November 11, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode of Normally, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz unpack the lates from the federal government shutdown to Trump’s proposed 50-year mortgage and stimulus plan, they analyze how economic populism is reshaping American politics. They also tackle media censorship, the anti-woke movement, and the Sierra Club’s internal identity struggle, revealing how culture wars continue to shape both policy and public sentiment. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey guys, we're back on normally the show with normal
it takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary
Catherine Camp.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Carol Markowitz. How is your weekend, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh, it's pretty good. I was offline for about thirty
six hours, so that's always fun. I was camping with
no signal.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh nice. I love that.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I mean, I don't love camping, but I do love
the being offline. I don't mind camping. It's a surprising
fact about me, is I am totally okay with one
night of camping.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm really I would say I'm only okay with camping
as well, Like it's like I will do it and
while I'm there, I'm making the best of it. But
it's a little off brand for me not to be
very excited about it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Frank, Yes, I see that.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So I had a very unpopular tweet last night, and
I felt like a lot of people were like, we'll
talk to Mary Catherine about this because she will set
you straight.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And so I will say.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I feel like my Slice of Life tweets A do
very well and B are usually people are on my side,
so this was a bit of a surprise. But last night,
an NFL player on TV live, well not live, it
was pre recorded, but it was played live said nut
up or shut up on NBC.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
It wasn't even eight pm.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yet am I approved for thinking that is unacceptable?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I think that I would not react badly to it.
But I also judge myself for not reacting badly.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
So funny because I judge myself for reacting badly, I'm like,
have I become like a square in my old age?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Because I used to not care at all?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
But you know, my thing is, I just feel like censorship,
like like makes no sense. There's a Kanye West song
I used to love, you know. I hate Kanye now,
but I used to you know, I loved his music.
I still love his music, honestly. But he had a
song where he was There was love letter Chicago, and
there was a line in it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Her name was Windy. She liked to blow trees.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Now it's a double chandra about smoking marijuana, but that
would get beeped out on the radio.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Her name was Windy, she liked to.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Blow trees about a song about Chicago was beeped out
on the radio. And yet this guy could stay nut
up or shut up at a time, where like.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Kids are still watching and my kids were watching.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense which things
you can say. And having worked in live radio, we
were well versed on things you could say. For instance,
the word I believe this is correct. The word piss
excuse me could be used in certain contexts but not others,
Like you couldn't refer to it as actual, the actual substance,
(02:39):
but you could refer to someone as pissed off. Like
it was like, yeah, there's all sorts of strange rules
that they put on you.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I feel like it was Cable.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I wouldn't even care, but like NBC on a Sunday night,
not even a pianist.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, a bit much, Get off my lawn. I don't care.
I stand by what I said. I'm a square now
that was square, and I don't even care. It's good,
all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Get real free us. Well, speaking of normally, Carol, it
looks like the government might be operating normally now. I mean, look,
it's greatered on a curve, guys, But it looks like
the government will be eminently reopening thanks to a vote
in the Senate, which will then proceed a pace to
(03:27):
the House right. So.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
The Wall Street Journal reports the decision by eight members
of the Senate Democratic Caucus decide with Republicans to advance
a bill Sunday night to end the government shutdown drew
heated condemnations from other members of the party and reopened
long standing divisions on how to best fight against President Trump.
Democrats were coming off strong election wins last Tuesday, and
many lawmakers and activists said the results showed that Senate
(03:50):
Democrats should continue to hold the line on their demands
for extending Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. But the small
group of defectors reasoned Sunday that the shutdown had caused
too much pain and that the modest concessions from Republicans,
including a pledge to hold a vote on healthcare, were enough.
The Democrats are losing their minds over this, like we
hear that blue sky is just falling apart.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to emphasize the
facts on this, which are Let me just read through
the dates on which the government could have reopened. September nineteenth,
September thirtieth, October first, October third, October sixth. These are
all dates the Senate took a vote on the continuing Resolution,
which would have funded the government. Yeah, and everything would
(04:38):
have seamlessly reopened without any of this happening. I'll go
on October eighth, October ninth, October fourteenth, October fifteenth, sixteenth, twentieth,
twenty second, twenty eighth, November fourth. So I believe there's
a total of fourteen votes, and it was Democrats who
would not cross over to join Republicans to vote for
this clean continuing resolution was for these not to put
(05:01):
too fine a point on it. Stupid and dumb and
bad bumped up subsidies from the COVID era for Obamacare,
which we're designed to go to insurance companies to the
tune of billions and billions and tens of billions of
dollars to cover up the fact that premiums are going up. Yeah,
(05:23):
because of what Obamacare has wrought, right, that was the ask.
They didn't get the ask, so they did all this
for six weeks.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Really not a yeah, there's just I mean the fact
that they allowed this to go on this long. Senator
John Fetterman has been actually completely on the right side
of this. I can't believe what an amazing figure he
is in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm sure he's going to disappoint me down the road,
but there's so much.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Day does as good, he tweeted after forty days as
a consistent voice against shutting our government down, I voted
yes for.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The fifteenth time to reopen.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I'm sorry to our military SNAP recipient, government workers and
Capitol police who haven't been paid weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It shouldn't have come to this. This was a failure.
It's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, and look, one might fairly ask of me, are
you consistent on this? And I would say yes, because
when Ted Cruz decided we should shut down the government
in twenty thirteen to repeal Obamacare, I was like, that's
not going to happen. And you are therefore leading yourself
to political problems and two real problems for real people. Yeah,
(06:29):
by disrupting the government in this manner, and I look,
if somebody is willing to take on the political cost
because they feel like this is a really important issue
and we must talk about it, That's one thing what
I don't like is this being turned on its head
where Democrats have now been rewarded for shutting down the
government for six weeks, which is what happened here. They
(06:51):
kind of signaled to their voters the chaos, even though
we're literally causing it, is Trump's chaos, right, and many
people bought that despite me fourteen dates I gave you
where they could have opened the government at any moment, right.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Absolutely, it was a political calculation for them. They waited
until the election to cause as much damage as they
could to their own voters so that their voters would
vote their way. And you don't have to take our
word for it. Here is Senator Kane talking about it.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
I didn't fully understand how dug in they were, again
because I was so focused on the Virginia elections. I
wasn't in this discussion on the healthcare to see how
dug in they were. But even as I was not
part of these discussions, I was saying to Fune and
others on the floor, going back, listen, I need you
some of you heard me say this in the all.
