Some More News - Biden's Press Conference, Havana Syndrome, and Even More Celebrity Profiles

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

Hi. Happy one-year anniversary of the Bernie Mittens meme! Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) joins Katy and Cody to talk about Joe Biden not anticipating Republican obstructionism, the Joss Whedon celebrity profile, and the CIA admitting that they haven't been targeted by mysterious microwave rays. Support SOME MORE NEWS: http://www.patreon.com/SomeMoreNews We now have a MERCH STORE! Check it out here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/somemorenews Imperfect Foods is offering you 20% off your first 4 orders when you go to http://IMPERFECTFOODS.COM and use promo code MORENEWS. Get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to http://MINTMOBILE.com/morenews. Scribd is offering our listeners 2 months of Scribd for only ninety-nine cents. Go to https://try.scribd.com/morenews/ to get your first two months for less than $1 Follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  Support the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast my name is katie stall hi katie stall welcome to the last podcast as well there's no more after this one hi i'm a cody except for next week's in the one after that is cody that's the name of me that's your name cody Cody. And joining us today again, fan favorite, our friend, Dave Schilling. Hey, what fans are saying this about me? I don't get enough comments. Our favorite fans. Okay, good. All right. Well, that feels nice. And it's good to be back.

How's everybody doing? Pretty okay, man. So good and okay and pretty good. Feeling a little deja vu-y these days, but not so bad. I can't be the only one that's feeling a little deja vu-y. It does seem like we're reliving the same year over and over again sometimes, doesn't it? It sure does. A little bit, yeah.

But this version of the year, we get four at-home tests delivered to us. I don't think we're getting a free four at-home tests delivered to us. I don't think we're getting a free mask at some point. Yeah. Amazing. Can you use that at least a few times? Year number three is different in good ways, and maybe year number four will really nail it.

If you're really lucky, you might get a 2023 Ford Explorer in the mail from joe biden wouldn't that be nice oh a free car from my president thank you sir right oh that's a real american car right there ford explorer that gets good gas mileage that's my joe biden man it's really good my favorite quote of, man, my dad could drive a car. I used to sit on the porch in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania and I just liked to watch him drive. Just drive away. He never came back but it was great to watch him

leave. One time. You watch him go. Couldn't watch him leave a second time because he did not come back. This is fun. Quick Glow calling out the holidays. Today, January 20th. Take a walk outdoors day. Already did. Already did.

Remember the year when that's all we could do? Yeah, baby. It was National Take a Walk Day. Take a walk, buddy. What else am I going to do? Hey, I'm walking here. I'm going to clap at 8 o'clock p.m. with everybody. Yeah, I don't have the energy for that anymore.

January 21st, the day that this drops, International Sweatpants Day. Ooh, celebrating early. All right. Also, last year, or 2020, it was International Sweatpants Day every day. This is interesting. Like I said, straight up deja vu this month.

Jonathan, come through. You got any ham on that air horn? It took me like a minute and a half to pull up my air horn app. And thank you so much for doing that. For doing that. Cody, what was your question? Did you ask if he had any ham on there?

If he had any ham on the air horn? doing that for doing that cody what was your question did you ask if he had any ham on the air horn uh i don't have it on uh i have an android phone i'm sorry there we go uh on iphones had a an app called ham horn which was both the air horn and then uh i believe it's for 30 rock uh a woman oh yeah ham yeah of those. Sad trombone. Okay. You got a toot in there? You got like a fart machine? Yeah, a little tooter.

No fart in this one. Will Helm scream. We're like four or five years into the show, and this is the first time we've had sound effects. We should get a soundboard for the show. I think we talked about it our very first episode. Oh, yeah. Slip in some smokins, you know? Come on.

Some baba booey. Baba booey, exactly. Pacino saying, huge ass. Huge, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She got a great. I want like fat bottom girls. Just a song?

Yeah. I'd love the soundboard. The entire song. It's like Spotify. It's just music. It's just music. Soundboard for one whole song. Yeah. I love the soundboard. The entire song. It's like Spotify. It's just music. It's just a chorus. One whole song. I'm missing the point of a soundboard, which is just a quick sound.

My soundboard is the radio. I want to play music that then gets copyright infringement. Yeah, then we can't take it down. We're going to talk about news. Dave, how are you? What's been going on? You've been on the show in a minute it's been a while um i i'm fine you know i i think in terms of coping mechanisms and things

of that nature i uh i really throw myself into work and uh just ignore everything but there is there is a uh a positive i guess this is a positive uh development since i've been on the show i avoided for for the last two years uh um news on tv like i just didn't watch it and this is poison even this the stuff that's relatively um benign uh just depressed me it made me very sad but i've gotten to the point where now i can watch British news again on TV and it's a nice feeling in the morning to hear these fancy pants people

with their posh accents telling me about the end of the world. It's actually not so bad. It goes down a little bit smoother. Yeah. It's like a little spot of tea but it's actually arsenic. Yeah. Boiling arsenic. What was the shift that happened that you felt you were able to better digest the news from BBC?

