February 18, 2024 • 37 mins
The House of Representatives finally got their impeachment, and they may just get their shutdown. But judgment was meted out to Donald Trump this week, too. Also, some words about the Super Bowl and gun control in this week's episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm Stephen Monteeth and I'm to talkabout politics, what's going on in the
United States and the world, fromSunday the eleventh to Saturday the seventeenth this
last week. First, let's startwith the Super Bowl. I didn't watch
(00:25):
it, but I'm told the KansasCity Chiefs won, so bravo for them.
Good work. I don't watch superBowl, but I can appreciate,
you know, people who do.I don't have a problem with it.
I think it's very demanding sport,and I'm glad that it was an exciting
game. I hear that it's thatit was the most watched television program in
(00:51):
television history. Now that's I'm sureat least partially due to the fact that
that Travis Kelcey, who plays forKansas City, is dating Taylor Swift and
she's been showing up at football gamessupporting her boyfriend. That's very admirable.
(01:15):
Can't imagine anybody having a problem withthat, and yet people have a problem
with that. My goodness, TaylorSwift. I don't listen to her music,
So this is basically a double whammyof things that I don't really care
about. But it's but it's alsoa double example of what I've called the
(01:42):
Hayes effect. I know that there'sthe things that I care about there within
my attention. I can think aboutthem without having to look them up because
I care that much about them,and everything else is just sort of hazy
out there. But every now andthen, something from within the haze intrudes
(02:04):
on my attention and I'm kind offorced to pay attention to it. So
now I'm kind of forced to payattention to football and Taylor Swift. For
some reason, people hate her.I don't get that. I mean,
(02:30):
she's she's, as far as Ican tell, a very inoffensive person.
You know, she's written a lotof songs, and she's made a lot
of money, you know, fromher fans who love her songs. She's
technically a billionaire, and all ofit comes from her music. A lot
(02:53):
of musicians when they get when theyget really rich, they're like Rihanna,
who has her her fashion and fragrancelines and whatnot. But Taylor Swift apparently
doesn't have any of that. Shejust has her music and her fans,
(03:14):
and her fans love her so muchthat they listen to her music so much
that she's just playing rich, andI think that's a that's a good thing
because she turns right around and givesthat money to people who need it.
Every stop on her on her musictours, she donates to local food banks
(03:39):
and in and not just in tokenamounts either in really high amounts. I
don't have the figures in front ofme, but you can look them up.
She pays the people who work forher very well. She's not like
one of those billionaire CEOs who whoforces their people to work themselves to death
(04:02):
so that they can just barely getenough to stay in their apartments and while
they reap in all the profits.No, Taylor pays her people very well.
She gives them bonuses, especially tothe people who drive her all around
from one stop to another. Andshe's also not one of these She's not
(04:31):
one of these problematic stars who whois constantly getting in fights with the people
who work for her. She doesn'tslap her people around, she doesn't insult
them. Yeah, she's just avery nice person who who, like I
said, is a very good singerand people love her for it. So
(04:59):
why do people hate her? Well, it really has to do with the
specific people who hate her. Allof the hate for Taylor Swift is coming
from the right. It's coming fromthe hard right wing of the American political
(05:27):
spectrum. They are coming up withthe weirdest theories about her, the weirdest
stuff. And they didn't start comingup with all these theories until just a
few years ago when she started supportingDemocrats for office, especially Joe Biden.
(05:57):
I mean, it's not like she'sobnoxious about it either. I mean,
there was a theory that gained acertain amount of traction that if the Chiefs
did win, which as I said, they did, that Taylor and Travis
were going to go out in themiddle of the field and encourage everybody vote
(06:17):
for Joe Biden. Didn't happen,of course, but it hid. But
like I said, it was atheory that was making the rounds. And
it wasn't just if the Chiefs won. It was a theory that the Chiefs
would have a manufactured win. Andthis is not the I mean, it's
(06:41):
not like the Chiefs are some underdog. They won the Super Bowl last year
too, and they've won it acouple of years before that too, from
what I hear. So it's notlike it's not like the CIA or the
Pentagon or somebody say, at all, right, what we've got to do
(07:02):
is make sure that this team winsthe super Bowl and that Taylor Swift's fans
love her so much that she becomesa billionaire and she starts dating from this
team that's going to win the superBowl because we're going to make it happen,
not because they could actually win iton their own. And it's and
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it's just so ridiculous, but itactually reminds me of this X Files episode
from like thirty years ago. Inthe X Files, there was this there
was this overarching plot about how thedark, shady organization, the government within
(07:47):
the government, was running everything,and there was and there was sort of
a comedic episode that showed the lifeand times of one of these dark government
figures who's known as the cigarette smokingMan, because that's pretty much all we
know about him is that he smokescigarettes. That's all we knew about him
(08:11):
for the first few seasons. Butthen we finally get this episode where we
learn about his life and what hedoes and all the stuff he does behind
the scenes. They and they hadthis one little jokey scene in one of
the episodes where it turns out thathe was responsible for the Buffalo Bills losing
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the Super Bowl like four times ina row. And I guess the people
who came up with this crazy superBowl theory must have really been fans of
the X Files, like really crazyfans of the X Files, because they
must have taken that very seriously anddecided that, you know, when the
(08:56):
that the Chiefs were going to win, because it was a big setup,
just that Taylor and Travis could telleverybody to vote Democrat in November. My
goodness, life must be very boringfor these people if this is what they
come up with to explain the stuffthat happens. But that wasn't the only
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reason that people on the right weregetting riled up by the Super Bowl.
