Lefty Donors Dwindling, Plastic Bottle Ban, Senate Doesn't Suit Fetterman

Join Jim and Greg as they serve up a good martini and two crazy ones. First, they welcome the news that numerous far left organizations are folding or downsizing because their donations are drying up significantly. They also roll their eyes as Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announces her government will no longer purchase single-use plastic bottles. Finally, Jim takes a close look at Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and wonders whether he really wants to be in the Senate.

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to the three Martini Lunch.Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of
Radio America and Jim Garrity of NationalReview. Three Martini's coming up three martinis
for you today, as always,one of them good, two of them
crazy, So buckle up for thoseand Jim. Sometimes the good Martini needs

(00:23):
a little bit of massaging to actuallybe the good Martini. No such effort
needed today, and so let's diveright in. This is from hot Air,
but it's got a lot of helpfrom the New York Times. The
basic gist here is that left leaningorganizations which were awash in cash not that
long ago, are falling on severefinancial hardship as we just ramp up for

(00:47):
this election cycle. And so theystart off with talking about Ibraham Kendy's Center
for Anti Racist Research. More thanhalf the staff is gone now after launching
just three years ago with more thanthirteen million dollars in big donors. Last
month, just as Democrats laid offhalf at staff back in May, Plan
Parenthood laid off ten to twenty percentof the national workforce, the Sierra Club

(01:08):
laid off workers in April, andthe Sunrise Movement can't say I'm too familiar
with that one laid off workers lastyear, And so what Michelle Goldberg reports
over the New York Times certainly norighty quote. As we stumble toward another
existential election, panic is setting inamongst some progressive groups because the donors who
buoyed them throughout the Trump years aredisengaging. Quote. Donations to progressive organizations

(01:32):
are way down in twenty twenty threeacross the board. Set a recent memo
from Billy Wimsat, executive director ofthe Movement Voter Project, an organization found
that in twenty sixteen, he saysgroups need money to make sure we have
a good outcomenext November and then ineverybody's favorite style with a period after every
word, but people are not donating, and so it says it's kind of

(01:56):
across the board. US charitable givingdefinitely down in twenty twenty and it hasn't
recovered in twenty twenty three. Sojim a couple of thoughts from me.
That's, first of all, Ithink more people if they're planning to don
it, we're probably planning to doin an election year. The other thing
is people have less disposable income now, But how do you read this.
No, those are two very goodpoints that I think should not be forgotten

(02:19):
in this. But when I sawthis, what I thought of was that
report in the intercept this is backin like June twenty twenty two, that
talked about how, you know,all kinds of left wing groups. The
story began looking at Planned Parenthood,nay Rail, and other pro abortion groups,
but said that almost every progressive group, Sierra Club, Damos, a
CLU, Movement for Black Lives,human rights campaign times up and how they'd

(02:43):
had this inner turmoil, very oftenstemming from knockdown, drag out fights between
competing factions and their organizations, usuallythe young and particularly woke staffers objecting to
management not being sufficiently woke, andjust it turns everybody walking on eggshels.
It makes it much harder to getanything done. There's constant HR meetings,

(03:04):
there's just this constant sense of dramaand I kind of want and they said,
it's it's impossible to get anything donein these organizations. If I remember
correctly, Greg, both you andI needed to be hospitalized from laughing so
hard at the national consequences of hiringall of these you know, woke angry
young progressives who see everything as agrievance and who see everything as a potential
reason to complain to HR et cetera, et cetera. But also I kind

(03:27):
of wonder if donors to these organizationshave noticed that they don't seem to be
getting as much done, they don'tseem to be getting as much bang for
their buck. Maybe they're not happyabout seeing the coverage of these organizations and
seeing these kinds of internal fights andstuff like that. So one question is,
you know, are the donors tothese groups finding it, you know,
them to be less effective, lessworthwhile? And this the other thing,
And I think you can throw inquite a few conservative organizations have noticed

(03:51):
that donations are down over the pasttwo years or so. Look, we've
been through just an intensely angry,emotional I stakes fight. And you can
pick the Trump years as your measuringstick. You could point out that a
lot of you know, act tothe Tea Party. You could point to
the Obama years. You could pointto maybe even going like, there's been

