Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 379 | Hunting Whitey, Social Isolation Experiment, & SpaceX is Ready! | Guests: Casey Sherman & Dave Wedge

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Day 75 inside CQB: Gas Buddy survey says that people won't fly due to COVID19 and road trip might still happen. SpaceX is ready as they set to launch tomorrow and send people into space again. Virgin Orbit has a successful/failed launch yesterday depending who you ask. Social isolation experiment is happening and you could be isolated for eight months if you want to go to mars. A girl scares a intruder, but Jeffy thinks she's lucky something worse didn't happen to her. Subscribe on YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to it, chewing the fact that is, from the COVID-19 quarantine bunker, the CQB, coming in on the, we're on the home stretch. I believe we're at the final length of the bunker broadcast this week. And then we're back. So we'll see what happens. We'll see if we're back or not. come hurricane season, June 1st, 2020. Oh, had you have a great weekend? I know it was a big three-day weekend for many people.

Many people got out and about. I looked out the blinds and said, oh, man, no, I don't want to go out there. Although it was a crappy rainy day here in Texas for Memorial Day itself. I don't know. A lot of people are saying it's the Great American road trip summer all over again. According to surveys, they claim that, according to the gas buddy survey,

36% of respondents are canceling trips that require flying. 24% plan to make shorter trips by distance. We'll see, you know, we'll see as we get to the TSA turnstile numbers during the COVID-19 update, the quarantine update. We'll see where we're at. We'll see also if we rolled over to the 100,000 death.

March today. I thought we were going to hit it this weekend. So the numbers have really slowed down. I really did think that we were going to break $100,000 this weekend, and we didn't. So that's good news. I know that it won't be spun that way, but we'll see by the time we get to the coronavirus update here on chewing the fat if we've actually rolled over that 100,000 death number. And as horrible as it is, it really is slowing down.

So it's kind of good news. According to the Gas Bunny survey, though, 31% are planning to take that road trip still. I think so too. I think if you are planning on traveling this year, I think many more people who would maybe fly to a city and then rent a car and drive around or, you know, Uber around the city on vacation.

We'll just drive there, right? And we'll see. We'll see if that actually comes to fruition. But with gas prices being so cheap, why not, right? Exactly. Why not? All right, well, tomorrow's the day, right? I mean, we got the SpaceX launch tomorrow.

Now, they got the go ahead. The final launch readiness was given the go ahead, ready to go in Florida. The last minute launch preparations are being done as we speak. So we should, we may, it's possible. We could have that launch tomorrow afternoon. You know, what's amazing to me is every time I see this and I think, okay, well, really going to happen? Are we going to do it? And then I see the headline that says, SpaceX first astronaut launch threatened by stormy weather. This is exactly what we talked about

on chewing the fat. When we have to worry about a cloud flying over Florida or flying over any area that's supposed to be our official launch site, we're not. We're not. not we're not ready for space travel. We're just not. I mean, we can do it. I'm sure we can fly up there, and I hope they do. I want everything to go as planned and get up there and, you know, do your thing. But until we can get in that damn rocket and take off and go where we want to go,

we are not 100% ready for space travel. I mean, we had the Virgin launch yesterday as they tried to. launch their satellite rocket off of the airplane and off the 747 cosmic girl with launcher one attached and it didn't really work although it did it kind of it kind of worked it kind of didn't right i mean it dropped off the plane and took off and fired up a rocket and then it said oh no oh no we're done you can't do that sorry we're done so then it was right there it's a failure But it was just half of a failure. I mean, it was kind of like, ooh, they could still do it.

That's never been done before. But it didn't do exactly what we wanted to do, so failure. So, I mean, we're still a ways away from walking up, getting in and taking off. It's not really the air travel we've come to expect. But, you know, we'll get there. We'll get there. I have confidence that we'll get there. And with the help of private industry, we're seem to be getting there faster.

