Potential and Current Election Disasters

Today we talk about the possible results of the election possibly not going smoothly while the president pretends to help people.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of My Heart
Radio Together Everything. So don Hello, my friends, my foes,

(00:23):
Welcome back to the Worst Year Ever. Particularly hello to
Katie's Pose, which is the number one listening to demographic
for this podcast. I've done so many intros this year,
this goddamn year, and I just mixed it up. Just
let I opened my mouth when words came out, and

(00:46):
you know what I do. Welcome my foes. I know
either here, you know some of you hate me. That's fine.
Now it's got too real. I'm Katie Stole and I'm
joined as always by my friends and you and your foes.
And my last name is Johnson. I guess if we're

(01:08):
doing that that kind of thing, and I Katie's foes. Yeah,
I I currently don't identify as Katie's foe. But you
know that scene in The Lord of the Rings when um,
when Galadriel like goes goes all nuts so on on
Bilbo and like talks about how she took the Yeah,

(01:30):
I'm I'm waiting for Katie to do that, um, And
at that point I will become Katie's foe, um to
save the world from from tyranny. And who knows maybe
that day is today. We'll find out it might be.
It could happen at any second. We've all known happen
in the beginning of this could happen here. It could happen.

(01:51):
It could happen here in this podcast. You know, I
tuned on MSNBC briefly at some point in the past.
That was a mistake, I know. But it had like
a real big chiron caption of it could happen here,
you sons of bitches, sons of bitches. I took a
picture of it. It's floating around something so angry, and

(02:13):
all the people who are worse than me talking about
how a civil war might happen now as if just
I'm just you sons of bitches. Okay, okay, I want
er my foes. Are any people who have just started

(02:36):
writing think pieces about a civil war in the United
States in the last two months? Um? And are guys
are not thought like David from you son of a bitch?
Sorry from Yeah, We're gonna talk about room later in
this episode. I'm just I'm just you know, I had
a great moment I do want to talk about because

(02:56):
I'm a narcissist. I was heading to a protest on
Friday night with a group of about three or four Portlanders,
all armed with very large wooden shields, who like marched
off in military lines and did battle. I thought I
recognized David Freum in that line of people with shields. Yeah, yeah,
he he he had a he had a faushion in
both hands, and was was just just yeah, no, he

(03:20):
was not there. But as we're as this like line
of shield bearing marchers was like heading out like a
Roman uh maniple into battle this uh and I'm like
kind of walking alongside them. He's like five four, I
think four or five kids, all in black. They looked
like they were like maybe in their late teens early

(03:42):
twenties and like completely blocked up head to toe. Um,
like walk up to me, and this young woman or
maybe girl, I don't even know if she was of
adult age says to me, I just wanted you to
know that my affinity group and I all listened to
it could happen here last year. Um, and it's like
we've completely based everything that we're doing now around it

(04:04):
as a result. And I was like, I have no
idea what you're going to do, probably commit serious crimes
tonight I'm very proud of you, um, and I hope
that you don't get hurt. But but also yeah, I
don't know, weird confinity group. An affinity group is like
your buddies. Basically, it's a group of people with whom

(04:25):
you share affinity. I thought you said infinity. No, like
the protests in Portland, and as a general rule, like
any kind of sustained illegalist like civil action is kind
of made up of a bunch of different interlocking groups
of people who are all buds and want to do
the same kinds of ship. That would be how I

(04:47):
describe it. Well, I've already learned something today. Anyway, Thank
you to the teenagers out there getting horribly abused by police.
Uh well in the police who are in their own
affinity groups, right that they are. They're in a very
large affinity grouping a cold one with the boys. The
cold one is the skull, right Katie. You guys seen

(05:08):
those really creepy uh Blue Lives Matter protesters that keep
going to Beverly Hills on Saturdays. That is different than
the Is that the same as the big MAGA protest
that happens in Beverly Hills every weekend? I think there

(05:29):
must be some cross sections. I think it kind of
feels like they're shipping the main right now. That's kind
of what it feels like, Like they're not like they're
like they're like busting people and to make it look
bigger than it actually is. That makes sense. Yeah, we
had a big rally of a significant number of people
in Portland this weekend from weird Christian cult in reading

(05:52):
that I read in California reading California, Yeah, they came
up and did like a big anti mask gathering, which
was illegal because you can't have outdoor gatherings of more
than fifty people, um, unless there's like masks and social distancing,
and nobody was wearing masks at this thing. Was cracking
down on them, No, of course not, of course, maybe

(06:14):
they've learned their lesson. Yes. Yes. In other news, like
the same day they arrested, uh, one of Jeremy Christian's
early victims, this young woman Dimitria Hester, who's been um
leading peaceful protests in town and who was so like
before Christians stabbed two people to death on that Max train.
He assaulted her and she reported him to the police,

(06:36):
and they did not a goddamn thing Um, and then
they did not a goddamn thing because you know, Jeremy
Christian was just um exercising his First Amendment rights. And
then they arrested Dimitria Hester for exercising her first dominiment rights. Well,
you know, thank god we have police. Second is the
first right. It's that's the order, that's that's that's how

(06:59):
we prosecute, that's how we arrest. So I love prosecutions
to today. Uh yeah, it's a bit of a Hodgepodge
episode again because my god, there's so much happening all
the time everywhere. Um. But we wanted to start, I
think by talking about these coronavirus relief executive orders that

(07:24):
Trump announced last week. Um. And Cody John Cody Cody
Cody Johnson prepared the words to start that conversation and
just for like equality sick. What's up Cody's foes? Oh yeah,
thank you very much. I mean, we're equal opportunity here.

(07:46):
I don't I don't want any of my pose to
think that I was ignoring you. Um more, I think
it's more Cody's John John's foes. No, that's my Phody code,
the photies, photographies, photo synthesis and photo and so on.