(04:12):
this really intense period for a reallylong time, and you can't keep things
that turned up to ten or elevenas the spinal tap would have us,
you know, for for that longstretch. At some point people need downtime.
At some point. People can't beon red alert constantly. And I
kind of feel like that's what thepolitical environment has asked of people for a
long stretch. It's not surprising thatpeople who believe that Donald Trump was the

(04:36):
the the Antichrist and he was goingto destroy the country might be less interested
in donating to left wing organizations whenTrump is not in office. Always decide
that is in power tends to geta little bit complacent, and you know,
Biden's the president, Democrats still controlthe Senate. But also I just
kind of feel like there's just theemotional intensity of our political environment has been

(04:58):
really really high for a long time, and I think I think it's emotionally
healthy to to, you know,take your foot off the gas for a
stretch. Please keep listening to thispodcast, Please keep reading me, Please
keep doing, you know, supportingall the groups that you know that we
like. But like, I can'tbegrudge somebody for just saying I can't do
it anymore. And I think that'swhat's at work here. And I think
that Saul Alinsky and his rules forradicals warned that when activism becomes a drag,

(05:23):
people don't want to do it anymore. It's got to be fun,
it's got to feel like they're energetic, it's got to feel like they're they're
making progress. And I kind ofwonder if the entire political environment has just
become so toxic and ugly and repellentthat a whole bunch of people who are
normal and well adjusted to human beingsjust don't want to be involved with it.
So as the result, they're beingless active and they're not donating the
way they used to now. It'sfascinating. I think the complacency point you

(05:46):
make is a good one. Andalso, this hot air piece goes on
to quote at length the memo fromthis Billy whimsad figure, and he talks
about how he got a call froma well respected organization viously on the left
in a battleground state, strong trackrecord, but had an unexpected funding shortfall
and was in danger of having tolay off its entire staff in the coming

(06:06):
month unless they raised over one hundredthousand dollars. And he says it's more
than one of a dozen calls he'sactually gotten. So Jim, this might
be the real life situation that yousee in fundraising emails at the end of
the month, and you're going tosee a ton of them at the end
of September because it's also the endof the quarter where candidates are saying,
if I don't have your money bymidnight, iron entire cause could be in

(06:28):
peril. Please send your ten dollars. I think people have gotten desensitized to
this. Some people might be Legitimately, you can only get so many this
anonymous donor says that they'll give aten to one match to all donations.
You know, how about that anonymousowner just writes the check and sends it
in Why is it now this weirdcontest where other people have to donate as

(06:48):
much. So let's move up toMassachusetts, which is already in a state
of emergency over the migrant crisis,and of course their solution is entirely the
wrong one want more government funding tohelp them deal with the situation rather than
demanding Joe Biden send the people home. But nonetheless, Maria Healey, the

(07:09):
Democratic governor up in Massachusetts, hasfound a new existential crisis. Jim,
and you'll know it's single use plasticbottles Fox News with the story Massachusetts slated
to become the first state the nationto ban state agencies from purchasing single use
plastic bottles. She of course announcesthis at a climate change event, because

(07:29):
you've got a promise to do somethingright, she says, in government,
we have an obligation to stop contributingto this damage and chart a better path
forwards. We are proud to becomethe first state to adopt a procurement ban
on single use plastic bottles. Andso jim, I'm sure you know ditching
all those plastic bottles after one useisn't the greatest thing. Even if you
recycle a lot of them, probablydoesn't end up working out that great.

(07:55):
But banning stuff is usually not theway to go here. Maybe just encourage
people to use their own bottle.I don't know, but this doesn't seem
to be the world's biggest concern.Well, when they told people to stop
using plastic bags and they started requiringthe use of reusable bags out in San
Francisco, they found after a yearthat, like people had a ton of
bacteria growing in those bags, Soyou know that, you know, they're

(08:18):
all kinds of unintended consequences when youtry something like this. So I guess
there's there's a plan to save theenvironment by moving to glass. Again.
I don't know aluminum. Wait,I thought we were supposed to not use
that, you know, like it'sit's you gotta put the liquids in something.
People, come on, Massachusetts.I know your temptation is just to
put your mouth on the tap andhave the beer flowed directly into you.

