Weekly Zeitgeist 19 (Best of 4/9/18-4/13/18)

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 26 (4/9/18-4/13/18.)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the
Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh. These are some of our favorite segments
from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment
laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is

(00:22):
the Weekly Zeitgeist. Really all right, let's get into the
stories of the day. Um. Over the weekend, we had
a fire in New York City, which was national news
because it was in Trump Tower. Um. And yep, we
once again get a metaphor that we'd all call hackey

(00:43):
if we saw it in a movie. But it's happening reality,
So it's just like another news story. And you know,
this was getting coverage for a couple of reasons. Uh.
Guy died, which the shame. He's uh wealthy art collector,
and his name was Todd Brassner. Uh. And he was

(01:05):
on a floor that didn't have fire sprinklers, which uh
you would think is would be mandatory these days. Uh,
And apparently it is in any new building that was
built after like the nineties, late nineties in New York City,
after a couple of fires killed a bunch of people, Uh,

(01:27):
they were like, okay, we will need the sprinklers. Might
need those sprinklers. Uh, but landlords and developers like Donald
Trump and including Donald Trump uh lobbied against sprinklers uh
as being unnecessary and uh, which translates to expensive for him. Uh.

(01:47):
And he, you know, through spending and hassling, got them
to make it so that it was only required to
add sprinklers into buildings that were built going forward. Um,
we should never totally normalize the fact that we have
this cartoon landlord villain as the president. Like we it's

(02:10):
easy to just forget that this dude is like a
bad guy. Mr cutting Corn basically this guy, the sixty
seven year ol dude who lost his life. A lot
of the news is kind of portraying it to of that,
like there was an added tragedy because this man was
trying to move out of Trump Tower, but because it
was in Trump Tower, nobody wanted to buy it or whatever,
which is yeah, sure, I get that it must have

(02:31):
sucked to have been stuck with that building, especially like
as you know, security increase and it's like I'm walking
into a weird building. Now people like demonstrating or there's
like armed police or whatever. But you know, at the end,
it's crazy to know that this is all born out
of the idea of it just being simply the money
wasn't there, or he didn't want to spend the money.
Trump didn't want to to make the building safe. Just

(02:53):
totally fucking avoidable. I don't know, it's weird. It's one
of those stories too. We were talking before. It's like, yes,
this is a fucked up story, and then it's also
one of those Trump stories where you go, yeah, of course,
a fucking person who is living in Trump Tower died
from in a completely avoidable way, simply because of this
person's greed as a developer of not wanting to build
in these added security measures. So and I think that

(03:16):
sort of mentality is obviously bleeding into every level of
our government now. I just hope that people can start
to realize how government policy actually does affect your life
and can kill you. And I feel like that's something
that most of the country is like, Oh, we let
them all makers go in there and clamp the gables
and wrap the pipers, and it don't affect us. And
it's like, no, it does. It can kill you, like

(03:39):
decisions made by the government can and we'll kill you. Yeah. Well,
that's again why you know, the people talk about the
regulations is a bad word. This is the kind of
ship that you need basic safety standards so someone has
at least some form of fire, you know, some some
kind of sprinkler system to come back to fire that
breaks out. Yeah, these are the sorts of things that uh,

(04:00):
you know, government regulations are a bad word. Uh, they're
just it's not a cool thing to talk about. In
most of America, but also especially in like Fox News
America and Trump America, they think that all government is bad.
So if the government is doing it, it should not
be happening. And the people who are applauding regulations being
taken down our assholes who are like, see, now we

(04:22):
don't spend that extra seventy K to put in the
sprinkler system and we can save that blah blah blah. Yeah,
that's the kind of fucking regular like, come on, and
that would have made jobs. Yeah exactly, private firemen right
have their fires, but think about how much money you
can make. But yeah, in addition to that sort of

(04:44):
thinking bleeding into our national government. Now, uh it apparently
you know, he didn't just make it so that Trump
Tower didn't need to ad sprinklers. It's all residential buildings
in New York City. And you know, some experts were
talking about on yesterday's Sunday shows that the buildings in
New York are basically fire traps because of this legislation, because,

(05:07):
uh they don't have sprinklers and fire engine ladders only
go to something like the nineteenth floor. And that's Jesus,
that's nothing in New York. You know, most buildings are
above nineteen stories tall. Uh So, yeah, it's it's not great.
It's a good thing. He was discriminating against the Blacks.
We won't be done in those fires. Couldn't move it, right.

(05:30):
Uh So, we do want to talk about a study
that just came out that male students vastly overestimate their
intelligence when compared to female students, which is not the
most counterintuitive things, But what if you are just smarter
than everybody? Right, So, a male student with an average grade,

(05:53):
for example, was predicted to see himself as smarter than
sixty six percent of his class, whereas a female student
with the same grade was expected to see herself as
smarter than only fifty four percent of our class. So
we all think we're smarter than we actually are, but uh, men,
it's vastly overestimated. I don't know, do you ever grow
up an Asian house because I'll get a's and my

(06:15):
mom was like, I think you're smart. You get a
ninety nine. They'd be like, what happens to the one exactly?
And it's funny because I have an almost different relationship
with grades, where I was always operating from a place
of lack. I was like, myself, prove myself. I'm not
smart than everybody, right, so, yes, thank you everybody. I'm
the most wokeman on earth. But I do think that, Yeah,

(06:36):
we we have talked about the Dunning Kruger effect and
the fact that people who don't know all that much
are the ones who are most likely to overestimate themselves,
and people who know a lot are the most likely
to accurately or underestimate themselves. But I just think it's
interesting that men. So there's this huge gap in the stems. Uh,

(06:58):
you know, more men at STEM degrees science, technology, engineering, engineering,
and mathematics, and more men get STEM degrees, more men
going to STEM fields. Yes, so women fill of all
us jobs, this is in two thousand fifteen, but they
hold only of stem jobs because there's just this gap.