(08:14):
As rating as this is a guy excited, Let's just
take a moment to appreciate what good radio. This is
just amazing. Love it. Um, are you guys excited about
the election and how we're finally gonna we're gonna we're
gonna flank the Dems from the left. No, we're gonna

(08:35):
like Trump is gonna he's gonna become a leftist hero
and do a lot of He's gonna help the people
because he's the he's the he's a fighter for the
common man, and the Dems are are all corporatists, um
and ineffectual and uh, he's he's the one that's gonna
do it. I'm pumped for this. Are you pumped? Um? Yeah?

(08:56):
So Um. Actually my assessment of the Democrat it wasn't
too far off. But I have seen a lot of
people talk about how Trump is he's gonna like he's
gonna flank those damns from the left. He's he's like
he's more left than Pelosi. Um. And I mean it's
non sending. This story come out and it keeps not

(09:18):
being it's well, yeah, because he also it's still not true. Um,
because he he will he will say things uh vaguely like, oh,
I'm gonna take care of U, I'm gonna halt evictions,
I'm gonna do this and this and this UM because
the Democrats aren't uh necessarily doing um enough or offering

(09:40):
enough to people during this pandemic. But that doesn't mean
that Donald fucking Trump is going to UM. It might
mean that he will say that he will UM. And
I've talked about this for like a year and now
certainly will be that he'll say one thing that's not true, right,
And I've talked about like for a long time, how

(10:00):
like he will probably uh slowly get on board with
the language of somebody who wants like Medicare for all,
like universal health care and that kind of thing. UM.
But it's gonna be UM exclusionary, and it's gonna be
bad UM and it's gonna hurt people ultimately because that's
what he does. That's the whole thing, that's his whole
that's the whole deal. Where basically both you and Robert

(10:22):
are prophets. I get it. Sorry, you're smart all to
all the foes out there. Um, are you a foe
of the pod? Now? I don't know, Katie Stiff foe, Katie, Katie, foe, Katie.
You know, when we talk about the crimes of capitalism,

(10:42):
one of them should be listed the fact that I
I did just get paid to make that joke. Can
I have it your money? Okay? No, no, of course,
not that's fair. Um. So Trump, amidst all of these
announcements like yeah, I'll I'll save the word, I'll do this,
I'll do whatever, he signed for executive orders uh and

(11:05):
memorandum that, um, we're designed to give the illusion and
the aesthetic that he is helping people, and he's just
pretty much not really. One of them was about unemployment benefits.
He is offering four dollars um, which is two hundred
dollars less than what the Democrats have tried to get

(11:29):
for people and have had. Um. So it's I'm not
like a numbers guy. Um you know, um he must
well I was. I was gonna say, it's less four
d seems less than six hund right, I mean it
seems less than six to me. But but again, not
a numbers guy, just sort of a general guess. And
so not only is this less than what people need

(11:52):
right now, and um, not actually really helpful. I mean
it's more helpful than nothing. So there you go. Um. Well,
one of the one of these is getting his money
is um forty four billion dollars from the disaster Relief Fund,
which I don't know if anyone has been paying attention to. Again, UM,
forty four billion dollars, Well, that's not much money. It's

(12:15):
not much money. That's just think that's just forty four
billion dollar yachts. Cody exact, fifty billion dollar yachts. Yeah.
I was ready to dismiss whatever you had to say,
but that's a fair point. Yeah. It's called perspective, and
I've lost mine, so I thank you for that. He's
basically basically taking money from yachts, because if if an

(12:39):
amount is the same as an amount you'd pay for
something else, you're actually taking it from the other thing. Anyway,
forty four billion dollars from the disaster Relief Fund halfway
through the year. Um, when I don't know if you
if anyone's familiar with like hurricanes that we have got
quite a bit. Um Yeah, yeah, I mean I had
a couple of hurricanes when I was in New Orleans
earlier year. We are indeed in hurricane season. Yeah, I

(13:04):
mean it's never not hurricane season. Um, hurricane is somewhere. Yeah,
what would be the problem with hurricanes, Cody, Is there
some downside? Well? I feel like maybe some homes and
things get destroyed and people potentially getting all. Right, Well,
I vomited a lot in that lady's house, but I
wouldn't say it was destroyed. I mean, she can replace
the carpet, Okay, okay, well, because she's not going to

(13:30):
get that billion dollars from the billion dollars cut from
disaster relief fund to fix the carpet that you threw
up on. I never heard anyby describe their vomit as
a hurricane, but it was. I mean, the vomit was
made of hurricanes. That's what that song is about, right,
Is that like some mixed drink com Portland. No, no, no, no,

(13:51):
that's New Orleans. That's like the throwing up you all
know the song. Yeah. If you go to back when
New Orleans hadn't been wiped doubt by a plague, there
would be like tons of terrible bars with the same
awful hurricane slushies that you could buy for too much money. Um,
and then step in the vomit of a frat boy
who was puking off of a balcony, and it was

(14:13):
America's greatest city for a time before the plague. Heck, yes,
I could go for some freight alligator. I know, I know,
I know, Please continue, sorry signal um. So it's just, um,

(14:37):
it just seems like maybe a bad place to get
this money, um for a thing. Um. Also as uh,
we'll talk about a little bit. Um. It's technically not
he's not allowed to do that because Congress controls like
the purse strings, and so there's various talk of whether
or not it's even legal to do this, although again,

(14:58):
like if you talk to let's say, the the Senate
Minority leader or the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi,
they'll say it's illegal, but like who knows. Pelosi referred
to to these orders as absurdly unconstitutional and then following
it up by saying, well, the fact is is that
whether they're legal or not takes time to figure out.

