Chapo Trap House - 510 - Stuck in the Middle With You (3/29/21)

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

We discuss why everyone loves the big boat whomst stuck in canal, then talk about Joe Biden’s big press conference last week, as well as Biden firing of all his staffers dumb enough to report weed use on their background checks. Finally, we look at the Bessamer, AL Amazon union drive, and Amazon’s extremely ham-fisted public relations push against it.

Greetings, friends. It's Chapo. We're back again with me, Matt and Felix, coming to you as usual. And let's see, how to kick off this week's show. I think we should kick it off by waving bon voyage to the giant container ship known only as the Ever Given. It's ever gone, folks. It's just, we all had a fun week with that big boy just getting wedged into the Suez Canal. But thanks to the lunar cycles and a particularly strong supermoon, the tides have pushed it out to sea. And let's also thank those wonderful tugboat workers. Those great team in the Suez. Both teams played hard, but in the end, the tides just wanted it more. So let's wave goodbye to the Ever Given and ponder a week's worth of memes. You know, this was the

first big meme event of 2021. What did you guys make of it? Why do you think people responded? So powerfully, to the image of this giant ship wedged into a canal and holding up probably 15% of all global commerce. For part of it's got to just be like whom amongst us, right? I mean, come on. Who hasn't been wedged into a place and causing backups and embarrassment and billions of dollars to global trade? Who hasn't had that experience? I think it's been, I think it got big because of a general drought and things. Like I, this lasted way longer than most of these things do. Like everything is starting to last a little while longer. If you've noticed, like white boy summer, that was like a multi day thing when previously it would have been a one or two

day thing. It's, I mean, I think there's a drought post Trump. Yeah, people are trying to fill their Trump hole. Yeah, I was, I like to go through like sort of like live viral Twitter now. And it's like metrics are down. David from we'll get like 50 likes on some shit. That's why you got to have things like Bill Crystal going, yeah, we should make Cuba estate. Yeah, he's trying to rile up the monkeys. Yeah, it's like everyone's, everyone's numbers are down metrics are down across the board. The only people that are thriving are those like catfish spam bots that post things like um, you know, sometimes, sometimes a drink in a jar is just a vibe and it gets 700,000 retweets that someone in Moldova paid for so they can plug lights that give you cancer. That's the only

thing that's still up. And then of course, like sort of tired culture war things that are like if a white guy reads good night moon, kill him, it's going to rape you. It's, I mean, I didn't think it totally stocked or anything like it's a funny event, but it just like markedly different in tone and people are searching for something. And it felt like a sort of like 2012 Twitter thing a little bit. I don't know if you felt like that. I think it was a little bit of a little bit of a throwback in a number of ways. And I think people were sort of charmed by it because both of the sheer size of this container ship and then just a sort of reminder that, you know, everyone likes to think about like sort of the global economy and the marketplace and capitalism and technology

is this kind of invisible thing. It's just sort of humming along on computers. But that's not really the case. I mean, this was just like wind shut this shit down because it just wedged this gigantic fucking ship into this very narrow shipping lane. And it's stuck up. I mean, it ground all global commerce like a halt virtually. I mean, ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope for like the first time since the fucking, they built the fucking. Look who came crawling back. Decretio has been sailing there for centuries. And he's like, this has been like, this has been the best place to go since like the 1800s. What the fuck? Everyone's getting in my way now. I have Sunday drivers. I think it's like a sort of reminder about like this sort of how low

tech some of, I mean, I understand the Sue has is like an amazing piece of like engineering and just like the size of these ships in general or, you know, no small feat, but it is this, it's very physical, the physical economy is Linda Lourish would say. But yeah, I mean, it's just this sort of charming thing. I mean, I think people felt it. Yeah, I agree with what you said, Matt. I think people looked at the ship and they were like, that's me. I mean, who hasn't just gotten stuck somewhere and fucked everything up. Yeah. Well, I thought, I thought the porn that people drew that was interesting because it was like always an embarrassed girl with a big ass, never like, never like a sort of like anime girlish boy with a big cock and the cock's getting stuck in the

canal. It's an embarrassed woman with a huge ass. And I feel like that's how a lot of young people feel. Yeah, we're all just embarrassed anime ladies crying in the, in the transom. Yeah, I was laughing though, thinking about like everyone was like getting off their jokes about it. And I was just laughing, imagining a guy who has like stuff on that ship who's getting insanely pissed because people are making fun of like, and he's just like, I have cocaine on that boat. Okay, I need it. Well, that's the thing is that it's one of the rare news events that's that's actually a significant event, you know, it put a kink in global trade flows. It costs billions of billions dollars and all that. But it's also it's nobody's getting hurt. Yeah. Yeah. And how often does that

happen when you got something of consequence occurring that isn't directly causing misery to untold people? And yes, you know, ripples in the economy. But it's just a boat stuck in a canal. There's nobody getting like pulled apart by vultures or something like 90% of news events in the world are didn't. Yeah, it's not it's not a mass shooting. Didn't the captain of the boat shot it? Do you want to like draw one of those GPS dicks with the container? That's what it looked like. Yeah, which makes me wonder what was going on there. I might like a little more information. So probably get boarded. So the well, I mean, you know, whatever happens at sea, you know, I mean, sometimes you're drawing a giant dick with your giant container ship and sometimes

you're your second one. But do you think the captain of this ship is going to be in trouble, you know, when he like gets back to the dock or whatever? Yeah, come on. What do you get? Come on, man. It'd be funny if he was like drunk. But even then it's like, who amongst us? You didn't you didn't know it's actually safer to drive a boat drunk. I think that's true. The thing that gets you killed on the sea is hesitation. And when you're drunk, when your inhibitions are limited, you're a more primal driver. And you know, just it would seem to be we all need to, you know, tip our caps to the tides and to apparently a particularly good supermoon was sort of an instrumental in putting this boat out to out to sea again. And I just got to say,

I don't know if we should be thanking or attacking the witches for this. I mean, did they do this or did they did they trap the ship or did they free it? What have they done to the move? Yeah, that's a classic move. They they they trap the ship in order to then get the get the contract to move it. It's insider dealing. It's a witch rice shog fire. So and to to Felix's point, though, about how this has lasted longer than usual, a article, an opinion piece in The Guardian just came out right now that is the kind of thing that would have happened that seems to happen like within an hour of most events becoming memes. And that is the insane, the insanely tedious woke fake woke backlash to get people annoyed, the clickbait trolling and concern trolling.

