't know, like ⁓ look at what I'm doing this because it's like this artistic expression and we want to try something different and challenge myself. And I'm like that it is just you couldn't be full more removed from working class people than like that conversation was just so cringe. Then just the you know, like since Epstein is gone. There's all these connections to to Jared Jared Kushner being basically groomed as the guy that's going to basically take over what the Epstein role was. Liaison between whoever, who knows, Middle East, US, orchestrating all of these deals and so on. And then the dude goes and buys an island. Like, dude, somebody needs to check this island. When they build a house, if there are any trapdoors or like large shipments of sulfuric acid to that island. We need to like call this early. Elwyn: Wait, you you don't know about this island. You don't know what this island is. ⁓ okay, let's have some fun. So this is an island off of the coast of Albania that was like built out in World War two as just a giant island wide bunker. There's miles of tunnels underneath this island. There's a navy port on this island, right? This island Derek Peterson: No. Elwyn: Is protected like no other island on the planet is protected. This island is protected like fucking Hamas protects themselves in Gaza. Right? This is not an accident. This isn't an an art project. This is Peter Thiel going, hey, by the way, I kind of feel like this whole ⁓ human experiment is about to crash down around us. Think you can buy that fucking island in Albania and sell some apartments to your really, really, really, really rich friends and ⁓ alongside those apartments happen to be bomb proof, nuclear bomb proof tunnels that we can all hide out in when the you get bored of fighting in Iran and just to decide to drop a couple nukes somewhere. No, that's like dead trapdoors? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, this this is not a vanity project. This is way worse than that. Derek Peterson: My God. It yeah, that makes it way worse. I dude, I I I'm about to give up hope on humanity. I'm like, I just can't I don't understand how people cannot see right through all of this shit. It's you know, like I've been connected like the more and more you see what's happening too, like the ⁓ so I was listening to somebody talk the other day about the ballroom and how the ballroom being built and the bunker underneath it and one of the reasons there's this huge push for it is that there is a potential scenario where Trump refuses to leave office and hides out there and has a impenetrable kind of like situation set up where he doesn't actually have to leave and that there is a the reason that they're building it is for that purpose. Is it and the designs and plans for it are basically set up that if you are actually like inside the bunker, it's impossible to get to without you know, certain situations and I was like, man, ⁓ you know, I I'm trying not to go down the conspiracy ⁓ theory hole too much, but like the shit is like are you Elwyn: Yeah, I it let let Trot rot rot let Trump rot in the bunker if he doesn't want to leave the ground to the White House, right? Like legally him being in the bunker doesn't make him still president. But, you know, I I don't I'm not full tin foil hat on this Albanian island, but the the story that's being written can certainly read as follows The son in law and daughter of the world's most powerful man in charge of the world's largest nuclear arsenal, an arsenal of bombs, a man who is eighty years old and quite clearly demented and without his faculties, a man who is obsessed with bunkers and his own security. A son in law who is deeply in bed with all of the Middle Eastern moneyed powers, who handles their money, who runs money for them, who wants to remake that whole area of the world into Gaza land, into just a giant real estate bonanza. Buy a place and and all of these people give zero shits about humanity. Like they they don't care about people at all. And you know, this gives them the ability to launch wholesale warfare and be insulated, physically insulated from it, so that they can come out from their bunker and say, Guess what we have? We have boatloads of money and we're still alive. boatloads of money. You wanna rebuild all the shit that we just blew up? Take our money. We've got the money. Contractors line up for the money, right? Like that that's one way to choose our own adventure on this Albanian island story. And yeah, th it it's just too feasible to discount entirely. I mean Peter Thiel has already left the country to like the wilds of Argentina, right? Or like the the Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Elwyn: farthest reaches of South A South America because he sees it. You just have to listen to him talk. He sees like his future, the the future he sees is one that involves the downfall of humanity. He believes it's coming. And either he'll be the instrument of it or not, but he believes it's coming. And he certainly invested heavily in its coming. And he's getting the fuck out. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: And the Kushners and Trumps are are buying a fucking bunker leaden World War Two Ier Island with an army base and a Nap seaport that can handle submarines, by the way. They're getting the hell they're getting ready to get the hell out. Like and we're just sitting here like Derek Peterson: Yeah, we're sitting here podcasting like we're about to change the world. ⁓ and we are just gonna get laughed at one day for it. But you know, the only place I actually ever care to see any of these people is like well no, I I think worse. I think if this entire Epstein class, if we ever actually get a hold of all these documents, I think we need to take all everybody out of Alligator Alcatraz and put all of the Epstein class inside of it. Elwyn: Prison? Derek Peterson: I think that they should have to endure the shit that they're putting innocent people through all of that. Like I would like do I would I would pay money to have like a lot of money to have a camera in alligator Alcatraz watching like those dudes just rot. ⁓ it's it's awful man. It's ⁓ they're doing this shit to everybody else and laughing their way to the bank as a result of it and it ⁓ I just try not Elwyn: We'll we'll get we'll get to Alligator Alcatraz, but you know there's nobody there, right? Like they're ready to close it down. Yeah. Derek Peterson: Are they? Is it that really got ⁓ shut down? Elwyn: Yeah, there's no there hasn't been anyone there for months. Just I guess whoever wanted to get paid got paid. Derek Peterson: Wow. It was it was bad enough or just not sustainable, huh? I didn't I have ⁓ I've not seen that in my newsfeed, so I had no idea. Elwyn: Yeah, I it I'm pretty sure like there's it was a few months ago, but there's there's no one there. Derek Peterson: okay. Well, thank God. They did maybe they just keep moving them around so they can ⁓ them. So ⁓ that actually leads us into our topic for the day. We're ⁓ today we're gonna talk about for profit prisons, ⁓ and kind of what that looks like. So I think ⁓ this conversation can has a ⁓ of ⁓ and ⁓ obviously it's ⁓ it's an in depth conversation because ⁓ can talk like For profit prisons, ⁓ and often we discussed this prior to more often than not now are described as detention centers. So we're seeing more of the for profit prison system now is actually set up with what we're doing with illegal immigrants at the moment. But has not always been the case. ⁓ and then obviously Elwyn: Well hold on, I