(15:20):
So very us there. Um and Chuck Schumer said, dancing
Nancy dancing or dancing around it un Chuck Sjor said,
I will leave that up to the attorneys to decide
whether it's unconstitution m Nancy Potosi and uh, Chuck Schumer

(15:42):
was never a practicing lawyer, but he did pass the
bar and then get into politics. Forty eight senators current
senators used to be lawyers. So when Chuck Schumer says,
I will leave that up to the attorney, that's a
different problem. But this idea of like, well, you know,
it's the legal question, leave it up to them, it's like, well,

(16:02):
that's your isn't that part of your job? Guys? Fair
point frustrating point frustrating also, so a lot of this.
So this executive order also it puts a um, a
bit of a pause on the payroll tax here. First
one as a payroll tax holiday. One bit of relief

(16:22):
is to defer payroll tax for a few months until December, UM,
thus solving the problem forever. Thus solving the problem forever.
You would still have to pay this, UM, it would
just defer it. It's a deferral down the line. Yeah. Yeah,
when those yeah, based on the fact that March hasn't

(16:44):
ended yet, we're probably never going to get to December again.
So yeah, take a good deal to me. Really really
long months. We should just call this podcast the worst
month ever, and it's twelve months long. The bad show,
the real bad March. It was a real bad March
for a year. Al Right, Well, we're done for the

(17:04):
day and show. I understand the peril tax also fund
Social Security and Medicare. And this is the real thing
we got to get get down to because, uh, as
I mentioned earlier, anytime Trump like has the the aesthetic
of like, oh there he's flanking the Dems, he does not.

(17:27):
He doesn't want to. He's not trying to. That's not
what he's doing. He is gutting like all of the
safety nets and like the things that we need in
the in the country to help people in order to
present this thing. Um. And so he's also destroying the
one part of the government that like every person who's

(17:50):
not a howling monster likes, Like the post office is good.
Every buddy, love freebody loves the post Office. It's got
like the highest approval. It has literally the highest of
all of them. It is nonsense. They do an absolutely
crucial job very well. Everyone who has Medicare is like,

(18:13):
I love having Medicare. I'm so grateful that I have
Medicare now. Um. And so he's trying to gut all
of these things and present it as though he's helping
us and he's not. And I just really hope that
also say something about pre existing conditions aren't going to

(18:35):
affect your healthcare enrollment when that is the whole thing
with Obamacare. Yeah, it's nonsense. Um, he has said that
he will do something about pre existing conditions. He's currently
suing too. Do not include that partner Obamacare. It's an Obamacare.
He's trying to get rid of it, and he's saying
that he's gonna not get not do it. It's he's

(18:56):
uh why, he's a wild fellow. We love him, don't we, folks.
We do. So he's all he's all over the place
and doing this kind of stuff and uh when he's
even when he's asked if he's going to get sued,
his response was, well, you always get sued. Everything you do,
you get sued. And my response to that is, no,
everything you do. If that that is a thing that

(19:19):
happens in your life, maybe it's not. Maybe it's not
everybody else. Maybe it's not in everybody else problem. Buddy.
It reminds me of I was in jury duty at
the beginning of this year. Do you guys remember that
I cannot Yeah, back when jury's existed. What a day.

(19:40):
I mean, it's remarkable that I ended up on a
case that happened to be about a building I used
to live in. But that inside that is very funny.
It's wild. Um, the guy the landlord had had like
ninety lawsuits or something. Wild is like the same thing.
Sc me rich real estate mogul gets sued for everything

(20:04):
and uh doesn't sweat it. You get sued for everything. Sorry,
beside the point just relating it to my life. I mean,
it's true that sounds like everyone but him. Problem. Um,
I think it's time for us to take an ad
break real quick. Is that true, Sophie? Can you confirm
or deny? I don't know what it is or where

(20:25):
I am. We're going to take a quick ad break,
and then we're going to come back from more of
this together everything don't don't and we are back as
promised from that ad break from I'm killing my intros

(20:51):
and transitions today. I'm proud of you, Katie. Thanks so Cody,
please please please continue talking to us about this monster president. Please.
I can't wait. I love him. He's really good. Yeah.
So we just talked about his Uh, he's proudly announcing quote,
I'll be pursuing a major executive order requiring health insurance

(21:14):
companies to cover pre existing conditions for all of its customers. Um.
So thanks Obama. Yeah. So that's just one of his
executive orders about the parill tax. He's also another thing
about this, aside from the fact that the parill tax
uh helps pay for Social Security and Medicare programs that

(21:35):
people need. And also like he has said that in
seeking re election, he will move to get rid of
the payroll tax. Um, Like this is part of his plan.
Um he It's not like, oh, I'm gonna do this
for this executive order, like that is a goal of his,
which seems like the opposite of him saying uh that

(21:57):
he would never cut Social Security or medic Care, which
is clearly actively trying to do so. I guess my
point with this one is just, Um, anytime you see
someone UH say that you know Trump is flanking the
Dems from the left, tell them he's not. Like you

(22:18):
can criticize. You can criticize Democrats for not doing enough
and not fighting hard enough and for being like, let's
let the lawyers like all the stuff that they do.
You can do that without pretending that Trump's fascism, which
is what it is, is good. He's going to have
the aesthetics of leftism as much as he can without
actually doing anything because he's a fascist. That's his fucking game. No,

(22:41):
no cody for he's gonna give people six dollars a month. Again,
that's he's flanking the Dems from the left. I think
the problem is is definitely and how we talk about
it like it's easy. I mean, you can say anything
with authority, and it starts to take hold. Um And
and if people say he's flanking the Dems from the left,

(23:04):
he's say, no, that's quite literally not what he's doing
at all. That's what he wants it to look like.
He wants to appeal to things that, um, you know,
just to people that might not expect it from him,
or to show his base like look, we're doing this
innovative thing. The things that they would you know, out

(23:24):
hand dismiss coming from a liberal just like yeah, it's
like for you, it's saying that like for years we've
known everybody, everybody knows this. Oh yeah, he's he's a
fraud and like a right wing faux populist demagogue. That's
what he does. So anytime you say that he's doing
this from the left, you are getting duped. You are

(23:46):
being duped right now, or you're like doing on a purpose,
you're like lying on purpose. I don't know. Um, but yeah,
there's a better way to talk about it, in a
better way to point out he is clearly a liar. Um.
Even like a few like a week ago, he was
there's announcement like I'm gonna canceling evictions, getting rid of
all evictions. Um, something Congress has has tried to do

(24:10):
and to do briefly. Um, the deadline is over for that.
But um, everyone's like, oh, look he's doing it again.
He's getting the damns doing what they do. No, he
didn't do that, he didn't. He didn't cancel evictions. He
And I'm gonna quote, I'm gonna quote from this. The
actual thing says the Secretary of Health and Human Services

(24:31):
and the Director of CDC shall consider whether any measures
temporarily halting residential evictions of any tenants for failure to
pay rent are reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread
of COVID nineteen from one state or possession into any
other state or possession. So he said he's looking into it.

