Chapo Trap House - 730 - The Man Who Would Be King (5/8/23)

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

We cover some breaking 17th century news and look at the race car driving heir to the House of Habsburg, as well as the coronation of King Charles III, for a little modern-day Hell on Earth. Then, keeping with the theme of gratuitous puff-pieces in the Times, we look at “Liz” Holmes attempt to rebrand herself as a gee-shucks everyday mom and family woman ahead of her sentencing for medical fraud. Finally, we catch up on the ever-mounting corruption in the Supreme Court, and what our elected officials will fail to do about it. The piece about heart transplants Felix mentions in this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/opinion/heart-transplant-donor.html New merch, including Hell on Earth designs and re-stocked Zapata Oil hats, available for order through May 24th here: https://represent.com/store/chapo-trap-house

I Is Dateline choppo dateline Monday, May 8th. Here we go What just started off the show with some positive news or just um, just something that made me feel good Did you guys see the thing Sean shared about the seven principles of the Japanese French fries Association? I'm sorry. What okay? Sorry. I was just the I was wondering if you guys had seen the thing shared Yeah, I've heard you what it. What is the Japanese French fries Association? Well, okay? Someone translated this there is something called the Japan French fries Association and they have seven principles that of what they stand for and I would just like to share them with you now under

The rubric of these things I believe so the seven principles of the Japan French fries Association are number one Love French fries and eat them at least once a week Number two eat all the French fries you were served number three. Do not pressure others to like French fries as you do number four Do not persecute those who dislike French fries number five Do not blame French fries for making you fat number six Do not use French fries to commit a crime and number seven honor and respect those who grow potatoes I think that those are those are seven seven rules for life that I think all people have sound heart and mind and body can get behind Although I have to admit sometimes I do not eat all of the French fries. I am served

I can't promise that I won't try to commit a crime with a French fry just Mostly to see if it's possible. I'm just intrigued by the very idea of it I think you can commit a commit could commit a crime with like a deep fryer You could it hurt someone very badly with that but like French fries themselves Maybe if they were fresh out of the deep fryer and you sort of just flung them at someone I think that might hurt but also don't pressure people to love French fry I mean, I that's the one rule I disagree with I think others should be pressured into eating French fries I will not eat the French fries

Will you be eating the sweet potato French fries definitely not I mean I was kidding about the French fries Of course, I'll eat the French fries But sweet potato fries are one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people Sometimes they're okay. Never never good They're called sweet potatoes for a reason it just throws off the entire flavor profile Yeah, they're not even better for you exactly the yeah, they just suck dick. Yeah, it's like yeah eating like a roasted sweet potato It's like that's a perfect food. It's got all your nutrients But if you're frying that shit, that's not the window you might as well get the real

Russet goodness. I like them like a thin thin French fries. I'm a fan of those. Oh, that was a yes Absolutely, the Japanese French fries Association if they have any standards for like, you know, what is an ideal French fry? For some reason, I just imagine that the Japanese would like be finding ways to make even Thinner and thinner French fries like one molecule long French fries like micro filament French fries And I would love to try that sort of like the real versions of the like handicap like potato sticks Yes, but even more narrow like like like spaghetti strand with French fries well Japanese French fry association if anyone can do it. It's the Japanese so fucking Godspeed well for today's show

the New York Times has gifted us with two great profiles of two top business intellectual and social leaders and I'd like to begin today by You know dipping into some hell on earth the New York Times has come through with a profile of Of that basically the heir to the Hapsburg dynasty He's a race car driver from Austria and you know, I know Matt I wanted to get your take on this because you wrote that Great piece for slate a couple weeks ago reviewing another Hapsburg sort of rules of life rules for not not French-related rules, but

Rule, you know rules for living you Hapsburg's book the Hapsburg way Which as I said in the article is essentially a cross between Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for life and Mark Corrigan's business secrets of the pharaohs like that's the vibe generally But it actually is what it really is like that's a very thin veneer And obviously it was like a marketing tactic to get normies to read it But the real purpose of the book is to make a pitch first on behalf of the Orban government in Hungary that he works for as ambassador to the Vatican and

And secondly to pitch the Hapsburgs as like a potential figurehead for like a future pan European like nationalist revival like hey you guys, you know if you want all these epic based Political principles you're gonna need somebody who embodies tradition with a V and nobody Holds up that standard more than us the Hapsburgs But of course the funny thing is is that his relative the the air Ferdinand another goddamn Ferdinand It just drives race cars. That's all he wants to do He doesn't want to be the figurehead of your fucking nationalist movement

He wants to go room room in a circle and why wouldn't he well? Yeah, this is this article is about Ferdinand Ferdinand Hapsburg Lothringen the article begins Ferdinand sometimes goes for a run around the one thousand four hundred and forty one room Sean Brun palace the former summer residence of the Hapsburg rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire He loves taking in the manufactured gardens the mazes one of the world's oldest zoos still in existence And one of the largest Baroque Orangeries in the world. I go there to wander around the beauty

He said as do the tourists who can visit for an entrance fee of twenty two dollars and up But once in a while things can feel a little weird in a way that is unique to mr. Hapsburg There's a bedroom inside the palace that would have been mine if I was crowned Prince He said noting that he knows which one it is the first time I'd visited this place on a class trip when I was 14 I just thought I would never arrange in my room like that I would like to know more about the the largest Baroque Orangeries in the world. I mean, is that what I think it is? Is that just like a place where they grow oranges? Orangerie what the fuck an orchard?

Yeah, it says an orangerie I've never heard of that or an orangerie But it's got yeah hedge mazes is one of the oldest zoos still in existence I mean, that's for twenty two dollars if you can see the large world's largest Baroque Orangerie and one of the oldest zoos in the world Although I gotta say the concept of one of the oldest zoos in the world sounds kind of depressing Especially when you consider that what that means is that the Hapsburgs probably to this day Have a zoo that they get to go to a human zoo

The air to this zoo that they had to give up But I just like I like the idea of Ferdinand visiting here What would have been his royal crown bedroom on a class trip and he's just looking around going where's the race car bed? Where's the Xbox? I don't want to like any of this shit. I don't like any of this bullshit But yeah, he's the he's the air to the the the grandest Catholic Empire that's maybe ever existed Would you say out of the Spanish Spanish or well, they were have to do no there. They were they they had the chance to create Global Catholic hegemony because they did start the project of New World colonialism that would define, you know, the the future

Destiny of like the world economy and they fucking blew it. They spit the bit The the hustling grinding Protestants of the low countries and England ate their fucking lunch And then they just drifted into irrelevance, which is what makes that book So annoying is because he's enumerating all that fucking virtues that his ancestors had You know and all the battles they've won and all the piety they showed and all the wise decisions they made But then you look at what he is and what his net cousin is and it's like you all they're all gone You just you gave up over time you surrendered slowly to the point that you just Ended up embodying all the values that that Edward hates like dude. You're a fucking influencer

You take selfies in the Vatican. That's your job You're fucking the guy who's supposed to be in charge of your empire is root zooth been around in circles Like he's all of your all the things you represent have been extinguished by you by your failures By the fact that you got owned so fucking much Just a I will I just to defend the Spanish Habsburgs They didn't lose they beat themselves. They they were so they were so successful that they made gold completely worthless and Started a new Spanish tradition. Yeah, not working

Yeah, but before that let's not forget what happened they almost snuffed out Protestantism in the crib they try Charles the fifth almost did it Carlos Primero almost did it if his horse was a little bit faster, you know Honestly, I'm not the opinion that he should have called the bluff of the early Protestant electors and killed him at worms Killed Martin Luther at worms. Just say I I dare you to start shit over this because I think it was early enough that they might not have They might not have wanted to they were still worried that the that was what was happening in their cities was going to like end up Destroying them. So they might have been happy to see him die. Honestly. Well, yeah, if he had done it at that point like Protestantism would have been it would have been like those million other like Christian sects like Anahaptas or whatever

Where it just it never got out of the studio Yeah, you know half hours. I think what you would have had more real it was so like it's took on so much in in Germany that I don't think it could really be restrained the way that you know Catharism was or something, but I do think that you could have seen sort of a Hussite style Arrangement made with German Catholicism as then do for the Germans would have been done for the Bohemians a hundred years ago Where they're like, look, we can't beat it out of you But like we'll make arrangements so that you have a special church within the church and they could have done that if they