There was also a moment after thesinging of the national anthem, which is
traditional of course at sporting events inthe United States. He sing the national
(09:43):
anthem, but after that was sungAndre Day sang a song called lift every
Voice and Sing. Now. Thissong is over a century old. It's
in a lot of Christian hymnals acrossthe country, So you would think that
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religious people on the right would behappy that a hymn like this is sung
at a sporting event, you know, not just getting some national patriotism in
there, but also getting some religiousfervor before the game starts. But they're
mad about it because it's known asthe Black national anthem. I mean,
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I'm not gonna get into how manyblack people play American football, how many
black people were in the stands thatday, how many black people were watching.
I'm just going to say that ifyou're upset because they sang a hymn,
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a hymn called lift every Voice andsing, just because if you're upset
about that, just because that songmight mean more to black people than it
means to white people, then you'vegot some problems that you need to address.
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You can look up the lyrics toit. There's nothing offensive about it
at all, even for somebody who'satheistic, you know, just reading these
these lyrics, they're very inspiring,they're very they're very moving. It's not
an offensive song. The only reasonpeople are mad about it is because it
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might mean more to black people thanit does to white people. That's the
only reason, and it's a sadreason. Trust me. People on the
right are doing a lot more topoliticize the Super Bowl than people on the
lae left are. And then,of course there was a tragedy super Bowl
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related this last Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, there was a celebration about
the Chiefs win. There was aparade in Kansas City and there were there
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were some shooters. Two young peoplewere I don't know how young they were.
The reports just say they were juveniles, and they shot a bunch of
people. One person was dead,twenty two were wounded. There were over
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eight hundred law enforcement officers watching theparade, and that's not even including officers
with sniper rifles on rooftops keeping theireyes open. It's not like I blame
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those officers for not being able tostop the shooters before it got Before it
got to the point that it did, they obviously stopped it before it got
worse. But gun violence in Americadefinitely keeps getting worse. I've done podcasts
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on it before and I and Iam feeling wearied just thinking about all the
times I have tried to tried toraise awareness for this issue and try to
tell people that we need to dosomething. I've changed my mind about a
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lot of so called political issues overthe years. I've gone back and forth
on the spectrum. But gun violenceis one area in which I have never
wavered. I've always believed that weneed more gun control in this country.
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And if you think that Sunday morning, after a shooting on last Wednesday is
too early to be talking about this, then just pretend that what happened on
Wednesday didn't happen, and pretend thatI'm talking about a shooting spree that happened
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before that, because there have beena lot of shootings freeze this year.
We're just barely over halfway through February, and there have already been far too
many people who've died from gun violencethis year. It's always too soon,
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and it's always too late. Weneed to do something now. Okay,
moving on from Super Bowl related items, Let's talk a little bit about Let's
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talk a little bit about Congress,as if it wasn't detestable enough the subject
matter. Last week I talked abouthow they were trying to impeach Alejandro Mayorcus,
the Secretary of Homeland Security. Wealththey succeeded this last week. They
(16:15):
were finally able to get it done. Republicans in the House of Representatives weren't
able to impeach him. The weekbefore they were deadlocked. They were tied
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two fifteen to two point fifteen,and so, in a procedural move,
one Republican switched to a no voteso that they could reconsider it, reconsider
the matter, and vote again onTuesday of last week. Now, the
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vote in the House of Representatives onTuesday was two fourteen to two thirteen.
