Last Podcast On The Left - Abe Lincoln's Top Hat: The State of Our Union

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

In an effort to show you what else we got going on at The Last Podcast Network, we're dropping our latest episode of Abe Lincoln's Top Hat into your feed. On this one, Ben and Marcus discuss the State of the Union address, dynasty politics, and how much milk Joe Kennedy drinks. Last Podcast on the Left will return tomorrow with Jonestown Part IV! Hail yourselves!

Hey, last podcast listeners, in an effort to let you know what else we got here on the network. Here's an episode of Abe Lincoln's Top Pats, the politics show that me and Ben do together. If you want to check it out, awesome, if not, no worries. But either way, here is the episode we just recorded on the State of the Union. Hell, yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Left the word, go for it. Fool me once.

Are you fired up? By not a crock. Are you ready to go? Shame on you. It's Abe Lincoln's Top Pats, hosted by Ben Kissel. Boom, you can't get fooled again. Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I am Ben Kissel.

As always, I'm staring at the face of Marcus Parks. It has a lot less saliva than Joe Kennedy. Isn't that nice, Marcus? It wasn't saliva, it was chapstick, all right? We'll get into the Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union a little bit later on here in the show. But it does not stay that shiny for that long. Oh, what is with politicians and things around their mouths?

Remember when Ted Cruz ate his tonsil stone? I've never seen it before. I've never seen a human being with things on the side of their face. Maybe what's the name of the guy that I like so much? Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges from the movie K-Packs. He's gotten something going on, but that was a character choice. I don't think that Joe Kennedy III wanted to go on there with a globular.

But anyway. And we'll also get into the actual substantive content of his speeches as in addition to his chapstick problem. Some catchphrase is thrown around there, but we'll get into that. So let's talk here about the State of the Union. First off, there was a retreat for the Republicans today. They were going to celebrate, I suppose, what they thought to be a great State of the Union for Donald Trump, as Marcus and I talked about before the show.

The bar is low, and I know that we shouldn't even think about that. But that is the reality. Donald Trump, when he goes and performs publicly at events like the State of the Union, if he can speak and not fall over or call somebody fat or call somebody ugly, he gets a standing ovation. Yes. And remember that it is not about whether Trump did a good job or not, or how good of a performance this is compared to other Trump performances that should only be compared

to other presidential performances, is that it should not be seen as whether or not this is a good performance for Donald Trump or a good speech for Donald Trump, but whether this is a good performance for a president of the United States of America. Well, I thought there were some good takeaways, and then, of course, there were some negative takeaways. I'm sure that you've seen the opinion polls at this point, a very high approval for the speech. Eight in ten Americans who watched said that they felt emboldened, empowered, pride in

their country, two-thirds said similar things, however, you have to remind yourself Democrats and left-leaning people, and a lot of people who have to go to work did not watch. It tends to be the State of the Unions are consumed by people who voted for that individual. So a Republican or a Trump supporter, most likely, are going to be the ones tuning in to Donald Trump's first State of the Union. So look at those numbers with a little bit of a grain of salt because you don't have a full, proper polling sample of the overall electorate. So let's get into the substance of the speech, starting with what we all knew he was going

to be talking about, touting the economy, touting his tax reform. He's on the road right now, again, speaking to individuals about the tax reform bill that they were able to pass. Folks are going to start seeing some rewards coming in, their paychecks beginning here in February. So he's very proud of that. He got a lot of praise, and for the most part, bipartisan support there. The Congressional Black Caucus did not stand one time, even when Donald Trump mentioned

African-American unemployment, black unemployment at a 45-year low. Black unemployment is down, I believe to us, I forget what year low, and then unemployment in general is down to a 17-year low. They made a decision not to stand. I thought the optics were a little awkward, but that was obviously their right. That was their hashtag resist moment. I don't know if it really resonated great with the American people, but again, the people who were watching, most likely Trump supporters, most likely Republicans, and the left probably

doesn't care if they seem to be less than cooperative or respectful to Donald Trump. Of course, I believe that we have to respect the presidency as an office, and I was a little bit, not dismayed, but a little bit disappointed in some people for not going to the State of the Union, but I also understand that those individuals represent constituents and they themselves don't believe that Donald Trump is worthy of the office, so I get it, but at the same time, I think if you're invited to the State of the Union, you should go, but that's my personal opinion, and I don't have a problem with them not going, but that's, I just feel like we are losing so much of our respect for the country and things like

that. I mean, when it comes to Donald Trump, but again, I get the reason why. Well, I think part of it is that Donald Trump is taking credit for a lot of things that he should not be taking credit for, and I know every president does this. When the economy is going well, they say it's my doing, and when the economy is going bad, they say it was the last guy's doing, but with a lot of the economic gains and a lot of the positive things, like just for example, the black and Hispanic unemployment that he claimed were due to him, both of those things in particular, and a lot of the things that

he talked about as his own accomplishments, those were all trends that began in the Obama years and not even late in the Obama years, like mid-Obama years. These are things that, and it wasn't early Obama years either where it could have been attributed to George W. Bush. I mean, these are things that started in the Obama years that could be attributed to the Obama year. Of course, you could never attribute anything economically to George W. Bush when it comes to Barack Obama.