Got rid of Luther earlier and you know done a show of force They might have been able to make that accommodation With German Protestantism and then it wouldn't have spread necessarily the way it did So you're selling the Catholics They had some they had some easy dubs in the early rounds of the playoffs against the Cathars and the albogenzians But then like, you know, once they got out of their bubble season As the great man said you had a chance to be a cop and you blew it and you blew it you blew it You had a chance to be in the all you know when you look at the Catholic Empire and you blew it

They had a chance to like Zerg rush of the North Sea Which is like where the where the where the Protestant Capitalist cancer was like incubating they could have gotten in there and done early surgery and removed it But the goddamn the literal earth Rows up to stop them the fucking storms just come in and wipe the Spanish armado off the map God shows up and says nope. These are my guys. The moment that's a cast you by That's a good point that you guys make in the mini series like regardless of the Theological disputes between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's just like check the record, you know, like scoreboard

The weather who makes the weather Pretty much anything that could be attributed to a quote act of God during the era goes to the side of the Protestants It always goes to the Protestants. It's uncanny. I just want to say just as we're talking About I've been trying to figure out what's going on here because both Edward Habsburg has this book out And then we see this big profile of Ferdinand Habsburg So like what's like, you know, they the Habsburgs pick up a new PR agent like what are they trying to be it? Yeah, but I'm just saying that between these two things you really see that in Edward and Ferdinand you see a Goofus and a gallant of what you can do with modern aristocracy

And it's not the ones that they would think are the ones exactly no the gallant here is Ferdinand Yes. Yeah, this is the Edward. He is doing what the modern equivalent of like courtly Tournaments were like he is this is justing. This is modern justing and the thing about jousting is that even if you were the king It was dangerous Henry the second of fucking France died with a lance splinter going through his eyeball Henry the eighth almost died in a In a very date very bad A jousting accident the left with a fucking open wound on his thigh for the rest of his life. It never closed Like that was like hey, I am earning my keep as a fucking as an aristocrat by performing these feats of Danger fucking Edward is just posting the vilest occupation

Well met the most important anything the most craven and modern and And individualistic and bug-manish occupation while well petulantly holding on to the idea that of some kind of earthly Importance of his his hour or significance because he wants to be like that He's still looking at politics like as a live wire for like validation And that makes you the loser of the family like of the Trump children the one who took the opportunity to grab at Political relevance and become a politics guy Don jr. Is the most pathetic loser of them? It's like the loser is the one who tries to kind of fix his position by imagining that there's a escape hatch in the form of politics

And that is a delusion and Edward and Don are completely enraptured by it compare that to Ferdinand like Matt He said like the the 21st century equivalent of jousting and the Hapsburg who had like an open leg pussy for the rest of his life because of a lance goring him No Ferdinand one LeMond the 24-hour car race in France though You know if he's been forward for a B Ferrari is like the most prestigious race event in the world But I gotta say Ferdinand does come across pretty well in this article like whatever Honestly the Hapsburg family read your read your review of Edward's book and then they were like we gotta we gotta shuffle out the cool one

Yeah, we got a cool guy out there But it says here Mr. Hapsburg is the 25 year old heir apparent to the house of Hapsburg Lorraine His great-grandfather was Charles the first the last emperor of Austria and the king of Hungary Before him other ancestors ruled for more than 600 years presiding over a vast global empire in 1918 at the end of World War one Austria became a republic and the Hapsburgs often Rendered as Hapsburg in English were dethroned and sent into exile Charles the first died on the Portuguese Island of Madeira in 1922 The Hapsburgs were allowed to get back into Austria if they renounced their claims to rule which mr. Hapsburg's grandfather Otto did in 1961

1966 he returned only for a few hours by car from Bavaria Today Austria as a democratic republic with a president chancellor and parliament and while some members of the former ruling family like mr. Hapsburg himself are living in Austria again They still have no power or privilege Instead he is an ordinary citizen one who races cars in the FIA world endurance championship and lives in an apartment in Vienna with His 22 year old sister Gloria Hapsburg Lothringen when he visits the Capuchin crypt in Vienna the places grandparents lay and where he and his father Carl von Hapsburg will most likely be laid to rest He sometimes has to pay the nearly $10 entrance fee like other tourists damn

It's a little crazy. He said laughing. It's my lying place, but I still have to pay to visit see He's got the right attitude about this. He's sort of he's sort of been used Like oh, they ate that funny how things how things turn out The Hapsburgs aren't close to the British royals said Robert Seidel an Austrian historian and a royal expert Which is perhaps why they were not invited to the coronation The Catholic monarchies kind of stick together and the other monarchies stick together Mr. Seidel said the British fit royal family oversees the Church of England Charles is now the supreme governor Mr. Hapsburg is a Catholic a progressive one

He said so devout that he carries a rosary with him at all times I do like that detail that all the royal families come to a Royal Reading Yeah, that that the Catholics stick together in the Protestants Royals stick together like they get they do sharks versus Jack's run They're almost all Protestant all the ones who are still in throne now They're almost all Protestant like what the King of Spain trying to think of like Catholic monarchs who are actually like heads of state Somewhere, I think it's like the King of Spain and the Pope. Well now he eats humble pie I do like Belgium might be hold on a minute. I'm sorry the King of Belgium might be Catholic I think he is yeah, I just think like you know royalty

I mean like just get together and have a big royal party like all the surviving oil in the world They should know what was their invite to the wedding Harry got to go that that that must be a traitor. Yeah But I do I do like this the Mr. Hapsburg has a name fit for a king. Are you ready for this Ferdinand? Zvon Amir Maria Balthus Keith Michael Otto and tall von Hum Leonhard von Hapsburg Lothringen, but no palaces no crown and no golden carriages to go with it Keith. There's a Keith in there Keith Michael Otto, you know, it's pretty funny. So, you know the Hapsburgs according to Edward represent this traditional

Society, you know traditional values and yet the the Hapsburgs are like one of the first families to hyphenate after a marriage Because the reason it's Hapsburg larynthgian is because when Maria Teresa was air The only person left around to be heir to the the Austrian throne was this woman to Maria Teresa She had to fight a war to keep the throne war of Austrian succession And then part of the compromise was that her husband would become like co-ruler and they stuck his name Larynthgian onto it to make it one thing so that it's but it kept the Hapsburg instead of changing over to the Larynthgian So they literally were the first hyphenate It's like because of her career and she didn't want to give it up because Maria Teresa wanted to be a girl boss

But like the line where it says like he doesn't have a golden carriage or privilege. Well, I mean, he's got a race car He's got a freaking race car. Yeah, it's not bad. Yeah, Mr. Hapsburg has no role in government and no diplomatic power Yet he sometimes meets with the Pope and represents his family at Vatican gatherings where he has given a seat of honor Edward Hapsburg a relative is Hungary's ambassador to the Holy See Mr. Hapsburg will oversee one thing when his father dies the order of the Golden Fleece an order of chivalry founded in 1430 all members are male and Christian members including multiple heads of state meet once a year to discuss the important issues of the world It's like a think tank. Mr. Von Hapsburg the father said I mean, I I'm assuming because of your negative review

You will not be getting an invite to the order of the Golden Fleece either Matt or Chris, but I mean, yeah, probably not I'm just thinking you this guy's a you know 25 year old and just like thinking about how irritating it is to have to go to like I don't know Thanksgiving dinners Christmas dinners When you're that age, but your Thanksgiving dinner is like audience with the Pope You're like, oh geez what I'm gonna talk to this guy about. Oh, man. I gotta talk to the Pope You're just waiting until you can get dismissed by the Pope to go. But yeah play Xbox or whatever Yeah, it's like he is he did not see the Indy 500 I've got to talk about politics again with my family

With whoever can you imagine what the crowd is at the order of the Golden Fleece meetings? Like what else is he or it was the order of the Golden Fleece with it? Were they were they players back in the day or there were they something more than a think tank? Or is this just sort of like a title? It was it was a personal patriotic network, basically like a lot of Kings had that It was a way for dynasties to Get leverage over the aristocrats who they otherwise had to sort of compete for with power or Compete with overpower so like they would create these like exclusive clubs and then you know get selected aristocrats into them and it became you know sort of a