And here it is in The Guardian, the Suez boat saga enthralled the world, but not those with Navifobia. What? The container ship triggered people with fears of ships and sea wreckage and Megalophobia, the fear of large objects. That's a no, that's a throat. That's a throwback. Like most woke articles now are about streaming shows and most hate clicks are like that's very like Guardian like 2015 or so. Yeah. Um, I don't know, maybe I and you know, today I saw that trailer for that Guy Ritchie movie. Maybe we really are rewinding a few years. Yeah. I mean, you think it really feels like it, man. It really feels like it. This is a this is a Harambe style event. I mean, if we if we've reached the if you take it seriously that we've reached the end and that

there can be no development from now, then we have to just sort of do like the reverse big bang and just go backward through culture. No, we're literally doing that. And honestly, like, yeah, fine. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it's not like with it. It's not like there were any like, there are too many like great movies or shows or anything during the Trump years. I will, I think it would go forward a little if they let Joe talk more. Oh man. Talk about it later. But I think Biden's staying true to his promise of rewinding the horrible grind of history to another period that sucked. Yeah, that's our option. It's like you basically you don't get things to not suck. You get to pick which sort of variety of cultural sucking you get to enjoy. Let's go back

to 2011. Let's all put on our maroon jeans and a vest and the and stunner shades and like think we're the first person that heard MGMT the sound of the summer. Let's go back. Was there back then? I actually liked when Marvel movies came out. I thought they were good. Was there any part of you guys that was just sort of kind of hoping that the ship would be stuck there forever or that they would have to blow it up or something? No, any of them blowing it up was cool. I would have liked that. I don't know. I have certain things on that chip. As you know, I'm in business with several families of New Yorker writers and I cannot discuss this further who or what I have on the ship, but I need it. Well, yeah. No, I mean, my joke was that I had a shipment of Goku stats,

rare Goku statues filled with cocaine. And you know, like I see your jokes and they're not funny to me. Yeah, Goku statues really work in keeping robbers out of your house. They're like, Oh, that's like that's like a hobo symbol. They're like, Oh, Goku lives there. Can't rob that house. He's going to make his hair blonde again and beat the shit out of you. Well, like I said, it seemed like it was like a like a micro Harambe moment with that with that ever given ship being stuck in there. But you said that maybe we could accelerate this process of going back in time if they just let Joe Biden talk more. Well, they did let him talk last week. He gave his first the first press conference of his presidency. And I didn't watch

all I didn't watch all of it. There was some of what I did see. It was like it did not disappoint. But but more than anything, I was impressed with that was like immediately after it was over, I saw from at least three or four pretty big name journalists reiterating the point that Joe Biden just absolutely put to bed every right wing talking point about his mental fitness for office. It's like, you know, he answered questions brilliantly and off the top of his head for like, you know, so this and I was like, well, first of all, the press conference was before 6pm. So, you know, he's being graded on a curve as far as I'm concerned. And like he sundown like three three or four times during this this Q&A here. So I mean, it just like, is there anything he

could have done short of pissing himself that wouldn't have produced that reaction by the press? No, they're doing no matter what. No, yeah, I think we have another few months of this of the press, like, very openly being in the tank for him, like all the all the questions that the press pulls at the press conferences are like, except for the ones from Fox that are like, you know, whatever, it's like, what's it like for Joe to be such a good person? The New York Times questions have been fucking insane. Anytime that someone asks like even a remotely negative question or something or notes something, they just get torn apart by the by the Biden maniacs who like really didn't exist before they've really no fair weather fans. I think

Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, these are the these are the same people that like when when Trump and his goals are giving press conferences, they were like, this is the most unique threat to American democracy ever the way he treats the press like they're the enemy is like is, you know, unique in American history. And like, this is like a huge warning sign about our slide into despotism or fascism or whatever. And now it's like, if anyone asks Jen Saki, like anything that's like mildly contradicts the official, you know, White House line, there's just a fucking wave of people like screaming at these. They're not a real journalist. This is fake news. I mean, they're just doing the exact same thing. I mean, it's not it's not necessarily novel or particularly

interesting, but it is funny to look it is funny to watch. So why don't we why don't we see a couple of these choice Biden clips from the press conference when we queue those up. I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So the best way to get something done, if you if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to anyway, I know it was an hour like press conference that was just like very short, but the number of people journalists I saw saying, well, Biden definitely displayed this. He eliminated and dismissed any question that he's not up to a snuff and and totally on point and completely lucid. Like I'm sorry, but in any other era, a president just fritzing out

like that and national television would have been a big deal. It's I mean, my God, Daniel Dan Quayle misspelled potato. And it was one of three events that happened to that year. You know, no, that was a joke for like 10 years, Matt. That was Jay Leno was eating out on that like well into the Clinton administration. This guy Jay made his brain just like what his state just turned off in the middle. Like he had to he had to blow in the cartridge in the middle of a fucking speech that's fucked up. That's my favorite thing that Biden does is when he's talking and he's like just completely gives up when he gives up. It's just like, you know, I'm too old for this shit. I'm literally too old for this shit. It doesn't really matter. I'm

president. You're going to do it. You're going to ignore it anyway. I know that. So whatever, it's too much work to fucking try to pull this out of my ass, especially since he has to know it's all garbage. Like that's the thing. One of the real question myths, questions I've always had about politicians is how the hell do you just keep saying this shit over and over again that you know is pointless, that you know is totally contentless. And it's ambition, you know, but I think at a certain point you get so old. He literally, even though he wants to be president, the only thing he's ever wanted and it's just, he can't muster the energy to continue saying the thing. The, for me, the perfect of that was the one where he goes, he's trying to say something

about like Bill of Rights, life, liberty. And then he just goes, you know, the thing. Yeah. That was so perfectly evocative. Like you people know what it is. You all know the bullshit that we say. I just have to stay here to say it. So I'm tired and just take it, just take it from there. Yeah. I always thought about the most disconcerting version of that would be, do you remember those interviews he was doing on Good Morning America, like after he secured the nomination, where he would go like Trump, he's a few chopsticks short of, I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't like just like, it was like, if anyone else did it, I'd be like, this is a guy who's going to kill himself. That's so depressing. But yeah, no, people do know the thing. We know the thing. Yeah. We

just asked to stand there. He has to just be the guy. He has to be the guy that the old primary voters could see on their TV and be like, Oh, right. Obama guy. Yeah. Sure. Him. That's all he needs to do. And, and it just like this sort of, I don't, I mean, it's probably, I think it's probably not even coordinated. But what I mean is like the, the, the ready made press reaction to just be like, that was a masterful performance by Joe Biden. I mean, do you remember like during the debates, like nobody ever really said like, God damn Biden sucked in those debates. No, sir. They just sort of didn't mention it. But they're lying too. Like not only was he barely lucid, he just lied flatly. And they're just like, yeah, who cares?

They just said that it just seems none of this matters. It seems it's a case of like protesting too much. And like, I don't know, like I'm half getting here, but like I would not be surprised in the next couple of months is like, the next thing that can get you kicked off social media is talking about Joe Biden's like mental capacities or, or, or imply or imply it's, it's, it's not up to snuff to be like the president of the United States. Yeah. That's ableism to say that the president should know what time of day it is. Well, that, that is the scarier thing, right? It's sort of like two levels of fright. If you're on one level and you're like a rational person who's like not too deep into the shit, you're like,

well, that's like disconcerting that he just gives up in the middle. But the real thing that scares people that no one will talk about is like, oh, that shows that like it kind of doesn't really matter who specifically is president, but it's just on autopilot. And it's like, it's run by other people. And that, that, that opens up a frightening question as to what the American presidency is. It's just on autopilot. How little our input matters. Yeah. Yeah. That is something nobody really wants to confront. So we're all going to just agree that grandpa is doing fine. Yeah, because it's like, no, yeah, he's done a bunch of shit that I hate. He's done some things that are like, okay, but it's like, I don't think you could say

it's like, like the country stopped working. Yeah. Can we see another one of those clips? There's another one here. And so I'm convinced that we'll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. That's a good line. That's talking about that. That's not a bad line. That, that was a two hour at best moment, the Jim Eagle thing. That's another one where even a few years ago, how do you not make Jim Eagle like every other Halloween costume? And now it's going to be forgotten by the time we're talking about it. Yeah. And there'll be like, that's like, there, if like, you even like Google like, what the fuck is Jim Eagle? You'll get like 50 pop-ups from Washington Post and Snopes that