When Barack Obama took office in 08, we were in a recession, so he did do a good job of getting this out of said recession. Donald Trump took over a fairly strong economy. One of the issues with Obama because of some of the regulations that he had put in place was the growth was slow, and Donald Trump is saying because I've deregulated so much of our industry, the growth is coming faster because of me and sort of with the kind of when you drift in NASCAR, kind of drifting on the Obama legacy and saying that he is even taking it one step further as he drifts past and pushes the metal to the floor.

In this deregulation. Or the pedal to the metal. Deregulation in a lot of these cases is dangerous, you know, he's not, yeah, in some cases, such as the offshore drilling, which is anyone, any no shore is safe unless of course it's in Florida. Yeah, which is very interesting. I wonder if he's trying to perhaps win a state in a couple of years. Extremely interesting.

And of course, their governor is also looking to really get involved in more national politics. Yeah. Deregulation, it's, you know, it's the same thing we see again and again as I think we are going to see because of Donald Trump some short term gains, we are going to see some short term economic gains here, but in your wallet, if you're, you know, receiving that tax credit, we're going to be getting that that's that is definitely going to happen. But those short term gains are going to come at the cost of the future. We see it again and again, well, which is why I am upset that the corporate tax cut

has been made permanent and the middle class tax cut is not because who do you think is going to be footing the bill in the future when the taxes go up? Obviously, one party cannot legally have their taxes go up and the other ones, us will have our taxes go up whenever they need it. Absolutely. I mean, these, these things are, it's going to come back to bias in the ass in the future. It's very possible. And it's a, it's a, it's a short term fix, you know, and we talked about this last week

where this is a reelection fix. This is something that midterms in 2020, it's a midterm fix. People are going to be seeing some very real economic consequence from Donald Trump's and the Republicans policies. And it's going to be the average age of a positive consequence. Yeah. I mean, the average age of a Trump supporter, they don't really have to look to the future. They don't have, they're not 30 or 25, you know, they don't really have a lot of future

to go. So they say, you know, perhaps the next generation can deal with this as I collect a little bit more money right now. But at the same time, we should remember there are a lot of really hardworking people out there who want to feed their families and a thousand bucks goes a long way. Thousand bucks does definitely go a long way, but when the consequences come in the future, when the chickens come home to roost on all this, we're going to feel it. So let's go into a little bit more of the speech. And that was economics that got, you know, applause fairly bipartisan in some ways.

But there is a lot of very interesting things other than the economy, other than tax reform. When it comes to immigration, he equivocates DACA and illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants with the MS-13 gang. And he paints them all with the exact same brush. He had individuals there. There was a lot of pawns that Donald Trump used during this 4D chess match, Marcus. In this case, it was, and, you know, I am not being mean or rude to these people. They lost a daughter.

It was Kayla Suvez, I believe, and Nisa Mickens. No, they were the two that were killed by MS-13 gang members and their parents were there. This was in Long Island. These two individuals lost their life to an MS-13 gang members. Horrible. Their family is obviously distraught and devastated. But I think it's important to remember, first of all, immigrants have a less crime rate, have a lower crime rate than citizens.

Much lower. And that's not just to immigrants that's undocumented. Exactly. And the second of all, they are not all part of these MS-13 gangs. He's really propping up this gang in a way that I have never seen before, and he is attempting to use them to, again, paint an entire group of people. My father is an immigrant, and to my knowledge, he is not currently in MS-13. I don't think he plans on joining unless they want a six-foot-four German immigrant to really

go take out the trash. Last time I saw him, he didn't have a teardrop tattoo. At no point has he referenced any kind of, like, prison activity. So I think it was not needed and dangerous that Donald Trump tries to lump all immigrants together with this gang, which every single person agrees is horrible. And it's not as if they were allowed to murder or rob or whatever. They get arrested. They get sentenced.

What they do is illegal, and they are treated as if they have just committed a crime when they are busted for a crime. So they pretend there's this notion out there that somehow undocumented people or illegal immigrants, if you want to say that, get away with murder. And they point to Kate Steinle, this very unique outlier situation that occurred in San Francisco. And obviously, the individual that committed that crime, I thought that the jury was wrong, just like Ted Bundy thought.

But I thought the jury was wrong in that case. Nonetheless, he's still detained in a federal prison. So it really, it's not true when it comes to this idea that undocumented people have more rights under our current criminal justice system than citizens. Well, the argument that a lot of anti-immigrant people make is, well, if that, it doesn't matter that it's already illegal if those people weren't here at all, then that person would still be alive. But that's not a reason.

That's not how it works. No, no, no. That's not how human beings work. No, that's not how human beings work. I mean, you can make an argument that if we didn't have cars, then no one would die in car accidents. Sure. You know, it's the same kind of logic.

And I think, never mind. So there are just, there are some bad individuals who are in this country, we all know, and the criminal justice system is dealing with them. Just as they dealt with them under Barack Obama when it comes to ICE, there's a reason Obama was named deporter and chief, this whole notion that somehow the federal government has been easy on these people is a, it's just simply not accurate. It is not true. And I think it was a massive, obviously disservice to DACA, to those kids to try to paint them

in the same light as gang members of a very violent gang that is heavily monitored by, by our intelligence community and by our police force. So he had a soldier from ICE or a, I guess an agent from ICE, Celestino Martinez, he was there, and he pointed him out in the crowd to really talk about, again, MS-13 and how that is really a cornerstone in him formulating his immigration policies. And I think that that is not a good place because it's not indicative and it's not representative of actual undocumented immigrants, but that is formulating or helping him formulate his immigration policies.