It's going to sound callous, but just acting as though it doesn't matter. If I'm just like, well, this doesn't matter. I don't know. I can't stop this then it can just be what it used to be for me which is information i am consuming information uh without without judgment you know the thing about american mentalizing yeah american news requires your emotional investment it is two people fighting for your approval it's like being with your parents when you're 12 like people fighting for your approval yeah it's all about sensation and

emotion and yeah get invested in this this is the this is the worst thing that could possibly happen or this is the best thing that could possibly happen the same thing is true of any email that you get from a political fundraising organization if it's a campaign if it's a super pack or something it's this is the greatest news and amy klobuchar is crying right now or it's this is the worst news and amy klobuchar is crying right now i just want people to tell me what is happening and then i can deal with it yeah my own schedule. Don't manipulate my emotions because there's enough of that happening. I don't need you to be adding to this roller coaster. Yes, this is not entertainment.

This is information. And the more that we treat it like entertainment, the more it does use the same tricks that dramatists, fabulous use to engender emotional responses from an audience. So I just can't handle that. But even Sky News, which is, of course, Rupert Murdoch, and he's

the worst person in the whole world, even that in the UK is more sober than American news. Yeah, I was going to say that's interesting because I feel like obviously any country's news is gonna have issues with it and like bbc or sky news or whatever is gonna have issues and

and their little propaganda whatever they're gonna do but i imagine it is a lot easier to digest than specifically american news yeah which is all just the absolute worst no matter what channel you're on absolutely and what's really great about it is they are right now in the middle of a scandal around Boris Johnson, the prime minister, throwing a party during the lockdown in 2020. Multiple parties. One of them before Prince Andrew's funeral or something. People are aghast. They're horrified.

This man did this and that he knew about it and he allowed it to happen. They're talking about, they were cases of wine brought into Downing Street. How horrible is that? And it's just nice to watch the news from a country where politicians can be chastised for their behavior

and no one's going to come on and defend it. Even the Tories, every Tory politician that comes on Sky News is like, oh, this is very bad. Yeah. We love the queen

and how dare he do this and it's really, it's a dereliction of duty and this kind of thing. Like people are surrounding him with pitchforks and nothing like that happens here anymore. It is just a series of grenades thrown back and forth.

Yeah. And all the wagons. And yeah, exactly. So it's really comforting to feel like I'm in 1993 again. People like this is a scandal. Feels moderately normal in some capacity. Also, just in general general other countries news is we turn on the news here and it's 100 the expected american stories about the american you know

hellscape politics blah blah blah but there's things happening everywhere else that are dire and vital and important. And we don't have any capacity for that here. Nobody pays attention to that. I know this isn't on the rundown of the show per se, but I do want to talk a little bit more about this because I feel like one of the problems that we have and will continue to have is the lack of government funded news and information in this country every other country that you're talking about they've got some kind of um state financed news organization some of them are are propaganda like in russia obviously these are these are propaganda outfits for putin but then there are places like in britain or in canada or other places where these

organizations like the bbc or cbc are relatively independent and are not beholden to the political whims um of the the leaders of the time here we don't really have that what we have is state-run media for profit essentially which is msnbc or fox news depending on who's in power and that's worse that's somehow worse to me than propaganda like state-run finance propaganda is propaganda for profit because then anything is possible yes and it's even it just seems more insidious to me that yeah we're yeah money off of this right if you have the profit motive to get eyes on you uh uh and like capture yeah capture the hearts and the eyes of people uh then you can say literally whatever you want because as long well yeah as long as

as long as it makes you money that means it's good yeah it's why yeah motive should be like not in many things that are actually for the public good yeah uh well it's like uh how we treated the january 6th anniversary and i know you guys have probably talked about it already but boy we we really treated it like it was some sort of like anniversary to like think about or it wasn't no one was 9-11 yeah it, it was this thing where it's like, well, be patriotic. You know, we got to be patriotic through this and wave the flag and these kinds of things. And that's missing the point.

We continue to miss the point. But because it was an anniversary of a horrific event that we all had to live through, the news organization saw it as an opportunity to get people to watch their channel. And not a moment of actual reflection it was a moment to uh sell c atlas yeah exactly it's always going to be empty um and then you can go to c alice's uh twitter page and they'll be like we stand with a brave uh capital police like thanks yeah boo yeah an m&m is going to be a capital policeman did you hear that the blue one yeah a related but separate thought to your original point here dave i've been thinking about just what a problem it is uh i understand paywalls and the necessity of paywalls for you know

journalists and salaries and whatnot but fox news doesn't have one and the majority of majority of our uh news platforms do and that's a big fat fucking problem and they know that they know that they know it yeah um but they're you know they're gonna make money they're gonna whatever it's like that's the thing that's the most important and the anyway you go ahead cody Cody. Oh, no, I mean, I agree. I feel like we've talked about this on the show, too, where you have like so many highly funded, like the right wing media sphere, even like the quote independent version of it, like the Turning Point USA type stuff and things like that that are heavily funded. And it doesn't even have to turn a profit because the goal for them is just we got to get this propaganda out. We have to convert these people. And so they pump money into it because the ideology they're selling is going to help make them more money elsewhere. If it's all this sort of pro-corporate, pro-capitalist,

like free market kind of stuff, that's going to make them money. Whereas if you pour money into like a more left wing sort of apparatus, that's not going to make the money because the end result of the ideology is so they get they have less money. So it's more likely that you're going to have a place like Fox News, like, oh, yeah, well, no paywall, whatever, like we'll pump whatever money in that we can because it benefits us ultimately yeah and meanwhile there are defund npr campaigns out there by people who've donated to npr in their life and think 100 of npr funding comes from the federal government that's right where do you think the tote bags are for huh yeah all those shows are sponsored by mercedes bins now right right marketplace brought to you by nabisco like because they have Yeah, all those shows are sponsored by Mercedes-Benz now. Right, right. Marketplace, brought to you by Nabisco.