You know what else happened on Tuesdayof last week, George Santos's old congressional
district voted to replace him with aDemocrat named Tom Swosey. Now, Tom
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Swosey actually served in that same seatbefore George Santos served in it, and
now he'll be filling out Santa's theremainder of Santos's term after he was kicked
out of Congress for basically being thebiggest fraud in modern politics, aside from
Donald Trump himself. Here's the thing. When Antonin Scalia, Justice Scalia from
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the Supreme Court died in twenty sixteen, exactly eight years ago, Senate Republicans
at the time refused to allow thepresident at the time, Barack Obama,
to select a replacement for Scalia becausethere was a presidential election coming up in
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nine months, and they argued theAmerican people should get to decide who should
pick the next Supreme Court justice.In just a few days before the House
took its second vote on impeaching,Secretary of Majorcis Jim Jordan, a Republican
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in the House, said that theHouse shouldn't vote on the Senate's forthcoming border
security legislation for the same reason,because there's an election coming in November,
and we should wait until then tolet the American people decide. Forgetting for
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the moment that that would mean anentire year of not doing anything about border
security, something that Republicans claim isenough of a problem to impeach Majorcis over,
Let's see if we can apply theirlogic to the impeachment vote. Since
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George Santos' district was just about tovote the same day as the impeachment vote
was taking place, shouldn't House Republicanshave waited until George Santos's replacement was chosen
and seated in the House before theyheld the vote. Shouldn't they have allowed
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the American people to decide. Believeme, people, it's never about letting
the American people decide. They wantedto get majorcis out as quickly as possible.
And guess what else they did lastweek? They called a recess two
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weeks. They're going to be outof Congress. They're not going to be
there. No border legislation is goingto get passed at all, and you
can bet that when they're back itwon't be passed anyway. But you know
what else isn't going to get done. We're not going to get the government
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funded. There's a funding deadline.We're coming up on yet another one in
the beginning of March, and theHouse is taking a break until basically right
up until the deadline. So notonly did they get the impeachment that they
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wanted on a member of President Biden'sadministration, but it looks like they're also
going to get the government shut downthey've been so anxious to get ever since
they kicked Kevin McCarthy out of thespeakership for daring to cut a deal with
Democrats to keep the government from shuttingdown. They want the government shut down,
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they want the border to be ina terrible state. They want all
of it to happen because there's apresidential election in just under nine months.
They're hoping that the American people willsay, look, how terrible the country
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is, let's make sure that wevote in Republicans so that they can fix
it. There are Republicans in controlof the House of Representatives right now,
and they are doing everything they canto make sure that nothing gets fixed.
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Speaking of Republicans who don't want anythingto get fixed, Donald Trump has been
pushing for all of this to happen, and it's serving as a pretty big
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distraction from the fact that he iscurrently in the midst of a legal hurricane.
You can look at this as goodnews if you want. You can.
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You can say, oh good,we're moving on from the bad news.
Now we're moving into the good news. Part of me agrees with you,
but part of me is just asweary about this as I am about
all the rest of it. OnFriday, Donald Trump had received his verdict
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in the fraud trial in New York. Now this is not a This is
not one of his criminal trials.There are still four criminal trials pending for
Donald Trump, a total of ninetyone separate felonies. He's been charged with
in these four different trials in fourdifferent states, one of which is New
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York. Now, this is acivil trial determining how much Donald Trump should
pay in penalties for committing business fraudin New York. Now, it's already
been determined. It was determined lastyear, last fall, that he committed
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business fraud. The months since thenhave just been about determining how much fraud
he and his adult sons, DonaldJunior and Eric are liable for what their
punishment should be, trying to getthrough all the fine details of just how
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much fraud they committed and how muchit's all worth. Now, if you
want to know what kind of fraudhe committed and why it's such a big
deal, Basically, he lied onhis bank loans. His bank loan applications
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are full of lies. I mean, that's essentially what's going on here.
And he says that it's not acrime because well, he paid back his
loans. But here's the thing,it's still a crime to lie on your
applications. If I go down tothe bank and I apply for a loan
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and they say, hey, well, do you have any collateral, and
I tell them that I've got acar that's worth fifty thousand dollars and it's
not even worth the fifth that much. It doesn't matter if I pay the
loan back, I still lied tothem, and I can still be forced
to pay a penalty. Trump didthe same thing, but on a much,
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much, much larger scale. Hehe he's basically being person he's basically
being charged with needing to pay backthree hundred and fifty five million dollars.
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That should tell you. That shouldgive you an idea of just how much
he's lied on his business papers overthe last however many years, it's been
on how many banks he's lied to, on how much he's how much fraud
he's committed. He those three hundredand fifty five million dollars. Now,
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if he theoretically paid all that offtomorrow, then then that would be all
that he owes. But you canprobably tell that he's not going to be
able to pay all that off atonce, so there's going to be interest
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on that, and there are someestimates saying it could go as high as
half a billion dollars that he owes. And it's not just the money.