I know NASA is, you know, the all-seeing, all-knowing gurus in that and have been for years, you know, except for the past few years when all their money was shut off and they weren't doing it anymore. And they were just, we were just hitching a ride. We had to walk over to Kazakhstan and put our thumb out. And hopefully they picked us up and flew us to the space station. And now we're, you know, back at it. So hopefully with NASA, the private enterprise, we're back together again. Now, they do have social isolation experiments still going on. So if you feel like you are ready to go to Mars or do some space travel,

you could spend eight months locked in a Russian lab for your experiment. I know, right? It sounds good. It almost sounds too good to be true, but it is. It's true. Okay? You can. It's the NASA-Russia experiment.

And they've had other experiments, remember? They had the four-month-long study in 2019, where they live in isolation and they do the biomedical tests. Well, now they're having the – and then they had the – the Russian Mok Mars mission, the Mars 500, where the crew spent 520 and 105 days on two separate missions

in the facility. So, I mean, now, if you're fortunate enough to get chosen, you can spend eight months inside of a closed facility. Right now, how bad do you want to do it? So they're going to have, you're going to have, environmental aspects similar to those astronauts are expected to experience on future missions to Mars.

So you get to live together in isolation, you get to work on scientific projects, and you get to do everything like being on the lunar surface, all of it for eight months. Huh? Now, how excited are you for that? Now, if you think they're just letting anybody up. I mean, if they, like if I wanted to be part of the program, I'm as an athletically overweight human being. I'm probably not going to be allowed. Probably. Okay.

So, I mean, if you're like, I don't mind the social isolation. I'm all right with that. But they're looking for highly motivated U.S. citizens between the ages of 30 and 55. candidates must speak both Russian and English proficiently I might be a little shy there and have an MS, a PhD, an MD or military officer training applicants with a bachelor's degree or other relevant experience may also be considered

we'll take a look at it but you probably aren't going to get it so those who are chosen to be part of the crew will be compensated for their work. That's nice of them. That's nice of them. But it also says that there's different levels of compensation, depending on whether or not you are associated with NASA or if you are a NASA employee or a contractor.

So if you're associated with NASA or an employee or a contractor, you may have already signed your life away. So if you say, you know, I think I could do that. I have an MS PhD MD at military officer training and a bachelor degree and other relevant experience. I should be considered. How much do I get paid? Well, you're already worked for NASA or you're a NASA employer or a contractor. You don't get anything extra.

In fact, you'll be thanking us for just that regular paycheck. Off to Russia, you go, my friend. Have a nice day. Oh, wait. You only speak English? Yeah, no. What if I speak English and China? Chinese?

No. You have to speak Russian and English proficiently. Oh, come on. Nope. You're out. So good luck. Good luck. I hope you get the gig.

Did you see the... And if you haven't, I'll post it on my Twitter at Jeffrey JFR. Maybe post it on Facebook as well, Jeff Fisheron Radio. And maybe post a link on Instagram as well, Jeff Fisher Radio. You can follow me on all. places. The story, and it's always, it's from, you know, ring.com on the video, of course, uh, uh, there, you know, the family had the ring camera up on the garage of the driveway.

And it's a, it shows a guy casing a house that the garage is open. And in the driveway is the family car. Windows are closed. Uh, and you can't see the little girl, this little 10 year old girl that's sitting in the car. So the garage door is wide open, and this guy is casing the house. He walks by, and he walks up into the driveway looking at the garage like he's going to rob the place.

And, you know, he just kind of stops and he checks it out. He's kind of seeing everybody's around, and he, and he, I don't know what he's going to take in the garage. It doesn't, I don't, in the video, it doesn't show that I saw. It doesn't show what he's looking at in the garage. Apparently the ring camera isn't posted inside the garage. what is this family doing? So the guy walks up to the garage

and this girl, instead of honking the horn, I mean, holy cow, she is so lucky. She opens the door and starts screaming at the guy, get out of here and runs into the house and the guy takes off running and he's gone. This guy is gone down the street, man. But that girl, holy cow. I mean, good for her for, you know,

open to the door and screaming and scaring the heck out of the guy, but it could have turned out ugly. Her jumping out of the car like that, scaring this criminal, and down the street he runs. I mean, he could have turned and really had harmed this little girl. I don't know how you let that not happen. You know, good for her. She was scared, too. She didn't know what was going on.