(07:21):
And uh, we saw this when there was that googler
who got fired from Google for posting a letter where
it was like men are just better at engineering them women.
Like what can I say? Uh, this is one of
those things that people actually believing. You'd be surprised how
many men actually believe like men are just have better

(07:43):
minds for math. Like the president, the president of fucking
Harvard was like basically said something to that effect, not
too long and when you don't deserve to be anywhere
near Harvard bro Right. He got in a lot of
trouble for it, but he was like, we have to
acknowledge that their differences between male and female minds and
black people have an extra muscle in their hamstring exactly,

(08:07):
that's the slippery slope. And I have just witnessed this
personally my wife being a doctor, Like it's just crazy,
the unspoken sexism in that field. Like and just like
I've gone into doctor's appointments where the doctor will talk
to me about her, like when she has something wrong

(08:27):
with her, like, wait, why are you taking her to
her doctor's appointment? I was just with her, Okay, I thought, oh,
for the child, Well you were having a child? No, no, no,
we we were. She was there at the doctor's appointment.
I was just with her. It was like a weird
freak accident in my mind, in my mind, in my
mind opinion, the super misogynistic problem by problematic husband was like, okay,

(08:49):
you want to go to the doctor. Okay, I'm gonna
go with you. I know, I don't know about relationship.
Doctor already seen the doctor. The doctor knew that she
was a doctor. And it's still told me like the
like you're buying a right, yeah, exactly thing. What the

(09:11):
dually is? Man? The horsepower you're getting out of this thing? Now,
lady is there as speaking Chinese to you, little lady.
But you get it right, sir, This this come in
Turbodi's right, exactly gonna want that. There was a scene
in Madmen where they talked to January Jones's husband about
her cancer diagnosis while she's just like sitting there, and

(09:33):
that ship still happens, right, And like it just seems
like it's more embedded in people's minds than we realize.
It's just so predictable that undergraduate men would just have
this sort of in built an overcompetence, and are they
saying that's sort of contribute to an atmosphere that like
where women are probably at a sort of fork in

(09:54):
the road to choose a STEM career, STEM academic path,
and they're just kind of like, fuck, if I'm dealing
this ship than you know, well they so what they're saying,
and this has been true. My experience is that women
internalize these sort of beliefs, like women are less likely
to raise their hands in the class because I think
they are saying that the instructors are more likely to

(10:17):
be men. But even if it's women, it's a long
term thing. It's a thing where you know, even women
who come up in the STEM field are indoctrinated with
this idea that like men run ship. Yeah, well that's true.
The tech world is still the last sort of we're
not for last frontier, but one of the remaining frontiers
super fucked up, lopsided. I think that studies like this

(10:41):
it's great to shed light, but I feel like sometimes
in the way that we strive for a quality of
the sexes or even the races is might not be
like the most effective. It's weird to try to tell
people who are arrogant to like come down and realize like, oh,
you're not that great when I think it might be
easier for us to just all come up to that place.
Like I remember when I was a kid, my grandma

(11:01):
used to tell me that only black people were good
at things. Um, and I believe this for so long actually,
until I heard Christina Aguilar saying because I was like, great,
is she not black? But what that gave me, right,
she probably is. But what that gave me was an
end no centricity. That gave me confidence is especially as
a darker skin black woman, where I have to deal

(11:22):
with the bullshit within my own race. But it made
me feel like I'm supposed to be here. I should
be taking up space. I feel like we as women
have to get more, like, you know, maybe we should
be man spreading too. Instead of asking the man stop spreading,
you just move your thighs out a little more too,
like take up a little more space. Right. Well, then,
I think that's what this article is. You just distilled
down to men are fucking dumb and they think they're

(11:43):
smarter than they are, So don't worry. So don't worry,
like raise your head, talk and talk over them. Probably
step on their words. It might be easier than like, hey, guys,
could you alla be consider it? Yeah? Could you be
more realistic about how dumb you are? Yeah? Us with
yourself about your ability, sir. I mean, I think their
main takeaway is that they need more women in stem fields,

(12:06):
and they need to actually do more structural things to
encourage women to to go into these fields. Men make
you miserable sometimes in those kinds of male dominated atmospheres.
I mean, I did stand up for forever, and it
starts to become very taxing on your soul to constantly
have to deal with harassment and men talking to you
crazy and like yeah, and it can make you want

(12:28):
to leave for sure. So I can understand why women
are like if I'm already in this expertise, like I
don't necessarily have to do this with my education, I
can still make money and avoid men. Men in stand
up are specifically like just talk down to you or
the like assume that you're yeah, like oh, you need
to be as funny as you are cute or like
like crazy ship like that. Yeah to my face. I

(12:50):
think they're being nice to be because you remember, like
stand up is still one of those fields that goes
down mostly in dark weird bodies, right, So it's like
it's a rodeo. Like that's why when ship came out
about like Lucy Kay and whoever else, it's like, yeah,
they're stand up guys, Like what do you mean every
stand up is showing you their dike. It's the norm.
Their office is a murky dark room. It is, yeah,