don't I I it it's detention centers and and prisons are are two different things. So it's not you know, it's not that we're describing these as detention centers. Detention centers it I don't know, disease lawyer brain coming out. I'm sorry. ⁓ detention centers specifically refer to people being held for deportation facilities, whereas a for-profit prison you know would involve people getting sent away for crimes. It is the same companies doing this. It it's just like different types of apples. You know, one's a fucking opal gold, the other one's a pink lady. ⁓ so yeah. Disease lawyer brain, sorry man. Derek Peterson: Correct. I mean it's a fair point. I I look at them the same because I'm like, yeah, people being hold aga held ⁓ oftentimes against their will, ⁓ which ⁓ and oftentimes innocent too, or you know not having done something that necessarily warrants the r reason for being in there, which is what we're about to get into, because ⁓ and I guess Let's start with you know let's start with a baseline of like what are your thoughts on for profit prisons and where do you see like is there any benefit and then let's we can just start with going straight into what is the what are the downsides, what are what are the shortfalls of all of these? Elwyn: So yeah, I was thinking about that as I was thinking about this, and I don't think that I'm like I'm not offended by the idea of a for profit prison. Like the the that construct, that concept doesn't you know cause me to break out in hives or anything like that. But you know, it it is kind of like one of these industries where The profit motive is something we need to be really, really careful about and really wary of because of what incentives it levies upon the companies that own these detention centers and and prisons. You know, but what it does is it it alleviates cost and and burden for the government, right? It it it does make sense in that way. The government doesn't have to maintain buy and maintain a building, the the government doesn't have to staff and hire all these people. The it shields the government probably from liability in some ways. ⁓ but it just becomes simpler for the government to say, you know what, we're gonna hire this company, they're gonna do it. But right there is kind of like that's that's entering the threshold of the conceptual house of a for-profit prison. What do we do from that point on is really where this debate happens. What are our expectations? What standards do we hold these contractors to? What do we allow? What are we willing to accept as a society? Who is giving out these contracts? What impact does the size of these companies that are running these detention centers have on legislation? What laws are passed and what issues we talk about in elections? ⁓ all of that stuff. You know, you you walk through that door and all of a sudden you're you're just smacked in the face with all of those issues. And they have to be resolved in a manner that's equitable and fair and just and I think that's where we fail right away. Derek Peterson: Yeah. I mean, I look at these for profit prisons though and it's it's still government money, correct? Like, you know, yeah, the government's not running it, but you know, they're getting th like all of these are getting paid, all of the contracts, and what makes these lucrative is that they're getting government contracts that have stipulations based on how many people are in there and how long they're being held, which you know, goes back to the Clinton administration, the when, you know, there was this, you know, dick swinging contest with Clinton and Bush for a while of who could be who could create more strict policies around, you know, ⁓ you know, crime, because that that was the hot button issue at the time ⁓ in the early nineties. Everybody was trying to fix the crime problem. ⁓ and then we end up in these situations where we have for profit prisons and we're, you know, three strikes and then certain depending on what the the charge is. certain things will get you ⁓ potentially life in prison ⁓ and it's they're actually relatively minor offenses. Like there was I was reading about one woman that ⁓ was not had no drugs in her system. She was driving and there was ⁓ cocaine in the car. So she got ⁓ and she got a thirty year sentence in for just having cocaine in her car ⁓ with the intent to distribute. ⁓ which is, you know, that like that kind of stuff. I'm like thirty years. for cocaine in your car. Like that's that's insane to me. So ⁓ there there's there's some real stuff that we I think we need to unpack here as far as the corruption goes. So let's let's jump into the downside. So what do you see as the biggest negatives about this? Elwyn: ⁓ I mean certainly the the opening for corruption, right? Like you just you just mentioned it. You have these contracts where the government guarantees a certain ⁓ bed occupancy rate, right? That they they're gonna pay, let's say, for seventy-five percent of the beds of an occupancy rate of seventy-five percent, whether or not there's actually s filled with seventy-five percent. The government in the contract says, Well, we're gonna pay you that. that much at least. So well now the government has an incentive to at least put someone in the bed that they're paying for. Otherwise it's just government waste. ⁓ and then you also have an incentive for the the developer, the company like Geo Group or was it Core Civic, Core Civil? ⁓ They don't want 75%, they want 100%. So how can they get more people in jail? Well lobby your senator, lobby your congressperson. Get stricter sentencing laws, create jail time for more different crimes, make the sent make the sentences longer. They these companies want people in jail. They want more people in jail for longer. And these companies are also often staffed by former ICE agents and former Bureau of Prison officials. So you just have this incredible corruption. That's thing one. Like that you had and that creates in its worst possible form. what's happened in Pennsylvania in like two thousand and nine, where two judges wound up being convicted, but they were part of a scheme. They got two point six million dollars in kickbacks themselves for sending kids to juvenile detention centers for crimes as serious as making fun of the assistant principal of a school on social media. These kids are going to juvenile detention centers, their lives are fucked up. Judges are getting financial kickbacks from the companies that own the juvenile detention centers. So the corruption, the the number of ways that somebody can be corrupt in this is myriad. ⁓ the second avenue is like, okay, any for-profit company has as its singular goal to make money, to especially if it's publicly traded, to increase profit. ⁓ some companies do that by creating a better product. But I don't think having like the iPhone of prisons is actually going to make any of these companies more money. So what do they do? They cut costs anywhere and everywhere. They don't fix leaks. They don't do ⁓ mold remediation. They hire catering contractors like in Delaney Hall, where there's maggots in the food. They hire poorly trained staff. They create a fee structure that impacts everybody. They just find ways to cut every cost everywhere so that they can make more money. So that's the second way that the sort of profit motive here really gets in the way of what are these facilities supposed to do in their most basic sense, without getting into like the the the moral justification or the moral goal of a prison system, whether it's punitive or designed to re educate and r reenter, without getting into any of that. Their job is to house people. ⁓ we do that and how these companies do that, you know, I think we'll get to this a little later, but that's a reflection of humanity and the for prof the that profit motive, it always gets in the way in industries like this and creates a shittier product. We see it with health insurance, we see it with detention centers. It's always the same. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, I think you know, I I'm gonna go a little bit further back on this, so track with me for a second because like ⁓ I watched the documentary thirteenth again ⁓ today and my ⁓ as I was kind of prepping for this, I think it's there's a thread that I think we should loop here too, because we do talk a lot about, you know, race and culture and different things, and we try to talk very honestly about that. And I think the prison system ⁓ has a lot of racial bias and I think we tau not talking about that or leaving that part of the conversation out I don't think does this conversation as much justice. So if you go back to the Thirteenth Amendment, which was written ratified in eighteen sixty five, neither slave neither slavery nor involuntary suit ⁓ servitude except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any place ⁓ subject to their jurisdiction. So basically slavery gets abolished and in the when slavery gets abolished, ⁓ they basically create the a system to continue to have slaves. And that system which it's a legal system way to have slaves, which we've seen. If you Elwyn: Which is legal. It's a carve out. Derek Peterson: enjoy Idaho potatoes. There's a good chance that inmates ⁓ have dug up those potatoes and ⁓ most likely they ended up on your plate somewhere ⁓ for free at the at no expense to the companies that are using them. ⁓ and there's a myriad of companies that use prison labor, right? ⁓ and so, you know, we've seen we've seen the the prison system be a ⁓ a a vehicle for hate ⁓ for so long. And it's it and you know, like the statistic is what? One there one in every three black males likely does some form of time in prison. ⁓ black males make up about six percent of the population. And ⁓ of everybody incarcerated Black males make up over forty percent of that population. So and now we're starting to see the same thing. The rhetoric, you know, we saw a little bit of reform during Black Lives Matters. ⁓ there like com drug convictions, things like that started to get loosened. We started seeing politicians actually coming out and pushing against a lot of this stuff. Even Hillary Clinton w came out and basically and Bill Clinton came out and was like, Yeah, we messed this up in the nineties. Like this was the We we were trying to do something that we thought was good, it ended up being used as something horrifically bad. ⁓ but it it's really hard for me to separate the two because like when I see what's going on with immigration right now, I just see the shift f going from black people to immigrants. The rhetoric that that was happening in the nineties where you know, all these guys are thugs and gangsters and doing all this stuff, and these are the this is the cause of all your problems and the reason you're not safe. And now all of the reason you're not safe and the cause of all of your problems is brown people from Mexico. So, you know, like there is a there is a part of the prison system that is also that is very racist and very racially driven and also feels like rich white guys are the ones that are benefiting on all of this. So like there there's part of this conversation I think that that needs to feed into this because a lot of the injustice that's happening doesn't really impact guys like me and you as much. It impacts unfairly ⁓ black and brown people, which also tend to get worse sentences and longer sentences. Elwyn: Yeah, mean I think ⁓ you know, in preparing for this I I tossed around the the the the racist aspect of it and and there is a a racist aspect a racism component to this without question I I think that anybody who wants to talk about the prison system in this country and not consider that is just simply not being honest. But one of my scars from 2020 and that time is the scar of bringing racism in to explain something When the thing that's being explained is bad enough on its own. Right? Because I don't I don't when when I'm talking about for-profit prisons, I don't want to argue with somebody who doesn't believe that there's a racist component to it. I don't want to give them the stats that in 1864, 99% of the prisoners in Alabama were white. In like 1875, 99% of the prisoners in Alabama were black. That there's a whole set of laws called the Black Codes that were designed to imprison. newly freed black people like vagrancy because of course they didn't have a house anymore because they weren't slaves anymore and now being vagrant is a crime punishable by imprisonment where, ⁓ by the way, you can keep slaves as long as they're in the prison system because of the exception clause of the Thirteenth Amendment. I don't want to have that argument with someone who's too myopic to see it, because the idea of for profit prisons in its execution is bad enough. And I want to I want to have that conversation. The other conversation needs to be had. I just I feel like people just like they get into racism. Everything's not racism. Like fucking Dr. Oz said it like yesterday. You can't be racist in Minnesota because being racist is like being called a racist is racist. I don't know what he said. It was like whatever. Some dumb shit. Right? But like you can't. So I agree with everything you said, and there's no question that Derek Peterson: Some dumb shit. Elwyn: that all of it is true. I'll I'll just take it as like pure capitalistic opportunity. These companies see an opportunity to make money by housing people who are either convicted of a crime, ⁓ waiting to be convicted, waiting for trial, right? Like a lot of people in jail have not been convicted. They are just simply being held on a bail that they can't afford. Which is another scandal altogether, or waiting to be deported or to go through the deportation system. So, like to me, in 2022, 2023, 2024, when Trump starts talking about mass deportations now and he's got mass deportation of sign behind him at the convention, all these groups are sitting there going, Yeah, awesome. Th this is this is a product opportunity, right? We have a product of detention centers of beds of cages to put people in and we can sell it to the government because they're gonna have an increased supply of people to put it in. Look, I don't feel that coldly about it, but I do think that that was, you know, it's a way to to bring the to talk about the issue in a manner that hopefully gets people to think like, wait, are these people products? Like are we handling this the right way? Like, look, if someone's here illegally, we can have a debate about whether or not they should be detained Whether or not they should not be detained, how they should be handled. You know, if someone is convicted of possession of marijuana, the conversation about sentencing guidelines and three strikes is a real one that we have to have and it's legitimate. But this is another conversation. This is what do we do, how do we treat those people, and how do we ⁓ manage the process of keeping track of these people or or holding them ⁓ until the time that their case or their issue can be adjudicated properly. And within that, do we demand honesty or do we open the