Fourth Reich Archaeology - The Big Con(Gress) 2: Big Beautiful Bull

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

We are back with another installment of our excavation into the U.S. Congress with guest Andrew Myslik, who worked for Rep. Rashida Tlaib as a staffer for her first 7 years in office. Our anchor point for discussion is Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Without getting too in the weeds, we cover what’s in it, who wins and who loses. Spoiler alert: the winners, as always, are the ruling class. Billionaires, multinationals, military-industrial-tech-surveillance-infotainment-industrial complex. The losers are everybody else, especially the poor and marginalized. We hear from Andrew about how the game is rigged against democracy, how corporate interests take ownership and exercise control over the so-called people’s representatives. We consider how the simultaneous loss of legitimacy by the fascist state and worsening of conditions for Americans - especially Black and Brown people - is leading to a new Amerikan Apartheid. Just one piece of a larger movement for global Apartheid bearing down on us from the “civilized” Western world. Many of our rulers want that, and we’re all but powerless to stop them through the traditionally conceived “democratic” channels. So what then?Support us on Patreon: Patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeologyFollow us on X and IG @fourthreichpod

Colonialism or imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources. We found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission of the science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America.

America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to require information, which showed that there were two wars going. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more easy victims of a big lie than a small one. For example, we're the CIA. He has a mom.

He knows so long as a guy, afraid of we'd never be secure. It usually takes a national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Why you think our country's so innocent? This is a day.

I know. National global. Bigged. Fourth Reich is coming. Think it for aish. Archaeology. Archaeology. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology.

Dick and I'm done. Welcome back to our returning listeners and if this is your very first time tuning in, welcome to the show. We're glad to have you here with us. We're so grateful for the opportunity to inform and perhaps entertain you for the next hour or so. Now this week we are going to be turning away from our ongoing series within a series about the great coup in Dallas in November 1963 and subsequent cover-up, that series is, of course, called the Warren Commission Decided. We're going to instead turn to one of our more contemporary dig sites. This week it's going to be our ongoing series called The Big Con. That's where we investigate and explore the inner workings of the modern U.S. Congress. And we're so grateful to have again,

with us, Andrew Maislik, the former legislative aide to Representative Rashida to leave. Andrew joined Rashida's congressional staff at a very beginning of her career on the Hill. Before we get into any of that, I just want to give my warm. Thank you very much to all of our supporters. Thank you so much for liking the pod, tuning in, for subscribing, for spreading the word. We really do rely on our listenership to spread the word about our program because we strive to be completely listener-supported and completely ad-free. That brings me to my next point.

We do have a Patreon available. You can go to patreon.com slash forthright archaeology. and if you really dig our program and if you have the means we ask that you please consider joining our patronage program we are on social media you can find us on the everything app x and on instagram at forthright pod and we also have a email account for Thrikepod at gmail.com. We love getting mail from you. So please do send us any and all correspondence. Don, I think I'm going to kick it off to you,

maybe give us a background on this series, The Big Con, and lay the roadmap for what we're going to do today. Sure thing. I'd like to welcome back our returning guest, Andrew Mislick, Andrew, welcome. Thanks for having me back, guys. And by way of recap,

If you've not already heard the first installment in this series, I would recommend you go back and do so. But to just very, very briefly recapitulate, in the first installment, we really just set the groundwork and laid the foundation for what will be a periodic check-in on the legislative branch, what we call the big con. and we took stock of Andrew's experience as a staffer for Congresswoman Rashida Talib, one of the few respectable members of that stayed body, and we discussed the fundamentals, really, of how Congress works, of how the staff level of Congress functions and bigger picture how the entire thing is a big old smokescreen, a big charade, a spectacle of democracy in lieu of anything resembling a real democracy. And today, with the Congress back in the news with Donald J. Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill that has caused so much of a stir, even breaking up his bromance with

Elon Musk, we thought that we would tell you the listener, give you a little bit of a stir, give you a little peek behind the curtain on budgeting and address this question of why don't we pass any laws anymore and we seem to just throw everything into these massive omnibus unaccountable unreadable illegible pieces of massive legislation throwing around trillions of dollars and really removing any semblance of popular control over the levers of government. So with that, let's get digging. It's very big. It's the big beautiful bill, but the beautiful is because of all of the things we have. The biggest thing being, I would say, the level of tax cutting that we're going to be doing.

One of the lowest tax rate we've ever had in the history of our country. You know, I was like disappointed to see the massive spending vote, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing. I wake up every day like a kid in the candy shop because I got a president who's letting us do our job when we get rid of every criminal illegal alien, every national security threat, illegal animal from this country. Authority stealing, authority stealing, authority stealing, authority stealing. We need Congress to pass one big deal for bills so we can get more resources out there to look for the bad guys. A lot of folks are going to say, you're spending billions.

I thought we were in debt and we should be saving money and Doge wants us to cut. So the more money we have, the more beds we buy. The more planes we can contract to remove these people. The more agents we can put on the ground. The more contracts we can sign to put, you know, great contract people in position that doesn't require a badge and gun. We got badges of guns sitting at a desk doing administrative duties because there's there to do it. If we get more contracts going to do that, that puts that badge and gun on the street. So these sanctuary cities, it will get exactly what they don't want.

More officers in the communities and work sites and more collateral arrest. Because when we find a bad guy to target the operation, he's going to be without it. The reason it is the big, beautiful bill is because it is a campaign speech turned into a piece of legislation. I agree with Elon Musk. Republicans should listen to it. All right, Andrew, welcome back. Thanks again for joining us. And, you know, like I kind of teed up in the intro,

I think where we want to start out this discussion is this real headscreens. You know, it seems like once upon a time, you know, you think about the big laws on the books, the Freedom of Information Act, Obamacare being kind of one of the last in time, the Patriot Act, right? These are discrete pieces of legislation geared towards a purpose. But this day and age, that has kind of become a quaint thought and has given way, to these omnibus pieces of legislation that everybody is almost a roar shack, that everybody can see in it what they want and it may be good, maybe bad, but what it isn't is reflective of any sort of discrete priorities or goals in terms of actual politics.

