Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/25/23: Biden's Aides Desperate To Hide Aging, Ohio Overwhelmingly Backs Pro-Choice, Americans Reject Biden Cluster Bombs, Dorsey Trashes Worldcoin Surveillance, Pinkydoll Tik Tok Phenomenon, Disney Fires DEI, Affirmative Action For The Rich

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the Biden administration desperate to hide the president's aging, Ohio overwhelmingly backs pro-choice amendment, Americans reject Biden sending Cluster Bombs to Ukraine, Jack Dorsey trashes dystopian crypto "World Coin" surveillance, the PinkyDoll viral Tik Tok Phenomenon explained, Saagar looks into Disney and Netflix firing diversity bureaucrats, and Krystal looks into Affirmative Action for the Rich in College Admissions.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops.

They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the

best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting stories this morning. So we've got kind of a depressing look at the 2024 race, the frailty of Joe Biden

and the unlikability of Donald Trump, even though they look to be the matchup. So we'll dig into some of those numbers. Brace yourself. Also a bit of a test case for abortion in Ohio. Ballot measure there with some surprising potential results. We also have updates for you on Ukraine and how the American people feel about those cluster bombs that are being sent over by our own government. Also, some disturbing news about WorldCoin and plans for like... Sam Altman. It's a whole... There's a lot going on.

Yeah, there's a lot going on there. There's also a lot going on with Pinky Doll. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this new creator sensation on TikTok. We'll explain it in a bit. It is interesting. Oh, it's fascinating. Yeah, it is kind of fascinating. So we'll get into that. And she has now come out as a scab in the whole Hollywood strike situation. So the plot thickens. Very excited about all of that, but also excited about the fact we have two Republican presidential contenders who we are

going to be interviewing today, Sagar. And so we've been doing a lot of prep and very excited about that. Yeah, let's go and put it up there on the screen. Look at that beautiful graphic. We've got two of them, Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently tied Ron DeSantis in one poll for number two in the primary race. And then North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, he's going to be joining us in the studio. Burgum, in a matter of very good for our show, Crystal, just qualified for the debate stage this morning. Good timing there. We'll be able to ask him. He's the seventh candidate to qualify on the stage so far, including Vivek Ramaswamy. We'll ask him whether Trump should debate. That could be an interesting question. For our premium subscribers, they will get access to that interview first. So go ahead and sign up

breakingpoints.com. Otherwise, it will be available later as we decide to release it. So I think it will be probably together on our podcast for those who are just listening, probably separate on YouTube so you can watch it in separate increments. But as I said, available very first to our premium subscribers who enable us to compel these types of interviews, build this beautiful new studio.

And as you guys can see, we're getting a hell of a lot of interviews ever since we started doing it. So we just want to say thank you to all of you who helped us build it and who are continuing to help us build it because that's what you're helping create here is an actual forum where people get to discuss their ideas. That's something Governor Asa Hutchinson told us whenever he left the show. Yep, absolutely. He was kind of surprised because you're used to cable news

interviews, the depth of policy questions. So a lot of good questions we got planned for these gentlemen as well. All right, let's get to the front runners in the race. Some new reporting about how Joe Biden's aides are really going above and beyond to try to compensate for his increasing age. Of course, all of our age is increasing, but his just happens to already be starting at an advanced state. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. This report is from NBC News. The headline is Note Cards and Shorter Stairs, How Biden's Campaign is Addressing His Age. You know, it's funny because reading this, and this is from NBC, I was reminded of the clip that we showed of Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough freaking out about like, his aides have to do more to cover up the fact that he's old. Looks like they have, in fact,

heeded that advice and stepped up to the plate, per Joe and Mika's employer, NBC News. They talk about, you know, things that you would kind of expect, note cards as one example. But they did a whole analysis of the stairs that Biden has taken to using to board and get off of Air Force One. So there's a shorter set of stairs that is available that goes into the belly of the plane. He originally was using that shorter set of stairs about 37 percent of the time. In the past seven weeks, he's used them 84 percent of the time or 31 out of the 37 times he's gotten on and off the plane. They go on to say other age compensating measures are logistical and probably familiar to many who have reached a certain stage in life. Extra large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings.

Sagar, this has become extremely relevant given the fact that age is a top concern for voters in terms of reelecting President Biden's and top concern for actually Democratic primary voters in terms of re-nominating Joe Biden. You also had that you've had a number of stumbles on the airplane steps. You also had that really scary actually incident where he tripped over a sandbag on stage. And it was apparently after that incident that aides gathered up and said, okay, how do we make sure that this never, ever happens again? What can we additionally do to sort of cover for the fact that our guy is getting up there? I love the anecdotes also within this crystal about how vigorous he is. They're like, well, whenever Biden was on a trip from a flight home from a NATO summit,

he came back to the staff cabin. Aides, quote, were passed out from exhaustion. The president came out and wanted to thank everyone for their work. I was amazed if only I had the energy of an 80-year-old president. You know what I think helps with energy? Whenever you get a bed in the plane and everybody else has to sleep on a chair during a 20-hour flight,

you know, just wondering. Also about this, this is another one. Marty Wallace, former Secretary of Labor, recalled an instance in 2021 when he was riding with Biden to an event at a Hummer plant. The president began dictating revisions to his planned speech off the top of his head. I thought to myself, wow, I wish more people could see this. Call me old-fashioned. I just think that that should be a very baseline skill for somebody who's going to be the leader of the free world. I can also say as somebody who used to cover some of these Air Force One departures and the ramp and all that, there's actually a lot of pomp and circumstance that goes into it. Sometimes when foreign countries like China wanted to insult President Obama, they'll bring the small stairs so he doesn't get the grand shot of coming down

the big plane. There's quite a bit of protocol that is involved here. Things that no one would ever notice. Yeah, I know. It's stupid things that only people in the press corps even, I only know this literally because I covered it a couple of times. The belly stairs are almost never used by the president of the United States for the very simple reason that it's not as nice of a shot. President Trump and President Obama, almost every sitting president made regular use of the normal stairs. The belly stairs would be used sometimes in cases of bad weather. I remember there were a few other circumstances, but almost certainly they never would rely on it as the primary as President Biden does.

Apparently, they said in this article that JFK used these stairs a lot because he had chronic debilitating back problems. And so he was also trying to hide from the American people. So, you know, not the best example, I think, that it would go to. You know, that Kennedy vigor had a little bit to do with a little bit of meth that was shot into his back. Oh, boy. But anyway, Dr. Feelgood, you can look it up if you're interested. Listen, I'm in favor of the president of the United States doing whatever he needs to do to get through and do his best possible job. We've also had multiple instances where when he's on the road traveling internationally, he skips out on the dinners that are meant for relationship building. The staff provided a sort of explanation to NBC News about that.