system to groups like Alec so that they can come in and write the laws, which is what that group, it's a legislative council, does. Derek Peterson: Yeah, so the American Legislative Exchange Council, which was founded in nineteen seventy-three, is interesting because it's a mix of politicians and businessmen. And Alec is where ⁓ a lot of the prison system rhetoric and ⁓ the ideas of how like almost all of the formation of the pr private prison system ⁓ started with Alec and continues to to go through them and ironically, ⁓ not ironically, interestingly enough, most of the people that benefit the most from the for profit prison system also happen to be heavily involved in Alec. So the peop basically the people that are making the rules are are siphoning off the top. Elwyn: Yeah, and y you know, to illustrate kind of why Alec is bad, ⁓ we we live under the illusion, people like you and I, people like almost everybody in this country, that we vote for a city council or state representatives or federal representatives, and that those state representatives go and they Talk to the members of their caucus and their constituents and they come up with an idea or they had an idea, that's why we voted for them, because we like that idea. And they write a law, and of course they look at some of the other laws that were passed in other states. They look for proof of concept, they look for what worked, and but then they s put pen to paper and they start writing. Well, if you look at the laws that Alec has passed in different states, you know, you'll have like they're literally word for word the same. Right? So who Are we really voting for that? Like I I don't think so. Like I know things work, like every everything everything new is is built off of something old. I get it. But when you have one lobbying group that has all the same people that's just running from state to state, finding the same, you know, like rural white guy representative who ran on a farm bill or an anti crime bill, and you're saying, Hey, sponsor this bill, and it's exactly the same. in every single state, well, something's wrong because the problem is not the same in every state. The problem of marijuana possession in rural Nebraska is very different than the problem of marijuana possession in Los Angeles County. You know, and they don't they shouldn't be solved the same way. They shouldn't be handled the same way. I don't know which one is worse or better. I have no opinion on that. I don't know about I don't know shit about n rural Nebraska. ⁓ but like, you know, is possession of marijuana in downtown LA Like a jailable offense? If it is, everybody's going to jail. Well, before it wasn't legal. ⁓ you know, so organizations like Alec, they homogenized these laws into a way that makes it very, very clear that it's not for our benefit. It's for the benefit of some some company or some person who stands to benefit from the specific language that's being repeated in state after state. Not to mention the fact that like Geo Group. Derek Peterson: Yes, everybody. Elwyn: They have prisons in multiple states. Makes it nice and easy for them if the language is exactly the same. And we don't fucking know. Like people in Texas might get really mad if they knew that they had the same ⁓ marijuana law as Massachusetts or the s you know, some same criminal law as Massachusetts. We're not some blue state liberal hippie place. You know, make this worse. So it it it removes the the veil of representation, ⁓ and it is not Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Elwyn: on our behalf. It's on behalf of the people, the politicians and business people, like you mentioned, who make up the group. We're nowhere near that room. Derek Peterson: Yeah. And the it's also important to note that that room is full of people that were also that are like a lot of the people that back Alec are the same people that pushed Citizens United through. These are people that have basically ⁓ basically tried to continue are continually trying to take off the guardrails around A funding elections and being in to able to influence politics because Almost all of these if there's one thing all of these people know, it's that being government adjacent and getting government contracts is the most lucrative business you can be in in the United States. ⁓ and it's just for profit prisons, ⁓ Lockheed Martin and, you know, defense contracts, research for new drugs, if you can depending on, you know, what kind of contracts you can give and you know what your pitch is for for the research. It's just It's rampant all over the place. And it's ⁓ and we're we're constantly fed the story, which is the same story we were being fed about ⁓ the prison system, is that these people are bad and scary and we need to protect ourselves from them. ⁓ and they they they've developed the art form of convincing us that we're all it there's a bunch of scary monsters out there and they have the solution. And the solution is just to buy into ⁓ whatever thing that the is going to make them more money. So it's the it's a relatively simple process, once you actually deconstruct it all. Elwyn: Yeah the it Yeah, these it's exactly right. It is simple. These are lobbying groups funded by or these are lobbyists that are on Capitol Hill, paid by the companies that want to build these detention facilities. and it's the same as an oil and gas lobbyist, and it's the same as a defense lobbyist, it's the same as any, you know, industry-backed, well-heeled lobbying group, except we're not lobbying oil field we're not legislating loyal field oil fields, and we're not legislating ⁓ airplanes, we're legislating what we do when we remove somebody's freedom, and I feel like that deserves some scrutiny. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Well let's talk a little bit about like some of the specifics in regards to how some of these companies make money on the prison system. So like there's a bunch of ridiculous fees when it comes to like how these prison systems deal with the people that are incarcerated. So break some of these break some of that down for us. Elwyn: Yeah, so the these companies they want to make money however they can. So of course they get a government contract to build the facility or to rent you know, to rent the facility, and then they get a government contract that has occupancy rates and all that stuff. But the other way that they can make money is on the ⁓ the people who are imprisoned themselves. So and off of their families. So first of all, they work but they get paid like a dollar a day, right? Okay. Fine, I'm not gonna be like super duper pissed off about that. ⁓ but when their family wants to send money into their commissary account, which they need to do because things in the commissary cost like four times what they cost to the public, the they have to pay a fee and s in some instances that fee is forty five percent. The prison company takes forty five percent of the money that that company that that family is putting in to their family members account. ⁓ phone calls have gotten better. Phone calls used to run up to hundreds of dollars for a five or ten minute phone call, which the family of the inmate has to pay, not the inmate. Okay. Now it it can be up to I think a dollar a minute. I think it's been capped by federal by federal law. But still a dollar a minute for a phone call. I mean, when I was twenty-three, sure, and cell phones were new, you know, but phone calls are free now. You know, ⁓ they Charge, you know, of course, the health insurance, they have to buy their