(24:53):
He's like the actual order the memo is saying that
he will consider he will have people can sitter, whether
or not it's worth looking into. It's nonsense, He's not.
He's a nonsense person. Um And Like, I don't know,
we don't need to spend too much time on these,
because I do think it's just important to recognize that,

(25:14):
like it is an aesthetic thing. It's this illusion that
he's helping people and like flanking the damns when like
he could easily uh push the Republican Party to agree
to the bill that the Democrats have written. Um Ed
Markey Ed Markey um Foe of the Kennedy's earlier today

(25:41):
tweeted about a like he has this written. UM, give
every person in our country two thousand dollars a month
for the duration of the pandemic, two thousand dollars a
month or three months after that, and two thousand dollars
a month retroactive to March, to which Ted Cruz replied,
why be so cheap? Give everyone one million dollar dollars
a day, every day forever and three soy lattes a

(26:03):
day and a foot massage. We have a magic money
tree and we should use it. One thing Trump could
do if he was really wanted to flank the Dems
is tell Ted Cruise to shut the funk up about
soy latte and give people money so they can survive
this pandemic. Doesn't like over and O's gonna say, so,

(26:25):
I don't know. I I wanna just drive down. You know.
What I really want, Katie is to is to take
a nice chill drive and like in a convertible down
the Pacific Coastal Highway, listening to the the the fat
beats of Ben Shapiro saying wet ass P word over
and over again. Yeah, that's what I mean. Hey, hey, hey,

(26:49):
where is not heard? Radio show? We try to get
it's W word A word, P word. Okay, thank you.
That dream can be a reality, Robert, Yeah, you can
one to your poignant points. Well, okay, I mean it's
just like it's just it's just more nonsense and like
he sucks. Get him out, get rid of him, and

(27:11):
then tell the Democrats to go fund themselves. Um but
too so real quick to ed Markey's credit again, foe
of the Kennedy's. As we all know, people who want
medicare for all on the Green New Deal are real,
staunch enemies of the Kennedy's one assassinated him. And here
we have um Ed Markey, who responded to Ted by saying,

(27:33):
it's not a goddamn joke. Ted, millions of families are
facing hunger, the threat of eviction, and the loss of
their healthcare during a pandemic that is worsening every day.
Get real, because Ed Markey rules and Ted Cruz is
a fucking clown piece of garbage. Um, he's such a
weird online freak. It's so bizarre. Soy lattes? Is it? Ted?

(27:57):
Are you like on the Daily Wires Reddit? Like? What
are you doing? It's I I'm I'm malfunctioning. I am sorry.
I'll just remind you that you are talking about the
executive orders. I was just trying to help. It's okay.

(28:20):
I know. I was going to say, really, I'm becoming
a photy for showdy God. Yeah, Katie's it's not great, Sophie.
I'm right there with you, but I started it, so
I have to confess. I don't know. I think they're
gonna love it. Um, Um, yeah, he's also deferring student

(28:43):
loan uh payments. Um cool but not really. Yeah, so
like have you run out of steam? End of the
end of story. End of story. I just uh, he
sucks so bad, and like that sucks. Um, like everyone's

(29:06):
such a liar. It's so frustrating and it is. It
is also frustrating, especially since this this whole time, he's
done such a fucking bad, bad, abysmal job of handling everything.
But specifically we're talking about a coronavirus relief package and

(29:27):
about the coronavirus. You know, the US now has over
five million cases and a hundred sixty three thousand people dead.
That's the official number as of today, but that is
not the actual number. I just always have to say
that caveat whenever I give number updates. Um. I wanted
to just give some some school reopening updates because uh,

(29:53):
that is a very big thing right now on everybody's
mind with COVID and everybody, everybody but Betsy Divas, everybody
that Betsy Divace. Yes, absolutely, I have heard. It's already started, guys.
The reopenings have started after a single week of school,

(30:15):
more than two hundred and fifty students and teachers from
one Georgia school district learned a lot and are grateful
for the education. Yeah uh, no, wrong, maybe they learned something,
but they've been asked to quarantine for two weeks after
several teachers and students tested positive or COVID nineteen again
one school district after one week back. Um. This is

(30:40):
from USA Today and a letter to families on Friday,
Superintendent Brian high Tower said that the trend of students
and staff testing positive every day will continue as we
operate schools during a pandemic. We know under a microscope
as naturally as national media follows the reopening of schools
across the country, he wrote, but know that our destity

(31:00):
are not based on what people in New York or
Kansas think, nor are we concerned about optics or image.
We're focused on doing what's best for our community. New
York like that. I know, apparently it is. What's best
for the community is letting your kids get sick and
maybe die and bringing the virus home to your families

(31:22):
who also might get sick and I um cool. But um,
Trump and his administration are continuing to push the narrative
that kids are suffering suffering from being isolated at home. Uh,
instead of you know, people suffering because of coronavirus. And
you know, that makes perfect sense to me because you know,
Trump has always been really compassionate about the psychological effects

(31:45):
of kids being locked up. You know. Oh yeah, he
cares about. It's a joke because it's what they say
about Trump and his presidency. The compassion is the point.
The compassion and is the point. Um. He also recently
claimed on Fox News that kids are virtually immune to