They said, ah, he's been doing this for so long, essentially, that he doesn't need those relationship building meetings as much as other newer presidents who are newer to the game might need that relationship building. And he's got a lot of other things on his plate. So, I mean, listen, I think it's a little bit up in the air how much any of this ends up mattering. It's very clear to the American people that he's aging. It's very clear he's not as sharp as he used to be. It's very clear he's not the man even, you know, that he was a few years ago, let alone back when he was vice president to Barack Obama. And he was, you know, taking Paul Ryan on in the vice presidential debates and all of that.

So that all is very clear. But, you know, there were a lot of age related concerns last time around and he still was elected president of the United States. So we'll see how the American people weigh all of these things. But you can tell from the concern and the focus of his closest advisors that they feel that this is a real liability and something that they have to go out of their way to try to hide effectively. If I think back in presidential history, one of the times that it actually did matter a lot in pop culture in a relatively close election was Gerald Ford versus Jimmy Carter. Ford famously tumbled down the stairs and was mocked

viciously on Saturday Night Live, which was kind of at the peak of its powers. I think it was Chevy something, I forget his name. Anyway, I'm sure somebody in the comments will correct me. Whoever the guy is from the Christmas movie. Anyway. Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase, there we go, Chevy Chase. He viciously mocked Gerald Ford

whenever he was on Saturday Night Live, and it became like a real cultural sensation at that time. They're like, oh, Ford, you're such a bumbling moron. Don't forget, at that time, Jimmy Carter, it's not like it was a blowout election whenever he came against Ford. So these things can matter. And him made to look like some doddering old fool combined with Vietnam, the Saigon thing, the, you know, coming out of Nixon and the move on from chaos. I mean, listen, you know, Trump obviously is not exactly the bringer of peace himself. But these things can end up becoming like big in the cultural zeitgeist if a bad fall does happen.

As part one of the previous ones, which happened, what was it, in the Air Force Academy stage, I thought it was a terrible one. I mean, it was just one of those where luckily he didn't hit his head or anything like that. But, you know, when five people or so have to rush in order to pick you up off the ground. It's not a good look when you're supposed to be like a vigorous person who's the leader of the free world and you're running for four more years to be the oldest man to ever sit in the Resolute Desk. That's a big, tall order to ask of the American people. Yeah, I do want to say that sandbag situation on the stage. I mean, that was that thing was just left there and it was apparently camouflaged. So that was I mean, that is the one where I will say, like the staff or whoever set that up really screwed up and anyone could have fallen. But

as anyone who has a parent or grandparent or anyone you love who's in their eighties, you know, if they take a tumble, it can be, I mean, it can be way more than just a political problem for them. So there's that concern as well. At the same time, it's not like things are going great for the other guy who was the front runner in the Republican side. That, of course, would be former President Trump. We've got, we're back on indictment watch, by the way, this week. I saw CBS News says indictments could come as soon as today. So we're certainly keeping our eyes open for whatever happens next. This would be the January 6th related indictments coming from Jack Smith. So we'll see what happens there. At the same time, we do have some news about when

the trial is set from the document related for the document related trial. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So the the prosecution had been pushing for this to be relatively quickly. They wanted a December trial date. The defense Trump's team, they wanted to push it out past the election. The judge here, who was a Trump appointed judge, who, you know, the Trump folks were pretty happy that she's the one who ended up with it, she took a compromise position, setting a trial date for next May in that classified documents date. They say in that article that we just had up on the screen that that May 20th, 24 trial date, if it holds, would fall close on the heels of the New York trial for Trump on dozens of state charges of falsifying business records. It also means the trial would not start until deep into the presidential nominating calendar

and probably well after the Republican nominee is clear, though before that person is officially nominated at the Republican National Convention. So listen, I have no idea how long this trial could potentially last, but we're talking about in May, the heart of certainly primary season, but also moving, looking forward into a general election season, the former president of the United States and very likely Republican nominee is going to be on trial for a case that looks fairly open and shut if we're just looking at the facts. Now, listen, maybe he's got a shot through jury selection to get somebody in there who's just, you know, a Trump supporter and doesn't think he should be charged whatsoever and is going to

vote, you know, not guilty no matter what. But it's pretty wild to contemplate that he could be facing impending prison time right at the time that he is clinching the nomination for the Republican Party. Yeah. And that's what Mark Levin over on Fox News really going after the impending prison time right at the time that he is clinching the nomination for the Republic Authority. Yeah, and that's what Mark Levin over on Fox News really going after the judge for setting the trial at that date. Let's take a listen. Judge Cannon, in Florida, you let the country down. This trial should have been moved till after the election. You just gave your imprimatur and the imprimatur of the federal judiciary to the interference in this election. Furthermore, you haven't even looked into a matter which you have the right to look into without any motion from defense counsel involving an extortion that took place.

So there you go, Crystal. They're already saying, oh, this is election interference. They're going after the judge. They should have put it after the election, which I actually don't think makes any sense because why would you put a trial specifically on the classified documents case after the election, executive privilege and all of that could apply? That doesn't make any sense to me. I actually think if we are going to have a trial, it should be much sooner. I don't know why May 2024 is the right date. It's almost 10 months away. Yeah. On this, I'm definitely on the side of the prosecution, like, just like, let's speed this thing up. Yes. Let's get through it. And then,

you know, we'll have the political, the election and the American people can have as much information about what's going to unfold here as possible. But anyway, she kind of split the baby and went with May, much to the chagrin of Trump supporters. It is worth remembering that there was a lot of upset from liberals about the fact that this judge ended up with this case because she'd previously made some rulings that really seemed like they were, you know, siding with Trump in a way that she was overruled by other Republican-appointed judges who said this was improperly decided, had to do with the special master and the way the documents were being handled, et cetera. But so there was a lot of upset from liberals about this particular

judge being appointed. But here she's very much disappointing the MAGA base and Trump defenders. According to the reporting, Donald Trump and his team basically recognize that their best shot with all of with certainly with the documents case is for him to get elected president and be able to effectively pardon himself. Like the details of the case are pretty difficult to refute. Listen, they deserve their day in court. We'll hear their side of the story. We'll hear what kind of defense that they're able to mount. But, you know, it looks fairly damning on the surface. So that's hanging out there.

At the same time, Trump's opponents, some of his adversaries are starting to sharpen their knives and they're making the case that Trump is not electable and will lose to Biden and Democrats will take over everything. Let's put this polling up on the screen here. This is actually Trump's pollster, Tony Fabrizio, alongside a Democratic pollster. And even this Trump pollster finds Biden beating Trump by four points. This is in 40 swing districts. That's what this poll is of. And DeSantis tied with Biden in those same swing districts. So even the Trump pollster finding that Trump is performing eight points worse than DeSantis

actually among independent voters. So yesterday we brought you some polling that showed that at least in South Carolina, Republican primary voters are very interested in electability. They want to be Joe Biden. They want to be the Democrats, et cetera. So the Koch network is picking up on this angle and they're spending a bunch of money to try to defeat Trump by saying, listen, if you nominate this guy, OK, but Democrats are going to to beat you in the elections. They're going to take control of everything. Put this up on the screen, this next piece. The Koch's anti-Trump message is based on the idea that nominating Trump would lead to complete Democratic domination. There we go, from Ken Vogel. Quote, if Trump is the GOP nominee, we could lose everything. The House, the Senate, the White House. It's time to look to a new leader. It's too important to risk it all.