(08:39):
But that's not going to be anoption all the time, you know,
only only every other day when theRed Sox are playing Massachusetts. I thought
saw this, and I thought aboutit was really just about a year ago
that you saw all of these articlesmaking the argument that actually a whole bunch
of what we recycle still ends upin landfills, nprs, all things considered.
Back up over twenty twenty two,quote recycling plastic is practically impossible and

(09:03):
the problem is getting worse or overthe Atlantic plastic recycling doesn't work and will
never work. I would like itwould have been nice to hear this before,
like twenty to thirty years of NonStoppublic public advocacy campaigns calling for people
to recycle. Greg and the courseof your life. How many please recycle
signs do you think you've seen inyour entire life? Thousands? Right,

(09:24):
every workplace, every store, theygot the two bins. I gotta put
out my recycling a separate day frommy garbage and all that kind of stuff.
And now, oh, hey,you know what, America, None
of it works, none of itmatters, none of it makes a difference.
Oh, really, screw you.Because I've been doing this for the
past three decades of my life.Public health experts and public leaders can't say,
hey, you know this thing that, like in some jurisdictions, they

(09:46):
punish you, they find you ifthey find recyclables in your garbage. And
now it comes like, ah,never mind, doesn't really make a difference.
Really, gee, I wonder whypeople have, you know, poor
Tom Nichols. Why are people losingfaith in the expert class because the experts
keep changing their minds and oh,hey, you know what we've been telling
you for the last thirty years,let me do, Emily Litella. Never

(10:07):
mind. Now it totally didn't matter, none of it did any good.
We've been making you do this,and it turns out it was moot the
whole time, Like and now,of course, you know, in a
whole bunch of jurisdictions, including myhome one, they charge you an extra
five cents for using the plastic bag. But here's the interesting thing. I'm
gonna I'm gonna help America, orat least those of us in this corner
of authenticity Woods Fairfax County. Soif you go to the donut section of

(10:31):
the supermarket, which I totally don'tdo because I don't eat donuts because I'm
not good for me, of course, but if I did, they sell
them in plastic bags. They don'tcharge you for that plastic bag, but
they do charge you if you usethe store, you know, checkout counterplastic
bag, so you could put otherstuff in your donut bag, and it's
all the same, particularly I whenyou're using the self service checkout. So
in the end, they're only orI imagine the same thing is true for

(10:52):
deli bags or for anything else thatyou do. So theoretically they'll give you
they'll charge you five cents, butonly for certain bags. So you know
what, that way you could useit. You don't use the ones by
the store. On paper, theenvironment helps, but considering the way these
guys changed the rules every five minutes. God only knows, So you really
need to ask the deli people andthe bakery people to double bag your deli

(11:13):
meat and your donuts and you're allset. And I had an economics professor
at Hillsdale saying, the only recyclingthat actually paid off for the recyclers was
aluminum cans, and that was,you know, a few decades ago.
Now I don't know entirely what wasknown at the time or not. When
I got red pilled was when youknow, like you said, you put
out the trash and the recycling onthe same day once a week with the

(11:33):
recycling, and then one day thetruck that was marked recycling took the trash
and the one that was marked trashtook the recycling, and I'm like,
it's all going to the same place. This is completely insane. And you
talked about, you know, revertingto where we were a couple of years
ago, a couple of decades ago. Remember when paper was terrible for the
grocery store because you were killing trees, so they were encouraging it to take

(11:54):
the plastic bags. And now Idon't know if paper is supposedly good again,
But now that they make you bagyour own stuff. I'm not even
sure papers an option at those selfcheckout lands, But considering how the transition
to paper straws has been, Ifully expect the next move will people.
We're banning plastic bags and you haveto use paper bags, but they're made
of extraordinarily thin paper. They can'tactually hold anything, but they're better for

(12:20):
the environment. Okay, you know, yeah. It instantly decomposes the moment
something is put in the paperbag,so you're gonna be like four of them,
which defeats the whole purpose. Retireyou all your groceries, all right,
Jim, onto our second crazy Martiniand final martini of the day.
And that brings us to John Fetterman. I'm guessing our listeners have been waiting

(12:41):
to see when we're going to getto John Fetterman. After Chuck Schumer,
the Senate Majority leader, over theweekend, decided to change the dress code
for the Senate floor only for senators. Mind you, pages staffers, all
those people. Anybody else has tocontinue to abide by the more formal dress
code, but senators can now wearanything they want. And everybody knows that

(13:01):
this is about one person. It'sabout Pennsylvania's John Fetterman, who likes to
walk around Capitol Hill and his hoodieand shorts. He's been voting by yelling
from the cloak room because he's notallowed on the floor in that type of
get up. But now he's goingto be allowed to do so. Plenty
of people I'm really on both sidesof the aisle not happy with this change,

(13:22):
saying it demeans and lessens the prestigeof the institution. Federman, of
course, claiming that he's not debasinganything when Republicans on the House side are
debasing themselves in other ways and soforth. So Fetterman is getting his moment
in the sun here. We'll seehow he ends up dressing on the floor.

