Weekly Zeitgeist 20 (Best of 4/16/18-4/20/18)

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 27 (4/16/18-4/20/18.)

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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. We wanted to talk about the raid
that happened last week on Michael Cohen, h Donald Trump's lawyer,
because it's it's sort of slowly dawning on us, all
of the ramifications that this has. And yesterday, Uh, Cohen
and his lawyer had a day in court. Uh, and

(00:44):
I don't know there there were a couple of surprises.
They were basically in there begging the judge to be like,
don't let the prosecutors look at whatever they took, can
you promise us judge talking about no, I mean we
maybe I'll entertain the idea of like a special master
or something I think is what she said, which is

(01:05):
like a third party to look so that the prosecutors
wouldn't see either or whatever. Whatever. Yeah, And there was
also talkic taints teams about what communications are tainted or whatnot.
Unfortunately it's not about the perennial area that was called
the perennium, the taint itself, which perennial perennial flowers. Look.
So here's I'm not a biologist, but what I am

(01:27):
is someone who wildly speculates on a podcast about what
things mean in court. So well, one of the things
was over the weekend, you know, the judges like, you
need to disclose who your clients are, so we don't
have an idea what's going on. So before they filed,
they he did disclose that Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy,
who was the RNC fundraiser who also had a Playboy Meek,

(01:49):
and there's another stress one point something million dollars, and
then there's another playboy Bunny, who's also saying she was
involved with Trump back in the day boys involved. Is
so eight, I can't believe the most feels great to
know that Jamie Loftus and I were both employed by
Playboy at one point. Anyway, So yes, he had to
disclose the two and then they said, well, we're not

(02:10):
gonna say who the third one is, and then because
they would be embarrassing, and then the judge was like,
that is not a valid legal excuse to embarrassment is
not a thing exactly, so the judge says who is it?
Or like, why would it be embarrassing? And now here's
where the lawyer could have written down on a piece
of paper, slid it to the judge and been like
there do you see and the judge could have been like, okay,

(02:31):
let me take this under advisement and we'll like make
a decision on it. Instead the guy was like no,
but he'll be embarrassed because it's Sean Handy out loud,
and there was apparently an audible gasp, was like whoa yeah,
Like other attorneys who are being pundits were like, usually
you would write that ship down and that would get

(02:51):
at least give you a chance of it. Not so anyway,
it comes out of Sean Handy, and again the world
was a buzz. So now let's think about when that
news broke. Let's see how Fox News covered this up,
this bombshell that one of their own it might be
caught up in all of the usually tied to all
of the crazy ship that they've been like being like, no,

(03:12):
nothing to see here for a long time. So this
is this is what happens when this is I think
the actual moment where they're breaking it on Fox Jesus.
In today's proceedings that are underway right now, Stephen Ryan,
one of Cohen's attorneys, was asked by the judge to
specifically name the other name because they said it would
not fall under attorney client privilege to withhold that name.

(03:34):
And he stood up and named him as Sean Hannity.
So moving on, so moving on, so moving on and
forth filings over this issue since last night. Both I mean, yeah,
just steamrolls, I like how she goes it didn't even
go and it was Sean Hanny was was named as
San not saying that's our Sean Hannity, just a Sean

(03:58):
Hannity was named Sean, Like that's how a cartoon would
write that. Yes, immediately after saying moving on, we fear yes.
So no, gosh, it just gives you so many ideas,

(04:18):
like what does this mean? DoD do Sean kill someone?
Was he trying to figure out what he can legally
lie about when he spreads lies about the d n C,
the d n C and wiki leaks and and and
people getting murdered over leaked emails and bullshit conspiracies? Or
did you have to love child with Cardi bat we
don't know. I mean, we're getting involved with Michael Cohen.
Could need so many things. But again, Sean Handy was

(04:41):
very quick to distance himself because he knows how his
reputation stinks. So I think on Anderson Cooper, young Coop
comes through flames. But like just I mean, just listen.
So we hear Hannity describing their relationship on his radio show,
and then we hear Anderson Cooper's summary. Is that explanation.

(05:02):
I've known Michael a long long time, and let me
be very clear to the media, Michael never represented me
in any matter. I never retained him in the in
the traditional sense of containing a lawyer. I never received
an invoice from Michael. I never paid legal fees to Michael.

(05:24):
But I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about
legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective,
and assumed that those conversations were attorney client confidential. So
he seems to me saying I was not really a
client of attorney Michael Cohen's, but our conversations are confidential

(05:44):
because he is an attorney and I am his clients exactly.
I have it always that that skewed logic. Well, mean,
the Okams racer thing is like which Playboy model did
he impregnant? I mean that's like the OSCE like what
he's saying whatever seems to be cone specialty. Yes, exactly.

(06:07):
It's just so bizarre because I mean, if it really
was about just brief advice, you'd imagine Sean Hannity actually
has access to much better legal opinions than a lazy
asked Michael and someone who currently has the title actual
title of worst fucking lawyer in America's right. So it's weird.
And another thing is clearly like there has to be

(06:28):
something there, right if the whole point was them trying
to be like, he's an attorney and you probably have
things that affect my client or having to do with
my clients, not just you know, I just you know,
I don't know. We just shoot the ship smokes some
and he would be like, hey, man, can I lie
about this person getting murdered? But because leaks or like, hey,
Julian Sane told me to say this, can you tell
this to Trump? Is he being a middleman between Like

(06:51):
you know, there's so many vagarations that we do not know,
but yet Michael Clon's lawyer standing up, and I'm just
here describing the moment. Jack, like there were gats in
the courtroom, and it was like this dramatic reveal of
the third name. It's just like the one of the
other horrible like consequences of this Trump horship. It's just
like everyone does feel compelled to sort of get their
fifteen minutes or more accurately, fifteen seconds, like in the

