Some More News - Election Day, Pelosi Conspiracy Theories, and EVEN MORE Blue Checkmarks

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Hi. It's our last episode before the midterm elections! Katy and Cody discussed the right-wing normalizing of political violence, the ongoing crumbling of Twitter, and, despite everything, give a hopeful outlook for next week and the future of American politics. Please fill out our SURVEY: https://kastmedia.com/survey/ Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949 SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: 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  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  Get a better night's rest and a better day tomorrow with products from NextEvo Naturals. For up to 25% off subscription orders of $40 or more, use promo code MORENEWS at https://NextEvo.com. Get 20% off and Free Shipping with the code MORENEWS at Manscaped.com. Be thankful this holiday season for the best gift of all from MANSCAPED™.  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 Stoll. You know what? What? It is. Hi. Hi. That probably peaked and hurt everyone's ears. Nah, we're fine. Hi, I'm Cody

Johnston. You know what? Yeah. What? You are. Thank you. No guest again this week. Just us. Wow. Just like the olden days. Just us vibing. Just like old times. How often was it just you? All the time. It was all the time yeah the first couple years wow i don't know if it was the first couple years for this couple years probably and we started to have like certainly felt like it pop on and and folks but yeah when it started we just had some more news people mostly rotating in and then it was like we gotta expand we gotta expand there's so many interesting people to talk to but al, none of them wanted to be here with us today.

Oh, well. I try not to take it personal, you know. We're all just busy. It's fine. We're not it's okay. Hey, are you sad? No, it's okay. You sad that it's just me and Jonathan? No, I'm happy about it.

You know what's gonna make you really happy? What? Some holidays! Ooh! Today, November 3rd, is National Sandwich Day! Finally! Who doesn't love a sandwich? Have you not had a sandwich

since last National Sandwich Day? No! Wow! Right? Do I have misunderstood the rules? Yeah. I think you fundamentally misunderstood them. Oh. But I didn't read the rules, so you could be right.

Okay. I'm right. Jersey Mike's is like a spirit Halloween. They come in for the one day only, one time a year, and then they're all abandoned. I was always wondering why I couldn't go to Jersey Mike's on November 1st. Third. Anyway.

Oh, first. Yeah, the day that it's not. The day that it's not, but now I know. Now you know. And November 4th is National Candy Day. What the fuck? This has to be because October 31st is is national halloween day that's national candy what i thought halloween was absurd it should just four days after halloween is national candy

day to that mom that threw out all the candy oh my gosh through all that ethics professor who throws out her kids candy every year yeah, in obvious violation of National Candy Day, I think we should charge her with crimes. I think she did it before, right? So if she threw it out on the 4th, then that would be in violation, and she'd be in prison right now. You're splitting hairs right now.

Right. I think candy companies see their sales just plummet right after Halloweenlloween so four days later they're like we gotta the trade association we gotta goose these sales this is big candy we gotta get people to buy this is big candy they're sticky little fingerprints all over it i didn't get candy corn this year i forgot no i don't know if I'll be able to. I just forgot. You will get a discount candy corn. Maggie Mae Fish tweeted something interesting.

I think it's what her father does with his candy corn. And he mixes the candy corn with peanuts. And while that's weird, I actually think it might be genius. No, it's pretty good. Because it balances out. Like trail mix. Trail mix. Exactly. I think I've had trail mix with candy corn in it before yeah i'm craving it i like okay i love that waxy sugar i dig it after but like five pieces later i'm like well this is too much i don't

need to eat you know what the only amount of candy corn i need is just like a few pieces to stick on my teeth and you know know, fuck around and find out about that for a moment. And then I just eat them. Yeah. November 4th is also my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, brother. He's never listened to this show, but I'm not going to say his name, but I love him.

It's very sweet. And I'm glad he's born. Okay. I think that we've squeezed all the juice we can out of candy sandwich yes we have squeezed a single drop of juice and it's gotten us a full five minutes into our show oh wow that seems longer than uh it was yeah yeah and now i'm gonna just candy fudge it let's do a real quick ad break and then we will talk about the news. Hello there. It's Thanksgiving season, isn't it? And you know what that means? Hot lovin'.

