Some More News - Even More News: The GOP's War On Voting Is Just Getting Started

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Hi. Michael Swaim joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to talk about the various ways Republicans are trying to suppress Democratic votes. They also look at the very silly updates to the White House website and the looming cuts to SNAP benefits. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.As always, we recorded right before that big thing that happened.Produced by Moana Sherrill. Edited by Nick Mundy.Help provide food to those in need: https://www.feedingamerica.org/PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comTreat yourself to gear that looks good, feels good, and doesn’t break the bank with Fabletics. Go to https://fabletics.com/SMN to sign up as a VIP and get 80% off everything.F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code Morenews15 at https://theperfectjean.nyc/Morenews15 #theperfectjeanpodFor a limited time, get 40% off your first Hungryroot box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to https://hungryroot.com/smn and use code smn.Sign up for your $1/month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/morenewsPluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Oh, hello, everyone, on today's show. We talk about all the various ways Republicans are going to try to suppress the vote and the Supreme Court wants to get in on it as well. I read that weird. Whatever, you're going to like it. Oh, hi. Hello. Welcome back to even more news, the first and only news podcast. My name's Katie Stoll. That's the one. That's the only. That's, hi, I'm Cody. Hi, Cody. Hello.

How you doing? I'm okay. We're recording on a Sunday, which I will explain a little bit later. but first, time to introduce our guest, our friend, our former co-worker, podcaster, you know him from Small Beans. It's Michael Swame. I'm Michael, neither the one nor the only. They're everywhere. My dad's name is Michael. Well, knock it off. That's too many. It's tiring. Make him be Mike. I have a thought on that, but first, Jonathan is also here.

Hi. What's your thought on that? You don't need to hold your thoughts for my introduction. If I don't sneak it in up top, sometimes I forget and then people are upset. And everyone, oh, oof. Because how dare I disrespect Jonathan. Okay. Like I established, my dad's name is Michael.

And I had a boyfriend once that met him. And he's like, hi, my name's Michael. And this guy goes, nice to meet you, Mike. And my dad goes, I said, Michael. Yeah, that's a good, I feel similarly. He's like, I didn't tell you, Mike. Yeah, agreed.

That's so, that's so bold. Fans of this channel will note that every so often we will take an old episode and re-release it into the audio feed. And we do that because, well, we need to get ahead on scripts somehow. So normally we do that when we need a week off. however this week we couldn't because we had advertisements sold and we have a contract so instead of doing us some more news this week you will have three hour length episodes of us talking and it's going to be fun and it's going to be great and then we'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming a quick note if you ever don't want advertisements you can go on over to our patreon because we post things ad free there. but if you like advertisements this is the week for you

this is the week for you you know what it is what it is and we do what we got to do and thankfully a lot of companies are using up their end of the year budgets on advertising thank you companies this episode is dedicated to companies

the good ones the bad ones we won't be saying which is which here's my soft transition to the news Michael, how are you holding up with the news all around despair everywhere we go? I think everyone, like everyone, I'm pretty shocked by the rapidity, but it's like there is sort of always been an acceleration as history goes on of, you know, we mostly see it in technology, like, wow, it used to be in a decade this much progress would happen now. It's even faster, even faster, even faster is why you start. And I always heard that in the context of like,

the sci-fi idea of the robotic singularity you know so like eventually you'll have to reach a point where technology advances so fast that the future will be upon us and I thought that sounds neat and now I didn't realize there was this other version of I think the same underlying like sort of rhythmic feeling which is cultural it's like it used to take us a good

22 years to 28 years to slide into fascism and then have to develop an undergrateful ground cadre of networked mutual aid fighters to like dig us out of this hole and then there's a bunch of needless like death and violence and then we come out of it a better people hopefully on the other side that cycle has you know like Rome fell and then stuff came out of that and of course everyone very big on referencing World War II and adjacent events at this time but I'm like but that's not the only one French Revolution all over but I'm like

Dang, even the people, the grimmest people, yourselves included, whose job it is to predict, like, no, I'm not saying you do this cynically. But even if you were cynically, like, four clicks, it's good for us to say, everyone, this guy's crazy. Like, democracy's actually at stake. It's being burned down. It's like, there's no way to overstate the speed with which you're like, or, you know, I think it was on. on the dock today, but I was already aware that they're already making the hubbub about like any goon we can hire who's loyal to us, we will ordain with the authority to use violence and we're about to deploy them in all 50 states.