(07:13):
public spotlight. Even this lawyer, like Michael Cohen's lawyer, was like,
I could write it down and be discreet about it,
but you know what, let me take stage. And and
there are some people who have speculated that this could
be just a big dog and pony show to be like, oh,
get Hannity's name out there, but and we'll forget that
the president is. But either way, like, based on how

(07:36):
he was making excuses, I doubt that another person I
forget who it was on NBC was saying that technically,
if Michael Cohen did write down a memoranda or something
based on a conversation he had, that he could be
a client technically, and Sean Hannity might not be aware
of that. But either I mean, this thing just smells
like a whole pile of horseship Sean Hannity is, I mean,

(07:58):
like I loathe them obviously, he so love but in
like in another light, like in my more like compassionate,
if I really like exercise all my compassion. He is
like truly like Arthur Miller, tragic. There's something so deeply
tragic about Sean Hannity, Like he has sacrificed his whole,
all of his credit, his personal credibility, his moral compass
in the last year and a half or two years
for Donald Trump, and the only thing has to show

(08:19):
for it is also going to prison, probably, But it's
like it's sad, It's deeply, deeply tragic. But I have
no idears when this film comes out, it's gonna be
like him barking at his desk, someone playing shann Handy,
and it's gonna be a hard cut to him in
prison with his celly just holding him from so sad.
I don't know. I don't know. There's gonna be such

(08:40):
a good like mini series on f X, like The
People Versus j Sat. We just start writing this um
so I think he made reference to attorney client privilege
or I don't know. He said in a weird way.
What do you call like attorney client confidentiality. Um so,

(09:01):
we had mentioned last week that Michael Cohen has sort
of a Saul Goodman vibe, and uh so Hannity actually
told listeners Monday afternoon, h I might have handed him
Cohen ten bucks. I definitely want your attorney client privilege
on this, uh something like that. So that is actually

(09:22):
directly from Breaking Bad. This is a misconception started by
Breaking Bad, where Saul Goodman is like, put a dollar
in my pocket. That way, I'm your attorney or my client.
That is a scene from Breaking Back, and they like
they literally are just like, okay, so basically, I'm Walter White,
you're a Saul Goodman. Let's play act this thing, except

(09:43):
we're talking about real crimes. We did. Yeah, it's funny
to to to aspire to the crime. It's just like
we should do it like they do on Breaking So
the way to actually establish attorney client privilege is to
you know, publicly or you know, say to the police,
he is my attorney, I am his client. Therefore, ergo,

(10:04):
it's not putting a dollar in somebody's pocket. It's just
establishing that that is our relationship, right, And Hannity has
kind of torpedoed his ability to do that by now
coming out and being like, we're not really attorney clients
like he was never and just basically laying out all
the way somebody can be somebody's attorney and client and
saying that wasn't the nature of their relationship. Um, but

(10:25):
let's let's listen to how an actual legal expert would
tell well, right, so, yesterday on Hannity, he got his
favorite legal experts on, one of them being Alan Derschwitz,
who up to this point has okayed every single bizarre
idea in theory that Sean Hannity has had about the law,
was willing to play devil's advocate for everything. Even Alan Dershowitz,

(10:47):
like we said, had a moment where he was like, Bro,
you know last week when the FBI rated Michael Cohen's office,
you were out here being like, hey man, he's an
innocent man. This is total bullshit, blah blah blah. And
he didn't say that you were should have mentioned it,
mentioned it. Yeah, this is Alan Durston has even been like, bro,
I can only be crazy to a point. Right. Well,
first of all, Sean, I do want to say that.

(11:07):
I really think that you should have disclosed your relationship
with Cohen when you talked about him on this show.
You could have said just that you had asked him
for advice or whatever. But I think it would have
been uh much much better had you disclosed that relationship.
You were difficult to under the nature, professor, I want
to deal with later in the understand but it was minimal.

(11:29):
I would understand that you should have said that, and
that would have been fair to say that it was
minimal in a tough position, because hey, you had to
talk about Cohen and be you don't want the fact
that you had spoken to him to be revealed, and
you had the right by the way not to identity privacy, right,
But you know, it's a complex situation when you speak

(11:50):
with people. I think it was such a minor relationship
in terms you should have said had to do with
real estate and nothing political. I understand that. At the
same time, if it is so minor what I just
mentioned that, why didn't you want that out? YEA, yeah, exactly,
it's so small, Like it's not like what on paper
I should have done that. You don't know. I was like,

(12:10):
what's the best real estate property to bury a body.
It's a little real estate, not a big deal. Just
been like I know, I know, I know, I likes
not backing down at that point at Port Michael Cone.
You just imagine Michael con watching this. But like Sean,
like I thought we had something like we're just friends,
like you imagine him just like a score and lover
like I thought we were what was I thought we

(12:32):
were attorney client like we had we bought those match exactly.
I mean again, this is another thing where I think
we talked about on the show, like this is like
a cultural myth. I think that people have been sort
of taking in from film and TV about even like
these mob films that the lawyer somehow holds all the secrets,

(12:52):
is impenetrable and is above the lawn someway, like he's
like Melvoine in the Soprano ra Yeah exactly. Michael Cohen
specifically refers to himself as Consiglia exactly, so that yeah,
exactly like these Yeah, but this is what happens when
you would like to actually, I mean, that's the thing
about this. He is a crime boss like Comy telling Stufanopolis.