Put the next part up on the screen. You can just get a little sense of the mailers that they are putting out and what they feel is the most compelling message to try to defeat Trump. I don't think it's going to work, but I do think it's probably one of the more promising angles that you could take because certainly Republican voters do want to win. But as we've covered quite significantly, you know, at this time, Republican voters think he is the guy that can beat Joe Biden. They say he was elected president once. They believe that he beat Joe Biden once already. And so they are, as of now, not convinced that there's another candidate who is more electable than Donald Trump.

Yeah, I mean, as you noted, Crystal, that was Trump's own pollster who actually showed him having problems on the generic ballot. I guess I'll speak up for Trump on this. The generic ballot doesn't matter. He already lost. He lost the popular vote twice. The first time around, he lost the popular vote. He still won the election. So all you got to do is win in the right states. Georgia polling and his Georgia favorability remains like iffy. But in terms of head to head, some that we've seen, he's doing decently against President Biden. Same with the state of Arizona. Biden favorability is very low over there. And then all he's got to do is pick up a single one of these industrial Midwest states and you win the Electoral College.

So, you know, on the generic ballot, he can win by plus four. That's great. Rack up all the votes you want in California. That doesn't matter. Well, these are in swing districts, though. This is polling specifically swing districts where he finds DeSantis doing a bit better than Trump. So whenever he finds, I mean, I guess the point when we're talking about the swing districts as well is that a lot of these are white college

educated voters, whereas what he really needs to do is not win the district race. He needs to rack up the votes like in Georgia and in Arizona. He doesn't necessarily need to win a swing district. He more needs to rack up the actual number of votes by perhaps, you know, from his devoted followers, like maybe embracing mail-in balloting, but he doesn't want to do that. So I would just look at it from that way of this is not the death knell, I think, that they think plus four is good, obviously, if you're President Biden, if you're running on a different system, but we're running within the system that we have, which is highly beneficial, I think, to Trump in the election if it remains close. Remember, I mean, President Obama, I believe, had to win by I think he won the popular vote by almost five points.

But if you look at the Electoral College margin and all that, when things go differently, you can win by a significant percentage and still actually come very close to Electoral College. Or you can win big in the Electoral College, or you can win big in the Electoral College, just depending on very, very narrow margins, depending on the states. Yeah. I mean, listen, I think it's a jump ball. I think it's hard to say whether Trump or DeSantis or one of these other candidates is more electable. I think DeSantis has done himself a lot of harm, as we discussed yesterday, in terms of on every issue, his whole strategy has been, let me get to Trump's right. And in certain issues, we're about to talk about abortion in particular. On certain issues, it's pretty poisonous to a general electorate.

And I would also just say that, you know, putting where he is on the political ideology spectrum aside, he just doesn't have the political it factor that Trump does. And Trump is extraordinary on that measure. Trump inspires a lot of support from his key base. I mean, that's one thing about the Trump era is he certainly brings people out to support him and to vote against him. He has wildly increased political participation and he really ups the ante in terms of everybody's engagement and feelings around elections. So to me, it's very difficult to say which one of them may or may not be more electable, you know, in terms of, we just talked about these indictments and the trials and what is potentially, you know, coming in the future for, for Trump. I do think for a lot of

independent voters, if you have a trial and Trump is facing potential prison time, um, I do think that's going to be an issue for him. I don't think it's an issue for him with the Republican electorate necessarily. Although, you know, I wouldn't completely rule it out, but that hasn't been what we've seen thus far. But do I think it's an issue in a general election that your choice is a man who is facing prison time? Yeah, I think that's probably an issue for him in terms of the general electorate with independent voters in particular. On the other hand, you've got Biden age concerns and you also have Cornel West hanging out there, who is going to be very likely the Green Party nominee is going to be on the ballot in a lot of states. And I do think that could also have a major impact on a race that could be razor tight. So a lot of wild cards up in the air. You know, I just look at I'm like, it's hard to imagine that

either of these dudes is going to be elected again. But right now, as it stands, without a major plot twist coming, which you never know, that is how things look. Let's take a look at one of those issues that I just name checked, which is abortion. There's a bit of a bellwether test of abortion rights in what has now become a red state of Ohio, which is the state that has probably moved the furthest, the fastest to the right in the Trump era. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So there's a proposed Ohio constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion rights. I'll give you some of the more details on what exactly this amendment would do, but it's in favor of abortion rights. And this poll from USA Today finds significant support, even in the red state of Ohio, for

this pro-choice constitutional amendment. It is supported by a double-digit margin, 58 to 32, has significant support across partisan lines, including a third of Republicans, so not a majority of Republicans, but a third of Republicans, pretty sizable, and a stunning 85% of independent women. Now, this was actually fascinating. At least according to this poll, independent women actually supported this pro-choice ballot initiative by a slightly larger number than even Democratic women. So the independent women were the strongest backer of this. There was a bit of a gender divide here.

Women supported the measure 64 to 28. Men still backed it 50 to 37. White respondents backed it 57 to 34. Minority respondents backed it even more strongly, 66 to 24. Majority of those at all levels of education expressed support from those with no more than a high school diploma, 52 to 39, to those with post-grad degrees, 65 to 26. So, you know, this is a bit of a test case. There has long been, you know, a strategy of George W. Bush used to do this as well, getting ballot initiatives onto state ballots to try to drive up turnout when it's an issue that is important to a group of voters. So this is potentially going to be on the ballot this fall in Ohio and one that's going to be closely watched for whether the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe versus Wade remains

the motivating factor and motivating issue that it certainly appeared to be in the midterms. Yeah. And Ohio law says all you need is 50 plus 1 in order to win. You don't need a supermajority to pass in the ballot measure or to amend the state constitution, which is kind of crazy, actually, whenever you think about it. Let's look back to a trip down memory lane at Kentucky, the reddest state so far, to actually have a statewide referendum on abortion, rejecting the constitutional amendment that would have banned it. And they rejected it at 52.3% of the vote to 47.7%. So even in Kentucky, which is a hard red state, which Trump and McConnell and all of them

have done incredibly well in, they have not been able to prevail. Kansas was another one that we can't forget, where it went down. Michigan, it seems so clear to me that the entire Michigan 2022 election, both on Whitmer and on all of the downstream candidates, had a massive upswing because they had that law, existing laws on the books, and abortion was such a central issue there. Same in Wisconsin, from what we've been able to gleam as well. So, you know, in all of these cases, the industrial Midwest, of which we've been able to get a little bit of a sample size, including deep red states, we can say that with, we can say pretty definitively that abortion or at least restricting abortion to an entirely pro-life stance seems to be very, very unpopular. Now, I'll try and steel man it, like,

I guess, a little bit. Ohio is a bit different. In general, they have a much more Catholic and evangelical population than the other industrial Midwestern states. They're much harder read, as they say, you know, they talk about in there, the 2004 same-sex, you know, the gay marriage fights from 2004 were pretty vicious in Ohio, not only 20 years ago. So it's a little bit more religious, maybe more likely. But, you know, if I were to peg it against Kentucky, I just think that if we compare those two, then, you know, I think we have a decent enough sample size. And I've always said this, you know, over one third of voters who voted for Trump in 2016 were pro-choice. I mean. And not a lot of Republican elites want to grapple with that fact.