So she, you know, jumps out of the car and scares the heck out of this guy. And he is just, he runs away and she runs into the house. And, you know, all, all's good that ends well. Isn't it all that ends well, it ends good well? Yeah, whatever. But, man, I watched that and I thought, holy cow. I mean, it could have gotten ugly for that little girl. I'm so happy that it did work out that way.

And I want to say, Thank you. Chewing the fat. Correct again. We were already seeing headlines. Now, all weekend long, I saw headlines. The U.S. city lockdowns have caused rat aggression due to lack of food waste. I told you, man, the animals are coming back. At this time, they're pissed. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they have warned. They're listening to the children. of course of unusual or aggressive behavior in American rats. That is true with any of these animals, my friends. They are out for what the heck is going on? Where's the people?

Where's our food? What is going on? We need to, we're hungry and somebody has given us something. Okay? So, I mean, I'm talking about. they were talking about rats were observed resorting to open warfare according to the story. You do not want to live in a big city where the rats are now pissed because the restaurants are closed, man. I'm telling you, be careful. Be careful out there. Be ready. Always be on the alert.

You're not going to have a little 10-year-old girl. jumping out of a car, scaring the rats away, man. Because the rats are going to be like, we want food and you look good. All right, let's go to the break room. I need a drink of Coca-Cola zero sugar desperately. And I'm going to be able to talk about a book that I am excited about. You've heard some of the story before, Whitey Bulger.

We've seen him in movies. We've seen bits and pieces in TV shows of characters that are meant to represent Whitey. But no one knows the real story. Well, that is before the dynamic duo of Dave Wedge and Casey Sherman got together. Well, actually, they got together a few years ago on a park bench or a bar story. and decided to start writing books together. And they have written the definitive hunting Whitey, available now everywhere, wherever books are sold.

Dave Wedge, joining us here on Chewing the Fat. Dave, welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm doing great. Thanks for that wonderful introduction. Absolutely. So you guys decided that Whitey Bulger was the guy to write about. Now, I have been fascinated by his story for many years.

But so much of what we know is just stories, made up stuff, stuff that really isn't anything to do with him. But you guys, what, took a couple of weeks to put this together. And now you have a definitive story. A couple hours. Yeah, no, no, look, you know, Whitey's been one of the greatest crime stories in American history for the last 50 years. You know, there's only a couple of mobsters really like him. you know, Al Capone and John Goddy and Bulger. Yeah.

Those are really the holy triumvirate, really, of evil, I guess. And, you know, there has been a lot written about Whitey, and there's been the movies, obviously, you know, The Departed where Jack Nicholson plays a character based on Bulger and then obviously Black Mask with Johnny Depp. But our book really picks up where those stories leave off. And we tell you the rest of the story and the end of the story. In the process, we also dispel some of the myths that you make.

mention. But really what our story is about is his life on the run, what he did on the run. And we focus a lot on the people that captured him, how they went about building that case and finding him finally, bringing him to justice, the incredible trial that happened, then his life in prison. And then obviously his wild, violent, violent murder down there in West Virginia. So we really look at this as the final chapter in the Whitey Bulge of Saga. So really, that's what has made him so, I don't know, fascinating or I don't want to say love, but I mean, we in America love to, you know, love the bad guy. But, and that's so, I mean, or hate to, you know, hate to love the bad guy. But really what made him, uh, remarkable were the years on the run, right?