(32:06):
COVID nineteen. Uh. Yeah, I'm gonna give you guys this
disturbing fact. According to a report from the American Academy
of Pediatrics, over ninety seven thousand children tested positive for
coronavirus in the United States just between July six and

(32:26):
jud And while yes, it is less likely for kids
to die from the virus, uh, it's not impossible. In
a new study from the CDC suggests that one third
of children who are hospitalized with COVID nineteen end up
in intensive care. And look, at the beginning of this,
we'd all hoped or thought that for some reason, the

(32:49):
virus wouldn't affect kids. There was a lot of misinformation
there still is. We're still learning stuff. And yeah, it's
risk is for people over the age of sixty. UM,
But it doesn't canon does affect children. Um. And they
are apparently likely to be high spreaders because the symptoms
may not show up in them. Um. But you would
still bring the virus home to potentially vulnerable members of

(33:13):
your family in the community. UM. And you mentioned kids
don't live with adults though, so like, what's the like,
what's the problem? Put them in out, you put a minute,
you put them all together in a big rule and
then they stay there. They don't go anywhere afterwards. I mean,
I will just say that if people had taken the
advice I've been giving for years, which is that we

(33:34):
wall off all of the states in the middle of
the country outside of the coast, force the adults out,
and make them a giant, open air child prison for
all of the miners in the country. If we've done that,
this whole coronavirus thing would no longer be a problem. Yeah.
I think elements of any United States government needs to
watch a little movie called House Arrest. Um. Betsy Devaz,

(34:00):
like you mentioned earlier, Sophie waived all of this away
by basically saying that there's risk involved with everything. Uh. Quote,
risk is embedded in everything we do, learning to ride
a bike to the risk of getting in a space
capsule and getting shot shot off in a rocket into space.

(34:22):
What what what the fund does that have to do
with teachers and schools and principles and children and families
and corona. Well, Sophie, because if a kid falls off
a bike, If a kid falls off a bike, it's
just as likely to kill grandma, you know, Jesus see yeah, yeah,

(34:43):
You're so sorry, Katie. I've made a compelling point. Mon. Yeah,
but you know it sucks. Officials have been pushing the
administration to, you know, get serious, to start warning parents
in school districts about you know, the risk of reopening
schools right now. Um, but I guess they don't want

(35:05):
to do that. Administration has said that they should instead
focus on bolstering the president's response plan, uh, which he
doesn't have one of anyway. This is all fun and good.
This is all fun and good. Uh. And before we
go to another ad break, UH just wanna follow up

(35:28):
with um the United States Postal Service stuff. We talked
about it a little bit last week. Uh, but Shockingly,
the situation has gotten worse in between. Um. Now, not
only is the Post Office considering closing locations throughout the country,
but on Friday, Louis to Joy, new Postmaster General, republican

(35:51):
mega donor and businessman with investments in USPS competitors, announced
some big shakeups. This is from Fast Times. Changes were
announced Friday by Postmaster General Lewis de Joy and radically
alter the leadership structure of the USPS. The reorganization will
see twenty three major executives at the Postal Service resign

(36:12):
or displaced, including, as a business insider points out, to
exects who oversee critical day to day operations. Um, he's
claiming that the yeah, go ahead, Oh no, no, look,
police continue. I was just gonna say that, you know.
He claims that this is going to allow the Postal
Service to reduce costs and capture new revenue. But critics

(36:33):
are are pointing out that the Postal Services a for
profit business. Um, you know, and and uh, the leadership
changes are very alarming for everybody right now, and it's
going to have it could have severe consequences, not just
in terms of vote by mail, but for people, for workers,

(36:55):
for seniors for voters, um, all of it. You know,
people get their med dication through the postal service. Okay,
So Katie, I'm I'm a physically healthy white man with
no outstanding medical issues, whose main use of post of
any kind is having FedEx sent me various quasi legal narcotics.

(37:17):
I don't understand why we need a postal service. Uh.
And I'm not willing to listen to any of your answers. UM.
And I'm just the podcast mail through the post to service.
Robert come back. Okay, Well he's strictly in the faux
camp now, yeah, it's ah. The attack on the post
office UM should be a story every day because it's
an attack on our democracy. UM. And it's an incredibly

(37:41):
valuable service. Even UM articles who think they're helping. We'll
run things like, well the post office didn't make a
profit this year or whatever. It's like, well it's not
supposed to, so shut the funk up, UM, please stop. Please,
we do have to go for an ad break, but
before we do, I just want to say, outside of
mailing in your mail in ballots immediately when you get them, uh,

(38:03):
maybe write letters and buy stamps and send people nice
notes that's something that we can do that might uh
not save the post office, but is a kind thing
to do and at least shows support. Also, they have
a gift shop with like weird toys and kids costumes
and a crop top that's kind of cute and sold
out really quickly. But you know, to take power into

(38:24):
your own hands. And on that note, listen to these
ads together everything we're back. I I just came back
because while I was leaving in rage that anybody would

(38:46):
use my precious tax dollars to ensure that old people
can get mail, I watched the Kevin Costner movie The Postman, uh,
and I've realized that I was wrong. Um and yeah,
the only two things that can save us from annihilation
are the US Postal Service and Kevin Costner. So I'm
back on board. That was going to make Kevin Costner president, Right,

(39:09):
that's the point everybody's arguing, that's where we all are. Yeah,
I don't, I don't. I don't know, Like it's it's
weird that you even bring it up. It like it
seems repetitive every day every day has Kevin Costner played
the president? Because I think he has probably he must
have who wouldn't vote. I'd vote for him playing the
president in a movie. Yeah, absolutely, I would vote for

(39:30):
him being the president and also the vice president. And
why not consolidate the job cuts. Let's do it. Yeah yeah,
and maybe like um Supreme Court to fuck it. Kevin
Costner is not Uh. I don't think he's played a president.
He's played a commander in the Jack Ryan series. And
he enjoyed that judge for president. I forgot about that ship.