own health insurance. And of course, it's terrible health insurance, and it's run by groups that are in bed with those groups. In Florida, they charge a bed fee. They basically charge a nightly fee for every night you're in there to the inmate. And they that fee accumulates. It's it's bonkers. I mean that we pay that for a hotel, right? and What in a lot of cases they do, and certainly in Florida they do that, Florida's particularly egregious, is a few years ago they passed a constitutional amendment that allowed for the rights of convicted felons to vote to be restored upon release from their sent when their sentence was over. ⁓ that's constitutional amendment, I think it passed sixty to forty, so it was pretty popular. ⁓ well what the Florida State Legislature do, they immediately passed a law that said that that right to vote being restored was also contingent upon paying back any fines or fees levied as a result of your crime and or imprisonment. So one guy got out of jail in Florida and he's got a fifty five thousand dollar fee that he has to pay and that is his hotel. That that's his bed fee. But I've stayed in a fifty dollar hotel and I chose to pay it because I needed a place ⁓ to sleep. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: Right? Like i the idea to me when I read this that a state would charge someone in prison for the bed, like that it's bonkers. Right? Like yeah. Derek Peterson: It's it's ⁓ it's fucking terrible. It's sim it reminds me similarly of like how modern day slavery slavery works overseas. When I did a missions trip to Kenya when I was ⁓ in my younger years and we had to go through Dubai and while we were going through we I had to read a bunch about it just to make sure that we were safe because we wanted to like walk around for a day. and one of the things that ⁓ came up as I was kind of doing some research on that was the people there was a New York Times article, like a full op-ed or something that was that basically exposed that Dubai was built basically on slave lab slave labor. They would go into poorer countries, they would convince people to come and work, and then in coming to work they would end up taking their passports, but they would offer ⁓ lodging and food. But the they would charge them such an egregious amount for the lodging and food, which was awful. that the work they were doing wasn't paying for it. So they were consistently going in debt ⁓ and owing more. And then the people that had collected their passports wouldn't give them back because they're like, you owe me money now. So I'm feeding you and housing you and your work is not paying for it. So it's like basically this like loop of slavery. And it it really like we're doing something very similar here, just maybe Slightly better is what it feels like, which is just completely fucked up. No. I Elwyn: Is it is it? I don't know. I mean like in Arizona they charge just I forgot about this one. In a in Arizona, a family that wants to visit somebody, a family member in prison, has to pay twenty five dollars entrance fee. ⁓ you know, and of course these families are not blue collar, I mean are not white collar, right? These are these are people who are barely scraping by to begin with. But like so the comparison that you just made is an interesting one because I I don't know. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Elwyn: To me, this is a bit of a litmus test of a society, right? Like I'm under no illusions. I'm not I'm not about to make the argument that crime shouldn't be punished, or that people shouldn't be put in jail, ⁓ you know, or that people aren't responsible for their actions. You know, there's a million other problems with the criminal justice system that we're not talking about. But, you know, if you commit a crime and the sentence for that crime is punishable by jail time and the judge sentences you to jail, like All right, you're in jail. You f you've done fucked up pretty bad if if you're in jail. Okay. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the fact that you wound up there. In some cases I do, but by and large, like let's put that to the side. But now what? Right? Like you're still human to me. You still have you should you should still have the right to speak to your children, the right to speak to your spouse or your parents. You should still have the right to eat a meal that is, you know, not infested with maggots. You know, that ha it's not a f it's not a Michelin-starred restaurant. I I'm under no illusions about that. But it should be a meal that has some protein and has some starchy carbs and some vegetables. Right? You should we should be treating people like that. We should be treating people in a manner if they need medication. They can get their medication. If they need to see a doctor, they see a doctor. Is it the the dean of Harvard Medical School? No. But it's a competent medical professional who is going to take care of the person with humanity. I don't think that that's too high of a bar to demand out of our prison system. And I think that what happens too often, and the space that these for-profit companies just gleefully occupy is the space created by. We as a society saying, ⁓ that guy got convicted of a crime, he's going to jail. He no longer exists. That person doesn't exist anymore. Off the radar. They're, you know, they are wiped away from our conscience. And there I, you know, I'm acutely aware that there's a ton of shit that we all have to worry about every day. ⁓ you know, ⁓ and it's I'm not asking anybody to like, go out and be a prison activist. But I do think that when you think about this type of topic, you know, it's like, how do we just treat other people? Do we do we treat them as humans or not? And that so that's the difference between like the the slave labor, I don't know if it's better or worse, right? And that's how they did the World Cup in Qatar in twenty twenty two, by the way. ⁓ you know, I d ⁓ it's worse in some ways, but it's Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: You know, this is state action. This is done on our behalf, right? I don't I don't have a say in who goes and builds the Borge Dubai. I do have a say in how prisoners in Austin, Texas, and in Texas and in the United States are treated. ⁓ so to me, that that that's a meaningful distinction. And I just feel like as a litmus test for humanity. How we treat our prisoners is a really, really good one, and it's a great one in this country because we don't rank a number one in the world in an awful lot of stuff. We rank number one in things like, you know, gun deaths and percent of our population that's in prison. So, you know, we're making a very clear statement to the rest of the world that we are completely fine throwing our people in into jail, and we're making a further statement that we're completely fine not giving a shit about how they're treated. Derek Peterson: Yep. Elwyn: And that's what these protests at Delaney Hall in New Jersey were all about. They're about the mistreatment of humans. Humans who, in most cases, simply crossed a border without the right papers. Right? And it's not right. Derek Peterson: This is yeah. And I think this is the crux of the conversation, right? Is just that, you know, when we when you boil this all down, I believe in law and order. I I it's critical, right? If you do bad shit, you should go to jail. And there are people that have the sole purpose, and I've met some of them throughout my life, that want to hurt other people, that want to ⁓ destroy things, that have zero desire to be