He is personally barred from doing anybusiness in New York for the next three
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years. His two adult sons arebarred from doing business there, for two
years each. Now this is ontop of a bunch of other times that
they've been found to have committed fraudin New York. This is not their
first defense. The Trump organization hasbeen found guilty of tax fraud before criminal
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tax fraud. They his kids arebasically barred from from operating charities in New
York because the last time they triedto operate a charity in New York,
they essentially embezzled from it. Embezzlingmoney from a charity. So it's so
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it's not like this is a newthing for them. Now, there was
that four year period in which DonaldTrump was president and basically untouchable by the
law. But now he's citizen Trumpagain, and now the wheels of justice
are turning again. He's back inthe legal systems. He's already been found
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liable as a matter of law orcommitting sexual assaults against Eachen Carol for defaming
her. He's been ordered to payalmost ninety million dollars to her for what
he's done to her over the years. And now there's this verdict which says
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he owes three hundred and fifty fivemillion dollars and he's not allowed to run
a business in New York for atleast three years. The wheels of justice
are turning, and they're going tokeep turning because, like I said,
he still has ninety one felonies toanswer for in four different courts. Currently,
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only one of those trials is actuallyscheduled. Because he's been throwing as
much trash into the gears as hecan to try and get them to stop
turning. He's been having his lawyersfile all kinds of appeals and paperwork and
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everything to slow things down as muchas possible because he thinks that he's going
to be elected president in November andthat he can just call off all the
investigations at that point, he canjust call off all the prosecutions. But
even if he is elected in November, he's still not going to be able
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to call off the New York fraudcase fraud cases verdict, because that's New
York's thing. He can't just forgivehimself for that, he can't just pardon
himself for it. And he doeshave, like I said, at least
one of those cases, one ofthose criminal cases, scheduled for next month.
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Jury selection is going to begin ina case about him and hush money
payments that he made to porn starStormy Daniels. That is going to take
place in the next couple of months, so and the other three. Who
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knows when that's going to happen.He can slow things down, but he
can't stop them. He can't stopthe wheels from turning. He's going to
get grinded in them. Justice iscoming for Donald Trump. So far,
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it's just been civil penalties and fines. Pretty soon it's going to be criminal
convictions. There's I mean, he'sprobably not going to be convicted on all
ninety one separate felonies, but there'sno way that he's going to be acquitted
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on all of them, and hecertainly can't pardon himself on all of them.
It would be really great. Itwould be really great if he was
convicted, found guilty, and allthe appeals open to him were settled by
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the time November rolls around. Butconsidering how how much he has been able
to slow things down up to thispoint, it probably won't happen. So
we're still going to need to voteagainst him in November. We're still going
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to need to come together, justlike we did in twenty twenty and vote
for Joe Biden, because, let'sface it, Joe Biden is going to
be the nominee in November. Barringan actual medical impairment that keeps him from
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performing the rest of his duties aspresident, He's still going to be the
Democratic nominee, and Trump, barringa miracle, is still going to be
the Republican nominee. A lot ofpeople are upset that this is apparently a
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rematch that nobody wanted. I didn'twant it. I wanted Pete Bootage Edge
to be president. But we're gettingit. We're getting an unprecedented presidential rematch,
and we're going to have to livewith that fact. The good news
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is Joe Biden is an excellent president. He passed He's passed monumental legislation in
his first term. He ended thelongest war in American history. He's supposted
job numbers that have Trump's own economicadvisor saying, wow that Joe Biden's sure
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doing a good job with the economy. It's not the reality of it has
and set in for a lot ofpeople. We're still dealing with some pretty
high, uh, some pretty highgrocery and gas prices that you know,
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the kitchen table issues, as they'recalled. So a lot of people are
still a little dissatisfied with Joe Biden. Hopefully over the next few months we'll
start feeling the effects of the thejob that he's done, and with that
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will come the alongside that will comethe realization that Donald Trump is just as
big a criminal as we've been tryingto tell everyone he is. There is
going to be a trial beginning inMarch in New York, and there is
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going to be a trial in Georgia, and there is going to be a
trial in DC, and there isgoing to be a trial in Florida.
Donald Trump is going to be ontrial for the rest of the year,
and hopefully when it's all over,he'll be in jail for the rest of
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his life. I'd rather have,as Eric Swolwell of the House of Representatives
said, I'd rather have an eightyone year old man than a man with
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ninety one felony counts. There's morestuff going on, but like I said,
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it's all got me pretty weary.I'll actually be surprised if anybody listens
to this podcast all the way tothe end. Anyway, thank you for
listening. I'll talk to you morelater.
I'm Stephen Monteeth and I'm to talkabout politics, what's going on in the
United States and the world, fromSunday the eleventh to Saturday the seventeenth this
last week. First, let's startwith the Super Bowl. I didn't watch
(00:25):
it, but I'm told the KansasCity Chiefs won, so bravo for them.
