In this episode of Normally, Mary Katharine and Karol discuss a range of topics including Karol's recent travels in France, the controversial dismissal of FDA employee Vinay Prasad, the implications for public trust in government, media representation of Gaza, Democratic strategies in redistricting, and the reinstatement of the presidential fitness test. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, guys, we are back to normal.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
She takes coo when the news gets weird and back
with us this week.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Is my regular co host. I'm Mary Kavin.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You I'm Carol Markowitz. It is so nice to be back.
Although I will say the guest hosts did a fantastic job,
really amazing, so well done. Thank you to them both
for filling in. I really enjoyed all four episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, they were much appreciated, guys, and wonderful job.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
A ray of sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But it's so nice to have you back after you
got sunshine for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Paris was actually very cold, and you should feel sorry
for me. I only brought one pair of jeans. I
wore them for the first four days because I was
freezing to death. It was like fifty nine degrees in
the morning. I did not come to Paris in the
summer for fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Degrees, and I taught for you, not pack for it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But I was there because my middle son was in
a week long history competition and he came home with
a silver and a bronze medal, and I'm very proud
of him.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Over here, nice, very nice, well done.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you. There's some traveling around France, and a good
time was had by all. Much seafood was eaten, a
lot of a little bit of escargo. Not not really
in sales, but I did try them.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, good time. Oh you know what I want to say. Actually,
Normandy was unbelievable and I you know, I knew it
would be moving and beautiful, but Normandy the region is
just stunning. It was. I've been saying it's the sleeper
hit of the trip. It's the place that I don't
feel like I knew it would be so gorgeous and
beautiful and French and delicious, and I.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Love It's a it's a life goal of mine to
make it to Normandy, so now I will for sure,
and we're doubling down on it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah. And the American Cemetery is just I we could
have spent all day there. It was really really powerful.
A lot of the houses around Omaha Beach still fly
American flag. There's just a really moving feeling that you
get there and it was very nice to see.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
By the way, if you ever get a chance to
all our listeners wherever you're traveling, if you get a
chance to visit the American cemetery overseas, it's very nice
to do so Normandy obviously gets a lot of visitors,
but others don't. I went to the one in Tunisia,
which doesn't get a ton of visitors. And then if
you know put on social media that you're there, sometimes
people will come across it who have relatives who are
(02:29):
buried there. So it's a nice thing to honor those
folks who lost their lives, you know, many many miles
from home.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That's right. Yeah, it was definitely something that we would
repeat in other places. You know. I saw the headline
come in that an FDA employee was fired, and I
just naturally assumed it would be some no name bureaucrat
and whatever. And then when I saw that it was
been a Prisad, and my heart dropped. I was like,
(02:56):
what in the world happened here? And then when you
get into the story what happened? I think it's a
really terrible episode that needs to never be repeated. So
let's get into it. Vinet Prissad was really one of
the heroes of COVID time. He was ahead of the
(03:19):
curve on so many things, and he was a trusted voice,
and so the fact that he got to the FDA
was We celebrated.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It on this show show. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Really really happy about it because it is a time
of a lack of trust and to have people that
we do trust in these positions of power meant something
to us. So we were thrilled about that. Now it
turns out that he was let go because he questioned
(03:52):
a therapeutic the It was a company called Therapeda Therapeutics.
They have this gene therapy that is kind of questionable,
and he was interested in getting to the bottom of
why it was reproved and how. And Laura Lumer, who
is a fringy figure on the right for some reason,
(04:15):
has a little bit too much power in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The Trump way, too much power, yes, was one.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Of the key person in getting rid of him because
she said he was not loyal to Trump, and she
misrepresented things that he said and really just flat out lied.
And it is a really gross thing that happened here.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, it's very disappointing.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
More than that, like I'm angry on his behalf, I'm
sad that this means that the chances of getting really
good evidence based folks who go against the grain is
going to be harder now because they've seen what happens
if you go into this White House or into this administration.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Rather, he's a very smart guy, who.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Has nuanced views on evidence based medicine, who stands up
for what he thinks is correct, who pushes back on
people who are powerful, even when it's costly to him.
That seems like exactly the kind of person you would
want evaluating such things. And as you say, this particular
medicine was somewhat questionable with the results it was providing.
(05:23):
There are two deaths attributed to it. He was asking
some questions, and it looks like with Laura lumor spearheading
with some other forces involved, there was a public backlash
against this decision built that got to Trump quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Through Laura Lumer.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
There were some other publications the Wall Street Journal, I
believe ran and abed saying that he shouldn't have done this.
This is a treatment, by the way, for jushan muscular dystrophy.
Rick Santorum reportedly, according to New York Times, has some connections.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
With the with the UH, the Pharmaschool pharmaceutical company UH.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
And then there's also a lobbying firm that was hired
by the pharmaceutical company that has notably Chris Lasovita employed
by it. So there's a direct line on several fronts
to Trump.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Here famously has close ties to.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So I think it's a real loss, yeah everyone, And
it's it's one of these things where like, this is
the kind of thing about Trump where he is, this
is where Democrats could take advantage of him, right, go
into the office, take the meetings. You're the last person
who says something. You get something channeled through loom or
and boom, you get a giant change.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
That's not good all the time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Obviously, and one of the issues we have with him
is that this needed discernment, This needed someone to go.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I think he's worth having.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah. So, as we're recording this, RFK Junior today said
that they're going to be taking action to fully ban
foodstamps from being used to obtain soda. Ned Ryan, who's
been all over this Venea Prasad story, tweeted, let's hope
this holds up and some soda company doesn't hire. Laura
Lumer just screeched that actually foodstamps for soda is like
totally America first here, that's the concern here. I am
(07:22):
very much, not a Laura Lumer fan. I actually block
her because I don't want her nonsense in my timeline,
even though and you know, obviously Israel is one of
my top issues and she and I are aligned on it,
and sometimes people will send me commentary from her. I
just don't think she's a good person, and I don't
care that we agree you're align on certain issues. It
(07:42):
just isn't enough for me. Among other things, she said
that Casey DeSantis lied about having cancer and used it
as a you know, to have people be sympathetic to
her husband when he was running for president. I mean,
it was extremely disgusting. And she has done a lot
of terrible things.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Many things like that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Many things like that. Right, there was a picture that
we were all in and Christina Pshaw, who worked for
Ron DeSantis, was in the picture, and she made her
knees different colors, So just really disgusting. Yeah, like, this
is not a good person, and I don't care if
we're on the same quote unquote side.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, and when she sort of got blocked out of
the incoming administration for a brief time that that was
good news. And now that we're back to her wielding
a lot of power. That is not good news for
people who want results out of this administration. His colleagues
over at the Sensible Medicine Substack, where I've read him
(08:47):
for a long time, put it, you know, as well
as I could. So mainly I am sad. Sad for
vernight because he told me how much he had learned
in his short time. He was happy doing a job
that had incredible meaning. You could see how much his
new role meant to him in the FDA videos he
did with Marty. It was a different vene. I am
also sad for FDA because I had thought that this
new leadership could make a difference. Marty and Vine together
(09:08):
had a chance to bring increased rigor and greater independence
to drug and device regulation. But his rapid ulster turns
this optimism into magical thinking, and they say, you know,
it was always going to be a tough job because
you are going to have to take unpopular positions with
various very powerful lobbying forces. So that he's just the
(09:28):
guy to do that.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
That's why I liked him there, right, And that's exactly it.