I mean, his, uh, his, his idea of, you know, being on the most wanted list and he was, you know, hiding in plain sight. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm reminded you say that, you know, that we need to have a bad guy. I'm reminded in the scene in Scarface when he's drunk leaving the restaurant. on say say bye to the bad guy you know and that's how a lot of these guys are they look at themselves as bigger than life and certainly Whitey did he thought that

you know he was uh he thought he was really um helping his community is what he thought he thought he was given all these guys jobs all these drug deal bookies and you know you know strong armors and and so on you know gun runners and you know so there's a myth in

in South Boston and and nationally really that Whitey was this benevolent gangster. But he really wasn't. He was a ruthless, hardcore thug who really, in some ways, was cowardly, where he would have other people do his dirty work. And he was obviously an infamous rat for the FBI. But what we saw in his life on the run was fascinating, where he befriended people along the way.

And he had a love of pets, household pets, dogs and cats. And that's really, that was the weight of Whitey's heart. His soft spot, yeah. At a soft spot. And there's a great moment in the book. And I see my esteemed author Casey Sherman has just joined us. And I'll let Casey pick up the story about Whitey down in Louisiana with the dog. Yeah, thanks, Dave.

And great joining you. We've been slammed with interviews all day. So unfortunately, some of them run a little long. Thank you for joining us here on two in the fact. Good to have you along. Good, good to have you as well. Or good to be here, rather. And to Dave's point about, you know, Whitey's love of pets,

you know, Whitey was a classic sociopath where he had love for dogs, but yet he had no compunction of, you know, strangling a human being with a, with a chain and extracting their teeth. In Grand Isle, Louisiana, Whitey Bulger and his girlfriend befriended a family that was kind of down on their luck, and Bulger head was flush with cash that he had escaped with. So Whitey and his girlfriend, Catherine, took this family under their wing, paid for their groceries, their doctor's bills, you name it. And the family had a dog that was pregnant.

And the dog had a litter of puppies that Whitey Bulger paid all the vet bills. One of the puppies was sick and had to be euthanized. Now, here in the Northeast, we'd take that puppy to a veterinary clinic. But down south, they bring that puppy into the backyard, take out a gun and do what needs to be done. well, Whitey Bulger was horrified about that. When that gun was revealed and that little puppy was, you know, looked staring up at the barrel of that gun, Whitey Bulger had to turn away in tears, crying almost uncontrollably

because he didn't want to see it. And he had to walk away before that, you know, that gunshot rang out. That's interesting that, you know, everybody has their, you know, their Achilles heel. And, you know, even the bad guy that we love to hate, you know, Again, another soft spot that, you know, would endear him to a lot of Americans, you know, during the Whitey story. When you guys first got together on that park bench or bar school and decided to start writing books together and you decided to- It's open to a bar school. It's never a park bench. When you guys decided to get into Whitey, did you find, how many things did you find while writing the story that you

thought, wow, that's never been told. We, I mean, around every corner, there was a new story to be told. And, you know, Dave and I have covered the Whitey Bulger case for decades. We thought we knew everything there was to know about Whitey until we got invested in this project. And that's why we're so proud of the work, because we can tell us a totally new and fresh story about Whitey Bulger that hasn't been written about, that hasn't been talked about. And I think that comes down to the access. that we were granted, the unprecedented access on kind of both sides of Whitey's life,

the law enforcement side, the FBI, trying to hunt him down and clear the name of the Bureau after so many years. And we also got unprecedented access to 70 letters that Bulger had written in his own words while he was in prison. So, you know, we get into Bulger's head, I think unlike any other journalists ever have because of all of the materials that we were able to glean for this project. So we're talking to Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, co-authors of Hunting Whitey, available wherever books are sold.

I cannot wait to read the entire book. One of the things that we mentioned earlier was Whitey being a rat. Now, that's one of the things that kept him alive, kind of was his dealings with the FBI, right? And we kind of see the inner workings of the FBI, where we might not like it too much. Well, right.

Go ahead, Dave. Sorry. Yeah, no, no. Well, Whitey, you know, in the trial, he tried to claim that he wasn't a rat, that it was all just a ruse, and that he was using the FBI to extract information to perpetuate his own survival. And that's partially true, but he was also giving the information, too. Make no mistake about it. Whitey Bulger was ratting out his, his, his, um, his competition.

