0:31

Don't

0:31

believe me? Just watch. All

0:33

right. It's Monday, September

0:36

18th. Will Meniker here, joined

0:38

by Matt and Felix. We've we're

0:40

back. Chopper's back for you guys. Got a full slate

0:43

of things to discuss today.

0:44

But I suppose I will begin today

0:47

by saying I have I have but one

0:49

thing. Actually no, I have three things to say. And

0:52

they are as follows.

0:54

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. It's

0:56

showtime.

0:59

The musical looks like we're not invisible

1:02

anymore. Our

1:06

girl Lauren Bobert Lauren

1:08

Bobert back again, you know, like exercising

1:11

in the flower of her youth. We all remember

1:13

Lauren Bobert. Her tainted sliders

1:16

from her shooters barn grill made

1:18

dozens explode with bloody

1:21

diarrhea. Well, folks, it seems looks

1:23

like Lauren is seeking to elicit a different bodily

1:25

reaction this time from her date during

1:28

Beetlejuice the musical. I

1:30

don't know where to begin with this. So I'll just say you

1:33

can vape in Beetlejuice the musical.

1:35

I'm sorry. This is not the London Philharmonic.

1:38

This is not the Met Opera. You should be

1:40

allowed to vape indoors during the performance

1:42

of Beetlejuice the musical. And

1:44

you should also be able to give your date a dry hand. We

1:47

have gotten so many. We've heard

1:49

like a million bullshit excuses

1:52

for why we can't vape in a theater. And sometimes

1:54

it's like,

1:55

oh, this theater is 300 years old,

1:57

like Hamilton performed.

3:59

taxes. It's

4:01

an idiot lasagna. I mean, look,

4:05

as the article goes on here, the co-owner

4:07

of Hoochcraft Cocktail Bar, but

4:09

it says, according to New York Post, Gallagher

4:11

is a registered Democrat and Hoochcraft

4:14

Cocktail Bar is a gay-friendly bar

4:16

that hosted a winter wonderland

4:18

burlesque and drag show back in January

4:21

per an invitation advertising the event on social

4:24

media. Now, people will certainly

4:26

comment on the juxtaposition

4:29

of ardent culture warrior and anti-gay,

4:32

anti-drag, anti-trans demagogue

4:35

Lauren Boebert dating a

4:37

registered Democrat who runs a bar that

4:40

hosts drag-themed events

4:42

at it. But I think they're overlooking a much

4:44

more important piece of commonality

4:46

between these two individuals is that they're both

4:48

bar and grill owners. And I

4:51

think in Colorado, that supersedes,

4:53

you know, these petty culture war disputes.

4:56

Yeah, yeah, part of the same class, which

4:58

what is that? Oh, it matters more. What a shock. I

5:01

can't believe it. If I was Lauren Boebert,

5:03

and the doofus

5:06

that she's with, I would

5:08

start hiring protection because Colorado,

5:10

like you are right, Colorado is, it's

5:13

like a sanctuary for

5:15

modern day hoople heads, you might say.

5:18

Yeah, it's a stupid state. It's a

5:20

really stupid state. But Colorado's

5:23

governor is he post on

5:25

r slash neoliberal. He's

5:27

like a von Meisser Institute

5:30

Democrat. Jared

5:32

Paulus. Yeah, he's

5:35

really trying to make Colorado the

5:37

like Matt Iglesias, Yimbee

5:39

state. He's trying to give it like a good

5:43

image. And if like

5:45

people realize and remember, Lauren

5:47

Boebert, she's given crooked

5:50

hand Beezies up and down the Colorado

5:52

River. They're gonna be like, wait

5:55

a minute. I don't care if this state like, voted

5:58

for you by like 20 points. I don't This

6:00

is essentially like a bluer state

6:02

than New York in the last election

6:04

cycle. This

6:07

is a state for idiots. I'm

6:10

not going to build a super condo development here.

6:12

I'm not saying yes to anything in our backyard.

6:15

I mean, yeah, like, Polis is

6:17

the end-stage liberal

6:19

who's fully only a Democrat

6:22

for cultural issues. Like, that's

6:24

it. Otherwise, like, complete

6:26

libertarian economic

6:29

identity.

6:29

And

6:30

the premise of that is conservative social

6:33

views are stupid. They're dumb. They're

6:35

for hillbillies. They're for knuckle-draggers. And if the rest of

6:37

the citizens of Colorado can't rise above

6:39

that standard, he's going to be gone. He's going to

6:42

leave you people. Yeah. Well, I

6:44

hated, of course, Lauren Boebert had to

6:46

sort of humble herself and go on to O&N and

6:48

say, I was a little too eccentric.

6:51

I'm on the edge on a lot of things. Folks, the only one

6:53

on edge was her date. After not being

6:55

completed. I love

6:57

that her defense of this is like that she's a manic-fishing

7:00

grimo. Yeah. Like, her

7:02

kids are in college. Yeah,

7:05

she's a grandmother. Her kid has a kid.

7:09

And the fact that she lied about the vaping

7:11

before they found it. Oh, yeah, there's a fucking... Of course,

7:14

there's a fucking... Do you not think there are cameras everywhere

7:16

in public you fucking moron? You're going to be able to say,

7:18

oh, no, I wasn't vaping. There's a fucking

7:20

camera everywhere, idiot. And then she has to go

7:22

like... It's sort of the Reagan

7:25

thing with Iran-Contro. I still

7:27

believe I didn't vape, but the evidence tells

7:29

me that's not true. Like Hassan Minhaj,

7:32

he was communicating emotional truths. Oh,

7:34

my God, that motherfucker. Jesus

7:36

Christ. He didn't say. I'm sorry.

7:39

Oh, I can show it because it's in service of a punchline.

7:42

Oh, really? You have those? I'd love

7:44

to hear one. People

7:46

like you killed comedy by saying, it

7:49

can't be funny. Funny isn't enough. It has

7:51

to be politically meaningful. Well, that means you've

7:53

lost that standard. You can't say, oh, it's

7:56

at least funny because it's not fucking funny. Yeah,

7:58

there were people who were competing.

7:59

Hiring it to like Richard Pryor

8:02

or like Dave Chappelle joke where the

8:04

baby is selling a weed out of a limo.

8:07

And it's like, those are jokes.

8:10

Those are things that people applaud at the end of.

8:12

Yeah, this is stuff to make him look oppressed.

8:15

Yeah, and also like what are the

8:17

things that he lied about was that

8:20

it's rooted in a girl

8:22

rejecting in high school. Yeah,

8:24

insane. That's fucking insane.

8:27

He said that he invented this whole thing. Okay,

8:30

in reality, his son Minaj asked out

8:33

this girl he was friends with. He asked

8:35

for her to go to homecoming with him or some shit.

8:38

And she said, no, you know, I like you as a friend,

8:40

blah, blah, blah, blah.

8:41

And

8:42

like 25 years later,

8:45

he crashed this whole story where her family

8:48

could spy. It's like Romeo and Juliet

8:50

with a racial quid where they're like, we

8:52

actually were not letting our daughter

8:55

date a Muslim. And

8:57

it was this whole dramatic thing.

8:59

And it just did not happen.

9:01

None of it happened. And the first few times

9:04

he did it, he like put her name,

9:06

like he used her real name and picture. He's

9:09

insane. He's insane. It

9:13

seems turns once again, politics is just

9:15

sex. That's all it is. Your sides are

9:17

picked by the way your dick is bent. And then

9:20

everything follows that for perfect. It's a perversion

9:22

public. I don't, I don't like presumably

9:26

he's had sex like since

9:28

high school at least once. Yeah,

9:31

I just like, well, he had

9:33

to have sex to produce the daughter that had anthrax

9:36

splashed on her. Yeah, yeah.