are like, Jim Eagle was actually the most popular cartoon in the world until last year. It's not a thing he made up. It's a real thing. Actually, if you didn't watch Jim Eagle and don't get this, you are probably racist. But I mean, in that sort of construction, like Jim Eagle is good. Like, right? Like, this is so bad, it'll make Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. And like Jim Crow is the bad one, but Jim Eagle is good because it's an Eagle. Is that, I mean, am I parsing this correctly? Yeah. He's saying an Eagle is better than a Crow. Well, I mean, I don't know about that. I mean, The original Jim Crow is therefore as much better than this current push to reduce voting

rights in Georgia as an Eagle is from a Crow. Well, I mean, I have very, I have very troubling feelings about that. I mean, come on. I mean, Corvids, easily the smartest bird species. Yeah, they're smart. They're cooperative. They're friends with humans and give them presents. There's a fair amount of... In dark souls, too. There's a fair amount of research that suggests that Crows and like Corvids in general have something approaching self-awareness. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's been Jim Crow and a lot of negative assumptions there, but they're just throwing an Eagle. You know, just say like, oh, an Eagle is automatically better than a Crow. Yeah, because it's the American fucking bird. USA, USA. You know what?

The non-cooperative bird. As far as Eagles go, the bald Eagle is among the more paltry species. It's actually quite... Shut the fuck up. It's quite small compared to the, for instance, the golden Eagle, you know? It's the strongest, best one. It's bald. For some reason, that's cool. The bald Eagle. All right, is there... I'm looking at the golden Eagle right now, just checking on the size of this bird. That's all right. It's a pretty big bird. It's an excellent bird. He's got the ability to really hit you in the ear with like a really good, just rich moment, like Trump in that way, like that near and dear thing.

It holds near and dear to you that you... It just gets stuck in your head. That you're near and dear to you. It's good. It could be a ringtone. His rhythms of speech and his like sort of crutch phrases are really, they're very infectious. Like I... The no offense to like insert subgroup here. Like what he was talking about, rice pudding. No offense to the Greeks, yeah. He does that a lot and no one queues in on it. I guess because queuing in on it would be like, oh, that's what he's saying,

because he's like trying to remember who he is. Yeah. He's buying himself time. Yeah. I couldn't find a clip of it, but there was another section during this Q&A where he said that the main reason people flee Central America to seek asylum in America is because of earthquakes. I'm dealing with focusing on the fundamental reasons why people leave Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador in the first place. It's because of earthquakes, floods. And he suggested spending like State Department money to build better street lights in El Salvador. What I was able to do is not give money to the head of state because so many are corrupt,

but I was able to say, okay, you need lighting in the streets to change things. I'll put the lighting in. We got a contractor. We got the type of lighting. We paid directly to the contractor, did not go through the government. I couldn't... I mean, again, I can't even begin to parse that. I mean, yes, like earthquakes have occurred in Central America, but I don't know if that's the primary reason that people are fleeing. Well, I mean, do you remember in the 1980s when the U.S. used drug money to arm a bunch of earthquakes and genocide in indigenous people?

Yeah. No, the CIA gave them earthquake machine technology. They gave them earthquake weapons, and hence that's why there's a refugee problem. Did you see him saying when they were talking about COVID origin and ideas, and he was like, I have my own theories, but I'm not a scientist. I need to know what those are. I need, like, oh, man, there was a pangolin malt shop where they were making pangolin malts. Or imagine if he was just like, I don't know who wants to hear my theory, Jack. I think it came from Fort Detrick, Maryland, the U.S. Army Bioweapons Facility,

and they're like, no, Joe, no. Yeah, if we find out, like, 9-11 was an inside job, it will be because him, like, forgetting that he's not supposed to say that. Yeah, like, we may learn so many secrets that they just interview him more. I mean, unfortunately, like I said, I fear that these press conferences may be few and far between, but I don't know, like, I guess, like, I mean, you know, like, it's the Biden administration, like, you know, they've got a lot of irons in the fire, and I just, I have noticed this this consensus beginning to gel among the sort of, like, left liberal media to a certain degree

of people who are sort of touting the sort of aggressive actions on behalf of the Biden administration to inject money into the economy, stimulus and relief bills and things like that. And there's this thing about, like, you know, he may not be a radical, but he's shaping up to be the most radical president since FDR or LBJ. And I'm just wondering, like, it just, like I said, you can point and, like, certainly as compared to Obama, I think you can make some favorable comparisons for, like, the first three months of the Biden administration versus the first three months of Obama's. But there's something, like I said, sort of prepackaged about this FDR LBJ thing that just seems to me like, this is what they'd be telling you regardless of

what he's been, what he's doing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it just, yeah, it seems phony to me. It seems totally phony to me. Well, I honestly think that they are less interested in convincing people that that's true than they are trying to convince themselves and each other. Yeah, I think that's what's going on. I mean, I think this is a, I think this is like a prepackaged argument for, like, the kind of public intellectual class to give them something to hold on to. And, you know, and I think really give them something to justify their behavior in the, you know, election and primaries. Yes. You know, like, and, you know, ensuring that. Yeah, he was the, he was the actual progressive choice. I was right to do that.

I was right to Jennis and all of my alleged beliefs to support the sexual predator, racist, neoliberal, Gorgon, because, oh, looks that he was actually faking that whole time, just so he could be president. And, you know, as far as like a domestic agenda goes, I mean, I think you can make a credible argument that he's, you know, flex his muscles a little bit more than Obama has. I mean, if anything, that just makes Obama look all the more just absolutely shameful. But the thing is, like, I mean, I know it sucks because as we've talked about before, basically nobody cares about foreign policy. But as when the, where the U.S. border ends, he's been pretty much the same as everyone else before or since him. I mean, like,

everyone who came before him looks some truly bad shit from the Biden administration vis-a-vis. I mean, like, they want to restart the Iran deal. Like, just pay close attention to what Tony Blinken has been talking about lately. It's like, they want to get back in the Iran deal, but they're not willing to allow Iran to have any concessions to get them to come back to the negotiating table, which is just like, no, like, we're the ones who should be giving concessions to them because our stupid country, like, fucked up the deal that they signed to, and it here- We reneged on a deal! We reneged on a deal! And then killed their national heroes. Yeah. Like, the most, like, if, like, if, like, they had killed, the equivalent of if they had

killed the greatest American, Tom Brady. Yeah. And so that's the Iran deal. But also, like, I just want to talk briefly about what Tony Blinken said recently about the arrest of the coup, the coup government in Bolivia by Moss and Louis Arsé, the democratically elected government in Bolivia, rather. It says, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement, there are questions about the legality of the arrests and urged Bolivia to release the detainees pending an independent and transparent inquiry into the human rights and due process concerns. Okay, independent and transparent inquiry, there's already one going on, and it's being conducted by the Bolivian judiciary. What Blinken means is that he wants the independent inquiry

to be run by the OAS or Human Rights Watch or some group like that. And, like, his concerns about human rights, it's just, like, Janina Nez and, like, these fucking, like, the coup mongers, like, fucking massacred protesters when they pulled off their coup. And, like, this is just, this is all just so funny to me because, like, this is going on at the same time when the consensus seems to be gelling that everyone who did the capital riots and has been arrested for that, for doing that coup, shouldn't even be able to fucking raise money to, like, fund illegal defense. They should always be just railroaded into a fucking federal prison. And then, like, he's literally saying, like, he's really saying, like, Blinken's attitude

about Janina Nez and, like, these guys who, the people on coup plotters who, like, did a military coup to supersede the results of a democratic election, it's, like, basically exactly what they're accusing Trump and his supporters of trying to do. They're just like, oh, actually, we should let them out of prison. And we should just, you know, we have concerns about how they're being treated. It's just like, get the fuck out of here. It's their country. Like, their judiciary can handle, like, this criminal investigation, which is what it is. So it's just like, oh, like, should we, should the OAS be handling fucking the QAnon Shaman's case too? Because, I mean, like, I mean, like, these people, like, the crimes being alleged here are the exact same things.