Good work. I don't watch superBowl, but I can appreciate,
you know, people who do.I don't have a problem with it.
I think it's very demanding sport,and I'm glad that it was an exciting
game. I hear that it's thatit was the most watched television program in
(00:51):
television history. Now that's I'm sureat least partially due to the fact that
that Travis Kelcey, who plays forKansas City, is dating Taylor Swift and
she's been showing up at football gamessupporting her boyfriend. That's very admirable.
(01:15):
Can't imagine anybody having a problem withthat, and yet people have a problem
with that. My goodness, TaylorSwift. I don't listen to her music,
So this is basically a double whammyof things that I don't really care
about. But it's but it's alsoa double example of what I've called the
(01:42):
Hayes effect. I know that there'sthe things that I care about there within
my attention. I can think aboutthem without having to look them up because
I care that much about them,and everything else is just sort of hazy
out there. But every now andthen, something from within the haze intrudes
(02:04):
on my attention and I'm kind offorced to pay attention to it. So
now I'm kind of forced to payattention to football and Taylor Swift. For
some reason, people hate her.I don't get that. I mean,
(02:30):
she's she's, as far as Ican tell, a very inoffensive person.
You know, she's written a lotof songs, and she's made a lot
of money, you know, fromher fans who love her songs. She's
technically a billionaire, and all ofit comes from her music. A lot
(02:53):
of musicians when they get when theyget really rich, they're like Rihanna,
who has her her fashion and fragrancelines and whatnot. But Taylor Swift apparently
doesn't have any of that. Shejust has her music and her fans,
(03:14):
and her fans love her so muchthat they listen to her music so much
that she's just playing rich, andI think that's a that's a good thing
because she turns right around and givesthat money to people who need it.
Every stop on her on her musictours, she donates to local food banks
(03:39):
and in and not just in tokenamounts either in really high amounts. I
don't have the figures in front ofme, but you can look them up.
She pays the people who work forher very well. She's not like
one of those billionaire CEOs who whoforces their people to work themselves to death
(04:02):
so that they can just barely getenough to stay in their apartments and while
they reap in all the profits.No, Taylor pays her people very well.
She gives them bonuses, especially tothe people who drive her all around
from one stop to another. Andshe's also not one of these She's not
(04:31):
one of these problematic stars who whois constantly getting in fights with the people
who work for her. She doesn'tslap her people around, she doesn't insult
them. Yeah, she's just avery nice person who who, like I
said, is a very good singerand people love her for it. So
(04:59):
why do people hate her? Well, it really has to do with the
specific people who hate her. Allof the hate for Taylor Swift is coming
from the right. It's coming fromthe hard right wing of the American political
(05:27):
spectrum. They are coming up withthe weirdest theories about her, the weirdest
stuff. And they didn't start comingup with all these theories until just a
few years ago when she started supportingDemocrats for office, especially Joe Biden.
(05:57):
I mean, it's not like she'sobnoxious about it either. I mean,
there was a theory that gained acertain amount of traction that if the Chiefs
did win, which as I said, they did, that Taylor and Travis
were going to go out in themiddle of the field and encourage everybody vote
(06:17):
for Joe Biden. Didn't happen,of course, but it hid. But
like I said, it was atheory that was making the rounds. And
it wasn't just if the Chiefs won. It was a theory that the Chiefs
would have a manufactured win. Andthis is not the I mean, it's
(06:41):
not like the Chiefs are some underdog. They won the Super Bowl last year
too, and they've won it acouple of years before that too, from
what I hear. So it's notlike it's not like the CIA or the
Pentagon or somebody say, at all, right, what we've got to do
(07:02):
is make sure that this team winsthe super Bowl and that Taylor Swift's fans
love her so much that she becomesa billionaire and she starts dating from this
team that's going to win the superBowl because we're going to make it happen,
not because they could actually win iton their own. And it's and
(07:25):
it's just so ridiculous, but itactually reminds me of this X Files episode
from like thirty years ago. Inthe X Files, there was this there
was this overarching plot about how thedark, shady organization, the government within
(07:47):
the government, was running everything,and there was and there was sort of
a comedic episode that showed the lifeand times of one of these dark government
figures who's known as the cigarette smokingMan, because that's pretty much all we
know about him is that he smokescigarettes. That's all we knew about him
(08:11):
for the first few seasons. Butthen we finally get this episode where we
learn about his life and what hedoes and all the stuff he does behind
the scenes. They and they hadthis one little jokey scene in one of
the episodes where it turns out thathe was responsible for the Buffalo Bills losing
(08:31):
the Super Bowl like four times ina row. And I guess the people
who came up with this crazy superBowl theory must have really been fans of
the X Files, like really crazyfans of the X Files, because they
must have taken that very seriously anddecided that, you know, when the
(08:56):
that the Chiefs were going to win, because it was a big setup,
just that Taylor and Travis could telleverybody to vote Democrat in November. My
goodness, life must be very boringfor these people if this is what they
come up with to explain the stuffthat happens. But that wasn't the only
(09:22):
reason that people on the right weregetting riled up by the Super Bowl.