(13:17):
He's like kind of treated like the dinners with Trump
are like very mafio soe and like you pledge your
loyalty to the ring, you kissed the ring, and like
that one weird moment where Trump on TV made a
gesture of walking over to Comey and hugging him, like
all these weird mafia tactics of exactly James, and like,
you know that Trump is so dumb and television adult,
Like his ideas of status and power probably literally are

(13:39):
from the Godfather. I mean those are his points of
status reference. So we're just seeing this like sad, pathetic
TV adult brand again. Roy Cohne, one of his first
layers is the notorious mob lawyer and mccarthew lawyer. So
like it goes back to that great tweet that this
is not a government run media. This is a media
run government, precise right, all bullshit media myths. And you know,

(14:03):
even the attack on Syria happens when some devastating footage
shows up on Fox News, Uh yeah, spooky. So uh
there's actually this New Yorker article that just kind of
puts all of this in perspective from Adam Davidson, the
less important Adam Uh, where he talks about he puts
this in the context. The article, by the way, is

(14:26):
uh salacious. Lee called something like the end of the Yeah,
the end Stages of the Trump Presidency us mark, which
sounds like a little bit like liberal fantasy. So his point,
and it's sort of an impressionist piece of journalism in
the sense that he's writing it from his perspective as
a journalist who has lived through two other things that

(14:49):
this experience reminds him of. He was on the ground
and Bagdad when Bush was standing in front of that
giant mission accomplished banner, which I was noticing earlier to
day in the office. It's like the ugliest band. It's
like designed and that's taint. It's so weird, Like it's
like such a shitty pixelated flag in the background. Uh.

(15:10):
And but the size of it, like it has to
be the size of the Hollywood sign. So like they
just like did it on a word doc and then
we're like, here, print this up and just stretch it. Yeah. Anyways,
Am Davidson was right exactly. It wasn't restaurant vector image.

(15:30):
Davidson was on the ground and Bagdad when that was happening,
and he was talking to people, so he knew ahead
of the rest of the country and the public that
that was bullshit. This thing was way worse than anybody
thought it was. Uh. He was also reporting on the
financial crisis when that was slowly unfolding, and he, you know,

(15:51):
even puts it he was trying to get it through
his thick skull that this was actually going in a
really bad and you know, he said that he finally
realized it and like what those loans actually were with
those financial products where and that they were about to
explode and everybody and that the global economy was going
to be fucked for a little while. Uh. And he

(16:13):
said that at that time, you turned on the TV
on MSNBC or CNBC and people were like, Okay, well
the worst of it's behind us, exactly, and this is
like we're we're heading in the right direction. So he's
saying that's a thing where the preponderance of evidence he
had access to told him things are way worse than
people realize, and this is just the early stages and

(16:36):
we're about to find out how bad things are. It's
just gonna slowly come out. And he's saying that now
that Cohen's offices have been rated, he knows that that
is the future of the Trump presidency, like before when
it was just Mueller looking into whether there was Russian clusion,
and he was like, it could have gone either way,
because he's like, collusion doesn't really make sense for Trump

(16:56):
because it involves a lot of foresight and like patient yes,
and like diabolical planning that he is not capable of
it mentally fit to execute. So he was like, you know,
it could really go either way. But the one thing
he does know, based on a lot of reporting and
everybody he works with it the New York are doing
loads of reporting on the Trump organization is that they
are a criminal organization that has been doing crime in

(17:19):
New York years for years. Uh, there's you know, he
talks about this soho Trump project where Ivanka and Don Jr.
Are essentially on email saying, man, I hope nobody finds
out about these crimes that we're doing like email. Yes,

(17:40):
he basically thinks Ivanka has a very high chance of
getting arrested. Don Junior has a high chance of getting arrested.
Like there is just loads and loads of white collar crime,
right that both does and doesn't have to do with
Russian collusion, you know, Right, It's like that Russian inclusion
has been the narrative right now, like, oh, this is
the thing that's going to sing Trump. And I think
this is what really resented with the move about the
article was just his thing of like the way that

(18:02):
narratives change. And like I was in the like the
Iraq narrative was like we did at mission, accomplished, it's over.
Meanwhile I'm there and like it's far from over. Like
that's a weird narrative to be under, to be like
taken as actually here, yeah exactly, And like so I
get what he's saying about this Trump thing. It's like, okay,
this Michael Cone being rated everything. The truth will hopefully
come out. We will learn about the forty years of

(18:23):
gangsterization of the way he runs his real estate business,
just like crimes and sex crimes and illegitimate children everywhere,
and that will become the dominant narrative, and his presidency
will fit into this larger narrative of forty years of
life that he's living. The thing that bums me out
is that And sorry if this sounds arrogant, but didn't
we all all know that before? I mean, like referencing

(18:44):
they're like have been out there domaries about that. I
am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look
at Trump's business who doesn't believe that there is a
high likelihood of rampant criminality exactly. And then he goes
on to list like five really clear cut things and
as a Bijan he did business with a likely money
launderer for Iran's revolutionary Guard. That like, there's five other

(19:06):
things and he's like those are just really obvious, like
they are really in allout of trouble. Yeah, yeah, Donald
and Ivanko were investigated for financial crimes associated with Trump
Hotel and soho. And then there's an older article where yeah,
there's just all these emails where they're basically, uh, there
was no doubt that the Trump children approved, knew of,

(19:28):
agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers of building to
make more sales. Um to me, it was almost the
dumb fucking reality show The Apprentice that changed the area.
It's like, I feel like from the eighties up until
The Apprentice, at the dominant narrative about Trump was that
he was America's favorite crook. That was the whole, that
was his whole. He was like a fake as business Yeah, exactly,
like he was a fake ass crooked businessman. And that

(19:50):
was like we put up with him because he has
hair and like he's a little funny, So we put
up with him. And then like the Apprentice came along,
and I think maybe people maybe in the Five States
and to be condescending, but people maybe we're like, oh,
he's a legitimate mogul, like that man really know he
has that, he's the King Midas. Everything he touched from
the gold that's not a set decorator creating this. Yes,
exactly right. But I thought him as a crooked person

(20:12):
was always the narrative. But I guess this article sort
of highlights how to me, one of my takeaways was
like how easily narratives can just flip and sort of yes,
all this proponerants of evidence can just be sort of
shuffled aside, and now it's he's the president with collusion
and now it is insanely powerful. Man. I mean, look,
it has all these people, even lawyers thinking attorney claim