Except one was actually worked. Yeah, one was a coup that worked and they actually, like, killed more than one guy. Yeah. They killed quite a few people. And, and, you know, like, get it on Janina Nez's orders of, like, extrajudicial killings by the police and military. Well, you know, we have to, I mean, you've got to stand up for your clients a little bit, you know, even if you have to cut them loose and they don't, they don't get the job done, you have to, as an example to the others who are watching, let people know that you're going to at least kind of have their back if it goes badly for them. Yeah. That's why we got to pay Ron Guido a billion dollars for the rest of his life and keep him, keep him in the style to which he has become accustomed. Yeah. It's

going on in the AP here. It says, Blinken said the arrest threatened to undermine democracy in Bolivia, which held national elections in October. Yeah. These are, these are, they're arresting the people who undermine democracy in Bolivia. Like, how can you, how can you continue to have a democracy in the country if you just, like, there are no legal ramifications to the people who literally did a coup and killed people? Yeah, that's okay. That's fine. Oh, was that illegal? I was sorry. I didn't know that was legal. Which is literally what the fucking capital doofuses said. Yeah. He goes, he noted that the European Union, the Bolivian Conference of Catholic Bishops, oh, well, okay, the Catholic Church is weighed in here. I'd love to hear what they have to say

about this. And he goes, as well as Bolivian and international human rights organizations have also expressed concerns. Protesters accused Enez, who assumed the presidency following Morales' resignation and exile, of terrorism and sedition for unrest that led to his out, sir. She called her detention an abuse, denying that a coup took place. So, I mean, like, yeah, like, like, the difference is that, like, you know, the Trump administration, like, Elliot Abrams and John Bolton would have just been like, be like, Enez is a hero, she's a political prisoner, whereas Blinken and these guys are, they're arguing something slightly different, but to achieve the same result. They're just saying, oh, like, she's being unfairly

persecuted in this highly political prosecution. And it's like, yeah, goddamn right, it's a political prosecution. She's a politician who used her office to, like, commit crimes against the Bolivian people and against the democratic process in that country. Yeah, if you don't send that person to prison, why even have a country? Yeah, why have a government, right? And it's just like, oh, all these, all these international human rights groups are fucking, are crying about this. It's like, they didn't cry about any of the shit that she did in, in, while carrying out this coup, or any of the people killed by her government or military, or, like, right-wing groups in those countries, they don't give a shit about that. So,

yeah, if the OAS, Human Rights Watch, like, just shut the fuck up and let Bolivia's own government and judiciary, like, prosecute the coup plotters and the people who did it. Or just let out every one of these yahoo's who storm the Capitol, or start fucking expressing concerns about their human rights and due process. Did you see the, this is just, like, a brief thing that someone found? But, uh, did you know that Tony Blinken's dad was like a- Yeah. Oh, yeah. The airy. Oh, yeah. To Robert, Robert, well, well, Jesus Christ.

It was his stepdad, I believe. It was his stepdad who was the left- I'm not the, I'm not the stepdad. I'm the dad who stepped up. Apparently, though, he was the last person to see Robert Maxwell alive before he fell off his yacht. God. He was the guy who just bumped him over that railing. Oops, sorry, sorry, Bob. Um, but like, yeah, uh, here's another funny story that we didn't get a chance to cover last week that's like, you know, I think a good example of how, how bold and radical this new Biden administration is. Uh, this, this story really warms my heart because apparently all these young staffers were encouraged to come forward and be truthful about past drug use,

vis-a-vis marijuana, a drug that is now legal to use recreationally in the District of Columbia. And the ones who were dumb enough to tell the truth have now all been let go from the Biden administration. How fucking sick is that? Like, I mean, that, I, I love the idea that every one of these like hyperambitious little creeps, um, who have all smoked weed and all think it's fine, they'll have no problem with it, uh, could not wait to fucking get their dream job working for a man who probably has done more to incarcerate people for smoking marijuana than just about any other human being in American history outside of Harry Anslinger, like the first drug, America's first drugs are. And I think this is twofold. It's like one, uh, these little creeps, like I'm, I, I, I

applaud Biden for getting rid of the dopers and the hotbeds. You want motivated people. You don't want people who are fucking lazy and people who aren't dumbasses who tell the truth in a fucking government forum. Cause that's the thing though is like Jen Sackie, when, when asked to justify this, is they're like, there are security concerns about people who do drugs recreationally and also have a security clearance. Like they could be, you know, they could, they could end up getting blackmailed by a man named white Mike over like an eighth of weed or something like that. But I think the real security concern, and I think they're smart, is that anyone dumb enough to tell the truth about doing drugs to the federal government is probably not reliable enough to be in the

president in the white house. Yeah. Someone who lied about that in a government forum will just accidentally sign Delaware away to China. And then it's like, where are you going to get DuPont paint? No, I mean, this is, I have the same feeling here that I had about the, when they were like, Oh, Amy Klobuchar is mean to her staffers. It's like, good. Yeah. If you, if you work for Amy Klobuchar, you should be abused. Uh, just like, yeah, you deserve, if you're like happily going to go work for Joe Biden and you're like, Oh, I need to tell him the truth about me smoking this, uh, jazz grass. Uh, yeah, you deserve to be fired. But just the way it was justified, I find was so funny because like, A, Kamala Harris has admitted like openly that she smoked weed at one point

in her life, but no one's asking her to resign. It's like, it's just, she's been exempted from this, but all the young people who are excited to actually do the work of this administration, they've just had their dream job and life ripped away from them. But Kamala is like, there's no, there's no question that, whoa, she's going to step aside just because she smoked weed. And she smoked weed when it was illegal. These, these like the young people, well, yeah, you're right. She's probably lying about that. That's probably what she did. Yeah. Yeah. I was, when I was in college in like 1991, yeah, and I was, I was smoking weed and I was listening to MGK. MGK. Yeah. Yeah. I think that as, uh, politics gets, as human beings stop entering politics,

as it can, it becomes only for lizards because, you know, the people who become politicians, because like they think it could be fun and, and use it to have fun, go, they go away because it just becomes such a joyless, you know, a machine. Uh, they're going to have to start making up scandals to make them appear like relatable people. Yeah. Yeah. Um, tough luck to them. Sorry, it happens. It's going to be legal here soon though. Well, yeah, I mean, you're going to have to get it at the DMV. I want to, I want to get it right. It's going to be legal, but I'm sure just about, um, like so many strings attached this to be functionally pointless. But I, you know, I'm, that is good news, but I just want to, one other thing I want to say

about this is that, um, the press secretary, Jen Sackey or whatever her name is, uh, when asked about this, she was like, look, she was like, well, in that very like, very sort of that, that dry, um, restrained, but very condescending tone that like, uh, the Libs love about her. She's like, well, marijuana is still legal, illegal at the federal level. And what I love about that is like, oh gee, if only there was someone in the federal government with the authority to change that, guess, guess, okay, guess that's just what we're stuck with. Joe Biden, if he wanted to, could de-schedule marijuana at the federal level tomorrow. And there would be no, uh, no, no Congress involved, no legislation to draft, and it wouldn't even cost any fucking money.