And I think it's a worldview issue. It's very much a worldview issue, but I think it's also what he's trying to paint here is he's trying to paint illegal immigrants as horrific criminals. It's classic. It's Willie Horton 2.0. Well, it's so when they get put into prisons, we won't mind so much. Well, that's, yeah. But that's the thing is that this is not a, this kind of tactic is not something that

is specific to Donald Trump or to Republicans. I mean, you look back at what Bill Clinton, the Clintons did back in the nineties with super predators, you know, like, they use this, they use this gang thing as a way to fill up the prisoner, the prisons. So we won't feel so bad. So we think they deserve it. Ding, ding, ding. I got a hot take.

Ding, ding, ding. Hot take moment. I wish Bill Clinton's date of the union from 94, I highly recommend it. It sounded more conservative than Donald Trump did last night. Really? It is horrific. He is talking about the prison industrial complex, or the prison industrial complex. And this is where he proposes three strikes and you're out.

And the crowd, Democrats and conservatives, Republicans and liberals went crazy. They loved it. They ate it up. Bill Clinton was such a wolf in sheep's clothing when it comes to criminal justice reform. He set us back so far, and you know, he's walking in a strong thermans behind him, literally a member of the KKK. His policies did more damage to communities of color, to impoverished communities than any Republican could ever even dream of.

Go back, watch Bill Clinton 94, and you'll just scratch your head on how any conservative could think that he's a liberal. It is absolutely fascinating. And that's not to say that what Donald Trump is doing right now is right. Like we're not doing what about it, we're not doing what aboutism here. We're just- This is the problem in this country for years and years and years. Exactly.

What we're saying here is that this is a systematic problem. This is something that has existed for a very long time and none of this shit is new. And to Obama's credit, he actually took this on. Lowering the crack cocaine from five times more punished than powdered cocaine, he took it on. I think he could have done a lot more, but he tried the very least to steer the ship in a more appropriate direction when it comes to our criminal justice reform. Of course, Jeff Sessions is taking it in the exact opposite direction.

Absolutely. And one of the people, and it must be noted, and maybe we'll get to this later on, but good old Joe Kennedy is right in line with Jeff Sessions when it comes to drugs and marijuana. It's unbelievable. So you've got to read between the lines in these situations. Donald Trump talking about immigration, talking about the wall now, right? So he sort of compromised a little bit on the wall. They're calling it a wall structure.

It won't be just $20 million worth of concrete poured on the border evidently. It'll have dates and maybe a moat, maybe a Wendy's will be in there. You already got a moat. It's called the Rio Grande. I'm sure. Yes. You know. They're just going to expand the Rio Grande.

I have no idea. Just start digging. I have no idea. But it seems as if they're sort of trying to go with a more rational idea because obviously you can't just have a 20-foot wall on the southern border. Americans, it will, there are so many issues with it. You're going to put it in the middle of the Rio Grande. If you put it in Mexico, it's a war.

That is an act of a war. Yeah. You know, and there's just not a lot. You have to be rational about the proposal. It seems as if he's trying to come around to an idea that is actually plausible. So we talked about that and then transition that into prison reform. And the interesting thing about this prison reform mixed with his immigration program, if you listen to him, he talks about how he wants to find integration programs back into

society for people exiting prisons. Okay. Sounds awesome. I'm like, absolutely. We have to do that. Right now they are thrown after 20 years' incarceration, 10 years' incarceration, thrown out to society with 15 bucks or whatever they came in with. Probably not a lot of money if they still even have that there.

Who knows? And then he transitions into talking about immigration in the context of arresting and detaining, which is just the fuel that feeds the prison industrial complex, the 10 percent of prisons that are private get the vast majority of undocumented individuals. The thing about when we are arrested, technically, theoretically, we have constitutional rights. You arrest an undocumented individual. There is no constitutional right. There is nothing.

He's talking about, by the way, reopening Guantanamo Bay. We got Guantanamo Bay all over this country. Private prisons, people are treated just as bad there as we do enemy combatants, as we treat enemy combatants in the now newly opened Guantanamo Bay, which was a fascinating opening, if you think about it in context of what we're talking about regarding war with North Korea. Everything is coming back again. Yeah. ISIS.

We're going away. We can get to North Korea here in a second. But just back to immigration, talking about the AMS-13 gang, bringing on the ICE agent. His immigration policy for me is just absolutely horrific when it comes to this idea of cutting funding for sanctuary cities. His idea that the federal government has so much federal overreach when it comes to states' rights. His immigration is formed at the federal level, I get that, but I still believe that states

should have the right to be the home for cities that want to be sanctuary cities if that's the politics that have been agreed upon within those societies. The idea that the federal government is going to go in and cut funding specifically to New York City, who pays 300,000 bucks, I believe, a day to house the Trump family here, it's a total nightmare if you go up Fifth Avenue, I almost wish, there would be less police around if Donald Trump actually did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue than what's going on right now. His immigration policy, I find it to be hawkish.