(20:34):
it doesn't. But yeah, So basically his summary is that
the narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald
Trump did not sit atop of global empire. He had
a small, sad global operation mostly run by his two
oldest children and Michael Cohne and very king Lear is
not a company that built value over decades. It burned

(20:54):
through whatever goodwill and brand value it established as quickly
as possible. It Basically after he like bankrupted his fifth casino,
people are like, we're not giving you money, that's right,
And so he had to get all his money from
foreign money launderers. He's been doing business with foreign money
launders and like he put it in this cricket media
interview I heard, he was like, he's not even going

(21:16):
with like the first moguls that would do business with
the correct people would do business with. It's like the
big moguls in the countries that like you would go
to fifth like as Bijan is not the first place,
and even there you're dealing with the tertiary scumbags. Like
I guess that is the point though, Like it's all

(21:37):
about context, like the collusion thing. I guess this point,
which I hope and pray and believe is true, is
that like the Russian collusion thing, will in a year
when now that we know everything in khe has been rated.
We see all the documents. The Russian collusion fixing, swinging
the election, putin hacking Facebook will fit into just a
much larger context of Trump being a bankrupt asshole, a scumbag,
realistic I who had to go to Russia and the

(21:57):
Ukraine and all these other shade, D, B and C
level muguls for money. And but the collusion thing will
fit into that narrative, right, yeah, yeah, And even if
it's not active collusion on his part, like just the
idea that he is compromised, that they have something on him. Yeah,
I think above and beyond anything that Robert Mueller could
dig up petebe or not. I mean, like, that's what's
the most frightening thing. Because on Sunday you had Nicky

(22:20):
Haley saying we're gonna sanction Russia. Just get ready, Steve
Manuchin will be unleashing the sanctions and then cut you
yesterday threw her as under the bus. We'll be thinking
about how about that? Yeah, we can that happen. Last
week we did put like harsher sanctions on Russia after
the assassination a couple of weeks ago, then the UK
and attempt attempt France, and uh, he was furious, like,

(22:43):
what the funk you guys doing? Like those are the homies.
So this guy, I mean, he's not even consistent with
where he's at with I mean we all know this anyway. Yeah,
it's only Tuesday. Let's see what the fun I'm telling you.
By Friday, what then are we doing? I don't know,
And I probably believe Sean Hannity. He might have a
table Cardi BE or something. I don't know. Yes, you're
really shipping Cardi B and shown Very interesting. I love

(23:06):
it tasting celebrity couples. Very interesting. All right, we're gonna
take a quick break. We'll be right back, and we're back.
We also wanted to talk about a story that is
about Starbucks. It's about Philadelphia, which, as we said, had

(23:29):
been on a roll. But that so, uh, two black
men were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks because black,
because America. I guess these two men were waiting to
meet up with a friend who showed up while they
were being arrested. But someone who worked at Starbucks was
like getting real nervous because of their implicit bias. Uh,

(23:51):
and thought, you know, all these people haven't anything they're
up to something, called the police, and the cops hauled
him off, and all the while this woman was recording it,
and the video went viral. I'm sure most people have
seen it, uh. And the Route actually interviewed this woman
who who made the video, who was white, and she
was saying that her friends afterwards are like calling her
and being like, what really happened, or like there must

(24:12):
have been something else, something else must have happened there.
It's hard for me to believe that two men of
color were just arrested simply for sitting and someone thought
they were suspicious, and it speaks I think this incident
kind of speaks to something a little bit bigger, is
that there's still this idea that I think people think
that people of color exaggerate when they describe the discrimination
they experienced, because I'm sure for some people, based on

(24:34):
their life experience, it would be very hard for them
to imagine something like I was just waiting for a
friend at Starbucks and I was arrested. That's crazy. But
guess what, because especially black men in this country are
looked as people who will probably take your life. That's
the default position of police who take the lives of
black men is like, I feared for my life. Meanwhile,
think about how many of these mass shooters who are

(24:54):
white somehow get taken into custody without getting shot. It's
I mean, this is and this is kind of the
still the same ship. And you know, I would take
an opportunity for people if you want to be an
ally to people of color. If you even hear people
think that people of color are suspicious for any reason,
you have to really unpack why it is you you
have this sort of idea in your head. Is it

(25:15):
because you really believe that, Is it because you've been
conditioned to believe that? And I'm sure there are many
people who say, well, I would never do that, But
there are also many white people who have friends who
are not white, who are fine with people of color
if they know them, you know what I mean, Like, oh,
I have black friends, but the black people they don't
know who are suddenly suspicious to them or whatever. And
I think this is just again, this is something that
people need to really evaluate. And you know, I think

(25:38):
the response to this has shown that some people still
really struggle believing that this kind of discrimination happens and
it's real. And yes, you simply can get fucking harassed
or discriminated because someone just thinks you're dangerous. It really
does seem like the absolute least you can do is
to start challenging, like when someone in your life says
something like casual and careless, like I mean, for me,

(26:01):
it makes trips home very stressful. But it's like, you know,
we're we're at a point now where you have to
do that because there are so many real world implications
of casual ship like that, where it's like, you know,
if you hear someone talk about people of color in
a way that is super dismissive and like, oh, you know,
they're sensationalizing stuff, or if you hear people talking about
like women like I. I like when ship was hitting

(26:24):
the fan and people, you know, give a funk for
the first time and however long you know, it's like
you I had to talk to my dad about it
because he's like, oh man, it's pretty crazy, right, and
it's like, dude, what hold on, hold on, hold on,
please stop there. Yeah, so it's hard, Like I don't know,
I don't like talking to anybody and period. I'm sure
a lot of people feel the same way. No one

(26:45):
wants to talk to anybody. People are a nightmare. But
uh yeah, if it is truly, the least you can
do is to point out that someone is being dismissive
of a very real thing. Yeah, because if you go
along and feeling or not saying anything, then you allow
this person out right in this fake reality. You are complicit, bitch.
But Starbucks, at the very least they're saying, oh, we're

(27:05):
gonna have something about like invisible bias or I don't know,
some kind of weird training. I mean, like, sure, we're
bringing back Oprah, Chai Christ, We're gonna put something about
equality on our cups. Oh yeah, remember when they were
like let's start conversations about race. Remember that whole thing video. Yeah.
I like when Burger King is like we're queer now.