You could just say, yeah, like weed's legal now as far as the federal government's concerned and problem solved, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to because he is an ideological drug warrior. I think like many of the people in the White House view marijuana as some kind of dangerous gateway drug. Or I see the thing is for these people, I don't think it's their concern so much as that it's a gateway drug. I think it's the concern they're concerned about marijuana is that it's a drug that saps people's ambition. And they're, and they're, and they're drive to work hard. And like it makes them a little bit, a little bit looser, a little bit spaceier, or you know, sort of creates a attitude of like, well, just like realizing what's worth doing

and what's not worth doing. It makes you just a little bit chilled out. And I think that that's what they view as dangerous about it, not that it's going to lead you to become a junkie or kill you or cause you to overdose or whatever. I think they accurately understand that marijuana use, should it become more broadly acceptable to do among, especially among highly professional classes of people, that it will act as sort of a solvent that will dissolve the kind of like hyper ambitious, like, you know, checklist personality that thrive in that they, in fact, that these institutions rely on to continue to do their evil work in the world. And I'm not saying like marijuana is any kind of like panacea that will make bad people good, or can like, you know, ameliorate like

the evils in our society in any effect. But I think they are right to understand it. And I think behind all of it is a fear about how the more acceptable it becomes as like to use as a recreational drug, just like alcohol or other other ways people, you know, other chemicals people use to escape reality, is that they think it's, I think it saps this hyper ambitious striver personality or it blunts the worst aspect of those kinds of people. Well, also, you don't want to, if you don't really have to, you don't want to give up any cudgel you can use to fucking keep people in line. I mean, if you have a society that creates negative externalities in the form of people seeking some fucking solace from its worst alienations, you got to make sure some of those

are illegal so that you can use them to fuck with people because you can use them to control. And there's, there's never, there's never going to be a turning over of that power unless there's some significant force acting against it. And right now people who want weed legal, they want lead weed legal, but it's not any kind of like organized political power that is able to overcome just the status inertia within the federal government. Well, I mean, if you think about the Biden administration and politics in general, like the attitudes of anyone in this country, regardless of like race, gender, background, income level for anything, under the age of 40 are pretty starkly divided from people over the age of 40. And we saw that in the Democratic primary.

And I think like as people get older, like, you know, more and more of those people are going to enter positions of power and authority in American life. And I think you're right, Matt, it is very useful to have a cudgel over anyone under the age of 40 who is all almost universally smoked marijuana at one point in their life in regards it to be largely harmless, or certainly no worse than alcohol or tobacco. And it's important to have a, to have those sort of locks and dams set up to make sure that like, you know, that the type of person who has smoked marijuana and isn't ashamed of it, there will always be that thing that they can hold over you to keep you out of your dream White House job. And like once again, I don't mean to say that

any of these fucking lizards who got into the Biden administration would have done anything good with their time or power. Because just simply the fact that they were so excited to work for Joe Biden in the first place is rather telling. But I think that they're like, you know, like, like all aspects of the drug war, it really is about social control, more than any concern for people's health, or like, you know, mental well-being regarding addiction or anything like that. And any further thoughts on the weedheads getting kicked out? I hope they find God at some point. Okay, what about, here's another drug addict who remains unpunished. And that's Hunter Biden. And, you know, Hunter, obviously he's not in the

administration. And I think, you know, we talked before about how like the, the one moment where like Joe came across like a genuinely decent person was that like recorded phone call where he says like, you know, I forgive you or like I still love you even though you're a drug addict. And obviously Hunter isn't privy to, I don't think he has a security clearance or isn't privy to like, you know, being in the White House staff. But I mean, I think it is telling the treatment he receives versus these, these harmless weedheads. What was this thing recently where like he just chucked a gun in a dumpster or like lied about it or something? He's a, he's being a G is what he's doing. He's being a real ass dude of the week, every week. He's always the real ass dude of the

week. Well, that's a, that's a game couples play a lot. Like if you, the husband, leave the toilet seat up, your wife will throw away your gun. And it's part of like, they talked about this a lot in the lock horns, which is sobering documentary about marriage. But it's also like, you know, sometimes the sparks create flames. And, you know, you like that you like it when your wife bust your balls a little bit by throwing your gun away. And like in Sons of Anarchy, it's used for a school shooting. And you have to find the one niners and make the deal with the Chinese, but then cut in the IRA. And that's just life. That's marriage. That's how you raise kids. That's especially marriage when you're married to your dead brother's wife. That's how it is.

Okay. So this is the story. This is from Politico. On October 23rd, 2018, Joe Biden's son, Hunter and daughter-in-law Haley were involved in a bizarre incident in which Haley took Hunter's gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery store, only to return later to find it gone. Delaware police investigated, concerned the trash can was from across from a high school and the missing gun could be used in a crime. This is like a Sons of Anarchy episode. Yes. Then secret service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter bought the gun and asked to take the paperwork involved for the sale. And he refused. Oh, and days later, the gun was returned by an older man who regularly rummaged through the grocery store's trash to

collect recyclable items. Why didn't he recycle the gun? He should turn it away to the police station and get like you want to report for that. The question is, did the secret service go to the gun store to cover up Joe Biden's ownership of the gun in question? And nobody knows. Well, there you go. Yeah, Joe, Hunter Biden is not losing his job as first son. He could never lose that job because Joe loves him. He loves him so much. Has there been any updates on his art career? I think he, he said he was going to, they were going to have a gallery show in, I think like March. I don't know how it went though. I'm sure the stuff was amazing. Probably pretty good. He's got to be into NFTs, right? Like that seems like directly in his wheelhouse. Like the, the

definition of a thing that's a scam, a fake art scam that facilitates money laundering. Yeah. This seems like he invented it. It's going to be sad when he breaks up with the girl he got the Jewish tattoo for. It will be. When he got matching tattoo after talking to her on Skype like once. That's our guy. That's our boy. Yeah. I got to say, yeah, if you can do that at 40, like being like 45 and you do something that you would do if you had access to that tattoo, is it like 13? That's awesome. You got to spark in you. Well, I mentioned it earlier, but it would appear as though New York State has finally legalized recreational marijuana. The state legislature has come to a deal that would legalize it if you're over 21. I don't know what the details are about purging

any past convictions, which is really the only important thing when it comes to these bills. But my question with this is, is there any chance in the world Como would have allowed this deal to come to, come to a head if his back wasn't 100% against the wall? Because he fought this tooth and nail for years as governor. And he fought it because many of his largest donors are from pharmaceutical companies and healthcare companies. So, I mean, read the tealers there about what they view as a threat as opposed by recreational marijuana. Well, hire healthcare costs for health insurance if people start dying from weed, which can happen if you get medically grown weed like dro, anything but mids. But I guess this is just a way into the whole Cuomo situation,

because his back is absolutely against the wall. I mean, more and more people keep coming out and talking about how he's just like 20-year-old staffers and he'd be asking them about their sex life. And he's like, would you like to feel my muscle? I could make a pretty big muscle with my ob. I love that. I love that when someone's like the governor and it's like, oh, yeah, no, it's really weird. I only hired 22-year-olds with like the perfect tits. Yeah. They're the best people to work in my office, just only them. And obviously, like the defenders of Cuomo are just like, oh, you know, like, this is not a big deal. These women need to toughen up, blah, blah, blah. Like, oh, he didn't actually like sexually assault any of them. But you know what, like, if you're the

head of any organization at this point in like 2021, let alone the executive, like, authority of an entire state, how do you not know that this isn't sexual? Like, this is sexual harassment to like talk about dating your like 20-year-old staffers, asking them about their boyfriends, just saying, I'm lonely and shit like shit like that to them. Like, that's wildly inappropriate. Like, that's a violation of like every workplace, like, like law and code about what is and isn't sexual harassment. But the interesting thing when going on here is like, the sexual harassment thing is almost a cover for the other story about like the thousands of elderly people who died in nursing homes and the immunity that was granted them directly on behalf of one of Cuomo's largest campaign contributors.