I find it to be just not intellectually sound, and that's where I really have an issue. Let's go to another fella that was in the crowd, this guy, G. Sing Ho. He lost his leg while trying to escape North Korea, brutal stuff happening there. This transitioned into Donald Trump talking about what's going on in North Korea. I got the feeling, as you were watching this, this reminded me of a W. Bush. This reminded me of the early days of selling the Iraq war. North Korea, they spend 24% of their GDP on military. The military says, the U.S. military, Mad Dog, Madison, all these folks say that they

are closer to having a nuclear warhead on an ICBM. They say they're just a couple of months away, which is much shorter, a timeline that was previously expected, just got the feeling ISIS is defeated, they're bragging about ISIS being defeated. As a matter of fact, they had Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck on there who saved a person's life while liberating Raqqa. And ISIS is another thing that was already on the decline, and it may have been accelerated, but it was also accelerated at the cost of civilian lives.

Well, now Donald Trump has sort of freed up the military, so he no longer, Barack Obama would approve every drone strike. There were far too many civilian casualties under Barack Obama. And I think when he pulled out of Syria, it is a series of mistakes from a series of presidents. So I'm not just going to lay the blame on Barack Obama or one individual, but I thought pulling out of Syria there really allowed for ISIS to get a stronghold and create this idea that they might possibly even be able to have a caliphate, which is now completely destroyed.

You can just see the magnifying glass shifting to North Korea. And it feels to me, if these State of the Unions are intended, what they are intended to be is a proposal, what proposals will be unveiled or unfurled throughout the year. Seems to me, like within this year, we might see some actual military action when it comes to North Korea, when it comes to Kim Jong Un, what does it mean? Do we do what we did in Iraq, which theoretically we won after Saddam Hussein was hung? Of course, that's not true. What happens to the 25 million North Koreans?

This China would have a massive refugee problem. I think most of them would go to China culturally. It's more similar, specifically when it comes to style of governance. What would happen if we go in and have military action taking place in North Korea? What's victory? What's not victory? Is it a proxy war? Of course, we have the Russians who are heavily financing North Korea.

What does that mean? We have a situation where Donald Trump refuses to implement the sanctions that were passed in a bipartisan manner against the Russians. Which is a much bigger deal than it's being made out to be. This is a huge thing. It's about the closest to a constitutional crisis that we've had. Oh, it's fascinating. I mean, Congress passed sanctions and Donald Trump refuses to implement it.

Yes. And they almost textbook constitutional crisis. This is amazing stuff. So in the context of global foreign policy and war and peace, what would it look like? We have the Olympics coming up here. We're obviously going to be in South Korea. We have Kim Jong-un attempting to create a little bit of stability, a little bit of peace. The North Korean officials are meeting with some South Korean officials in the demilitarized

zone, which is quite significant. They rarely do it. So I do think they want to have a peaceful winter Olympics, because if they mess with my curling, and if ice skating is interrupted for even a second, I will freak out. And this is a big year for ice skating. Oh, a huge year, of course. Yeah. Oh, Tonya coming out.

Everyone's in it again. Oh, my goodness. We have the situation that happened in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago when it was the fake missile test. This person was like, it's real, evidently, by the way, that person who was working for this government, for the government over there that said it's real, he kept on, he messed up all the time. They're like, he had a history of treating tests as if they were real.

I'm like, what? Then why the? That's his only job, is to be intelligent enough to be like that. And apparently in the message that they got, it said like test over and over and over again. It's like, no, don't worry about it. It's not real. And the guy's still just like freaked out. He's the opposite of the guy who saved the world, the Russian, who the Russians thought

on their satellites. They saw 17 missiles coming from the US and he's like, let's think about it. This guy was like, well, way better and better get on it. And the reason why the governor didn't come out to calm down everyone is because he could remember his Twitter password. Yes. So. Which I understand, I forgot my Twitter password many a time, but you know, I'm also not the

governor of United, of a state. I think it's, IGE is his name, Iggy, I think it is. Yes, that was so embarrassing, but that's okay. So the tension is really there and you can feel it ramping up. People are getting, you know, they are really getting concerned when it comes to North Korea. How much of this is Donald Trump attempting to get a rally around the flag moment? The political side of this very real Donald Trump, despite the fact the economy is doing well, sits at, on a great poll, 40%, would the American people, do we have the will to

go into a military situation with a fatalistic regime? Not yet. And you can just see the slow, but Marcus, I'm telling you, not, not yet, I mean, give it five, six months, he just, you know, he also had the parents of Otto Warnbeer, which was unbelievably sad that case. If you don't, if you haven't, and I'm assuming you probably haven't, I don't know how a lot of people who have, listen to his father talk about Otto Warnbeer's father. Of course, he was the person who was detained for over a year for stealing a propaganda

poster, a dumb thing to do in North Korea if he did it. I don't believe anything, but who knows? His father described what it was like when Otto Warnbeer came back. He said his teeth were rearranged, literally top on the bottom, bottom on the top, his legs were both broken. He couldn't hear, he was blind. I don't believe he had a tongue. He said he was shrieking like a non-human.