And it was actually a genius move by him. That's the one thing you do have to give white credit for us. He did play the system like a fiddle. He found a corrupt agent, several corrupt agents to be accurate. John Morris, everyone knows about John Connolly. But there was also, you know, H. Paul Rico, and there's several, you know, there's a state trooper that they had on the payroll. So they were paying off cops left and right, buying and selling information, trading it.

And all that really did was clear. way for Whitey Bulger to run all the rackets and create misery on the streets of Boston and New England for 30 plus years. Incredible. So his many years on the run hiding in plain sight, was there ever a time, how many times during his life on the run, were they close to getting him or were they never close to getting him until, you know, obviously close to the end? No, they were close to getting him several times.

And he always managed to slip through their noose. And there's a great cat and mouse game that has played out in our book. And, you know, the law enforcement officials that, in cops that were chasing him, you know, gave us these stories and this information for the first time. But, you know, going back to Dave's point in terms of Whitey Bulger, creating his own mythology, that informant, that he was extracting information from the FBI. He also loved, you know, his own. lore and one James Cagney type of person, which wasn't, but Bulger, while he was on the run,

was willing to jeopardize his own freedom to go watch the first screening of the Martin Scorsese film The Departed, which is a fictionalized version of the Whitey Bulger story. So here it's a very meta moment in our book where Whitey is sitting down in a cinema in San Diego watching Jack Nicholson on screen and shaking his head and nodding at places where he thought Jack had gotten it right. Well, what Bulger didn't know was that, you know, four rows behind him was a San Diego Sheriff's Deputy who happened to grow up in Massachusetts and was well-versed in the Whitey Bulger story. So this San Diego Sheriff's deputy spots Bulger recognizes him right away and then follows him outside the cinema And it's a great moment in the book in terms of how Bulger is able to allude this person and then, you know, vanished into thin air for several years before the FBI finally brought him down.

That is, that's incredible. And how does that deputy feel? I mean, that deputy had him right there in the grasp. Yeah, it's, you know, again, the book really plays out like a movie, which I think is something Whitey Bulger would love if he was here. to read it. He may not like how he's depicted in it, but he would certainly love the way it flows. And Bulger himself hated the FBI with such determination and scorn that, you know, if Bulger told the FBI this, that if he was, you know, getting into his late 80s and early 90s and knew he was sick and maybe only had a few months to live, he would have driven to Nevada,

found an old abandoned mine shaft and just dropped down into it so that his body would never be found so that the mystery of Whitey Bulger would never be erased. Right, it would always be alive. That is fascinating. So the book is Hunting Whitey, the inside story of the capture and wanted crime boss. You said that while writing it, almost every corner you turned was information that kind of caught you by surprise. What was the number one surprise in the book that you thought, oh my gosh, nobody knows that. Boy, that's hard to pin down. Dave, do you have an answer for that?

Well, I mean, I think for me, it's, you know, we have a couple of exclusive photos that have never before been seen of Whitey in prison in Tucson, Arizona. And they're the last known pictures of Whitey Bulger ever taken. And when we got these pictures from one of the, men that he served time with. To me, my mind was blown because here was a guy that the reason his mythology existed was because he hated having his picture taken. The only pictures out there

that existed of him were a couple of pictures that were kind of stolen from family and friends, but really the surveillance photos of the FBI, that he looks like a big tough gangster, and he's got his tight t-shirt and his hair slick black, and he looks like a boil from the

hood. But here's this picture of this 89-year-old man. or 88 year old man in prison standing with some gangsters, and he just looks like an old man. And so I was really surprised that that Baldur even allowed that picture to be taken. And believe me, when Casey and I saw it, we were like, wow, we got something here. Did he even know it? Did he even know the picture was taken?