So, Andrew, what's your take? Having been on the inside of the Congress, you know, how did you experience legislation and the funneling thereof into this bizarre process? Yeah, I mean, it's become totally, as you say, the easiest way to pass legislation nowadays is by attaching it as an amendment to a bill. We focus, you would spend time writing a bill and introducing it as its stand-alone, as we would call it. But oftentimes, the whole strategy the entire time was we're going to offer this bill as an amendment. So you're introducing it in order to gain support on the front end. And then, of course, when it's time to offer it as an amendment to whatever bill you're targeting, be it a big spending package like the big beautiful bill or something like the National Defense Authorization Act,

or NDAA, you already have a group of members who you can go to, and you have that preset support network, as it would be. So the bills themselves really become more organizing tools than actual legislation at times, which is definitely a, I think it's a reflection of, like you said, these massive on-bust bills are being the only thing that are really getting through. And when you have these big bills, they're designed for members who are taking that corporate money, right? Because in order to vote for it, you have to cover your eyes and ignore the rest of it that you don't like, right? There's always going to be significant sections, right? There's appropriation itself, right? The whole budget is 13 separate bills in theory.

moving it as omnibus basically means moving them together as a package and the reason they do that is well there's a whole bunch of Democrats who don't want to vote for like say the Department of Homeland Security bill but they really want to vote for maybe the agriculture bill

because that has a lot of important things like snap aid in it and so you'll put those two together to kind of you're putting a gun to their head legislatively speaking to force them to vote for it so that's part of why you see these massive packages. It's a tactic to coerce members into supporting an entire budget, even if they only support a small portion of it. And then, like you say, everybody can find

something that's a win in there. That's so interesting. That point about how every representative is basically getting their hands dirty. Everyone's a sinner so no one can be held accountable, right like if everyone's in on it you can't hold any one individual and say well well exactly and in reality the people you you as a standard line rank and file member i should say of of the house you don't have much influence over the budget overall the people with influence are either ranking members or chairs on committees and then their staves as well as of course the committee on appropriations and then leadership. Those are the people who are actually writing the whole thing, and really what every other

member is doing is going into their draft and editing it, which is an enormous, it's an enormous power to give just such a select group in and of itself. And it really, it does create this situation where they are best positioned to move and change and shape that bill to their own interest, right? And sure, I'm sure some of them are pretty decent members, but a lot of them are not. And so you see, I think, just massive amounts of corruption in the appropriation process, whether it's legal or not, right? And one of the things that I found really interesting working through my years in Congress was they wouldn't put people who won't vote for the bill on the appropriations committee. because obviously you could bring a lot of, when you're working for a member like Rashida, you're thinking,

okay, this is an opportunity to bring resources to my community and a community that really needs it. And you can be very successful, and she has been very successful through that as just a rank and file member. But if you're on the Appropriations Committee, it's a whole other level. But, you know, if you're not going to vote for the defense bill, which she was never going to vote for the defense bill, then they're not going to put you on the committee. And that's a whole other level of coercion, right, and how they're manipulating the whole thing. Yeah, a real top-down filtration process

from the big money donors who get to choose party leadership and then party leadership in turn gets to choose committee assignments and just flows down with the money, right? Exactly. Our longtime listeners will recall, we talked about appropriations committee way back in Jerry World. Dick, you remember that when Jerry Ford's real rise to the top, his positioning for that launch pad really came early on in his congressional career. Because as a ball player, right. the lucrative positions on defense intelligence these are positions that were the money was

flowing hell yeah and i guess i mean maybe it's already clear but what role do these interest groups and you know we talked in our first discussion andrew about the ways in which the thinking tanks, especially right-wing think tanks, function as kind of a government in exile or a stand-by government that supplies much of this legislation? Shadow government. Is that, yeah, is that something that comes into play here as well? I assume the answer is yes. Oh, of course.

Yeah, like I mentioned, the people writing the actual text of the bill, you know, these these massive, massive pieces of legislation, they are staff, right? Typically committee staffers. And, you know, they're meeting with people all year round. And, you know, a lot of it, it's not just, right, like the Appropriations Committee, like the Appropriations Committee will go to the Foreign Affairs Committee for the State and Foreign Operations portion. And so their two sectors will work together on that.

But all these people in just your standard job are meeting with interests. from any number of fields and so there's just the whole system is basically designed to be exploited if you ask me it's really it's so open to corruption that it's it's i mean like we say it's legalized entirely right just because this is corrupt activity doesn't mean it's legal should be clear but the the whole the whole way through money influences everything not sure if i answered your full question sorry oh oh you sure did I have a follow-up question. Do it.

What about the amount of money that's been flowing? Any thoughts on, you know, the trend, which way it's going, and by any reactions to it? Oh, well, up, of course. It's just ever since particularly Citizens United, the trend of money into our politics has shot through the roof, and actually you touch on an important point, which is, you know, follow the money is. It's an old saying, but it's really true. And there's a number of different ways.

It's not just through these interest groups. That money is coming in and influencing this. You know, a staffer can go after working for a couple of years on one of these committees and get a very lucrative position at any number of corporations in any number of fields. If you know the appropriations process, it's a very, very valuable skill to have in a country where lots of the corporations are trying to find any loophole or get any sort of, you know, funding from the government that they can. So that's just another way it comes in.