That's why you get to the row consensus around a 67%. Well, it doesn't take a genius. We've got a 50-50 country. You take 50 and then you add one third of the other party. What do you get to? Around 65%. That's pretty much almost exactly where things seem to shake out, even in red states whenever we're looking at some of this polling.

So it's not a shocker if you actually pay attention. The polling for abortion rights has largely shown that post-Dobbs support for the pro-choice position has gone up. I do think in Ohio, I wanted to note some of the specifics about what this constitutional amendment would actually do. It basically would enshrine Roe versus Wade as the law of the land in Ohio. So abortion could be banned after viability when a fetus could survive outside the womb. That's basically how things were before Roe was overturned.

So, you know, it would be bringing that state of affairs back to Ohio. You mentioned Kentucky. I have to mention this, even though it's a little bit off topic. They have their gubernatorial election this year. They currently have a Democratic governor in Besir whose dad had also been governor previously, so the Bashir name very well known in the state of Kentucky. He was on the right side of the teachers strike and really build a lot of credibility there. Numbers just came out. He's one of the most popular governors in the country. And then he's a Democrat who is in a very red

state. I've forgotten the numbers, but a huge proportion of people who don't like Joe Biden still like Andy Beshear. He's up against a very strong, I think, Republican contender, the AG Daniel Cameron. And the polls show him in the lead right now. So interesting state. Kentucky is not as predictable as people always think, especially at the state level. But on the polling front with regards to abortion, I do want to throw in this caveat that people feel very mixed on this issue. And it depends a lot on how the question is even phrased and how it is asked. So put this up on the screen. So this poll, and I think this was a Harvard-Harris poll, asked people, do you think Supreme Court was right or wrong in each of the following recent rulings? And one of the questions was, abortion laws should be

left to the states instead of being a national constitutional right. So basically, the question in here is, do you think that Dobbs was correctly decided? But they asked it in this way of like, abortion should be left to the states. Well, a majority actually agreed with that position. They're like, yeah, sure, it should be left to the states, 56% to 44%. Whereas if you ask it a different way, and you ask about the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade and whether it was correctly decided, you get a polar opposite result. The poll that I found had 37% agreeing that Roe versus Wade was correctly decided, overturning Roe versus Wade was correctly decided versus 63% that disagree. So completely opposite results just based on how it's being asked. So you can see why so many Republicans, I think Governor Hutchinson,

when we talked to him, presidential contender on the GOP side, he really leaned into the messaging of like, I think it should be left up to the states. We're interviewing Governor Doug Burgum, North Dakota governor, who signed a very restrictive law as governor of North Dakota. And, you know, when he had the opportunity to do that, but he uses very similar language about it should be left up to the states. You can see why they're doing that, because they're on decent ground there. But in terms of what is actually coming up for votes and the ballot initiatives that are coming out and the legislators that people are voting for and the framing of this issue, it has so far been pretty devastating for Republicans. I agree. And I think that the Democrats need to have a concerted effort to drive out votes, to just say the Roe consensus is what is on the ballot, like very clearly. This is what

we are defending. We just want to return to the previous system, which was icky, but which most people privately were like, yeah, I'm pretty much OK with it. And as long as you stick within that framework, I really think it's actually a Bill Clinton-esque, almost 1992s era message, safe, legal and rare. The more you depart from that and you try and defend like late term abortion up until like nine months and all that, that's when the Republicans generally do seem to win. Obviously, the state message is going to be important, but that's also been flipped around, I've seen, actually quite cleverly by some Democratic lawmakers who will come out and will say,

well, yeah, you're right, it should be left up to the state, so that's why we need a state ballot measure. Go ahead, let the state decide. You know, not, why should the state legislature do it? Let the people actually weigh in. And when that happens, of course, they know they're on good footing and it dramatically drives up turnout. The problem is that you can't just lean into it should be left to the states when you have

active efforts at the national level to codify a ban at the federal level. So it's like, okay, well, should it be left to the states or are you all pushing for a lot more at the federal level? You've got presidential contenders like Mike Pence, even though, you know, he's not going to be the Republican nominee, but he still has a loud voice within the Republican Party and certainly in terms of media coverage, pushing for an out and out national ban. And you have quite a few members of Republican members of Congress who are on board with that. So it really makes it more difficult to message should be left to the states when they're not actually interested in leaving it to the states. Yeah. Well, you're right. And that is why, you know, Lindsey Graham, I actually still think I'm curious what you do. Lindsey

Graham, remember when he got in trouble with the Republicans for proposing 15 weeks? In my reading of that, it wasn't putting abortion up. It's they were like, no, no, privately, Lindsey. They're like, we want way less than this. Like, we don't want 15 weeks. Why are you trying to tie us to something which is more or less restrictive than what we've actually been able to sign in the states? That's kind of how I was reading it whenever he put it forward. Yeah, that's right. They were mad. They were like, 15 isn't stringent enough. It needs to be 12. It needs to be six. I mean, that's what you see being pushed by conservative activists at the state level. The people who are most invested in this issue are the people who have the most fringe positions. So yeah, the pushback was, I mean, I think there were a lot of feelings about that of

just like, you know, this sort of satisfies no one. You're pushing for a national abortion ban, but then you're not going further far enough to satisfy our own activist base. So it made it kind of a muddle, But, you know, it's a lot more politically palatable position, certainly than six weeks or the moment of conception and some of the other things that have been pushed at the state level. Yeah. So we'll keep an eye on it. Could be a very interesting bellwether race. Major news in terms of how Americans are feeling about what's going on in Ukraine. A recent poll actually

found that 51% disapprove of the Biden decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. More than half of respondents saying that they disapprove of that decision. What's interesting to me, Crystal, is that an outright majority disapproved of it. And really only 39% said they approved with the don't know figure at 11%, meaning that an outright majority knew enough in this Quinnipiac poll to say, no, we actually don't approve of this at all. The reason why I'm very happy with this decision to actually poll the actual policy is Ukraine hawks always say, what are you talking about? 70 something percent of people say we should help Ukraine.