(13:14):
in the middle of the night. But yeah, so I
completely understand fields that would drive you out of them, right. Yeah.
So it's it's probably not just the stem fields either,
but I think this is the Yeah, the tech industry
is especially bad, especially for being located in, you know,

(13:34):
a town that prides itself on wokeness, San Francisco, And uh,
it's yeah, it's a pretty rough up there, real real quick.
I did want to touch on the thing that that
press conference was supposed to be about the Syria conflict,
because so listening to a super producer on Ajsnier and
Shrine Units podcast Ethnically Ambiguous, I have been kind of

(13:59):
getting a better few ill for what's going on in Syria. Uh,
And just a couple of things I wanted to share
with you guys that helped put the whole Syrian conflict
into perspective. Uh So something that I'm just learning and
I think a lot of people knew this was that
this all started with the Arab Spring and sort of
the democratic uprising in the Middle East. And basically that

(14:22):
helped me make sense of the fact that Russia is
so on board with the Syrian government side as opposed
to the rebels, because Russia is always on the side
against democracy essentially, and because right and because their spring
was about like democratic uprising. Uh, they are you know,

(14:44):
going to support the Syrian government and any other government
that is, you know, on the side of being authority
carry because you don't want your kids getting ideas, right.
And Iran also fits into that rubric. Uh. You know,
they are not in favor of Western democracies. Uh. And
then there's also the fact that so Syria is mostly

(15:06):
sunny uh and they are run by dictator who's secular,
but you know, Iran is mostly Shia, and so there's
that kind of inherent conflict, right, and that helped me
make sense of I guess just where we are in
the conflict. Uh. So, you know, America is technically on

(15:27):
the side of the rebels. Uh. And the you know
of Syria is sunny. Uh, they are run by a
dictator who is you know, secular. Like I said, so,
America is supposed to be supporting the people and the rebellion,
and but they haven't totally full throatedly supported them. And

(15:49):
Saudi Arabia, who is also sunny, has been sort of
standing on the sidelines a little bit, uh, not really
supporting because they're taking America's lead. Uh. So that also
put the rise of Mohammed been Salmon in context because
like why he's important because he is sort of on
the American side if you're looking at things like around

(16:13):
this conflict. So yeah, that helped make sense of it
to me. We have a piece from one of our
writers that we won't have time to get into about
how the military sort of freaked out about Russia's cyber
powers because they're apparently just like taking drones out of
the sky with cyber attacks. Yeah, they're they're drone jamming
capabilities pretty good, and there are people in the U.

(16:35):
S Military like, how do they figure that out? Right?
Because apparently the drones that the US is using like
have built in sort of like anti scrambling mechanisms and
you know they're running on different I guess frequencies. Look,
I'm not a fucking droneist, drone orologist, but you know,
like they have a lot of built in countermeasures to
sort of counteract these kinds of things, and they're like
somehow ressrotracted. But not the armed drones like the Predator

(16:58):
and vapor drones that how guns like that are armed,
those have not been scraped, Like they haven't been able
to jam those. Can I say something about the whole thing,
which is that I think that listening to you break
down sort of an overview I think highlights one of
my big issues with the whole Syria conversation, which is
that I think your average American person doesn't know the
ins and out of the situation. Certainly, I am not

(17:20):
an expert on Syria, and it's one of those things
that I feel like people don't really know that much about,
so they're just sort of tuning out. And it's very
I mean, like we could be doing, you know, like
scaling up military intervention in Syria, and I think people
are like, oh, I don't really know, and I'm gonna like,
what where is that? Like I think that people are
not paying attention to it because it projects it's like

(17:41):
a very complex issue and it is, and it worries
me that it's not a conversation that like average folks
are having because who is that going to impact, like
the American people, right, Like if if they're sending troops over, like,
that's going to be US, And I think that we're
not even really checked in on that conversation. Yeah, well,
and what the yeah, what the stakeholders want in this situation? Right,
because I think on one hand, with the US retreating,
that has emboldened like clearly this triumvirate of Russia, Turkey,

(18:06):
and Iran to kind of come together and be like, oh,
it looks like the US taken a back seat so
we can dictate sort of what the future is going
to be in this region. And that also is kind
of weird because the US doesn't want to draw red
lines and then not follow up on them because then
that makes Trump look toothless. And he's up against that too.
There's so many it's like he's got his back against

(18:27):
the wall, like you know, like and also you know,
he he wanted to pull out, but then clearly there
which was not a good idea. John McCain was like,
you know, this is why you don't say we're planning
to pull out before you do it right exactly, and
then look what happens. And you know, Israel has been
like apparently over the weekend, you know, Israel struck an
air base and no one still quite knows why, like
when they have had air strikes and Syries typically to

(18:49):
like intercept shipments of like Iranian weapons to hez Balah,
and that's why they've had but the people are still
kind of confused and they haven't said so there's so
many moving parts. And yes, again, if we do enter
another armed conflict, like and we actually put boots on
the ground like in a really really focused, concentrated effort
to hit back at Asad's military capability and his and
his forces, that's like not insignificant. And this is like

(19:13):
has the feel of like a World War type thing
where like all the different sides are sort of aligning
and you know everything that that other side stands for,
you know, like you said, Turkey has traditionally been a
U s Allay, but now they have a dictator in
charge and so they are suddenly you know, uh, trending