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They have a refined body wash and signature deodorant that'll baste you like an animal that needs to be basted. So check them out. Get 20% off and free shipping with the code MORENEWS at manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com that's 20 off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use code more news be thankful this holiday season for the best gift of all from manscaped your balls will thank you meaning testicles happy thanksgiving future lovers and we are back from that break we were tired and needed a break but now we're back rested and ready

to talk about the midterms midterm elections yeah the midterm elections don't worry my caffeine buzz will chill out soon and i'll stop doing weird vocal patterns no it's okay that you are oh no i've given it to you too i already had it it's like start hemorrhaging listeners jonathan let's talk midterms yeah this is our last episode before the midterms on tuesday the bloodbath for somebody one of the two sides right one of the two it'll either be the expected democrat bloodbath or the totally surprising the election was stolen republican bloodbath you know president biden gave a speech yesterday don't know if you saw i heard that from like a person just yeah it was not it wasn't big news the way his previous the country could be fascist soon speech was this one didn't have the red background and the Marines you know he did say like you know usually when you go to the polls

you're not worried about whether like it democracy is at. And he's like, it kind of is in this one. Fox News was showing it. And I saw a number of people comment on how as soon as Biden was saying, like, people are going to question the results of the election. Fox News cut back to Jesse Waters saying, like, no one's going to question the results of the election, Mr. President, because it's going to be a blowout. Oh, Jesse, you are going to question the results of the election.

And you have done that. And you talk about it all the time, Jesse. Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. What's the number of Republican candidates who say they won't accept the results if they lose? Oh, I don't have a specific number. They're very careful to say, they don't say, I'll only accept the results if they lose oh i don't have a i don't have a specific number no they're they're they're very careful to say i'll they don't say i'll only accept the results if i win they're just you know

journalists ask them will you accept the results of the election and then they say like well i just want a free and fair election and i'll accept it if it's fair you know and they're signaling that they will not accept it if they right it's not like they're saying like you know but and they're signaling that they will not accept it if they were. It's not like they're saying like, you know, but yeah, I didn't question it because I'm lying. I'm questioning because it's not fair. Right. So Carrie Lake definitely in Arizona has like hinted that she's not going to if she loses. But like, I don't think Oz has said anything like that specifically.

Yeah, I think it's weird because i feel like oz is like a uh oz he's an odd um he's an odd duck and uh it feels like because he's like swirls in that like maga crowd he's got that like the celebrity sort of thing and he's obviously catering to a certain crowd but he's not like full-on like he's not like maga he's just this sort of like maga light guy who like is trying to ride the wave a little bit but it doesn't seem like he's necessarily like a true believer in that sense yeah and fox news are the ones they're the ones priming like oh look at this fetterman guy if he wins you gotta know it was stolen like that's what tucker's doing that's what yeah it definitely scares me what this so much scares me but i don't election fraud this

whole conversation just feels like it's not gonna go anywhere ever that this is now a thing that's taken root in a way that people are able to, not just here, other places we're seeing in other countries, we're seeing it. It's just, it terrifies me. A couple of years ago, the whole idea of a candidate not committing to a peaceful transition of power or not committing to accepting election results was would have been pretty pretty unheard of you can correct me if i'm wrong but you know and now it's like it's not that i'm desensitized to it it's just that i feel like i'm hearing this so much and it's this deep i feel a lot of apprehension for next week but even more than that for 2024 oh 2020 yeah i mean it's like i feel

i feel very very uneasy and i have since january 6th and that just yeah anyway well i mean everyone's like not saying anything groundbreaking here i'm just it's unsettling um and because it's not it's uh it's such a it's so accepted in certain circles and like a lot of the circles are like the former president and because it's so accepted by them everyone kind of accepts that that's just the case now like we've talked about this a lot where this is just what they're going to do this is what they're they're planning on doing it's what they're going to do from now on and that's also very weird because it's not like there's this weird sense of urgency and lack of urgency because it's so obvious and like on the surface and so you just

sort of point like look at that thing on the surface. And then you're like, yeah, there it is. It's right on the surface. You know, like there's no. Yeah, it's hard to to sort of mobilize and like feel like you can do anything about it other than just like know that that's what they're doing. Yeah. I don't believe in Democrats anymore. I struggle with it. That's not news to anybody here.