functioning people in society. ⁓ and if that is you, ⁓ a prison the prison system needs to be able to manage human beings like that. It's the only way we can have a civilized society. But on the other end of the spectrum, when when profit becomes involved and incarcerating people makes somebody else rich, we start to we we find ourself in this place where it it is becomes not about the thing anymore. It's not about the bad catching bad people. It's about meeting a quota, getting numbers, like making sure and that's where this whole system gets fucked up. Because, you know, if the system was working, half of the administration would write right now would be in jail. If the system was working, the people that are in Delaney Hall, the a good majority of them would not be there. Like people that are actually doing things that deserve to be ⁓ in prison should be there. There's no question about that. But the people that should that that don't shouldn't be. And there should not be ⁓ incentives to put people in prison to make money on it. And that's the part of it for me that I'm like, yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself. Because the very people that are benefiting on all of this are the ones that seem to be the most crooked and probably belong in the very facilities that they are making money on. on putting people innocent people into. So ⁓ Elwyn: Yeah, I mean I think you're you're absolutely right. And and the thing that I think people forget is In my estimation, having looked up no numbers, I would guess that the vast majority of people who are in prisons in this country are in prisons for nonviolent drug offenses, ⁓ or for first offenses that you know, definitely, you know, not not murder, right? There's not that many murderers running around. and these are people that like look. I'm not gonna say they're good people, but they are people with families, with brothers, with sisters, with mothers and fathers and and kids who, you know, have the right to see them. And even if you don't believe that, the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and kids, they have the right to see their brother, sister, kid, or father. ⁓ and we remove that right when we just throw them away. And don't pay attention to the fact that it costs, you know, a dollar a minute to make a phone call, that it costs ten dollars to make a thirty second video snippet on a tablet that you have access to now, that it costs twenty five dollars for your family to get to a prison that maybe they just have to drive three hours to get to. ⁓ you know, that they can only get to once every two months 'cause they have to work. You know, these are it it's not a defense of criminals to say that we can treat these people better. ⁓ the ones that are the worst are gonna get treated the worst. There's no issue with that. Did you ever watch the show Oz? Derek Peterson: it's been forever. Elwyn: So great show, fairly disturbed show. But there was a guy, one of the lead guys in that was a guy, Tobias Beecher was his character's name. White guy gets thrown in this maximum security prison because he gets drunk at lunch one day and he ⁓ runs over a kid who kills the kid and hit and run, but he gets he gets busted and he gets thrown in jail. That show scared the shit out of me because of that guy. Because of that character. Because this was just a guy who made an awful mistake and deserves to go to jail, right? But the lack of humanity that he experienced in there scarred him forever. Right? And I can't control, we can't control what the other inmates do to him. You know, we we can try, but but we can't. It's Terrible place no matter what. But we can control the overall structure of humanity ⁓ that exists ⁓ around him from the guards, from the warden, from the health staff. Like that stuff is in our control. And and we can do better. And I know we can do better because we're doing so badly right now, right? Like to tie it back away from like fucking Tobias Beecher and all the shit. In Delaney Hall, they're getting served meals with maggots. And the response from the government is to throw the protesters under actual trucks, right? And to pepper spray senators. Because people on earth believe that people in detention centers should be served food that's free of maggots. Who's right and who's wrong there? Right? Because to me it's quite clear, right? It's the for-profit company that is wrong. And they're served maggot food. Because it's fucking for profit, because they can hire a caterer that's cheaper, they can bring in meals cheaper, and they can go line their pockets more. It it's wrong. The whole system is wrong. Derek Peterson: Yep. If you care about money more than other human beings, there is a special place in hell for you. ⁓ and that is the ⁓ that is the crux of it. ⁓ and ⁓ from a Christian standpoint that is actually accurate. So if you claim to be a Christian and your viewpoint is that these people deserve it, ⁓ I have ⁓ some news for you. You might you might open your eyes one day and ⁓ be be being judged for that exact thing. So let's ⁓ I think it's probably a good spot to ⁓ is there anything else you wanted to add in there on the end? I think it might be a good space to Elwyn: No, I mean I'll just tie it back to like the I don't think people would listen to this and like all of a sudden become prison rights activists. But I do hope that when you hear this stuff come up, you just run that question through your own moral moral steck, ⁓ your own moral morality litmus test and say, you know, what's what's the level that I demand of human treatment for others when when they have no option but to rely on the state for everything, right? What is the level that I demand? ⁓ and if that level is maggot food, I'm probably not friends with you. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, there is a there's a specific ⁓ there's a specific way that this stuff is communicated and it's communicated through fear. ⁓ and it the more you know, forever it was, you know, we need to fear black people because they're dangerous black men, and it was the the rhetoric that was pushed and that rhetoric has shifted in the last probably ten years to Immigrants. Immigrants are the things we should fear and they're the source of our problems. And the one thing I would just ask everybody is to question like A, is that actually true? Have you ever actually experienced that? And and B, who benefits from this lie more than anybody else? ⁓ and if you research the answer to those ⁓ that question, becomes pretty obvious like what the situation is. Is there's some pretty terrible people that are making money on ⁓ throwing innocent people in jail in captivity, ⁓ because they make money on it. And ⁓ not saying it's everybody. ⁓ prison systems obviously like bad people need to ⁓ be put in jail. ⁓ and if we don't have that we we would have anarchy. ⁓ so I'm not shitting on the whole system, but I am shitting on the system that ⁓ makes money for some kid, you know Stealing a candy bar or some shit like that. So Elwyn: Yeah, don't ask me to give up my humanity because you want to make money on some bad person. Derek Peterson: Correct. Yep. So ⁓ who we telling to shut the fuck up today, Owen? Elwyn: So it was gonna be the guy with the douchey bumper sticker in front of me on my way home today. But ⁓ but I I've called an audible. Derek Peterson: You got you y you're you're you're pivoting at the moment? Is it is it me? Elwyn: I'm pivoting at the moment. I'm pivoting to no, it's it's I don't I don't know how to identify this group of people, but