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What a day that was last year, wasn't it? Did you watch the inauguration? Either of you. I saw Bernie in his mittens, and that's it. I didn't watch it. I didn't watch it. Like I didn't watch Obama's second one. I certainly did not watch Trump's.

But I did watch Biden's because I wanted to just feel some catharsis. Yeah. After January 6th and all of that, I just needed to feel like, okay, well, this is going to happen and we can move on. Not move on because we haven't moved on, but we can at least know that this tradition will proceed. So I watched it and I was bored to tears and I thought it was such a ridiculous ceremony

to even just the idea of doing it during a cert a covid surge was so absurd yeah before people had vaccinations and i mean i i believe i watched part of it i didn't i didn't watch all of it let's get this elderly man he also wasn't my first pick yeah old man to be breathing air around a bunch of other people after hundreds of maniacs try to like

assassinate the vice president in the cold too it's just like you're waiting for like a William Henry Harrison ending where you're like all right well 20 days in now he beat the president exactly I just i remember being like what are we even doing anymore um but he has been in office it has been a year uh next week little spoiler next week we have a video coming out about biden's year in office um but he gave a press conference right as we were about to start shooting it

yeah so yeah so disclaimer uh we're gonna try to add some clips throughout the episode because there are going to be some relevant points that he addresses that are directly related to the sections that we have so relevant but it's not like fully with this press conference in mind. Yeah, it just was very funny. So then we paused and we're kind of pivoting. But he spoke yesterday. So we're just going to spend a little bit of time talking about that on today, the anniversary of his inauguration. The anniversary of Take a Walk Outdoors Day.

Yeah, Take a Walk Outdoors Day. You sweatpants. Which Bernie did begrudgingly. Which he did in his mittens. Man, that meme doesn't feel more than a day old. Yes, it does. It feels stale. But it's still cute. He had a lot to say about how well he's done.

You know, his accomplishments. Claimed responsibility for a drop in child poverty. You know, people getting vaccinated. Which, you know, not necessarily to his credit, you know, not necessarily his to his credit. But yes, he was involved in that. He does tweet about it every other day that vaccines work. So let's give credit to the big man himself. All right.

D.T. got it done. D.J.T. Let's give it up to D.J.T. Finally. Finally, some credit. Operation Warp Speed baby He talks about He said schools should remain open

Citing funding that had been sent to states And school districts to keep schools From becoming vectors of contagion So because Funding has been sent to schools They should remain open during This surge where Everybody's getting sick and they

don't have enough teachers so they're asking parents to come in and substitute okay in new mexico they're trying to get the national guard to come in oh boy that's fun um and like they're getting like there's some classrooms with like local cops just like being substitute teachers now oh that's a good idea so i guess the guess the right-wing dream of giving all teachers guns is finally coming true. We're so cool. We're just meeting in the middle here. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Put them at the chalkboard now. It'll be awesome for some National Guard guy to be like, here's how you rehydrate a steak dinner. Here, take this MRE and pour some water on it. Yeah, let's get all sloppy. Sloppy steaks, baby.

Build back better. Quote, it's clear to me that we're probably going to have to break it up. End quote. Okay. All right. So he admits defeat. Cool. And this one's fun.

Republican obstruction. Biden says that he didn't anticipate this level of obstruction and says that republicans were not nearly as obstructionist during the obama presidency what they are what now what so this is the real one i wanted to hit because we we laughed and uh were angry about this a bit yesterday during our shoot and it's it's like obviously either it's an obvious lie or he's so stupid because the rest of us knew it would be a problem well he's a he's a tired he's tired we've we go we talk about this a lot he's old he's old and tired so maybe he's just like not thinking about it did you forget it wasn't that long ago well because he's said in the past like it's not just like hey buddy you were there when

barack obama was the president you we all know this everybody knew this uh and told you this when you announced your candidacy for president you called trump an aberration you can reach across the island work with the republicans everyone said no you can't but even when he became the president mitch mcconnell said that he would do everything he can to stop everything he tried to do. And Biden himself responded to that. And he said he would like something like, yeah, well, you know, I was there during Obama. We got a lot done. So, like, it's just this it's I think it's a combination of naivete, but also and this like desperate need to get back to the illusion of what normalcy used to allegedly be.

I don't know. There's part of me that's like, does he want to get all this stuff done that he had to say? There's a lot of stuff he had to say in the primary in order to catch up to people, right? Biden's always sort of going with the wind. That's sort of his been his whole career trajectory um and so in the primaries you know he doesn't want to cancel student debt at all bernie and uh elizabeth warner saying gonna cancel fifty thousand dollars he's so he has to say i'll do ten thousand i'll do ten thousand because he knows that that's where

the country is moving and so he has to say something like that, but doesn't actually want to do it. Yeah, there's a certain amount of stuff that he said that he didn't want to do that he just said to get elected. And all those pesky Republicans, you can blame it on that, but having not any actual intentions. He fundamentally does not understand how politics work in 2020.

He doesn't. What is he, like in his early 80s? How old is this man now? He's definitely silent generation. 79. 79. 79 years old. He's older than my parents.