(07:42):
I need a more attarium on mischief. Others are working
on the healthcare thing, I trust them. Others are working
on the approached thing, I trust them. I need a
moretirement mischief because if we vote to open and then
the immediate step next week is Donald Trump fires a
lot more people. It's going to blow up trust to
get the full year deal. And so I've been I've
been preaching this moratorium on mischief for a month. But
(08:04):
I think partly why did they finally give me the
moratorium on mischief on riffs? They needed my vote, But
they also saw the election on two.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, that wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I really don't think that election actually played that big
a role. Here here is ezraclined in the New York
Times on how Democrats were winning the shutdown to keep
the shutdown going. He says, if I were in the Senate,
I wouldn't vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity
to make your arguments in the country was just starting
to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over
(08:36):
Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don't
see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities
so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just
taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That's the
kind of lesson.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
He remembers.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I think a lot of people understood what we were
talking about last episode, that the elections weren't a symbol
or a sign. They were off yer elections in largely
blue areas and they were supposed to go that way.
So using the elections as some sort of like you know,
sign here that the Democrats were winning and it was
all going to be okay is ridiculous. And it would
(09:10):
have been the Democrats canceling flights over Thanksgiving. Whether or
not Republicans could appropriately tell that story is a separate issue.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
The thing would have been their fault.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, that's the thing, and I think it's it's revealing
of Klein here that he's mister, make government work properly.
But when given a chance to make government work properly
or to continue to drag Republicans for who knows what
by making it work improperly, he chooses, Let's blow it up.
(09:41):
Continue to blow it up. Let people live Thanksgiving where
they cannot travel to see their loved ones, just as
we did. By the way, let's memorialize our twenty twenty behavior,
our twenty twenty one behavior and say, yeah, you can't
see your loved ones, suck it. Excuse me. That's not
fit for broadcasts either, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But yeah, he's.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Choosing politics over abundance governing, which is his kind of
his thing.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah. Well, and a lot of people are saying, look,
I do think I think it's the morally right decision
to try to get this thing back on track. I
think the ask that they were making was a stupid one. Yeah,
those subsidies don't make any sense. They were designed to
be emergency and temporary, and they were dumb at even
doing that. Now there are risks for Republicans here, which
is that there's now a healthcare discussion on the plate. Now.
(10:31):
I don't mind having that discussion. I wrote in Fox
News last week about why these subsidies are bad, why
they revealed that Obamacare was bad from the beginning, and
why we should shift to more patient focused, choice related
reforms that are small that you can give people control
over their money, which is, by the way, one of
the things Trump was pitching, saying, Hey, if we're going
(10:52):
to give away a bunch of money, let's give it
away to people's health savings accounts so they can use
it as they see fit. Yeah, which I think is
something that could appeal to people.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think so as well.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think the Democrats are going to oppose it with
every bone in their entire bodies, and the thing is
that they have to cater to the blue sky crowd.
They're taking lessons from the election. One of the one
of the election lessons for them is the far left
socialist mayor is the most popular Democrat in the country
right now. They're going to take that lesson and run
(11:24):
with it. I think it's not going to be good
for Americans, but I don't think that matters, and I
think that they don't care right now, and stopping Donald
Trump and getting political wins is all they care about
right now.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well, and you see it outlined in the New York
Times covered where they're going to have primary duels because
Democrats are facing what Republicans face during the Tea Party era,
which is a bunch of ground up anger about how
they're not fighting the president that the base doesn't like
(11:55):
hard enough. The base is not listening to how it
might be advantageous for them to fight in different ways.
I think part of the reason they waited past the
election was, and they expressed this like on background to Axios,
was that Democrats were scared of their voters being literally homicidal,
and they were like, we have to keep giving them something,
(12:16):
right people. I mean they expressed that in actual words, them,
not me. So I think they were looking for that,
hoping that these election results would cheer them up a
little bit on blue sky. That won't be the case
for a lot of normal people. It probably will. And
then you have this same dynamic at play in every
Senate and House primary that could be flippable in the
(12:37):
twenty twenty six elections. So, even though Trump's approval rating
is down, Republicans not faring well post this election. I
think they have things to think about. They may get
themselves into some serious trouble with the energy and the
excitement behind people in primaries who might not be electable
in general elections.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, seen this film before.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yep, mister nazi tattoo among those.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Right right. We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Meanwhile, did you see Abigail Spanberger, who, like again I've said,
she didn't moderate on much of anything. She was on
the Sunday shows this week being like, hey, guys, the
reason I was elected is because Virginia's think the government
should operate properly. Maybe let's not do this.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah it snay on the U shut down exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
She just doing her Betsy out there.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right, we'll be right back with more on normally. We
are back on normally.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And look, it's not just Democrats that have some questionable ideas.
Donald Trump floated two such ideas over the weekend. You
know I've said on here before that, especially on economics,
I defer to him a lot more this term than
last term.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I'm still a free market person.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I just don't see the free market like I If
other countries are tariffing us at high levels, like I
get why we would reciprocate. I also understand using the
tariffs as leverage in a way that, like as he does,
does it bring down costs? All remains to be seen
so far, not so much so. This weekend he floats
(14:10):
two ideas, and one of them is a fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
He has a post.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
On his truth Social Great American presidents. He has President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who introduced the thirty year mortgage, and
then he has a picture of himself, President Trump, who
is introducing the fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I mean, look, if you're just measuring in years, that's
obviously better. Like here we go, it's just top FDR.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I also don't think Republicans generally see FDR as a
great American president.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I see him as one of the worst presidents we've
ever had.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So I don't love that he's looking to FDR for
tips on.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Being a great president.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But again on this, like, okay, the argument obviously is
who benefits here banks because they're going to have have
an extra twenty years of you know, of costs and
they're just gonna they're going to do very well on
interest rates here.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
The flip side argument is people can't afford houses, and
they will be willing to take the chance that they Yes,
they'll pay more in the long run, but at least
they'll have the house now, and they will say, you know,
build equity and not be throwing their money away.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And rent I get it, I really get it. It's
not conservative for sure, and that's you know, a long
running problem or issue with the Trump administration. Does it
matter that he is not conservative on these issues?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Is he trying new things out of the box that
maybe conservatives will adapt to all kind of a big
question mark.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, and that's it might be too easy or too
facil a phrase, but I find it useful, which is
at times like this. I'm like, look, this is the
choice that faced many voters, which is, if you give
me a nineteen eighty nine Democrat and a twenty twenty
five Democrat, yep, to choose between, I'm going to take
(16:07):
the eighty nine Democrat, right, Yeah, because the twenty twenty
five Democrats have lost their way. But Trump is in
many ways an early nineties, late eighties Democrat. Yeah, and
an early nineties, late eighties Democrat would like this idea,
would like tariffs, would even think FDR was a pretty
awesome president on domestic economic fronts. Right, And so that's
(16:28):
what you end up with. I think these are not
great ideas. And I think beyond that, Trump when talking
about some specific industries because he's trying to get back
to an affordability argument because he's concerned about vulnerabilities there.