And then, of course, everybody's going, you know, there's all the dinners, there's all that kind of soft power corruption, as it would be. And then just at the end of the day, even though this, you know, apart from the staff, the members are making the final calls on like the big, you know, the kind of higher level issues and more visible questions, they're of course thinking about their campaigns even if they're not supposed to be so that's

the kind of obvious one as well yeah and this particular big beautiful bill or as we're calling it big beautiful bullshit uh it's pretty clear who the winners and the losers are it's in fact extremely transparent in preparation for this episode i've been listening to a lot of mainstream media coverage and it's just astounding how much lingo and jargon the coverage cloaks this extremely simple process into to further the sort of anti-democratic nature of it. I don't think I'm being paranoid when I say this, but people are talking about, oh, well, such and such are very keen to do this, and this group is really concerned about the deficit and blah, blah, blah. It's like, if you just look at balls and strikes, it's so obvious that it's a massive giveaway,

to the military industrial complex, as is every piece of legislation. It's a massive increase in the technology of repression and surveillance. And it's a, I think maybe the biggest takeaway in terms of the actual substance of the bill is making permanent these tax cuts, right? Everybody talks about the Bush tax cuts. It's kind of taking Reaganomics to a whole other level. Of course, Obama, rather than reversing them, extended them, then Trump extended the more, then Biden extended the more,

and it's always been a kicking the can down the road, and what this bill does, and kind of the biggest takeaway, is to make those tax cuts, which, of course, disproportionately favor corporations and the wealthy and more than anybody, the extremely wealthy. And it makes them permanent, which balloons the deficit over the long term. And then this bill says, well, we're going to make up for that increased deficit by, committing to reduce spending on other shit. Whatever that other shit is, we'll figure that out

later. But now, instead of figuring out if we're going to extend the tax cuts or not, we'll just figure out if we're going to extend, you know, Medicaid is a big one that's on a lot of people's mind, stuff like that. So there's pretty clear winners and pretty clear losers here. And I don't know what do you guys think it seems to me just like nobody wants to speak frankly about this because there's there's nothing anybody can do about it dick i don't know if you want to go first yeah i mean i think you nailed it don it's like there's nothing anybody can do about it so they're just sort of going along with it i think what's the the point you said about how it's this rorschach test of different issues.

I mean, the list is insane, right? Like, everything from student loans to immigration benefits to people who don't have lawful status, it's remarkable what's in there. And it sort of goes to the point, Andrew, I think, that you made me think about. It's like, if everyone is implicated, no one can be guilty of anything. Yeah, I mean, you're both exactly right. The whole thing, it's really a symptom of a very unhealthy system, right? It's not a healthy way to budget for a country or for any entity, right?

And you talk about how much of it's going to the military and how much of it's going, or, you know, the military industrial complex and the various corporations that make that up, which is really increasingly expanding into. to, you know, you have companies that you wouldn't have traditionally thought of being part of that. It's so all-encompassing in who's making money through these things. If everybody's making money, then everybody shuts up. And meanwhile, it rots the country from the inside, right? Because there's, I mean, for one example, when we talk about the defense budget,

which I'm, I did a lot for a lot of work on for my old boss, you know, the military will, they'll request like, I don't know, just 80 F-35s one year. And Congress will give them like 96 because they want to, they want the military, or they want the government to spend more money on specific items so that they can then say they're bringing more jobs to their communities and because they're buddies who are donating into their campaigns, then get more money, right? Even though the military doesn't even want those extra aircraft or ships or whatever it is, they're getting them anyways because of congressional and Washington corruption.

Yeah, I mean, you look at actually what they do when they have this equipment, and you could just look to the activities in the Red Sea in Yemen over the last six months or so, and they're just throwing airplanes into the fucking sea. That was a particularly interesting incident, actually. From what I've heard, and I don't know if this is true, but they were getting, the Houthis had been getting some help with their targeting, right? And basically that that aircraft carrier was forced to make a very, very sharp turn to avoid an incoming missile, and that's why that thing fell off the deck, which I think speaks to a larger

pattern in do these massive platforms, right, like a $13 billion aircraft carrier or however how much they cost, is that really the best way? Like, like, taking a, setting aside the whole question of like, should we even be paying for all this crap, is that even the best way to be using your money for projecting power? If the Houthis, Yemen is one of the world's poorest countries can nearly hit an aircraft carrier with a little outside help, that doesn't really read well for a potential conflict with Iran or Russia or God forbid China, right? Like, that's not a good sign for the future, frankly. Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the poorest countries in the world. It's been under siege and starvation from the U.S. Saudi military assault for the the last got like 10 years 10 years yeah it's it's such a proof of concept that the u.s military is this massive paper tiger i mean remember on twitter when people were showing these like top gun style video edits they're going to learn why we don't have health care yeah oh my god And then, no. Basically, my understanding of the reason the U.S. signed that, quote-unquote, ceasefire with the Houthis is, they effectively figured out there's nothing that we're going to be able to bomb that's going to make them stop. And we're just wasting money and resources when, frankly, the U.S. military's stockpiles are quite low.

And it's kind of one of the, you know, we're talking about this like right now is it's making me chuckle as I. the leftist, right? Like, you know, not that I'm particularly concerned about the strength of the U.S. military and its empire, but it's kind of like this ridiculous spot you end up in D.C. where it's, like, so obvious that, like, the United States as an entity is just shooting itself in the foot. And you feel like you're the only, like, you're like, this is really how you guys want to go about doing all of this, right? Like, this doesn't seem, I don't know, if that makes any sense. you feel like you're doing totally insane because of it well the old definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result i mean when it comes to

military spending and what's truly astounding what is truly a proof of concept for the fourth rike idea that this is not anything like a democracy is that common sense dictates abandoning this excessively wasteful and absurd allocation of resources. And yet, not only is the party in power refusing to abandon the current course, there's no opposition to it. Yeah, the Democrats don't either. It's really crazy. Democratic leadership through the last few months, I know it's not something we had on our plan to talk about here, but I mean, leadership in air quotes, right? It's just, and I'm not just saying that, I mean, of course, I disagree with them politically on a lot of stuff, but like, because I worked for Rashida when Speaker Pelosi was in charge, or was the, you know, the minority leader, who I had.