He was gone. Yeah. It's brutal. It's extremely sad. So we have the, we have the escapee from North Korea. We have Otto Warnbeer's parents there. It's sugar and, it's sugar and spice. You've got, you've got the sweet inspiring story and you've got the horrific story all

the same time. Exactly. You know. So we want to go liberate this guy or people that, that this guy represents and we want to go make sure that that never happens again to Otto Warnbeer. Exactly. And it's just, just watch this slow tread because I see it happening and I think we're going to get closer and closer and closer to military action in North Korea and it's

not going to happen overnight, but it will happen. My prediction is this year, if it's going to happen, it happens this year. And if it happens before the midterm elections, what does that actually look like? What does that mean? If history is any indication, I think it would help the, the party in power. I think so. And I think that that would help the Republicans. And you've got the propagandists, even at the low level in Info Wars, Alex Jones, you

know, the alt-right media that are banging the drums to North Korea as well. Yeah. The anti-globalist alt-right that don't want foreign intervention unless horizontal Trump is doing it or setting up a global government or being literally the prison plant and helping create it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, when I'm starting to see- And North Korea, I mean, we all, and the thing is we all agree. Yeah. Kim Jong-un is horrible.

Of course we all agree. People are starving. We all agree that. I want to, I wish those 25 million people were living much better lives. We all agree. And the horrific thing that I'm starting to see is that if you really want to see where the policies go, if you want to see what's going to happen in the future, you look at the guys on the bottom, you look at the little guys, you know, all this shit kind of started

from the bottom up. You know, it all starts at these low levels and then slowly warms its way up into American consciousness. And Alex Jones and all those guys, they, and Breitbart, they beat the drum, man. I mean, they beat the drum hard. And you know, looking at what possible military intervention in North Korea, like, what does that look like? Do we have troops?

Do we have troops on the ground marching into Pyongyang? Like, do we have just, do we have- A couple of airstrikes? Airstrikes? Do we start with airstrikes? Because we have quite a few troops in South Korea already. I would be willing to bet, obviously, there are wargaming, a lot of scenarios. I would be willing to bet, initially, it just begins with airstrikes on their military, on the military complexes, on their airstrips, on all of their missile facilities, the best,

the ones that we know of, the best of our knowledge. North Korea, it is quite remarkable, as a matter of fact, how little information slips through. Yeah. That place is on lockdown. Yeah. So we really don't know what's going on under there. One thing we did just find out recently is that they think Steam, you know, what Steam

is? No. It's like an online gaming service. Okay. You know, or it's like, it's a store that you go to where you can essentially buy just computer games. Okay. So they released a map of everyone that has a Steam account in the entire world.

And there's one little dot in North Korea right where Kim Young-un lives. So he's just sitting there playing video games all day. He's got a Steam account. That's hilarious. It's also so, it's what an asshole. People are literally eating bugs and he's just like, well. Yeah. I can't, you know what, I can't say that.

I can't say that, that is an absolute fact. Honestly, well, that is, I will admit, that's a meme that I saw. Well, it was something that, it was an image that I saw on Reddit, but it kind of seems like it should be true. Wait until he tries to swat Donald Trump. There's a person in the White House with a nuclear bomb, swat will go there and take care of business, I guess. I also really, you mentioned underlings.

I want to talk about this one point in the speech that has gone completely under the radar from corporate media. Donald Trump was discussing his cabinet and he was discussing how his cabinet, he wants Congress to give them the right to basically purge anyone who is anti-Trump. It's, and it's just kind of subtly put in there. This is the line. He said, tonight I call on the Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers.

That sounds like Kim Jong-un. It sounds exactly like. Sounds like a Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un. It's very dictator-ish. It sounds horrible. And to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people. What the fuck does that mean? And no one, well, I'm sure some people caught it, but as soon as I heard that, I was like,

my spider sense was like, oh, it's fascism. Oh, what's going on? Unbelievable. So talking about purging the government of anyone who disagrees with his administration, and this goes to the larger issue that we're seeing right now, specifically coming from the Republicans, specifically coming from Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, regarding this memo, this four-page memo that supposedly shows Barack Obama colluding with the Justice Department to undermine and derail the Trump campaign.

If they're so good at fixing elections, Hillary lost. Yeah. So, you know, as I said on Fox News, they're worse than fixing a contest than the Pennsylvania Polka King, who fixed the election, who fixed a beauty pageant for his wife. She got dead last, and he made her win. It was amazing. It's the men who would be Polka King. It's only like an hour long documentary.

It's 67 minutes, I think. Yeah, it's 67 minutes. It's great. I watched it night before last. It's amazing. Honestly, if chairs had seat belts, I'd say buckle in, because it's a crazy story. And then I watched Jack Black actually made a movie about it. I watched half of that, too.

Is it any good? Yeah, it's fine. But, honestly, the documentary is better, because it's just the guy, what was it, Yan Luan, I believe. Yan Levan. Oh, my. The Polka. It's about a Polka musician who started a Ponzi scheme on accident.

Oh, but he's also the American dream. And by the end of it, I like the guy. I don't think he did anything that wrong. There were a lot of people who, anyway, took advantage of him. He took pretty bad. Yeah, he's not a more than human being. A man with a dream who got in too deep, that could have gotten out, and was given a couple of chances to get out and still didn't get out.

I know it. Anyway, so check out that documentary. So when it goes to this release, the memo stuff, Donald Trump at the end of the State of the Union said it's 100%, I'm going to release it, despite the fact that some members of his cabinet, and specifically when it comes to the generals are like, I don't think we should release this. This is a bad idea, yeah. When it comes to Donald Trump, the question, can he release it?