let's call it Blue Sky Anti Graham Platiner Democrats. Okay. ⁓ I was gonna get fucking Platiner in in this episode one way or another, because I'm really getting more and more angry about it the more I think about it. So Grand Platiner, we've talked about him a bunch of times before. He you know, he is let's call it a flawed human. Derek Peterson: Ha ha. Elwyn: So a report came out in the New York Times last week that ⁓ it did not accuse him of assaulting an a woman. Right. So early last week there's some some messages came out, or a story came out that before when he first met his wife, but before they got married, he was sending, he was sexting with some other women. The wife came out, spoke on his behalf, she knew about it. She was in fact the one had who had ⁓ given it to the media. I think we covered all that last week. ⁓ so later in the week, the New York Times comes out with an article sourcing three women, only one of whom was named, who said that he did shit when they were in a relationship with him that ⁓ left them feeling, I believe the word is unsettled. Okay. ⁓ the most the the one woman who put her name to it who is a Republican operative. Who works in Washington, DC for the Heritage Foundation, who dated him, ⁓ said that at one point he like grabbed her and pulled her out of a cab. And at another point, they were in an argument and he pushed her into a room and shut the door and said, Don't come out until you've calmed down. And she when she slept, when she she went to sleep and woke up and and came out of the room. So, like, all right. Graham Platiner's a shitbag. He's a terrible boyfriend. All right. He he but he was not, you know, and I'm not really even going to defend what he did. The thing is, though, that like it's like there's a segment of the Democratic Party that didn't get what they wanted out of the Me Too movement. They didn't like, they don't they kind of don't like how that's shifted. How the narrative has shifted from Me Too away from believe every us every claim ever, no matter what, no questions asked. ⁓ and they kind of don't know what to do with this sort of thing. Because I can promise you that ⁓ the Democratic Party as a whole, if they saw this from a Republican, they'd be all mad. Now some of the Democrats are mad and some aren't. And that's where the fight is, right? The the Democrats who are mad are mad at the Democrats who are not mad. They're like, this is fucking terrible stuff. And the Democrats who are not mad are like, is it? You know, is it terrible? Is it disqualifying? In twenty twenty six, in the age of Trump, in the age of Spencer Pratt, in the age of, you know, religious leaders getting convicted of sexual assault kind of on a weekly basis. Is what Grant Plattiner did? Grant Plattiner a guy who has acknowledged that he had a drinking problem and has acknowledged PTSD and has acknowledged. you know, being in therapy and has acknowledged being kind of a dog is the fact that this guy did dog shit disqualifying in a fucking race for the United States Senate. Look, I wish to I really wish that the Democratic establishment, that the Chuck Schumers of the world knew a year and a half ago what their base was saying. And their base was saying, stop giving me Janet Mills. Stop giving me a seventy-eight year old establishment Democrat who is success who is a successful governor of Maine. I don't want that person as a senator. Okay? I don't want Susan Collins either, but I don't want Janet Mills. I want this guy. He's like me. He speaks to me. I'm not perfect. I live in Maine. I've gotten drunk and, you know, done some shit I'm not proud of. So is he, right? He served our country and he has PTSD and I respect that and he's acknowledged his mistakes and I respect that. And Grant Platiner has an honesty problem, which is real and could cost him the election. And we have the right to sort of demand honesty when we absolve past actions. We definitely have that right. And I don't love that Grant Platiner has a fucking Nazi tattoo on his chest and you know cross posts white supremacists. But you know what? I have to swallow that because Chuck Schumer fucked up and couldn't find a better candidate. Okay, then Janet Mills, and because giving up the Supreme Court is too big a price to pay for Grand Platinum's misgivings. And that's literally what we're talking about. We are talking about a 53rd, a third flipped seat, right? We're gonna f the Democrats are gonna flip North Carolina. They have a shot at flipping Alaska. They should flip Michigan, but God only knows how that's gonna go. They could take Ohio back, they could take Texas, but Maine is. The second easiest one on that list behind North Carolina. Maine should be a slam dunk. Okay, the only thing that can get in the way is stupid Democratic infighting. And I know he's a fucked up candidate, and I don't want to carry his water. But I don't want to live under Thomas and Alito for another fucking billion years or whoever replaces him. There's way more at stake, Democrats on Blue Sky, than whether or not you find this guy to be a pig. Cool. He's a pig. Cool. He's a little too comfortable with Nazi tattoos. Cool. I probably wouldn't vote for him in the primary. I probably would have voted for Janet Mills because of all that shit, because I can't put my vote on that. But I'm not gonna fucking tank his campaign, let Susan Collins win again, and rubber stamp whoever fucking Trump wants. Wake the fuck up, Democrats. You are not living in a world where you get to pick some perfect choir boy for your candidacy. Wake the fuck up, Democrats. You are not living in a world where get to pick some perfect choir boy for your candidacy. People are imperfect. People are on Roblox when they're ten right now. What are we gonna do in ten years? Look at somebody's Roblox chat and find they said terrible shit on fucking I don't know, war some first person shooter on on Sony PlayStation? We're online. We're in texts, and we all have shit in there that could be disqualifying under the rules that were existed twenty years ago. Stop throwing those rules in my face. People are imperfect. People are on Roblox when they're ten right now. What are we gonna do in ten years? Look at somebody's Roblox chat and find they said terrible shit on fucking I don't know, war some first person shooter on on Sony PlayStation? We're online. We're in texts, and we all have shit in there that could be disqualifying under the rules that were existed twenty years ago. Stop throwing those rules in my face. And get used to the new rules and just fucking find a better candidate or swallow hard And get used to the new rules and just fucking find a better candidate or swallow hard because the fucking Republicans, ⁓ they have no doubt, they have no second thought ⁓ on this question. They vote for Republican. It doesn't matter what a piece of shit is or she is. ⁓ They are gonna vote for them because they understand power. And that's what this is about. It's no longer about character. And Thomas Jefferson wouldn't want it to be about character anyway. So shut the fuck up Blue Sky Dems. Stop shitting on Platiner. Call him a dog. He calls himself a dog. But get the fucking line and get the guy elected and then find someone better in the next state. But don't fuck this up like you fucked it up six years ago. God damn it, Democrats. Derek Peterson: Well fist bump that. The it's funny because like one of the foundational things I teach my kids is, you know, it's not it the mistake isn't the problem, it's what you do afterwards. So it's the ⁓ it's either the