For twenty twenty six, he's gone way too far to
the Elizabeth Warren argument that the companies themselves are messing
(16:51):
with you. This has nothing to do with anything else
that supply and demand. Oh, let's put that aside, and
that like greed flation is back. Greed flation is not
a thing, not a thing. Companies, companies like they're trying
to do the best they can. They have to hit
profit margins then to in order to continue to operate.
There is real crony capitalism involved, and I you know,
those are things that you can eliminate if you're a
(17:13):
conservative president who would like to do those things, and
sometimes he has, but you know, yelling about the companies
and their profit margins isn't the conservative way of dealing
with this. And I think one of the ways that
Trump has been good in the past is eliminating regulations,
which for building, which would be a really great thing
to do for housing costs.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, that that is one of his strengths.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That was like probably one of my favorite things in
the first Trump administration. Getting rid of regulations was incredibly
strong and something that Republicans hadn't done that well in
the past. His other idea from this weekend, he posted
about sending out two thousand dollars stimulus checks. His post is,
(17:56):
people that are against tariffs are fulls capital letters. We
are now well the richest, most respected country in the world,
with almost no inflation and a record stock market price.
I should tell you there's random capitalization.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All throughout that. Of course, your one case, our highest ever.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
We are taking in trillions of dollars and will soon
begin paying down our enormous debt. Thirty seven trillion, record
investment in the USA, Plants and factories going up all
over the place. A dividend of at least two thousand
dollars a person, not including high income people exclamation point
will be paid to everyone. Terrible, terrible, and look and
you know here we can't really make the argument that, oh,
(18:35):
you know, he's out of step with like the Republicans
of yesteryear.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Georgia B.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Bush also sent out stimulus checks. So after nine to eleven,
terrible idea. Stimulus checks are inflationary. They pump more money
into the economy, prices go up. I'm not a finance
person at all, but like it's a.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Very easy line to draw, and.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
It's what happened during COVID and the money that the
government was pumping into the economy, which we still have
not recovered from.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I still like I'm a gasper.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
At prices sometimes, like just like how could that be
the price of that?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, and think about it from everyone's point of view,
like if you and I are having that reaction, and
I usually use this like Obviously I live in a
high cost of living area. That's part of it. Actually,
there are times when I order a beer in North
Carolina and I'm like, I'm sorry, what three fifty did
you get? That? I had to But but we live
in a high cost of living area. That's part of it.
(19:32):
But given that I know my economic status versus many
more struggling people to go into a grocery store and
regularly go, oh my good, yeah how much that cost?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Now? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Like that is that is reflected in much bigger ways,
much further down the actos we're not.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Shopping at, like the Arawons in California where they have
like the thirty five dollars jug of water. It's like
I had I saw a seven dollars mango yesterday, Like,
what what's in that mango?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
It should be your book title about inflation seven dollars mango? No,
I think. Look, unfortunately, and I have thought this throughout,
the tariff arguments end up being pretty incoherent, like are
we doing them to raise revenue? Are we doing them
to bring back investing? Are we doing them to give
stimulus checks to people for trumpets? Often I like tariffs,
and we will find the quickest path to justifying what
(20:18):
the tariff is doing at any given moment. I went
into that with open eyes. Right, he was elected. Let's
say he gets to do his thing for a while.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Exactly right. But I say he ran on this, so.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I do think, and I've always thought from the beginning
that on affordability, if you are making the argument from
the beginning that this is short term pain but long
term gain, you better see that game pretty quickly. And
people are right to go. You're telling me, you're adding
to prices. That's what you're telling me. And that's what
he's trying to ameliorate by sending money out the door again.
(20:50):
But much like subsidizing Obamacare subsidy or plans, or giving
unlimited credit to college students, it will make the problem
blum worse. That's right, we don't want to do that.
One more bad idea from Trump this week, blowing up
the filibuster.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's not a bad idea, So okay, I wouldn't want
him to blow up the filibuster because yes, obviously the
Democrats will use it at their very next opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But did it bring the Democrats to the table this
is the thing with Trump. Is he a genius or
is he like a madman? And like he's kind of
a little bit of right woh, and you just don't
really know.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
So my concern was I'm actually a little surprised that
a deal came together, given that he was making so
much noise about the philibuster, because I thought that Democrats,
being rather short sighted themselves, would be like, this is
the thing we've always wanted, and if we win, we
get to do anything we want. If we can just
get fifty Senate seats. I think that's disastrous for America.
(21:51):
The Senate is supposed to move slowly and deliberately, even
though it's often dumb, it's supposed to be that way.
I thought he was giving them a release valve, or
they wouldn't come to the table because they'd be like,
we'll just wait for you to do the thing that
we want you to do. Very fantastic, right, right. But
it didn't turn out that way. So I've often been
wrong when his weird gut calculations have been there, right right.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I have one little like it, like I have one
more trump ism for this last you know, for this
middle segment, as we're going to air he posted on
truth Social All air traffic controllers must get back to
work now three exclamation points.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Anyone who doesn't will be substantially docked.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
For those air traffic controllers who were great patriots and
didn't take any time off for the Democrat shut down hoax,
I will be recommending a bonus of ten thousand dollars
per person for distinguished service to our country.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Now again, is he a genius or a madman?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Because and then and it goes on and on, you know,
fake Democrat attack. I'm not happy with you to tell
you the air traffic controllers, but you know, there's something
to be said for the people who stayed on their post.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
When they weren't getting paid. And him introduce seen this
bonus is like, you know, a reward to the people
who did the right thing.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
It would be one of the few ways that this
shutdown rewarded good behavior. So yeah, I'm I'm open to it.
I'm I'm a little surprised that they came to an agreement,
but it is it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I mean, let's see if we get we get through it.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
But yeah, that's next episode where like actually the shutdown
is still on.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
We shall see.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Wait right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
All right, Carol, I wanted to talk a little bit
about the uh, the culture war, the anti wokeness of
it all. Even the election day did not look great
for Republicans, the culture war continues to pay dividends, the
left having sort of gone off the cliff, and the
New York Times profile of the Sierra Club is just
the latest example. And again it's a bit fascile, but
(23:54):
go woke, go broke seems to be exactly what the
Sierra Club. The headline is zero. Club embraced social justice
and then it tore itself apart. Just the top lines here.