Parallel to the cabinet type of deal where there's like a potential for influence and social engagement, you know access lobbying basically and so the order and so the order of the Golden Fleece was something that you know the Hapsburgs could dangle over Aristocrats the King of the tutors had one of the had that too. They had the garter they had the order of the garter and They would offer this and you'd you'd be a garter night and you'd come in like hang out in a booth together and like swear to you know defend Elbion or something and And yeah, Charles Frederick the fifth was an order member of the order of the garter

The guy who started the holy for the 30 years war and after he lost the Battle of White Mountain and had to flee a lot of Hapsburg propaganda showed him running with a garter like around his ankle right falling off of his leg Like you're fucking owned no detail from the story here. It says the Hapsburgs. There are about 600 of them living today He said try to keep in touch. We have a WhatsApp group. Mr. Hapsburg said I can travel anywhere in the world and I text a group and I say where I'm going and When there is a house I can stay at it. He added with a left It's like a free Airbnb for us Hapsburgs. That's cool

Can we get out someone has someone have access to the Hapsburg group chat? Please please add it like to find out What they're what memes they're sending each other Just a little bit. Yeah, I says here got into endurance racing instead of being being a being a sort of anointed by God ruler I got into endurance racing whose races last six to 24 hours In 2021 he won Le Mans a 24-hour race in Northwestern, France That is widely considered to be the world's most prestigious sports car race before drivers are salaried They have to raise a hefty amount of money six or even seven figures to join a team Many have independent funds or relentlessly court sponsors who dictate their whereabouts

When Mr. Hapsburg first started he was funded by his mother Ms. Von Tyson born Amiza's family had made a fortune in steel and energy Now he has all the sponsors he needs. He said I won't have to ask my mom for a money again But shit, I mean like that's a that's a good ask, you know, his parents like they're like you don't need a sponsor You're the you're the sign of a you know a lapsed dynasty But hey, we still have all the money from steel and energy But I gotta say that is very impressive about winning Le Mans. It is he's that that's the good thing is that that really sells This is that he's not just a dilettante. He's actually good. Yeah, he's not a formula one guy But still not bad. Are we assuming that thyssen from the his mom's family is the thyssen crop thyssen? Oh, boy

I mean, it seems likely right both Tyson and crop were like Nazi industrialists Although Tyson did end up in a concentration camp They he goes out of his way later in the article to say that the Habsburgs were anti-Nazi during World War two Thank you very much. Well, yeah, cuz they weren't in charge. Yes, exactly Like if they hadn't gotten rid of the the monarchy, they would have been like sure go for it Yeah, it's not well, it's not like what they disagree What if Victor Emmanuel do in Italy when Mussolini showed up? Well, let's see. That's the first of two Like sort of a PR pitched New York Times pieces. I just wanted to say what one

Last thing that made this made me think about which is that you know This weekend had saw this big PR article about the modern Habsburgs and then also, of course the Coronation of Charles the third of England And you know just as I've been had my radar has been primed for breaking 17th century news This really is the culmination of what or at least what I thought of it as two sides of you see the sore winners of the long 17th century in the English and the happy losers of the long 17th century and our You know Contented racecar driving Habsburg because these English

Monarchs who still insist on all the trappings of the monarchy these huge expenditure of wealth around keeping this institution alive Every audio clip you've ever heard of Charles the third is him just being petulantly Furious and having you miserable miserable at interacting with any part of the modern world or anyone around him I hate this. Yes. And yes, and yes, you're a monster Yes, and yet their monarchy still must persist in the modern world while the happy Habsburgs Just drive car go fast room. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, let let the Windsor's rule you happy Habsburg's chill Yes, you happy Austria take kickback. You don't want those grimace grippers like Charles has

He's got the grimace grippers every finger is a miniature grimace. It's horrifying I mean the at one point in the article it does make a A comparison to the British royal family in that they're like, oh, like, you know Like they're you know, they're they have all these this privilege and wealth and power But it's like mostly ceremonial and I remember like I said every time the royal family comes up You sort of like get the get the figurehead Line and I'm wondering like is that sort of like controlled opposition or is this cap is what I'm saying because like I mean like if they get if you get coordinated with like a diamond the size of a baseball

Is it like how symbolic is your authority really? I mean because I don't know like you still own so much land and wealth It's kind of hard to it's kind of hard to say that that all that power and wealth and property is just only symbolic Yeah, well the thing is you do have an insane amount of power But it's not the power of a month sovereign monarch It's the power of an incredibly rich landowner which in a country like England. That's a lot of power like relative to the average citizen That's an insane amount of power. It's just not connected to his formal duties But it is exercise the way that the Power of all of the big landowners and capital holders in the UK is

But he's in he is at that table the Windsor's are at that table He just doesn't get to execute it as as the king But it doesn't matter because the policy apparatus is going to give him what he wants no matter what Well, I'm moving on to the second PR pitched of puff bees courtesy of the New York Times I mean, I guess like these two articles are good examples of like Contrasting ways in which one can deal with like a loss of power and prestige Because the second one is of course about not Elizabeth Holmes Liz Holmes who wants you to forget about Elizabeth and a lot of people are sharing this article

It's by Amy Chosek for the New York Times and this really is I mean the the Hopsburg piece I suppose is kind of a puff piece, but at least it was like there was something there to puff about This is just like a really ham fist that attempts to I don't know resurrect the reputation of Liz Holmes on the eve of her impending incarceration And they really go to something in absurd lengths to do so. So let's dive into the Liz Holmes puff piece by the New York Times Elizabeth Holmes blends in with other moms here in a bucket hat and sunglasses her newborn strapped to her chest and swas Swas up swathed in a baby Yoda nursing blanket We walk past the family of caged orangutans and talk about how Ms. Holmes is preparing to go to prison

For one of the most notorious cases of corporate fraud in recent history in case you're wondering Ms. Holmes speaks in a soft slightly low, but totally unremarkable voice no hint of the throat of the throaty contralto She used while running her defunct blood testing startup there in us I made so many mistakes and there was so much I didn't know and understand and I feel like when you do it wrong It's really like you internalize it in a deep way Ms. Holmes said as we stop to look at a hissing anaconda. So first of all I'd like to note that Ms. Holmes, you know for her philosophical turn after her Conviction she should be learning from the noble orangutans and not the hissing anacondas. He should be spending her time

You know on her 25th hour. She should be spending time studying the noble orangutan Understanding what could be learned from them. Yeah, they're you ever see one in a zoo? They seem like they're the ones who have come to terms with captivity The best they've there's Zend out if you put in a ring a thing in a Well federal prison doesn't really count because you know in captivity, but like let's say a state prison I think an orangutan would probably do Better than most primates. Mm-hmm. They have a sense of curiosity. They understand mechanisms So they could create a shiv if they needed to sir or or I don't draw a form

But they could also entertain. Yes. Yeah, they there's a lot of value there with it with a with a orangutan And a lot of it comes I think from their ability to just sort of yeah enjoy whatever Situation they find themselves in unlike like chimps and gorillas whenever I go to a zoo and I see them I just feel very bad. I feel I feel like they're very annoyed to be there. They don't not seem thrilled. Yeah Well champs because they're like disallowed from doing more evil things. Yeah, it's like Yeah, she would probably make their own goons Actually, I think chimps would love prison, but gorilla is absolutely not. Yeah, they're not Well, let them let them fucking vibe in the jungle. Yeah, you know

The only gorillas in captivity should be like the the rules we use for most animals like when they they sort of failed at Being outdoor animals, right? Yeah, the indoor gorillas. Yeah Like whatever you see it whenever you see a video of like a really cute sea otter like learning how to swim It's like though. That's why you have a video of him because he has to be taught how to swim He didn't learn. He's their remedial sea otter. He's adorable But like, you know, he's kind of kind of fucked up his job So it'd be a good job at sea ottering. Yeah, what about a King Kong? Should he be in prison for what he did to Faye Ray and the Empire State Building? What?