(19:33):
towards the side of Russia and dictatorships and military control
and in Iran. So because the more and more Turkey
folks around and you know, crimits, more human rights violations,
that's usually when the US starts to give them static
and they're like that you can't do this, like, come on,
we have bases there. You can't just be violating people's
human rights. And the more that they do that, that's

(19:53):
just been you know, deteriorating our relationship with Turkey and
sort of putting them closer into the Iran Russia party
as they're like, oh, we kind of like how you move.
And there's kind of strange bedfellows too, like historically they
you know, Russian Turkey have been enemies. But anyway, and
I think sorry, And then a super producer around Hosny
just pointed out that uh ISIS also entered the uh

(20:17):
dais trop uh not too long ago. Completely complicating and
already insanely complicated situation because they're not necessarily on either side,
but then uh, they're feeling a power vacuum, right, And
I think there are some people like I think Syrian
forces don't necessarily kill ISIS fighters, like they're not actively

(20:40):
targeting them. So it's very complicated situation, but it's one
that started making sense to me when I learned the
facts that I just tried to share there. So we'll
be keeping an eye on that. Trump said that, you know,
because of this chemical weapon attack over the weekend, there
will be a response from America and France, UH coming

(21:00):
in the next hours. So we'll be keeping an eye
on that with the rest of the world. We're gonna
take a break, we'll be right back, and we're back
and talking about the things people are thinking and talking

(21:21):
about right now. And the thing that people are thinking
and talking about right now is Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in
front of Congress. UH testimony is I don't know if
that's the that seems like a misnomer. It seemed like
in r F a Q for older people about so
that was a thing that happened. Was so you could

(21:43):
tell that a lot of these elderly congress people would
UH have these prepared remarks from their younger staffers who
had like done all the legwork, and as long as
they stuck to those remarks and like the first question,
they were all good, and then they would just get
distracted by something he said, and would suddenly be like, wait, now,

(22:04):
how does that work? Because you said that it's free,
and how do you make money? Then I like the St.
Louis Cardinals page and I was getting information about the Brewers.
That's it's not right, right. I thought it was weird
that he addressed everyone as Senator without their last name.
It's like calling everyone Mr. Like a child. That was

(22:27):
the other thing we found out yesterday is that he's
five seven. Yeah. I didn't realize he's five seven because
everyone everyone showed there like Luke, and he's on a
booster seat, which is actually to be fair common practice
because and also it's like a back thing, like but
some people like James Comey wouldn't need the booste because
he's like six but like, yeah, if you're five seven,

(22:47):
And also I know it's crazy because you could clearly
tell his pr People are very protective about how he's shot,
like photographically, because I wouldn't have known just based on
photographs that he was only five seven. Yeah, no, I
had not, did you guess he was? I thought he
was like probably five nine or ten, but not six ft.

(23:08):
After so many meetings, so many celebrities in real life,
I never assume anyone is six ft tall, right, I
always think they are because how shots are afraid of
things like right. But then you're like, but yeah, he's
a we man, and yeah. There were some interesting moments,
but for the most part, it did seem like they
were just asking him to explain Facebook in a lot

(23:30):
of moments. You know, the younger congress people, uh, you know,
like took it to him, like Senator Kamala Harris, you know,
actually had valid questions that were pretty interesting. But some
of the issues that were raised was the Facebook's involvement
in the MMR, which I knew that people had credited

(23:50):
Facebook with spreading some of the you know, hate speech
that eventually led to basically genocide. But I actually heard
an expert on Facebook talking about it today and she
was basically saying, it's completely inexcusable what they did, because
people were like, there is all this hate speech being

(24:13):
spread right now, and you guys aren't doing anything like
Facebook is a triumph of the will currently in our country.
It is spreading hatred currently actively, and you know, it
really brought into focus from me, and this was something
that was raised during the conversation. But his fitness to
run this company. Like, the things that made him good

(24:36):
at creating this giant product that everybody likes are not
the things that will make you good at running a
global community like he is being expected. Like a lot
of the things we're asking him to do are things
that a like a servant of people would do. You know,
somebody who's selfless and just is trying to make everybody's

(24:58):
lives as good as possible, and somebody who is community
minded and management minded. And the thing that he's extremely
good at is just like making a cool product that
creates services for people like him. I don't think he's
that interested. And you know, uh, being on the ground
in Myanmar and figuring out how how that works. Well

(25:19):
you could tell it too, because even when that he
did that see Ann interview, like a few weeks ago,
he was like, if you told me in two thousand
and four, I would be here talking about like, you know,
the dangers of Facebook to like a legitimate democratic election.
I'd be like, what the heck are you talking about? Yeah,
he doesn't have the interest, and I don't think you know,
he felt like his works done and then like you know,
what do you mean do I'm just gonna sit on

(25:39):
my pile of sixty plus billion dollars and I don't know,
I don't need to jump the gun. I don't know
if you're gonna touch on it. But like this feels
like such a direct parallel to Trump where it just
like like wasn't last week then a video come out
where someone asked Donald Trump. They were like, what advice
would you give yourself ten years ago? And he was like,
don't run for president. Yeah, he was like he just
like said that, and it was like a laugh line.
But like you could tell that. It's like these things
sound when any project is getting started. If you get