(27:28):
They're just they have like queer cups for a while.
They have like rainbow cups berger Kings, like, actually we
the burger Kings are queer now, and it's like the
Burger Kings. I mean, if they really believe about having
it your way, you've got to be on clusive right.
You can't be that was one of mys have always

(27:52):
been about having it your today. And we realized that
that philosophy extends further than just a hamburger, an image
that went viral. Yesterday, Stormy Daniels released the police sketch
of the man who threatened her, which I think that
was when she told her story about the guy coming

(28:13):
up and threatening her on sixty minutes she told that story, Uh,
I think everybody was like, oh, well, give us tell
us who that person was, or like, look through all
the pictures in America, let's find this motherfucker in America.
Let's find everyone. Let's look through everybody find them. But
so she did a police sketch with somebody who, you know,
police sketches are generally not super well trusted and scientifically

(28:38):
they're not great, and sometimes they, uh make your memory
of somebody's face less accurate because you're having to like match,
You're having to go back and forth between your memory
of the thing and then what the drawing looks like,
and it sometimes gets blended other times. Super producer an A.
Josnie was saying that she thinks that sometimes people end

(29:01):
up describing someone who is, you know, familiar to them
and not necessarily the stranger who they're trying to describe,
which is interesting because so this picture came out, Um,
people were saying young Willem Dafoe, Tom Brady, uh, Starship
Troopers star Casper Van Dean, and the puppet from Team

(29:24):
America all blended together. Um, and it really does look
like a blend of all those things. And then this
morning tmz uh posted an article pointing out that, uh,
it's actually just her husband. The drawing is her husband.
It looks almost identical to like her third husband. It's

(29:48):
it's very strange, crazy how much it looks like her husband. Like, yeah,
I mean they may have a point. Also, what a
bob that guy suck? Yeah, his eyebrows are a mess,
but so aggressively trying to be handsome. Yeah, he looks

(30:08):
like mm a Barbie or like like if there was
a m M a toy, that's what he would be anyway.
So yeah, this guy Brendan Miller. Uh, I thin guess
that's her husbands. Yeah, just like him. Very strange. Uh
this maybe it was maybe it was him though. Yeah.
To be fair to sketch artists, Uh, and this one
in particular, this one seemed like they're somebody released some

(30:32):
of the drawings this person has done before based on
you know, descriptions, and they're like spot on, so that
this is apparently the best sketch artist in America, the
Guinness World record holder for being the most successful sketcher, right, which, yeah,
that's so great. They found the right person to do
the job. That just seems weird that they looks so

(30:53):
much like. And we'll see if this, you know, ends
up leading to the arrest of the person who threatened
Stormy Daniels because she's saying, you know, I got a
hundred thirty one thousand dollars for the person who can
identify this person, which is funny because a hundred thirty
is what Michael Cohen offered her to stf you. Uh,
so you know, she's you know, kind of taking a

(31:14):
shot at him. Would she add a whole nine hundred
and nine thousand more than her hundred more? Whoa do math?
Math class? Take a seat art schools. I barely went to.
I was I was rehearsing for cats. But but that
brings up Michael Cohen, because yesterday I was reading this

(31:35):
thing about how just like, how even shadier this dude
looks like when you really look sort of look at
his neighborhood where he's from his family, so everyone knows
he's friends with Felix Sader, who's like a lot of
people are saying like he might be his connection to
to Russia or whatever, because that guy, Felix Sater, his
dad was like a coppo and a organized crime syndicate
that was considered to be one of Russia's largest um

(31:58):
And then we find out that his uncle owned a
Brooklyn social club which was a well known meeting spot
for members of both the Italian and Russian UH mafia,
So like the seventies and eighties, and then they're saying,
up until the nineties, it was considered some people, I think,
I guess some people law enforcement were considering it the
sort of headquarters where the Russian mafia literally ran their

(32:19):
entire crime organization out of UH. And that's like a
place that Michael Cohen's family owns. It's like he owned
Bata being essentially basically it's called the Elk Bay UH
and so it's it's just it's just interesting to look at.
I guess the more you know, I think we're starting
to see this pattern. I think we're talking about it
yesterday about how this is just sort of like just
the the dou fy ist uh white people mafia ever

(32:43):
of like just really inept criminals. Uh. And and now
we're seeing like that's the world. Michael Cohen also grew
up in like where his uncle owned a mob hang out,
so of course he's probably gonna be had that mindset
a little bit. I mean, if you hear him talk once,
it almost like just the mafia is just pouring off
of him, Like you just feel like, Okay, this guy's

(33:04):
out of central casting for mafiosa. Right. Uh. Yeah, so
it's not overly surprising. And also the fact that he
like threatens to do physical harm to people on a
regular basis, Yeah, I don't think that's part of your
law school training, right. I don't know. It feels like
it might be like one of those night class electives, right,
but I guess, like I don't know, if you're screaming

(33:26):
that you'll fuck someone's soul over the phone, is like,
I don't know what, I don't know. That really feels
like something they teach him, like Harvard Law, and well
he did not go there. I think he went to
the clown School of Law or whatever. The what I
do to he was going to be disgusting. Yeah, wasn't
Wasn't he like a big personal injury lawyer. Yeah, So
basically he made an entire he built himself on having