But it's like I I know you've just been fully radicalized at this point, but just about it's demoralizing. It's hard to keep saying Democrats are the answer when it doesn't really feel like they are. I'm not saying to go vote for the bad guys or to not vote. I'm saying it fucking sucks. And it sucks to have to champion people that don't actually give a shit about the things you care about that we desperately need. It sucks that they say, like, if you vote for us again, we will actually codify Roe. And, you know, and it also sucks to me that, well, you know, obviously the big lie that the you know, the election being stolen in 2020, all of that bullshit. But what's not bullshit is that the Democrats do absolutely manipulate our primary system in terms of who our candidates are. It is absolutely true that it's very difficult for anybody that we

actually believe in to get to a point where we want to vote for them. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, it's frustrating because it's all- That has nothing to do with these conversations, but it's like what I want to be talking about. Yeah. You can't, it's hard. And you know, they're all politicians. You know, that's just, that's how it is. But it's because there is this other threat going on that is, again, it's very on the surface. They're going to keep doing this. And so it's, it stops from like real critiques

and effort to improve the purportedly better, the better quote-unquote better side of things and that's been the case for you know a very long time it's like well it's it's these fuckers or these fuckers you know and that these is very big and bold these days so what can you do we have i mean we even have this episode coming out next week about hungary and what can happen with a single election a single election goes very very very poorly for one party and very good for another one and then then it's over that's all they need um and so we're in this place where either you vote for people who kind of suck, and maybe they'll...

I think they will probably try to codify Roe v. Wade and things like that because they have things drafted up, but there's just less mobility and mobilization on that side because it comes down to, well, if the gop

and certain aspects of the gop get control with one like really consequential election then they will do all the things they've been talking about and are doing now but even more so they'll have more control over you know gerrymandering all gerrymandering and all these election things that will make it even harder to pull power away from them when they are kind of the minority party no that's what scares me is that like right now we're worrying about republicans not accepting the results of elections and what if if we go the way of hungary what will happen is all of their voter suppression laws go through and we can never win georgia or

arizona or wisconsin again again and then all of a sudden democrats are the ones who are going to be like okay actually now these elections are kind of being stolen these aren't free and fair elections and then they'll say well look at what look at who's and oh yeah they're already doing it yeah it's very frustrating and like right once you get to that point then it's very hard to pull back it's very hard to change because you are not you literally can't be in power and you can't manipulate the laws to help you out it's only the republicans manipulating the laws the election laws to help themselves out and then we don't have to worry about republicans contesting elections anymore because they're just i mean that's a worst case scenario that's like a hungry scenario you

know yeah and then of course this past week has been dominated by the horrific story of the attack on nancy pelosi's husband paul yeah jonathan why don't you set us up the facts of what happened here if people somehow haven't heard this story well they might have heard several versions of the story so here's like what actually happened based on you know the investigation and what the suspect said when he was interviewed uh he used a hammer to break through a glass door. He confronted Paul Pelosi in his bedroom and demanded to see Nancy. He said

he wanted to break her kneecaps and hold her hostage since she's the leader of the pack of Democrat lies. It's a little confusing here because this takes place over it's unclear how many minutes or hours. The suspect reached for some zip ties and planned to tie up Paul Pelosi.osi paul pelosi escaped and called dialed 9-1-1 the suspect said he did not leave

after pelosi's called a 9-1-1 because much like the american founding fathers with the british he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender that's a quote from the police report then they went downstairs to the front door. The police arrived and knocked on the door, and Pelosi was able to go over and open it. So for some reason, the suspect is not like, has not tied him up or anything yet. And then there's this confrontation with the hammer,

where the suspect hits him with a hammer and said that if, and said that like, well, that's his own fault for, you know, calling the police and like running and grabbing the, the door when the police came. So it seemed like this guy didn't really know what to do. Once he found out that Nancy Pelosi was not there because he had planned to like tie her up and, you know,

use the nation. Yes. We'll save the nation, obviously, because that, that would do something. But those facts really are nowhere to be found in the right wing no they are not called the blogosphere anymore but in the right wing

blogosphere as we used to say as they said fear like the movie sphere because it's terrifying this is absolutely also the book sphere yeah good yeah see neither or red um horrifying absolutely horrifying and not surprising this is what we have been talking about the rise in threats the just general polarization and this guy i mean everyone for a while was talking about how he's like a radical he's liberal or whatever he's you know a hippie there's all this stuff going around and it's actually a heartbreaking reflection on the last several years and the radicalization that's gone on you know the q anon the the whole the all the like overlapping spheres of influence driving this person to yeah attempt to kidnap the speaker of the house and then of course the response you know when this news was first breaking then you had what's his name jesse smollett was trending