That FDA is uniquely susceptible to people being paid off
by powerful drug companies to do things on their behalf,
and the fact that we lost somebody that trustworthy is
a really tough pill to swallow. I'll add though, that
(09:55):
as we're recording right now, Marty Mackery, FDA Commissioner, said
that Vene. He said, Venee did choose to leave the FDA,
and the idea that he was pushed out by anybody
is simply untrue. We saw some he saw some head
media headlines and didn't want to be a distraction. We
encouraged him to reconsider, and we're still doing that. So
he left because he didn't want to be a distraction
(10:17):
because of the media headlines that Laura lum created.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Created, right.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So I don't see how there's a real distinction there.
But the fact that maccuary says we encouraged him to
reconsider and we're still doing that maybe makes me a
little bit hopeful he'll be back, and I really hope
that he does come back.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, it's just it's just unwise to it's just dumb
to lose good people over stuff like this. Don't be
too easily taken in by those who bring you messages
about this kind of person on the same front and
by the way.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's just not good for public trust.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
In institutions, like this guy is a person you put
in place who could earn that trust, and then he's like, nap,
now we're out because he tweeted something that Laura Loomer
paraphrase inaccurately, and now I'm ticked off. Speaking of being
ticked off, I would like to note another bad decision
from last week, which is that the Bureau of Labor
(11:10):
Statistics commissioner was fired by Trump in the wake of
a weaker than expected July jobs number, finding a gain
of seventy three thousand jobs versus expectations of one hundred thousand. Now,
we've seen this a lot of times. We saw this
in the Aviden administration, where the BLS the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, puts out a number one month and then
(11:31):
they revise it downward the next month, and sometimes the
revisions downward have been frequent and large. That is bad, right,
Like we need to figure out how to get handle
on the data. It's been a couple of years now
where the revisions downward have been pretty notable in a
way that I've been following these numbers for a long
(11:52):
time and they don't. They didn't feel this way ten
years ago. At any rate, this happens last week. It's
revised downward, not a huge revision downward, but like you know, notable,
and Trump got mad and fired the person who's in
charge of putting out the numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Let's say you.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Wanted better numbers, and you wanted to address these statistics,
and you wanted people to have faith in them. This
is the opposite of that, because now you have signaled
that when you don't like the numbers, you're going to
get rid of who's creating the numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But that doesn't address the data.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
And I don't think the data is actually partisanly problematic.
I think it's just methodically problematic, probably, and I would
like to get that fixed.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I don't think we're getting that fixed.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. I get why he did it, but it is
not a great sign for public trust, which, like you said,
we desperately need. We've gotten to a point where nobody
believes anything, and this is where conspiracy theories and all
kinds of insanity blooms when public trust decreases like this.
So yeah, bring back regular normal people into these positions
(13:03):
and leave them there. Don't want home. I get them fired.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and Trump works against himself in this way not infrequently.
The other one is like yelling at Jerome Powell all
the time. We're like, Powell might be inclined to do
the thing you want him to do, but if you
continue to pressure him publicly, he's going to be less
inclined to do anything you want him to do potentially,
And so let's.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Not do it that way.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Absolutely, Jerome Powell, thehead of the fat Excuse me, I
shorthanded that, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We'll be right back with more normally after this break.
So while I was away, the New York Times put
a child starving in Gaza on their cover. And I'm
telling you, I was barely on Twitter. I was, you know,
really trying to limit my intake, but this one really
(13:57):
got to me because before I saw any further news,
I was like, this child is ill. This is not
a starving child in Gaza. He's being held by his
extremely well fed mother. And it was obvious to me
that it was going to end up being a hoax.
I didn't want to post that and get like tied
(14:19):
into arguing with people on X but it was I
just I almost wish I had, because it was literally
my first thought upon seeing that picture, and of course
that's exactly what turned out to be the case. It
was a child that had cerebral palsy. Apparently the New
(14:39):
York Times had internally discussed whether having a child with
a condition like that on the cover made sense. They
decided it didn't. They removed the first child that they
had with cerebral palsy, who was going to appear in
the cover, and replaced it with this child who also
had cerebral palsy, and they were fully aware of what
(15:02):
they were doing. Among other things, they cropped out his
healthy looking brother, and it is just vile. I was
so disappointed by conservatives who fell for this. I couldn't
believe that they just relied on what The New York
Times was presenting to them, and that they couldn't, in
(15:26):
poker terms, get off the hand. Even after the story
was found to be a hoax, there were people still saying, Okay, yes,
this child, maybe you know, has a condition, But there
are starving children in Gaza still. We don't haven't seen
any pictures of them or anything, but they exist.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So that's the deeper issue, right, it's like, Okay, there
is certainly suffering in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No one is disputing this.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
But if this is the story, and the story, by
the way from the left is that Israel is intentionally
starving the children of Gaza. We don't understand why they're
sending them aid and escorting aid into the country and
offering to bless the aid into the country. We're never
told any of that. Why that makes sense with their
(16:14):
starvation policy.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
But they're doing it on.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Purpose, okay in the lefty media, the entire international community
and all the NGOs. Yeah, the thing they want most
is a picture of a starving Gaza child so that
they get one third of a page on the front
page of the New York Times.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's what they're all looking for, That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Why is it that two attempts at it on the
New York Times front cover were both children with pre
existing conditions that were not in fact of this population
they claim is starving. Why can't you find the actual
picture when you're all they're looking for that exact picture.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Right after this story breaks, like a few days later,
videos are released by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad of
two hostages Avatar David and Roslavsky, and they are starving.