(13:43):
Anybody else does. He was inI believe Michigan yesterday siding with the
UAW workers and trying to slam theCEOs of the major atto makers. My
message to the CEOs is, youknow, it's seventy four million dollars,
you know, collectively earning that.How many yachts can they need to water

(14:07):
ski behind it? You know,I mean, it's just crazy. I
mean, you feel for the guybecause of the stroke that he went through,
but it raises questions once again aboutwhether he's up to the job right
now. So, Jim, whatdo you make of Fetterman getting this rule
change from Chuck Schumer basking in it, and whether he wants to be there
at all? Well? Wait,wait, First of all, Greg,
let's let's want to point out itwas about a year ago Fetterman's doctor,

(14:30):
doctor Clifford Chin, issued a lettersaying overall, Fetterman is well. He
shows strong commitment to maintaining good fitnessand health practices. He has no work
restrictions and can work full duty inpublic office. That was a week before
the debate where we got to seehow well Fetterman was doing. But like
so, I'm surprised anyone's saying thatthere's still issues with the stroke because his
doctor told us he was fine.The campaign released that you can sense the

(14:54):
sarcasm in my voice there. Bythe way, Federman apparently just like straight
up hates wearing a suit. Iwent back and I found this July interview
with the New York Times, atwhich he told the paper quote, it
was a Eureka moment when I figuredout I don't have to be in a
suit to stand at the threshold ofthe Senate chamber, going yay or nay.
It was amazing. I've been ableto reduce my suit time by about
seventy five percent. He really hateswearing a suit. Greg When did the

(15:20):
Senate begin the tradition of wearing suitsa long time ago? Somewhere around the
founding Rights at right, it's I'mpretty sure if Federman's got c span right,
like, at some point he musthave seen, Oh, senators usually
wear suits, and if you reallyhate wearing a suit, maybe being a
US Senator is really not the rightjob for you, so he says,
and he made these comments, youknow, yesterday, saying I can't believe

(15:43):
Republicans are freaking Okay, all right, you don't want to be judged by
your wardrobe? All right, fine, let's put that aside for a moment.
He's missed more than thirty three percentof his vote so far in this
session. Now, a lot ofthat was during the time he was at
Walter Reed Medical Center being treated forclinical depression. I'm really glad that Federman
is doing I'm really glad that themedication is working, but he's also missed

(16:03):
time. Not from that, hemissed the thirteen percent of the votes from
July to September. I went backand I checked mostly nomination votes. There
was a vote on whether the presidentshould be required to consult Congress before withdrawing
from NATO. G I wonder whichpotential future president they have in mind with
that. But you know, Ione of the things I kind of just
was surprised by is that, like, if you miss a big chunk of
your time in the beginning of yourterm as senator, I just figured you'd

(16:26):
want to try to avoid missing anymore votes. He's second only to Diane
Feinstein. And you know, thekind of thing is that the US Senate
schedule really is pretty laid back whenyou look at compared to most jobs.
They have long stretches where they're outof session. Well I'm sorry, they're
in state work periods. Wink wink. You know, I know from the

(16:47):
time I was covering the House,Congress almost never holds a vote before Monday
night, like late Monday afternoon atthe earliest, sometimes not until Tuesday morning.
They know, they got folks whogo home for the weekend, and
sometimes it's a pain in the necktrying to get back to Washington, DC.
They usually hold the last vote onThursday. Maybe once in a while
they'll do Friday. But you know, the old joke is, you know
the airplanes are all gassed up atNational Airport, you know, wait,

(17:08):
ready for the air But these senatorsready to have that last vote and then
get over there and go home forthe district. And it's not like Fetterman's
got to go to Alaska, Hawaiior the West Coast or something. So
he's there, he just isn't takingthese votes. And then the only thing
which I kind of was struck bywas this interview he did in July with
The Times where he said he justhe doesn't sound like he enjoyed his life
being a senator. He said,he thinks the Senate has a fixation on

(17:29):
a lot of dumb s. Wordbad performance art is what it really gets
down to. And part of me'slike, well, if you really don't
like the way the Senate is beingrun, you probably should take it up
with Chuck Schumer. This is notsomebody who's in the opposition party or a
backbencher. For a freshman senator,he got a bunch of good committee assignments.
Agriculture, Banking environment, join EconomicSpecial Committee on Aging, you know.