(39:54):
Oh he did, huh that See, this is why the
Post Office needs to be defunded. Because Kevin cost Ner
endorsed Pete bo I'm back back against Yeah. Well it's
really been a whirlwind for me. Speaking of whirlwinds, the
elections coming up in November, and it's everyone agrees it's

(40:14):
going to be terrible. And by everyone, I mean all
of the people with fancy titles and um and fancy
jobs who work at places like the Atlantic uh and
places like the Defense Department, who are just now being like,
oh my god, we could have a civil war in
this country. It could happen here. They're starting to say,

(40:37):
these these these geniuses, these brilliant thinkers who are are
on the beating pulse of America and realized as soon
as the problem hit, what what could happen here? Here? Yeah,
it could happen here and the worst year ever. So
it's time to look behind the bastards and these these

(41:02):
these modern day Cassandras have formed a group called the
Transition Integrity Project, which is basically it was organized by
someone named Rosa Brooks, who is a Georgetown law professor
in a former Defense Department official. Um, she's one of
the people who like founded it, and they just did
basically a big role playing game with a bunch of

(41:23):
fancy people, um, including David Froome who was there, uh,
and wrote an article about it for The Atlantic, And
I will be quoting from This is the only time
I'm ever going to quote from a David Frum article
on this podcast and not be just insulting David Froome,
because Froome was actually at this thing. Um. But it
it made the news last week because um, it was like,

(41:44):
you know, the gist of this, as it was reported
on was that like a bunch of Republicans and Democrats
war gamed out what might happen in the election and
it's gonna be bad. Uh, Like we're not gonna know
what happens on election night, and almost all of the
outcomes are terrible in some way. Um, the only one
that has a reasonable chance of not being terrible out

(42:07):
the gate is like a massive and overwhelming Joe Biden victory,
right Like, if that, if that happens, most people agree, Okay,
Trump will probably like more or less, let things happen
the way they're supposed to. Um, but anything less than
an overwhelming Biden victory is going to be some sort
of fucking nightmare. And there's a decent chance that Joe

(42:27):
Biden overwhelming victory would be a night there too. But anyway,
that was the that was the that was the story
as it came out, And if you actually like read
into any of these articles, they are there's a reason
I keep referencing my podcast. It could happen here because
they're all talking about the stuff that we talked about,
and it could happen here. UM. I do want to
know one thing for people like Cody who are are

(42:47):
the same kind of nerd I am. This was a
D ten based role playing system that they used, Like yeah,
I know they used a bunch of D It was
all D ten. Yeah, yeah, no, but they did like
to randomize as the results of certain actions that different
groups would take, and they had like basically like you
had people, you had people who had like done jobs

(43:08):
in the real world, kind of gaming out that same
job being done by someone else in this situation. So
you had, for example, they brought in like media TV
anchors and stuff or whatever, like people like like media
personalities to act as the media and like like respond
the way they think the media would. You know, yeah,
done jobs and dragons right, So yeah, exactly, God, that

(43:37):
is that is pretty good. So Rosa Brooks, who is
again one of the people who organize this group in
the first place, UM kind of summarized these things summarized
the results of this game by saying all of our
scenarios ended in both street level violence and political impast
The law is essentially it's almost helpless against the president

(43:57):
who's willing to ignore it. So that's good. Sounds awesome
that for it could happen. Hearing, thank god, I now
have my body weight in gas mask filters, which is
a normal thing for a person to have next to
his pile of AMMO that weighs as much as a
small car. Um. Things are good in America today herd degree,

(44:25):
thank you. Um, so, yeah, it's not not great. Niles Gillman,
who's a historian who leads research at a think tank
called the Burgruin Institute, which I'm sure is a shitty
think tank because they all are another tank because it's
the think tank. But he was one of the organizers
of the of the exercise, and he stated he doesn't

(44:45):
have to win the election, he just has to create
a plausible narrative that he didn't lose. Um, which is
I think, um, very true and relatively obvious. Yeah it is.
But it's like that's that's all you have to argue,
is you have to like make it be if they
if it's a question, um, like okay. So one of
the most basic rules of productive argument is that the

(45:06):
burden of proof is um on on the person trying
to claim that something is occurring, not like right, um.
And that's the opposite of how things work in politics
because at one of the points they make, yeah exactly
is that like Joe Biden, essentially Trump has the ability
to try to force Joe Biden to prove that the
election was legitimate. It's yeah, it's not gonna be great. Yeah,

(45:31):
I think that makes it sound like we're doomed. You know,
we're not doomed, but the thing that will undoom us
looks a lot like I don't know what's happening in
Belarus right now, where tens of thousands of people are
throwing like Molotov cocktails by the thousand at secure. Anyway,

(45:53):
I'm just going to read a quote from a Boston
globe right up of this thing, um, and it's talking
about one of the founders of this this thing. Brooks
got the seed of the idea for the Transition Integrity
Project after a dinner where the where a federal judge
and a corporate lawyer each told her they were convinced
the military or the Secret Service would have to escort
Trump out of office if he lost the election. Would
not concede. Brooks wasn't so sure. She and Gilman decided

(46:15):
to turn the Washington parlor game into an actual exercise. So, UM,
that's that's interesting to me. Um Number one, that like
the class of people who are involved in a project
like this are so separated from reality that normally anything
they do is um an exercise in in pure fantasy.