and everyone was just trying to make this sound immediately immediately sound like some sort of a hoax and that's what took hold for a lot of people yeah it's it's interesting it sucks but like it's it's a little interesting sucks, but like, it's, it's a little interesting, I guess, but just like, it's that the progression that always sort of happens with things like this, where like what you're saying is like, well, yeah, it's like this, this, uh, Smollett hoax sort of thing. That's what they're, they're claiming it is. And then like, oh, it's actually, it was, uh, an altercation between like right uh jilted like gay hookup thing going on so well wait so like you're going from it didn't happen as a hoax to it did happen

but it's this other thing um and it's always sort of that progression of like well it's not this is this thought this is this thought this is this well maybe it's the thing that it actually is um there's like security footage and things but the narrative continues and there's no time to remember those initial reactions or contextualize them or point out like well you thought this a moment ago and now you think it isn't a hoax but there are lies lies involved. And then you get the richest man on the planet tweeting to former first lady and secretary of state. This article from a website that once claimed that she was secretly dead from 9-11 and like, yeah, then that catches on um and so much of misinformation and stuff it's not even like getting this like foothold or like uh fact checking this or this or like claiming this

it's just sort of repeating things over and over if you repeat stuff long enough it gets stuck in people's brains and then that's what they think so now it was repeated enough and that's just that's just the story now to them and there's no getting out of there meanwhile a man had his skull fractured i'm not a fan of nancy pelosi but fuck this like what the that's not what the fuck and then sorry i should come up be more eloquent than just say fuck but you know and the republicans didn't hesitate to point out, you know, the 2017 attack at the, you know, the baseball game with the Congress people, a congressional baseball team. And, you know, a Republican was shot and then talking about that. But Bernie Sanders, this was a Bernie supporter, was immediately condemned the action.

He's a decent human being. You know, like none of it's not acceptable it doesn't matter if you disagree with somebody politically you don't inflict physical harm on them or at least you shouldn't and uh so you know that's fun that's fun to see people just mocking somebody like like like we've lost the thread of the fact that somebody was hospitalized yeah because it's not even that there's no like you know uh memos going out like statements going out like thoughts are with him or whatever it's like the active mockery of the violence that is uh pretty fucked up and i won't say new but it's gleeful though it's gleeful yeah it's gleeful mockery uh it's ever present now and it's just it's sort of accepted as like the way things are

and like yeah like the musk stuff and just like so many people just sort of gleefully mocking um that i even like forget who it was some like fox news twerp or probably actually literally a politician um who's like you know they're trying to politicize this when what we should be talking about is how this was an illegal immigrant what you don't want to politicize it but then what if you say like it's just like nothing means anything anymore. And it's pretty maddening. It is. It absolutely is infuriating.

I feel really sad that this is the state of things. Again, we've understood this was coming and this was happening. But seeing the reality in your face of how many people just don't give a fuck that i mean easily could have been killed he was got a hammer to the head and what's more important is your fucking joke there's your humanity that's what we're and it's not even like it's not yeah sorry jonathan no uh but like donald trump jr's joke wasn't like his joke he didn't take a picture of underwear and a hammer also he wasn't in his underwear so that didn't take a picture of underwear and a hammer. Also, he wasn't in his underwear.

So that's just like a joke based on the fake part of it. All the homophobia. And it's disgusting. I think we all can agree about that. But it is just really, you know, and I've lots of people that this Internet, this Internet shield or whatever. You're like, oh, it's whatever. It's the Internet. I can post this meme. Nope. You're're advocating for violence it's not a joke well also you're not anonymous you're not anonymous right oh i was thinking about just people i i

i think like at this point you come to expect even if it's absolutely vile and disgusting this from people figures like him but just the amount of people just people that believe these stories and or even if they don't fully believe it they think it's delightful to have something to make fun of nancy pelosi with to get their own like just average people yes little funny little game and i know that the twitter the Twitter isn't necessarily isn't actually reflective of everybody, but it's, you know, it's a subsection of people. And it's it's it's I feel like we've talked about this before, but just that that other interesting thing that always happens where you have these people like calling for violence, calling for like, let's storm the capitals, do this. We've got to do this. And then once it happens they're like that's antifa they're faking it like as soon as the thing that they talk about constantly happens they're like well that's fake to make us look bad didn't you want the thing you