The Sierra Club, which was a huge nationwide environmental group
that was understood to be dedicated to environmental issues for
a very long time. Originally established to protect the Sierra Nevada,
(24:16):
the group has lost sixty percent of the four million
members and supporters it counted in twenty sixteen. It has
held three rounds of employee layoffs since twenty twenty two,
trying to climb out of a forty million dollar projected
budget deficit deficit. Its political giving has also dropped. Federal
campaign finance records show it put thirty three point six
million in donations toward the defeat of Donald Trump in
(24:37):
twenty twenty and none in twenty twenty four. Because they
tore themselves apart during those four years.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, there's also.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
The question of their expenses, which just continued to go
up even as revenue did not.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It is a case of what is the point of view?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And I think a lot of people started to kind
of move away from climate change is going to end
the world tomorrow. I mean, see Bill Gates on that,
and they wanted to maybe put their money towards progressive
causes that had a solution moving in the direction of,
you know, something that they could have as a tangible win.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And the Sierra Club is interesting because I don't agree
with its old goal, but its old and pretty successful
goal that it built all this support under was we're
going to make it really hard to keep coal plants open.
And they sued and they demonstrated, and they did all
these things and by the numbers, they you know, cut
down on those things. Now for their constituency, that was
(25:40):
important and good. And after that was done and natural
gas and other alternatives had sort of come into that area,
not terribly effectively all the time, particularly with wind and electric,
but again putting aside there whether their goals are good
or not, they then went on to become everything to
everyone exactly. They decided that they were going to be diversity, equity, inclusion,
(26:02):
they were going to be racial justice, they were going
to be anything and everything, and that did not go
well for them, right, and.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
US a resistance group like any other resistance group.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yes, yeah, their their new focus included focus I use
the term lightly, racial justice, labor rights, gay rights, immigrant rights,
and more. And to this day, the leadership stands by
that shift that has coincided with this incredible contraction of
its membership and ability to do the I would say,
damaging things that has been doing in the past, Like
(26:34):
I rejoice, but the people you're serving probably shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Be, right, right, they got one hundred and twenty million
dollars from Michael Bloomberg, and he could have given every
American a million dollars with that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I think I think the math is correct.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I'm just joking, friends that look up the Michael Bloomberg
can give every American a million dollars reference New York
Times editorial board member did some poor math on m
that's NBC, and they let her continue to get away
with that.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
There's a couple of funny quotes from this one. My
favorite one might be there were some people who were
employed by the Sierra Club that felt like if they
didn't fall in love or file excuse me, fall in
line with these new directives between twenty twenty and twenty
twenty two, they were ostracized, sometimes even investigated. One woman,
Delia Malone, and a cologist and volunteer for the club's
(27:24):
Colorado chapter, said she heard from attorneys hired by the
Sierra Clubs seeking to interview her as part of investigation
against her, and she said, what's the claimant? Who made it?
They said, we can't tell you that, and miss Malone
thought that someone else in the chapter had filed a complaint.
She recalled an incident when a club's staff member had
scolded her for saying that the club should lobby Colorado's
(27:44):
legislature for more protections for wolves that seems within the
club's mediea. One of the staffs said, that's fine, Delia,
but what do wolves have to do with equity, justice
and inclusion? Delia? That's fine, Delia, and I also want
to point to this as the pattern that you point
out often, which is that they went from effective focused
(28:08):
organization to every racial justice, social justice thing under the sun,
everything to everyone, which meant they became ineffective. At which point,
what did they do, Carol? They became antie siminek. They
canceled trip to Israel. They decided that Palestine is an
environmental issue from our standpoint of course. Yeah, and they
just like went headlong into that as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yep, good work everyone.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Also, Sidney Sweeney, that was our other woke story from
the last week.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
She gave.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
A masterclass in not responding to bait from liberal journalists.
She really you know, the only thing I would say
is her jacket looked a little uncomfortable, and I just
wanted to like flip her hair out of it, because, like,
you know, as a woman with long hair who gets
it caught in my jacket a lot of the time,
you know, I know that that's tough.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
But she did really great.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, let's play a little clip of this question she's
asked about her very famous American Eagle ad campaign.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
The criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe
specifically in this political climate, like white people shouldn't joke
about genetic superiority. Like that was kind of like.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
The criticism broadly speaking.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
And since you are talking about this, I just wanted
to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think that when I have an issue that I
want to speak about, people here.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, there's nothing else to say. That's it.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That is the answer that you give, like, I'll let
you know when I have something to tell you, and
it won't be in a gene's ad.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah. I love this because actually, when Guy and I
wrote End of Discussion LO these many years ago, ten
years ago now, we noted the Joan Rivers way of
dealing with these kinds of incidents. So Joan Rivers would
make a joke and someone would say that joke is offensive,
and then they would find her at the airport TMZ
or whoever and say, like, your joke was offensive. People
didn't like it, and she would be like, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Right, I don't care, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Right, So do not apologize when you don't have anything
to apologize for. And that's what got a lot of
people in that crazy twenty twenty to twenty twenty three area. Yeah,
they were just apologizing for everything. And the truth is,
once you apologize, they have their new storyline, which is
she apologized, but not good enough? Right, never good enough? Yeah,
And Sweeney's just like short circuit. And when she does that,
(30:30):
you can tell the interviewer doesn't exactly know what to
do right.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
The interviewer also has trouble making eye contact with her,
where Sweeney is like daggers from her eyes and that's
become the meme where she's just staring at her interviewer,
like not even not afraid, not blinking, like you know
you can't come for me?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Is the look on her face?
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Question? Real quick? Do you think all of this is planned?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Because celebrity interviews are all planned, I assume that there
was some idea that they would talk about this. Yeah,
but maybe the interviewer just like she's a pro as well.