9:39

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we'll get to that. But it's

9:41

like, how do you hold

9:43

on to like one rejection from

9:45

high school? You're like, that's the

9:48

population of this fucking country you're talking

9:50

to. Like how many people politics

9:52

is entirely based on some sexual,

9:55

probably trauma in high school that they've never

9:57

gotten to have. And you know what? Oh

12:00

boy, is he breathing easy after the Russell Brand

12:02

news this weekend? He's gonna

12:04

take it a big load off. It was like oh, whoo,

12:07

dodge that in New Yorker profile No one

12:09

gives a shit about that anymore. Yeah, Russell

12:12

Brand really he dove in front of him Yeah,

12:15

the Russell Brand thing's been funny because it's a

12:17

bunch of people who are like, come on Could

12:20

you um before this article could you

12:22

imagine this guy raping anyone? This

12:26

is clearly a hit this Well,

12:28

that's that's the that's the thing is that the

12:31

this idea that he is being targeted because

12:34

he's too dangerous to the regime That

12:37

just it's like I kind

12:39

of get where the basis of that comes from because

12:42

you know, these kind of stories are Organized,

12:45

you know, like right at a newspaper

12:47

or a magazine's like this guy I'm gonna look into

12:49

them and you're thinking you're or

12:51

you can argue if you're a certain frame of mind Oh, yeah,

12:54

they got a deep state call. You

12:56

got to take out brand He's saying

12:58

too much confusing gibberish to people. It's

13:00

gonna make them do something This

13:02

far of getting to the Greek has too much of a

13:04

purchase on the youth of the West But

13:07

there's another thing there's another possibility that

13:09

just by being who he is He's very annoying

13:12

and people decide, you know what? Maybe this

13:14

hey, maybe all the stories I heard about this incredibly

13:17

annoying person that like have permeated

13:19

England for like 20 years Maybe I

13:21

could check into some of those and oh, wow Look at that

13:24

the incredibly annoying person has some skeletons

13:26

in their closet Yeah, they went after

13:28

him but not because he's gonna bring down their team because

13:31

fucking irritating, right? It's like kind

13:33

of half-true in this way, right? where it's

13:35

like these stories were out there

13:37

before but like No one

13:40

there was no impetus to do this

13:42

because like, you know, you could

13:44

say oh he was like useful to Paramount

13:47

or universal or whatever like he was in right?

13:50

Yeah, and now that he's not in anymore

13:53

now that he Does

13:55

the lowest form of entertainment which is making

13:57

YouTube videos arguing about medicine?

14:01

Just I don't know how anyone watches that.

14:04

Look, if the vaccines like

14:06

make your dick fall off, I still wouldn't

14:08

watch that stuff. It's so boring.

14:10

I don't want to see anyone go like,

14:13

oh, but there's a Quando

14:15

Rondo Five in it. I don't give

14:17

a shit. Shut the fuck up. But,

14:21

you know, yeah, it's easier to do this story

14:24

when he's not in movies anymore. That

14:27

aspect's certainly true. But

14:30

it's just like, okay, do you think that

14:32

they were lying when they planted the seeds

14:34

of this story 20 years ago? When

14:37

like Danny Minogue was like, this

14:39

guy's a fucking creep in 2006. Like,

14:42

no, this has been like an open secret for

14:45

an incredibly long time. But it still

14:47

takes like a particular impetus

14:50

to bring it into focus.

14:52

And that's the thing, that process

14:54

that is an inevitable part of

14:56

any journalistic conveyor

14:59

belt, that is completely compromised.

15:01

Like there is no collective faith in

15:04

that process anymore. There

15:06

is no collective assimilation

15:08

of any story anymore because your

15:11

preexisting relationship to the subject

15:13

of the story determines your analysis

15:17

of the process that you found out about it. Right.

15:21

And as such, like all the people are like, oh, thank

15:23

God, I'm not gonna have to see him anymore. Unfortunately,

15:26

you're mistaken because if he

15:29

was still in movies, yes, that might be the case.

15:31

But if your audience is

15:33

there to watch you argue about medicine,

15:36

it does not matter what they say you did in

15:38

an article. You're still gonna see him.

15:40

He's still gonna be making those videos about

15:42

that damn medicine. And you know, you

15:46

can walk around in your head thinking that Russell

15:48

Brand is now talking about medicine and not starring

15:50

in movies because he cares so much

15:52

about the medicine. He cares just so darn much

15:55

about America and the UK

15:57

and the future. And that if he was

15:59

still able to.

17:37

adults.

18:01

Drag themed bars are events for

18:03

adults. You're already musical for children

18:06

just going to town

18:09

on a guy's dick. A guy

18:11

who asked Greg shows at his bar. Oh

18:13

my god. Well, maybe she's trying to win him back

18:16

for the heteros. She's

18:18

on a secret mission. But I mean, we're really

18:20

seeing here what happens when like

18:23

the true believing small

18:25

bourgeois maniacs make it into power.

18:28

Because remember that the

18:31

anti squad, the ladies who entered Congress,

18:33

the QAnon contingent was Marjorie

18:36

Taylor Greene and Boebert. And

18:38

Marjorie Taylor Greene came in as like the more fire

18:41

breathing one of them. Yeah. Who also

18:43

is in a deep red district in Northern Georgia

18:45

that she has no chance of ever being removed from. And

18:48

she came and immediately cut to leadership and

18:50

became a little, little soldier of Kevin McCarthy.

18:53

Boebert goes in there, fuck you. She's one

18:55

of those people who like made them vote 50 times

18:58

to let the idiot become a speaker of the

19:00

house. She's still like at maximal

19:02

conflict with leadership. But here she is

19:04

jacking off a guy doing drag

19:06

team story time already, after

19:09

what, barely getting reelected, her

19:11

first term. She's already just having

19:14

a good time with a fellow member of her class,

19:16

no longer fired with the desire

19:19

to, you know, change anything. And she's going,

19:21

she could just see her on her path to

19:23

total assimilation into it because yeah,

19:26

she divorced her loser husband and now she's

19:28

out on the town and there's going to be so many pleasures

19:31

dangled before her. Do you really think she's going

19:33

to still want to put her finger on the button? No, she's

19:35

going to want to jack a guy off at fucking, uh,

19:38

at Aladdin. Yeah.

19:40

You mentioned her loser husband though. She

19:43

did say that, um, she said she called

19:45

criticism of her behavior at the show, difficult

19:48

and humbling and said, well, none of my actions

19:50

or words as a private citizen that night were intended

19:52

to be malicious or meant to cause harm. The

19:54

reality is they did. And I regret that. She

19:57

also cited her public and difficult divorce

19:59

and said her being. simply fell short of her

20:01

values. You will remember, of course, the

20:04

man that she's getting divorced from was the guy who

20:06

exposed himself to lab teenagers at a bowling

20:08

alley. And then she defended him for that,

20:10

too. Beautiful. Welcome

20:13

to the club, Lauren. But Matt, you made a point

20:15

recently about how, like, Boebert

20:18

and Margaret Hiller-Green coming in in the anti-squad

20:20

class. Margaret Hiller-Green becoming

20:22

a lickspittle of, you know, the McCarthy

20:25

and, you know, the establishment Republican Party. And

20:28

then Boebert doing the opposite, but barely,

20:30

barely winning reelection. And here's the thing. Margaret

20:33

Hiller-Green is something in fonking, like CrossFit

20:35

instructors and, you know, yogits.

20:37

You see, she's stepping down all the time. Thank

20:40

you, motherfucker. She is hot to trot. She's

20:42

a goer. But the thing is, she's getting

20:44

away with it because she's ugly. And Lauren

20:47

Boebert is, by the standards of politics,

20:49

pretty damn, she's a firecracker. By

20:52

the standards of Congress. Yeah, you

20:54

got it. Remember, we're dealing at a wildly

20:57

perverted curve here. Yes. Diane

20:59

Feinstein is, like, right in the middle of the bell curve

21:02

here. Yeah. Thank you both for

21:04

the hotter members of Congress. Mitch

21:06

McConnell is like BMOC, big

21:08

man on campus. Felix,

21:12

I was thinking about you because, you know,

21:15

I myself am taking part in it right now.