They are a look like they are starving. There is
(17:16):
no condition, there is nothing. There is literally just skin
and bones of gaunt faces, eyes bulging out of their heads.
It's just, you know, the difference in coverage is so
(17:37):
horrible and disgusting to me. But also not unexpected, is
the unfortunate fact of it. It's really sad to watch.
And the thing is that all those people who were
so worked up about gods and children who are not
actually starving had nothing to say about this, and silence
(17:59):
really spoke for them.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well in the language that they always use is co
opting the language of the Holocaust and saying this is
another Holocaust before our eyes. And yet the images that
are actually reminiscent of the Holocaust come out advertised by
the way, by their heroes, exactly in the governing ranks
of Hamas and the other groups that rule Gaza and
(18:25):
are not allowing anyone to get food, right, those are
the people in charge of that. When you see the
actual photos and videos that actually do invoke this, not
a word to say of that. It made it made
the front page of the New York Post and everyone
else very quiet.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yes, I actually am extremely proud of the New York Posts.
I'm really proud to write for them, because that is
what should be happening. It should be on the cover,
and the fact that it's not on any other cover. Look,
it's not a great time for Jews. I'm just gonna
tell you all of the conversations that I have with
other Jews or like, how bad is this going to get?
(19:08):
It feels like this could be bad, This could be
a real bad time for Jews. I believe in America.
I believe in Americans, So I'm always kind of the
positive voice, being like, no, it's just this fringe. And
I still do think it is a fringe. But the
fact that it's not being covered, and the fact that
every story about oh, there's a split on the right
(19:29):
over Israel, you know, pushes the same three voices. You
know Steve benn Instead, he said that he doesn't think
people are going to like Israel anymore, and they just
keep writing these stories because they want to will it
into existence. It's worrisome, it really is.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Well, it's the highest profile voices of the left, like
the Pod Save America guys who on a Tuesday just
decided that, after their entire lives of nominally at least
backing Israel and being part of the Obama stra that
of course sent aid in defense in the traditional way
that Americans do.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
They're like, no, the Democratic Party is not going to
be able.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
To do this anymore, right, and that's going to be
a real interesting dynamic in the primary of that party.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, I want to see if they actually go through
with it, because I do think and you know, I
say this, but I have a lot of faith in
the conservative, you know, side of American politics. The rest
I don't know, but it still will be a major
shift if Democrats really do say we're not pro Israel anymore,
(20:35):
where we're not aligned with Israel anymore, this is not
our ally Let's see. Let's see if that really does happen,
or if again the leftist fringe doesn't really get a
say in what nationally happens at the Democratic Party. We'll
see what happens with that. Additionally, to by the way,
(20:59):
Avatar David, the video of him clearly in a really
emaciated state. He was forced to dig his own grave.
They told him, you're digging your own grave. It's just
there's just no words. Really there really aren't. And I'm
really grateful for people like you, like you know a
(21:20):
lot of people on the right who do care about
this and do kind of keep talking about it because
it is lonely and it is hard to you know,
kind of I get people's being tired of talking about Israel.
I'm tired of talking about I want to talk about
other things. But it's you know, you have situations like
this where I'm so glad that conservatives do remain on
(21:43):
the side of Israel and keeping their eye on stuff
like this.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, and it's easy to understand where people are coming from,
especially casual observers who are like, it's just a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
It feels like a lot, maybe it should end. We
get it, we get it.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Same with Ukraine, Russia, right like it it's a lot,
and we wish it were not happening. Okay, I understand,
But you also still have to weigh the moral question
because war is hard, and war is bad, and bad
things happen in war.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And it blows my mind that people put these two
entities side by side and are like, no, I think
the Holy war war.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We want to wipe Israel off the map, and maybe
the rest of the Western world as well. Those are
our guys, the ones that are the ones that are
advertising that they're starving civilian non combatants. We want to
we want to be with them, and then not only
do we want to be with them, we want them.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
After this behavior, to have a state. We want we
want to reward them. Well, I think some of it
is just like that.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
The international community is the gentle parenting of foreign policy,
and they just they just are like, we wanted to stop,
we wanted to stop, we want to stop. Give these
people what they want, and that is Yes, it's going
to end up being the most destructive thing because you
incentivize this horrific behavior.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, instead of the FAFO parenting that I know, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I mean, you know, bombing Florida is an FAFO parenting move, right,
It's not a gentle parenting move.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yes, these are different things.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I would say. I was in France when Macrone said
that they would be recognizing a Palestinian state. You know,
I guess obviously when you're a tourist and you're justificationing there,
it's not going to come up in your life at all.
But like I can tell you I didn't see a
great movement for the Palestinian state while I was traveling
around France. There was no no marches in the streets
(23:35):
for it or anything like that. We'll be right back
after this break with some more normally and Democrats embarrassing
themselves again.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
All right, we are back with a semi regular segment
of Harryenton on CNN telling CNN audiences things that they
don't want to hear. So here's a little segment on
the Democrat brand, and then we'll get into why this
might be the case.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The Democratic brand is in the basement. It is total
and complete garbage in the mind of the American public.
The Democratic parties net fable rating record lows and all
three Wall Street Journal thirty points underwater, CNN twenty six
points underwater, Gallup twenty six points underwater. And that is
being driven in large pop by discontent within the Democratic base.
The Democratic base wants something different, will ultimately end up
(24:22):
seeing who they choose. It will be quite the thing who.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It's a lot of points, a lot of Now. Now,
this is like a little bit of a Tea party dynamic,
where it's.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A lot of their own voters are mad at them,
and we will and we will see what kind of
behavior that incentivizes as they go forward. One of the
things that I think is incentivized is fighting at all costs,
even when fighting doesn't accomplish anything and actually looks pretty lame.
So in this case, we have a redistricting fight in Texas.
(24:55):
For those of you who aren't in regular politics, redistrict
fights happen for equently. This is not a new thing.