Did she think she was going to get some more
friendly response than this.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I think she thought she was going to get something.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
There's no way she thought she was going to get
a blank stare and like, but just the fact that
she wasn't making eye contact with Sweeney kind of that
was the tell for a lot of people that she
knew she was doing something wrong. She was trying to
catch the young actress in a political scandal, and Sweeney
just wasn't having it.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think her power is really and this is true
for anyone in the public eye. She knows who she
is and she is not bumped when someone asks her
something like this. It's very clear.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
And you know, she often posts instagrams about her family
and they seem like a very tight bunch. And she
got in trouble of course because her mom had a
you know, make sixty grade again party a few years ago,
and she didn't apologize for that one either.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
She has a very close family and I think that
having that universe outside of Hollywood has been very, very
good for her.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, well, good honor.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yep, we like her. Thanks for joining us on Normally.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening and when things get weird at normally
Hey guys, we're back on normally the show with normal
it takes for when the news gets weird. I'm Mary
Catherine Camp.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Carol Markowitz. How is your weekend, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh, it's pretty good. I was offline for about thirty
six hours, so that's always fun. I was camping with
no signal.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh nice. I love that.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I mean, I don't love camping, but I do love
the being offline. I don't mind camping. It's a surprising
fact about me, is I am totally okay with one
night of camping.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm really I would say I'm only okay with camping
as well, Like it's like I will do it and
while I'm there, I'm making the best of it. But
it's a little off brand for me not to be
very excited about it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Frank, Yes, I see that.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So I had a very unpopular tweet last night, and
I felt like a lot of people were like, we'll
talk to Mary Catherine about this because she will set
you straight.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And so I will say.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I feel like my Slice of Life tweets A do
very well and B are usually people are on my side,
so this was a bit of a surprise. But last night,
an NFL player on TV live, well not live, it
was pre recorded, but it was played live said nut
up or shut up on NBC.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
It wasn't even eight pm.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yet am I approved for thinking that is unacceptable?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I think that I would not react badly to it.
But I also judge myself for not reacting badly.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
So funny because I judge myself for reacting badly, I'm like,
have I become like a square in my old age?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Because I used to not care at all?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
But you know, my thing is, I just feel like censorship,
like like makes no sense. There's a Kanye West song
I used to love, you know. I hate Kanye now,
but I used to you know, I loved his music.
I still love his music, honestly. But he had a
song where he was There was love letter Chicago, and
there was a line in it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Her name was Windy. She liked to blow trees.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Now it's a double chandra about smoking marijuana, but that
would get beeped out on the radio.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Her name was Windy, she liked to.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Blow trees about a song about Chicago was beeped out
on the radio. And yet this guy could stay nut
up or shut up at a time, where like.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Kids are still watching and my kids were watching.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense which things
you can say. And having worked in live radio, we
were well versed on things you could say. For instance,
the word I believe this is correct. The word piss
excuse me could be used in certain contexts but not others,
Like you couldn't refer to it as actual, the actual substance,
(02:39):
but you could refer to someone as pissed off. Like
it was like, yeah, there's all sorts of strange rules
that they put on you.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I feel like it was Cable.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I wouldn't even care, but like NBC on a Sunday night,
not even a pianist.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, a bit much, Get off my lawn. I don't care.
I stand by what I said. I'm a square now
that was square, and I don't even care. It's good,
all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Get real free us. Well, speaking of normally, Carol, it
looks like the government might be operating normally now. I mean, look,
it's greatered on a curve, guys, But it looks like
the government will be eminently reopening thanks to a vote
in the Senate, which will then proceed a pace to
(03:27):
the House right. So.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
The Wall Street Journal reports the decision by eight members
of the Senate Democratic Caucus decide with Republicans to advance
a bill Sunday night to end the government shutdown drew
heated condemnations from other members of the party and reopened
long standing divisions on how to best fight against President Trump.
Democrats were coming off strong election wins last Tuesday, and
many lawmakers and activists said the results showed that Senate
(03:50):
Democrats should continue to hold the line on their demands
for extending Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. But the small
group of defectors reasoned Sunday that the shutdown had caused
too much pain and that the modest concessions from Republicans,
including a pledge to hold a vote on healthcare, were enough.
The Democrats are losing their minds over this, like we
hear that blue sky is just falling apart.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to emphasize the
facts on this, which are Let me just read through
the dates on which the government could have reopened. September nineteenth,
September thirtieth, October first, October third, October sixth. These are
all dates the Senate took a vote on the continuing Resolution,
which would have funded the government. Yeah, and everything would
(04:38):
have seamlessly reopened without any of this happening. I'll go
on October eighth, October ninth, October fourteenth, October fifteenth, sixteenth, twentieth,
twenty second, twenty eighth, November fourth. So I believe there's
a total of fourteen votes, and it was Democrats who
would not cross over to join Republicans to vote for
this clean continuing resolution was for these not to put
(05:01):
too fine a point on it. Stupid and dumb and
bad bumped up subsidies from the COVID era for Obamacare,
which we're designed to go to insurance companies to the
tune of billions and billions and tens of billions of
dollars to cover up the fact that premiums are going up. Yeah,
(05:23):
because of what Obamacare has wrought, right, that was the ask.
They didn't get the ask, so they did all this
for six weeks.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Really not a yeah, there's just I mean the fact
that they allowed this to go on this long. Senator
John Fetterman has been actually completely on the right side
of this. I can't believe what an amazing figure he
is in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I'm sure he's going to disappoint me down the road,
but there's so much.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Day does as good, he tweeted after forty days as
a consistent voice against shutting our government down, I voted
yes for.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The fifteenth time to reopen.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
I'm sorry to our military SNAP recipient, government workers and
Capitol police who haven't been paid weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It shouldn't have come to this. This was a failure.
It's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, and look, one might fairly ask of me, are
you consistent on this? And I would say yes, because
when Ted Cruz decided we should shut down the government
in twenty thirteen to repeal Obamacare, I was like, that's
not going to happen. And you are therefore leading yourself
to political problems and two real problems for real people. Yeah,
(06:29):
by disrupting the government in this manner, and I look,
if somebody is willing to take on the political cost
because they feel like this is a really important issue
and we must talk about it, That's one thing what
I don't like is this being turned on its head
where Democrats have now been rewarded for shutting down the
government for six weeks, which is what happened here. They
(06:51):
kind of signaled to their voters the chaos, even though
we're literally causing it, is Trump's chaos, right, and many
people bought that despite me fourteen dates I gave you
where they could have opened the government at any moment, right.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Absolutely, it was a political calculation for them. They waited
until the election to cause as much damage as they
could to their own voters so that their voters would
vote their way. And you don't have to take our
word for it. Here is Senator Kane talking about it.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
I didn't fully understand how dug in they were, again
because I was so focused on the Virginia elections. I
wasn't in this discussion on the healthcare to see how
dug in they were. But even as I was not
part of these discussions, I was saying to Fune and
others on the floor, going back, listen, I need you
some of you heard me say this in the all.