(26:02):
it off the ground, congratulations, But like to your point,
you have to then start putting in people who are
selfless who are gonna be able to oversee it, to
nurture it, go onto your next idea. But I'm with you.
It's like at some point a certain responsibility has to
be taken by you need somebody who's at least as
powerful as him, who is basically the president of this
two billion dollar nation that they've created. Like I mean,

(26:25):
I have experienced with this at cracked, like the things
that made me good at creating a product that made
cracked big, didn't necessarily make me good at like running
a massive community. I'm running a massive business, and like
you know that, I think that was a big failing
of mine because like that's just not what I was
in a position to do. You know, that's not what
I was trained at or good at. UM Maybe mark

(26:48):
and hire Barack Obama. Yeah, that's a man of the
type of person that we need. He can work from
home hopefully or like somebody from the U N or something,
because that's essentially what they need. We're also asking him
to do things for which he wouldn't get credit, which
you know, like stopping a you know, a genocide before

(27:09):
it happens, is not a thing that you get credit for, right. Unfortunately,
that's just not how dot exactly. It's like the things
that didn't happen is and like we just need them
to find somebody who that's going to be their entire photos.
H Well, I mean, did you guys delete your facebooks?
And it seems like that's been a ground swell. Have

(27:30):
you should delete your facebooks? I use it so sparingly
that like once I looked at what categories that they had,
because you know, you can find out what add categories
Facebook was able to put you in based on what
they know. I had used it so little that I
felt like, okay, you really you might not know much,
but that's not just the only way Facebook gets you,
which is sort of kind of what it seemed like
a lot of people during these testimonies We're trying to

(27:50):
get at because a lot of the stuff was everyone
was saying like, you're selling people's personal data. You're selling
people's personal data. You're selling people's personal data. And he's like, well, no,
I'm not selling the data. We have the data that
allows us to have a laser guided advertising advertising and
and so you know we're not selling the data. We're right, right,
We're selling access to your essentially. And I do think

(28:14):
super producer Nick Stump was pointing out that some of
the questions that people were like, look at this dumb
old person like we're in hatch being like, so how
the hell are you going to make money if you're
giving it away for free and him being like, uh,
we sell ads. Senator right was first of all that
was like okay, yeah, I get why you're an asshole,
Like I get exactly the type of asshole you are.

(28:35):
But also I think Hatch might have been trying to
make the point that you know, okay, so you're selling something,
you're making money somehow if we're not paying you, like
what the happening? Yeah, exactly, And he's like, we're selling
access to everyone, basically, we're not the data. And he
was really clear on repeating. I think he repeated that

(28:57):
like same line like eight times throughout the test money
because I think because he had his little note sheet
that he was using, and feel like that was probably
a highlighted nine times to help people tell people data, right,
Facebook uses your data to sell access to you, ye,
Senator Senator Senator Mr uh perpetual awkward sears portrait studio

(29:22):
photo of a sleep deprived person. And yeah, we'll see
how today goes. But man, he uh dude looks like
he needs a good night's sleep, looks like he has
not taken a solid ship in about a year's Yeah,
he's Mr diarrhea for sure. You're lower intestine closes up
when you go to the hill. Right. I feel like
that's a solid week where you're like, I'm not going

(29:43):
to be regular now you're going to toxify. So a
slightly lower stakes but more cartoonish example of Trump underestimating
the intelligence of literally everyone around him. Uh and in
this case being correct. H. So there's this New York
Post story that maybe moved like some of the most

(30:05):
copies that any New York Post headline has ever moved,
where Marla Maples, president Trump's former wife, one of his
former wife's, Tiffany, Tiffany's mother fun one came out and
said Trump is the best sex I've ever had. And
that was blasted across the front page of the wildly
conservative New York Post with the smug asked Donald Trump.

(30:27):
The cover is so funny because he's just like in
big New York Post style best sex ever had, and
he's just grinning Trump next to it, not even Marla Maples, right.
So apparently the editor from that time has come out
and said, you know, we actually mostly thought that that

(30:47):
was just Trump impersonating Marla Maples, impersonating his wife, which
is a thing that he's been known to do. And
actually I think we have audio of him on a
phone conversation with a different reporter where he is playing
the role of his spokesman, John Miller. I think John Miller, whatever,

(31:09):
who was a recurring Trump spokesman who nobody can find
any record of existing. But he would call up reporters
and be like, yeah, I'm John Miller. I want to
talk to you on behalf of Donald Trump. The best
is that he doesn't even try and do a voice.
I mean maybe he's trying to do or in his head.
But if you were anyone who knew Donald trying, would

(31:30):
be like, yeah, okay, John Miller, how can I help you?
So let's hear let's hear some clips of John Miller
talking to a reporter. You get called by everybody, You
get called by everybody in the book Kept a woman, Well,
you get called by a lot of people. Well what
about Carlin? Ready? Point right now? I think I think

(31:52):
it's somebody that you know is a beautiful wanted quickly
and beautiful and all. But I think that people that
you write about it all de greely glow with him.
I think that, I mean, he he has a girlfriend.