I mean, like, you think that that would certainly lead to and there's like been this steady drumbeat of like New York City, New York state politicians and some pretty high-profile national figures who have called for Cuomo to resign. And I'm sorry, but don't be surprised if Cuomo is still governor next year. Like, I don't think this guy is going anywhere. And I think like he has, you know, I think he has imbibed the lesson that like to a certain degree, if you just batten down the hatches and just say no, no matter how many people in the media or political allies are saying otherwise, ultimately, like, they only have as much power as what you give them. And I think he is sort of sort of demonstrating political power over the kind of illusory, illusory power of the media.

And like that, that's true in any state where you have one party control like that. Like, who is going to come for Cuomo? It's impossible. Like, the average citizen who votes as a Democrat in New York and Democrats like who their TV tells them to like, and they like Cuomo because he's the guy who stood up to Trump and all that stuff. You would have you are only pitching to a narrow slice of media consumers about any of these issues because that's not what most people are even paying attention to. And as long as they're voting based on party, and he's got the party. So you're not going to get him out unless you basically bluff him out and he's calling the bluff. But I mean, a lot of New York politicians were saying that he should go as well. But the thing

is like, these elected representatives, like if it's just them saying it, they don't really have that much power either. And you know, someone disagreed with me when I said that like Cuomo is sort of demonstrating that the media as an institution doesn't really have any real power to like to force its will on anything. Or just because they say something, you can just literally ignore them. And no one cares. And they were sort of saying, oh, you're saying that like, you know, Fox News doesn't have any power or MSNBC didn't have any power over like the results of the Democratic primary. And it's just like, well, yeah, I think my point is that like, they have power in so much as it reflects other sources of real power in their agenda.

But if it is just their opinion, and it's not backed by like any any other kind of force in politics or group of like organized money and influence, then if it's just them saying something on their own, then a figure like Cuomo can just simply ignore them. And it really doesn't matter. And like I said, I won't be surprised if he doesn't resign. And I think I don't have anything I think he's already weathered the storm. I think it's already kind of gone away. Yeah, I mean, there's a new there was a new accusation today. But I mean, if none of them are really different than what people already know he does, there's really no number of people that's going to change that people's understanding of them. That's not that's going to change the story.

You know, Democrats like really don't care about me to when it's their guys like the Franken thing. They just keep talking about the Al Franken thing. Right, you know, the Franken thing like the main result like after that was that like every all those like old Democrats who always vote just fucking hate Kristen Gillibrand. And like that is the thing. It's like it's good that people came forward. And it's like, yeah, it paints a fuller picture of what kind of guy he is. But for the people are still supporting, which is a lot of people. It's like, they already know this is a bad guy. You know that because he killed like tens of thousands of old people and tried to cover it up. It's the same with Joe Biden. You know, whether he did commit a rape or not,

it's like you are supporting Joe Biden. You kind of know Joe Biden's a bad person. Everyone knows it. Yeah, he's better than the alternative. That's what all these guys pitch themselves as. Right. And we know that because of the way that people rationalize all this people rationalize every fucking shitty thing that Joe Biden has done in his career, they rationalize the horrible things Cuomo is done. And it's like, this is just another thing for them to rationalize. Democrats don't really have any like special thing where where they particularly care about this issue more than Republicans, it seems. And you know, if you remember back to Elliott Spitzer, like he was a popular governor who had to resign because he was seeing an escort, which

you know, in my opinion is like, you know, fine as compared to like they kicked him out because it was an adult. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I understand like if you're the governor and he's like a prosecutor, like he is breaking the law. So I mean, like that's tough for him. But like just in my own personal moral ethical framework seems to me like light year is better than like perving on like your 20 year old staffers and like asking them about their fucking sex lives. And you know, if they like to give him back rubs and shit like that. But like the thing is, the actual powerful people wanted Spitzer gone. And they wanted him gone for reasons that had nothing to do with his sex life, or any of his like personal conduct in office. I mean, like it was like Wall Street was

opposed to him. So it'd be interesting. I mean, it was just an interesting thought experiment. If you know, what would have like what would have happened if Spitzer had dug in his heels and say, no, I'm not resigning over this. It's a personal matter. Yeah, you would turn on TV one day and Lloyd Blank fine. We'd be like, Hey, guys, I'm interrupting. Good morning, America, to bring you a sad message. Governor Spitzer died on a boat trip that he was taking this morning. We don't like, there's no funeral in accordance with his wishes. And he told me I could be governor before he died. Well, so like I said, I mean, maybe, maybe Komo will be gone. But like, I mean, it's just remember, remember what's his name, the guy from Virginia, like the blackface thing.

Ralph's Northam. Yeah, Northam. Yeah, Northam is the Democratic playbook. Yeah, that's the Democratic playbook is like, we kind of call this where it's like, okay, I'm just gonna like kind of keep my head down and do things that I should have been doing before I got me to do it. Or like people find my blackface pictures. And then like in a year, it'll probably be fine. Well, I mean, like, I don't think I think this like effectively dashes Cuomo's hopes for presidency. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, he's still popular. I mean, I'm pessimistic. I think you could maybe win the nomination, maybe. But even then, I don't really, I see Giuliani's eyes in him, where it's like the more even with Democrats, the more people see of him

when he campaigns, the less people will like, yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's an East Coast guy, Julie, he's most comparable to Giuliani. Trump is the only one to break that mode. And that's because he's like an incredible queen. He's just like, yeah, he's just he's a little princess. And like, that's very different than the the East Coast guy is a very hard mold to run for National Office. And by the way, did you see the story about how Trump was just showing up at people's weddings at Mar-a-Lago and just grab just grabbing the mic and just starting like ranting about how Joe is doing a terrible job with China? Do you miss me yet? And it's just like, people are like, oh, what a lunatic. That's the best thing that could possibly happen to you

if you get married at Mar-a-Lago. You're hoping that that happens. I mean, think how think how joy overjoyed that couple was to have Trump give them like a toast that doesn't mention their names or anything about just talk about anything other than himself for an hour. I mean, I would I wanted to get married at Mar-a-Lago after I saw that video. Like that is so God, I wish that were me. Do you miss me now? Do you miss me yet? Joe's doing a terrible job. He's like, and he doesn't even know it's a wedding. He's like, who's the birthday boy? Let me give him a big smooch. Are we singing the song now? Are you blowing out the candles? He's great. Like that's a great epilogue for him. Just being like a ghost that haunts this

country club, like a friendly ghost who just pops up. He's like, where's the Durham report? He's like, uh, he's like De Niro at the beginning and the end of Raging Bull. You know, it's like, like he's in that phase of his career, which is perfect for him. I mean, this is what he should have been doing all along. And it's also like all, if yeah, everyone in Mar-a-Lago is probably delighted to see him all the time. That's why the only time you can pay a quarter million dollars of year to eat like fucking Swedish meatballs that they took from Ikea a week before. That's like if a kid was to go to Disneyland and they saw a like Goofy and then Goofy took his hat off and it was actually Goofy. That's how excited they are to see Trump.