(07:42):
I need a more attarium on mischief. Others are working
on the healthcare thing, I trust them. Others are working
on the approached thing, I trust them. I need a
moretirement mischief because if we vote to open and then
the immediate step next week is Donald Trump fires a
lot more people. It's going to blow up trust to
get the full year deal. And so I've been I've
been preaching this moratorium on mischief for a month. But
(08:04):
I think partly why did they finally give me the
moratorium on mischief on riffs? They needed my vote, But
they also saw the election on two.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, that wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I really don't think that election actually played that big
a role. Here here is ezraclined in the New York
Times on how Democrats were winning the shutdown to keep
the shutdown going. He says, if I were in the Senate,
I wouldn't vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity
to make your arguments in the country was just starting
to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over
(08:36):
Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don't
see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities
so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just
taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That's the
kind of lesson.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
He remembers.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I think a lot of people understood what we were
talking about last episode, that the elections weren't a symbol
or a sign. They were off yer elections in largely
blue areas and they were supposed to go that way.
So using the elections as some sort of like you know,
sign here that the Democrats were winning and it was
all going to be okay is ridiculous. And it would
(09:10):
have been the Democrats canceling flights over Thanksgiving. Whether or
not Republicans could appropriately tell that story is a separate issue.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
The thing would have been their fault.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, that's the thing, and I think it's it's revealing
of Klein here that he's mister, make government work properly.
But when given a chance to make government work properly
or to continue to drag Republicans for who knows what
by making it work improperly, he chooses, Let's blow it up.
(09:41):
Continue to blow it up. Let people live Thanksgiving where
they cannot travel to see their loved ones, just as
we did. By the way, let's memorialize our twenty twenty behavior,
our twenty twenty one behavior and say, yeah, you can't
see your loved ones, suck it. Excuse me. That's not
fit for broadcasts either, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But yeah, he's.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Choosing politics over abundance governing, which is his kind of
his thing.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah. Well, and a lot of people are saying, look,
I do think I think it's the morally right decision
to try to get this thing back on track. I
think the ask that they were making was a stupid one. Yeah,
those subsidies don't make any sense. They were designed to
be emergency and temporary, and they were dumb at even
doing that. Now there are risks for Republicans here, which
is that there's now a healthcare discussion on the plate. Now.
(10:31):
I don't mind having that discussion. I wrote in Fox
News last week about why these subsidies are bad, why
they revealed that Obamacare was bad from the beginning, and
why we should shift to more patient focused, choice related
reforms that are small that you can give people control
over their money, which is, by the way, one of
the things Trump was pitching, saying, Hey, if we're going
(10:52):
to give away a bunch of money, let's give it
away to people's health savings accounts so they can use
it as they see fit. Yeah, which I think is
something that could appeal to people.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think so as well.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think the Democrats are going to oppose it with
every bone in their entire bodies, and the thing is
that they have to cater to the blue sky crowd.
They're taking lessons from the election. One of the one
of the election lessons for them is the far left
socialist mayor is the most popular Democrat in the country
right now. They're going to take that lesson and run
(11:24):
with it. I think it's not going to be good
for Americans, but I don't think that matters, and I
think that they don't care right now, and stopping Donald
Trump and getting political wins is all they care about
right now.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well, and you see it outlined in the New York
Times covered where they're going to have primary duels because
Democrats are facing what Republicans face during the Tea Party era,
which is a bunch of ground up anger about how
they're not fighting the president that the base doesn't like
(11:55):
hard enough. The base is not listening to how it
might be advantageous for them to fight in different ways.
I think part of the reason they waited past the
election was, and they expressed this like on background to Axios,
was that Democrats were scared of their voters being literally homicidal,
and they were like, we have to keep giving them something,
(12:16):
right people. I mean they expressed that in actual words, them,
not me. So I think they were looking for that,
hoping that these election results would cheer them up a
little bit on blue sky. That won't be the case
for a lot of normal people. It probably will. And
then you have this same dynamic at play in every
Senate and House primary that could be flippable in the
(12:37):
twenty twenty six elections. So, even though Trump's approval rating
is down, Republicans not faring well post this election. I
think they have things to think about. They may get
themselves into some serious trouble with the energy and the
excitement behind people in primaries who might not be electable
in general elections.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, seen this film before.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yep, mister nazi tattoo among those.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Right right. We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Meanwhile, did you see Abigail Spanberger, who, like again I've said,
she didn't moderate on much of anything. She was on
the Sunday shows this week being like, hey, guys, the
reason I was elected is because Virginia's think the government
should operate properly. Maybe let's not do this.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah it snay on the U shut down exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
She just doing her Betsy out there.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right, we'll be right back with more on normally. We
are back on normally.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And look, it's not just Democrats that have some questionable ideas.
Donald Trump floated two such ideas over the weekend. You
know I've said on here before that, especially on economics,
I defer to him a lot more this term than
last term.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I'm still a free market person.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I just don't see the free market like I If
other countries are tariffing us at high levels, like I
get why we would reciprocate. I also understand using the
tariffs as leverage in a way that, like as he does,
does it bring down costs? All remains to be seen
so far, not so much so. This weekend he floats
(14:10):
two ideas, and one of them is a fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
He has a post.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
On his truth Social Great American presidents. He has President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who introduced the thirty year mortgage, and
then he has a picture of himself, President Trump, who
is introducing the fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I mean, look, if you're just measuring in years, that's
obviously better. Like here we go, it's just top FDR.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I also don't think Republicans generally see FDR as a
great American president.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I see him as one of the worst presidents we've
ever had.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So I don't love that he's looking to FDR for
tips on.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Being a great president.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But again on this, like, okay, the argument obviously is
who benefits here banks because they're going to have have
an extra twenty years of you know, of costs and
they're just gonna they're going to do very well on
interest rates here.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
The flip side argument is people can't afford houses, and
they will be willing to take the chance that they Yes,
they'll pay more in the long run, but at least
they'll have the house now, and they will say, you know,
build equity and not be throwing their money away.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And rent I get it, I really get it. It's
not conservative for sure, and that's you know, a long
running problem or issue with the Trump administration. Does it
matter that he is not conservative on these issues?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Is he trying new things out of the box that
maybe conservatives will adapt to all kind of a big
question mark.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, and that's it might be too easy or too
facil a phrase, but I find it useful, which is
at times like this. I'm like, look, this is the
choice that faced many voters, which is, if you give
me a nineteen eighty nine Democrat and a twenty twenty
five Democrat, yep, to choose between, I'm going to take
(16:07):
the eighty nine Democrat, right, Yeah, because the twenty twenty
five Democrats have lost their way. But Trump is in
many ways an early nineties, late eighties Democrat. Yeah, and
an early nineties, late eighties Democrat would like this idea,
would like tariffs, would even think FDR was a pretty
awesome president on domestic economic fronts. Right, And so that's
(16:28):
what you end up with. I think these are not
great ideas. And I think beyond that, Trump when talking
about some specific industries because he's trying to get back
to an affordability argument because he's concerned about vulnerabilities there.