(46:40):
And the fact that one of these people in in
this conversation that she's talking about, like this judge and
this lawyer are both um, I think kind of yielding
to fantasy that like the thing that you would expect
to happen based on the letter of the law will happen,
because that's the thing that matters anymore. Um. But there
were enough people within the kind of completely detached political

(47:02):
class who were like, no, actually, he might just take power.
Um that they actually took it seriously and like did
a thing about it. And I think that's you could
see it might be a good sign that, like things
have gotten bad enough that some members of our famously
disconnected political class are actually not wrong about the things

(47:22):
that they're saying for the first time in any of
our lifetimes. UM. I find it unsettling. I find it
deeply unsettling. Part of what my initial reaction to hear
just talking about this is like, yeah, you know, that's
good people acknowledging stuff. If people had covered this differently,
if people had talked about this differently years ago, maybe

(47:45):
the situation would be different. I don't know. Yeah, we
can't think about the past. Okay, No, that's my motto.
You've always said that the past. Yeah, yeah, never for
never talked about history on a podcast. Never, I would
never do that. So yeah, it's uh, it's it's not

(48:10):
super optimistic. And there's they have a whole report that
will have a link to that you can like read
if you want. Um. Yeah, there's a couple of bits
I want to go into, uh one of them. And
this is again from the Boston Globe article quote. Both
sides turned out massive street protests that Trump sought to control.
In one scenario, he invoked the Insurrection Act, which allows
the president to use military forces to quell unrest. The

(48:31):
scenario that began with a narrow Biden win, ended with
Trump refusing to leave the White House burning government documents
at having to be escorted out by the Secret Service.
The team playing Biden in that scenario meanwhile, sought to
patch things up with Republicans by appointing moderate republic governors,
including Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, to cabinet positions, which I
think is actually shows a real understanding of the Democratic

(48:54):
Party that like, while the President is being forcibly escorted
out of the White House by the Secret Service for
burning documents, he's putting Republicans in his cabinets. Yeah, that
is what would happen. Yes, just like calling Paul Ryan
and be like, hey, do you want to like you?
I'm making uh. I forgot the fucking Alaska lady who

(49:18):
was almost the vice president. Jesus, I forgot her name.
I was gonna make a joke about him making her
his vice president. I don't know nobody even like she's
like a moderate Republican. Now she's a she is something else.
I forgot she existed, yea dipping a little bit into

(49:42):
Q and on stuff these days. But yeah, I mean
she probably now supports death camps. Yeah, so yes, yeah,
broadly speaking, so quote. The scenario that produced the most
contentious dynamics, however, was one in which Trump won the
electoral College and thus the election, but Biden won the
popular vote by five percentage points. Biden's team retracted his election.

(50:03):
His election night concession, fueled by Democrats angry at losing
yet another election despite capturing the popular vote, has happened
in two thousand and two thousand and sixteen and the
mock election. Trump sought to divide Democrats at one point,
giving an interview to the intercept a left leaning news
outlets saying Bernie Sanders would have won if Democrats had
dominated him. Meanwhile, Biden's teams sought to encourage large Western
states to secede unless pro democracy reforms were made, which

(50:26):
number one, I can absolutely see Trump sitting down with
Glenn Greenwald, um, and Greenwald giving him a broadly positive
right up during a time like that. Um, it could happen,
Um could happen. Yeah, I would be yeah, I mean
that already that stuff though, and like Trump already talked
about how Bernie would have won, right yeah. What I

(50:49):
can't imagine, and I I'm an imaginer, is Joe Biden
encouraging the West coast to secede. I have no idea
what they got that an I will I will firmly
admit that that is something I am predicting will not happen.
If it does, you can talk about my seeds. We're

(51:11):
not getting Biden as president, you know. Uh no, But
did Joe Biden? I think we would make the president
of the Oregon Republic. He he would be our leader
as we hid in the mountains and shot at Californians
trying to flee once the water runs out. Sorry, guys, drink,

(51:32):
you know, if you make it to the right checkpoint anyway.
So um yeah, Jesus Christ. Uh, it's not it's not
a great document to read. Um. And it's like the
most frustrating piece of media on this is David Froome's
column for The Atlantic, because again number one, since Froome

(51:54):
was there. If you want an idea of what it
was like to be a part of this thing, you
do kind of have to read it, um, even though
David Froom is history's greatest monster. Um. But also I'll
just I'll just start reading from it. Quote. The good
news is that Trump cannot postpone the election or the
next presidential inauguration. He has no means to do either

(52:15):
of those things. The dates are set by law or
in the text of the Constitution. Nor can Trump somehow
clean to power after inauguration day once the electoral vote
is certified against him. If the Electoral College certifies Joe
Biden the winner when its votes are counted in d
C on January six, then at noon on January twenty,
Donald Trump seases to be president. The signature loses all
legal effect. The officer carrying the nuclear football walks away

(52:37):
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not
take his call. The bottom line, there do exist outer
legal boundaries to the mischief that can be done by
even the most corrupt president. That is, if people honor
those boundaries. What the what? What? What? What world does
David Froom liv it like I see this every every

(52:58):
like month when Trump says something wild, Everyone's like, he
can't do that, it's against the law. What the fund
are you talking about? He has been breaking the law
every day for years. That's not an argument against the
president doing something, And it's not an argument against Donald
Trump doing something. God foolish he's breaking He breaks the

(53:23):
law in so often and so flagrantly, but it makes
me angry and I love breaking the law. Mentioned this
earlier in his executive order, stuff will you get sued? Yeah,
you get sued for everything he breaks the law. Yeah,
he gets sued because he's a he's a crime guy.

(53:45):
He's the crime guy president. And it's like so weird,
Like they barely impeached him for like one of the
things he's done. And David Froom is like, actually, the
institutions will say, what get out of here? Remember um,
how we were like Oh, all this impeachment stuff is,
you know, taking over the election conversation and oh no,

(54:08):
we're distracting from the election because of impeachment. And now
we barely even remember that he was impeached. Yeah, do
you remember, Do you remember when David Froome worked for
a war criminal who's like publishing a book about his
paintings of immigrants now instead of being in prison, Like,
what are you talking about, David? What more for us?