Well, yeah, he's posing for it. Okay, there you go. You know, in his life. And I think, you know, during his time in prison, obviously, you know, we later correspond. with the prime suspect in Bulger's murder who was writing us with rubber-tipped pencils from inside solitary confinement at Misery Mountain, the prison that Bulger was killed at. And he's writing us with rubber-tip pencils because they won't give him anything sharp because they're afraid that he'll kill himself or try to stab one of the guards.

But what we didn't know was that Bulger had an attempt on his life just after he'd gotten convicted and it was placed in federal penitentiary for the first time. And another inmate made a run at him and almost took him out. And we had that story for the first time. And there's just so many new reveals in this book that were so extremely, you know, fortunate to have uncovered. I cannot wait to read the entire thing. Casey Sherman, Dave Wedge, co-authors of Hunting Whitey.

So now that you guys took a couple weeks together and put this thing together. uh what's next what's next have a uh so we wrote a book in 2000 uh it took us a couple hours uh we wrote a book in 2018 about uh deflategate and uh that fight with tom brady yeah it's really a story about uh about you know the nfl's battle with the union and the way that giddell tried to assert control over the league and um with all the drama that's happened when Tom Brady since that book came out, leaving the Patriots and going to Tampa Bay, we have updated that book, and that comes out in paperback in September. So we're excited about that as well.

And we also have a book coming out in December, co-authored by James Patterson. And it chronicles the final days of John Lennon and his assassination. This is the 40th anniversary of Lennon's assassination coming up on December 8th, And we take you into that story, unlike anybody else, has taken anybody into that story before. And we still have, I mean, we still have, you know, his assassin or his assassin, you know, stories about him are still abounding around. Correct. Mark David Chapman, his motivation and how he did it.

And also, all the eyewitnesses around at the time. And, you know, we uncover things about John Lennon that nobody else really knew before. and the fact that he had been targeted by a terrorist group, which brought him really kind of underground later on in his life. People wondered why he was such a recluse in the last five years of his life. He was, you know, raising his son Sean on one hand, but he had also had serious threats for his life and the life of his family by a terrorist group at the time.

So it's a really unique story that we can't wait for people to read as well. That is interesting. I can't wait to talk to you about that. Casey Sterman, Dave Wedge, of course, the book that we're mean for you to read and enjoy now is Hunting Whitey. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us on Tour of the Fat. I appreciate it. And good luck. We'll talk to you in the future.

Thanks so much. Thanks so much. All right. Let's get to the coronavirus numbers with the coronavirus update here in the CQB today, coming in the home stretch. We're going to be back at Mercury Studios next week, I think. So it's looking that way right now. We'll see. We'll see what happens.

Total cases worldwide, $5,638,33, 349,3,323. 349,323 deaths. Here in the United States of America, we have 5 million, I mean, we have 1,713,463. total cases. And yes, according to world meters, which is where I give you the numbers from every day, the United States has topped 100,000. Now they haven't listed as 100,000. So be ready for the fanfare of that

today and tomorrow. That how horrific it is. And it really is horrific. But remember, what we talked about. I've thought for sure that we were going to hit that before now. So we have really flattened the curve like they wanted us to. And it's time to break out. It's time to break out. Has China passed the mythical 83,000 total case mark?

Let's see what they have as of right now. Oh, man, we are close. 82,992.92. We have not. We have not broken that 83,000 mark. But we're getting to the point now where they aren't going to be able to stop it. But they do have new cases. They have seven new cases. So, I mean, there's that. So it's going to, I don't know if they're going to allow it. thousand to hit by Friday or if we just keep adding one every day for the next seven or eight days and just slow that down a little bit it does appear that is unstoppable now they will hit that 83,000 mark. TSA turnstile checkpoint numbers oh 340,769 through the turnstiles yesterday.