21:17

One of my favorite, anytime sort of like a

21:20

Palin figure and her hijinks makes

21:22

the national news. We get a very good

21:25

display of horny libs. Yeah.

21:27

So just being like, I'll give

21:30

her some of my Beetlejuice if you know what I'm talking

21:32

about. Yeah, I'd like to

21:34

give her a hanging Chad. The

21:38

Horned Up Libs, the Horned Up Libs, myself

21:40

included, are loving this one. I

21:43

love those guys. I was so

21:45

happy to see that Brian rediscovered that

21:47

image. Did you see

21:51

Sarah Palin block me for this recently?

21:53

Really? What is Sarah up to these

21:55

days? Well, I'll tell you. She just got

21:58

divorced. She just got divorced. She's doing her semester. abroad.

22:00

Yeah, she made a video where

22:03

it's like her and one of her imbecile

22:05

daughters, they're going to an exhibit

22:07

that's like Van Gogh for children basically.

22:11

It's like a huge like

22:13

playroom style thing where you can walk around

22:16

a room that's like the dream.

22:18

And she used

22:22

like Windows Movie Maker or something and composed

22:24

such a weird style that I said

22:27

it was like, you know, it's the feeling of

22:29

taking too much Nyquil. It's like dreaming.

22:32

It's like you take that fifth Benadryl

22:34

right before you start seeing spiders. And

22:37

she is doing semester

22:39

abroad with her daughter, which like, I

22:41

have to say, as I predicted, if

22:44

you have a kid young enough like Sarah

22:46

Palin did, you know, she had a kid when she was like 20,

22:49

eventually, that kid's going to get older

22:51

than you. Sarah Palin is like 49 now her

22:53

daughter's 52. It's just

22:57

gonna happen. It just they're going to surpass

23:00

you. They're going to get older than you. You're young enough. Yeah,

23:03

I will say though, I got a few other stories here. Lauren

23:06

Boebert is is really not the only one.

23:08

There's been a lot of news out of Congress this

23:10

week, of our elected representatives

23:13

or aspiring elected representatives, either

23:16

sludding it up or slobbing it up. And

23:18

I suppose we can start with John Federman

23:20

changing the Senate dress code so he can dress

23:23

like the guy from Smash Mouth

23:25

did RIP. Yeah, do

23:27

we have do we have audio of Ron condemning

23:29

this, by the way? Oh, yeah.

23:33

No, but I need that. I know that it dear

23:35

me to the hooting masses who love Donald

23:37

Trump more than life. It's turning

23:40

into the evil principle from

23:43

a rock and roll high school sequel. Yeah,

23:45

Governor DeSantis, 75%

23:48

of the voters you have to win wear t shirts that

23:50

are so big that they're basically calf tans.

23:53

How do you respond? You guys

23:54

want to hear some of that audio?

23:57

Yeah, it's really good. I appreciate it.

23:59

promise you

24:01

all

24:08

my gosh three-hearted

24:11

you guys here the u.s. senate just

24:14

eliminated its dress code because

24:17

you got this guy from pennsylvania well

24:20

i mean i have a problem but i mean let's

24:22

just be honest like how he got elected well

24:24

i mean he got elected because they didn't

24:26

want the alternative but um... he

24:28

wears like sweatshirt and hoodies

24:31

and shorts and that's his bank

24:33

so he would campaign in that which is your

24:35

product of right i mean about that you want to do to

24:38

show up in the united states senate with

24:40

that and not have the decency to

24:42

put on proper attire i think it's disrespectful

24:45

to the body and i think the fact that the

24:47

senate change the rules to accommodate

24:51

uh... you know i think looks speaks very

24:53

poorly uh... to how they consider

24:55

that what we need this country we need to be

24:57

lifting up our standard in this country not

25:00

counting down our standards in this country this

25:02

is an example of why uh... perfect

25:05

now that they've been a bit of a people

25:08

are going to rally to the banner for the

25:10

story yes yeah no no i think there's

25:12

one thing the american voters really care about in twenty

25:14

twenty three it's a showing the proper respect

25:16

for the united states senate but this is a show

25:19

like fetterman i'm sorry like

25:21

if you are a electoral reformist

25:24

who is seeking like some uh... some

25:26

sort of dialectical synthesis who can like

25:28

actually carry forward what you imagine

25:31

to be a progressive version of the democratic

25:33

party and you know good luck if that's what

25:35

you believe betterment is like your

25:38

fucking quits a kadarak here because he is

25:40

the only one who just by being who he

25:42

is actually breaks through the cultural

25:45

polarities

25:46

that like keep you

25:47

uh... in like a shrinking percentage of like

25:49

working-class voters like just by

25:51

being a flop like if you look at his margins

25:54

in pennsylvania and they were nailing him for that during

25:56

the the the primary two

25:58

and they were nailing them for literally have a stroke and

26:01

he wanted so many like Trump County.

26:04

And then he shows up at the Senate and the

26:07

Republicans who should by this point know

26:09

where their cultural bread is buttered, that they are,

26:12

if they have a future, it is at the no

26:14

college party, at the

26:17

not wearing a suit party, they

26:19

just can't resist. They go

26:21

after the only thing they can see about them. And it just,

26:24

it shatters and destroys their programming

26:26

that allows them to just effortlessly array

26:28

things in the right cultural war

26:31

sides. And he's the guy, too bad

26:33

his brain apparently is not working

26:35

too good. Otherwise he would see the guy. Yeah,

26:38

I mean better the XXL

26:40

shorts and slide ons than

26:43

a hospital gown. I

26:46

mean I could care less if

26:48

his brain works. Like if he votes

26:50

right, I could put my hands

26:52

over his eyes and he could think I could disappear.

26:55

I don't care. You know, whatever. The

26:58

real thing for me that prevents me from getting

27:00

excited about any future prospect is

27:03

he just like, I mean, it's a calculation

27:06

I get, but nonetheless hate, but

27:08

he immediately folded on Israel.

27:11

You know, he immediately. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah,

27:13

he immediately, you know, it was clear. I want

27:15

to, you know, I want to, I want to smooth

27:17

ride to the Senate. Yeah, you know,

27:20

there are, there are jobs

27:22

in which like even myself, like I

27:25

feel a certain level of like, again, totally symbolic

27:27

reassurance by having the people doing

27:29

the job wear a suit. Like for instance,

27:32

a pilot on an airplane. Like I

27:34

know, even though I know he's an okay pilot, like if

27:36

my, if the airline pilot was dressed like John Fetterman,

27:38

I'd be like, I don't know how good I feel about that.

27:40

Again, totally irrational, totally symbolic

27:43

thinking, but like I'm just, I'm admitting that on

27:45

my part. US Senator is not one

27:47

of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

27:51

They should, I'm sorry. They should have to wear the

27:53

sports jerseys of the States. They represent

27:56

the only thing that they're allowed to wear in the

27:58

Senate, the place where Jim Imhoff

28:00

wandered in with a fucking snowball and

28:02

waved it around to prove the global warming wasn't real.

28:05

We, we, we are lying by putting these

28:08

apes in suits. So that's, that's betterment

28:10

slobbing it up, but I just have two more examples

28:13

here. A politician's slobbing it up. Governor

28:17

Kristi Noem having supposedly allegedly

28:20

years long affair with Corey Lewandowski.

28:22

That is, I'm pretty surprised

28:25

by that one. I mean, like I knew

28:27

that Corey had gotten with Hope Hicks. That's

28:30

old news.

28:31

I'm not bad at better. Don't worry.

28:33

I'm not. Well, it just, it makes sense

28:36

because he was, he was sort of

28:38

like the alpha male in that campaign

28:40

and that was like her only option.