That's not what's at stake here. Hasn't been at stake now for a long time. To what extent? 25 billion, 50 billion. Just so everyone knows, out of the goodness of the Pentagon's heart, we are shipping $400 million more today. This is just a routine announcement. It's more than the size of major nation states. Not a single news outlet is putting it on their front page when it couldn't actually be more important to the fate of the world. What they specifically did here also is important, is that the question said that Biden made this decision, quote, despite concern from rights groups that they endanger civilians before then asking when they approve or disapprove. Another important thing, we're actually giving the American people context in this decision. And they come out and they're like, hold on a second. We're supporting Ukraine ostensibly.

If you ask the average normie who's got a Ukraine flag out of their house and you ask them, hey, why do you got the flag? They're like, I'm against, I'm for freedom. I'm against unprovoked aggression. And I'm for the moral helping of the Ukrainian government. And they're like, well, we just gave them weapons of which they're going to basically bombard the front lines and create a unlivable mess for centuries. This is not my language. This is actually according to landmine experts

who are saying that demining this area will take decades and will cause human havoc regardless of whether the war is going on or not. Well, then people are like, hold on a second. The no-fly zone was a perfect example of this as well. People were like, should we help Ukraine? Yes, overwhelmingly. No-fly zone, they were like, well, maybe. And they're like, no-fly zone means that we have to go to war with Russia. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not on board with this at all. This is why, and this question really proves, you have to frame things correctly.

And the dishonest framing by the media and by the Biden administration, not presenting the risks, the pros, the balances, and all of that to the American people is such a disservice. I'm reading a book right now called Stalin's War. It's a fantastic book, by the way, Sean McKeegan, shout out to him. And in it, they talk a lot about the way that the Roosevelt administration kind of maneuvered behind the scenes in terms of lend-lease. But what strikes me is that President Roosevelt always made a concerted effort, even though he was kind of having machinations, to sit and to talk to the American people about the decisions that he was making, about why the arsenal democracy speech, the strategic calculus. He was very careful to try

and sell his program and create tremendous buy-in and use his popularity to guide people to a position of which was not all that popular at the time. President Biden, though, he never gives us that ability. He never sits and actually speaks to the American people matter of factly. I mean, you could make the case for cluster munitions, but he never made the case. He just unilaterally signed off and then allows his apparatchiks to defend the decision. Right. I think those are all really important points. I mean, on the news media point, I'm not even asking for them to not make the Ukraine hawk case.

I'm just asking for both sides to be presented and for the risks and the trade-offs to be elucidated. And I have found it terrifying from the beginning that that has never been the case. I mean, you almost uniformly, like 99% of the commentary that you see on cable news is all in one direction. You've got all these people who have, you know, they're sitting on boards of defense contractors.

They stand to make a bunch of money off of this war and any other war besides. And that's never disclosed. And so you get this very one-dimensional picture. And yet, even with that very one-dimensional picture that has been painted for the American people, you still have a majority here saying, this is too far. This is inconsistent with the values that you told me we're supposed to be standing up for in this fight. No, I don't want to be associated with these horrific know, these horrific cluster munitions, cluster bombs that are going to maim children for years and years to come and which take a greater

toll on civilians than they do on the, you know, soldiers that you are supposed to be fighting. So no, absolutely not. We shouldn't be on board with this. I think your point about the communication from the president is really key as well. And I don't think this is just a trend under Biden. I think this is a sort of multi-decade trend. It's part of an anti-populist trend where there's contempt for the American people. They believe this was illustrated from Dr. Fauci during COVID and from many other officials besides. They don't believe that the American people can handle nuance. They don't believe that they can handle a complex situation where there

are pros and cons and where there are risks and challenges to balance. And so rather than actually level with people and present facts and truth in the way the world, the complicated way the world actually is, they try to really manage the emotions of the American people. They try to hide certain facts from them and, you know, really just manufacture consent in that way is the bottom line. So I think that's a long-term trend of, you know, at bottom contempt for the American people and which means contempt for democracy too, by the way. This is the modus operandi of the military-industrial complex and of the Pentagon and most of our presidents basically post-Vietnam. They have never been up front with us, even during the Vietnam War. They're like, yeah, it's just a few military advisors.

Don't worry about it. They're like, wait, half a million people are in Vietnam? What the hell is going on? How many people are dying a day? And then, of course, public opinion goes ahead and turns against it. Now, of course, American soldiers are not on the ground, or at least from what we know so far, are not on the ground in Ukraine. And in terms of that, plenty of CIA ops, probably former soldiers certainly are though.

The thing is, is that even the media now is at a point where they're beginning to hint a little bit towards the truth about what's going on on the ground. Let's put this up there on the screen. You gotta love the framing of this too, Crystal, from the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch's personal outlet. Ukraine's lack of weaponry and training risks stalemate in fight with Russia. Interesting. Lack of weaponry. Now, who's providing with that weaponry? Oh, right. The United States. And actually, what they point to, at least honestly, within this, is that without a significant, continuing, increasing, massive investment by the United

States, that Ukraine will very likely be able to dislodge the Russian defenses in the current counteroffensive on the front line, because really they have exhausted much of their ammunition that we've provided them. Many of the weapons, the tanks, and all of that have not been able to be put to the use of that we would in combined arms whenever we would use them in a tactical situation. And overall, over and over again within this, when you read past the headline, which is obviously pleading for more, they say very specifically that at the end of the day, they can't do it without a continuing and massive amount of war material. Maybe to the tune of 50 to 100, which is not going to happen, nor should it happen,

considering how much that we have provided them or even the European powers who at least appear tapped. Let's put this up there as well from the New York Times doing the exact same thing. Of course, always whitewashing what's happening. After suffering heavy losses, Ukrainians paused to rethink strategy. Quote, early in the counteroffensive, they lost as much as 20% of weapons and armor. The rate dropped as the campaign slowed and commanders are beginning to shift tactics. By talking about shifting tactics, they just stopped going forward. So when you stop going forward, yeah, you're going to stop losing as many people. But if you're losing almost one fifth of the amount of weapons and armor, you know, just in the first couple of weeks of the opening gambit, that does show you how horrific a war of attrition actually goes and about how much industrial might that you need to keep plugging that hole day after day. You need properly trained soldiers or you need a hell of a lot of soldiers like Russia has.

I'm not saying Russia can outright win the war. You know, they're incompetent enough and, you know, basically backwards in terms of their military tactics that they effectively have ruled that out for like a total takeover. But for where they're dug in right now with one fifth of Ukrainian territory, it doesn't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon right now, according to all of these reports. And again, on the topic of leveling with the American people, like, I just want to know from the White House how they think this is going to end. Like, what is, how do you think this is going to play out? What's your theory? What's your plan? What's your strategy? What's your tactics? Like, what are you watching?