There was also a moment after thesinging of the national anthem, which is
traditional of course at sporting events inthe United States. He sing the national
(09:43):
anthem, but after that was sungAndre Day sang a song called lift every
Voice and Sing. Now. Thissong is over a century old. It's
in a lot of Christian hymnals acrossthe country, So you would think that
(10:03):
religious people on the right would behappy that a hymn like this is sung
at a sporting event, you know, not just getting some national patriotism in
there, but also getting some religiousfervor before the game starts. But they're
mad about it because it's known asthe Black national anthem. I mean,
(10:33):
I'm not gonna get into how manyblack people play American football, how many
black people were in the stands thatday, how many black people were watching.
I'm just going to say that ifyou're upset because they sang a hymn,
(10:54):
a hymn called lift every Voice andsing, just because if you're upset
about that, just because that songmight mean more to black people than it
means to white people, then you'vegot some problems that you need to address.
(11:16):
You can look up the lyrics toit. There's nothing offensive about it
at all, even for somebody who'satheistic, you know, just reading these
these lyrics, they're very inspiring,they're very they're very moving. It's not
an offensive song. The only reasonpeople are mad about it is because it
(11:39):
might mean more to black people thanit does to white people. That's the
only reason, and it's a sadreason. Trust me. People on the
right are doing a lot more topoliticize the Super Bowl than people on the
lae left are. And then,of course there was a tragedy super Bowl
(12:13):
related this last Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, there was a celebration about
the Chiefs win. There was aparade in Kansas City and there were there
(12:33):
were some shooters. Two young peoplewere I don't know how young they were.
The reports just say they were juveniles, and they shot a bunch of
people. One person was dead,twenty two were wounded. There were over
(13:03):
eight hundred law enforcement officers watching theparade, and that's not even including officers
with sniper rifles on rooftops keeping theireyes open. It's not like I blame
(13:24):
those officers for not being able tostop the shooters before it got Before it
got to the point that it did, they obviously stopped it before it got
worse. But gun violence in Americadefinitely keeps getting worse. I've done podcasts
(13:52):
on it before and I and Iam feeling wearied just thinking about all the
times I have tried to tried toraise awareness for this issue and try to
tell people that we need to dosomething. I've changed my mind about a
(14:13):
lot of so called political issues overthe years. I've gone back and forth
on the spectrum. But gun violenceis one area in which I have never
wavered. I've always believed that weneed more gun control in this country.
(14:37):
And if you think that Sunday morning, after a shooting on last Wednesday is
too early to be talking about this, then just pretend that what happened on
Wednesday didn't happen, and pretend thatI'm talking about a shooting spree that happened
(14:58):
before that, because there have beena lot of shootings freeze this year.
We're just barely over halfway through February, and there have already been far too
many people who've died from gun violencethis year. It's always too soon,
(15:28):
and it's always too late. Weneed to do something now. Okay,
moving on from Super Bowl related items, Let's talk a little bit about Let's
(15:52):
talk a little bit about Congress,as if it wasn't detestable enough the subject
matter. Last week I talked abouthow they were trying to impeach Alejandro Mayorcus,
the Secretary of Homeland Security. Wealththey succeeded this last week. They
(16:15):
were finally able to get it done. Republicans in the House of Representatives weren't
able to impeach him. The weekbefore they were deadlocked. They were tied
(16:36):
two fifteen to two point fifteen,and so, in a procedural move,
one Republican switched to a no voteso that they could reconsider it, reconsider
the matter, and vote again onTuesday of last week. Now, the
(16:56):
vote in the House of Representatives onTuesday was two fourteen to two thirteen.