The Texas Legislature gets to vote on this. Republicans have
drawn a map that gives them more seats in the Congress,
which is the custom.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
When you are in charge and you are able to
do that.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It is not hugely out of proportion with the amount
that they generally win by in Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Nonetheless, they're Democratic colleagues.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
In order to thwart this attempt at redistricting, have fled
the state, and they because they're so mad about the
gerrymandering that is happening here geral and they're so mad
about the jerrymandering because they're very principled on this that
they went to Illinois, where.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
There's no or there's like the most jerrymandering.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Like could anybody have just just said, like is there
another state we could flee to?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Right, So they're in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Javi Pritzker flew there on a private so they could
not do their jobs in the Texas legislature. I hate
this tactic, and if Republicans did it, I would tell
them to go back home and take their l You
these elections have consequences.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Fight the good fight and take your light.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And they Democrats repeatedly refuse to do this.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
There have been Yeah, I was gonna say, Texas Democrats
just keep doing this. Why do they think this is
going to work?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, They've done this over and over again.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
There's also the Wisconsin Senate in twenty eleven fighting Governor
Scott Walker. There's an Indiana House incident. But the Texas
Democrats do like to flee. They did it in two
thousand and three. Apparently they did it in twenty twenty
one or twenty three. It's like all the time they're
just leaving the state. And I just think you owe
(26:55):
your voters better than this.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
And I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Republicans have pulled this ever. I read one story about
an Oregon vote where they had invented this and don't
do it don't right, it's embarrassing, you look lame.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
You should go do your job exactly.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Gavin Newsom said this is what fighting for our democracy
looks like, and Ag Hamilton on X was like legislators
fleeing a state because they don't have sufficient votes to
stop a change. Is a lot of things, but it
is most definitely not fighting for democracy.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It's the opposite of democracy.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And I just want to note that The New York
Times writes this hilarious piece entitled Democrats have few tools
to counter gop redistricting.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Okay, do you want another reason they have few tools? Well,
let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
States where Democrats would have complete control over any redistricting,
such as Illinois and Maryland, are already gerrymandered heavily in
their favor. Squeezing more democratic seats out of those states
would be a challenge, right, Like they're just max you know,
they're they're always it's this thing that democrats always do
where they're like, we're going to start doing this. If
(28:10):
you do it, it's like you've already done it. You've
already maxed, You've you've been doing it. Yeah, what's the
term they use in in bro podcast? You have Jerrymander
maxed like, you're you're good. You've spent generations doing this
and you can't squeeze anything else out of it.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
So, uh that Democrats did this week? I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I think we have no. No, that's not the only one.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And I will say real quickly that the governor has
has threatened them with all sorts of sanctions should they
not come back to do their jobs. They have not
come back to do their jobs. So that is in
limbo at the moment. Okay, the other one, oh, the
New York Times, Oh gosh, New York Times just really
wants to keep us in business.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
They're like, what do the normally girls want to talk
about this week? And then they just provide us with
the fodder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Just delivering us a gift.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So the President of the United States, President Trump, announced
that they will reinstate.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
The Presidential Fitness Test.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
This is the physical fitness test that you used to
take in physical education class. It consisted of a mile run,
a shuttle run, the sit in reach and the pull
ups I think that was about and the crunches. So
he reinstates this. He does a little ceremony. This is
like mostly non controversial, right, but not at the New
York Times in the newsroom.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Are unhappy.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Is right wing coded that an article?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
This is it?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So here's the headline over a picture of a like
sweet struggling child hanging at a pull up bar for
some return of presidential fitness tests revives painful memories. Generations
of Americans who struggle to complete a pull up in
front of their classmates winced as President Trump announced that
he was reinstating the annual assessment. It goes on to
(29:58):
give us like twenty pair of of various people's bad
experiences in elementary school with the presidential physical fitness test.
And I just want to say, do they need someone
more trauma informed.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
In the New York Times newsroom?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So like you can just work through this as an adult,
because you are allegedly adults.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I'm embarrassed for you, right.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Josh Barrow commented about the Times article, liberals need to
stop doing identity politics for losers, Which that's all I
think anyone is saying, like, just stop hating everything so much.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Just so lame. Speaking of blame.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
When they switched it, Obama, of course, was the first
to change it from the traditional test to this, and
I had totally missed this in all of Obama's lameness.
When mister Obama abolished the test, he replaced it with
the Fitness Gram, a program that emphasized overall student health goals,
setting and personal progress, not beating your classmates on the
track or the pull up bar boo boo to that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Is so much, it's amazing, go ahead, point this. He
said that the press focuses on the beneficiaries of Democrat
policies and the victims of Republican policies. So if it
were a Democrat who was doing this, who was bringing
back this fitness test, it would be portrayed as this
amazing thing to get kids in shape and you know,
(31:30):
to make sure that we don't have a staggering number
of obese kids and all of that. It would be
seen as a win for American children, which it is.
So you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So the people in this article are quoted as calling
it a giant step backwards, and one person described it
as her experience as it was survivor fails.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
She said it was Darwinist.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And then one physical education teacher says, it really breaks
my heart that it's coming back if our mission is
to help kids love being physically active and love moving,
we have to do more than testing them in ways
in which the majority are going to fail and they're
going to feel ashamed and they're not going to like
physical education. Okay, here's the thought. We're setting a goal
for you, you have some time to work up to it.
(32:16):
How about we all do that. How about we all work.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
On that together.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
And I do have to cup to This was not
my particular form of public humiliation as a child.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Nobody enjoyed it, but fun well, like, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I actually am the one who enjoyed it. Right, so
I'm the weird now one. I'm the weirdo on this one.
But my point is I faced all other sorts of
public humiliation in school growing up, Like that's part of
the deal, right, This was not my particular kind, but
like every challenge in these settings is going to be tough.
(32:50):
You're supposed to be tested in various ways as you
grow up. And the idea that the people who run
elite institutions in this country are the people who haven't
worked through through this is gross to me.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Exactly, y'all are lame and you should be laughed out
by Josh Barrow. You should be.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I didn't love it. I am not sporty or athletic
in any way, but look, I want you know, I
did it. I want my kids to do it. I
think it's a good thing to be physically fit.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Sending a message that like, this is something we value.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Right exactly, it is sending that message, and I like
that message being sent.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Democrats by the stuff I.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Do, herds who we push into lockers, you know, I know.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's like I feel like this kind of thing makes
me meaner than I would otherwise be.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I'm like, I can't with this.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, but I will cop to the fact that I
was like thirty nine and a half pounds and I
was like, you need eleven pull ups.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I got you. I got you. Now I don't weigh
thirty nine and a half pounds, so I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Thanks joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
in touch with us at normally theepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Speaker 1 (34:08):
M
Hey, guys, we are back to normal.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
She takes coo when the news gets weird and back
with us this week.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Is my regular co host. I'm Mary Kavin.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
You I'm Carol Markowitz. It is so nice to be back.