28:42

It's whatever,

28:42

you know, when I'm, when

28:45

I, when I, when I get with her, I don't

28:48

care who she's been with, but

28:50

I don't care about body counts. Yeah,

28:52

I don't actually Corey Lewandowski does because he's

28:55

got one. He's got two. I'm

28:57

not talking sex, but

28:59

I am impressed that he fucked a governor.

29:02

Yeah. That's pretty impressive to

29:04

me. His murderous pollock charm

29:07

worked on a governor

29:08

granted of one of the Dakotas.

29:11

Yeah. It's still like a half, two

29:13

and a half governor. Yeah.

29:15

But it's still, you know, she gets

29:17

invited to, she was on the shortlist

29:20

for BP's for

29:22

Trump. Yeah. Cool. And

29:24

finally we've got

29:27

house candidate from Virginia, Susanna

29:29

Gibson, a Democrat was

29:31

doing sex on chatter bait with

29:33

her husband for tips, which apparently violates

29:36

chatter baits rules. But I got to say,

29:39

Susanna Gibson, even hotter than

29:41

Lauren Boebert. Whoa, we got to get

29:43

her into Congress. We need to make this happen

29:45

quick. She listens to Chappell misogyny

29:47

hour. We attract this various

29:50

women and their sexual affairs. This

29:53

story is kind of charming to me because like,

29:56

okay, chatter bait. Yeah. I

29:58

thought that was a thing. Yeah,

30:00

that's very quaint. It was sending

30:02

her butthole on friend sir. Yeah,

30:05

it's very it's like it's like cute Yeah,

30:08

um, I just love in the the Washington Post

30:11

coverage of this story. It says here Susanna

30:13

Gibson a nurse practitioner Hello nurse

30:16

and mother of two young children running in a highly competitive

30:18

suburban Richmond district Scream

30:21

sex acts on chatter bait a platform

30:23

that says it takes its name from the act of masturbating

30:25

while chatting online Look, I actually

30:28

I give her a lot of credit for this because she's saying that

30:30

she's not dropping out of the race and that Like, you

30:32

know like this, you know attack on her, you know, sexuality

30:35

or personal autonomy or whatever I mean, I

30:37

just give her credit for not dropping out of the race over this,

30:39

you know, I got a Charlie got

30:41

a little side hustle, you know doing doing sex

30:43

on can I would really be interested in the Federal

30:46

Election Commission? Ruling on whether you

30:48

can show whole online for donation

30:52

This is United they better allow you to

30:54

show a whole for money It seems like it's implied

30:56

very heavily by Citizens United so

30:58

she should rinse funds that way. Absolutely

31:01

moving on from the the

31:03

hijinks of Congress Let's talk

31:06

about the hijinks of the Air Force who

31:09

have lost an f-35 Straight

31:12

up lost an f-35 and

31:14

it is from the Wall Street Journal an Advanced

31:16

Marine Corps f-35 B Jet

31:19

fighter. Oh, wow. This is like the you know, next is even more

31:21

next-gen here jet fighter went missing

31:23

Sunday after a mishap Forced the pilots

31:26

to eject the near Charleston, South Carolina The

31:28

pilot ejected safely and was being treated

31:30

at a local medical center But the plane couldn't be

31:32

found as of Sunday evening a spokesman from

31:35

joint base Charleston said this

31:37

is I know Chris Love this story. He loved

31:39

this this part of the story If

31:42

you have any information that may help our recovery teams

31:44

locate the f-35 Please call the base

31:46

Defense Operations Center. The post said they're

31:49

putting out a 1-800 number for

31:51

just the Charleston, South Carolina area. They're

31:53

like, hey, have you seen this missing f-35? If

31:56

so call this number now

31:58

friends listeners

32:00

If you are a chopplehead in the

32:02

Charleston or just South Carolina area,

32:04

we would like to engage your services in

32:07

the most epic treasure hunt of all times.

32:10

This is like Mr. Beast here. Find that

32:12

F-35 and sell it to us so we can sell it to the

32:14

Chinese. This is your Mr.

32:17

Beast style challenge. $3 trillion jet?

32:20

Shrugging? No, we should absolutely not

32:22

give it to the Saudis. I'm sorry,

32:24

we shouldn't give it to China. We like China,

32:26

we should give it to the Saudis. Yes,

32:28

yes.

32:32

The best thing about giving an exploding plane

32:34

to the Saudis is you're

32:38

not giving it to a poor conscript

32:40

who didn't want to be there. All

32:42

the Gulf monarchies, the

32:45

modern version of the cavalry, the

32:47

spot for the nobility, is flying

32:50

hybrid fighter air-to-ground

32:53

multi-role jets.

32:55

Things like the piece of shit

32:57

F-35.

32:58

You are guaranteed to kill a member

33:00

of the royal family. Yep. The head's going to

33:02

fly right off. Although apparently this guy

33:04

ejected without being decapitated, so… Matt,

33:08

keep in mind, this is the F-35B. Oh,

33:11

yeah. It's showing out a lot

33:13

of the decapitation problems with the F-35A. They

33:16

got the kinks out, doesn't cut your head off every

33:18

other time you eject anymore. Some

33:21

people have speculated that the plane could still be on autopilot

33:24

and they're still just cruising around out there

33:26

or something? Oh, man. It's hard to believe

33:28

that an F-35 could crash in South

33:30

Carolina and they're still like… Yeah, you

33:32

can't just… Anyone got any…? Like maybe

33:34

into the Blue Ridge Mountains or something, where nobody else?

33:37

I don't know. I like to think, yeah, it's still

33:39

out there. Just still cruising down the lane.

33:41

Because he dropped a hoagie onto a

33:43

big button that said eject. I

33:46

don't know. I need more explanation of how the guy

33:48

ejected accidentally while just flying

33:51

the thing. I need to know how that happened. Did

33:53

the plane do it? Did the plane hijack

33:55

itself? Are we at that point? Are we in the

33:57

plane's stealth? So

34:19

that's just a few of the things going on. But I'd like

34:21

now to transition into another

34:24

sort of like the big political story

34:26

of last week and this weekend,

34:28

which is the Mitt Romney's

34:31

sort of retirement victory lap. You

34:34

know, like he announced over the weekend

34:36

that... Wait, which victory?

34:39

What is the Romney trophy

34:42

chest filled with? Well, this is my point.

34:44

His victory is retiring now. And

34:46

his victory is in his video where

34:48

he announces that he will not seek reelection. He

34:51

just says, it's because I'm too

34:53

old. And it's clearly like

34:56

a pointed bar at both Biden and

34:58

Trump. But I love the troll of

35:01

Mitt Romney, who is the handsomest

35:03

and healthiest 80 year old man on

35:06

the planet. Just saying, sorry, can't

35:08

serve an office anymore. I'm simply too old

35:10

and infirm. He's stunting on

35:12

him and good on him for that. But

35:14

like what I would say, like his victory

35:17

retirement lap is that like he now

35:19

gets to like sort of bow

35:21

out as a statesman and sort of have his

35:23

version of events sort of chiseled

35:26

into the tablet of his career. You

35:28

know what I mean? And

35:31

mainly this takes a form of a McKay-Koppens

35:33

piece, which is an excerpt

35:35

from a book coming out. It's settled

35:38

what Mitt Romney saw in the Senate. And you know, like it's

35:40

about his horror at like, you know,

35:43

most of my party doesn't even believe in the Constitution

35:45

anymore. But it's just a way to him. So like I

35:47

said, like, shank Biden and

35:49

the Democrats who were so very mean to him when

35:51

he ran for president, also like make

35:54

a stance for kind of like, you know, the sensible,

35:57

you know, constitutional style Republican.

36:00

as opposed to the

36:02

barking hordes of MAGA Republicans

36:04

who view him as a traitor. Now I

36:07

thought this was best summed up by

36:10

that guy, you know that guy Noah Blum?