Yes. Anything a president releases is no longer classified, and he could tweet out everything tomorrow. Yeah. Technically, that would be 100% legal. If a president releases it, it's not classified. And that's well within his constitutional rights. So we have the situation where Devin Nunes wants to, or Nunes wants to really take extraordinary

steps using a provision that has never been used when it comes to this intelligence committee to release this memo that again supposedly shows this Obama administration colluding with intelligence communities to derail and undermine Donald Trump's campaign. It goes into that larger phenomenon that we're seeing right now of purging anyone who disagrees with the president. When it comes to Peter Strock and Lisa Page, all those text messages that were exchanged, the 50,000 text messages, this idea Ron Johnson from Wisconsin was pushing of secret societies, which turned out to be a joke regarding Vladimir Putin and beefcake calendars that they were

going to send around the office for a good giggle and a good laugh after theoretically Hillary Clinton won. This is the secret society that everyone was talking about. Everyone had visions of Bohemian Grove and scenes that I think should have been deleted from the movie JFK, but it proved to be nothing. And so now we have a situation where the intelligence community, how that information was gathered, a lot of people think the steel dossier, Christopher Steele, of course, that's where you get your PP tapes and all this other kind of stuff when it comes to economic interactions

between Trump and his corporations and the Kremlin and Russian oligarchs and things like that. We're concerned that that will lead the door open for national security, for danger to national security and things like that. Is that something where they're worried about revealing sources? Revealing sources and tactics, not what actually, it might not be a national security threat, what the actual document contains. It's how that information was received and how they got that information.

That's where the national security threat is. Theoretically, they have agents in the field that may have worked on that. It's similar to what happened with the outing of a Valerie Plame or something like that. So they want to protect the operatives that are in the field, and I'm sure because it's a relatively new memo going back just a year or so or two years that they would still be a lot of active members who might have been individuals who collected or helped collect information that then would be used in this memo. So it just goes to the larger narrative though of the purging of government, of the purging

of anyone who disagrees or dissents with this administration. I understand all administrations have the right to have the people around that they want to have around, but this is a new level when it comes to what Marcus read regarding congressional approval to have cabinet members literally uproot and throw out anyone who has a different political opinion, and it goes to also what Donald Trump supposedly asked former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who'd you vote for? And McCabe says, I don't vote because they know all they're all idiots. Anyone who works in Washington is like, I'm not voting for one of these slobs.

I just talked to this moron for whatever amount of time. That's what it is, is they could fire anyone for undermining the public trust or failing the American people. What does that mean? Yeah, what does that mean? Is undermining the public trust releasing accurate information about what the Trump administration is doing? Yeah.

Is that what they think? It's so subjective. Yeah, is undermining the public trust, looking into Donald Trump's business dealings with Russia? Because I mean, that's what's happening, but does that fall under undermining the public trust? Whatever they wanted to do. Does that fall under failing the American people?

I do not want the president to dictate what undermines the public trust. No. The whole point is checks and balances on a congressional level, but also with these institutions. We decide what undermines the public trust. We're the public. Yeah. We're the public.

We're the ones who decide who undermines the public trust. So I did think that that was a fascinating line that I don't believe got enough attraction and enough attention. Denied. Donald Trump also did briefly talk about the opioid epidemic, although not really. He talked about this Elbert Kirke police officer, Ryan Holette, who adopted a young child whose mother was addicted to heroin, but really kind of skirting the larger issue. And again, both sides are complicit.

As you know, Big Pharma has given 10 million bucks, basically evenly, a little bit more to Republicans on the congressional side. They're both complicit in what's happening with the opioid addiction. And unless we get Big Pharma money out of there, we're not going to see any changes anytime soon. I mean, that sort of thing. Big weed money. Yeah.

Just start taking money from all these huge corporations that will be the $8 billion industry of marijuana. Yeah. And I am pointing pointing towards a cop is very telling, you know, with the opioid addiction, like pointing pointing towards a cop and saying, like, look what the police are doing. Incarceration is not a form of of not recoup your incarceration does not it does not lead to a wellness. It does not lead to any kind of no to recovery yet to recovery.

Absolutely not. Because he can what Donald Trump can do is he can point at a cop in relation to the opioid crisis and not say like, we're going to prevent that mother from dying in the first place. It's the cops will save you when those terrible people die. When those when those terrible people who are on opioids, whether it be, you know, your your mother or your brother or your sister, your kids, like, you know, it's it's removing though that, you know, it's removing it. It's making it completely impersonal.

It's again, Villana, it's vilifying. In their role, they're all complicit, the FDA allowing OxyContin to be given to 11 year olds to a couple of years back. They're all complicit and sessions trying to roll back medical marijuana. This whole idea that just say no, you're getting it from a dude in a lab code. You're supposed to respect. You're supposed to trust unless we want to completely undermine our the doctors and the medical institutions in this country.

What are these kids supposed to do if you're 11 and someone gives you an opioid and it's coming from a doctor, you want that 11 year old to be like, this is not right. Yeah. No, you have to. We have to have some leadership coming from the top. And a lot of that is just empty rhetoric and empty words. And it's unfortunate because as we mentioned briefly, I believe do we mention this derailment? The Republicans.