of course disagree with vehemently on countless things, but like she can count votes. She showed up. She whipped votes. She got things together. She knew the, like, she knew where the party was. And you just see none of that with the current leadership at all. And like haven't for the past two years. And that's part of, I think, why people, I think I saw, I don't know, it was a Zateo interview where they were talking with Rep Lee about how one voter described the party as a deer in headlights. And it's totally true. There's no leadership, right? And you see that manifest into things like the big beautiful bill passing the house. They don't think creatively about how to fight because they're more focused on thinking about how to message everything instead of actually

trying to win. And so, yeah, you get the big beautiful bill. Well, that, and they're cutting checks from the same people, too. Well, exactly. Yeah, they don't think of themselves. It's important to understand that like democratic leadership and this totally corporate co-opted end of the party, they don't think of themselves as corporately co-opted, right, even though they are. So they're logically in their head, they're doing what they think is right. So they have to create a reality in which what they're doing is right, in which their strategy makes sense when that strategy just, of course, happens to be exactly in a line with what their corporate donors want. Right. It's all basically

justification to get for them, for a lot of these people, I think frankly, to get over the fact that they know they're corrupt and they know they're really not like they're not winning. I don't know how you look at their record and think they are.

It's crazy. It really is. Yeah. What I also want to point the finger and save a little bit of ire for the so-called left wing of the Democrat Party as well because take this Medicaid thing right the estimates of what this bill will do it's going to take somewhere between like 10 and 16 million Americans off of

their health insurance off of Medicaid which heard one estimate will result in something like in excess of 50,000 unnecessary deaths per year as a result. And of course, it's another one of these contradictions of capitalism that bubbles up to the surface or boils over. I mean, you would hope it would boil over, but it's just not. It's like the frog is dead, the water is boiling, and nobody gives a fuck. But the justification on the right wing for these Medicaid cuts is that it's targeting, I've heard it describe derisively as able-bodied men in their 30s who spend all day playing

video games that are taking Medicaid. It's the guy on Snap who buys a lobster. right we've they just make new versions of this every 10 years and it's it is truly absurd and you're exactly right like 50,000 I think is a way low number that's just Medicaid I mean at the end of the day we're going to be devastating everything from school lunch programs to you know farmers livelihoods so you're going to see increases in deaths across the board probably hundreds of thousands of people of our, you know, neighbors and friends who are going to lose their lives because of this. And, you know, I think where you're getting is there hasn't been much

fight back, quite frankly. You know, there's lots of flashiness. And there, you know, some people certainly are. Well, but this is the thing that I was going to go even further because the most the Democrats are willing to do is to stake their claim into the status. quo and say, no, we shouldn't change this system the way it is and, you know, kind of the dynamic of the right wing and especially the extreme right wing being the kind of revolutionary mover, the party that's actually doing something to change the status quo. But what I want to say is the Democrats could make common cause with a part of what the extreme right is saying because if you listen a little bit further beyond the kind of absurd and fake rhetoric around it

what they're really saying is it costs a lot of money to administer the system where you have to check everybody's pocket right you have to pocket watch every recipient of any public benefit. And that creates this huge bloated bureaucracy and that costs money that's not actually going to healthcare. It's just going to administrative costs and all of these determinations and paperwork and data entries and whatever.

There's one way that you could actually get rid of that stuff too. You know what that is? It's called fucking socialized medicine. Yep. The VA is the perfect example of this. I covered veterans issues for Rashida. Because if you're not familiar, say a veteran has some sort of illness, they go to the VA,

and the VA will effectively attempt to decide what portion of that illness they are responsible for, right? Like the U.S. government. you know it's your disability rating right so we're responsible for 60% of you know the cancer you have or whatever it is and it's the most absurd thing it's this massive privatized bureaucracy they've set up for veterans to jump through hoops and only get like partial health care and it always was just astounding to me because it's just like why wouldn't you just not give them health care right like just it's ridiculous and you could cut that whole massive, ridiculous red tape bureaucracy and just give people health care like you're saying. And of course, it's not just for veterans. It's just for everybody. We have like one of the most

expensive health care systems in the world for no reason other than there's all these middlemen in the middle of us and are us getting treatment. And so yeah, there is so much waste fraud and abuse we could be cutting, but that's not what they're doing. I once did veterans benefit. claim that was an agent orange survivor benefit claim and i learned through that that i mean it just makes you want to puke the government engaging all of these private chemical corporations which of course fourth rike again have their roots in nazi science of course uh don't forget who came up with Agent Orange in the first place. It was a German. And they're sponsoring studies to disentangle certain types of cancer from exposure to these chemical weapons that the U.S. was using in Southeast Asia

and draw all these little lines to screw people over. I mean, imagine just spending tons of money just to screw people over. That's so much of what the government does. And it's like, what, what? Okay, so like maybe this guy's rare cancer isn't from Agent Org's exposure? Oh, no, you gave a health care, you gave a veteran free health care. Excuse me. It's just ridiculous.

Hey, now, wait a minute, Andrew. No freeloaders in America. Yeah, yeah, except for the politicians and the CEOs. And down the list. that's right yeah and the corporations and all the nazi scientists that we brought in to help put all of that knowledge gained in the concentration camps to good use well those people don't count those people are morally they're just better than us because they made it you know because they're wealthy and because they're in charge they must be there for good reason

This bill would provide a $664 billion tax break to the top 1% at a time when the top 1% already own more wealth than the bottom 93%. This whatever people say this tax bill disproportionately benefits the rich. Well, I mean, I would assume because the rich absolutely overpaid proportionally based on their income. It would provide a $420 billion tax rates to large multinational corporations that are stashing their profits in offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Like wildly, disproportionately.