wanted that thing to happen but as soon as it does you like step away and um i don't know it's all a mess right none of these none of these people ever get to be the heroes that they want to be because they're always like wished away as they're they were a gay sex worker in san francisco instead of like what they were which is like a gamer gate last jedi guy right god you know like you know going back through his stuff it's like you know who knows how someone progresses from whatever hippie dippy stuff or new age stuff from 15 years ago to gamergate stuff to q anon it's like a very bizarre progression but like they're you know you don't get to be the right wing rebel hero that you think you're gonna be because they're gonna disavow you exactly yeah it's never uh they're they all

they always step back and it's like well you didn't even get the thing that you wanted which was like the fame and and pride of your people uh because they want nothing to do with it actually on that note speaking of things that they want nothing to do with I think it's time for us to take an ad break. Are you allowed to say that? I'm not sure. Let's keep talking so that it's not too close to the ad break. Which everybody wants. They want to step towards the ads.

People like ads. Nobody wants to step away from the ad break. Actually, people like our ads. That's usually true. It's true. The Republicans don't want anything to do with our ads. That's right. But see, now we've done it again and we're really close to the ad break.

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dot com. Promo code MORENEWS. Blank, blank. Sorry, that's the sound that a slug makes. And we are back, as promised, for even more news. I'm sure you liked those ads. We liked shooting them. We

liked the products especially if the product was a cbd product that's been helping me sleep like a baby it really has good i need more of them maybe sleep a lot also they don't what i don't know they don't what sleep a lot i may sleep a lot but then they like wake up katie's i don't this katie doesn they sleep a lot, but then they like wake up. Katie's. I don't. This Katie doesn't sleep a lot until I found this product. All right. We touch on this a bit. The Elon Musk of it all. Jonathan, what else has been going on in the wild world of Elon Musk?

Good Lord. It's like 10 new things every day. I like expanded this list of stuff he's doing there at Twitter. And just interrupt me when you want me to stop talking about this stuff so the big one is oh okay moving on all right we did it we did it uh he so so uh the big one is he's charging eight dollars a month for the blue check mark for the verification badge and those people who pay that will be able to get boosted in like replies so like this is like a thing for reply guys specifically and completely destroying what the point of it was and its value

that's free speech yeah that's free speech he's uh he's rebooting vine why because it's like someone said so it's because someone said so. It's because someone said so. Also, a lot of people don't realize, like, don't know. Like, the people in the company apparently are unaware of these things. It's being like, because he'll just tweet, like, should we bring back Vine? All right, we're doing that. And people at Twitter, like, don't know. They, like, see his tweets, like, should we be working on this?

Because we didn't know that. Honestly, here's the problem for me with all of it the complicated catch 22 i just think he's up there saying shit and then he gets backed into a corner the thing that pisses people off the most he's like yeah that that's how he bought twitter he He didn't want Twitter. He spent, what, $20 billion on this thing? Like, what? $44 billion. $44 billion. 33 or 30-something of his own money. It's like he says it, and then everyone gets pissed off.

And, like, the thing to do with Elon Musk is to not pay attention to him, is to not react. It's just like it's the thing to do with donald trump but we don't do that because also there's a very valid argument as to why you shouldn't right you can't let him just do it but if he was just talking to himself then it would i don't know will you go tire himself out um yeah it's um especially if like don't talk about or look at the guy who owns the place now that you're talking he's just made a playground for us all to talk about him all day yeah which is you know it's what he wants there's a it's uh it's very transparent a lot of the reasoning behind

a lot of his decisions um you know he's uh like ah the blue checks like he doesn't like journalists because they report on him and report on like the abuses in his factories and the racism at his factories and he doesn't like that he likes that they're all up in arms about this um he really wants more than anything to be liked and to be a good poster he can't he just wants to post and be good at it um and get the number get those sweet sweet likes and uh be like a cool guy and so he bought the website so he could be a cool guy on it you know you see him like laughing at like people like uh complaining about it or pointing out like actual like criticisms of it and it's just sort of like what drives so much of what he does it seems this i want to be liked want to be a cool guy and i need to impress cat turd too

and uh benny johnson you know um but then he genuinely stews on some of this stuff at home at night oh yeah i mean like so much of i mean, you can go back to, you know, a couple of years ago, he had a whole run of just talking about like the onion used to be funny, but now it's not. And it's always in response to headlines that make fun of him. It's just he doesn't like being made fun of. And he loves the Babylon Bee because they suck his dick constantly any babylon b articles just search babylon b elon musk and it's him in mech suits saving humanity on mars and stuff like that so he gravitates towards any it's again like you said like it's just trump shit