(33:49):
like those commerce l you in a carreccident. Thanks to
Michael Cohen, I got three million dollars. We are having
sort of an extended tax day today, which everybody wants
to talk about. People love talking about taxes. Uh. But yeah,

(34:09):
so the I R. S website crashed yesterday, so they
extended it for I think today, just today, maybe today
or maybe I don't know. They definitely had to extend
it because they're like, hey, sorry, y'all crashed our website
because who knows. Of course it crashed on tax Day.
But doing your taxes, getting your taxes in as a
big serious deal in America, and Miles you were pointing

(34:31):
out that that's not really the case anywhere. Okay, imagine
everyone has done taxes in this room, and they're confusing,
and most of the time you have to consult a
person at H and R Block, an accountant, or use
turbo tax. And because the ship is so complicated, and
the reason is so complicated is because tax prepares lobby

(34:51):
the government regularly to keep the tax code as confusing
as fucking possible. So our only option is to go
to these places. Okay, there's a block lobby, yes, oh
yeah big so yeah, there is such a thing as
big tax now, so into it. Who makes turbo tax.
They spend two million dollars on ship like basically they

(35:13):
do not want to simplify the tax code like outright,
like that's in lobbying documents that that is what they're
stated purposes for their lobbying efforts. So when you look
at other countries like Denmark or Sweden, or Spain or Japan,
they already have systems in place where the government like
sends you a prepared return, they estimate your taxes using
information your employer and the bank already have because obviously

(35:35):
they know everything that the tax like the institutions of
these countries. You know, in the UK, most people don't
follow returns like the government will calculate your liability or
your refund and send you a check or a bill
unless you're self employed. Now in my other homeland, Japan,
very simple system. Okay, So the Japanese version of the
I R S, which is the COCUSO, they gather all

(35:56):
the pertinent data for each worker, their income, taxable benefits,
number of per exemptions, tax with health and so on,
and they compute how much taxpayer ohs down to the
fucking last penny, the last yen. And they have precision withholding,
so like they know exactly how to calculate everything, and
they'll just send you a postcard just telling you, hey,
this is what you made, this is your refund amount,

(36:16):
or this is what we're actually gonna have to take
out because you underpaid your taxes and we can just
take that out of your account and boom, you're done.
Tell us how much we are Just tell us. Why
do I have to tell you? Why am I paying
somebody to tell me how much to pay you? The
funk is this it made in addition to the like
turbo taxes of the world. I bet it has something

(36:38):
to do with the fact that really really rich people
can pay other can pay like attorneys and you know,
accountants to find ways to get them to like not
pay tax of course, yeah, because the thing is so
fucking complicated. Yeah, then you need someone because also, let's
be real, tax preparation services are like they're in an

(36:59):
existential crisis because algorithms and ship like the need to
go to a human at an H and R block
is becoming like that business is shrinking, which is why
they had to get into like the turbo tax game
of offering ship like H and R block at home
or I think is whatever they're do it yourself website services,
so they're like up against it, so it behooves them
to make ship as complicated as possible. Now we are

(37:21):
trying to change ship. Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill last
year that would completely simplify the tax code and make
it easier for people to just have Uncle Sam just
send you the bill or be like, hey, brother, you
getting this refund um. And also it'll cut down on
so much eating up productivity for human beings and save
a lot of money in the long run if you
do ship like this. But again, when you got people

(37:43):
putting money at this thing to make it as complicated
as possible, we have this same thing year after year
after year. I feel like these stories come out all
the time where we're just talking about why can't our
tax would be more simple? Here's why? Uh, And like
the people who are arguing for keeping it as complicated saying, well,
we don't want to extend the reach of the government.
You don't want them doing your taxes, Like, can you
really trust the I R s to tell you what

(38:04):
they're gonna do? Well, all of these programs are voluntary,
so even if the thing you got from the government
you didn't agree with, you can opt out of it
and do it yourself, or you can be like, Okay,
that looks cool, right, yeah, I'm with that. Again, it's
just a headache because it's one of those things where
most people in other countries are like what you'll have
to walk you do a what box full of receipts,
and like panic over what kind of food you can

(38:26):
write off as an entertainment expense or whatever. It's just
it's crazy. You can tell that it's a good idea
to simplify the taxes because when the Republicans introduced their
tax cuts, they claimed that they were making it so
that you could just file your taxes on one side
of a postcard. So like when they're lying about having
a good idea, even though they don't have it, you

(38:47):
can tell that that's right, probably worth looking into. Obviously
they're not going to do anything with it, but I
love tax time, isn't it the favorite? Are you to
do a lot of you? I take way less exemptions
than I shout, And so it's kind of like a
savings account and I get a return every year and

(39:09):
then I buy something dumb? Would you buy this year?
A computer? Oh? You idiot? Fool, you fool. Do the
pointing and the clicking. Well, I hope it's a nice computer.
Thank you so much. Okay, well there's hit a nice computer. Yes, okay,
that's part of why it was dumb. You only do

(39:30):
two things. Yeah, it's like you don't need a on
gaming tower? Needed the gaming tower? Yeah? I need the
graphics card. How am I going to watch to music
video clips and New Kids on the block? It is
one less than uh Hitler's birthday, the chilliest day of all.