36:13

Yeah. Yeah, real shit heads. No, Noah

36:15

Blum can do the film and put them out of there. Wonderful

36:18

job. As I said, he

36:20

writes here, the way Romney was treated, 100%

36:22

set the stage for Republicans to

36:25

want something like Trump. And y'all better

36:27

come to terms with it. Bill, it's once again-

36:29

Fuck off. Even the neoconservatives

36:31

are getting soy now. Yeah, soy is

36:33

everywhere. Soy is universal. It's like coral

36:36

from Armored Core 6. It penetrates

36:38

all. I

36:40

have to say, if you're Mitt Romney and

36:42

you want it to be normal time again, your best

36:47

hope would be a Biden 2008 or better

36:50

style blowout against Trump. That's

36:55

the only thing you can... It has

36:57

to be seven points or greater. It has

36:59

to... Biden has to win in 2024 by

37:02

that much or you're

37:04

not going to get to be normal again. I'm sorry. That's

37:07

just the way it is. Yeah, that's for sure.

37:10

They need just a huge... Just a

37:12

massive repudiation. And

37:14

I don't know if old Joe's got it in him, frankly.

37:17

Yeah. Let's just say a lot

37:20

would need to happen, wouldn't it?

37:22

So by creating

37:24

for himself this self-authored

37:27

moment of statesman-like humility

37:30

and bowing out with grace, like

37:32

I said, he's a reward for that as he gets

37:34

to write his own story about his career.

37:38

Which before I dive into

37:40

the McKay-Copkins piece in

37:42

The Atlantic, I just want to say that

37:45

despite the way he talked

37:47

about, mostly among Democrats now, Mitt

37:49

Romney's career was just

37:52

a thousand times more destructive

37:54

to American lives than anything Donald

37:56

Trump ever did with his chintzy real estate scams

37:58

and naming life licensing rights and shit

38:01

like that. It's a perfect, that dichotomy

38:04

is just a perfect illustration of how

38:06

these people are able to mystify themselves. Because

38:08

Mitt Romney now has, through this narrative,

38:10

convinced himself, well, you know, this Trump stuff's

38:12

bad, but it's not because of my party or

38:14

my worldview. It's because the Democrats were too unfair

38:17

to me when I ran for president, because I'm a good guy and

38:19

I'm not like this guy, but they treated me like a bad guy.

38:22

Meanwhile, he is actually responsible

38:24

for Trump, but not because the Democrats

38:26

were mean to him, but because he was

38:29

one of the corporate pirates of a

38:31

class of people who systematically

38:33

dismantled the manufacturing

38:36

economies of the Midwestern states that

38:38

Trump won in 2026, 2016. Yeah.

38:42

So he is literally responsible for it. Because

38:44

he lives in the fantasy land of politics, he gets

38:46

to tell himself, you know, it did come down to

38:48

me, but it came down to Democrats being so mean to me.

38:51

Unlike everybody else in every other presidential

38:53

election in history, like what the fuck do you think

38:55

running an election is? You are

38:57

very mean to the other side. You try

39:00

to scare people into voting against them. That's

39:02

what's always been. Republicans don't do that.

39:05

Yeah. They said that John

39:07

Kerry gave himself a bump like a pro

39:09

wrestler. And

39:13

they were right. They were right to. The

39:15

little purple hearts at the convention,

39:18

you crying bitch. Yeah. It's

39:20

politics. You know, girl. Mitt

39:22

Romney, Mitt Romney was

39:25

strip mining, you know, medium sized

39:27

companies three at a time for

39:30

what we asked. It turns out

39:32

to eat demonious, textile meals

39:34

of frozen salmon on hamburger

39:36

buns while watching sub prestige

39:39

TV alone. You have

39:41

the real he has like a billion

39:43

dollars. That is just bone

39:46

shilling part about it is that he did this. He

39:48

is one of the people whose blood is on his hands

39:50

for the republic that he thinks he loves. And

39:53

this is the 30 pieces of silver he got. Yeah.

39:56

Duke Cunningham had a boat. You

40:00

have it like Marty Hart after the divorce.

40:03

Yeah. If I

40:06

was Mitt Romney and I'm doing like

40:08

the Mcbeth thing of like, look, I'm already

40:10

going to hell. Like I already, I did

40:12

all this shit. I bought,

40:15

I have like a billion dollars. I have this

40:17

body on poison by

40:20

vaping or alcohol

40:22

or anything. What am I doing

40:24

with my billion dollars? Um, I'm

40:26

getting two drifters to fight each other in my living

40:29

room. Um, I'm, you

40:31

know, doing stuff like that. I'm playing the most

40:33

dangerous game. I'm not watching Ted

40:35

Lasso eating a misery

40:38

salmon meal. I'm

40:40

scrolling, scrolling online. Like every

40:42

other, you could do that on

40:45

like sub minimum wage, man. You

40:47

need to destroy the lives of millions

40:49

of people so you can live the way that like a

40:51

depressed middle manager does. It's

40:54

really, it's really, really bad.

40:56

I mean, all the other private equity guys,

40:59

uh, like Henry Kravis from barbarians

41:01

at the gate, they live in

41:03

the coolest places ever. Are

41:05

these guys bad? Yes. They're some

41:07

of the worst Americans last 50 years, but

41:10

Henry Kravis lives in a three story

41:13

apartment with a swimming pool

41:16

in not in the building, like in his unit.

41:19

In unity pool. Yeah. Well,

41:21

pretty cool. Pretty cool stuff.

41:24

What you're talking about, I think sort of gets to the

41:26

heart of Mitt Romney, like as a national

41:28

figure and like the way for

41:30

like, for the, for whom, like for the people for whom

41:32

he represents this kind of like, uh,

41:35

the, the road not taken for

41:38

Republic, like I sort of constitutional moderate

41:40

Republican statesman to like, you know, she

41:42

shepherd our country and the way that he

41:44

was never, it never really got over despite

41:46

the fact that on paper, everything like he was a

41:48

popular governor of a democratic state, you

41:51

know, like Obamacare was his

41:53

healthcare plan. He got the Olympics, the salt lake city

41:55

record of success in business, popular

41:58

in both Utah and Massachusetts. in

42:00

his holding political office. But

42:02

here's the thing, we've talked about it before, and

42:05

I alluded to this in his trolling of Trump

42:07

and Biden for being like, I'm too old. If

42:09

you had told me Mitt Romney is 80, I'd be like, you're

42:11

lying, get the fuck out of here. He looks 50

42:14

years old. And it's an advertisement,

42:16

him and his gorgeous, huge family, it's

42:19

an advertisement for the Church of Latter-day

42:21

Saints. But here's the thing, he talked about it many times before

42:23

on the show, Mormons and Mitt Romney

42:25

himself is too American

42:28

for America. When

42:31

we encounter someone who looks

42:33

like the president in a movie and behaves

42:35

like it, or is more American than

42:37

we are, it frightens. Who

42:39

the fuck are you? What's this? We don't

42:41

relate to him. Take it better than me? Yeah, we

42:44

do not relate to that. Yeah, it's a real original

42:46

reason why Homer hates Ned Flanders.

42:49

Yes.

42:50

Blainous Diaz, neighboritos. I

42:52

handle Flanders, but my friends call me Ned.

42:55

Hi, Flanders. I mean, Biden

42:58

polls bad, sure. He

43:00

underperformed in his last

43:02

election, but people

43:05

are way more comfortable with

43:07

the idea of Biden as president than ever anyone

43:09

like Mitt Romney. You know?

43:12

Yeah, you can't imagine what's going on in his mind. The

43:14

only actual bigotry that prevented

43:17

Mitt Romney from becoming the Republican

43:19

president of the United States is from evangelical

43:21

Christians who regarded Mormons

43:23

as a wildly heretical Blaserners.