(32:15):
She lives in Canada, but she called all the would
she's beautiful, she's beautiful, she's a model. Yeah, man, that
that time honored classic life from junior high with the
girlfriend in the other state. Yeah, So why did he
get away with this just doing voices? And the New

(32:36):
York Post took him at his word. So the New
York Post is a conservative tabloid, and we're finding out
more and more that a big part of the Trump
methos is that he has good connections in the tabloid
in uh. And that seems to be very similar to
the way that the New York Post got the quote

(32:57):
for their cover, right, because at that time, there's like
a nineteen ninety he was trying to divorce Ivana Trump
uh and she was I guess regularly like just owning
him in the tabloid, like in the Calms War about
their divorce. And so one day, like something something came out.
He calls the New York Post like editor, the New
York Post, and this is a quote. He says, those
fucking bitches, I want a front page story tomorrow. This

(33:19):
is what they're saying. It was an actual quote from him,
and the editor told him said, the only we can
get on the front page is if it has to
do with sex money, murder, And he's not murdering something.
Not sex money in Central Park five, yeah, not the
New York Blood Gang. Uh. Sex money murder, but those
three topics. So Trump said, oh, well, you know, Marla says,
I'm like the best sex she's ever had. And the
editor responded, well, do you have anyone that can corroborate?

(33:43):
And he so he's on the phone. He just like,
apparently this is how the conversation goes. He goes, hey, Marla,
tell him about how you always say I'm the best
at sex? Yes, Donald, did you hear that? You see
so she said that and you should print that, And
like retrospectively, they're like, yeah, we always were a little
dubious about it. Who may have been actually saying that

(34:04):
on the back of the phone. But you know, when
he has to change the narrative, he knows how to
take his destiny into his own hands and just create realities.
He finds people even dumber than him, right, gets them
to report trash, yeah, or who are prone to being
friendly to people like him. The New York Post is
a conservative tabloid, and yeah, that seems to be a

(34:27):
big part of how the Trump methos has been created
from the start. And now, you know, running into his
run for the presidency, we're now finding out the New
Yorker has just released a report saying that the National
Enquirer paid thirty dollars to kill a story about Trump

(34:48):
having an illegitimate kid. The New Yorker hasn't uncovered anything
saying that he did actually have an illegitimate kid, just
that the National Enquirer paid thirty thousand dollars for that's
story and then just buried it, never published it. Um.
And this is a big deal because it establishes, you know,

(35:09):
we've already seen that this company would do this for
Trump with other stories of him having affairs. Uh, you know,
they would do a catch and kill where they pay,
you know, eighty thousand dollars for a story and then
just completely kill it. And this is, by the way,
one of the most frugal media companies out there, and

(35:29):
they're just paying money just to it. Isn't like they
wouldn't throw money at something if there wasn't a reason
to bury it. As in't like they're getting something more
valuable from Donald Trump right to keep this out of
their maxine. And this particular story, the thirty dollars paid
to kill, the story about him having an illegitimate child,

(35:50):
is significant because it establishes a pattern of buying and
burying stories that could be damaging to the president during
the campaign, which is against campaign. I mean, if you
believe fire and fury. Steve Bannon was like, hey, Caswitz
was like the fucking fixer man, Like, what are there
like a hundred women? I mean, I hope that's an exaggeration,

(36:14):
but who knows. I mean the way this fucking guy moves,
I wouldn't put it past them. It reminds me like
in the Game of Thrones story where like Robert Brathian
has like twenty illegitimate children and and all the Lanisters
are like just trying to go around and kill all
of them, stillkilling the story. They go around kill actual
people that might be the like the heir to the
throne they don't know. Yeah, very similar. Better safe than sorry. Yeah,

(36:37):
you're just doing that with with people who had information.
So I just want to read from the New York
Or article because it's just interesting how this ties into
some of the stuff we've been talking about on a
section of our podcast. You wouldn't think would be this relevant,
but we do a blood watch Friday and where we
look at the what's on the front page of the
tabloids because people are looking at that seeing that every

(37:00):
time they go to the grocery store. Uh, and you know,
there's wild ship being published on on those front pages.
And it always seems to be about the Clintons doing
bad stuff for Obama and never about Trump. And that's
because almost all of those tabloids are owned by this company,
American Media Inc. They're kind of like the fake news

(37:21):
before it went to the Internet. It's like just the
tabloid news is just whatever makeup ship bad about someone
exactly purpose. So, two sources from American Media Inc. Said
that they think that the catch and Kill operations basically
cemented a partnership between Pecker, who's the head of am I,

(37:42):
and Trump, and that people close to President Trump had
subsequently introduced Pecker to potential sources of funding. And this
ties back to that random magazine tabloid about NBS Mohammed
Ben Solomon Prince, Yeah, the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

(38:04):
Suddenly there was just in everybody's grocery store aisle, a
giant tabloid about how rad that dude was and he's
welcome to the Kingdom, y'all, with no with no ads,
no not an advertisement inside really Yeah, that's that's rare
for any publication should raise a red flag, right, But
one of the am I sources told The New Yorker,

(38:24):
Pecker is not going to take thirty thou dollars from
company funds to shut down a potentially damaging story without
making sure it got back to him so he could
get credit. And then in two thousand seventeen, his company
began acquiring new publications, including US Weekly, a men's journal,
And this was right around the time that he started
becoming friends with MBS and publishing stories like friendly to MBS.