For twenty twenty six, he's gone way too far to
the Elizabeth Warren argument that the companies themselves are messing
(16:51):
with you. This has nothing to do with anything else
that supply and demand. Oh, let's put that aside, and
that like greed flation is back. Greed flation is not
a thing, not a thing. Companies, companies like they're trying
to do the best they can. They have to hit
profit margins then to in order to continue to operate.
There is real crony capitalism involved, and I you know,
those are things that you can eliminate if you're a
(17:13):
conservative president who would like to do those things, and
sometimes he has, but you know, yelling about the companies
and their profit margins isn't the conservative way of dealing
with this. And I think one of the ways that
Trump has been good in the past is eliminating regulations,
which for building, which would be a really great thing
to do for housing costs.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, that that is one of his strengths.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
That was like probably one of my favorite things in
the first Trump administration. Getting rid of regulations was incredibly
strong and something that Republicans hadn't done that well in
the past. His other idea from this weekend, he posted
about sending out two thousand dollars stimulus checks. His post is,
(17:56):
people that are against tariffs are fulls capital letters. We
are now well the richest, most respected country in the world,
with almost no inflation and a record stock market price.
I should tell you there's random capitalization.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All throughout that. Of course, your one case, our highest ever.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
We are taking in trillions of dollars and will soon
begin paying down our enormous debt. Thirty seven trillion, record
investment in the USA, Plants and factories going up all
over the place. A dividend of at least two thousand
dollars a person, not including high income people exclamation point
will be paid to everyone. Terrible, terrible, and look and
you know here we can't really make the argument that, oh,
(18:35):
you know, he's out of step with like the Republicans
of yesteryear.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Georgia B.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Bush also sent out stimulus checks. So after nine to eleven,
terrible idea. Stimulus checks are inflationary. They pump more money
into the economy, prices go up. I'm not a finance
person at all, but like it's a.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Very easy line to draw, and.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
It's what happened during COVID and the money that the
government was pumping into the economy, which we still have
not recovered from.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I still like I'm a gasper.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
At prices sometimes, like just like how could that be
the price of that?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, and think about it from everyone's point of view,
like if you and I are having that reaction, and
I usually use this like Obviously I live in a
high cost of living area. That's part of it. Actually,
there are times when I order a beer in North
Carolina and I'm like, I'm sorry, what three fifty did
you get? That? I had to But but we live
in a high cost of living area. That's part of it.
(19:32):
But given that I know my economic status versus many
more struggling people to go into a grocery store and
regularly go, oh my good, yeah how much that cost?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Now? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Like that is that is reflected in much bigger ways,
much further down the actos we're not.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Shopping at, like the Arawons in California where they have
like the thirty five dollars jug of water. It's like
I had I saw a seven dollars mango yesterday, Like,
what what's in that mango?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
It should be your book title about inflation seven dollars mango? No,
I think. Look, unfortunately, and I have thought this throughout,
the tariff arguments end up being pretty incoherent, like are
we doing them to raise revenue? Are we doing them
to bring back investing? Are we doing them to give
stimulus checks to people for trumpets? Often I like tariffs,
and we will find the quickest path to justifying what
(20:18):
the tariff is doing at any given moment. I went
into that with open eyes. Right, he was elected. Let's
say he gets to do his thing for a while.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Exactly right. But I say he ran on this, so.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I do think, and I've always thought from the beginning
that on affordability, if you are making the argument from
the beginning that this is short term pain but long
term gain, you better see that game pretty quickly. And
people are right to go. You're telling me, you're adding
to prices. That's what you're telling me. And that's what
he's trying to ameliorate by sending money out the door again.
(20:50):
But much like subsidizing Obamacare subsidy or plans, or giving
unlimited credit to college students, it will make the problem
blum worse. That's right, we don't want to do that.
One more bad idea from Trump this week, blowing up
the filibuster.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's not a bad idea, So okay, I wouldn't want
him to blow up the filibuster because yes, obviously the
Democrats will use it at their very next opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But did it bring the Democrats to the table this
is the thing with Trump. Is he a genius or
is he like a madman? And like he's kind of
a little bit of right woh, and you just don't
really know.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
So my concern was I'm actually a little surprised that
a deal came together, given that he was making so
much noise about the philibuster, because I thought that Democrats,
being rather short sighted themselves, would be like, this is
the thing we've always wanted, and if we win, we
get to do anything we want. If we can just
get fifty Senate seats. I think that's disastrous for America.
(21:51):
The Senate is supposed to move slowly and deliberately, even
though it's often dumb, it's supposed to be that way.
I thought he was giving them a release valve, or
they wouldn't come to the table because they'd be like,
we'll just wait for you to do the thing that
we want you to do. Very fantastic, right, right. But
it didn't turn out that way. So I've often been
wrong when his weird gut calculations have been there, right right.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I have one little like it, like I have one
more trump ism for this last you know, for this
middle segment, as we're going to air he posted on
truth Social All air traffic controllers must get back to
work now three exclamation points.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Anyone who doesn't will be substantially docked.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
For those air traffic controllers who were great patriots and
didn't take any time off for the Democrat shut down hoax,
I will be recommending a bonus of ten thousand dollars
per person for distinguished service to our country.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Now again, is he a genius or a madman?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Because and then and it goes on and on, you know,
fake Democrat attack. I'm not happy with you to tell
you the air traffic controllers, but you know, there's something
to be said for the people who stayed on their post.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
When they weren't getting paid. And him introduce seen this
bonus is like, you know, a reward to the people
who did the right thing.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
It would be one of the few ways that this
shutdown rewarded good behavior. So yeah, I'm I'm open to it.
I'm I'm a little surprised that they came to an agreement,
but it is it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I mean, let's see if we get we get through it.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
But yeah, that's next episode where like actually the shutdown
is still on.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
We shall see.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Wait right back with more on normally.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
All right, Carol, I wanted to talk a little bit
about the uh, the culture war, the anti wokeness of
it all. Even the election day did not look great
for Republicans, the culture war continues to pay dividends, the
left having sort of gone off the cliff, and the
New York Times profile of the Sierra Club is just
the latest example. And again it's a bit fascile, but
(23:54):
go woke, go broke seems to be exactly what the
Sierra Club. The headline is zero. Club embraced social justice
and then it tore itself apart. Just the top lines here.