43:26

Like, I mean, I don't give a shit one way

43:28

or another. Which it is, but what do

43:31

you think evangelical shit is? That's

43:33

a sweat off my nose. It's the perfection

43:35

of American Christianity. It is, that

43:38

shit from the evangelicals is just hater

43:40

fuel. That is just iterate. You got

43:42

blown, you got beat. Joseph Smith,

43:44

he had a little bit of a step on you, and he

43:46

perfected American Christianity. Undrafted,

43:49

undrafted. We're hooting on jugs and

43:51

giving yourself strychnine poisoning. Joseph

43:53

Smith, he was from a

43:55

big East Conference school. No football there

43:57

at all. Undrafted, comes into the league.

44:00

of major American religions blows

44:02

everyone out of the water. Evangelicals are

44:04

fucking, they're broke. They

44:06

want to be ballers. Divorced multiple

44:09

times. Yeah, they suck. What

44:11

have we, we've said it a million times. Mormons

44:13

are everything they pretend to be. Indeed.

44:17

Evangelicals have to do this like, um, subterfuge

44:19

where they draw Jesus in increasingly

44:22

like whiter shades to make him look more and more

44:24

American. Uh, Mormons are like,

44:26

no, he was American. He was American. He

44:28

came to hear. Yeah. That's

44:31

called going for it. Yeah. They didn't give

44:33

a fuck and they, they paid. It's like, I'm

44:35

sorry. You guys couldn't handle being Mormon.

44:38

You could not stand up to the rigors of it.

44:40

So just go to your mega church. Yeah.

44:43

No, and no evangelical could handle the

44:45

pressure of being a God on a planet.

44:47

Oh my God. Running, running

44:50

their own planet. They can't even run Liberty

44:52

University. Just a

44:57

little bit from the Atlantic article. Cause like

44:59

in addition to his mind of Jason fail

45:01

meals, there's some pretty, pretty good color

45:04

about Mitt Romney, including this first paragraph for

45:06

most of his life. Mitt Romney has nursed a

45:08

morbid fascination with his own death,

45:11

suspecting that it might assert itself one day suddenly

45:13

and violently. I mean, like, bro,

45:16

you've won. You're in your eighties and could

45:18

probably run a marathon tomorrow. Like

45:21

just forget about it, dude. Just take a load

45:23

off. Like it doesn't matter. But

45:25

he says he controls what he can. Of course

45:27

he wears his seatbelt and diligently applies

45:29

sunscreen and stays away from secondhand smoke

45:32

for decades. He's followed his doctor's recipe

45:34

for longevity with monastic dedication. The

45:37

lean meats, the low dose aspirin,

45:39

the daily 30 minutes a sessions on the stationary

45:41

bike, heartbeat at one 40 or higher. It

45:43

doesn't count. He would live to be 120

45:46

if he could. So much is going to happen.

45:48

He says when asked about this particular desire, I

45:51

want to be around to see it. That's ominous.

45:53

But some part of him is always doubted that he'll

45:55

get anywhere close. The

45:57

great eye will open. But

46:00

a guy like that says it. Project

46:08

Arcturus will be culminating. We're

46:12

finally going to divide the sectors

46:15

of America into

46:17

different corridors. We're

46:20

going to elect the flesh emperors. I'm

46:24

hearing that our red heifer research

46:26

department is getting really close. But

46:31

he says, he has never really interrogated the cause

46:33

of this preoccupation, but premonitions of death

46:36

seem to follow him. Once years

46:38

ago, he boarded an airplane for a business

46:40

trip to London and a flight attendant whom he'd never

46:42

met saw him gasped and rushed

46:44

from the cabin in horror. When

46:47

she was asked what had so upset her,

46:49

she confessed that she'd dreamt the night before

46:58

about a man who looked like him, exactly

47:00

like him, getting shot and killed

47:02

at a rally in Hyde Park. He

47:05

didn't know how to respond other than to laugh

47:07

and put it out of his mind. But when a few days

47:09

later he happened to find himself on the park's edge

47:11

and saw a crowd forming, he made

47:14

a point not to linger. Can you imagine

47:16

how happy he would have been if he had been

47:18

in the Capitol on January 6th?

47:21

Oh my god. He pulled apart

47:23

the captain in Day of the Dead. Show

47:26

him! Show

47:29

him! Show

47:29

him! It would have

47:31

been like in the last season

47:33

of The Shield when Shane Vendrell

47:36

is suicidal. And he's

47:38

trying to die as a hero all those times,

47:41

all those great scenes. And then

47:43

he gets to be just shredded

47:45

by his fellow Republicans. Yeah.

47:49

I do have a similar thing to

47:51

this, honestly. Like

47:54

a little bit. I had a huge

47:56

hypochondriac, so I'd absolutely get

47:59

him on that. I'm not a hypochondriac

48:01

at all. I'm kind of like the opposite. I

48:04

feel like it's so- No, I mean, you either think you're gonna die of the

48:06

disease or something, or you think something's gonna kill you.

48:09

What other things could stay on it? I think it's

48:11

the other thing. Like disease, I feel

48:13

like someone could tell me I have cancer and

48:15

I could just sleep it off.

48:17

I'd be fine.

48:18

But like, I did have- I

48:20

had like a dream, like

48:23

a sleep paralysis thing more so when I

48:25

was a kid that was like basically

48:28

told me I was gonna die on a Tuesday.

48:31

And ever since then, I have just- I've

48:33

been terrified of flying on Tuesdays.

48:36

I've been afraid of like really doing anything.

48:39

And like, I have, you

48:41

know, again, not a hypochondriac. I don't

48:44

think any- like, I

48:46

talked about this on Twitter. Like

48:48

Jewish people can withstand heart attacks,

48:50

leukemia, being 80 years old. None

48:54

of that bothers me. That's not scary

48:56

to me. I just- I think it would be

48:58

like a freak thing. Like a crazy

49:00

person shoots me in the head or something like

49:02

that. That's more kind of like

49:05

myth. Yeah. And I feel

49:07

like for whatever reason- like it has- in

49:09

reality, what actually is that? It's pretty-

49:12

you know, it's the same thing that dreams always are. It's

49:14

a jumble of the conscious and subconscious. And

49:16

it doesn't- a lot of the times it doesn't actually

49:18

mean anything. And this one assuredly does it. But

49:21

you know, we assign special providence to these

49:24

things. So I end

49:26

up having the same thing as him. I

49:28

will avoid, yeah, being

49:30

in an airplane on a Tuesday for that reason. I

49:33

mean that is- I mean, yeah. If I had

49:35

a dream that I remembered that vividly of

49:37

some being telling me that a citizen is going to die

49:39

on a Tuesday, yeah, I would not be-

49:41

I'd be not- I'm not going out for

49:44

Taco Tuesday. I'd be staying indoors on Tuesdays.

49:46

This is probably kept in faith,

49:48

but sometimes I do think like, well, it hasn't

49:50

happened yet. My

49:53

outfit. It's capable of wearing an outfit.

49:55

So far, so good. Now, Ronny's

49:58

premonition of death is- is used to set

50:01

up an incident in which the

50:04

main independent senator, Angus King,

50:06

Angus King is his famous steakhouse, or

50:08

rather not of his famous delicious steakhouse,

50:10

which he should be running instead of whatever dumb bullshit

50:13

he's up to. Basically

50:15

just about how Angus King relayed to him a message

50:18

from a general, I believe,

50:20

one of the handsome generals about all the chatter

50:22

or pre-January six that they were hearing on social

50:24

media about people arming themselves

50:26

to come to DC to kill Mitch McConnell.

50:29

And then Romney gets Mitch on the phone and is like, Mitch,

50:31

have you heard about this? Like, I'm very concerned that Mitch

50:34

is just like, new phone, who this? And

50:36

like, basically he tells Mitch McConnell and he's

50:38

like, yeah, let me get back to you on that. And then just doesn't do anything.