Although I will say the guest hosts did a fantastic job,
really amazing, so well done. Thank you to them both
for filling in. I really enjoyed all four episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, they were much appreciated, guys, and wonderful job.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
A ray of sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But it's so nice to have you back after you
got sunshine for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Paris was actually very cold, and you should feel sorry
for me. I only brought one pair of jeans. I
wore them for the first four days because I was
freezing to death. It was like fifty nine degrees in
the morning. I did not come to Paris in the
summer for fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Degrees, and I taught for you, not pack for it.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But I was there because my middle son was in
a week long history competition and he came home with
a silver and a bronze medal, and I'm very proud
of him.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Over here, nice, very nice, well done.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you. There's some traveling around France, and a good
time was had by all. Much seafood was eaten, a
lot of a little bit of escargo. Not not really
in sales, but I did try them.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, good time. Oh you know what I want to say. Actually,
Normandy was unbelievable and I you know, I knew it
would be moving and beautiful, but Normandy the region is
just stunning. It was. I've been saying it's the sleeper
hit of the trip. It's the place that I don't
feel like I knew it would be so gorgeous and
beautiful and French and delicious, and I.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Love It's a it's a life goal of mine to
make it to Normandy, so now I will for sure,
and we're doubling down on it.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah. And the American Cemetery is just I we could
have spent all day there. It was really really powerful.
A lot of the houses around Omaha Beach still fly
American flag. There's just a really moving feeling that you
get there and it was very nice to see.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
By the way, if you ever get a chance to
all our listeners wherever you're traveling, if you get a
chance to visit the American cemetery overseas, it's very nice
to do so Normandy obviously gets a lot of visitors,
but others don't. I went to the one in Tunisia,
which doesn't get a ton of visitors. And then if
you know put on social media that you're there, sometimes
people will come across it who have relatives who are
(02:29):
buried there. So it's a nice thing to honor those
folks who lost their lives, you know, many many miles
from home.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That's right. Yeah, it was definitely something that we would
repeat in other places. You know. I saw the headline
come in that an FDA employee was fired, and I
just naturally assumed it would be some no name bureaucrat
and whatever. And then when I saw that it was
been a Prisad, and my heart dropped. I was like,
(02:56):
what in the world happened here? And then when you
get into the story what happened? I think it's a
really terrible episode that needs to never be repeated. So
let's get into it. Vinet Prissad was really one of
the heroes of COVID time. He was ahead of the
(03:19):
curve on so many things, and he was a trusted voice,
and so the fact that he got to the FDA
was We celebrated.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It on this show show. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Really really happy about it because it is a time
of a lack of trust and to have people that
we do trust in these positions of power meant something
to us. So we were thrilled about that. Now it
turns out that he was let go because he questioned
(03:52):
a therapeutic the It was a company called Therapeda Therapeutics.
They have this gene therapy that is kind of questionable,
and he was interested in getting to the bottom of
why it was reproved and how. And Laura Lumer, who
is a fringy figure on the right for some reason,
(04:15):
has a little bit too much power in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
The Trump way, too much power, yes, was one.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Of the key person in getting rid of him because
she said he was not loyal to Trump, and she
misrepresented things that he said and really just flat out lied.
And it is a really gross thing that happened here.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, it's very disappointing.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
More than that, like I'm angry on his behalf, I'm
sad that this means that the chances of getting really
good evidence based folks who go against the grain is
going to be harder now because they've seen what happens
if you go into this White House or into this administration.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Rather, he's a very smart guy, who.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Has nuanced views on evidence based medicine, who stands up
for what he thinks is correct, who pushes back on
people who are powerful, even when it's costly to him.
That seems like exactly the kind of person you would
want evaluating such things. And as you say, this particular
medicine was somewhat questionable with the results it was providing.
(05:23):
There are two deaths attributed to it. He was asking
some questions, and it looks like with Laura lumor spearheading
with some other forces involved, there was a public backlash
against this decision built that got to Trump quickly.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Through Laura Lumer.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
There were some other publications the Wall Street Journal, I
believe ran and abed saying that he shouldn't have done this.
This is a treatment, by the way, for jushan muscular dystrophy.
Rick Santorum reportedly, according to New York Times, has some connections.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
With the with the UH, the Pharmaschool pharmaceutical company UH.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
And then there's also a lobbying firm that was hired
by the pharmaceutical company that has notably Chris Lasovita employed
by it. So there's a direct line on several fronts
to Trump.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Here famously has close ties to.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So I think it's a real loss, yeah everyone, And
it's it's one of these things where like, this is
the kind of thing about Trump where he is, this
is where Democrats could take advantage of him, right, go
into the office, take the meetings. You're the last person
who says something. You get something channeled through loom or
and boom, you get a giant change.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
That's not good all the time.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Obviously, and one of the issues we have with him
is that this needed discernment, This needed someone to go.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I think he's worth having.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah. So, as we're recording this, RFK Junior today said
that they're going to be taking action to fully ban
foodstamps from being used to obtain soda. Ned Ryan, who's
been all over this Venea Prasad story, tweeted, let's hope
this holds up and some soda company doesn't hire. Laura
Lumer just screeched that actually foodstamps for soda is like
totally America first here, that's the concern here. I am
(07:22):
very much, not a Laura Lumer fan. I actually block
her because I don't want her nonsense in my timeline,
even though and you know, obviously Israel is one of
my top issues and she and I are aligned on it,
and sometimes people will send me commentary from her. I
just don't think she's a good person, and I don't
care that we agree you're align on certain issues. It
(07:42):
just isn't enough for me. Among other things, she said
that Casey DeSantis lied about having cancer and used it
as a you know, to have people be sympathetic to
her husband when he was running for president. I mean,
it was extremely disgusting. And she has done a lot
of terrible things.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Many things like that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Many things like that. Right, there was a picture that
we were all in and Christina Pshaw, who worked for
Ron DeSantis, was in the picture, and she made her
knees different colors, So just really disgusting. Yeah, like, this
is not a good person, and I don't care if
we're on the same quote unquote side.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, and when she sort of got blocked out of
the incoming administration for a brief time that that was
good news. And now that we're back to her wielding
a lot of power. That is not good news for
people who want results out of this administration. His colleagues
over at the Sensible Medicine Substack, where I've read him
(08:47):
for a long time, put it, you know, as well
as I could. So mainly I am sad. Sad for
vernight because he told me how much he had learned
in his short time. He was happy doing a job
that had incredible meaning. You could see how much his
new role meant to him in the FDA videos he
did with Marty. It was a different vene. I am
also sad for FDA because I had thought that this
new leadership could make a difference. Marty and Vine together
(09:08):
had a chance to bring increased rigor and greater independence
to drug and device regulation. But his rapid ulster turns
this optimism into magical thinking, and they say, you know,
it was always going to be a tough job because
you are going to have to take unpopular positions with
various very powerful lobbying forces. So that he's just the
(09:28):
guy to do that.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
That's why I liked him there, right, And that's exactly it.