Politics are no longer about accomplishing things. It is about setting goals that are achievable or distracting people with wedge issues. And Democrats will never, ever, ever, ever accept this as long as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden are in charge of the party. Because they don't think that anything about America has changed. But everything about America has changed. But everything about America has changed and is going to continue to change. We are on a continuum of history.

We don't go backwards. We can repeat things. It's faster now too. It changes even faster. Because how can you not see that it's changing or it's not accepting it or seeing that it's changing but still thinking that the old way of doing something is the way it needs to be done. But i'll just push back and say it never worked

you know like the old way also when we say go back to the way things were what are you talking about when was when were democrats and republicans on the same side that's the point of having different parties military budget military budgets and things of that nature military sure there's going to be certain there's going to be certain arenas where 30 million dollars on havana syndrome but like i will get to that but like you know and cody you'd send us in one of our meetings this week if it's bipartisan bipartisan it's probably bad you know yeah so yeah if they if both agree, that's probably going to be a problem. Or at least it's not good. It's not progress.

The system is fundamentally broken because we can't live in a country with two sides. Why did we ever think that was a good idea? Well, let's just divide the entire country up into two factions. A blue team and a red team. And they'll fight every couple years and one of them will win and the other one, the losing side, will just kind of go with the flow, right? That's what

always happens when you split up a group of people into two distinct factions. And they won't get farther and farther away from each other. They'll pull together, surely. Yes, of of course unless they have a common enemy to fight there will be no reason for these factions to come together and that's why you know the federalist papers talked about not having political parties that they were a bad idea and they would create division in a country and that's exactly what happened i would also posit maybe if you're going

if you're going to have political parties maybe more than two more than two yes a parliamentary system works it's it's clear that it works i mean we we talked about it earlier what's happening in in england they get angry at their politicians yeah yeah but like then there's uh we don't need to get into it too much but like even the vote the we're probably we'll talk about the voting rights uh bill but like there's some stuff even in that that like makes third parties even harder like they don't want that they do not want third parties to be successful at all well because duopoly that they have um even though it's like oh oh, we can't get it done. But it just keeps it all moving.

It's fine for them. If there was a party that actually represented the people and the real issues that are happening and actually, you know what? They'd probably fucking win. All right, Ross Perot. Why don't you slow down here with your fancy pants ideas about everyone being represented in a political system. Okay. And in conclusion, Jill Stein won in 2016. I do think that the parliamentary system is the best way to prevent a fascist takeover of a country

because the splintering of any sort of um faction within a political system prevents anyone from accumulating too much power that's not to say that germany was perfect except i was gonna say except other than germany the big example but the biggest but in general yeah but in general yeah i mean i think today certainly you know back then we didn't have the very obvious example of don't do that but i think right now you look at france has been flirting with le pen and you know fascist elements for a long time but they've been mostly kind of just like marginalized but they have they've had this sort of legitimacy which almost blunts the effect of that message maybe i'm not sure but i it's certainly better than what we have now where you really only need a simple majority to um control everything and it's really scary

yep yeah it's fucking scary but joe biden wants to go back to normal guys uh-huh he wants to go back to normal and he's done a great job probably according to him or he's learned his lesson i don't know i it's hard to say i don't even know anything tune in next week for our video we unpack this some more we're gonna take a quick break kids and kiddos then we'll be back for even more news oh so don't sweat it hey news friends listen here life is all about growing and learning new skills and such and a good way to do that is through the magic of looking at and absorbing the meanings of words personally i'm reading a book called how to pick lockss, as well as Mantrapping by Ragnar Benson, and finally, Making Homemade Candy by Glenn Andrews.

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Just go to try.scribd.com slash more news to get your first two months for less than a buck. Again, that's try.scribd.com slash more news. A buck! And we are back as promised for even more news. Dave, what were you just saying to me? Oh, boy. Well, we're talking about parliamentary government and how it's generally better than what we have here.

Representative democracy or whatever the hell Republic, whatever you want to call it now. But there is a really good example of a poorly run parliamentary democracy in the world and that is israel which has been controlled by the lakud party now for i can't i've lost track how many decades 20 years or something um and that has it's not changing anytime soon they've got this weird power sharing agreement um that doesn, I don't know if it's working because I'm not from there. I can't speak as an expert. But they have one of the most hardline politicians possible

as their prime minister right now. And I don't think that's great. I think that's quite bad. So there are downsides to every political system. Oh yeah, politics are bad. Don't pay attention to every political system. We're not here to say... Oh, yeah, politics are bad. Don't pay attention to them. Just don't get involved. Politicians are not to

be trusted. I think technically enough, Tali Bennett is part of the new right, the farther right than Likud, but your point still stands. Well, they're splitting power. They're like, oh, we'll just switch off. But Bennett wouldn't be able to be in power

without Lacoud's support. And so the fact that they're all in this kind of bizarre coalition is a part of the problem. And it's still about protecting their power and their control. Yeah, absolutely. They're still consolidating their authority for the purposes of keeping people down. Speaking of power and control,

I'm going to shift gears a little bit because I want to talk about this Joss Whedon redemption profile. Whatever the fuck it was. Did you guys read this? I hope you did. I sure did. The whole thing. You sure did. I had a sure did i had i had a i had a

free article left on vulture yeah i did too and then i opened it again and i had to open it into an incognito window um and that worked for me what a journey it was reading that i had to do it in chunks because i was mad about it uh and it starts off, I mean, throughout it, I would make the, take the stance that this writer was very sympathetic to Joss Whedon, presenting facts, presenting his responses, but lots of little editorializing throughout it, you know, little reminders of his childhood or his past or little details. And maybe I could be reading into it wrong. But at the beginning of this article, you know, I thought for a minute, maybe he would take some accountability or there would be some growth.