You know what else happened on Tuesdayof last week, George Santos's old congressional
district voted to replace him with aDemocrat named Tom Swosey. Now, Tom
(17:27):
Swosey actually served in that same seatbefore George Santos served in it, and
now he'll be filling out Santa's theremainder of Santos's term after he was kicked
out of Congress for basically being thebiggest fraud in modern politics, aside from
Donald Trump himself. Here's the thing. When Antonin Scalia, Justice Scalia from
(18:00):
the Supreme Court died in twenty sixteen, exactly eight years ago, Senate Republicans
at the time refused to allow thepresident at the time, Barack Obama,
to select a replacement for Scalia becausethere was a presidential election coming up in
(18:25):
nine months, and they argued theAmerican people should get to decide who should
pick the next Supreme Court justice.In just a few days before the House
took its second vote on impeaching,Secretary of Majorcis Jim Jordan, a Republican
(18:48):
in the House, said that theHouse shouldn't vote on the Senate's forthcoming border
security legislation for the same reason,because there's an election coming in November,
and we should wait until then tolet the American people decide. Forgetting for
(19:11):
the moment that that would mean anentire year of not doing anything about border
security, something that Republicans claim isenough of a problem to impeach Majorcis over,
Let's see if we can apply theirlogic to the impeachment vote. Since
(19:37):
George Santos' district was just about tovote the same day as the impeachment vote
was taking place, shouldn't House Republicanshave waited until George Santos's replacement was chosen
and seated in the House before theyheld the vote. Shouldn't they have allowed
(20:03):
the American people to decide. Believeme, people, it's never about letting
the American people decide. They wantedto get majorcis out as quickly as possible.
And guess what else they did lastweek? They called a recess two
(20:30):
weeks. They're going to be outof Congress. They're not going to be
there. No border legislation is goingto get passed at all, and you
can bet that when they're back itwon't be passed anyway. But you know
what else isn't going to get done. We're not going to get the government
(20:53):
funded. There's a funding deadline.We're coming up on yet another one in
the beginning of March, and theHouse is taking a break until basically right
up until the deadline. So notonly did they get the impeachment that they
(21:15):
wanted on a member of President Biden'sadministration, but it looks like they're also
going to get the government shut downthey've been so anxious to get ever since
they kicked Kevin McCarthy out of thespeakership for daring to cut a deal with
Democrats to keep the government from shuttingdown. They want the government shut down,
(21:41):
they want the border to be ina terrible state. They want all
of it to happen because there's apresidential election in just under nine months.
They're hoping that the American people willsay, look, how terrible the country
(22:03):
is, let's make sure that wevote in Republicans so that they can fix
it. There are Republicans in controlof the House of Representatives right now,
and they are doing everything they canto make sure that nothing gets fixed.
(22:36):
Speaking of Republicans who don't want anythingto get fixed, Donald Trump has been
pushing for all of this to happen, and it's serving as a pretty big
(23:00):
distraction from the fact that he iscurrently in the midst of a legal hurricane.
You can look at this as goodnews if you want. You can.
(23:22):
You can say, oh good,we're moving on from the bad news.
Now we're moving into the good news. Part of me agrees with you,
but part of me is just asweary about this as I am about
all the rest of it. OnFriday, Donald Trump had received his verdict
(23:49):
in the fraud trial in New York. Now this is not a This is
not one of his criminal trials.There are still four criminal trials pending for
Donald Trump, a total of ninetyone separate felonies. He's been charged with
in these four different trials in fourdifferent states, one of which is New
(24:11):
York. Now, this is acivil trial determining how much Donald Trump should
pay in penalties for committing business fraudin New York. Now, it's already
been determined. It was determined lastyear, last fall, that he committed
(24:37):
business fraud. The months since thenhave just been about determining how much fraud
he and his adult sons, DonaldJunior and Eric are liable for what their
punishment should be, trying to getthrough all the fine details of just how
(25:03):
much fraud they committed and how muchit's all worth. Now, if you
want to know what kind of fraudhe committed and why it's such a big
deal, Basically, he lied onhis bank loans. His bank loan applications
(25:27):
are full of lies. I mean, that's essentially what's going on here.
And he says that it's not acrime because well, he paid back his
loans. But here's the thing,it's still a crime to lie on your
applications. If I go down tothe bank and I apply for a loan
(25:49):
and they say, hey, well, do you have any collateral, and
I tell them that I've got acar that's worth fifty thousand dollars and it's
not even worth the fifth that much. It doesn't matter if I pay the
loan back, I still lied tothem, and I can still be forced
to pay a penalty. Trump didthe same thing, but on a much,
(26:12):
much, much larger scale. Hehe he's basically being person he's basically
being charged with needing to pay backthree hundred and fifty five million dollars.
(26:37):
That should tell you. That shouldgive you an idea of just how much
he's lied on his business papers overthe last however many years, it's been
on how many banks he's lied to, on how much he's how much fraud
he's committed. He those three hundredand fifty five million dollars. Now,
(27:04):
if he theoretically paid all that offtomorrow, then then that would be all
that he owes. But you canprobably tell that he's not going to be
able to pay all that off atonce, so there's going to be interest
(27:25):
on that, and there are someestimates saying it could go as high as
half a billion dollars that he owes. And it's not just the money.