The Sierra Club, which was a huge nationwide environmental group
that was understood to be dedicated to environmental issues for
a very long time. Originally established to protect the Sierra Nevada,
(24:16):
the group has lost sixty percent of the four million
members and supporters it counted in twenty sixteen. It has
held three rounds of employee layoffs since twenty twenty two,
trying to climb out of a forty million dollar projected
budget deficit deficit. Its political giving has also dropped. Federal
campaign finance records show it put thirty three point six
million in donations toward the defeat of Donald Trump in
(24:37):
twenty twenty and none in twenty twenty four. Because they
tore themselves apart during those four years.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, there's also.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
The question of their expenses, which just continued to go
up even as revenue did not.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It is a case of what is the point of view?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And I think a lot of people started to kind
of move away from climate change is going to end
the world tomorrow. I mean, see Bill Gates on that,
and they wanted to maybe put their money towards progressive
causes that had a solution moving in the direction of,
you know, something that they could have as a tangible win.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Well.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And the Sierra Club is interesting because I don't agree
with its old goal, but its old and pretty successful
goal that it built all this support under was we're
going to make it really hard to keep coal plants open.
And they sued and they demonstrated, and they did all
these things and by the numbers, they you know, cut
down on those things. Now for their constituency, that was
(25:40):
important and good. And after that was done and natural
gas and other alternatives had sort of come into that area,
not terribly effectively all the time, particularly with wind and electric,
but again putting aside there whether their goals are good
or not, they then went on to become everything to
everyone exactly. They decided that they were going to be diversity, equity, inclusion,
(26:02):
they were going to be racial justice, they were going
to be anything and everything, and that did not go
well for them, right, and.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
US a resistance group like any other resistance group.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yes, yeah, their their new focus included focus I use
the term lightly, racial justice, labor rights, gay rights, immigrant rights,
and more. And to this day, the leadership stands by
that shift that has coincided with this incredible contraction of
its membership and ability to do the I would say,
damaging things that has been doing in the past, Like
(26:34):
I rejoice, but the people you're serving probably shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Be, right, right, they got one hundred and twenty million
dollars from Michael Bloomberg, and he could have given every
American a million dollars with that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I think I think the math is correct.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I'm just joking, friends that look up the Michael Bloomberg
can give every American a million dollars reference New York
Times editorial board member did some poor math on m
that's NBC, and they let her continue to get away
with that.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
There's a couple of funny quotes from this one. My
favorite one might be there were some people who were
employed by the Sierra Club that felt like if they
didn't fall in love or file excuse me, fall in
line with these new directives between twenty twenty and twenty
twenty two, they were ostracized, sometimes even investigated. One woman,
Delia Malone, and a cologist and volunteer for the club's
(27:24):
Colorado chapter, said she heard from attorneys hired by the
Sierra Clubs seeking to interview her as part of investigation
against her, and she said, what's the claimant? Who made it?
They said, we can't tell you that, and miss Malone
thought that someone else in the chapter had filed a complaint.
She recalled an incident when a club's staff member had
scolded her for saying that the club should lobby Colorado's
(27:44):
legislature for more protections for wolves that seems within the
club's mediea. One of the staffs said, that's fine, Delia,
but what do wolves have to do with equity, justice
and inclusion? Delia? That's fine, Delia, and I also want
to point to this as the pattern that you point
out often, which is that they went from effective focused
(28:08):
organization to every racial justice, social justice thing under the sun,
everything to everyone, which meant they became ineffective. At which point,
what did they do, Carol? They became antie siminek. They
canceled trip to Israel. They decided that Palestine is an
environmental issue from our standpoint of course. Yeah, and they
just like went headlong into that as well.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yep, good work everyone.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Also, Sidney Sweeney, that was our other woke story from
the last week.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
She gave.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
A masterclass in not responding to bait from liberal journalists.
She really you know, the only thing I would say
is her jacket looked a little uncomfortable, and I just
wanted to like flip her hair out of it, because, like,
you know, as a woman with long hair who gets
it caught in my jacket a lot of the time,
you know, I know that that's tough.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
But she did really great.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, let's play a little clip of this question she's
asked about her very famous American Eagle ad campaign.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
The criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe
specifically in this political climate, like white people shouldn't joke
about genetic superiority. Like that was kind of like.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
The criticism broadly speaking.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
And since you are talking about this, I just wanted
to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I think that when I have an issue that I
want to speak about, people here.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, there's nothing else to say. That's it.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That is the answer that you give, like, I'll let
you know when I have something to tell you, and
it won't be in a gene's ad.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah. I love this because actually, when Guy and I
wrote End of Discussion LO these many years ago, ten
years ago now, we noted the Joan Rivers way of
dealing with these kinds of incidents. So Joan Rivers would
make a joke and someone would say that joke is offensive,
and then they would find her at the airport TMZ
or whoever and say, like, your joke was offensive. People
didn't like it, and she would be like, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Right, I don't care, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Right, So do not apologize when you don't have anything
to apologize for. And that's what got a lot of
people in that crazy twenty twenty to twenty twenty three area. Yeah,
they were just apologizing for everything. And the truth is,
once you apologize, they have their new storyline, which is
she apologized, but not good enough? Right, never good enough? Yeah,
And Sweeney's just like short circuit. And when she does that,
(30:30):
you can tell the interviewer doesn't exactly know what to
do right.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
The interviewer also has trouble making eye contact with her,
where Sweeney is like daggers from her eyes and that's
become the meme where she's just staring at her interviewer,
like not even not afraid, not blinking, like you know
you can't come for me?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Is the look on her face?
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Question? Real quick? Do you think all of this is planned?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Because celebrity interviews are all planned, I assume that there
was some idea that they would talk about this. Yeah,
but maybe the interviewer just like she's a pro as well.
Did she think she was going to get some more
friendly response than this.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I think she thought she was going to get something.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
There's no way she thought she was going to get
a blank stare and like, but just the fact that
she wasn't making eye contact with Sweeney kind of that
was the tell for a lot of people that she
knew she was doing something wrong. She was trying to
catch the young actress in a political scandal, and Sweeney
just wasn't having it.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think her power is really and this is true
for anyone in the public eye. She knows who she
is and she is not bumped when someone asks her
something like this. It's very clear.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
And you know, she often posts instagrams about her family
and they seem like a very tight bunch. And she
got in trouble of course because her mom had a
you know, make sixty grade again party a few years ago,
and she didn't apologize for that one either.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
She has a very close family and I think that
having that universe outside of Hollywood has been very, very
good for her.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, well, good honor.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yep, we like her. Thanks for joining us on Normally.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Get in touch with us at normallythepodat gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening and when things get weird at normally
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