uh he gravitates towards anyone who praises him and confirms that he's cool and good and funny. And he will like outright reject anybody who makes fun of him. And then and then he becomes influenced by it. Exactly. He's like he doesn't want to let down the people because he doesn't probably believe in very much other than money and himself. I don't know. I'm taking a guess here. just maybe he believes in things, but he's obviously very influenced by wanting to be liked

by the people that like him. And so if this group of people thinks this way, then he's going to play to them. What are some of these other things? What is this upload videos paywall situation? Why would we want that? Well, he wants to make it, he's going to do a little only fans on twitter where you can upload long videos and paywall them and adult content's gonna be allowed

in there and you know fair enough okay you know i think the i mean the only difference between elon and trump because i think you're right it's like obama making fun of trump at the white house correspondence dinner there's a direct path from fun of trump at the white house correspondence dinner there's a direct path from that to trump taking the presidency and there's a direct path from like elon getting made fun of by the onion and dunked on on twitter to this right now the difference is is that you know trump didn't have to change things about the country to make a ton of money really quickly and elon does so he needs to make a bunch of money to pay off some of this debt and he seems to have not thought about that until he

took over the company which is why he had to take over yeah because that's why you're getting eight nine different things that he's like throwing against the wall to try to make money yeah and it's very it's sort of yeah very silly and transparent and like even like the blue check thing like it's like and frame like it's so easy for them to frame it like oh the elite blue checks they like they're so mad they don't get their thing no no it's not about that there's a purpose for that and it's just to verify that you're like a real person you can do that for everybody it doesn't have to be like public figures even verify that you're like a real person. You can do that for everybody. It doesn't have to be like public figures, even prove that you're a real person. You're a real human being behind this account.

That's fine. And there's like, like, but you should not. Well, right. Like, it's weird, like a social media, especially somebody who claims like I'm I love free speech. And I also I want Twitter to be the public square. OK, then allow people to verify they're real people and don't like it's like you welcome people into the town square. Like this is where all the dialogue happens.

I love free speech. Everybody is able to talk equally. But if you give me some money, I'll give you a megaphone. And then you're you're lifted up in. What he wants is for it to be the thing that everybody hated where certain people anyway but there's things in that you can have like we're like yeah have a subscription service that like you actually get benefits that like uh improve ui and like a better user experience for various reasons one thing Twitter blue has is folders for bookmarks.

I think that should be for everybody. Cause it's just a useful point is like, I don't think, but, but that doesn't, but that doesn't like affect the actual aspect of speech on the platform. That's not saying if you give me money, then like, I'll see your tweets more. And no, it's just, if you give me money, then like your experience is a little easier because you can bookmark stuff, put them in folders and organize that way.

Things like that. And it's just sort of like, like you're saying, throwing things out and not thinking about it and just wanting people to fucking pay you so that people see their tweets more. But even if you just even it out, maybe you've seen people like,

well, it used to be the blue checks got all the attention because they got the thing, but now anyone can do it. Like, well, if you really believe the things that he says, then you would, if there, if there is, if there is an algorithm that like bumps blue check accounts, then just get rid of that. Just make it so there's no effect in the actual feed or actual replies that is even and then you can verify yourself uh as a real human being instead of adding these like these little elements that are like this is about don't change anything and let people get verified sure like and i know that this is all they want to make money okay do your only fans do this you're not going to make this money that's the other part of this is like he's not going to make all this money the other thing

they're doing is firing half of their staff and forcing them to work absolutely wild hours uh reportedly and again like finding out these decisions from his tweets uh like so many people aren't even getting information from like their managers about like what they should be doing they're just like are we working on this thing um yeah are we working on this are we getting fired on friday because that's the report is that half of the staff is getting fired on friday and then like to build all of these things the expectation for which you know if we know anything about elon musk could change next week because of what it was like what it's like to work at tesla or spacex where he comes in and says nope

now we're doing this thing because he's running it like it's a startup in its first month you know instead of like and it could be like based off of like somebody makes fun of him. So he changes his mind about something. Right. Well, right. Like it's very challenging to make a lot of money through Twitter because like people who were very invested in doing it, whole boards and executive teams were having a really hard time doing it.