That FDA is uniquely susceptible to people being paid off
by powerful drug companies to do things on their behalf,
and the fact that we lost somebody that trustworthy is
a really tough pill to swallow. I'll add though, that
(09:55):
as we're recording right now, Marty Mackery, FDA Commissioner, said
that Vene. He said, Venee did choose to leave the FDA,
and the idea that he was pushed out by anybody
is simply untrue. We saw some he saw some head
media headlines and didn't want to be a distraction. We
encouraged him to reconsider, and we're still doing that. So
he left because he didn't want to be a distraction
(10:17):
because of the media headlines that Laura lum created.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Created, right.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So I don't see how there's a real distinction there.
But the fact that maccuary says we encouraged him to
reconsider and we're still doing that maybe makes me a
little bit hopeful he'll be back, and I really hope
that he does come back.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, it's just it's just unwise to it's just dumb
to lose good people over stuff like this. Don't be
too easily taken in by those who bring you messages
about this kind of person on the same front and
by the way.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
It's just not good for public trust.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
In institutions, like this guy is a person you put
in place who could earn that trust, and then he's like, nap,
now we're out because he tweeted something that Laura Loomer
paraphrase inaccurately, and now I'm ticked off. Speaking of being
ticked off, I would like to note another bad decision
from last week, which is that the Bureau of Labor
(11:10):
Statistics commissioner was fired by Trump in the wake of
a weaker than expected July jobs number, finding a gain
of seventy three thousand jobs versus expectations of one hundred thousand. Now,
we've seen this a lot of times. We saw this
in the Aviden administration, where the BLS the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, puts out a number one month and then
(11:31):
they revise it downward the next month, and sometimes the
revisions downward have been frequent and large. That is bad, right,
Like we need to figure out how to get handle
on the data. It's been a couple of years now
where the revisions downward have been pretty notable in a
way that I've been following these numbers for a long
(11:52):
time and they don't. They didn't feel this way ten
years ago. At any rate, this happens last week. It's
revised downward, not a huge revision downward, but like you know, notable,
and Trump got mad and fired the person who's in
charge of putting out the numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Let's say you.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Wanted better numbers, and you wanted to address these statistics,
and you wanted people to have faith in them. This
is the opposite of that, because now you have signaled
that when you don't like the numbers, you're going to
get rid of who's creating the numbers.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But that doesn't address the data.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
And I don't think the data is actually partisanly problematic.
I think it's just methodically problematic, probably, and I would
like to get that fixed.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I don't think we're getting that fixed.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. I get why he did it, but it is
not a great sign for public trust, which, like you said,
we desperately need. We've gotten to a point where nobody
believes anything, and this is where conspiracy theories and all
kinds of insanity blooms when public trust decreases like this.
So yeah, bring back regular normal people into these positions
(13:03):
and leave them there. Don't want home. I get them fired.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and Trump works against himself in this way not infrequently.
The other one is like yelling at Jerome Powell all
the time. We're like, Powell might be inclined to do
the thing you want him to do, but if you
continue to pressure him publicly, he's going to be less
inclined to do anything you want him to do potentially,
And so let's.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Not do it that way.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Absolutely, Jerome Powell, thehead of the fat Excuse me, I
shorthanded that, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We'll be right back with more normally after this break.
So while I was away, the New York Times put
a child starving in Gaza on their cover. And I'm
telling you, I was barely on Twitter. I was, you know,
really trying to limit my intake, but this one really
(13:57):
got to me because before I saw any further news,
I was like, this child is ill. This is not
a starving child in Gaza. He's being held by his
extremely well fed mother. And it was obvious to me
that it was going to end up being a hoax.
I didn't want to post that and get like tied
(14:19):
into arguing with people on X but it was I
just I almost wish I had, because it was literally
my first thought upon seeing that picture, and of course
that's exactly what turned out to be the case. It
was a child that had cerebral palsy. Apparently the New
(14:39):
York Times had internally discussed whether having a child with
a condition like that on the cover made sense. They
decided it didn't. They removed the first child that they
had with cerebral palsy, who was going to appear in
the cover, and replaced it with this child who also
had cerebral palsy, and they were fully aware of what
(15:02):
they were doing. Among other things, they cropped out his
healthy looking brother, and it is just vile. I was
so disappointed by conservatives who fell for this. I couldn't
believe that they just relied on what The New York
Times was presenting to them, and that they couldn't, in
(15:26):
poker terms, get off the hand. Even after the story
was found to be a hoax, there were people still saying, Okay, yes,
this child, maybe you know, has a condition, But there
are starving children in Gaza still. We don't haven't seen
any pictures of them or anything, but they exist.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So that's the deeper issue, right, it's like, Okay, there
is certainly suffering in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No one is disputing this.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
But if this is the story, and the story, by
the way from the left is that Israel is intentionally
starving the children of Gaza. We don't understand why they're
sending them aid and escorting aid into the country and
offering to bless the aid into the country. We're never
told any of that. Why that makes sense with their
(16:14):
starvation policy.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
But they're doing it on.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Purpose, okay in the lefty media, the entire international community
and all the NGOs. Yeah, the thing they want most
is a picture of a starving Gaza child so that
they get one third of a page on the front
page of the New York Times.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's what they're all looking for, That's right.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Why is it that two attempts at it on the
New York Times front cover were both children with pre
existing conditions that were not in fact of this population
they claim is starving. Why can't you find the actual
picture when you're all they're looking for that exact picture.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Right after this story breaks, like a few days later,
videos are released by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad of
two hostages Avatar David and Roslavsky, and they are starving.