You know, it talks about how changed he is. He's a shell of his former self, how he shuffles around. He doesn't see anybody. He doesn't leave this house. His wife comes in, you know, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't see anybody. He doesn't leave this house. His wife comes in, you know, blah, blah, blah.

But as it goes on, it all feels like an act. Basically, this thing is full of examples of Joss Whedon acknowledging what's been said and giving excuses. Giving excuses and saying, you know, like, well, I think that maybe the problem was I was too nice. Maybe they misunderstood it. Gal Gadot doesn't speak English well. Yeah. Zack Snyder, you know, had his own goals for me. I mean, like, everything has some excuse. So what the fuck are we doing wasting our time reading this bullshit?

It feels like he's testing the waters to see if it's time for him to come out of the water, come out of his hole or whatever. Can I work again? I don't know. I felt very frustrated. He's still working though, right? Doesn't he have that Nevers show? I think he got removed from that.

He's not working on that anymore. They pulled him off of it. That was part of his punishment for being mean to ray fisher on the set of justice league this is the same thing that alec baldwin has done with the shooting on the set of the movie rust uh the gun just discharged and a person was hit and died and I feel terrible about it I have dreams about it and it's awful that it happened but at no point does this man say it is my fault

I allowed all of these things to happen on this set because I was a producer because ultimately he knows he is legally liable for it and he will be sued and he will lose lots of money so he can't say. Yes.

He just can't. Even if he wanted to. And I don't think he wants to. I don't think he wants to take responsibility. No, I don't think his brain would let him. And Joss Whedon is clearly the same way because he never once says I did horrible things and I'm incredibly sorry.

The only thing he says is like affairs. Yeah. Seems to suggest that there's remorse for having had affairs. He won't say that he was named a charisma carpenter or Ray Fisher or Gal Gadot or whoever it was who has come out and said, you suck. Or the story about Allison Hannigan or I think it was Allison Hannigan. Oh, no, Michelle Trachtenberg can't be on the set with him by himself. Why?

Yes. What happened? Yes. What happened behind that closed door? I mean, the thing is just full, full of stories. And yes, absolutely no accountability. Why are we even talking about it?

Why is this piece being written? I mean, this comes on the heels of, you know, James Franco recently is kind of starting his little redemption thing. He at least said, I'm sorry, didn't he? He did. He did, but he also qualified some things.

Yeah, I'm not saying he's a paragon of virtue or we should bring him back into... No, but he did it better. Yeah. He did way better than Joss Whedon. He did better than Joss Whedon. And the other thing that really just is, I mean, look, I'm preaching to the choir here.

I don't think anybody is shocked by this. We know we've seen it, but it's just so interesting. This fan cult-dom that arises and feeds the ego of, I mean, I hate to say white men, but there's a lot of white men in this sphere. And, you know, and then their big downfall. But there's just the, it's wild to read

this cult of personality around him, or he's almost religious figure. And that feeds into his inability to take accountability. You know, you're like, I, I deserve this, these kinds of accolades. These people loved me before, you know you're like i i deserve this these kinds of accolades these people loved me before you know i've done i've built something incredible i am infallible this inability to take a microscope or a magnifying glass and turn it on themselves um and you know i'm let's say woke but these pretend feminists, they're everywhere. They're everywhere. It's all about power.

This is a man who wanted to amass power. And I think the places in which this profile worked for me or were illuminating of some universal truths is, one, this man, this small little tiny man who was abused and manipulated by his family went out and became an abuser himself that is 100% like what people experience every day is that the cycle of abuse that makes sense to me and so he went out and he tried to go get power he wanted he wanted to accumulate this power so he didn't feel powerless like he did as a child the other

thing is i do think it was a really effective uh piece uh of of anti-idolatry um media like I think that the piece was very clear that the way in which people idolize this man were detrimental to themselves and to society and that we should not do this anymore. But we have been doing this since the beginning of mass media.

Even before that, look at Jesus. Jesus ended up having a whole religion designed around him. Because people just couldn't get enough of whatever he was saying. We're always going to idealize and lionize mortal human beings. But hopefully we can do it less. Yeah. And it's usually.

You're correct. These days, it's usually people who are still like, they're so distant from the actual people who are idolizing them. Like you can say you can get close to like a creator because of their writing or whatever, but like not really clearly. And we just it's so easy for people to attach so many things onto a person they've never met. And I mean, we do it with politicians, obviously, too, now more than ever, which is a whole other unhealthy thing that we should not do. These are people that are fabulous. These are dramatists. These are people that take what's in their head, and they make fake stories about what's in their head.

Of course, you're going to get an incredibly skewed portrait of the person that is doing the creating. What I write or what anybody else writes is not who they are. It is their idealized version. Even the parts where it's like, oh, I'm really going deep into my pain and my trauma. It's still the version of your pain and your trauma that has a happy ending or paints you in a positive light

or makes you the protagonist. That has a beginning, middle, end. Or like some sort of redemption or whatever it is. Because that's what we demand. Right. Yeah. So it's so appealing to project yourself onto those people who say, I've you know i've got

these answers or i i've created this world where you can uh have this power fantasy uh joss whedon's power fantasy clearly was about him having sex with hot women yeah and we all pretended like it was some sort of beautiful feminist utopia when it was right there for us to stare at woody allen's the same way woody allen made these movies people like wow he really wrote this great beautiful feminist utopia when it was right there for us to stare at. Woody Allen's the same way. Woody Allen made these movies and people were like, wow, he really wrote this great character, Annie Hall. What an empowering character that was.