(39:51):
Uh no that it's all National weed Day. I don't know.
All right, what do you a happy? You take it
from here? Take it from here? Yeah, well, bro, let's
talk a really I want to talk about drug Um.
There was this, uh the International Journal of Drug Policy

(40:14):
just released a little bit of a report on their
sort of analysis of just sort of the different forms
of like drug policy that is out there, especially in
the United States, Like after many conferences like the leading
uh drug policy experts, they are kind of concluded or
just you know, they did some research with economist, criminals,
other people and be like, Okay, let's look at the
different forms of drug laws we have, so we'll talk

(40:37):
specifically about weeds since it's you know, four nineteen uh.
In this country, it's you know, absolute prohibition that we
have here where it's just completely illegal from a federal
standpoint and you just can't have it on no way.
And then there's decriminalization, which sort of how it was
in this state, uh when there was medical marijuana, like
and when it was first introduced, where you could consume
and possess it, but it wasn't considered a full on

(40:58):
criminal offense, but the drug was still considered illegal. But
now that we have recreational use laws were more like
the state control of the market, which is where the
state can sort of regulate everything from the age limits
to control of production and sales. Where we're not quite
there where the government is actually controlling the means of production,
but they do have real regulations that make the market
sort of safe for consumers where they have it tested

(41:20):
to make sure you're not, you know, smoking crazy pesticides,
or have it in proper packaging to make a child
safe and things like that. And then you have the
unfettered free market where drugs are just treated no differently
than any consumer. You're like a fucking hat. Can I
ask a very dumb question about the state of legalization
in California? Right? No? Um? Does it mean that I
could go into a medman or a weed store and

(41:41):
buy a marijuana cigarette and then walk down the street
and smoke it in the world. So you can't smoke
it in public. You can consume privately, but you cannot
consume it out in the open. Uh. So, yes, you
could go into amdmen and buy your jazz cigarette. And
what do you think, Like, it's I mean, no one's
gonna know. No one's gonna know if the gummy bears
are are like magic gummy bears. Yeah, unless you're like,

(42:02):
unless you're being so aggressive where you're like, hey, guys,
I'm about to eat one of those weed candies. I
wouldn't be aggressive, Like when I go to Vegas and
allow you to drink in the street. I look at
cops when I do it because I'm really enjoying the freedom.
So if I did have uh weed gummy bears, I
would scarfing down in front of a cop, being like,
does it just have like the big bag opens? Like,

(42:23):
oh what QUI could these be? I would not suggest
scarfing down edible spot maybe take one to a half. No, No,
you're like, let's just do a little experiment. But what
if I'm trying to be like nasty in front of
a cop. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean I hope
it's worth Yeah. So, I mean it's just interesting. I
think for most people, we probably realized that the complete

(42:44):
criminalization of of marijuana was an absolutely absurd idea. But again,
it's just good to know we're moving closer and closer
to acceptance and kind of embracing in a way that's
creating tremendous tax revenues and can be put to good use.
See when you look at things like when you have
states where teachers are literally about like striking because they're
not getting the proper pay and things like that, Wow,

(43:07):
you could probably use a couple hundred million in tax
revenue in a state like that to do some ship.
So you know, again, I'm probably preaching to the choir
to some people who listen. But again, I think you
check out this study that will post you in the
foot notes, you know, just you can learn yourself a
little bit about how these forms of drug policy effect.
It's in different ways and what might be best going forward.
So which one came out on top. Is there a

(43:30):
country that like has the policy that we should be
trying to I mean, they weren't looking at it so
much as like a country we should adopt, because again
they're sort of looking at through the lens of like
the United States too, and what that means for consumers
in this country. But again again it seems like the
most sort of from like the benefits and cost of it,
Like state control has like the highest social impact that's positive,

(43:53):
and the high states. This is what you're arguing for
states rights as usual. Man, if you don't want to
bake somebody a cake, you don't to write me. That's
you know, I get down. No, And that's a joke
in case somebody's listening for the first time, that's not
my real stance. All right, we're gonna take a quick
break and we're back. I just wanted to talk about

(44:22):
Barbara Bush, who passed yesterday. Who you know. I guess
just based on her appearance, I had always sort of
associated her with a kind lady um. And I do
remember in two thousand five, while visiting victims of Hurricane
Katrina at the Astrodome, her saying some wildly problematic shit

(44:45):
about how like because they're underprivileged anyway, this is working
quote very well for them, um, which The New York Times,
by the way, described as her candor sometimes got her
in trouble. That's not candor. That is just being a
fucking classist, racist loon. Um. But that's not the point, right.

(45:07):
I do want to also focus on the fact that, yeah,
you know, she was also just kind of a hardass badass.
Like I assumed that her obituaries would not be the
most interesting obituaries to read, and like she was actually
crazy interesting. And like there are these quotes from her
childhood friends who would say that they would come on

(45:29):
the school bus in the morning and they say, quote,
it would be all planned, nobody's going to talk to
June this morning. You'd sit there on the bus with
your friends and no one spoke to you. It was
a dreadful feeling. So Barbara was coming on the bus
and being like, you're not talking to her, You're not
talking to her, you're talking to me. This excommunicating here.
So that's one one of her friends, just like real
housewiving right in the just like world class like legendary

(45:57):
mean girl. Uh. And then another childhood friend is giving
a hypothetical scenario and she said she'd call ahead and say,
we're not going to speak to June this morning. So
again they in June Man, two different people, two different
people are talking about how she froze this girl June
out when she was like a child. What did June do? Yeah,

(46:18):
And she would also, like me, probably wore pink on
a Wednesday, right, she wore white after Labor Day, so
she can get the funk. She would make fun of
her friends for like stammering or you know, oh no
she was today today. Yeah, damn. She's like the originator
of all this cool original Billy Madison. Right. In reading

(46:42):
her obituary, you really get the sense that she was
sort of the brains and the balls behind the operation,
like behind their couple like that. It's just interesting that, uh,
you know. There's also a quote in one of the
obituaries where someone says. People always said Nancy Reagan would
kill you if you said bad stuff about her, says

(47:02):
one staff aide who worked closely with the Bushes. But
I always thought Mrs Bush was the one who would
kill you, um, which I don't know, well, I didn't
know that about Nancy Reagan either. I just think it's
interesting to like we should take a look back at
first ladies who were you know, like this, who were
just you know, it was at a time when a