He is personally barred from doing anybusiness in New York for the next three
(27:45):
years. His two adult sons arebarred from doing business there, for two
years each. Now this is ontop of a bunch of other times that
they've been found to have committed fraudin New York. This is not their
first defense. The Trump organization hasbeen found guilty of tax fraud before criminal
(28:11):
tax fraud. They his kids arebasically barred from from operating charities in New
York because the last time they triedto operate a charity in New York,
they essentially embezzled from it. Embezzlingmoney from a charity. So it's so
(28:38):
it's not like this is a newthing for them. Now, there was
that four year period in which DonaldTrump was president and basically untouchable by the
law. But now he's citizen Trumpagain, and now the wheels of justice
are turning again. He's back inthe legal systems. He's already been found
(29:07):
liable as a matter of law orcommitting sexual assaults against Eachen Carol for defaming
her. He's been ordered to payalmost ninety million dollars to her for what
he's done to her over the years. And now there's this verdict which says
(29:33):
he owes three hundred and fifty fivemillion dollars and he's not allowed to run
a business in New York for atleast three years. The wheels of justice
are turning, and they're going tokeep turning because, like I said,
he still has ninety one felonies toanswer for in four different courts. Currently,
(30:00):
only one of those trials is actuallyscheduled. Because he's been throwing as
much trash into the gears as hecan to try and get them to stop
turning. He's been having his lawyersfile all kinds of appeals and paperwork and
(30:22):
everything to slow things down as muchas possible because he thinks that he's going
to be elected president in November andthat he can just call off all the
investigations at that point, he canjust call off all the prosecutions. But
even if he is elected in November, he's still not going to be able
(30:48):
to call off the New York fraudcase fraud cases verdict, because that's New
York's thing. He can't just forgivehimself for that, he can't just pardon
himself for it. And he doeshave, like I said, at least
one of those cases, one ofthose criminal cases, scheduled for next month.
(31:15):
Jury selection is going to begin ina case about him and hush money
payments that he made to porn starStormy Daniels. That is going to take
place in the next couple of months, so and the other three. Who
(31:37):
knows when that's going to happen.He can slow things down, but he
can't stop them. He can't stopthe wheels from turning. He's going to
get grinded in them. Justice iscoming for Donald Trump. So far,
(31:59):
it's just been civil penalties and fines. Pretty soon it's going to be criminal
convictions. There's I mean, he'sprobably not going to be convicted on all
ninety one separate felonies, but there'sno way that he's going to be acquitted
(32:21):
on all of them, and hecertainly can't pardon himself on all of them.
It would be really great. Itwould be really great if he was
convicted, found guilty, and allthe appeals open to him were settled by
(32:50):
the time November rolls around. Butconsidering how how much he has been able
to slow things down up to thispoint, it probably won't happen. So
we're still going to need to voteagainst him in November. We're still going
(33:15):
to need to come together, justlike we did in twenty twenty and vote
for Joe Biden, because, let'sface it, Joe Biden is going to
be the nominee in November. Barringan actual medical impairment that keeps him from
(33:38):
performing the rest of his duties aspresident, He's still going to be the
Democratic nominee, and Trump, barringa miracle, is still going to be
the Republican nominee. A lot ofpeople are upset that this is apparently a
(33:59):
rematch that nobody wanted. I didn'twant it. I wanted Pete Bootage Edge
to be president. But we're gettingit. We're getting an unprecedented presidential rematch,
and we're going to have to livewith that fact. The good news
(34:24):
is Joe Biden is an excellent president. He passed He's passed monumental legislation in
his first term. He ended thelongest war in American history. He's supposted
job numbers that have Trump's own economicadvisor saying, wow that Joe Biden's sure
(34:49):
doing a good job with the economy. It's not the reality of it has
and set in for a lot ofpeople. We're still dealing with some pretty
high, uh, some pretty highgrocery and gas prices that you know,
(35:12):
the kitchen table issues, as they'recalled. So a lot of people are
still a little dissatisfied with Joe Biden. Hopefully over the next few months we'll
start feeling the effects of the thejob that he's done, and with that
(35:36):
will come the alongside that will comethe realization that Donald Trump is just as
big a criminal as we've been tryingto tell everyone he is. There is
going to be a trial beginning inMarch in New York, and there is
(36:02):
going to be a trial in Georgia, and there is going to be a
trial in DC, and there isgoing to be a trial in Florida.
Donald Trump is going to be ontrial for the rest of the year,
and hopefully when it's all over,he'll be in jail for the rest of
(36:23):
his life. I'd rather have,as Eric Swolwell of the House of Representatives
said, I'd rather have an eightyone year old man than a man with
(36:44):
ninety one felony counts. There's morestuff going on, but like I said,
(37:05):
it's all got me pretty weary.I'll actually be surprised if anybody listens
to this podcast all the way tothe end. Anyway, thank you for
listening. I'll talk to you morelater.
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