(54:32):
Robert back to Froome's column, So, um Froom goes on to, like, uh,
note that kind of some of the different things that
he witnessed. Um. In the different games that like this
this group played out, the courts offered only slow, weak,
and unreliable remedies. Street protests were difficult to mobilize and
often proved counterproductive. Republican elected officials coward even in the

(54:54):
face of the most outrageous Trump acts. Democratic elected officials
lacked the tools and clout to make much difference. Many
of the games turned on who made the first bold
move time after time, That first mover was Trump. And
it goes on to talk about, like in the scenarios
in which Biden's team eventually won, UM Team Trump still
managed to like in his words, poisoned the political system.

(55:16):
And he goes on to list some of the things
that were done in the game that poison the political system.
And as I read this, I want you to think
about how many of these things have already been done. Quote.
It diverted public resources to Trump personally. It preemptively pardoned
Trump associates and family members, and tried to pardon Trump
himself from criminal charges in including money laundering and tax evasion.
It tried to boost long term economic damage so as

(55:38):
to prevent early economic recovery and boost Republican Republican chances
in the two elections. It destroyed, hit or privatized public records.
It tried to sabotage the census to favor Republican redistricting
after it refused to cooperate with the incoming administration during
the transition period in ways that aggravated both pandemic response
and economic recovery. It's sewed pervasive mistrust in the integrity

(56:00):
of US elections in ways that would polarize and embitter
US politics. Long after four years ago, we're already there
with with almost I guess like he hasn't poisoned the
transitions team of the president. Yet that has not happened yet,
because like the literal event that is referring to hasn't

(56:21):
happened yet. So yes, it's literally impossible to do that. Yeah,
it's my favorite of the different possibilities they saw, um
was the Trump like losing the election and not like
failing to sort of contest it and moving permanently tomorrow
lago the day after the election and refusing to return
to the White House or do any work during the

(56:43):
lame duck period, which would be funny like that, that
would legitimately be pretty funny. Um. And also I could
totally see happening like him just trolling people for his
last time in president and fucking around. Um, yeah, he's
lazy in an asshole like that, he is lazy in
an asshole. Sounds exactly right. Yeah, And doing something like

(57:09):
that some trolling thing will just play to his base
and whatever thing that he does next, starting a media empire.
I don't know that's what he wanted all along. Uh,
just play into his hand for that. One. One of
the things that I found kind of personally unsettling about
this whole thing, Um, was so there's the kind of

(57:31):
note that, like in a lot of the scenarios UM,
when people would war game out like Trump trying to
use the military to hold onto power, UM, the assumption
was that it would not work. But they make sort
of a note that is really unsettling, and they're right
up of this, and this is the actual Transition Accountability
project right up, which is that UM, basically, it's very

(57:52):
possible that people's expectations of how the military would, the
kind of positive expectations that the military would stand up
for our democracy, UM, are more or less entirely based
on the fact that very recently the military had kind
of stood up to Trump during a protest, and that
that isn't necessarily the most realistic thing to base your

(58:13):
expectations on, because the fact that they kind of stood
against him, um, during a very different sort of situation
that happened earlier, doesn't mean they wouldn't back him to
the hilt if something like this happened, UM. And we
shouldn't make that assumption that the military that we can
that we can rely on the military to stand up
for democracy in a situation like this. I mean, yeah,

(58:40):
that UM, I think that you know, uh, It also
depends out who in the military you're talking about too. Yeah, yes, yes,
I should ask the navy seal who threw bombs at
a bunch of my friends the other night. Um, if
he would stand for President Trump and the that's a
thing that happened in Portland recently. Um, good stuff. It
sounds like fake news, Robert, it does. I actually was

(59:04):
worried it might be, but then thoroughly reported report came
out in the Oregon Public Broadcasting Anyway, he hasn't been
arrested yet, still out there, heavily armed Navy seal with
a history of domestic violence, who anyway fun stuffs up.
So the point of all this is that November is

(59:27):
going to be the best month ever. Oh yeah, I
think that. Um, well, that's the thing, like it's the
worst year ever. Uh, but like you, we get a
little treat in November of utter chaos, and yeah, just
to break up the chaos a bit, we'll get some
utter chaos. Yeah exactly. I think it's you know, who's

(59:49):
going to bring order to the chaos? Us Jordan balth
Is R. Peterson. God that he has survived both his
about of poisoning himself with an all meat diet and
his bout of going to dangerously unregulated Russian clinic and
his bout of catching COVID nineteen in Serbia. Um and

(01:00:12):
will be at Dent when democracy really needs him this
November exactly the machine. It's his moment. It's his moment.
I love you, Jordan Balthazar Peterson. What's the worst you ever?
We'll get through it together. You're making him sound like

(01:00:32):
a muppet, like that faked his death and became Jordan Peterson.
Is true. You guys are giving me a headache. I sorry,
I have a horrible headache. Horrible headache. I think that's
just called I think it's called covering protests. Every single

(01:00:59):
give more rubber. No, I don't, I mean, I mean,
thank God, but also broadly, there's always more to say. Well,
I think we've said it all for today. Yep. Yeah,
despite all of this, I've had fun seeing you guys today. Yeah.

(01:01:24):
Always enjoy. Yeah, And if you want to see more
of us, you're gonna follow us on Twitter, on Instagram
at worst your pod, and you can follow Cody at
dr Mr Cody, and Katie at Katie Stole and Robert
at I Right. Okay, m well done, Sophie. And if
you're gonna prepare for November, there's a variety of useful

(01:01:45):
skills you could invest in, uh learning gonna make shields,
learning how to will to sling, um, volunteering for vote
counting maybe but probably not. But I actually on joke,
I mentioned this on even More News. There is a
real lack of poll workers, uh severe lack of poll

(01:02:07):
workers being able to step up because most poll workers
are over the age of sixty. Um, So if you
are healthy and uh feel reasonable risking it, that might
be something that we can do to step up during
this time. Not telling you what to do. I don't
know my own comfort level, but it is definitely a

(01:02:29):
need and um, someone's got to do it. And that
seems like a great place too, and the show it
is a great place to end the show by everything Everything,
It's again I tried. Worst Year Ever is a production

(01:02:55):
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.