And when you take five seconds, just five seconds to be like, hmm, what if this is just a pervert who wants to write these stories about how he had sex with hot chicks, then it blows up the entire idea that this man is a feminist icon. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. I mean, it's just, I agree with everything both of you have just said. A lot of people seem to be uncomfortable with the truth that their heroes are human beings who are not perfect and make mistakes and have a hard time accepting anything other than that because of whatever reasons. And yeah, that is a major takeaway from this piece. But also just because you have suffered abuse does not mean that you get to perpetuate that in any capacity, obviously.

And continuing to deny it, gaslight people, not to overuse that word, but it is just denying the absolute reality of what happened is gaslighting. Yeah. There are just so many stories, too. Like, can you really deny, like, every single one of these? Because none of them are good. Even if just a few of them are true, there should be remorse there, but there are just so many.

Narcissists love to assume that everyone's out to get you. Instead of just being a prick. Yeah, exactly. God, I see it everywhere now. Tell when there's, like, because a lot of the things in there he, like, straight up denies like some of his motivations for the Ray Fisher cuts or things with Gal Gadot but

then when he's confronted with the fact that he and like an actress were making out behind like a producer like behind a chair in her office or something like that she's writing or something she's like trying to write I think right and then he says like that doesn't sound right.

When confronted with that. No, that's false. That didn't happen. That doesn't sound right. He might have been more discreet about my affair. I love the included detail of he was instructed if he can't answer a question, he should say

he has to go to the bathroom. And then he asks him a question. He's should say he has to go to the bathroom. Then he asks him a question. He's like, I have to go to the bathroom. The whole point of that strategy is you don't tell the profiler that's what you're doing. You don't tell the profiler. Yeah, it's like, here's my tail when I'm playing poker. I scratch my nose just ever so slightly.

I don't understand what the motivation is for these people anymore. This and the Jeremy Strong one. I don't know if you guys saw the video Brian Cox did for his book. I sure did. And people were asking him like, hey, what's going on with Jeremy Strong? And we're like, oh, we love him. He's great. He's really difficult.

I don't know why he said yes to this. Yeah. I asked myself the same question when I was reading it. And I was like, what are you after? What is going to happen? There's a reason why Beyonce doesn't give interviews. There's a reason why all these celebrities just kind of go through life being celebrities.

It's because they know. Don't speak out loud. Never speak. They know. And I've done this. I've written celebrity profiles before. I know what goes into it and how vulnerable these people are making themselves for

the purposes of getting attention but it's you're never going into it as a journalist uh with purely altruistic motives you're going in this to get some outrageous detail that's going to make someone look terrible so what are you doing joss whedon what are you doing jeremy strong jeremy strong's one was just kind of funny and we all had a laugh I'm sure it hurt his feelings deeply I'm sure it did he's obviously a very sensitive man but it wasn't damaging to his reputation

it just kind of no it was just kind of silly kind of a silly goofball you're a silly actor we all agree you take your job seriously you're not a monster and like the stories aren't that you're a monster yeah Joss Whedon on the other hand

has been cast out of Eden and now he wants back in by making himself look worse what if I stepped on my own dick again right and like and maybe it works for him I don't know but even if you're going to like reject all accusations and try to make them all sound better than they are or whatever, even if you think maybe I can spin it to make it sound better, you're still agreeing that there's going to be a very, very long article that collects everything bad people have said about you.

Right, right. Regardless of how you respond it's all gonna be there yeah um like even the story like the one um about the notes that he gave to that one firefly script where like he just did this like basically 90 minutes of bullying to this one female writer about like he made a fake slideshow and just like read her script out loud and shit on it the entire time was this the one one that was the psychic? The part-time psychic? Was it? There's a writer who had like a whole

spiel about him. And she's like Yeah, I was also a part-time psychic. Or I am a part-time psychic or something. Anyway. Yes, I can meet him. That was for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I think not Firefly. Okay. But it's just like you want us all to read these stories man

yeah what are you thinking here they're all gonna be here yeah and nobody forgets about this stuff anymore and i think people like louis ck who are trying to do their redemption tours or whatever they have a choice you can either um do what joss whedon is doing which is double down and continue to fail at succeeding and returning to prominence. Or you can do what Louis C.K. did, which is not give a shit and become a right-wing hero. Joss Whedon could go make some sort of adolescent power fantasy for Fox where grown men and women dress up in leather outfits and use superpowers and

stomp around in jack boots and kick ass, which he's already done before. He could do a sci-fi thing about canceled culture. He's already done that. That's all he's got to do, right? Yes. It'll find its place. I think we should move to broken news, but I'll just end with this little choice bit from the end of this profile.

Nobody ever fell from a pedestal into anything but a pit, Whedon told me on a call one day. A few months had passed since our conversations at his house. In that time, he'd finally made peace with himself. Could I have done marriage better? Don't get me started. Could I have been a better showrunner? Absolutely. Should I have been nicer? He considered the question. Perhaps he could have been calmer, more direct. But would that not have compromised the work? Maybe the problem was that he'd been too nice. He said he'd wanted people to love him,

which meant when he was direct, people thought he was harsh. Quote. Well. Oh. Oh, sorry. I think I'm one of the nicer showrunners that's ever been. End of piece. Well, I hope the weather is nice in that pit he's dug for himself.