(38:48):
So they think that basically MBS helped him fund those
purchases of those new magazines. And it's all just a
big magazines. I get more press coverage. Yeah, so trumps yo.
If Mohammed been Salmon, you know, I'm I'm working a
couple of magazines too. Uh right, It's called getting high

(39:10):
with fidget spinners, if you know, ads needed. But it's funny.
I mean, it's good to have someone like David Pecker.
You know. It's like when didn't Nike like scrub every
photo of a Rod's man boobs from his steroid induced
like gyo kymastia. He got you can't find a picture
of it on the internet anymore, Like it's very hard
to find like photos of a shirtless a rod during
that time, because Nike was like, no, no, no, no, no,

(39:33):
we do not need this out. Yeah, what's going on
in the world of baseball, Miles, I mean, look, I
wanted to bring this story up because I'm really excited
about Shoho Tani, the Japanese baseball player who is fucking
doing great, uh and just really fun to watch because
he's he can pitch, he can hit, he's throwing triple
digit fastballs. And there was an article that just popped

(39:55):
up and wired about how the fastball is probably hit
heak velocity, and probably has for the last eighty years,
like no one has actually thrown a ball faster than
a certain amount. And so they're saying that a decade ago,
major league pictures through a grand total of just one
triple digit fastballs in a single season. Last year, forty
pitchers collectively through one thousand, seventeen triple digit fastballs in

(40:19):
the season. And so what they're saying is like, sure,
we're seeing more people being able to throw hundred plus
a mile an hour fastballs, but the velocity hasn't changed.
It's just the number of people who have gotten to
that level has And because right now, I think the
current recorded fastest pitch, I think it's from eroldist Chapman
was like a hundred and five back but they were

(40:40):
saying that, you know, like Nolan Ryan was actually the
first pitcher to be tracked by radar and his like fastball.
I think the fastest when they got was like a
hundred point eight, but back then they were measuring under
one point eight miles. And back then they were measuring
that was the speed right before it crosses the plate,
whereas like the oldest Chapman's is taken as it was

(41:01):
leaving his hand. So they were saying that if you
sort of reverse engineer this, those sort of numbers that
Nolan Ryan might have been throwing fastballs up upwards of
one miles per hour. And they said they're even pictures
from the fifties and twenties that they suspect probably had
the same ability. So we're starting to see that our
bodies are reaching a certain I guess, peak level because

(41:22):
and I think the other thing they're doing is connecting
this like sort of a lot of the strain from
fastball pitching to the huge jump in number of Tommy
John surgeries people are getting. And if you don't know
Tommy John surgery is that's when attendant in your elbow
tears and your surgeons replace it with like a fresh
one from your wrist or your form or your hamstring.
And they do all kinds of ship to reinforce that,
but not necessarily like making people faster pictures. But it's

(41:45):
just giving that. Yeah, exactly, it's longevity. And they're saying
because like the amount of torque you're putting on your
shoulder is like holding five twelve pound bowling balls like
sixty pounds, like at the its most intense moment, and
not just our bodies just you know, not go for it. Yeah,
so you can only throw a five ounce sphere about
a hundred five miles. Yeah, which kind of bums me

(42:07):
out because I was always hoping, you know, people are
running faster, jumping higher. You'd think that logic would apply
to baseball. But it's interesting to see that way. Maybe
there is a limit to something like this. I guess
that's what's interesting about baseball, or that's something baseball has
that the other sports don't like basketball and football have
gotten better, faster, stronger, like more visibly you know, impressive,

(42:31):
just in our lifetime. Like you can see a change
from when Jordan was playing versus when Lebron was playing.
In fact, there's an amazing super cut did you see
that of like Jordan's playing against people and just the
shitty defense that he faced, and they're just like tooth
Lebron would fucking destroy these people because Jordan's like scoring
on like three white dudes who like look like me,

(42:53):
like and are just you know, bastball players weren't the physical, yeah,
but baseball is, you know, And I guess this is
why people, you know, legislated the ship out of the
whole steroid thing is because baseball you can basically watch
somebody today and think about how he compared statistically to

(43:15):
the people who are playing in the twenties. And you know,
obviously they were working with a more limited talent pool
because there it was a white only sport back then.
But a bunch of white fatties, right, But what position
do you play? I was outfield because you know a
lot of guys who are sucking up their arms from
trying to throw the heat. I mean, I threw out

(43:37):
my arms several times, not like in a way of
tearing right right ligaments or anything like that, but yeah,
it's not a natural motion. Definitely putting undue strain on
your ligaments, because I've seen like other people there have
been like pitching coaches who are trying to do other
pitching motions that are less sort of strenuous on your body.
But look, I'm just still holding out for some freak

(43:59):
to be able to throw like a hundred freak is
going to be a cyborg exactly, and then we're just
playing bass Wars, right, and this is robots playing actually,
and we're not even dealing with humans. If you guys
don't think they're cyborgs. And the MLB already, you're fooling
your Here we go, Mike Stanton, I can't get MLB

(44:19):
is always watching. All right, we're gonna take a quick break.
We'll be right back, and we're back. One of the
things that I wanted to talk about real quick is
this news alert that credit card companies are now just

(44:40):
admitting that we don't need to sign bills. That like
signing bills doesn't do anything. So like when you get
the receipt after the merchant copy customer copy sign here,
you don't have to sign any Apparently credit card vendors
are basically acknowledging that that doesn't do anything. It doesn't
prevent fraud, and it never has and which is something

(45:04):
that like I always suspected, but I assumed they had
some like other reason for that existing. But is it
not for the merchant? I thought it was more protection
on the merchant of like, look, we didn't someone signed
it that way, the credit card companies don't come after
them for the fraud, right, because it would make sense

(45:24):
the credit card companies to be like, yeah, we don't
need you how to sign no more, so we start
getting these marches to charge back. Right. I never signed
the back of my credit card because I was just
philosophically opposed to it. I was raised with a myth
of sort of like you sign the back because that's
how they still your signature, and that's how they're going
to know how to sign your ship like you if
they ever gets your credit card. Because I think that
was an era in which, like, you know, people were

(45:45):
still using like the carbon paper, you know, credit card
slips and just like and then like you're filling out
the receipt like that. I guess it makes sense because
whenever I get to like an electronic keypad, like where
you slide your card and then I literally do a
circle or a line because I'm like, I've never been
someone like, excuse me, can I see your signature, sir,
I've never seen anybody matches signature. Oh I really try to.