He shot a shot respect to the man. Yeah, this fucking this fucking woman came to his house and bothered him And he didn't love bombing. Yeah, and he just wants closure going on in the article She says How would you spend your time if you didn't know how much time you had left? Ms. Holmes said her impending prison report date on top of mind Perhaps even more so given that we were surrounded by animals behind bars It would be the kind of things we're doing now because they're perfect just being together Ms. Holmes has not spoken to the media since 2016 when her legal team advised she go quiet and as the adage goes

If you don't feed the press we feed on you In Elizabeth Holmes, we found an all-you-can-eat buffet It had everything the black turtle necks the kabuki red lipstick the green juices the dancing to little wane Along somewhere along the way. Ms. Holmes says that the person whoever that is got lost at one point I tell her that I heard Jennifer Lawrence had pulled out of portraying her in a movie. She she replied almost reflectively They're not playing me. They're playing a character. I created now We already mentioned in the piece like in the first paragraph or so She mentions that Liz Holmes's voice is very different than Elizabeth Holmes's voice

And you know, I mean like this is one embarrassing detail that the media did indeed eat off of but I mean It's it's it's pretty psychotic Changing your voice that much because you're like I wouldn't be taken seriously If I if I didn't sound like a sound this way like like I'm like the Ghostface and the scream movies calling you on the phone So why did she create that public persona? I believed it would be how I would be good at business and taken seriously and not taken as a little girl Or a girl who didn't have good technical ideas. Ms. Holmes who founded Theranos at 19

Maybe people people picked up on that not being authentic since it wasn't I mean a good indication of the fact that you don't have any good technical ideas Is the fact that you thought that this was the way you would be quote good at business But I guess in a way she's right though because of how many people she conned out of their money Like the u.s. Military and Henry Kissinger. I mean, I guess that's what it does take to be good at business if you're a young woman Yeah, I mean, this is a hate the play hate the game not the player situation. She just unlocked the meta She just realized oh, it really doesn't matter what you're saying, you know, it is a presentation And then you can take that anywhere

Mrs. Holmes was found guilty in january 2022 of four on four of the 11 charges That she defrauded Theranos investors out of more than a hundred million dollars Her top lieutenant at Theranos and much older boyfriend at the time Ramesh Balawani was found guilty of 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud at Theranos He began a 13-year prison sentence last month on thursday His legal team filed an appeal with the 9th circuit during the closely followed proceedings a prosecutor robert leech Said that this was a case about fraud about lying and cheating Alleging that Theranos raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors by misleading them about its blood testing technology's capabilities

Lance Wade a lawyer from his homes said that his client made mistakes, but mistakes are not crimes Sometimes so yeah Make enough of them in a row and don't tell anybody Yeah I didn't know I couldn't do that I didn't I didn't know I couldn't do that. Is that not allowed? Yeah I mean again, what did she she thought I think as long as she believes in her heart that There was a possibility of making the machine that did it like there was x amount of

Hours spent in the lab that would produce a machine with one drop of blood would give you all the results You were looking for like if she thought that was true and everything she did to advance that agenda is in some way justified And not a crime because it's not malicious. Yes We were churning all these samples through traditional machines and not telling anybody, you know But that was just to give us more time to do the thing that I know we can do And that's that's what's so frustrating about dealing with the way that these people these monsters present themselves is because like their own ability to Hypnotize themselves and con themselves in order to con others becomes a virtue because it means they're sincere

Yeah, I mean that really is the thrust of this article Matt and I would say like The idea that like as long as she thought that the like eventually the the blood testing thing would work out And they just had to like keep the keep the wheel spinning until it was paid off Is a little bit undercut by the fact that like the basic thing that they were pitching was like physically impossible and known to be So at the time Like it like literally like could not ever At least with existing technology like ever do the thing it said it was going to do but hey I can't do it depending on an existing technology. So that's it. We'll make the the non-existing technology

We don't believe us just watch just keep watching just wait a minute And you know people have defended her and rightly pointed out that that idea fake it till you make it kick the can down the road Scam people as much as you have to to get to what you know You can do given enough time and money that is the model for all the silicon valley monsters that have emerged out of the post A quantitative easing era. That's uber. That's fucking Netflix. That's all of them an impossible horizon that they cannot reach That they have all deluded themselves into thinking as possible and then lying their balls off to keep the valuation up and to and the only difference is they haven't been called on it yet and This one directly threatened people's lives

So that's why you know, it might be Be qualitatively different, but the model is identical and like you think that there's like she was the one who like You know was left standing when the music stopped like Given the fact that like What she was doing as you pointed out is basically what every silicon valley entrepreneur does I mean, you think it has to do with her goofy voice and like sort of like dumb Dumb personality or just her annoying woman woman. It's it's the wind but it's does live by the sword die by the sword thing like It's something as kind of abstract and outlandish as the Theranos promise requires

Like a significant public media awareness campaign And she had to be the front person for that and that meant that you were going to get a lot more eyes on her than than other founders and other Other plays might and that means if you are that far away from your Promises then it's going to be discovered a lot quicker I mean, I kind of in addition to the the weird voice He just decided to wear black turtle necks everywhere because she was like, oh like that's what Steve Jobs did And I'm going to be the next Steve Jobs

And I think it is impressive that basically worked Like that that's all these people needed to see they were like, oh the turtle neck and the weird lady Steve Jobs Yeah, Chosick writes if you hate Elizabeth Holmes You probably think her feigned perma horseness was part of an elaborate scheme to defraud investors If you are a person who is sympathetic to Ms. Holmes, then the James Earl Jones Unflection was a sign of the impossible gymnastics that female founders must perform to be taken seriously If you spend time with Ms. Holmes as I did you might come away like me and think that As with many things about Elizabeth Holmes, it was both either way even mr. Evans agrees the voice was real weird

Yeah, that's a little weird I realized I was essentially writing a story about two different people There was Elizabeth celebrated in the media as a rock star investor whose brilliance dazzled illustrious rich man And whose criminal trial captivated the world Then there is Liz as mr. Evans and her friends call her the mom of two for the past year Who has been volunteering for a rape crisis hotline who can't stomach r rated movies And who rushed after me one afternoon with a paper towel to wipe a mix of sand and her dog slobber off my shoe. So there's uh, Elizabeth

And then there's Liz who is Elizabeth after she got caught. Yeah That's it. Yeah Okay, cool. And uh, she had the kids after she got caught Well, so it seems like another little uh, little uh, sort of um, I don't know symbolic totem for her to create a new persona That she's selling now. It's the new york times after mrs. Holmes was convicted rupert murdoch who invested 125 million dollars in Theranos emailed the wall street journal a newspaper. He owns calling himself One of a bunch of old men taken in by a seemingly great young woman total embarrassment I am not a smarter or more astute observer of human behavior than mr. Murdoch or george schultz

Schultz the former secretary of state who helped end the cold war or james madis the retired forced armorine corps general and former defense secretary Both of whom were theranos board members and investors So how could I be sure that liz wasn't another character that ms. Holmes had created? I was admittedly swept up in liz as an authentic and sympathetic person She's gentle and charismatic in a quiet way My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions telling me and I quote. Amy chozek. You got rolled I vigorously disagree. You don't know her like I do

But then something very strange happened. I worked my way through a list of ms. Holmes friends family and longtime supporters whom she and Mr. Evans suggested I speak to One of these friends said ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at theranos and didn't deserve a lengthy prison sentence Then this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe anything ms. Holmes says What do you think though 11 years in prison? Is that's do is that too stiff a sentence for someone who? Merely had like, you know her fraud really had the potential to kill people and didn't actually I don't know that we know there are some bad stuff in there like they were they were taking blood samples from

Cance like terminal cancer patients, you know with the with them believing they were part of a study that might have you know Or no that they would have like they believed that they were getting their blood red, you know as part of their cancer treatment like the level of cancer blood cancer Uh medication in their blood and so that's that's pretty fucked up I mean it does feel like she is the sacrificial goat though in all these cases If ever you see like an actual prison sentence as opposed to good behavior It's because this is a person who isn't really that influential or powerful and can get staked down and fucking butchered and

Not really affect any of the major struts of power. So in that respect, it can never really be justified Yeah, I mean that's kind of what I walk away thinking like I I guess she should probably go to prison but At the same time how many thousands of like etna or blue cross blue shield executives should just Go straight to the chair, you know, yeah, exactly Yeah Like yeah, like she was trying to break into An industry where everybody

Uh already in sconce within deserves. Yes. As you said the death penalty. Yeah I mean it's it's it's hard for me. I don't know I don't feel like particularly excited about her going to prison. Yeah, it doesn't no it's not Prison isn't always about like ameliorating the crime or making everything better, but this Certainly doesn't accomplish anything. Yeah Um, is she like a weird dishonest person a complete liar and bullshit artist? Yeah, I mean she's being bad in this piece and it's working successfully on Amy Chosick, but I just I I I don't see any positive outcome