At a time when over 85 million Americans today are uninsured or underinsured, The Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, has estimated that this bill would eliminate health care for 13.7 million Americans. Almost 14 million Americans will lose the health care. While this bill provides massive tax breaks to billionaires, it would cut $290 billion from nutrition programs and would literally take food away from more than $290 billion, for more than 2 million children and at least 250,000 low-income seniors. There's not much in the tax cut bill for people who are low-income,

mainly because people who are low-income are not paying taxes in the United States. So I think we've talked a little bit about it. We've talked about how this whole process, I mean, anybody, with a pair of eyes, a pair of ears, and a brain can see, this is not good. This is not a democracy that we feel represented. Oh, no. Oh, no, it is not. It's, and I mean, you actually, one of you guys mentioned earlier, right, listening to the news and the podcast, talk about all this, and they dress it up in so many terms, and that's

because it is so transparently stupid, right? Like, you're not crazy. It is, it's actually about a thousand times dumber than it looks on the outside. They use a lot of fancy words to make themselves feel important. And then also to just, you know, it's like throwing smoke into the room. It's a lot

harder to see the shit show going on on stage if it's a smoke-filled theater. Right? So, that's really the point of all the jargon. And it's, I know something we're really looking forward to getting into a lot more is just like any of y'all can write a bill and any of you all can lobby like easily it's actually genuinely not that difficult

and this is a great example of how Washington just loves to dress itself up in importance through language when a reality it's not that complicated most of the time so what i think i'd like to pivot to now is the fact that a lot of money is being spent to head against the inevitability, which we're seeing some signs popping up, especially in Los Angeles, when people no longer are willing to play along, that this is the best possible world, and we're doing our best, and this is a civilized society, and all the other lies that the government and its controlled media, or vice versa, whatever, the controlled government and the controlled media,

both of which are simply different tools of the ruling class, is losing popularity. People don't like it. And so we are being extorted through our tax dollars to pay for our own, repression. Yeah, I mean, why are they cutting job corps? They're not making conscription, right?

They don't have enough people to fight, so they're making it harder to get a job. You know, I would disagree very slightly in that they're not starting to hedge their bets. The system that is designed to repress us when this country finally, you know, wakes up and realizes, as one guy who I, this Vietnam vet I talked to out and I met at a bar, just randomly. He said the parties are two wings on the same vulture, and I thought that's just about as accurate as you can be there. But when the rest of the, when most of this country figures that out, which I think a lot of people really are, the system that they have in place, it's already here, right? They're just filling out capacity at this point and building out capacity. They have, you know, the network, I'm pretty sure if you count them as like a military force, police forces, the United States across the whole country combined, there's something like, I think China's the only other country that's more powerful than them or has a bigger budget, right?

And that's just our police, right? Right. I mean, the sheer numbers are absolutely insane. Like the U.S. military spends as much as, as. the next nine military powers combined, and it's more than three times as much as China's military budget. And like you said, the U.S. police, which is not included in that massive U.S. military budget, would be the third largest military by expenditure in the world. And it's just unfathomable. It's unfathomable. The military is also, as we've seen today, as we're recording this, the Marines are heading over to L.A. So they're, you know, that's certainly coming home when we have reports of them using Reaper drones to surveil protesters, right?

And I guess this brings us back to the Elon Trump breakup a little bit. And Dick, I'll put it to you, the question. what do you think Elon anti-Trump is looking towards long-term, or do you think it's just short-sighted and a smokescreen or some kind of a distraction? Yeah, I think as of late, I'm leaning towards it being the smokescreen distraction type thing. Frankly, I don't think the American people will remember in six months any of this. it's very possible that like Elon Musk just returns to like a what do we call it a private life running his companies again and sort of stays out of politics and who knows comes back as a Democrat

I don't know right I don't think that this will create like a rift in the Trump train I'd say at the end of the day his interests are still fundamentally aligned with Trump's right you know, even if they disagree on some things. At the end of the day, you know, it's about making money, right? And I can't even imagine him really coming in on the Dem's side. Even if he played with that, it would just be to screw over the Democrats, right? And quite honestly, I think the leadership of the party would probably be dumb enough to fall for it. But it's, you know, the guy at the end of the day, he's the richest guy on earth.

And his interests are fundamentally very similar to those of Trump. I just, I'm in agreement with you. I can't see it being a real major rift. Well, think about it this way. I mean, if it were a kind of a trap and if it were just an act, you couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. I mean, the guy crashes out in a cloud of mental instability and drug-fueled rage, right?

on the heels of multiple major articles telling everybody what we already knew, right, that he's in a K-hole, 90% of his waking hours during White House Oval Office cabinet meetings, notwithstanding the fact that he's not a Senate-confirmed member of the cabinet in the first place, a guy who gives a Nazi salute on stage and rails on about white genocide in South Africa. Like, this is the guy who, the minute he says a single unkind word about Trump, the Democrats start fawning and slobbering down their shirts and trying to, tripping over each other to try to kiss his ass. It's such a mask-off moment for the likes of, you know,

2028 Democratic presidential nominee hopeful Ro Khanna, right, to jump out and offer a hand of peace to fucking Nazi Musk. It's so sickening. Like, if God had a plan to goad the American people into some sort of a revolutionary action against this ruling class in all its venality, you couldn't do that much better than this turn of events. And yet, here we are with the majority of people accepting the brave souls in L.A. that are standing up to this at great risk to themselves, solidarity, just watching

and, oh, you know what, it would be sure great if he'd give $250 million to Mayor Pete or whatever the fuck. Like, give me a break. Good God. Yeah, in this moment, there is, like, the Democratic Party could step into this moment, but I don't think they're really capable of it because that would require being anti-corruption and pro-democracy and right now the leadership of the democratic party is pro-corruption and anti-democracy right like it's fundamentally in in the processes of how the party works it's a less democratic party than the republican party it is ridiculous right like it and it's i don't know they're they don't seem to be capable of getting out of their own way or the way of the rest of the country and when you i mean yeah the guy gave a