(17:51):
And then finally, the last thingin this interview that kind of jumped
out of me was he look,most lawmakers in Congress have to have effectively
live in two places at once.You have to have your residence in your
district or your state, but youobviously have to spend a lot of time
in Washington, DC. Your familyhas got to pick it to live in
one of those two places. Usuallyit's back in the state or district,
and you're away from him a lot. Now, that sucks. I sympathize
with Spedderman, with every other oneof those lawmakers in that situation. He

(18:14):
says to the Times quote, whenyou become a senator, you're going to
be spending fifty percent less time withthe people that you love. That breaks
my heart. I get emotional thinkingabout it. FaceTime is much better than
just a phone call. But that'sthe worst part of the job. I
just read that. I'm like,should Federan be a senator? I mean,
there's the issue of recovering from thestroke. There's the issue of like

(18:36):
mental health issues, where you goingto go into a hospital for six weeks.
You know that his description of it, and that Time magazine cover piece
was, you know, horrific.He clearly doesn't think the Senate is what
the work they're doing is important,and you think it's a joke. He's
missing a bunch of votes, hecan't be bought, and he literally can't
be bothered to wear a suit.He sounds miserable as a senator. You
know, Pennsylvania has got a lotof people. He competed really hard for

(18:57):
this job, and it kind ofseems like he doesn't want to do it
anymore. So I just kind ofput this out to listeners and to the
people of Pennsylvania, and maybe ita fetterman itself. Are you Are you
sure you want to be there?Could you be happier or better off in
your life doing something else? Andyou know, judging by the totalent of
the evidence, I think the answeris yes. So this has always seemed

(19:18):
like a very strange set of circumstances, and it's only getting weirder with time
because apparently putting on a suit isjust too much to ask of him.
Yeah, a couple thoughts here.First of all, when you ask the
people of your state to send yousomewhere else to represent them. The chances
of you not being able to spendas much time with your family are kind
of implied there, So the ideathat that's somehow a surprise to him,
I mean, you wanted this jobthat comes up. Secondly, I completely

(19:42):
agree with him that the Senate hasway too much performance art. But as
it comes to the suit, Iwas wondering at first whether he's, you
know, maybe had some motor issuesfrom the stroke where it's hard for him
to put on the suit. Butit sounds like he just doesn't like him
and he's too lazy to wear one. That gives me no sympathy for this
situation, especially when you remember JohnMcCain, who, as far as I

(20:03):
know, never complained about having towear a suit every day on Capitol Hill.
It was just absolute agony for himto put on a suit because after
being a pow in Vietnam, hecouldn't raise his arms above his shoulders,
and so it was a long andcomplicated process to be able to put the
shirt up, put the coat on, and put the tie on. And
you know, if John McCain cando that for decades, I think John
Fetterman can put on a suit.You know, three days a week and

(20:26):
get to work. Yeah, it'svery hard to believe that, you know.
It's also very like so did ChuckSchumer ask him to wear a suit?
And Fetterman said no. It's veryintriguing that Schumer nor nobody else could
say, you know, you're reallygotta put on a suit when you're around
here. We'll see what other membersdo as a result of this. We've
seen. I think Kirsten Cinema lookedlike a banana at the State of the
Union. So who knows what libertyshe's gonna take come and going forward here.

(20:49):
But we'll see, we'll see thatthe upside. That's the one thing
we can look forward to and allof that, I guess. Anyway,
Jim, have a great day.We'll see you in tomorrow. See tomorrow,
Greg, Jim Gartty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.
Thanks so much for being with ustoday. Do subscribe to the podcast
if you don't already, tell somefriends about us as well. Thanks very

(21:11):
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