Yes. They're in West Virginia. Donald Trump won that state by 42%. I say they just get out there and go have fun in the town. They don't even don't even bother going to your retreat. Other places like West Virginia are devastated by opioids and those are places that Trump has a put hold in and he has an opportunity here to actually do something about it. And I hope beyond hope that he actually does.

I just feel as if the writing, if I'm looking at the tea leaves here, focusing on law enforcement and focusing on that as a solution, it's not going to work. It's going to continue the problem and more people are going to die. More people are going to be incarcerated. More families are going to be ripped apart. And this family that he applauded, which I love that they took in this child. That's unbelievable. It's great.

But there's not a lot of folks like that. And where do the unwanted kids go? Yeah. Why don't you prevent that woman from ODing in the first place? Or do the best that you can. We have to figure it out. I'm not talking about having, and I'm not talking going the way of Vancouver because they did it all wrong as well.

We have to have a rational policies in this country. And is not the key to the opioid epidemic. The only tea leave you need to look at is named Jeff Sessions. And that'll tell you exactly how Donald Trump is going to approach the opioid epidemic. He was happy as hell, by the way. All right. Just let's briefly go to Joe Kennedy, the third. I am so sick of people trying to bring back to life John F. Kennedy.

Okay. He's not coming back. I don't care who his dissidents are, but I know Marcus, you like... Yeah, but this one's got red hair. I know, which is nice. Now you liked his speech a little bit more than I did. I did. I did not hate it.

I did not hate it. He had a crowd, which I thought was a smart move because usually it's like a huge crowd for the president clapping, going crazy. And then they just cut to someone who looks like they're giving a hostage speech. Or it's just an old man in a diner in Virginia with a bunch of silent patrons. Why? This guy Fietti back there has been like, this is not Flavortown. So he gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union.

What did you think about it? First of all, I know what happened with the lips. Yes. We know what happened. We covered that. It's a chapstick. I guarantee you... I just don't get it, but we know what it'll get.

Well, first of all, Joe Kennedy III is an extremely clean cut guy in college. They called him the milk man because he didn't drink. The only thing he drank when they'd all go out to bars together, he'd only drink milk. Oh, that'll get the youth involved. All right. So we got a guy who likes to suck down milk. I don't like it when people do things that are not normal for the institution that they're in.

If you're in a bar, you have a beer or just a mixed drink. Or if you're sober, maybe soda cranberry. Not milk. What bars do you even have milk? No, they got to do white Russians. Some of them have milk. That's cream. And if he was slamming down cream, well, at least it's tougher.

Well, I think the guy... Here's exactly what happened is that he went up, they did a little camera test before he went on air and his lips were fine. Before the speech, he got a little nervous, slathered on a lot of chapstick. And then once he got up on screen, they realized that the lighting they gave him was a little reflective. I guess. And that's why he was so shiny.

Looks like a Russian doll, Conan O'Brien, and then you open it up in this guy. As far as the speech went, it's pretty standard democratic stuff where it's very lofty, high on rhetoric, low on ideas. But I think this is a good first step towards what we were talking about last week, where we're talking about where do the Democrats go from here, how did the Democrats win. And I think that's what Joe Kennedy was trying to do. I think that's what the speech was trying to do because I'm very apprehensive of saying this is what Joe Kennedy was trying to do because this wasn't about Joe Kennedy.

This was about the speech, what the speech was trying to do. Joe Kennedy did not write that speech because it was, it was a fantastic speech. I thought it was just copy and paste. I mean, I thought it was full of catchphrases and cliches. It was very well written, I think. And I just feel like it was, it was a copy and paste and it wasn't reflective of what's actually going on. When it comes to the economy and stuff, that's an area where Republicans are currently winning.

So I don't know why he focused in the way that he did. I think there was a lot of inroads that he could have been making with immigration and things like that. But, you know, I just, I wasn't feeling inspired, but he made a huge inroad with immigration. But first of all, the economy thing is that I think on paper, the economy is doing very, very well. On paper, everything's doing great. But I think what they were, what the Democrats are doing there is that I think they were

reaching out to the people that are looking around in their own lives and thinking, that's not happening in my life right now. I mean, I think they're reaching out to people with, you know, student loan debt, they're reaching out to people that are working three part-time jobs because, you know, no one will give them full-time work. I think they're speaking to those people. But as far as like immigration inroads, like, man, that fucking, that Spanish part, it hit. It's very, just reminded me of a dubby a moment.

I think that hit like a motherfucker, man. I think it hit very hard. Maybe I'm just clouded because I hate dynasty politics so much and I hate just, I think you got, how difficult was it for him to become a congressman? I mean, it's just, maybe if he was a senator of North Dakota, I'd be like, wow, what, Kennedy won in North Dakota? That's impressive. Yeah, I think you got to remove it a little bit from that because I think when he hit

that Spanish part, like, I know being in a half Spanish household, Carolina lost her fucking mind, you know, because it felt like, you know, actually speaking towards a population that isn't just the white population. No, that's true. Like, I think that made huge inroads with immigration because I think that's who he needs to be speaking to. Maybe I'm just a little bit cynical. I just felt like it was just so, dude, it was just such a political like, and now I

speak Spanish and everyone's like, wow, I can't believe it, you know, but, and I'm super cynical too about this. I'm definitely not saying like, this was a home run or that, you know, Joe Kennedy, the third for president or anything like that, because I think what, if this is going to, this could be seen as a turning port for the Democrats, if they actually do anything, because it was very good lip service, but if, unless they actually do, if they, if this is the start of the Democrats actually getting something done and possibly purging their own leadership a little bit, which is fucking great, if they, if they got Pelosi and Schumer the fuck out

of there, that would be fantastic. If this was the, if this is the beginning of a new, younger Democratic party, then I'm saying that this, this point is going to be looked at pretty positively in the future. But if the Democrats just keep going and keep going and keep going, this is going to be, it's going to be just like, it's going to be a tonsil stone moment. Like it's going to be something that we either, that we forget about or it's going to be a joke that, you know, like remember the chapstick, like, you know, we're just, we're just going to rub you in the water.