Nazi salute. Like, I don't know how much clearer you need to be. I don't know. Yeah, like, after, after that, at what point, what is your line, right? I mean, I guess it's the same question. We've been asking everybody who's been just chilling while the genocide's been going on in Gaza. But it's, it is just ridiculous, right? Like, under no circumstances should we ever work with that man, right? Because he puts our brothers and sisters at risk, right? By being a lunatic like that, you know? You're going to go work with Kanye too now? I don't know. It's crazy. Yeah, but like you said, I mean, once you start actually applying that logic, you are going to conclude, I think not only that it's the current leadership of the party, but it's really the core identity of the party itself of a piece

with the fascist ruling class in this country that has four decades, for generations. I mean, we've put forward and developed this thesis that anti-communism in the post-war era really turned the United States into a uniparty state and that with the assassination of Malcolm X, JFK, MLK, MLK, RFK, Fred Hampton, and on and on and on, eliminating any leader who could possibly emerge outside of that two-winged vulture, to use your friend's metaphor, has foreclosed any prospect of emerging out of this hellscape within this two-party system. Yeah, and I mean, I think we discussed it a little on the last episode. I think if you're to look for a corollary in history, it's kind of similar to La Degrolet

in the Mexican experience, where you had the pre, which had, you know, was effect, it was a one-party state, but the president only served for one term, so they would just blame everything on the last guy and put a new guy in charge. We basically have kind of an evolved version of that. We have two parties handing off power that are effectively controlled by the exact same people, right? It's the same corporate entities and money interests, right? You know, sometimes the, the talk. faces are different. But at the end of the day, it's really, it is a uniparty, I think. I mean, or, you know, sometimes I think it's a uniparty and sometimes I think it's almost like a weird three-party kind of thing where you got like the center and the whole middle there that's really, we'll do whatever, you know, their donors, corporate, whatever say. And then you got this kind of right libertarian way, and then go rogue. And then you have the left. And it kind of oscillates between that dependent on the issue, you know, the one I'm thinking of is FISA for an

intelligence surveillance act reauthorization where like you've got Jim Jordan and Rashida on the same side, which which ends into a kind of really, it gets weird in those kind of situations. But yeah, I mean, it really is at this point. I don't think I knew anyone at towards by the end of my time in Congress that really believed that that were democracy and that that place is democratic well that tees up an interesting question which is you know psychologically how do the people who are involved in the system how do they come to perpetuate it you know how do they make peace with themselves in accepting that this is how it is how it always will be. Yeah, and I mean, that's an important one, because to some extent,

I think there's a lot of people who go into that place, and, you know, I did this to a certain extent, right? You go in and you can see, you can actually make a difference in your local community. Like, it's, you know, anywhere else in the federal government, you're going to work for them. Any proposal you make is going to go through like 18 levels of approval and look nothing like what you sent out before it gets back to you, if it ever gets. back to you. Congress, you can just, you know, put the gloves on and, you know, go to bat for local residents, right, with, you know, piece of shit landlords or what have you. And so I think a lot of people basically, less the staff and more in the representative's eyes, you've got folks

who feel like, you know, your community needs support, right? There are people who are hungry in the streets who are dying, who don't have health care, you know, what have you, need shelter, or have lead in their drinking water. The list goes on and on. And this is the only way you can get them some help in this mess of a system. And it kind of gets into a concept that I came to believe in throughout my time in Congress, which is that we've got to kind of change how we think about how to use our members, because there are a few good ones up in there.

And really, there are times when they are, you know, the tip of the spear, and leading the charge right. But in reality, a lot of the times what they're actually able to do is be a bit of a shield. And that's far more, you know, important, right? So if you take the genocide, for example, that's gone on, you know, we weren't able to affect the change in policy we wanted to see. And that is heartbreaking, right? But at the same time, by having members like Rashida and Corey and Summer and Jamal and

all these others out there advocating the positions that are anti-geny, genocide, anti-war, anti-apartheid movement is fighting here in the U.S., having politicians, having representatives, putting those views out there, that really makes it a lot harder to prosecute because you can say, look, it is clearly political speech, a representative is saying it. So, yeah, do they have the votes to win? No, I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. But that doesn't mean that they can't be a real massive asset to the rest of our movement. movement by being in those positions and doing what they can. So does that end up in people

sometimes contributing more to the evil of it than they they want to or people who get in and then, you know, sink into it, absolutely. And then there's some people who don't, right? Yeah, a note to add in post here. It's now Thursday, June 12th. And today, Senator Alex Padilla of California was manhandled and handcuffed for simply asking questions to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam, at a press conference. So hopefully we'll see more of this type of putting the politicians' bodies on the line as well and using that to advocate for a drawdown in fascist police violence against protesters. It is the way of that place,

but I think that's an important way to kind of change how we think about these members and how we can use them as a movement, because at the end of the day, I mean, I'm personally at the belief that we the people in the streets can actually have the power, but I don't see much hope in winning in Congress, frankly, in a grander sense of things.

Yeah, and... Maybe to avoid ending on a bright note and to go to an even darker place based on what we are seeing out of the clashes in the streets out there in LA and perhaps elsewhere. We are recording this on Monday, June 9th, and thus far, I haven't seen too much outside. of L.A., perhaps it'll spread. But regardless, the response from both the government and in large part the media, right, nobody points the finger for the violence at the shock troops of the jackbooted fascist state. Nobody points the finger at ICE, at the federal troops, at the militarized police. I mean, I watched that clip.

I don't know if you guys saw it. The guy picks up his aim right on camera and shoots a rubber bullet at an Australian woman reporter. Like right there on purpose, on camera. The LAPD moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets at protesters. moving them on through the heart of L.A. You just fucking shut the f***. You're okay? I'm good.