(46:08):
They do with the bank. I got into a fight
at my bank because they're like, you don't sign anything
the same Ever, I was like, do people sign their
signature the same way every single time? I mean, I
always put a star in the middle because I'm extra yeah,
like this is here, y'all go because I'm no, so
I put like it's like lazy, and then the mosley

(46:30):
and then I take the y at the end and
circle it back to the middle and make a star. No,
it's not cute. I have horrible I think he'd writing
it a serial killer, like it's so bad and it changes.
So then the bank's always like, this is not you,
and I was like, this is me. Look at me
in my eye right and tell me this is not me.
But they made me sign several times. Once I had

(46:51):
to go in the bank and spent an hour. They're
just signing over and over again because they were like,
none of these are the same, right, and we've also
write in a forensic handwriting to make sure the sees you. Yeah,
and uh. Super producer Nick Stump was saying he has
the same problem as signature doesn't end up being the same. Uh,
and that that got him in trouble in Mexico, where
like he went down there with nothing but traveler's checks

(47:14):
and they were like, your signature doesn't look the same.
He was like, well, I'm gonna starve to death then, Uh,
I swear just don't look at me while I do it.
I bet you I can do it some traveler's checks.
That's a scam. I need to get into with the
queue on that end. Uh. Yeah. So apparently the whole
idea behind those chips, which I assumed was like a

(47:35):
security thing, but uh, super producer Nick Stump was saying
that that is actually to put the liability on the
store instead of the credit card company, because I guess
it pinpoints the location of the card to being there,
like you know for a fact that the card was there,
rather than something like manually punching a credit card number
with the respiration day or something. They're like, no, you

(47:57):
put the chip in right there in our terminal, right.
But either way, the signature part of it, I don't
know what. Maybe that was opening the credit cards up
to liability before, but uh, I don't know. I think
it's one of those things where we just got excited
about knowing we're not signing. I don't care about the
rest of the details. This is like, this is like
the when when Suddenly Susan Suddenly Susan, my favorite show

(48:22):
came out, and uh know when suddenly Uh airlines were like, oh, yeah,
you don't actually have to turn off your phone when
during takeoff and landing for a little while. They just
like opened they said, yeah, there was a there was
a point where like we used to have to actually
turn shipped off. You can't even have your phone on
and for an airplane mode. Well before that they were

(48:44):
saying you had to turn it completely at you And
then they were like, all right, we're just working around
about that, which brought about my favorite joke and Soul plane,
where's they someone tries to make a phone call, the
plane goes down. Classics Industry paid for that joke to
get written in right. See, are there other things like

(49:08):
that that you guys can think of that you're like,
I bet this doesn't actually need to exist or that
like the function of it doesn't totally make sense. You're
you're just waiting to for them to come out and
do it. Yeah, we're lying about the whole political system police.
You know what I'm saying. You know, you know what

(49:29):
I'm seeing our our two party system of government. I
don't I don't know. I'll have to do something in
my dad cameras. What do you mean I've been popped
on constitutional though them. You don't have to, they can't
come after you. I run red lights all the time.
Do stand by this as legal advice? Ye? Will? It

(49:51):
wasn't there a case because somebody, because they argued they're
not allowed to, they created a spray that would react
with the flash that would basically obscure the license plate.
And then like it got into this thing of like, well,
actually this praise legal because what you're doing is illegal
and we're protecting ourselves from I don't know, I'm not
exactly sure, but I do know that like I'll be
running these red license it be flash and I listen

(50:13):
I'm not recklessly it. Look if it's two a M
in l A and nobody's on the roll, that's like
olden times, like horse and buggy rules. I like that.
I uhould use this in court to uh my honor.
I have to my honor. Can I say something really quick?
This is like olden times, the old olden times that defense.

(50:36):
I have read somewhere that red light cameras cause more
accidents than they prevent because basically people, it adds a
leg in the slamming on the brakes because you have
to be like, okay, am I going to stop or go?
And your initial instinct is to go for it, but
then you remember there's a camera there, so you like
speed up, then slam on the brakes and people just

(50:58):
get wrecked. That exactly. That's see I'm trying to save
lives out here, exactly. Okay, Well, so do not pay
your red light camera bills. Superproducer on a. Hosnier is
letting us know that her mother designs those cameras directly
impact our family. So actually please pay everything that they say.
Yeah I won't. Yeah, but zeke Gang, I want to

(51:21):
hear some of your things that are like the credit
card signature that you're just waiting for the companies to
come out and be like, all right, we don't know
why we were doing this in the first place. All Right,
that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, please
like and review the show. If you like the show,

(51:43):
uh means the world to Miles. He needs your validation. Folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
talk to you Monday. By