So it's going to be tough for like him, a guy who is motivated by purely by ego and is not particularly bright to do it now. Like also there's this huge debt saddled around its neck. Right. And it's always going to be like whether it's in the background or not, that's what's driving so many decisions. Even like it's like literally when Stephen King was like, I'm not paying 20 bucks for this shit. He's like, what, what about eight? First of all, it was always going to be eight. They float five in the morning, then they float 20 in the afternoon. And it's like, what about eight? He was always going to be eight. That's just how these things are rolled out to make it seem like, Oh, at least it's not 20, that kind of shit. But when he

responded to stephen king he was like you know you got to pay the bill somehow and then 10 minutes later he replies to his tweet to be like it's the only way to get rid of the bots buddy you led with that's how you need to pay your bills so anything you say after that that's the first thing people are going to think that you're making these decisions based off of the bot thing is so weird like is that and this might be different for you guys on twitter because you have large followings like our spam and bots in your replies like a huge problem no because like i don't like every once in a while it's any kind of a problem yeah me either i think it might be a problem for him because he's this huge, massive account.

But is this a problem for him because he wants to go and read all the comments? I don't know. He definitely does. Yes. So this is the thing. It's like, just ignore it. Well, he can't. I don't know if I mean that, but.

Well, he can't, first of all. Also, this is, like, again, down to why he does things. things because like like and i'm sure bots are are a problem like there's scams out there and it's a problem uh but it's especially a problem for him because he's the richest man on the planet and uh he's kind of like a monorail salesman and so he attracts scams and bots. They're going to be, he's going to have like Elon Musk, like fake names and stuff.

And they're going to be promoting like different Bitcoin shit and all that kind of stuff because of who he is. And it's actually a little OK because no one's going to be fooled by those accounts because he has a checkmark by his name to verify who he is.

But he's he reads all of the replies and he cares so much and he cares so much about the posting and being seen as that. And I think, yes, this sort of weird impulse that he thinks Twitter is so important to everybody because it's so important to him. Well, now what's happened is Twitter is all about him, at least for the time being and for the near future, because he's just going to chime in on everything. I'm having a hard time. I said this before we started recording. I'll come back around. I'm not quitting Twitter, but I don't care for it much. You i want to see what happens but you go on there and it's i just have so much resentment for how every single fucking day there's no way he's creating a world where he is the center of it and so the news revolves around him

and just like we we talk about these news stories he's always fucking involved every fucking week i'm sorry for all the f words this this week but like last week we're talking about him chiming in and saying needing to say he's called kanye about you know his comments and getting involved with paul pelosi so it's now he's just his news like then it becomes about him it becomes us trying to to you know shake our fists at him and yet we are again at participating in this feedback loop where we're giving him exactly what he wants yeah again again it's very trumpy stuff and it's also his whole business model is attention and pr that's why he's been one of the main reasons he's been so successful because he's marketed himself as this tony stark figure but i don't

think tony stark spends most of his time tweeting at cat turd too right like he's not like or like scroll turd too i could probably see tony stark doing a little bit no he just wants to spend time with his daughter and wife, which, spoiler alert, Elon Musk doesn't want to do. No, he's got so many kids and he doesn't give a shit. How about his tweet? Wait, I have kids? Okay. But he is presenting himself as this. And so he makes it about him and the attention and the spectacle. And it's harder and harder to look away aside from the spectacle of it, but he's also very wealthy and owns the place now.

Obviously, it's extremely hard to generate collective power in any aspect, but I do like the fact that we have this collective power to ruin him if we all want it. If I quit the website, I feel like a lot of the wealthy liberal elites whoever used to buy teslas are not going to be buying them as much anymore i know there's government contracts with spacex we can't yeah i mean advertisers are gonna uh he's gonna slow

down on the site um so he's gonna implement even more shitty ideas to make more money yeah like it's going to like i do think twitter will fail because a lot of this over time but like oh we could make twitter fail like tomorrow you know like next week the staff of twitter could do that today uh or tomorrow when you if you fire half the staff if you fire half the staff the other half can leave too and then what's he gonna do is he gonna bring the tesla engineers in to like take care of it he'll be putting the fact checks with cat turd it'll just be him and cat exactly just like yeah checking the algorithm check the code cat turd but uh i mean that won't happen probably and also like it's you know it's uh it takes a lot

to decide to like i'm just gonna leave this job that you get paid a lot and you got good benefits and a good situation not anymore because you got to work 80 hours a week and sleep at the office but you can't ask people to work that much and you're also firing at unbelievable you can i feel like that's got to be more expensive when you're talking about overtime i guess they're salaried though so anywho um it is a hard thing for for people right now things are expensive it i mean anytime it's terrible to lose your job but especially right now and um why people must be terrified that they're the ones on the chopping block or what are we going to do? And you this is becoming culturally a very different place to work.