Yeah. We just remember Joe Kennedy's shiny lips. You know, that's all we're going to know about Joe Kennedy. Yeah. I think sadly it's already kind of been branded that way, but, but that's, that's true. I just, I'm losing faith in the Democratic party to actually purge these elderly maniacs. Get out of here. Diane Feinstein has been covered in the last episode of last podcast on the left.

New Jim Jones in the seventies. What is going on? Doesn't anything disqualify you? Yeah. Anyway. I think, you know, and bring up Carolina again, like she made a pretty good point, like after the speech, you know, it's kind of like when your body brings around like a new significant other.

They're very cute and they're very nice and they're fun, very fun to be around. You're going to kind of wait and see. Yeah. Wait and see. Wait and see. All right. Like they, they look very nice. They seem very nice.

And I think that's what Joe Kennedy is. And I think that's what this kind of new sort of, I think that's what this taxes that Democratic Party is taking. And it's like, you know, they seem nice. Let's see. I just, aren't they're not Kennedys? I just don't understand. Not Kennedys, not Clintons.

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's real, I mean, the Democrats really have a, we know how low their talent pool is. I know. And I think there are a lot of people that are jockeying for 2020 right now. And as we talked about, you know, on the last week's episode, the, the purity test for the Democratic Party is, it's almost impossible. So it's, I get it.

And they can't really put like, you know, they can't put like Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren. They can't put, because they can also can't be shown like, okay, well, if you put Elizabeth Warren up there. Well, I don't think that she would do it anyway, nor Cory Booker. It's a funny position. Cause it's actually kind of like, hey, good luck, you know, it's gonna be a big moment for you.

Yeah. Whatever it was like, that's the death way, that's the, that's the, you know, the death of your career. Yeah. But you can also see, like if they put any of those people up there, if they put anyone besides like a somewhat unknown, then it's seen as kind of a tacit endorsement for 2020. Yeah. But because of how long, uh, presidential election cycles were on.

Of course. You know, so. We're almost doing that already. We're skipping the midterms entirely. Yeah. It's going right to the general. I mean, and so I think putting someone, uh, like Joe Kennedy up there, you know, the Democrats don't have a lot of choice.

Ted Kennedy killed one. Yeah. But that doesn't have anything to do with Joe Kennedy. I know. I'm just gonna say, it's gonna bring. I saw you tweet that. I saw you tweet that last night. Oh, everyone's going to bring it up.

Everyone's going to be bringing up Ted Kennedy, JFK, they have Ted Kennedy. You were the first person I saw to bring up Ted Kennedy. I saw a couple of other people on Twitter. I know. It's, that is, that is unfair to bring up something as uncold. I know. I'm just saying, I'm so sick. I just, anyway, it is fun.

But yes, I will see. But I see what your point is and, uh, I just, isn't, as I tweeted as well, I want like a bonny, a global steam or something. I want like just some, I really want something new, but, uh, the Democratic Party still does the old way, uh, which is, uh, seniority-based, uh, that's how they, that's how they rise people up through their political ranks, uh, and, uh, and that's why I think it's been detrimental to them. Yeah.

Oh, I, I, I think. Not like the Republicans are spring chickens, by any means. No. Uh, obviously not. Uh, they, they had a similar process. They've actually kind of flipped process back in, uh, back in the day, the Republicans used to be much more like, well, Bob Dole, you've been around for 50 years. You're the nominee.

Yeah. You know, and, uh, in, since then, uh, they've sort of, uh, flipped their way of, uh, of electing nominees and, uh, I don't know if they're happy or not happy when it comes to Donald Trump. Uh, who the heck knows? Who knows? Either way, I hope, uh, everyone is okay that was in the Amtrak train and, uh, there was a, uh, I believe it was a dumpstruck driver, uh, he might've passed away, which is very

sad and, uh, it might've been a derailment, in which case, go talk about infrastructure. Republicans' infrastructure is extremely important. Well, Donald Trump did mention that. Yes, he did. And, uh, we need it because the fact that we live in the wealthiest country on earth and we're worried about taking trains is not a good sign. Um, all right, everyone, well, that was the state of our union. Is it?

All right. Well, thanks so much for listening. Everyone, support all the shows here on, uh, the last podcast network, obviously no last pod, uh, page seven, all the shows here and find us on Twitter at Ben Kissel at Ben Kissel one on Instagram, Marcus Parks for everything. I'll do a hail yourselves and, uh, I think that's about it. Good night. And good, have a good luck.

Good. What am I supposed to do with that? Good, good, good night and so long. Sayonara. All right.