50:41

And then there's another part where like Mitch is talking shit

50:43

about Donald Trump. And then of course, he claims

50:45

never to have said it, anything of the sort. But

50:47

that that's not the interesting part of this article. The

50:49

interesting part of the article is this in

50:52

the dining room, a 98 inch

50:54

TV went up on the wall and a leather

50:56

recliner landed in front of it. Romney,

50:59

who didn't have many real friends in Washington, ate

51:01

dinner alone there most nights watching Ted

51:03

Lasso or Better Call Saul as

51:05

he leafed through briefing materials on the

51:07

day of my first visit. He showed me his freezer,

51:10

which is full of salmon fillets that had been given to

51:12

him by Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska.

51:15

He didn't especially like salmon, but found that

51:17

if he put it on a hamburger bun and smothered it in

51:19

ketchup, it made for a serviceable meal.

51:24

Salmon with ketchup on a hamburger bun.

51:26

Oh, you know, you can't let it go to waste. Mr.

51:28

Hot dogs, you personally are responsible for probably

51:30

hundreds of thousands of fentanyl deaths. And

51:33

you're worried that you're going to waste Murkowski

51:35

salmon. Just this is the definition

51:38

of conversion. It does make me

51:40

like Murkowski because it's like, she

51:43

knows no one wants

51:45

to eat that much salmon. She knows

51:47

that. And it feels like a bullying

51:49

thing. Like she does that to anyone she wants to fuck with

51:52

like a dumb ass. Here's 200 pounds of salmon.

51:55

Enjoy trying to fit this in your apartment. That's

51:58

pretty funny. Yeah, but yeah,

52:01

it actually surprised me for a guy as healthy

52:03

as he is that he doesn't like salmon and that

52:05

like, you know hot dog meat Favorite

52:08

meats. Yeah Jim

52:13

is good in certain context. I think the salmon

52:15

is delicious I don't know what you're talking about when

52:17

you get it nice so that the pieces just kind of fall

52:19

apart You make sure there's enough olive

52:22

oil some garlic and lemon juice in there Sounds

52:24

like you should go to the Senate put maybe a

52:27

yogurt based sauce So like I like

52:29

a teriyaki salmon that their meat miso

52:31

glazed salmon. It's delicious And

52:34

oh if we're talking cedar plankton

52:36

herb crust These

52:40

are not plank salmon This is this is frozen

52:42

salmon that he's defrosting and putting

52:45

ketchup on he could be better than this

52:47

and enjoy Jesus sick I'm sorry This

52:49

this close this close to mind You

52:52

know like a sense of memory of the famous

52:54

frank luntz profile with him. Oh, yeah,

52:57

spag Bowl What does it get through me and

52:59

this is as good as it gets for me? And they

53:01

just him like no friends The

53:04

image of him eating a salmon ketchup

53:07

burger watching Ted lasso on a 98 inch

53:09

screen Well half-hearted

53:11

no wonder he's trying to get out of this Dude

53:16

decree the state we pleasure don't You

53:23

Doing this is the worst ruling class

53:25

that has ever existed J.P. Morgan

53:28

drink so much that he had a

53:30

cauliflower shaped growth coming out

53:32

of his nose Yeah, he

53:35

was something to look at. Yeah,

53:37

he JP Morgan got

53:39

pussy He did all day every day.

53:41

Yeah, he had parties

53:44

where he would eat like 85 oysters There

53:47

hasn't been this austere a member

53:49

of the ruling class since John D Rockefeller himself

53:52

the original sicko It's true. And

53:54

that's why he's got to be there signing

53:56

laws and why he tried to be the guy killing

53:59

people with like drone strikes and invasions

54:02

because he needs that because that's how much of a pervert

54:04

he is. Because that is what

54:06

draws politics.

54:08

Perverts. I gotta say there's a little

54:10

bit of news, or at least not news, more

54:12

just reminding us of something we all should

54:14

know. That

54:15

shit about him trying to warn Mitch about January

54:17

6th in advance. It really does remind you that

54:20

it was not some surprise that these fucking

54:22

hoopleheads are going to storm the palace. They

54:25

were all talking about it, and yet there were still

54:28

like what? Like two rows of

54:30

guys just kind of standing like

54:32

assholes in front of the Capitol?

54:35

Somebody made a decision at some point to

54:37

let this shit occur. I don't know

54:39

if there's any way you can argue against that because look

54:42

at what happened when they inaugurated the motherfucker. They

54:44

had the entire National Guard bayonets out

54:46

on the fucking lawn. They could have had

54:49

that on January 6th, and these fucking

54:51

pussies weren't going to do anything if that had happened.

54:54

Yeah, I mean like, Mitt Romney hears it and takes

54:56

it a thousand percent literal, but Mitch McConnell,

54:59

that's why he never got back. He's like, they're going

55:01

to kill me. Who cares? He's like,

55:03

I love that. They're going to kill me and my

55:05

wife. I

55:09

can finally go to hell. I'm 500

55:12

years old at this point. I would love to

55:14

die. I actually,

55:17

you think I'm a human. I am a mutant

55:20

descendant of those 500 year

55:22

old fucking tortoises and

55:24

I'm yearning for death. In

55:26

Elden Ring, one of the big things is they

55:29

took out the rune of death and there's

55:31

no more. There's like, you can't die

55:33

anymore unless like a magic guy

55:35

killed you and you're just, so

55:37

you're just condemned to like eternal shitty

55:40

life. And I feel like that's what happened

55:42

to him. Yeah. That's why he jazzed those spells.

55:44

He's waiting. He thinks he sees them like

55:47

in the scrub. It's like, is that him? Is that the magic dude?

55:49

He's going to finally free me from this and then,

55:52

oh, shit. The

55:56

last thing I want to read from the McKay Coppins

55:58

profile though is this. Shortly

56:01

after moving into his Senate office, Romney

56:04

had hung a large rectangular map on

56:06

the wall. First printed in 1931 by

56:08

Rand McNally, the Histo map

56:11

attempted to chart the rise and fall of the world's

56:13

most powerful civilizations through 4000 years

56:16

of human history. When Romney first acquired

56:18

the map, he saw it as a curiosity. After

56:20

January 6, he became obsessed with

56:22

it. He showed the map

56:25

to visitors, brought it up in conversations

56:27

and speeches. More than once he found himself

56:29

staring at it alone in his office at night.

56:32

The Egyptian Empire had reigned some 900 years

56:34

before it was overtaken by the Assyrians. Then

56:36

the Persians, the Romans, the Mongolians, the

56:38

Turks. Each civilization had

56:40

its turn and eventually collapsed in on itself.

56:43

Maybe the falls were inevitable. But what struck

56:45

Romney the most about the map was how thoroughly it

56:47

was dominated by tyrants of some kind. Barrows,

56:50

emperors, kaisers, kings. A

56:52

man gets some people around him and begins to oppress

56:55

and dominate others. He said the first time

56:57

he showed me the map, it's a testosterone

56:59

related phenomenon perhaps. I don't know.

57:01

But in the history of the world, that's what happens. America's

57:04

experiment in self-rule is fighting against

57:06

human nature. This is a very fragile

57:09

thing, he told me. Authoritarianism is

57:11

like the gargoyle lurking over the cathedral, ready

57:13

to pounce. For

57:16

the first time in his life, he wasn't sure if the cathedral

57:19

would hold. I just love the idea of him being...

57:22

Up until January 6th, he was just like, check

57:24

out this histo map. It's a cool thing in

57:26

my office. And then after it, he's like staring

57:29

at it, like, you know, with a... over

57:31

a sniffer of chocolate milk or something, just

57:34

going, all civilizations must crumble.

57:37

All great men must fall. Here, behold,

57:39

Ozymandias. Yeah,

57:41

he's reading some W. Cleon Skousen,

57:44

everyone's favorite Mormon apocalyptic

57:47

nutso, who loved to talk in those giant

57:49

historical terms. The

57:51

West has fallen. Millions,

57:54

billions must cry to Ted Lasso.