I think that this was actually a very skillful profile because it did allow him the avenue to get across his point. But the writer was skillful enough to just allow him to um damage himself further you know maybe maybe you've changed my thoughts on this piece because i was so angry about it not wanting to read this um that i felt but i think you're right. That's like your point is correct. He does let, he gives him the room to hang himself. Kind of. He's giving him the opportunity by not being confrontate. He's not directly saying the thing,

but he's allowing it to speak for itself. Yeah. He's saying, saying the facts in a specific order with quotes in a specific order to elicit the reaction that he got. Yeah, I mean, I've never profiled anybody

quite as famous as Joss Whedon, but famous people, very, very famous people with serious problems. And the first thing you have to do is engender trust from them. That makes sense. If they don't let their guard down,

then they are never going to give you the things that you need. It is a hostile environment. It's a hostile relationship, but it is one where you have to create the illusion of congeniality. Otherwise, you're screwed. This was a really, really great piece because it got him to say the things that we wanted him to say, which is, I have no remorse.

Yeah, exactly. If only I had been a nice. Should have been less nice. I'm actually one of the nicer ones of all the ones. Unbelievable. Well, otherwise, Avengers Age of Ultron would have been compromised, you know? Exactly. Yeah, we need that art to be as arty as possible.

Please make that good art. If I were less nice, Age of Ultron would have been better. I still didn't enjoy reading it. It made me so upset. Oh, yeah. It's not a fun read. It's not light. I, like, was so upset.

Dave, real quick, if you're comfortable answering this, do you have, like, a favorite profile you've done or, like, one that was particularly fun quick if you're comfortable answering this uh do you have like a favorite profile you've done or like one that was particularly fun or that you're proud of or you're like i can't believe i really had that i had a good time talking to david dukovny i'll bet yeah all right i'll just say that uh there was a point in time where he threatened to sue me oh and that didn't work out for him because his attorneys lied about the circumstances of our interview. Well, that's not a good sign that you've got a struggle. Well, now we all need to go read that.

He has been reported to have had a sex addiction at one point. Yeah. He did a whole show about it. Yes. That's why he did the show, I thought Yes, something like that Okay Anyway, it was

It was for the Guardian I really enjoyed doing it He was very open And I thought we had a great conversation And then it ran And then I found out we didn't have a great conversation Because I mentioned the thing that was common knowledge

that he didn't want me to mention, which he didn't say. You've got to say these things up front. Celebrities, if you're listening to this and you're a celebrity, let me just tell you, if you have things you don't want to talk about with a journalist, you have to say that. On the

record, I don't want you to see this yeah i'm whoops okay that's your fault dude he was a very nice man we had a good conversation but he he something happened that's so weird because like yeah that's because like it's not just like common knowledge again he did a show he did a You did a show about it. In the news. It's in the news. I think it's just to intimidate people and hope that you can scare them with a letter from a lawyer. All right. In our last few minutes, Jonathan,

let's go through some broken news. Will do. Let's break it. The first big broken news story has to do with the CIA. Yes, the CIA says that Havana Syndrome is not a sustained global campaign by a hostile power. Get out of here. I know.

Interesting. After all that news coverage about it. The agency says it could not rule out foreign involvement in the original 21 cases that kicked this whole thing off at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba in 2016 and 2017, but that the vast majority of cases have other reasonable

explanations. Seems reasonable. Interesting. Good for them for letting us know. they all end up being a bad case of diarrhea what a bizarre three weeks that was of just like so many articles breathless coverage of all these people claiming that this was some sort of weird microwave weapon like with no like very confidently too i remember just like so many people being like

this is obviously fake what are you talking about and people getting like kind of mad and like comparing it to like this is like uh early covid deniers and stuff like what the fuck are you are you kidding me oh yeah there are people who are still very upset about this like there are a lot of um a lot of patients a lot of officials because they say this is not a the CIA did this on their own this was not connected to the Department of Defense like we are still looking into it there are a bunch of people online who are still very angry about it if this was 1992 it would have been an even bigger story and every late night talk show host would have told 12 Havana Syndrome jokes.

You remember the Havana Syndrome? What was that, like Montezuma's Revenge? But now it's like the 17th most popular story in the news. And that's sad. I feel like Havana Syndrome didn't get as bad.

We could have gotten some more mileage out of this. For sure. I love the 2020s. Let's see. Maybe after people listen to this episode, it'll start trending. We'll see. Yeah, let's get it going. I did like this little bit you've included, Jonathan.

One unnamed official who has experienced symptoms said the government made a mistake in asking for other officials to report if they had similar unexplained symptoms. This opened the door to hundreds of cases and broadened the scope of what those original Havana people experienced. Yeah, you put the thought in their minds. Yeah, do you experience headaches in your life?

Have you felt dizzy a little bit sometimes? Do you have feelings of dread in your basement or attic then call the ghostbusters Jonathan one more story for us please you got it last night

the voting rights acts were well the voting rights acts were not specifically voted down the filibuster change that would have allowed the Democrats to pass the Voting Rights Acts with a simple majority were voted down as expected. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema said they supported the bills, but they didn't support changing the filibuster rules.