From her being in prison for 11 years I mean, I like to think that you'd get more yield out of I don't know sending the owner of a private hospital chain to prison for 11 years than this This just this is just what everyone already knows like Matt said if you're outside and you try to Try to do the usual graft of the u.s. Medical system You will probably get slapped down in somewhere the other and how about that list of the Shareholders and investors that she defrauded including general mad dog Mattis and Rupert Murdoch and George Schultz former secretary of state

Can we can we send them to Dells Island? Please because every single one of those guys who's done things that are far more Murderous and insane than she she got away with yeah, I also I mean that's probably half the reason she's actually going to prison. Yeah Because she yeah, oh, yeah, she took money from people who mattered. Yeah. Yeah I'm skipping ahead a little bit. They're talking about um About how she met her our current husband a mutual friend introduced him to Ms. Holmes and and and the pair talked for three hours My friends were texting. Where are you? We're here. Mr. Evans recalled to say we immediately fell in love isn't an overstatement Mr. Evans was 25 and living with roommates in San Francisco

But in many ways he was more mature than Ms. Holmes. She was 32 and had never opened a bottle of wine. What? Hmm like like she had like never I don't think that means like she never drank wine. She just doesn't know how to open a bottle of wine Yeah, is that what I'm to believe from this but like I believe wine is like screw top now I mean like how how incompetent you have to be and she doesn't watch R rated movies either. That was another good Did you send someone who hasn't seen cussing or nudity in a movie to prison? I don't think so something's fundamentally unjust about that But if you have sullied yourself with adult related entertainment, I think you're you qualify for For at least being eligible to go to prison

Um It says elizabeth lived in complete isolation with sonny her father Christian Holmes the fourth told me it's hard to explain the extent to which she missed so much of growing up That someone does in their 20s as there are no settled an onslaught of civil lawsuits and federal prosecutors closed in on criminal charges Ms. Holmes started to socialize again reconnecting with family and friends Despite everything going so horribly in her life We had our daughter back and it was wonderful to see how she used to be her mother no Noel Holmes said

Where do you go in your life's work and reputation go up in flames? Burning man Ms. Holmes and mr. Evans went to the desert oasis for moneyed bohemians. She burned a tribute to theranos There was an incredible sense of grief because I'd given everything to it my whole life since I'd been 18 She said of that period I mean that's the only thing that I kind of like wasn't aware of that this article Uh mentioned is that she founded theranos and she was 19. Yeah, that's deranged That's too young to be an entrepreneur. That's too young to be starting a company

Yeah, yeah, there needs to be some sort of uh age limit for that kind of thing Yeah, see an orated comedy and open a bottle of wine Please before you start seeking investments for your medical technology But also makes me think that like she shouldn't have to pay back the investors Like that's really your own fault Yeah, yeah You have a 19 year old is like oh, I can I can read everyone's blood and you don't investigate further like you You really only have yourself to blame. Yeah, that that is just frankly irresponsible

You gave money to a child thinking they were going to perform magic for you Yeah Do you think all these guys like river murdoch and mad dog mad ass like kind of turned on by her like you think They just thought she was hot. Yeah. I mean, yeah, probably they were probably like she's a real firecracker. Yeah Their toddler william recently had 105 degree fever the couple said they raced him to the emergency room The first thing the attending doctor said was you look a lot like that horrible woman Ms. Holmes looked at him with her piercing blue eyes and said i'm sure you're a better person than she is The doctor seemed to realize who he was talking to she continued

Then he said are you elizabeth holmes and I said yes, and he said i'm so sorry And I said don't be all you know is what you've read That doctor wins pussy of the year Ladies and gentlemen the most courageous doctor That's rough though like your your infant has 105 degree fever fever And the person in charge of like saving his life or whatever it's just like hey You remind me a lot of that awful piece of shit who I hate and certainly wouldn't give medical treatment Here if they if they were dying in front of me

But he says like all you know like a little william's still alive Yeah, they still like no matter the doctor's opinions. They still cool that baby down Put him on the window sill and he's just fine now give him a cold one crack the chorus I says um By billy's father william l evans is tally there are over 67,600,600 600,600 web results on miss holmes all of them negative compared to 21 million results many of which are positive

for osama bin laden figures he wrote in a letter to the court I do like the line where she says um Uh, don't be sorry all you know is what you've read And what you've read is a list of things i've done A list of things i've said and done so if that's all you have to judge me on and then I agree I'm a horrible person. I also like I like the idea that there's like a difference between 21 million bad things about you and 68 million bad things about you Like is everyone reading all of that like yeah, pretty sure anything. Yeah anything past like a thousand is just the same

Yeah, yeah What's that a lot of marginal utility there? Once the eye of sauron that is like a google search result casts its gaze upon you. It's pretty much fixed. Yeah Miss holmes defenders stretching back to childhood said in letters to the court and in conversation with me That the feverish coverage of miss holmes downfall felt like a witch trial less rooted in what actually happened at Theranos and more of a message to ambitious women everywhere Don't girl boss too close to the sun or this could happen to you. I mean, I know there's something to be said for in in a profile like this

Airing things like this in the spirit of giving them someone enough rope to hang themselves But I don't i'm not getting that from this Article especially when her own her own editor was like you got rolled and she's like no really listen Listen to me. She took her kid to a zoo It's also like with the thing that josek is going for it. There are examples of The things she's trying to describe right like I think martha steward is actually Yeah, martha steward case is a great example of like someone who supposedly committed this awful crime that was like identical if not many degrees less serious than

a several concurrent equivalents but got punished for like being a bitch in the eyes of the public, right? Yeah, like that's what's being described here. That's That has tongues of historical precedents, you know, martha steward for one. This is really Like yeah a little bit, but I mean there's kind of the part where She's fraudulently providing medicine. Yeah, that's the main thing here You know Martha Stewart, which was a completely unjust. I mean like I mean look she broke the law But she did not deserve jail time for that

And that was over like a stock transaction worth like $40,000 and this was like hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, exactly Exactly There's a perfect case. It's like well, we can't Keep not ever convicting literally anyone of any financial crime ever Who can we put the book throw the book out without it causing any ripples? Oh this freaking celebrity This lifestyle brand lady who people are kind of sick of let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, just like the typical bravery of a prosecutor Yes, exactly Whereas with this one, it's like well, what the fuck did you expect?

Yeah, you know and what you like in literally like in what universe Is she not going is there not going to be a trial, you know Oh, yeah, that's what that's what you get for girl bossing too close to the sun Uh, the next quote is there's an unspoken lesson for female executives. You're allowed to be successful But not too successful Jackie Lamping a kappa alpha theta sorority sister of miss holmes at stanford wrote in a letter to judge Devia who oversaw the trial. I mean That's like I think her former sorority sister is trying to get her like a Even more of a gas price sentence by that fucking letter

Yeah, you can't be too successful as a woman. It's just like well Like you said like the fraud aside like if this isn't actually going into practice It could have actually killed like could actually have killed people Yeah, and she's not like she's sort of she's not on trial for being successful. It's sort of the opposite. Yeah Uh, there's there's one. Uh, there's another astonishing part of the story about her dog It says here. I can't shake an earlier story that mr. Evans relayed in the waning days of theranos Miss holmes got a dog a Siberian husky named balto real fucking original name

really had to Really had to rack your brain for that one Last year when a mountain lion carried balto away from their front porch Miss holmes spent 16 hours searching in the woods digging through brambles and poison oak hoping to find him alive Everyone knew balto was dead, but miss holmes kept searching the relentlessness the certainty the fanaticism It's the same way miss holmes kept hanging on a theranos Uh, I mean, you know It's I think we can all relate to the heartbreak of having a dog torn to shreds by a mountain lion

And then frantically searching the woods for hours for like that. It's bloodied collar It's like is that supposed to be like an exonerating detail? I mean, I think it's supposed to be like is is theranos like Is it okay if they're defrauding people if she in some level like really believes it's actually going to work someday Well, if you still believe the dog is alive, you know until you find it Well, I mean if her blood testing technology could have worked I mean like just think it would have been made would have made idea the dog's remains a lot easier Over antioxidant smoothies miss holmes told me she has ideas for covid testing drawing on her work in a Singapore lab as a college student