I'm good. I mean, those circumstances that you found yourselves in for that report specifically seemed to be somewhat calmer and then all of a sudden, you know, he turned and fired at you. It just seems so out of place and so bizarre. Have you managed to, has there been any explanation? Have you been able to sort of gain any intel on how that happened, why that happened? No, I mean, where we were standing, it felt like things had

calmed down a little bit after that big, you know, chaos of moving up the street. And we'd found a moment where, you know, it had calmed for a moment. The police were standing still. And, and that is why we stepped off to the side. We weren't in a group of protesters or anything. We were with other media. I think you can see a cameraman walk behind me in the middle of that shot. So look, we were doing our best to report what was happening from the scene in the safest way we possibly could. And Jimmy and I were listening to everything the LAPD had been saying to us. But rather than pointing the finger at the troops that are escalating the violence with a clear intention, right, you escalate the violence, there's a violent

reaction from the crowds, and then it becomes, this is not. Martin Luther King's non-violence. This is violent protest and there is no place for that in America. And we're back into this discursive cycle, this toilet bowl swirling around and around down into the sewer. and at the end of that sewer is a real dystopian hellscape. Andrew, I know you and I have talked off mic about this, but it's a new technological American apartheid. And I wonder if you can put a finer point on that idea and then perhaps we can the three of us ponder whether, in fact, there is a way out of it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one realization I had fairly early on in working in Congress and working on the issue of Palestine, which was, you know, when I was aware of what wasn't really the focus of my activism before coming to Congress, was that America was an apartheid state. We don't think of ourselves as such, right? But that's what segregation is, or was. You know, that's what Jim Crow was, and slavery is probably the most intense form of apartheid

ever visited on this planet, so intense, it's really a genocide as well. And it really wasn't that long ago, right? I don't know how old Emmett Till would be today, but I think it's like his 70s, right? He should be alive. And when we understand, understand that, right? Because we don't, of course, it's a little subtle thing, right, that we don't

call ourselves that. But like, if we judged any of that by today's standards, that's what the international community would call it, it would be apartheid. And so when we realize that we are a fairly recent post-apartheid state and really not even a generation or two removed, I think the threat becomes a lot clearer, which in my mind is that there is, you know, we try to identify what it is this movement that we're fighting against. And it's really, in my mind, an international pro-apartheid movement. It, of course, is supporting the ongoing apartheid in Palestine, as well as in other places around the world.

That's its, you know, shining city on the hill of this project, as they like to say, right? But I truly have become convinced that I think they want to bring it back here. And you see, that's really where the interconnection is. And, you know, anybody who's followed the conflict and followed Palestine as an issue knows how, you know, U.S. police forces go over and train with Israeli forces and the IDF and in militarized riot tactics and all sorts of things. I mean, Palestine really is the laboratory for repression. And, I mean, I'm sure it's only going to be a matter of time before we see things like the skunk water or sewage water, you know, whatever they call it, this really big. basically just sewage that they spray on protesters, the Israelis like to use. I'm sure we'll see that here at some point, you know.

So this is, it's really, it's a global movement to push apartheid wherever, wherever these folks can. And that's, I think, if you have to identify the threat, that's how I've come to think of it. And it stretches into healthcare, it stretches into, this is, you know, it is one, One big challenge to tackle. And it comes right back to where we started the whole discussion with this bill and making permanent the tax cuts and entrenching a system whereby the burden of redistribution is eased upon the beneficiaries of, decades upon decades of handouts from the government in the form of these massive military contracts in the form of Reaganomics. And the United States government is responsible for the rise of Silicon Valley as well, right? All of these tech billionaires, that goes back to the

birth of Silicon Valley, I've been reading Malcolm Harris's book Palo Alto, which is a phenomenal trace upon that thread. Then, of course, 2008, you have the bailouts, which were just unquantifiable handouts to the financial sector. all the while siphoning this money from the working class of the country and just entrenching this utterly unequal system to the point where you know besides burning the whole thing to the ground there are precious few avenues to challenge the status. quo. And every time that anybody dares to do it, they are vilified. And I mean, it's a really important point you bring up because it's, I think the ruling

class in our country has really forgotten the kind of core deal at the center of the modern state, which is, you know, basically you provide a comfortable life for your citizens. And, you know, the point of democracy is to provide a pressure release. valve right on societal anger and when you eliminate that pressure release valve society becomes really a big ticking pressure cooker bomb that is at some point going to blow up on them and that's just kind of basic political science right like that's we've seen that countless times throughout history and we're now in a time when we have greater wealth inequality than the french head during the french revolution. So it's, the ruling class is so driven by these short-term goals of just

massively increasing their wealth, no matter, you know, what the cost. In the long term, you know, they're going to have to create some sort of pressure release valve somehow or it's going to blow up in their face. And, you know, you see bits of that already, right? I've heard some scholars posited as we've been going through a number of like mini-revolutions, right? You had Occupy Wall Street. You had, you know, all sorts of things. You know, Black Lives Matter with George Floyd and Ronna Taylor and those uprisings, right? And it's an interesting thesis, right?

At some point, it builds. It builds, it builds, it builds. And, you know, if you're talking about the national security and stability of the country, that's obviously not in our national security interest. So, you know, it's always ridiculous to listen to all these guys, you know, both corporate Dems and, you know, the Republicans and Trump and all them, you know, pound on about, you know, national security when in reality nobody undermines our national security like our own arrogance and corruption. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I don't know if I have such a positive view of what the release valve is of that pressure.

In our last geopolitic episode, Dick and I discussed this a little bit, drawing. on Greg Grandin thesis from his book, The End of the Myth, that really the pressure release valve is not so much a democratic outlet of letting the vox populi be heard in the public square, but is actually the authorization to commit violence and repress a scapegoat. So that scapegoat may be the Indians on the western frontier during the 19th century. It may be the Koreans or the Vietnamese or the Laotians or the Cambodians or any of the other third world victims of American imperialism throughout the rise

of the American Empire and the post-war period. And now, I think what we're really seeing is that release valve is being turned inward. Once again, you hear a lot of the right-wing people all the way up to the great anti-government Alex Jones. Supporting the Palantir database. Folks, we got to put. We've got to protect Palantir folks. Okay, they're a small government contractor, and they are not the deep state.

Okay. Truly ridiculous. And if you take that view, then the horizon for this laboratory, this experimental advancement towards technological apartheid, the stakes become just so high for all involved. and the idea that we are all of us, you know, we miss the lifeboat, the Titanic sunk, and we are all trying to throw Jack and Rose off of their little floating door in the icy waters. And it's who will be the most successful at, you know, ripping our countrymen and our fellows down into a painful death. this is the reality of what the ruling class has in store for us all.