They are a look like they are starving. There is
(17:16):
no condition, there is nothing. There is literally just skin
and bones of gaunt faces, eyes bulging out of their heads.
It's just, you know, the difference in coverage is so
(17:37):
horrible and disgusting to me. But also not unexpected, is
the unfortunate fact of it. It's really sad to watch.
And the thing is that all those people who were
so worked up about gods and children who are not
actually starving had nothing to say about this, and silence
(17:59):
really spoke for them.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well in the language that they always use is co
opting the language of the Holocaust and saying this is
another Holocaust before our eyes. And yet the images that
are actually reminiscent of the Holocaust come out advertised by
the way, by their heroes, exactly in the governing ranks
of Hamas and the other groups that rule Gaza and
(18:25):
are not allowing anyone to get food, right, those are
the people in charge of that. When you see the
actual photos and videos that actually do invoke this, not
a word to say of that. It made it made
the front page of the New York Post and everyone
else very quiet.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yes, I actually am extremely proud of the New York Posts.
I'm really proud to write for them, because that is
what should be happening. It should be on the cover,
and the fact that it's not on any other cover. Look,
it's not a great time for Jews. I'm just gonna
tell you all of the conversations that I have with
other Jews or like, how bad is this going to get?
(19:08):
It feels like this could be bad, This could be
a real bad time for Jews. I believe in America.
I believe in Americans, So I'm always kind of the
positive voice, being like, no, it's just this fringe. And
I still do think it is a fringe. But the
fact that it's not being covered, and the fact that
every story about oh, there's a split on the right
(19:29):
over Israel, you know, pushes the same three voices. You
know Steve benn Instead, he said that he doesn't think
people are going to like Israel anymore, and they just
keep writing these stories because they want to will it
into existence. It's worrisome, it really is.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Well, it's the highest profile voices of the left, like
the Pod Save America guys who on a Tuesday just
decided that, after their entire lives of nominally at least
backing Israel and being part of the Obama stra that
of course sent aid in defense in the traditional way
that Americans do.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
They're like, no, the Democratic Party is not going to
be able.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
To do this anymore, right, and that's going to be
a real interesting dynamic in the primary of that party.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, I want to see if they actually go through
with it, because I do think and you know, I
say this, but I have a lot of faith in
the conservative, you know, side of American politics. The rest
I don't know, but it still will be a major
shift if Democrats really do say we're not pro Israel anymore,
(20:35):
where we're not aligned with Israel anymore, this is not
our ally Let's see. Let's see if that really does happen,
or if again the leftist fringe doesn't really get a
say in what nationally happens at the Democratic Party. We'll
see what happens with that. Additionally, to by the way,
(20:59):
Avatar David, the video of him clearly in a really
emaciated state. He was forced to dig his own grave.
They told him, you're digging your own grave. It's just
there's just no words. Really there really aren't. And I'm
really grateful for people like you, like you know a
(21:20):
lot of people on the right who do care about
this and do kind of keep talking about it because
it is lonely and it is hard to you know,
kind of I get people's being tired of talking about Israel.
I'm tired of talking about I want to talk about
other things. But it's you know, you have situations like
this where I'm so glad that conservatives do remain on
(21:43):
the side of Israel and keeping their eye on stuff
like this.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, and it's easy to understand where people are coming from,
especially casual observers who are like, it's just a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
It feels like a lot, maybe it should end. We
get it, we get it.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Same with Ukraine, Russia, right like it it's a lot,
and we wish it were not happening. Okay, I understand,
But you also still have to weigh the moral question
because war is hard, and war is bad, and bad
things happen in war.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And it blows my mind that people put these two
entities side by side and are like, no, I think
the Holy war war.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We want to wipe Israel off the map, and maybe
the rest of the Western world as well. Those are
our guys, the ones that are the ones that are
advertising that they're starving civilian non combatants. We want to
we want to be with them, and then not only
do we want to be with them, we want them.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
After this behavior, to have a state. We want we
want to reward them. Well, I think some of it
is just like that.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
The international community is the gentle parenting of foreign policy,
and they just they just are like, we wanted to stop,
we wanted to stop, we want to stop. Give these
people what they want, and that is Yes, it's going
to end up being the most destructive thing because you
incentivize this horrific behavior.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, instead of the FAFO parenting that I know, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I mean, you know, bombing Florida is an FAFO parenting move, right,
It's not a gentle parenting move.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yes, these are different things.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I would say. I was in France when Macrone said
that they would be recognizing a Palestinian state. You know,
I guess obviously when you're a tourist and you're justificationing there,
it's not going to come up in your life at all.
But like I can tell you I didn't see a
great movement for the Palestinian state while I was traveling
around France. There was no no marches in the streets
(23:35):
for it or anything like that. We'll be right back
after this break with some more normally and Democrats embarrassing
themselves again.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
All right, we are back with a semi regular segment
of Harryenton on CNN telling CNN audiences things that they
don't want to hear. So here's a little segment on
the Democrat brand, and then we'll get into why this
might be the case.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The Democratic brand is in the basement. It is total
and complete garbage in the mind of the American public.
The Democratic parties net fable rating record lows and all
three Wall Street Journal thirty points underwater, CNN twenty six
points underwater, Gallup twenty six points underwater. And that is
being driven in large pop by discontent within the Democratic base.
The Democratic base wants something different, will ultimately end up
(24:22):
seeing who they choose. It will be quite the thing who.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It's a lot of points, a lot of Now. Now,
this is like a little bit of a Tea party dynamic,
where it's.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A lot of their own voters are mad at them,
and we will and we will see what kind of
behavior that incentivizes as they go forward. One of the
things that I think is incentivized is fighting at all costs,
even when fighting doesn't accomplish anything and actually looks pretty lame.
So in this case, we have a redistricting fight in Texas.
(24:55):
For those of you who aren't in regular politics, redistrict
fights happen for equently. This is not a new thing.