(47:24):
lot of like brilliant and really tough women had to
sort of sublimate themselves to their husband's careers. And like,
I really feel like in a lot of cases you'll
find that it was basically the women like who are
calling the shots, like, because Reagan did not seem like
a very tough person, but apparently Nancy was just like
not fucking around. And it's also that thing of like

(47:47):
the husband and the wife could have the same exact behavior,
and the woman's would be much more received as hostile,
where the man's would be received as like tough boy,
does he get it right? Right? You know? And so
like I always wonder in scenarios where we are talking
about it like that, how much of it was, was

(48:07):
that how much of it was just a woman saying
things right, I mean, she had full right to to
maybe say yeah, no, I totally like I'm saying that
I fucking respect this, like I think it's awesome because
people have like genuine affection for her, but also seemed
to be terrified of her, like yeah, and like when
then when you look at like what their depictions are

(48:28):
descriptions of her childhood time too was even like you know,
she basically told everybody she ran ship from Jump Street
if it was the school bus, she fucking ran who
even spoke to whom you know what I mean? And
then taking shots at uh, who's at Geraldine Ferraro She
referred to as quote that four million dollar I can't
say it, but it rhymes with rich. And then everyone's like,

(48:52):
so she referred to this person as a four million
dollar bit, just like that was her nickname. But then
she knew the optics that she was like the description
of the right up of her like she was mortified
that she had let slip the mask that had concealed
the mean streak that had first emerged in her childhood.
She immediately apologized to Ferraro and kept her salty tongue
in place for years afterward, So I don't know if

(49:12):
the salty tongue thing is after Do you remember when
Jeb was about to run and or like was running
and um, there was a sound bite of her going like,
I don't know, there's got to be another family that
should be doing this right, Like she was essentially like,
I don't it can't just be two families that are
just going to keep going back and forth. And then

(49:33):
she got in trouble. They were like, yeah, yeah, that's
I feel like, I bet yo. Those Bush children, the
sons of George H. W. Bush, we're probably so shook
of their mother, like if that's her description, because if
you look at Jeb and g W, they're like, well,
like as if their mom would be like, is your
finger painting? Are you a fucking dumb fuck? It looks

(49:58):
like a fucking toe painting the track? Jeb, what a
fucking name? Huh? I'm sorry, ladies, he's an idiot. It
was Jeff. But I want you to be embarrassed the
rest of your life, Jeb. Uh? Is that sure for
Jebediah Oh? Apparently, according to the super producer on a Hosnier.

(50:22):
Jeb is not sure for Jebediah. It is an acronym
for his full name, which is John Ellis Bush Sr.
Or because you know why, because John was probably like
Barbara's father, and she's like, he would be disappointed in
your Jeb. Funk out of here, John, I can't. I
can hear my father's earned rattling. So uh yeah, I mean, look,

(50:45):
you know you were clearly the matriarch of a dynastic
political family. Uh So you know, shots to you. You know,
it's never it's never nice to you never want to
hear about anyone passing away. But it seemed like she
did it on her terms too, because she I think,
refused to have any more life saving procedures over the weekend.
They reported so and just real quick, right before I die,

(51:06):
nobody talked to June. Yeah, right, and talked to June.
I know you showed up. We are not talked like
she's like wiping her head with a wash and she's like,
who let this bitch in here? June dollar, bitch, besides

(51:28):
your feet on wiki feet, what is something you think
is underrated? Underrated I would say is making an exit
because I don't know I like to just disappear from
social situation, like to make an entrance but not an exit, right.
I like to crash through the ceiling but then leave quietly.
But last night I did a show at a Christian college.

(51:50):
I was doing a bunch of time before a Princess
Diary screening. Uh theater. It was in the mansion that
The Princess Diaries takes place in Wave for Real. Yeah,
it's at Mount St. Mary's College. I didn't mention that earlier. Yeah,
it was in the mansion that Julie Andrews lives. They
shot at Mount St. Mary's College, Yeah, they did, And
so they were showing the Princess Diaries. There is a

(52:11):
big old Catholic sleepover. A little Jamie came in with
with her with her little jokes, and I was trying
to leave, was trying to get to my uber after
that show, and I couldn't figure out what the way
out was, and so I ended like, isn't it my
time's over? Thank you? Transaction finished, I have to go home.
I left the building and then I couldn't figure out
how to get out of the campus because I was like, oh,

(52:33):
there's probably an exit over here, and That's where my
uber was waiting, and I was calling him and he
was just like, where are you. I was like, I
can't figure out how to get out, and he was like, Okay,
we'll figure it out. Uberpool full you must looked like
the fucking asshole. So what I did was I scaled
a gate, which I've never done before. It wasn't a

(52:53):
high gate, but it was a gate. So I was
scaling the gate entire uberpool is watching and then as
I'm climbing the gate, the gate swings open and I
was right next to a gaping exit, so it was
like it looked like a gigantic morod. And then everybody

(53:15):
get it on video. You were going to be famous.
It was. I mean, the frame for that video would
have been clear exit right and someone on a gate
that is not even hinged close with them on it.
That's one of my favorite videos just in the history
of the Internet. Is that happening to a police officer

(53:38):
as he's scaling a wall to go in on a
raid and then she like gets stuck on the on
the fence with his like crotch at the top of
the fence, and then the door swings open and the
rest of the walk, right, Yeah, there's another one like
that of like this like old it's like from Russia
or something. This like guys trying to get through like
this really awful hole in a chain link fence and

(54:00):
he just keeps getting caught and I think he might
be drunk some because he got a black bag. And
then they pan over there's an act Will just cut
out of the gate and like these kids are walking.
But it's like the best reveal of like this guy
struggle struggle. Then Pana. So that was that was deeply humiliating.
And then I was in that uberpool for a half
hour after that and no one said anything. All Right,

(54:27):
that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeiteguys, please
like and review the show. If you like the show,
uh means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
talk to him Monday. By SPA