So that stuff is dead. Hey, Jonathan, do you have a wet fart sound effect? Oh, let me see. Wet fart, wet fart, wet fart. No, the best i can do is movie horn oh i guess that's just an well that sounds not quite fart yeah it does kind of that's gonna work for it um yeah so that's that's a bummer joe uh joe Manchin. Joe Biden says that the not all options

are off the table. I don't have his exact quote, but he said there's still something we can do and then trailed off slowly. You know what's going to be badass is when Joe Manchin declares for the 2024 Democratic primary. That's going to kick ass, baby.

Let's do it. I will just say I hope there's a primary at all. I don't think they're going to allow that to happen. But I don't think they're going to do it. I think they're just going to get behind. They're going to drag Grandpa Moses out for another four-year term. Didn't he say he was only going to do it once? Although it is only

like we're going into a second year, so maybe not. Who knows how tired he will be next year. He's already old. There may not be a debate for the general election, but if there is, there is a possibility that both candidates could die on stage.

And wouldn't that be great for ratings? It was true in 2020 and it's really true next year. It wouldn't that be great for ratings? Yeah, it was true in 2020 and it's really true next year. Didn't think about 2020. It's going to be extra true. Oh, God. What a disaster of a nation. It's really hard to have anything to say

about this voting rights. Nothing good to say about it. The filibuster. Nothing good. Because it's incredibly depressing and demoralizing and fucked. It's fucked. But at least something, surely.

At least something. Yeah. There is that. And I am going to hang my hat on that for quite a while that there is something. At least something. And it's never been better than it has been now. Something.

Hang your hat on it. We're at the peak of something right now. Hang your hat on that and cover it up so that we don't have to unpack it. Think about this, kids. Something. Yes. Yeah. Say what he said for everybody he's 80 years old

he doesn't know what the fuck he's saying half the time he's just a little fucking energizer bunny robot who says racist shit he doesn't know what the fuck he's saying I think he means it I think that's a mask slip you know because he's old he said black he means it. I think that's a mask slip, you know, because he's old.

He said black Americans vote at the same levels as Americans. Yeah. I don't. It doesn't matter. The idea of a mask slip with this person

is so beside the point. Like we know what he stands for. We know what his policies are. This is not a gotcha moment for Mitch McConnell. No. Yes, he's been got. Nothing is. a gotcha moment for Mitch McConnell. No.

Yes, he's been got. Nothing is. Here's a photo of him posing in front of a Confederate flag. There's no more gotchas to be had here. We are beyond gotchas for this entire political spectrum. The system. Everybody knows who everybody is and what they stand for. Let's stop trying to be like,

oh, look, he said said it he said the quiet part out loud like yeah you're right he did for the 170,000th time right the quiet part has always been pretty loud it's never been quiet these people have been stoking racial division since the 70s

yep I'm not yelling at you Katie I just wanted to make you're not i know well right i mean to what we were talking about earlier like no this doesn't i mean it's fucking wild i'm looking at now it's what a what a what a quote mr mcconnell um but what we're talking about like the very beginning like nothing will happen and that's that that's the end of it right yeah he'll see his mistake yeah um it's like the the crenshaw thing from a couple of days ago where he like berated that 10 year old girl for like quoting him and like questioning his faith or whatever. It's like that's that would be a thing 15 years ago.

But now it's just like, yeah, that's just what people do these days. Not even 15 years ago. What people do these days. Not even 15 years ago. I mean, think about 2012. Mitt Romney said one kind of maybe possibly offensive thing about poor people. Yeah, and that ruined Mitt Romney's career. And he's not even on video doing it. I mean, the binder's full of women, right?

Binder's full of women. Yeah, so many gaffes. Howard Dean got in trouble for hooting and hollering. Yep, that was the anniversary. That was yesterday. yesterday yeah it was incredible to see what's it really yeah i do believe i can't believe very strongly that was the end of socialism in this country because then we just kind of made it all a joke like he was this guy who had these important ideas and he was doing well and up to that point and then we're like ah look at him he's a big idiot he screamed he said yeah loudly it's so he showed a moment of vulnerability enthusiasm

in front of people so let's let's pillory him and it ruined his his political career forever it's so depressing yeah but not mit romney's mit made... Oh, no. Mitt Romney's fine. He disappeared for a while, and now he's a senator. He's fine. Well, I mean, Howard Dean got to be the head of the DNC, the most thankless job in the country. Right? Like, I'm sure Howard Dean's dream job.

Yeah. I mean, more people would rather be the GM of the New York Mets than be in the DNC, for Christ's sake. I would say absolutely everybody should prefer that job. Guys, we're out of time this week. I'm sorry to break that news to you. Well, time is finite. But we will be back next

week. Dave, plug some stuff. What are you working on right now? You can follow me on Twitter at Dave underscore Schilling and you can look out for my style column in the LA Times pretty much every month. The magazine image that I write for, the style magazine insert of the Times, is taking a couple months off for the new year, but we'll be back in March.

So look out for that, please. And of course, watch some more news. Yeah. That's a thing we all work on together. Good advice. Yeah. That's important. I all work on together. That's good advice. Yeah. That's important advice. I love that plug.

I love all these plugs. Thank you. Do it. Listen to Dave. Guys, we'll be back next week. And in the meantime, remember that we love you very much. Barmo. Barmo.

God damn it.