Wow. Memorial Day numbers through the roof not the highest since we've been. we said they were back. Four days ago, four or five days ago, they were at 348, which is going into the weekend, right into the three-day weekend, and then three-forty, oh my gosh, 8,000 people did not return. What happened to them? 348,673 left four days ago, and 340,769 returned. They, I mean, it was almost 8,000 people did not return.

what's going on. So it could be back. The airlines are, I mean, everybody is still struggling. I mean, Delta had big computer issues over the weekend. Good luck. Some of you may still be stuck because of that. I mean, wow. I doubt it though because so few people are flying that it's when there is an issue,

you know, while dozens of flights are disrupted, so few people are flying that it doesn't affect. as many people, so you might not hear about it. So I hope that those of you that were caught in that maylight are still, are already gone, and it's taken care of. Hertz, another, you know, domino effect, files for bankruptcy. There, you know, look, the car rental industry is just part of the deal, right? That is part of the deal.

And that's, it's just where we're at now. I want to read you something during the podcast, which is a reason you should subscribe to chewing the fat. Because if you're listening to this and you're not a subscriber, I don't know what you're doing with your life, but you should be a subscriber to chewing the fat because there's so much more than what you're getting for free. And plus, you don't want to be a freeloader your whole life. You just don't want to be that. So subscribe to chewing the fat and get on with your life. So the domino effect of all businesses, I want to read you something during the podcast about capitalism that is just an incredible, an incredible moment for you to think that, yes, that's what's happened. I mean, we've kind of shown, really, during this lockdown and pandemic, that there are no real jobs that are unimportant.

You know, the non-essential employee, really when you start, when the dominoes start to fall, are essential. And so I think we need to rethink the way we actually look at things. I don't know. We'll see. And I know that South America now we talked about it last week. Remember, we talked about the guy in Peru and how bad things we're getting in Brazil. Well, here you go. The U.S. has now restricted travel from Brazil.

So, I mean, Brazil is turned into one of the epicenter, well, South America, according to who, is, you know, an epicenter. And Brazil is on fire with COVID-19. So, I mean, you're, if you're, you can't even leave Brazil and come to the U.S. And we have plenty of countries that are, you know, thinking about opening travel back up. And Europe, we talked last week about doing their, you know, their bubble travel. where one country says, yeah, you can come from this country and you can go back and forth, but all the other countries around you can. And there's plenty of places that are opening up and they're saying you can come here,

but you can come here from anywhere, but you have to give it a 14-day quarantine. I mean, unless you live in a country where you weren't able to get back to because of this lockdown, and now you're able to get back to your home country, why would you travel somewhere and actually make that your destination and then have to go into quarantine for 14 days before you even get to do anything else in that country?

I don't even know why they do that in Hawaii. I don't even know why you do that. It makes zero sense to me. Zero sense at all. And of course, you know, on top of countries opening up, I mean, states are open. opening up and now we're getting back to states are saying that evictions can resume. So I don't know what you people are going to do that didn't pay your rent and didn't work out a deal with your landlord.

But the time of the time of settling is come and due. there's there's all kinds of programs that i mean i mean i know they went dry almost immediately i mean the rental assistant program in houston ran out of funding in like an hour uh when it opened up but the all these businesses i mean guess what the owner of your apartment or house uh they've got bills too i mean it's it's just an incredible downfall right now look i mean i mean Chipotle and Duncan, Shake Shack, they are lobby property owners to defer rental payments or they've renegotiated leases. Starbucks has told landlords it's going to require concessions.

I mean, that's the difference between you and Starbucks, right? Starbucks has, you know, leases all over the world. And they're saying, look, we're going to seek these concessions like that concession means we're not going to pay you for a while and then we'll decide when we start paying you again and you're going to allow us to open up and that's just the way it is whereas when you say

hey I'm going to add some concessions to before I start paying rent again here at this apartment complex and the concession is hopefully the deputy sheriff doesn't come and throw you out that's kind of the difference between Starbucks and you

download and support Subscribe to more content at the blaze.com slash podcasts. New York Stock Exchange back open for business with traders today, too. So we'll see the horror of what happens there. I know that they all had to be in their anti-coronavirus bubble of the stock exchange. I mean to tell you, you know, I was thinking about this this weekend about football. And I know that many of you don't care about sports, and I get it. I really do.