And I would like, I get it. Like, um, you know, I only voted for him in 2020. I didn't vote for him the first time, but, um, like when we were at CPAC, it was just so boring. Like we had that guy talking about the Jewish Fanno stones that showed that Israel's 10 million years old and like the Alex Czar was there and it just sucked. And then when he came on, I was so happy. He hugged the flag. He just, he rift about the windmills making it so you can't watch TV. Raisin Cabe. We love him. We love him. The other cool thing about Mar-a-Lago though is that like now that he's been kicked off Twitter and like no one in the press wants to cover him anymore, the only like evidence that he's still alive are like the Instagram accounts of these bizarre

women in Florida who just, who flocked to fucking Mar-a-Lago like it's lords or something. Like just women wearing like a leopard print capes and like sunglasses from like Back to the Future 2 that look like big lighters or something like that. It's just, yeah, and they're just like wedging themselves in with this like hideous, rictus grin. And then he's just in the background. Like you said, it looks like some ghost, like fucking Banquo or fucking around the back nine of fucking Mar-a-Lago. He's just, he's just wandering around in his dumpy, gigantic white polo shirts. And then they're all just like, he looks better than ever. And it's just like, he looks terrible. He looks so fucking bad. Yeah, he looks like cold and wet and pink. He looks so fucking

shitty. But like, no, yeah, all these women whose like skin looks flash fried are going, like just traveling the world to see him. Yeah. What a great end for him. Yeah, he looks like he's just got out of a Ronco food rehydrator. Yeah. He's just like, everyone in Mar-a-Lago looks air fried. All right. Well, the last thing I want to talk about today is this, have you guys been following? Of course, there's this union drive in an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. And like this story is getting a lot of press and Bernie Sanders to his credit has been pushing it very admirably into the public sphere. But like the weird thing that's going on though is like, you know, like these, these workers are getting a lot of press for the,

you know, what we've been hearing about for a long time, the fucking just unspeakable working conditions that they have to, they have to endure of like, you know, their every single blink and breath is monitored by some sort of fucking algorithm. Just like every single step that they make is like graded by some like, you know, data metric about productivity. They're not allowed to go to the bathroom. I mean, there was one story in another fulfillment center of like a guy dying and people were like stepping over him. So they didn't want to like get docked for like taking, taking a second to like, notice that their colleague has ceased to be alive. But it's weird though, because like, I'm sort of surprised at how over the top Amazon's reaction to this has been,

because I would just assume that like, they, they have more money than like most nation states. I mean, like they are the size of like most, the economies of like half of the countries in the world combined, like, and presumably have pretty much most of the US government in their pocket. But you know, Bernie Sanders is out there and they're like, have you noticed the thing with like their, their, the CEO of Amazon, this guy, Dave Clark took it upon himself to like at Bernie Sanders and like talk shit about him, which, which says to me something like that they are kind of concerned about this, or it just, it seems like they wouldn't be doing that if they weren't shook in some way, like this obscene and quite bad PR push that they're attempting

to mount now. It would seem to me that they are concerned about this issue becoming like sort of entering the public consciousness or just that the idea that they don't want people to associate the Amazon brand with like the Kenzie and Workhouse conditions. But they also don't want to recognize the union. So they just have to tell people, yeah, they could pee, they could pee whatever they want. What are you talking about? It was, it was that one, it was that one, it was a, this was not like one of those bot accounts, which are like really terrifying. Like all, all those like, you know, joined last month, two followers, and they all have like the little box logo in the display name. And they're all like, Amazon, Jen, I love working here. Amazon is a

great workplace that has given me plenty of room to grow. I don't know if it's scarier that these are bots or that they're real people. But I'm talking about like the actual like higher ups in the company. Did you see that thing where they were like, you don't really believe the peeing and bottle story, do you? I mean, that's a huge tell. Of course I fucking believe it because you're saying that line. They're like, you don't really believe that, do you? It's just like, you could not look more guilty. Like they know that that pissing in a bottle shit is 1000% true. Well, not only that, internal documents say that there's the drivers and shit are have to clear the van of any bottles and they'll get, they'll get penalized if any urine is found,

meaning they know these people are peeing in the bottles. But as others have pointed out, yeah, but they tell them that they'll be penalized if they do. So they're taking it seriously. I just have a couple of these tweets from these Amazon accounts. This is a, there are all these like, you know, just sort of like happy young looking like happy young white women, which is weird because at the Bessemer plant, I think the staff is like 80% African American and mostly, mostly women. But these are like the, the avis are all these like attractive young white women. And they're saying things like, I'm glad the base pay was raised to $15 in 2018. Now I make a base of 1625 for being here three plus years doing the same physical repetitive work every day

can be a lot. But my managers have always tried to switch up my role whenever I mentioned that I need a change. And then someone else, this is Jaden, Amazon FC Jaden, another like seemingly young white woman in her twenties. Hello, Twitter. I'm Jaden. I work at Amazon in Washington. And I joined this team where I can answer your questions about what it's like to work at Amazon. I'm here to be real and spill the tea. Hit me with your questions, friends. Oh, spill that tea. Sis, we need the tea. Amazon. If you spill that tea, you will be fired, by the way. Amazon FC Yola. She goes, um, uh, responding to someone who says, wow, that's incredible. Alexa can do anything except provide bathroom breaks and safe working conditions. Yola Amazon

for FC says, she can't unfortunately laughing emoji. But luckily for me, my building is super safe and has an amazing safety team as well as vending machines that provide safety equipment. There is also bathrooms located on every floor as well as a bathroom inside each of the four break rooms. You know, she doesn't say anything about whether you're able to use any of these bathrooms in the building. We have plenty of bathrooms. Just, um, don't avail yourself of the, or else the, uh, the, uh, Skynet, uh, FC will, uh, come down on you. I think they're just going to mandate to fix this whole fucking issue. They're just going to mandate catheters for everybody that solves the problem. This is Amazon FC Gary. He says, uh, hi, real human here. I've been with

Amazon almost six years now. And as a tier one associate, I can safely say that here at Oak 4, I've never felt like it's been bad for me. If anything, Amazon has offered me tons of opportunities to grow. And like, this is just the flavor of like what I said is like this very half ass PR attempt. And it's like, maybe it's so half ass because they know how powerful they are. But I mean, like I said, it speaks to something that they are very concerned about this union drive. And like, I think actually the best summer plant, the best summer facility is voting on union and drive right now. So best of luck to them. But it just seems to me that like, I think they realize that if this gains momentum, even if they can weather this one thing or like, you know,

shove it under the, in conjunction with like a popular politician like Bernie, taking this up as a cause and making it very personal about Jeff Bezos is like insane wealth. Like in the minds of people, it's just like, why are you trying so hard to fight like better working conditions or like higher wages or some sort of collective bargaining power when you have more money than God? Like, like, you know, what difference does it make to you personally or Amazon's bottom line? And I think the answer is everything. Because like, I think their whole model is just about nothing is enough. There is no such thing as like we are, we are as efficient and productive as we need to be. We're worth 10 trillion dollars. It's like, it's never enough.