Elizabeth. Yes, please We need we need her in this field right now We need an even more rapid covid test and I think she should be allowed to work on this while she's incarcerated How about here's the idea Wi-Fi covid test You're covid molecules bounce off of a High-frequency weight radio wave and they are bounced back to the source and then I'm able to triangulate Whether or not you have covid I will have 500 billion dollars

Well, I was thinking about this before you say no I have the embalmed corpse of uh, Curtis LeMay on my board of directors I Well, I was thinking I think maybe like She was she shows the wrong country to do there innocent because if like she had some wacky pseudoscientific blood testing tech Japan was really the country that would be interested in that and the fact that it's fraudulent and doesn't work If they had some sort of tech infused blood type analyzer or way that you can quickly Determine someone's inferiority based on blood type

Japan a guy comes to take your daughter for a date. Just put the finger in the box. I gotta find out Be or lower. You're out of here, buddy Yeah, she maintains the idealistic delusion of a 19 year old never mind that she's 39 With a fraud conviction telling me she is still working on health care related inventions that we then would contribute to do So behind we continue to do so behind bars I still dream about being able to contribute to that in that space. Ms. Holmes said I still feel the same calling to it as as I always did and I think the need is still there Yeah, we I mean, it's like what you said Felix about how

Any like anyone working for a health insurance company should get like the minimum jail sentence that they should get is what Elizabeth Holmes just got The minimum 11 years in federal prison and all this idea about how we still need innovation in the health care sphere It's like no people just need health care Like yeah, the innovations. I mean like sure continue to innovate, but we don't need these like moon shots on like blood Wi-Fi blood testing With you know, like health insurance costs thousands of dollars for a family. Well also like What condition Would need to be met for them to innovate like are they not just rent seeking at the absolute maximum capacity?

Are they not just squeezing every possible dollar out of every single thing you could charge somebody for? Like if they if they don't have enough money to innovate then like they never will Yeah, then it will never fucking be profitable enough There will never be enough free cash flow for them to like throw in for r&d I mean, that's not the point that is that's always the reason we're given for like Why everything sucks so much, but It's clearly not the goal. Like what have been like the major like moon shot leap forwards I mean, I know they come out with like new cancer drugs and stuff like that

But like, you know Was it like Cuba's medical system came up with a lung cancer vaccine? But like oh like we can't have that in America because they need all that money for R&D even though like most of it goes into marketing I mean there have been there have been like very good advancements in the last 40 years like age is no longer a death sentence. There is Tons of technological advancements, but it's You can't really like look at the rest of the world and just declare that this is the only way to meet those advancements It seems to be like

There are just so many problems that don't get solved because there's not enough rent seeking capacity for them anyway Like did you did you read that article about the woman with the heart transplant? No, what was it? It was it was in the new york times. It was really it was really good It was this woman who got a heart transplant like 20-something years ago. She's like done everything that you're supposed to do when you get a transplant She lived a completely healthy lifestyle followed every dietary restriction. No alcohol nothing and she's in her 50s and she's gonna die in a few months because We just haven't figured out how to maintain those types of transplants for a long

A long term like anything that isn't rejected after a year is considered a success And there hasn't really been any strides forward on that Parts like partly due to like just the insane bureaucracy and rent seeking every step of the way As part of the medical system partly because it doesn't seem profitable enough But it just you know, it's an example of something that 40 or 50 years ago People Rightfully assumed that we'd at least be on our way to figuring this out by now and we have it

Well, yeah, like it's an issue of like there there are yeah, like you said like like AIDS basically Not being like the death sentence. We all thought it was when I was growing up It's like I mean, that's a that's a huge advancement But then like there are all these things like like actually like very deadly medical conditions of which like theoretically there could be a cure for But there's just not enough people have them So it's not really profitable to invest in it and I think about that whenever I see like the Susan G. Coman foundation Or any of these like cancer charities raising money for breast cancer awareness and research And I'm just like with things like breast cancer is like

Is anyone not aware of it or like do they really need the money at this point? Like what are they raising money for like you're saying like oh like we were just Uh, we would have a breast cancer. We'd have a cure for breast cancer if we just have another billion dollars Well, there's there's a whole other issue with the um, ngo charity industrial complex, but um, I mean Forgoing even things like cures for cancer or cancer vaccines or anything anything Headline grabbing like that that would certainly be like a huge advancement just more basic things like people

dying in hospitals because They're in such horrible conditions at rates much higher than you know much poorer countries infant mortality just basic things that no one really thinks about because People kind of assume that if it costs this much it shouldn't really be a problem. Those are seemingly just getting worse Yeah, that's a good point because like we don't need a moonshot or some huge advancement to like lower infant infant and maternal mortality yeah We're turning to the article it says here if your head is exploding at how divorced from reality this sounds that's kind of the point

When miz holmes uses the messianic vernacular of tech I get the sense that she truly believes that she could have and in fact still could Change the world and she doesn't much care if we believe her or not Liz is not a natural born leader. She is more of a zealot than a showwoman showman. Mr. Evans wrote to judge de vela Miz holmes eventually found her beloved husky balto in the woods, but by then the dog was gone torn apart by the mountain lion No, oh, that's how it goes Hey, that's something that we should consider investing in I'm like a sort of a startup to deal with the mountain lion problem Because those things are vicious. Oh, yeah, uh a deal where you put a little vest on your dog and it has

like spikes on it Like so that if it attacks that would like, you know prevent it Okay, okay. How about how about this? Um, you know how we chip dogs? Uh, you know, there's like an RFID chip. Let's have a second chip and this chip's a little bit more complex It has your dog's entire personality in all its memories And and it's made out of like the same material we make like edible panties out of And so it's the first thing a mountain lion eats when it eats your dog But then it takes over the mountain lion's brain and it stalls your dog's AI

So even though you've lost your dog, this mountain lion's going to come to your house Behave like your dog that you thought he likes forever That is I just talking about a moonshot worthy of investing in if I could have a mountain lion that behaved like a golden retriever Oh my god, that would be the coolest person on earth Well, well, I'm glad you I'm glad I'm glad that you guys are enthusiastic Uh, my company my company is called, uh dog brand We gotta get this in front of the shark tank. Well, we I don't actually need that. I've already got investors We've got oh really? Yeah bomber harris

Is on board 190 year old bomber harris Um kermit roosevelt and dean kin I've also heard the obamas are interested. You're you're showing them your pitch deck. Malika. Obama is on board. Yes He just wants to eat the mountain lion though. He's He's like, oh, when's it gonna get licensed in kekistan? And I'm like, that's great. Malik. I love that Just the end of the article it says, uh, this friday that friday they were getting ready to host a group of friends in the bay area They invited me to stay. They repeatedly invited me to come back to bring my family. We could all go to the zoo together

I appreciated their hospitality, but I didn't fully understand it. Usually interview subjects can't wait to get rid of me Gee, I wonder why Liz was just begging you to come back so she could keep talking to you Usually, yeah, that's a bad sign Then I realized why they kept opening the door wider Ms. Holmes is unlike anyone I've ever met modest but mesmerizing if you were in her presence It is impossible not to believe her not to be taken with her and not to be taken in by her Liz Holmes and billy evans know that I politely declined the invitation. So Uh, great job by Amy Shosik. I mean again, like I don't think

You know, like I don't I'm not I'm not this this piece doesn't make me sympathetic to Elizabeth Holmes But like I don't think she's like a complete monster or a psychopath either. I mean, she's just She has investor entrepreneur brain like I mean like the brain she I mean and you look at how she grew up You know, this is true of anybody who ends up in prison the the conditions of their Childhood end up being very determinative and in this case like you brought up by a bunch of bay area freaks They're gonna they're gonna turn you into a mutant to serve their needs. No seriously like I blame stanford Yeah, we need like we need to talk about that. It is a it is a demon factory down there. They're just cranking out demonic entities

I guess I got just a just a few quick a few quick stories about Former friends of the show who are back in the news Starting with by the names near a tandem as the has his domestic policy advisor. Hell. Yes It's cranking up. Maybe 20 24 is going strong Uh, it's not a position that needs to be uh affirmed by the senate, which we know she couldn't do because remember her posts Her posts denied her a senator-proof position. Mwah hilarious But now she gets to come in through the back door But you know like she she this is what she's been waiting for and we simply must