The Texas Legislature gets to vote on this. Republicans have
drawn a map that gives them more seats in the Congress,
which is the custom.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
When you are in charge and you are able to
do that.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It is not hugely out of proportion with the amount
that they generally win by in Texas.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Nonetheless, they're Democratic colleagues.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
In order to thwart this attempt at redistricting, have fled
the state, and they because they're so mad about the
gerrymandering that is happening here geral and they're so mad
about the jerrymandering because they're very principled on this that
they went to Illinois, where.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
There's no or there's like the most jerrymandering.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Like could anybody have just just said, like is there
another state we could flee to?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Right, So they're in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Javi Pritzker flew there on a private so they could
not do their jobs in the Texas legislature. I hate
this tactic, and if Republicans did it, I would tell
them to go back home and take their l You
these elections have consequences.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Fight the good fight and take your light.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And they Democrats repeatedly refuse to do this.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
There have been Yeah, I was gonna say, Texas Democrats
just keep doing this. Why do they think this is
going to work?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, They've done this over and over again.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
There's also the Wisconsin Senate in twenty eleven fighting Governor
Scott Walker. There's an Indiana House incident. But the Texas
Democrats do like to flee. They did it in two
thousand and three. Apparently they did it in twenty twenty
one or twenty three. It's like all the time they're
just leaving the state. And I just think you owe
(26:55):
your voters better than this.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
And I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Republicans have pulled this ever. I read one story about
an Oregon vote where they had invented this and don't
do it don't right, it's embarrassing, you look lame.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
You should go do your job exactly.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Gavin Newsom said this is what fighting for our democracy
looks like, and Ag Hamilton on X was like legislators
fleeing a state because they don't have sufficient votes to
stop a change. Is a lot of things, but it
is most definitely not fighting for democracy.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It's the opposite of democracy.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And I just want to note that The New York
Times writes this hilarious piece entitled Democrats have few tools
to counter gop redistricting.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Okay, do you want another reason they have few tools? Well,
let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
States where Democrats would have complete control over any redistricting,
such as Illinois and Maryland, are already gerrymandered heavily in
their favor. Squeezing more democratic seats out of those states
would be a challenge, right, Like they're just max you know,
they're they're always it's this thing that democrats always do
where they're like, we're going to start doing this. If
(28:10):
you do it, it's like you've already done it. You've
already maxed, You've you've been doing it. Yeah, what's the
term they use in in bro podcast? You have Jerrymander
maxed like, you're you're good. You've spent generations doing this
and you can't squeeze anything else out of it.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
So, uh that Democrats did this week? I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I think we have no. No, that's not the only one.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
And I will say real quickly that the governor has
has threatened them with all sorts of sanctions should they
not come back to do their jobs. They have not
come back to do their jobs. So that is in
limbo at the moment. Okay, the other one, oh, the
New York Times, Oh gosh, New York Times just really
wants to keep us in business.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
They're like, what do the normally girls want to talk
about this week? And then they just provide us with
the fodder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Just delivering us a gift.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So the President of the United States, President Trump, announced
that they will reinstate.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
The Presidential Fitness Test.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
This is the physical fitness test that you used to
take in physical education class. It consisted of a mile run,
a shuttle run, the sit in reach and the pull
ups I think that was about and the crunches. So
he reinstates this. He does a little ceremony. This is
like mostly non controversial, right, but not at the New
York Times in the newsroom.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Are unhappy.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Is right wing coded that an article?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
This is it?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So here's the headline over a picture of a like
sweet struggling child hanging at a pull up bar for
some return of presidential fitness tests revives painful memories. Generations
of Americans who struggle to complete a pull up in
front of their classmates winced as President Trump announced that
he was reinstating the annual assessment. It goes on to
(29:58):
give us like twenty pair of of various people's bad
experiences in elementary school with the presidential physical fitness test.
And I just want to say, do they need someone
more trauma informed.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
In the New York Times newsroom?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So like you can just work through this as an adult,
because you are allegedly adults.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I'm embarrassed for you, right.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Josh Barrow commented about the Times article, liberals need to
stop doing identity politics for losers, Which that's all I
think anyone is saying, like, just stop hating everything so much.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Just so lame. Speaking of blame.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
When they switched it, Obama, of course, was the first
to change it from the traditional test to this, and
I had totally missed this in all of Obama's lameness.
When mister Obama abolished the test, he replaced it with
the Fitness Gram, a program that emphasized overall student health goals,
setting and personal progress, not beating your classmates on the
track or the pull up bar boo boo to that.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Is so much, it's amazing, go ahead, point this. He
said that the press focuses on the beneficiaries of Democrat
policies and the victims of Republican policies. So if it
were a Democrat who was doing this, who was bringing
back this fitness test, it would be portrayed as this
amazing thing to get kids in shape and you know,
(31:30):
to make sure that we don't have a staggering number
of obese kids and all of that. It would be
seen as a win for American children, which it is.
So you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So the people in this article are quoted as calling
it a giant step backwards, and one person described it
as her experience as it was survivor fails.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
She said it was Darwinist.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And then one physical education teacher says, it really breaks
my heart that it's coming back if our mission is
to help kids love being physically active and love moving,
we have to do more than testing them in ways
in which the majority are going to fail and they're
going to feel ashamed and they're not going to like
physical education. Okay, here's the thought. We're setting a goal
for you, you have some time to work up to it.
(32:16):
How about we all do that. How about we all work.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
On that together.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
And I do have to cup to This was not
my particular form of public humiliation as a child.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Nobody enjoyed it, but fun well, like, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I actually am the one who enjoyed it. Right, so
I'm the weird now one. I'm the weirdo on this one.
But my point is I faced all other sorts of
public humiliation in school growing up, Like that's part of
the deal, right, This was not my particular kind, but
like every challenge in these settings is going to be tough.
(32:50):
You're supposed to be tested in various ways as you
grow up. And the idea that the people who run
elite institutions in this country are the people who haven't
worked through through this is gross to me.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Exactly, y'all are lame and you should be laughed out
by Josh Barrow. You should be.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I didn't love it. I am not sporty or athletic
in any way, but look, I want you know, I
did it. I want my kids to do it. I
think it's a good thing to be physically fit.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Sending a message that like, this is something we value.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Right exactly, it is sending that message, and I like
that message being sent.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Democrats by the stuff I.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Do, herds who we push into lockers, you know, I know.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's like I feel like this kind of thing makes
me meaner than I would otherwise be.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I'm like, I can't with this.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, but I will cop to the fact that I
was like thirty nine and a half pounds and I
was like, you need eleven pull ups.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I got you. I got you. Now I don't weigh
thirty nine and a half pounds, so I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Thanks joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
in touch with us at normally theepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Speaker 1 (34:08):
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