What are you waiting for? What are you going to push for? How do you see this thing ever coming to some sort of a resolution? What is the upper limit on the level of support? Or do we just continue in this, you know, escalation, this slow escalation that we've been at from the beginning? I mean, listen, if you have the Ukrainian hawk perspective, like I obviously wildly disagree with this view, but I'm actually sympathetic to the people who are on that side who are like, well, if you were going to send the F-16, you should have done this from the beginning. I mean, because then they would have had better chance from the jump. We might be in a different place today. I'm actually kind of more sympathetic to that at this point

than whatever it is the Biden administration is doing, which I honestly can't even explain. So if I can't explain it, and we really try to follow this as closely as possible, how do you think the American people feel about where this is going and how this is all going to play out? I just want to hear from our commander in chief. How does he think that this is ever going to be resolved? How does he expect this will end? How will we play a part in bringing this conflict to a close? Because right now I could not come close to answering that question. Well, instead, Crystal, what you get are secret releases from the Pentagon, of which only people like you or I will ever pay attention to, which says the Biden administration is sending $400 million in additional military aid to Ukraine,

including a variety of munitions for advanced air defense systems, a number of small surveillance Hornet drones as attacks in the war have escalated. That's it. That's all actually that you get. You don't get a full rundown. You don't get the real accounting. The reason they don't give you the real accounting is so they can rig the numbers afterwards and say, oh no, we had to devalue everything we sent to Ukraine. That wasn't the actual cost of what we said. And oh, by the way, don't pay attention to our diminishing weapons stocks. So look, it's very clear here. I also recommend these guys from War on the Rocks. Michael Kaufman, who we used significantly in the beginning of the war, they just returned from a month-long sojourn in Ukraine. They were on the

front line. They talked to a lot of commanders. These are serious military guys. They are backing up everything that we are saying here, not in terms of the political message, but in terms of what the stalemate looks like, the lack of tactics, the bad leadership, the inability to go forward without suffering massive losses. And look, these guys, they're not really able to be political, I think, because of where some of the funding comes from and all that. But they're very honest, and it took actually

a great amount of courage. How much media pickup do you think that these guys get? Meanwhile, some idiot like Bret Stephens from the New York Times goes on some show pony tour around Kyiv. And he's like, I just got back from Ukraine and the resolve is tremendous, let me tell you. And it's like, okay, well, who are you going to trust? Yeah, yeah. Max Boot. It's like Max Boot and Bret Stephens going on a propaganda tour put on by the Zelensky government or actual military experts who are on the front line, critically are not

being actually paid by the U.S. government coming back and being like, yeah, it's not good, guys. Things are really not going well over there. Maybe we'll put a link in the description to some of their analysis, because I really do think it's so important for anybody who's interested in the actual like tactical level of why things aren't going and how that applies to the strategic. WorldCoin, you might be asking, what the hell is WorldCoin? Already sounds dystopian. Why are we spending our time on said WordCoin? Well, let's put this up there. Sam Altman of OpenAI fame is launching WorldCoin, which is, quote, an eyeball scanning crypto project. Now, let's- I hate every word of that, but- Yeah, I'm skeptical.

I have an open mind. Let's continue to read. Sam Altman's audacious eyeballing-scanning crypto startup started a global rollout of its services to help build a reliable solution for, quote, distinguishing humans from AI online to enable, quote, global democratic processes and, quote, drastically increase

economic opportunity. Oh, oh my. And what exactly does said project do? Individuals can then download the, quote, world app, the protocol compatible wallet software. They will visit a, quote, orb, which is a startup's helmet-shaped eyeball scanning verification device to then receive their world ID. That way, WorldCoin can quietly go and sign up people all over the world, you see what we're doing there, in order to gain tokens and use this as an identity verification tool that basically is across the internet and will enable identity verification in the days of more sophisticated AI.

I mean, I guess on its face, you're like, yeah, you are solving a problem, but then you have to think about it a little bit more. Who created this problem? Well, Sam Altman, he's the head of OpenAI and ChatGPT. So you created the problem and now you're selling us the solution. That's interesting. Classic. Second, you are scanning our eyeballs with a literal orb that we want to put our helmet around,

granting this to a public company and then effectively saying, you are going to be my new digital passport. I mean, for all the people out there who are worried about central bank digital currencies, centralized control. This seems like a catastrophic nightmare in terms of privacy and in terms of cooperation with governments. So if WorldCoin becomes the privatized standard, then the Chinese are just going to be like, okay, hand over every single eyeball that are inside of that or you don't get access to the biggest market in the world. What have we always learned from Silicon Valley? They're going to take that trade every day of the week. Or, you know, Eastern European governments, all kinds of Asian or South Asian governments, we have no idea what protections actually exist on this.

And I guess what's even more concerning is that some people are going to be doing this of their own free will, literally signing up to visit their local orb to get their eyeball scanned. I mean, I have to believe that at least some common sense will prevail, but you know, recently, Crystal, I've been traveling a lot internationally. The facial scan stuff out there is incredibly creepy. When you board a flight sometimes to Europe,

they don't even scan your boarding pass anymore. They just scan your face and they're like, Zagre and Jetty, seat 12D. What? And I'm like, hold on a second. Where did you get this? Where did this come from? Whose software is this?

I'm standing in the United States. I assume that I consented to this at some point in some contract, but which one? You know, it's like, and then I was also part of a pilot program whenever I came back. I forget which airport. I think it was Dallas that I flew into.

Yeah, it was Dallas that I flew into from Mexico. And it was the same thing where I never opted into global entry or any of these programs. And the TSA was piloting a facial scanning software where I walked in, TSA scanned my face, and it was like, welcome back to the United States. I never opted into this program. Presumably it comes from my passport photo or one of these other things. And I just remember coming away from it like, man, this is creepy as hell. But this is the future. I mean, you're starting to see it.

Border security is how it starts. And soon it'll get to financial transactions. We already have domestic instances of law enforcement using this facial scan technology and picking up the wrong people and alleging that they committed crimes that they were like literally not even in the state where the crime was committed.