cover up or the owning of it. And what I will say is that, you know, the stuff that's going around about Grant Platiner, like I've been through two divorces and some of the worst moments of my life were ⁓ moments where ⁓ I've never hit anybody in my life. ⁓ that's something I learned early not to do because I'm a big guy. But I've said some of the worst shit I've ever said to people when ⁓ when pressed and angry and yeah, things I'm not proud of. And the one thing I will say is, man, like when you dissect somebody's personal life like this and try to hold it against them and then use that as like a test of morality, I don't think it's accurate. ⁓ and I'm not relinquishing Grand Platinum from a lot of the stuff that's comed up come up here because there's a lot of there's a lot of truth to some of the shitty things like I don't have a Nazi tattoo on me. So like ⁓ nor would I ever get anything that was similar to actually, I mean, I can't really I have the devil tattooed on me right here. So you know like the the the symbolism behind my arm is a little different. But ⁓ you know, like like I said, you can You can dissect somebody's life in any situation like that. So ⁓ but I'm with you on that. Is that, you know fucking shut up, Democrats. Like we we we are in a moment in time where in fighting, ⁓ we n we need to set that shit aside. You know? Elwyn: And yeah, and what you said is exactly right. I can go back. I know right now, a moment I'm thinking about where it's like, ooh, that was that was pretty bad. And I never hit or assaulted anybody either. But yeah, there are there are times when I was like, really, really bad. ⁓ you know, and if we could create in the lab the perfect elected representative, great. But we can't. And Derek Peterson: I said Elwyn: You know, the Democrats lose because they they don't accept flaws. And the thing that drives me nuts about Platiner is the flaw that's gonna take him down amongst the Democrats isn't the fucking Nazi tattoo. Like that should be the flaw. That should be the disqualifying thing. The f I don't think he's a Nazi, by the way. But if any of this shit's gonna be disqualifying, it's gotta be the fact that he wore a fucking Nazi tattoo. Derek Peterson: No. If anybody's a Nazi Yeah, it's if anybody's a Nazi, it's the fucking guy that was encouraging the Proud Boys to grab some tiki torches and and march, right? And w like Elwyn: Right. Blood and soil, you know, Jews will not become us. Those are the fucking Nazis. But look, cool. The the reason I get fired up about the Nazi tattoo is like once we allow that, we're really lowering the bar. To me, that bar now we're taking a red line and eliminating it. And that s sh it to me should be a more permanent red line than like a guy acting like a fucking asshole. Derek Peterson: Yeah, like go Agreed. Elwyn: Who's acknowledg a guy who's acknowledged that he was a fucking asshole, acting like a fucking asshole. That's not that's just not a red line that we should have as a party anymore. It's not that's not the way the world is. Derek Peterson: Yeah. And you miss the context, right? Like some of the worst shit I said was after arguments and and spa and ⁓ stuff that happened with my ex wives. But the if you just take my side of it, it looks fucking terrible. But if you then realize like, actually she tore my shirt and threw a bowl of spaghetti at me prior to what I said, then you're like, ⁓ Well, maybe there's a little bit of context you were missing prior to all of this. So yeah, like you can get one version of a story, but trying to dissect ⁓ a fight between a couple and using that against them, go fuck yourself. I'm like, there's no way I'm going to do that. And if this is the infighting we're allowing to to break up, you know, or make a decision about who we think Grand Platiner is, I'm like, yeah, I'm I'm old enough and I've had enough relationships to realize there's two sides to every story. ⁓ we've yet to hear his but whoever is willing to slam him into the has he? Elwyn: No, he's he said it. He he he gave his side. He said like I was shitty. I was a bad boyfriend. The the allegations about pulling her out of the cab he he vehemently denies. and about putting her in the ⁓ Derek Peterson: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But the see that's what I'm s yeah, like there's that kind of stuff where I'm like, yeah, like being a shitty person and saying some terrible things, but then getting physical with some these are two very different things. And people tend to lump some of the truth in with something that's not true to make it more believable. And I'm not going Elwyn: And that woman s and that woman said he never assaulted me. She said it very clearly. She said he never assaulted me. Now, look, do I feel gross being a white guy talking about that as the bar? Yeah. But she made she's the one who said it. Like she's she made the point to say it, not me. Derek Peterson: Yeah. So So Yeah. Correct. Well, let's ⁓ I'm I'm getting all boiled up here. It's yeah. No, you're good. ⁓ what are we talking about next week? Elwyn: I dragged that out, sorry. Yeah. ⁓ fuck, I don't know. Probably Grand Platiner. God damn it. The fucking god better win. Derek Peterson: Do a full should we just do a full breakdown on platinum next week? ⁓ guess, please God. I actually Elwyn: Susan Collins out of two thousand lives. Derek Peterson: Yeah. ⁓ I actually like listening to Grant Platiner talk. I I think there is if if he actually if he actually follows through with the things that he says and he actually believes in and is going to govern the way he says, I think he's ⁓ I I actually think he's a public figure that I will respect and not to say he's perfect or not gonna make a mistake, but like there's the what he talks he genuinely feels like he has his constituents' heart. Like he he wants a better life for the people of Maine and that is the thing that I see ⁓ him touting and I hope that other people do too. But as far as next week goes, I mean ⁓ you wanna do an episode on CrossFit? 'Cause ⁓ that's something we can ⁓ Elwyn: Well yeah. Sure, we can inside baseball for a week. Derek Peterson: I it's a a little little break from our po I mean, we can still ⁓ that there's we there's a world where we can merge some politics and crossfit together too. So Elwyn: We could do well, we could do like a midsummer sports episode. Cause you've got the World Cup starting. You've you'll have the NBA finals either completed or ⁓ going to basically game seven. ⁓ CrossFit's doing their semifinals. You'll have the baseball season in full swing, hockey's just about done. It's it's a pretty ripe sports time. We could do a midsummer sports episode. Derek Peterson: ⁓ that would World Cup is my favorite. I'm in. ⁓ well I specifically actu yeah. I actually specifically would love to do an episode on CrossFit because I think I think actually talking through some of the business side of that, the culture side of CrossFit and to be honest, it's it's fall from grace 'cause I think it's steadily falling and getting worse to the point of where I think it's not gonna exist anymore soon. But I think that mu that would be a fun episode and we both have a lot of experience to talk about it so. Elwyn: I don't have to prepare, I love it. Let's do ⁓ let's let's make like half of it crossfit and half of it just fun. Cool. Derek Peterson: Dill, let's do it. Well ⁓ see y'all next week for ⁓ everybody that made it through this episode to this to the end. I don't even usually make it this far. So ⁓ see you next week. Elwyn: Yeah, I'm sweating. Here. Fuck.