Doff of the cap to near a tandem I just want to read one thing here from this article The decision to elevate tandem comes as biden prepares a reelection campaign that will rely in part on the effective Implementation of a slate of domestic policy accomplishments spanning infrastructure climate and health care The domestic policy council under rice also had also played a central role in devising the administration's strategy for replacing title 42 The strict trump era border policy that's set to lift next week. So talk about an easy job Oh, it got to tout those domestic accomplishments. This is on rails from nearer here And then uh, just another friend of the show, uh, some good news here

Andrew Gillom ex-candidate for florida governor acquitted of lying to the fbi Let's go. Good job. A total exoneration not guilty Gillom was a should run against the santis. Oh, he can't no for president He should he should primary uh by he got look he got really close Yeah, it's amazing how close he came to being governor. It's wild in charlie crisp. Yeah. Oh god. Yeah No, he was almost there. It's wild. Well, that's such a That's such a hinge point there because the santis just barely squeaked by that first time and now we'll never get rid of his fucking ass But andrew Gillom see should go for it. Gillom versus the santis at the national level

2024 rematch. Let's go It says Gillom was acquitted of lying to undercover fbi agents posing as developers who paid for a 2016 trip He took with his brother to new york Including hotel rooms meals a boat tour and a ticket to the hit Broadway show hamilton I mean like we'll talk about a honeypot But yeah, these undercover fbi agents sort of they're sick. You should have some time Okay, what the fuck is the point of that fbi investigation because like that just sounds identical to what every like Legal thing that lobbyists do for democratic politicians. Yeah, like that's that sounds identical to like

literally like yeah, what like Stacey Abrams or fucking chris dodd would do every week. Look at what clearance thomas is up to. Oh my god It's like, yeah, I'm just I am the I am the pet of a fucking billionaire who just gives me Who who funds me a lifestyle vastly out of the reach of any civil servant even a member of the supreme court And has a business before it Yeah, and they can use my wife as a cutout to fucking funnel money through Two things about the the clearance thomas because which is a story that continues to give and give there's Leonard leo

Uh in in in his own like business documents Creating a $50,000 a year make work job for jenny thomas said in the business documents Make sure to leave jenny's name off the papers. Yeah, like textbook corruption This is through kelly and conway's polling outfit and they like hired her as a consultant By the way, john roberts his wife also has one of these sweetheart fucking fake jobs to do consulting For some lobbying organization or something like that But the thing about um harlan crow paying for clarence thomas's nephew's tuition Is i like all the indignant responses from the clarence thomas defenders or they were like

They have kept this secret for years because of like, you know, like the the the tender adoption of his nephew's troubled nephew and then like Taking the charge of his, uh, you know, uh, you know Raising him and sending him to school or whatever and i'm like, okay But like, you know, that's a that's a nice selfless thing done by clarence thomas But actually for it to be selfless and for him to be your kid, you would have to pay for his tuition yourself That's usually what happens when you have a kid or a doctor kid His his amazing charity was just acting as like a conduit for money from this guy Like that's it because he just it's not like he could he uh

Took him under his roof or anything. He just said yeah, you pay for it And uh, one other thing on that clarence thomas thing matt you said that um Like thomas is sort of is like the pet of harlan crow that he like, you know It takes on vacations to volcanoes in new zealand But i gotta say uh, i forget who made this point uh this week But it gave me pause about like in terms of like where the corruption is I think harlan crow and letter leo may be clarence thomas's pet Because the question is like that people bring up is like would he vote otherwise if he wasn't getting all this fucking graft

And the answer is probably no But i think the corruption comes from Clarence thomas what he's asked what he's getting from them Or what they're getting from him in exchange for all these vacations and buying his mother's house and giving his wife All this bribe money under the table is him not retiring right? Yes, because like I think how easy it would be for him to retire under biden Because he's in his 80s He's they're giving him all this money So he sticks around at least until there's another republican president

Because there is a real like brain worm that sets in when you are hanging out at the highest elite levels in this country Like if you're a supreme court justice, you're only making what like 250 000 dollars a year It's it's more than the president I think but it's still like less than a half a million dollars a year and you're around Socially people who are in the upper stratosphere of wealth A lot of people who aren't you know like uh justice monks are over time going to be like damn I would like some of that and if the only way you can get it is to quit the supreme court that becomes a real danger But if you could guarantee that they get to live the most baller ass billionaire lifestyle

While being public servants, then yeah, they'll stay there till they fucking keel over as long as they get to shovel oysters into their Fucking dome until they explode like Scalia did Like mr. Fucking creosote Oh dear Pardon me. She was bucket. Well, nothing's probably gonna happen with that. But like no is Andrew Gillum. Is he gonna run again? governor like I'd like to get a good plan last time of like, you know, I'm saying Maduro's a dictator Not overdosing on math until after the election

You showed us some admirable restraint there. Yeah, yeah that hit dog that hit dogs will holler thing one of the dumbest fucking things Oh god, everyone was like damn. He is serving. What the fuck are you even talking about? Yeah. Yeah Wait, what was that again? Why isn't the dog that got hit holler? What is it supposed to do? Well, Andrew? Andrew Gillum, um In one of the debates like uh, Ron DeSantis was bitching about Andrew Gillum calling him racist And Gillum's like well, you know what a hit dog will holler meaning like well if the shoe fits, you know, wear it Which like yeah fine. Sure like

Like uh, you you can definitely say that about Ron DeSantis, but just it's just a stupid fucking phrase. It means nothing like it Apparently come from a hit dog holler. Well, that's the thing I asked this question And apparently this is an actual expression with roots somewhere Maybe it's southern. I don't know But it's that if you were to throw a bunch of rocks at a group of dogs the ones you hit would holler and therefore If somebody gets mad about you calling them a racist. Oh, that's because I hit you with the racist rock Uh, so that's that's their version of it. You're throwing rocks. Why are you throwing rocks at dogs? That's their version of a sports analogy. Just like sitting on your porch whipping rocks at dogs

Yeah, it's like you're not you're raising a lot of questions about you not the not the hit dog What a shitty part of the country What a shitty part of america Everything they say is so fucking stupid. You know a skinned cat will well in no shit If you pull the legs off a spider, it'll just some of the twitch I don't want to hear any fucking axum or catchphrase from the south. It's just all so fucking Oh, when you see what would you stick a shotgun up your ass it hurts? Okay

Thanks But uh, Matt to your point about um, his supreme court salary, uh, I did someone did point out this week The clearance time is said on record a while ago that being on the supreme court isn't worth what the job pays So, I mean like that's that's a little bit of a signal to the harlin crows of the world to keep coughing up these You know all these bribes and whatnot It's not It's not a good job Is the thing like for certain types of people they can like get off on certain elements of it

But like over time I imagine those wear out and what you're left with is a relatively meager amount of work That mostly boils down to Justifying your pre-existing political Yeah commitment on an issue. So there's no real intellectual challenge to it other than how do I gussy this up? You know, and you don't really work that much, you know, it's boring like and you can't really do anything else So I think a lot of them get stir crazy like suitor quit as soon as a democrat one Like suitor was like, I'm out of here. I fucking hate this job And I think that affects affects even the right wing ideologues as well

And then yeah, you got to keep them there But like, you know and thinking about all this I just simply have to return once again So how fucking stupid are the democrats and their billionaire donors for not fucking buying Ruth Bader Ginsburg and island or something like that to get her retired? You couldn't see that's the thing She's got a different brain that's wired to her job differently Like she would say how dare you to that and it's because she Is is like wedded to these institutions in a way that clarence thomas isn't because the thing about clarence thomas and Corey robin and others have pointed this out is that he is a heart of black nationalist

Who fully understands that america is like deeply racist like he is down with every crt critique of like america's a white supremacist supremacist enterprise everything else is built on top of that And that means that he just does not give a shit about these institutions the way that someone A fucking nerd who came up through them and like adhered to them like lewis gator bit Ginsburg did so like yeah, she was she wouldn't take any money to leave the court that would be Invalidating her entire career There's thomas thinks that's knows the truth because that's all fucking bullshit. Yeah Show me the goddamn money

Yeah, like the the reading of him is kind of like an afro pessimist is fascinating because he's like get it He's like this is all bullshit your money. So i'm gonna get your money. That's the country you live in It's not changing. You're not voting it out. Get your money Yeah, like, you know, and like once you accept that then like the only way for black people to have power are by Like placating deeply racist white institutions But if you do it well enough, you can have quite a bit of power You can have like, you know, godlike power over our entire legal system if you play your cards, right? And what is officially supposed to be a not racist country you can take advantage of that