But it's not like they were just like, oh, sorry, and you get released. The particular man that I'm thinking of, they held him there for weeks. So, I mean, his whole life was turned upside down by this, uh, oopsies from, uh, you know, facial scanning technology, you know, the simple person, some of this, I'm going to say, I don't even know what it means. I can't wrap my head or like, okay. So you start with distinguishing humans from AI online. Okay. I know what that means. And that seems good. I would, that seems really important actually going forward. Of course, as you said, Sagar,

this is a problem that Sam Altman was integral in creating, but if he wants to be part of the solution too, okay. It says drastically increased economic opportunity, incredibly vague and highly unlikely would be my gut reaction. This one though, enable global democratic processes. That one, I have no idea what they mean. It's not really spelled out here. I don't understand this one. There's some more details. They say, as TechCrunch previously noted, WorldCoin is perhaps one of the most audacious efforts to bribe the world to embrace this particular crypto coin. The startup, founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania, wants to put a crypto wallet and some of their currency onto every human smartphone. But in order to do so,

they have to build a way to determine whether someone is a unique human. And WorldCoin is basically the attempt at doing that. They've already rolled this out in some places, including in India, where they give people who agree to this scan and whatever to be in their system, they give them 25 world coin tokens. I have no idea what that's worth. But apparently there has been there have been some problems with that. They've been accused of exploitative practices, et cetera. So I guess the play here is kind of like the Elon Musk Twitter. I'm going to be 50 percent of the global financial services play. It's like a billionaire play towards world domination is my simplistic take of what's going on here. And so

frankly, it makes me very uncomfortable. And my best hope is that this is a fanciful, ridiculous scheme that falls flat on its face. That's what I'm hoping for. Well, and listen to this statement. If successful, WorldCoin will drastically increase economic opportunity, as you said, and then also enable a potential path to AI-funded UBI. So how does that work? So you have your identity verified, so then you can have your instant deposit of world tokens into your crypto wallet. I mean, all of this just seems like cooked up from the brain of Sam Altman, who clearly has these, you know, almost transhumanist fantasies of which obviously the tools for control become very obvious. Jack Dorsey has spoken out against WorldCoin. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. He says, quote, WorldCoin is an

attempt at global scale alignment. Cute. Jack has also been tweeting about the orb and making fun of said orb, about going in and checking, you know, making sure to. He says, visit the orb or the orb will visit you. Listen, as a woman named Crystal Ball, I'm not going to hate on the orb. It would go against everything I stand for. Do you remember the Trump orb? Whenever he and the Saudi guys gathered around the orb. That's an iconic photo, I do have to say. It is. Very memorable. You will never forget that one. the Saudi guys gathered around the floor. That's an iconic photo. I do have to say.

Very memorable. You'll never forget that. I mean, what does that mean? What does it say? Put that back up on the screen. Because this, oh, an attempt at global scale alignment, which he took from, that was one of the things that they said in a press release or whatever. What does that mean? And also privacy preserving digital identity. How? You know, through what mechanism? Presumably through some like cryptography. I mean, listen, maybe, you know, can it really not be cracked by a, can it really not be cracked by a nation state? Secondly, it says you have to download the world app. I'm like, all right, so what permissions does said app actually have on my phone? The entire thing just seems incredibly creepy and totalitarian. Look, I think we should have all learned the lesson that handing power over to any one

individual, good, bad, indifferent, handing an increasing level of power to them without any sort of democratic check or accountability is not a great direction to go in. So even as I find some of this indecipherable, and I think it is intentionally indecipherable, I think that core principle of being very skeptical of handing any aspect of your financial, personal, or privacy or identification life over to an entity run by one oligarchic individual, regardless of who they are and whether they're a nice person or a smart person or whatever. Not a great idea.

Absolutely right. Okay, let's move on to the next part here. Pinky Doll, who is she? What the hell is going on? For those of you who are normal and not on the internet but have possibly come across said meme, here's a little bit of a preview.

Pinky Doll is a TikTok creator, a streamer otherwise known as an NPC who went viral for people who were paying her on said streams in order to act things out, but not in a particularly engaging way, more in a nonplussed, almost removed way. So there's the best way I can describe it before we watch the video. Let's take a watch. You got me feeling like a cowgirl.

Let me write it, huh? Hee-haw, yes. You got me feeling like a cowgirl. Let me write it, huh? Gang gang. Gang gang. Gang gang. Ah.

Ice cream so good. Gang gang. Gang gang. Yes, yes, yes. Gang gang. Gang gang. Ice cream so good gang gang gang gang yes yes yes gang gang gang gang ice cream so good oh take it i am you got me feeling like a queen huh yeah this is late stage societal collapse people let's go and put this up the next part up here on the screen dinky doll's killing it right now uh in terms of uh the new york times what they say is she said she has made between $2,000 and $3,000 per stream across all social media accounts, which include Instagram and OnlyFans, and puts the number at some $7,000 per day. Now, very likely, after all this media attention that she's receiving, that number is going to go up even more. Let's do some quick back of the napkin math here.

That is like $2.5 million that she's getting on this stream. As the Times puts it, quote, "'In a typical performance, Miss Sinan,' which is her real name, who is 27 and lives in Montreal, stares into a camera lens while delivering a set of canned phrases. As she streams, viewers send her digital gifts in the form of cartoon items like roses,

dinosaurs, and ice cream cones. Each item translates to a cash payment. The gifts then float onto the screen and she racks each one with the same cartoonish mannerisms. Her reaction to the ice cream cones has become a meme, saying, quote, ice cream so good. Will often speak in a sing-song voice. Sometimes she pops corn kennels one at a time using a hot hair flat iron.

As one does. The effect is mesmerizing, nestled deep within the uncanny valley. So, I mean, look, I'm not a streamer. I've never particularly understood it. So I'm not of this culture. I don't really get this culture. I guess it's ironic since we make our living here on YouTube and on Spotify. But from what I can gather, this is a source of entertainment for a hell of a lot of people. I don't particularly understand why. And this NPC meme and or phrase like being able to manipulate

people's movements, I don't know what it taps into. I mean, in a really gross way, like the sexualized stuff on the internet actually makes more sense than whatever the hell is going on i mean i think for for a lot of people i think there is a sexual aspect to this that's one thing that they debate in some of these articles but there's like as best i can understand the idea with the she's trying to replicate a non-player character which is a video game character that comes I'm also not a gamer that comes pre-programmed and typically cannot be manipulated by the person at the controls as such a Non-player characters phrases and movements are often formulaic and repetitive

So at the same time that we have AI and bots that are trying to be more human Right, you have humans like this streamer, and she's not the only one. There's a whole genre of this type of streaming on TikTok, in particular Instagram, whatever, but in particular on TikTok, there's this whole genre of streaming that is like humans being more like the robots.

And so there's an element of, it's sort of like hypnotic. It's a little bit like gamerish in that you're looking to see if the gifts come up too quick or she messes up or whatever. There's a little bit of that. There's certainly an element of I can make this person, this beautiful woman, I can make her do whatever I want her to do. There's an element of this being the next evolution of, you know, people talk about creators having a parasocial relationship with their audience. I mean, we see a little bit of that on our show where people who are regular watchers, they feel like they really know us in

the sense they do because we bring ourselves to the show and you get a sense of who we are and what we think and you see what we talk about every day. And so there's this sort of like personal relationship there. This is like taking that to the next level where it's not just that I feel like I have this relationship with you, but there's a direct interaction. I send you this thing and you do the thing that I told you to do. So I have, you know, a direct channel to you and impact your life directly. And so I think that's part of it. One thing I found interesting here, Timbaland, who I'm a big fan of,

producer, rapper, whatever, was apparently ranked the top viewer of the Pinky Doll stream based on gifts spent, gifts sent and time spent viewing, represented for Timbaland, did not immediately respond, but apparently he is a big fan. So that is the Pinky Doll phenomenon, so to speak.