And if you accept that, I mean, it just becomes quite challenging to salvage anything of these, at least spectacular options for erring grievances, you know, whether those be through the political process or through things like peaceful protest. One is as useless as the other. Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of people putting too much stock in either of them these days, to be perfectly honest. And I mean, I think, you know, your point about the thesis,

I think both can be true, right? You could absolutely see, you know, it's used to distract, if that makes sense. There's always seems to be a shiny object they can find to wave in our faces and get us running after that instead of, you know, focusing inward on who's really screwing the American people. And all of us, you know, they've got everybody dying in a rich man's wars, as always.

What do you think, Dick? It's Monday, June 9th. I am reminded that this Saturday, it's Saturday, right? June 14th, we have the... Oh, yeah. I'm just waiting for him to come out, flat out, and say, it's going to be a big beautiful cathedral of lights and really just lean into like the Nuremberg rallies

and this display of the military when you sort of put that over the backdrop of whatever is going on with this big beautiful bill and you know it's a small amount I don't know how many millions of dollars this parade of his is going to cause but it's like is that necessary in times like these but i think that's the point and that's what i was going to say is like i really have no more hope uh we're at the point where like you you talked about it um in this episode earlier right it's like they try

and make it seem complicated it's really so simple and it's so at this point so clunky and honestly corny the way that they get away with it right where it's like the largest increase in military spending in one bill and where do they reconcile that you know get the the money to offset that they just cut snap benefits right it's like literally giving money to the machine the military industrial complex at the detriment of putting food in people's mouths right and it's right there in the and it seems like nobody cares. You raise a good point about it being corny, and maybe that's the last refuge for those who would resist in a way that could generate

maybe some momentum is just refuse to engage in conversations based on assuming that a lot of lies are true. and that's most conversations about politics right most of the time when anybody talks to you about political issues or the politics of the day they're assuming that whatever set of assumptions their favorite media outlet or whatever feeds to them are true and we're not idiots here we're not idiots our listeners are not idiots most people are actually not idiots and so especially for younger people that maybe face people with more power more prestige just don't play along just call out bullshit yeah

let's put it this way. I mean, the thing that's so infuriating at this point about the whole increase the military budget at the expense of public services, it is like such a great clear-cut example of this psychosis that you need to rely on to get away with shit in this day and age, right? It's like the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, those places, those are places that are notorious for mismanaging funds, notorious for corruption, notorious for consistently having a hazy sort of budget, consistently getting in trouble for the way they dole out contracts, right? And with just one sort of platitude or sort of meaningless turn of phrase, you know, politicians are able to say okay well we need this for the protection or security or whatever

and then at the same time you have the snap benefits or you know these um public services that the way they justify cutting that is by saying that it is the corrupt sort of freeloader people who don't really need it that are the biggest beneficiaries of this money and you know real hardworking Americans don't really need that. And that's sort of the dissonance there, the tension. The hypocrisy. It's maddening. Yeah, I am preparing for this, actually listen to Ben Shapiro talking about the budget bill. Oh man, I hope you bill for that. I mean, hazard pay. There's no compensation that could really. make it worthwhile. I don't think I'll ever do it again, but the fucking guy.

America is actually a place with a particularly generous welfare state, and it's also a place where the upper quintile of highest earners, in other words, the people that are earning the most money, shoulder a disproportionate burden of the tax bill. And so what this bill does is really try to make a fairer balance. And it's like, motherfucker, I would like to see that guy spend one night in Section 8 housing. And I've known many people who have dual-income households, full-time working, both parents with kids,

living in Section 8 housing. And it's torture. I mean, it's subhuman living conditions. To think that those people are somehow freeloaders and are somehow mooching off of the forced generosity of fucking billionaires is, I mean, I'm hoping that this contradiction between the injustice of the society and the hypocritical adherence to these highfalutin national values will lead to some drastic redistributive action and when that happens if that happens there can be no forgiveness to these fucking liars man i swear it's just it's enough already if anything

gives me hope it's that the common sense trump's favorite word right, will prevail upon people to stop putting up with this shit. And that's part of the strategy, right, to make us all think we're going completely insane, but you're exactly right. Because most people in this country work their asses off. And at the end of the day, they're not making ends meet working their asses off. I don't think there's a single place in this country. You can afford a one-bedroom apartment on minimum wage, make it doing 40 hours a week.

maybe it's a two-bedder. I can't recall, but it's nuts, right? And then, you know, just like you were saying with L.A., who's provoking the violence? It's the cops. It's always the cops, right? They create the spectacle. They create the scene. And that's what they want. You know, this order that he signed to get the National Guard in there, it's not just for California. It applies to all 50 states, which means you can send it in anywhere. So, you know, it's, you know, they just keep moving the needle and moving the needle. And, you know, where's it end? That's the scary question. All right. Well, Andrew, thank you very much for joining us once again. We look forward to having you back for another one of these. Thank you guys, as always, for having me. Appreciate it.

Meanwhile, I'm Don. I'm Dick. Saying farewell. And keep on digging. You be rogue, I'll be still. I'm not be steel. You be rubber. I'm rubber. Not be I'm rubber. Not be I'm robber. Authority people, them go they still.

Public contribute plenty money. Now authority people, they still. Authority man, not the big bucket, not betty cash, him go the beak. I'm robber. He need gun. Authority man, he need pen. Authority man in charge of money.

Him no need gun, he'll need Ben. Ben get power gonna get. If guns steal 80,000 naira, Ben goes till two billion IRA. You're not go hear them shout. Tiki, T, you don't go hear them shout at all. Lo, lo, grove, go hear them say. Roba, Roma.

You don't hear them shout, you. Roble, bro, grow, bro. You know, hear them shout too tall. Roba, rah, ra'am. You know, say those war too tall. Tiki, T, T, T. You hear them say. good than you say it.