58:00

But yeah, I mean, I guess something like, first

58:02

of all, like January 6th, that's your first indication

58:04

that like the gargoyle of

58:06

authoritarianism stalks the battlements

58:08

of American democracy. Okay, sure.

58:11

And then like, and that's its first,

58:13

you know, you know, barrage

58:15

across the across the bow is January

58:17

6th. But, you know, again, it's just

58:19

like, this is a guy who's been like a

58:21

down the line Republican his entire fucking career.

58:24

And now he's just like, our civilization

58:26

is about to crumble. You know what will stop it me

58:29

resigning and setting an example

58:31

for everyone. And you know what, they're like, I

58:34

think it's weird, like, the Mormon thing, because

58:36

you're thinking in terms of eternity, you look at like ancient

58:38

Egypt, ancient Rome, you know, the

58:40

Persian Empire, it's like, oh, they all were around

58:42

for like, like, you know, nine centuries and then fell. That's

58:46

a good run. Who cares? Like,

58:48

we're fucking ahead of the curve as far as that goes. And

58:51

it's just sort of like, I don't get it. Also, like, I was essentially

58:53

despairing about like the rise and fall

58:55

of civilizations. It's just like, it's

58:57

because the way we remember history. We

59:01

remember history in these periods, like the this

59:03

empire then it fell, the Semper than it fell. And then

59:05

the gaps between is just this empty

59:07

space. But although there

59:09

tends to be less archaeological evidence

59:12

for those times, which is why we don't

59:14

have as much of a thick historical narrative

59:16

around them, people still obviously we're

59:18

living. People were

59:21

obviously surviving. People were loving and

59:23

all the stuff we're doing, they were doing all that

59:25

stuff. They just weren't making as strong

59:28

a record of it because there wasn't

59:30

the density of civilizational structures.

59:33

But they weren't all gone. There were still

59:35

this social fabric

59:38

that persisted. And we can't,

59:40

because that's, since it looks like a black hole from

59:43

the from our position, we just assume

59:46

that that's all there is, is these, this fall. This

59:49

fall into a chasm, when in reality it's people

59:51

adjusting to changing conditions

59:53

and evolving new social

59:55

structures to deal with those conditions. It's

59:58

the same thing that history always is. It's

1:00:00

not the end of anything. It's the continued

1:00:02

transformation of one more

1:00:04

internal thing. Yeah. I think like, you know,

1:00:06

it's with the Mormon thing. It's like you need to, America

1:00:08

needs to be eternal because if America falls,

1:00:10

it's like the world ends. Yes. Yeah. I,

1:00:13

but it also, I mean,

1:00:15

like there's nothing I hate more

1:00:17

than like the people who

1:00:20

are the most comfortable

1:00:22

of the most comfortable, like, uh,

1:00:25

I hate anyone who has the same

1:00:28

job as me and is like, well,

1:00:30

it looks like we're all going to die from

1:00:32

climate change or fucking whatever. And it's

1:00:35

like, we, we don't even, we

1:00:37

don't even have to answer the same emails

1:00:39

as normal people. Do you think you're going

1:00:41

to experience climate change in the same way that somebody

1:00:44

from fucking Bangladesh will? But

1:00:46

like, I just, the

1:00:48

constant obsession with the world ending

1:00:50

by people who are uniquely insulated

1:00:53

from, you know,

1:00:55

whether they are apocalyptic or

1:00:57

just bad things happening, those types

1:01:00

of events is incredibly frustrating,

1:01:02

but it also does

1:01:04

make me think like, okay,

1:01:06

the world has ended a billion

1:01:09

times before the world, as

1:01:11

people have known it has ended. I'm

1:01:13

sure for people living, you know, from 1916 to 1919, it felt

1:01:16

like the world

1:01:18

was ending and it was to an extent.

1:01:21

They were witnessing horrors that

1:01:24

are unparalleled, uh,

1:01:26

compared to anything that we in

1:01:28

America, people who mostly

1:01:31

listen to the show or, you know,

1:01:34

have a computer job experience today.

1:01:36

That's not to say that like everything is great,

1:01:39

but truly, truly cataclysmic,

1:01:42

like era ending things have happened

1:01:44

and humanity doesn't just stop. There

1:01:47

are those, as Matt said, periods

1:01:49

that aren't as rigorously recorded,

1:01:52

but periods of adjustment. And

1:01:54

the thing is though, they're not scared that they're

1:01:56

going to die during this stuff, really what they're scared

1:01:58

of is that they aren't going to die during.

1:01:59

this period.

1:02:00

Because these periods

1:02:03

are filled with horrifying turmoil,

1:02:05

mass death, and not

1:02:08

equally distributed mass death. And the

1:02:10

people who survive are changed by

1:02:12

that experience. And their conceptions

1:02:15

of morality and right and

1:02:17

identity are broken and reformed

1:02:19

by that process. And people who have fetishized

1:02:22

their personal ego and identity

1:02:24

as the only real thing in the universe clutch

1:02:27

so hardly at it that the thought

1:02:29

of losing it is worse than death. And

1:02:32

so they would rather fantasize that they're going to

1:02:34

personally die so they don't have to worry about going through that transformation

1:02:37

than realize, oh, like for me and my children,

1:02:39

things are going to be different. I'm going to have to value

1:02:41

different things. And that is so

1:02:44

terrifying when we're addicted to the

1:02:47

meager pleasures that we've afforded ourselves now

1:02:49

that, yeah, we'd much rather fantasize about

1:02:52

a cataclysmic ending in record with

1:02:54

the moral responsibility of continuing. I

1:02:56

think even more terrifying to people, more

1:02:58

terrifying to people who are on the more comfortable side

1:03:01

is the idea that if

1:03:04

you don't die, and yes,

1:03:07

it's unevenly distributed, and others

1:03:09

are dying in your place, then

1:03:13

you have to grapple with what that means.

1:03:16

You have to grapple with what

1:03:18

your life means. What does it mean

1:03:21

that maybe in as

1:03:23

much as anyone deserves this, when

1:03:25

climate catastrophe is happening at an

1:03:27

increased rate compared to what they

1:03:30

do now, you may

1:03:32

deserve it more, but it's not going to happen to

1:03:34

you. You have to figure out what all

1:03:36

of the rest of your life means. That's

1:03:38

a horrifying proposition. Yeah. And

1:03:40

that's why all the energy is on a right wing

1:03:42

that has an answer to that question, and

1:03:46

turns the horrors of this thing into

1:03:49

a necessary and virtuous cleansing. And

1:03:51

then you can continue being the

1:03:53

same kind of subject you are now with the same spectacular

1:03:56

view of politics that

1:03:58

you have now. same relative ease

1:04:01

and comfort and never worry yourself again. Because

1:04:04

you will now have a world where you'll

1:04:06

either fall off the beam and it doesn't matter, or

1:04:09

if you stay on it, you get to cheerlead the

1:04:11

process of transformation

1:04:15

in its worst and most formally

1:04:18

self-consciously evil manifestation. Yes.

1:04:21

One posture is we

1:04:23

have to kill everyone even approaching the

1:04:25

fence, and then the only other posture

1:04:27

is being 5,000 miles

1:04:30

away from the fence and going, can you believe they're killing

1:04:32

all of us at the fence? Yep. That's

1:04:35

it. We all got it coming. The rest

1:04:37

is just vanity. All right,

1:04:40

gang. I think we'll wrap it up there

1:04:41

for today. Anything to

1:04:43

plug? Any announcements for the end of the show? I

1:04:46

would just say if you like the line of

1:04:48

thinking that concluded this episode, I have a little podcast

1:04:51

to recommend you. It's called Hell on Earth. We get way

1:04:53

into this exact

1:04:56

discussion of it's always

1:04:58

the end of the world in that show. If

1:05:00

you haven't listened and you like that talk, check that one out.

1:05:03

All right, gang. Until next time, bye-bye.