And like I said, this is just one of many creators who are, you know, finding success to a greater or lesser extent. This is their line of work. This is what they do. They spend hours doing this sort of thing. But I do regret to inform you that it turns out that Pinky Doll is a scab. She recently released a video indicating she is going to go to Hollywood and take some of the jobs that the striking actors are currently sitting out of. Let's take a listen. that you're about to be popping because when I come in here, I'm going to take somebody's pot. I'm going to take your spot. So you better secure your spot because I'm coming for it. I'm coming to it. I'm going to. So she's going to take their spot. So in a single day, you know, from me learning about Pinkie Doll and to her downfall in my eyes, you know, that was the entire life

trajectory of Pinkie Doll in terms of my understanding of the situation. I mean, it's not really all that surprising, is it? Like a lot of these TikTok people, who knows how long you're going to be famous for. Like you might as well take the bag while you can get it. But, you know, you shouldn't be crossing.

I mean, I don't even know if she knows what a picket line is. Like maybe she does. Maybe she's consciously violating the strike. I hope people are informing her. Yeah, people should inform her. They absolutely should. And anybody else, really, who's trying to get these said opportunities. So, yeah her. Yeah, people should inform her. They absolutely should. And anybody else, really,

who's trying to get these said opportunities. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know. The entire thing, I just, I don't get it. With great respect to our friends in Japan, who I do love. I do love Japan. I love a lot about Japanese culture. But this does seem vaguely Japanese

in terms of the psychosexual dynamic and vaguely removed, as we said, from sexuality really at all, going to some very odd levels of control combined with gaming and with streaming and the emojis and all that. It just seems reminiscent of exactly what they were going through almost really for the last two decades in some of their youth culture with streaming and with gaming. So I wonder if we're importing that here or if the same disease, I guess, is inflicting us. Or maybe I'm just reading way too much into it

and some weird shit is always popular on the internet. I mean, listen, there's an audience for everything. If this makes you happy, then go do you. Sure, yeah. You want to spend your hard-earned money on ice cream cones? Go for it. I have other suggestions for you. There's nothing quite like the sheer terror of the American upper middle class about what college their kids will be able to attend.

In well-off suburbs, the race for the Ivies begins the moment a child is conceived. You've got to get them in the right playgroup that feeds them the right preschool that leads to the right private school. Got to get them in fencing or tennis from age like two. Pony up thousands for test prep from the jump to make sure they can get through any possible entrance exams. In the Varsity Blues scandal, of course, a bunch of people who were wealthy,

but not like Bezos wealthy, were even willing to commit crimes to get their offspring into the right prestigious schools. Well, new data reveals just how the super rich game this whole system for their benefit and why the merely well-off may have so much anxiety about keeping their kids among the elite. According to the New York Times write-up of a groundbreaking study, an elite college admissions being very rich is its own qualification. Now, this study looked at admissions for 12 different elite private universities, including the Ivies, and found that even if you controlled for test scores and for

academic rigor, the children of the 0.1% were more than twice as likely to get into the school as your average applicant. Or as Matt Iglesias put it on Twitter, new source of intra-elite conflict and status anxiety just dropped. Just take a look at that chart that's up on the screen. If you are low income, you actually have a somewhat higher than average likelihood of getting in. Then there is a big drop off from about the 60th income percentile to the 99th percentile, where everyone from the upper middle class to the wealthy,

but not super wealthy, have a lower chance of getting in than the average. The line then jumps over the average line at around the 99th percentile, top 1%. Then it just skyrockets from there to the top of the charts. So the super rich are getting super privileged into our nation's top schools. And those schools, of course, are a direct pipeline into the national elite. Also revealing was exactly how the super rich got their big leg up. The benefit basically came from three areas, according to this study, legacy admissions, athletics, and private school privilege.

The biggest impact appears to have been from legacy admissions. The very richest were eight times, eight times, more likely than the average applicant to get into a school if they had a parent who had also attended that school. So being born into an Ivy League family supercharges the chances of already wealthy

kids. But the other categories of benefit are also pretty revealing. Wealthy students at elite schools are much more likely to be recruited athletes than middle class or poor kids. Now, why is that? Because many of the sports popular at the Ivies, things like rowing and fencing, they're expensive sports that basically only rich kids actually do. But even more mainstream sports have had a large and escalating cost associated with them as parents go to great lengths to get their kids in the right club or travel teams, attend faraway competitions, and supply them with all of the best gear. Another place where rich kids pulled ahead of the pack was in all of the non-academic

metrics that admissions counselors use. What were your extracurriculars? What kind of recommendations did you get? Remember those letters you had to get? Did your guidance counselor literally call up the school and advocate for you? I genuinely did not even know that last one was a thing, but apparently at a lot of the Ivy League feeder schools, guidance counselors have existing relationships with admissions officers, and they will actually work the phones to try to get their favorite kids in. This pays big dividends. Just look at this chart. Rich kids were actually not all that different from everyone else on their academic ratings, grades, course rigor, SAT scores. But their guidance counselor ratings, their teacher ratings, other non-academic ratings go sky high at the top

end of the wealth spectrum. This suggests a major advantage to rich kids attending elite private schools. It also suggests a less than benevolent reason why some parents are pushing and some schools are moving towards getting rid of the SAT. Standard eye tests and grades are far from perfect, but they're at least a somewhat objective measure.

When you start to get into these squishier variables, schools have been caught using them to blatantly discriminate against Asians and now to blatantly discriminate in favor of the rich. Basically, the less objective the criteria is, the more the rich have free reign to work the system in their favor, something many schools are dedicated to because rich kids with rich parents means fat donation checks. This paper also found that in terms of class preferences, it really didn't matter what race you were. No matter whether you were black, white, Asian, or Latino, if mommy and daddy were in the super elite, you were more likely to have your ticket punched as well. This study reveals one aspect of why classes become increasingly rigid in America,

such that in spite of our American dream mythology, kids in the U.S. are actually less likely to escape their class status at birth than kids in many European nations. Why our middle class is at birth than kids in many European nations. Why our middle class is also smaller than many of those same nations. These secret protection rackets that keep the rich rich and make it tougher for everyone else, that funnel the nepo babies into the most powerful echelons of elites so that they can then preserve those very protection rackets that got them there in the first place. And keep in mind, because this analysis doesn't even consider the advantages from things like private tutors and the like, it undoubtedly understates the leg up that the rich ultimately

get. Bottom line, as we end race-based affirmative action, there is no excuse for maintaining a blatant system of affirmative action for the rich. And Sagar, there has never been a study that breaks down exactly what benefit there is. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband.

The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music

and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

Listen to Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.