I understand it. It just the way that it has been intertwined in American fabric with football. And I'm talking about college and NFL. If we don't have football in this country, this fall, I think it's not, I think we're not, it's not going to be a pretty time in the U.S. I mean, we could talk about businesses and restaurants trying to open up at 25%. Okay. And we could talk about, you know, the weirdness of everyone having the social distance.

And we can talk about people getting hollered at for not having their stupid mask on. And we can talk about the police department. We have one police department telling residents to stop calling 911 to report. social distance violations. Are you kidding me? You call it 9-1-1 because some guy walked in a six-foot circumference of you

or someone else. Stop it. And that was in Toledo, Ohio. I mean, even in the worst state in the union of Ohio, at least the police department smartened up. They're telling people stop it. I don't even know if they told them two call. Or, you know, please do it.

It's all a suggestion. Anyway, it's not a law. And I'm glad that some of the governors, I see the governors are allowing us to come back outside. It was nice of them to allow us to do that. But anyway, I digress. I feel like if we are unable to have some kind of football, some kind of deal in this country, I mean, that is a big, big deal. Would you think about how many stadiums every weekend?

Thursday through Sunday, specifically Saturday and Sunday, were filled with 100,000 people in each stadium. And I know. We'll say 50,000 to 100,000 people to enjoy a game. And now you're saying that that game can't even happen. And if it happens, you're not going to be able to go and enjoy it. we as Americans, I don't think are going to stand for that. I really don't. I really don't.

And the downfall of that of financial and civilly and just psychological is going to be incredible. I don't know that we can do it. I don't know that we can do it. And I was reminded by a Facebook post who tagged the Pat Gray Unleashed Facebook page. over the weekend. I loved it. It was from Joe Green. And I don't know if Joe did this.

I don't know if it was his original post. I don't know who it belonged to, but it is great. A guy looked at my Corvette the other day and said, I wonder how many people could have been fed for the money that sports car cost. I replied, I'm not sure. It fed a lot of families, and Bull and Brick could, Tocchio built it. It fed the people who make the tires. It fed the people who made the components that went into it. It fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for

the wires. It fed the people in Decatur, Illinois, at Caterpillar, who make the trucks that haul the copper ore. It fed the trucking people who hauled it from the plant to the dealer and fed the people working at the dealership and their families. But I have to admit, I guess I really don't know how many people it fed. Amen. I mean, I mean, I mean, that is the difference, this is back to the post again, that is the difference between capitalism and welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people's pockets and give them dignity for their skills. When you give someone something for nothing, you rob them of their dignity and self. capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value.

Socialism is taking your money against your will and shoving something down your throat. that you never asked for. Amen. That's something that this network, the blaze television, radio, and podcast network preaches and believes in. That's what's supposed capitalism has saved

the world, and we'll save it again under this pandemic cloud that we're all living under now. It is just amazing to me that we have forgotten. And we need to not forget it. And we need to be reminded of it and remind others of it every freaking day. Now, having said that, this is June the Fad. Thank you so much for coming along with a ride today.

And I just want to remind you, don't forget that even though we can't say anything bad about China, Google, YouTube, Facebook, or down posts claiming that it's going against, it's for our own good. It's for our own darn good. Okay. And we're just going to delete those posts. We have Facebook deleting posts from grandmas in Europe because they have pictures of their grandkids up. I mean, well, I'll get to that story tomorrow.

It's just incredible to me what's going on with our social media. And that's why I said the other day, what, you know, YouTube is. busy taking down stuff almost instantaneously instantaneously instant instantly instantaneously yeah instantaneously

something like that YouTube is taking it down almost immediately you know darn dear like that well I thought that the deal that Rogan did with Spotify was such a big deal

because he's throwing in the towel on the rest of these dinkleberries and put them behind Spotify so that things aren't going to get deleted and dropped when a company decides that they don't like something. Oh my gosh, isn't that capitalism at work? Yes, it is.