Yeah, like people like to point out the hypocrisy that like he did benefit from affirmative action in his career And then he was against it And it's like, yeah the affirmative action from clarence thomas's perspective has robbed him of any pleasure He can get from his assent through the institutions of american law because you'll never be a fucking Affirmative action hire. He can never get rid of that. He knows that and he fucking resents it And it also means he doesn't fucking give a shit about These institutions that doesn't feel validated by them the way that ruth mader ginsberg does or did rip to a legend The literal legend the legend of the dumb ass. We didn't know when to fucking quit. Well, you know what like in that case

Uh, if if if buying her an island or giving like basically giving her martha's vineyard Like that's what I would have been on the table. I would have said ruth Martha's vineyard could be like your own it could be your vatican If you retire now And that like well, we will make you like in your in your heirs like the hopsburgs Martha's vineyard But if that that wasn't going to work, you know, you got to go with option b Which is the polonium tipped umbrella because like the racing you got to take him out

You got to take her out. It's got to go Can't have it God the way that they had to like the way that they had to negotiate briar out of that seat Like he'd like held up there with a fucking shotgun Like like he wouldn't leave the evacuation zone when the hurricane's coming Like they had to talk him out with a bullhorn for like It begged him and that there was all this concern of like well, we can't be too insistent and and and too obvious In saying that we need him to retire so that a democrat could replace him

Because then he's going to think more and more about how this is a political That would mean that he is a political agent and not an arbiter of justice which would he doesn't like that Like you're going to spook him. He's going to run back into the woods That's how the libs treat the court like they they have they're fully enraptured They're they're entranced by this stuff like all the conservatives know that this is all fucking bullshit They they know that power is the only thing that matters and they've come to terms with that one way or the other And contrast that with our you know senate judiciary committee chair dick durbin who keeps releasing statements like Like history will judge this court. Mr. History will judge you john roberts and it's like well, he'll be dead

So who gives a shit? Oh, I'll be judged by history. I'll give a shit That's such a perfect fucking response like well, you know what? Uh, I you're gonna have to have that on your conscience then sir. Wow, you know, you're incredibly useful dick And you know, but then like defenders of of dicky d You know, like they say it's like as we often return to on this show But what really can the democrats do because like they ain't there ain't enough votes for impeachment or like back to the court Or blah blah blah like, you know, they're kind of But the argument is like you I don't think that lets them off the hook because you have to like take they've been gifted an issue

That is like overwhelmingly popular in the public I eat like the supreme court and the people on it have never been less popular or trusted So you have to we have to fucking just like push that as far as it fucking goes. No see no because to them Yeah, the supreme court is a load-bearing institution preventing the fucking barbarians from just overwhelming everything The the the republican the the chuds that they are terrified of that is part of the bulwark That's part of the dam and if you start kicking at it Then you are risking getting fucking blown over by by a wave Because they really do feel that like these things are

Uh, are real and have a real power to keep us on like a rep, you know on on out of extremism and and They're terrified. So like every time this every story about climate clarence thomas that comes out I guarantee you these fucking democrat senators are like, oh shit. I have to deal with this now. Yeah, I'm Hey idiots, I'm on your team. I'm trying to keep this institution up But because the people in it are now just fully hollowed out Cynical nihilists they don't fucking give a shit roberts cares a little about the institution

Legitimacy of the court, but like his response to this shows that even there There's just you know an arbitrary line that he's willing to ignore Uh in this convenience because obviously he doesn't really care either or else he would do more to get rid of the appearance of Impropriety, but so these guys are the only ones left holding this thing up And they have to just watch as they're as the as the conservatives just eat it eat away at it like termites But I mean I don't know. I mean it's just it's baffling because like url warren is not walking through that door You know like the supreme court as a bulwark against like American right-wing fanaticism is like

The call is coming from inside the house. Like that is what is going to facilitate Barbaric right-wing extremism in the future, but again, they don't care about that. I'd yeah, they'll be fine They'll come to some sort of accommodation. They're always going to assume that and so as long as you know, they're in the position they are and Any kind of real, you know effort means oh if we're gonna actually take because this is the thing if you do propose as a thing Hey, we're the democrats and we are going to go after the institutional corruption of the court Then you can't run you can't have these democrats doing that Like it just they can't be the ones to do it. That means you have to get new democrats

So the democrats of charge have no interest In advancing that because people will come to the logical conclusion that they are not fit to do that job So that means they're not going to bring it up under torture They will not bring that up the people's voice rises and cries out Andrew Gillum. Save us. We need you We need you now more than ever Andrew Gillum. Please come and destroy this It's insane that without the fear like I'm telling you these people are terrified of being overrun by the by the Barbarians, but they're also total paralyzed and petrified by that fear that they're just slow walking into a Scenile 80 year old with a sub 40 approval rating running for a re-election

And they're just gonna let it happen. It's amazing Like they are deeply terrified of what's going to happen and the more Like theoretical power they have the more paralyzed they are by it It's a it's astounding because their self-interest and the interest that they think they hold of preventing it are in direct conflict And they can't resolve the conflict. So they just stand there Wait to get wait for Anton Chajer to come and blessedly thunk them between the eyes with the fucking cattle gun They'll thank him. They'll whisper. Thank you as he's going It's like Woody Harrelson, but instead of going, uh, do you know how crazy this is?

They're going like, you know how awesome our system of government is We love it. Don't we folks? Yeah, I mean like what they're really afraid of is oh, we can't go after the courts because then They're going to the next time there's an election that's close at all. They're going to decide, you know what? Uh, these hooting maniacs who threw up their alternative slate of electors. They picked up on craigslist That's the actual people going to Washington to put their votes in and what are you going to do about it as democrats? The answer is nothing but that again That is what is going to happen with them in charge no matter what So they're terrified of a thing that they're helping bring about cool political system. Mama. You should bring it to the white house

What's up with the clock kid? Where'd he go? He went to yemen, right? He's uh, yes, like some sort of Disrupticon app now or something. I think he does He's building a new kind of clock one with a countdown All right, let's leave it there for today Uh, we've got some uh some quick plugs if you enjoyed our our haps our hapsburg chat today We've got more 17th century related stuff coming at you at the choppa merch store Pre-order is available until may 24th

Get all your hot hapsburg. Uh, hapsburg onesies hapsburg bikinis Hapsburg dildos. They're all for sale. Uh, also matt and I I think are are finally doing our long delayed, uh, Europa universe sallis for Stream that is scheduled for next wednesday afternoon. I mean specific time tbd But uh, you know, we got the stream running again to do our wrap-up stream So I think we should be good to go to do that. Um, yeah, and we've got I don't know I don't know how you do this because I've never played the game But however, you can play it to try to prevent the reformation. That's what I'm gonna try to do

Yeah, we've been told we've been told from our guy I've been told from our guides that he's working hard and getting these 1618 mod all set up So I think we're going to be able to jump right into uh, 30 years war time and try to roll in we'll commence again Yeah, roll back tide of the reformation and also shout out to uh, sam and his game crew for inviting me to play uh Here I stand yesterday. That was some very fun. Uh reformation themed gaming, you know, it's like Take it back to play to close out on the whole earth theme. It's like Despite all the beef I have for the catholic church. I hate this work ethic so much like I just I hate I hate work I hate work ethics

On you know, if that's it if total rule of the world by the catholic church is the price you pay for getting rid of that Yeah, like having siestas and such. Yeah Good food. Yeah good times Sadly like even the catholics are becoming less catholic like yeah, literally in the sense that you know You know evangelicalism is rising in the in the former catholic world, but Like in america catholics for the most part are just fucking protestants. They got the same Hard wiring. All right, let's get let's go back to the soft wires of happy. Yeah, let's get those soft wires Let's get that three hour lunch

Like a big processional on the weekends You just like go out in front of your house and like 500 monks with big conical hats walk by and you wave at them And then you get shit-faced for the rest of the day They're not in the clan. They just look like it. Yeah. No, it's it's totally cool. They're just big fans of the version mary This was bigger up. Let's bigger up big ups to mary. All right guys till next time. See ya. Bye. Bye You