And I think like any, any attempt by the public sphere or to like rest back some kind of control or to impose conditions on them on behalf of their workers or the public conscience at large is very dangerous to them. And they are very afraid of it. I mean, put your hand to the brain bug right now. It's afraid. It's afraid right now. And the brain, hey, bug FC here, I've been a, I've been a tier one associate of the brain bug for several years now. And I got to say, after they took out my brain, I'm much happier. I love, I love working on the bug planet. It's great. And then also like, they've been, they've been, of course, subjecting their employees like nonstop mandatory anti union propaganda as well. And I just love all the rules about like

how you can and can't talk about forming a union with your employees, like putting up a sign or anything like that. If you're anti union, you can do whatever you want and say whatever you want to your employees. And like just subject them to like nonstop surveillance and propaganda on behalf of this idea. They're like, Hey, we're all a family here at Amazon. And I just think they don't want they don't like among young people, especially I don't think they want the Amazon name associated with this kind of wanton cruelty. Like I said, I mean, I, I'm, you know, I'm very pessimistic. I might my general attitude is that they can get away with whatever they want to do, because like they basically are a state right now. But for the time being, I mean, they still are

smaller than the United States government. So I do credit Bernie a lot with being as vocal as he has been about supporting this union drive. I think my favorite text or my favorite tweet from totally real person was from Lulu. I'm beginning to worry that there's a problem with UTIs across the country, given how frequently many of you need a bathroom break. You really should see a doctor about that. People that they're peeing too much. That's a good point though, because he's saying that like, Oh, like, do you really need to go to the bathroom so many times? Even if you don't, it's your right to take a fucking bathroom break. Even if you just go in there and look at your phone or jack off or fucking, just splash water on your face. Just get just remove yourself. You

need to breathe. They're like, it is your goddamn right to go to the bathroom for whatever reason. It's not your employer's concern. It's just this whole thing where it's just like, and you know what? I've read accounts of what it's like for the management at Amazon. I'm talking about people like high up in the corporation. And obviously, I feel no pity for these people whatsoever. But the corporate culture there is also insane. And there's shit about how the standard is that if you receive an email at any time of day, weekend, vacation, nighttime, it is basically you have five minutes to respond to it. And if you don't, like, then that is a problem. And you were docked and you were like, you're the algorithm begins to sort of tighten around your neck. And like I

said, like, I just think for companies like this, and Amazon is a perfect example of like this kind of capitalism, or just capitalism in general, rather, there is no limit. There is no enough. There is no we've made enough money. We are as productive as we need to be. We are as efficient as we need to be. There is no limit. And what the human body and mind can bear, like it has no bearing whatsoever on this like this relentless, this nameless faceless drive towards more. Yeah, you can't stand to it. And if you will be, your life force will be extruded like a fucking toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube to get the last gasp of this thing that's clearly in a crisis moment that can't be resolved through anything other than hyper exploitation.

Well, best of luck to those employees in Bessemer. I'd be interested to see how this union drive goes. And just hopefully if it's successful, it will augur some similar, you know, maybe get some momentum going behind this thing and, you know, and make, you know, workplace conditions and the power of collective bargaining hopefully become like a salient political issue again. I won't hold my breath with, I mean, I don't know, maybe this pro act will get passed. Who knows? I mean, some good things could happen. But like I said, maintain, we don't need to maintain too much of a pessimism, but, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. Let's put it that way from the new FDR administration. Yeah, in that there's a concentration camps. That's the similarity.

I actually do think that Biden is like better in a sense, like he's bolder. He's doing more than Obama did, but that's because things are that much worse. There's the bare minimum is more than it used to be because we already had a 2008 collapse, and then we had the non-existent recovery from that that pushed people out of their homes and gigafied labor and made everything more precarious. And now we've got everything that's happening now like the pandemic is happening on top of that. So the bare minimum becomes more extensive and more robust than it was in 2008. But that just speaks to how much more bailing wire and fucking tape is holding things together. Yeah. Also, I mean, they don't, they know the exact

formula they think to not lose the presidency again, to get this whole thing going. So I don't know. I mean, we'll see how long it lasts. Yeah. Did you see this thing where like one of the biggest groups that are organizing against the Pro Act are freelancers? Yeah. I saw an idea for a million freelancer march and it's like, that would be awesome. That would make like just 90% approval ratings for the Pro Act then, if they do the freelancer. No, actually, we should start organizing this. We really should. I mean, that's actually a brilliant idea if we want this Pro Act passed. We need to get every annoying media freelancer to march on Washington or just at least be more open to like talk about why they feel personally disadvantaged

by the Pro Act. Sorry, there's just a one last exchange here from the Amazon accounts. This is Amazon FC Darla says, so glad to be on Twitter. Feel free to ask me anything about my experiences as a member of the Amazon family. I'm an open book, quote, tweeted by Amazon FC Lula. Me too. It's so lucky to have the God given American freedom to actually talk openly about our awesome jobs. And then she says here, what bothers me most about unions is there's no ability to opt out of dues. As a single mother with two boys, I'm barely scraping by as it is. And now unions want to come to Amazon and make them pay a piece of my salary. No thanks to which Amazon FC Lula says, yeah, unions should actually follow through on their commitment to workers by offering dues

schedules rated against your actual earned income or something. Forcing innocent Amazonians to pay hundreds of thousands to make up for the company's lack of safety measures is dumb. It's just the incredibly shoddy, like really shitty low effort of this is just, I don't know. I don't know whether I should be terrified by how fucking craven and lazy it all is or encouraged by like that this is the best that they can come up with. But I'm scared because my question is like, like, is this because they know they don't need to fucking right? Exactly. Yeah, like, you know, justifiable. You're just, you're just, you're doing bare minimum to keep your job because you just are supposed to have a public face to, to keep up the kayfabe that there is a public

deliberative element to any of this. So all you could, you could just hire out the Hasbar room and Tel Aviv where they like a bunch of guys who are now like splitting half time between talking about how everybody in Gaza just doesn't want a vaccine and then talking about how great Amazon is. I should also note that fucking Obama's former press secretary, J. Carney, is the head of PR for Amazon. And the way that the tact that they've taken with Bernie on this is that they're like, oh, Bernie talks a lot about $15 an hour minimum wage. But has he ever passed the $15 minimum wage act? No, I don't think so. So they're just saying like, you know, Bernie's been a politician. He's had all this time to make sure, you know, he says he wants better wages for workers and

stronger unions. But what has he actually done? Here at Amazon, we're delivering. And it's just like, yeah, like he hasn't been able to get it done because like you've stitched up every piece of legislation and politician in Washington at your behest. So it's just like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a reiteration of the whole line of like, oh, what, what, what bills has Bernie actually passed? He's been in Washington forever. He hasn't got it done. It's just like, well, yeah, I mean, it's pretty fucking hard when you're the only guy fucking standing up for what's right. And you have to stop, you have to fight against guys like this. Yeah. When, when like, yeah, J. Carney, the former White House press secretary is now the head of communications for like the

world's most, the world's most powerful company. I mean, yeah, like it's just, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty bad. I hope these people choke to death on shit though. I really do. That would be cool. Okay. Is that about it for today? That'll do it. Yeah, that'll do pig. That'll do. Okay. Till next time, guys. Bye. Let's go back to Marsha Durbin and hang some more chickens. Fuck the corporate world.