I'm sure there's I'm sure it's awful there. Oh, yeah. Work at Twitter. Sound off. Yeah. Sorry about that. Also, yeah. Like you hear these reports and like, so am I going to get fired?

Are you going to get fired? Who's who's who's in that list of people what a bad way to run a company seems like a real fucking selfish dork so we just got a few more minutes left here guys how are you feeling about these mentors? So good. Is there a way we can end this on a hopeful note? Sure. Life goes on. Hey, until it doesn't. Well, also, I mean, in the context of the Hungary situation we talked about,

we didn't even mention, I didn't really mention this in the episode itself, but like one of the main elements of that is how back and forth their nation has gone in terms of the kind of government that it has and the kind of people that are in power and this yo-yo back and forth sort of thing. And I mean, this isn't, I don't know how like helpful or optimistic this is, but even if things get bad they get better right that's how it has been going things yeah you know people are turning out there is more engagement and

people are paying attention on a level that i feel like they haven't for a long time i feel hopeful um about the fact that that didn't die down after Trump left office, that people still pay attention and people still care. And we're still seeing like I don't know the exact numbers of the midterms and we won't know yet until they're done. But we're seeing a lot of mail in ballots. We're seeing certain shifts in the way people people's consciousness, I'll say, around politics and understanding and showing up. And so that's that's great. And I think what you're touching on with what you're saying is that, yeah, next week's

episode, I'm really excited for people to see it. I think it's really good. But do you touch on it? Like, we have that control that elections keep coming and we do get to keep showing up and you're sprinkling your face at me like i'm a bug no what oh i thought you were reacting to something i said i was talking of also you went like this no no and i went oh uh just for our listeners cody had his brow a little bit furrowed and was stroking his beard and then when katie said you went like this she kind of like pulled her head back and like

scrunched her face up yeah thank you for the for detailing it cody was not thinking that i was a bug no not at all but it is important oh here's one thing i wanted to say ladybug okay i am a ladybug don't send in your mailman ballots at this point i've seen some people posting about it like there is some acknowledgement that mail-in ballots at this point might not get there in time so go put them in a drop box or to a polling center i'm not sure if that's true for every place maybe you live really close to your post office or whatever but like just go to that we also in the united states do have some advantages like our country's system is a bit older than say hungary's or some others that that kind of easily fall into autocracy uh you know we have

some advantages our institutions flawed as they are kind of held up in 2020 and 2021 like yeah in another country in another system trump's like fumbling around may have worked um and it didn't bit tenuous what's scary about this one is and everyone all of the elections of our lifetime that we continue to have every single every single one you're like okay well every time they take back a chamber if they get both and you know are able to do xyz it chips away at things you know we all know this we were trying to be hopeful yeah and we can i again like it's just there's just no way to know and even if things is get bad there's don't be demoralized or despair because there are lots of good people out there in the world and i would say there are a lot more good people than bad people not to like be like oh there's good and there's bad and that's how the world works you know it's not that uh

that distinct and uh simple i still think that people are better than we think i still believe that and you know if the gop gets the house and senate and their election fuckery that's not good but um it's not the end i don't know it's not the very end it's not the last stop yeah there was a stop there was a plague a bubonic plague you know there there were dinosaurs and then they all died but then they turned into birds and birds are still around it's all fine oh i we love birds i mean like if we all turned into birds. Exactly. It'll all be worth it. It'll all be worth it.

So maybe we'll all be birds in millions and millions of years. Put that on a T-shirt. Maybe we'll all be birds. Maybe we'll all be birds. All right. I think that does it for us today, folks. Maybe we'll all be birds. Agree.

I'm not absolutely terrified. I do have hope i agree with you completely that this even if it turns out not the way we want well it's not the end wouldn't be dissimilar to what we lived through recently except we wouldn't have we still wouldn't have donald trump in there for two more years so that's good and we're okay we're okay we're okay and we love you very much