And we're like, damn, you got to Civil War crackdown in like a year and a half. I really thought we'd have more time. Yeah. That's my main takeaway. It's just so fast. It's just so fast. It's just so fast. I have been thinking a lot about being in my late teens, early 20s, college age, around the time when I met you, Michael.

And frequently thinking, thinking of the dark times. Thinking of dark times in hindsight. But at the time being like, man, I really missed all the good stuff, all the good events, women's lib, the civil rights movement, the Beatles. I missed it all and really took for granted what I perceived as stability or took for granted common sense, common knowledge

and then now here we are in a fight for our lives and I don't want it, I don't want to I don't want to be a part of a pivotal time so do all who see such times but it's not for them to decide. Yeah, that's what

But it was, it's the ignorance is bliss of my wife is a very plugged-in social worker slash activist, so I credit a lot of my awakening to intersectional issues to them. But before that, I definitely lived in the bubble of, wow, it sure is great and touching. And I tear up and I'm inspired that they worked out all that racism stuff in that civil rights movement. What an inspirational thing they did so that I can live in a post-racism world. And it's like, you fucking clown. You absolute, like, precious summer child who has not, like, you know, he's only lived in the pipeline up through college where I was like, and then even me as the chosen presents as cis white male like doing the, you know, that's, of course, you wake up when the flood comes to your door. As I left college and my perfect plan that was promised to me started to, I'm like, it's not actually working out in space.

said it was going to work out. Then I'm like, started learning, oh, it isn't for anyone. And of course, you know, lots of black Americans, for example, but like many different impacted groups are like, yeah, welcome to the party chief or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, you were just living in a very comfortable lie for a long time. Just because I took things for granted does not mean that anything had been fixed. And I just had my own blinders on.

and I am grateful to have learned a lot of lessons in the redacted amount of years since college. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. But, boy, this is bad right now. We're going to talk about bad stuff, but I will say something slightly more hopeful, which is it is bad right now. But deep down in my heart, I think maybe, maybe on the other side of this, it'll get back. Like, maybe it needed to get to a really bad point in order for us to all collectively wake up and move towards a better future. I think it might still, no, no, I'm cautiously optimistic that there's still more rational cooperator people than there are self-destructive, diluted, hate, and fear-driven people overall on earth.

But I do think you're right that it's a make or break. like last time Trump did this and all the Nazis got really riled up my comforting narrative was well maybe it's like how as something is dying it has to make its last gas for survival but now emboldened by like the fact that they're aligned with the billionaire class

like that Elon Musk the richest man in the world is also a meme lord troll Nazi and that those verticals have aligned is fucking I mean you know any student of history is like, well, that's exactly what you don't want, is the rich people have tricked the poor people into thinking their problems are each other instead of rich people. And that's dang. And you also have a lot of people in a lot of a lot of democratic leadership saying like, well,

I thought that our titans of industry would protect us from this. Oh, the rigidity is also. Oh, you silly. Oh, speaking of sweet summer children, really? Did you think that? Whether it's good or bad, I will say I'm grateful. Like, if it's true, it's better than I know. No. I used to be like, I don't know about, obviously I do believe, or I don't know, obviously, but I do believe in freedom fighting and I believe in extra legal necessity and that the sister of the powers that be cheat and that that requires like a complex moral like engagement with that.

But at the same time, I was definitely more on the fence of like, maybe we could vote though, or maybe Mr. Smith could go to Washington and give a speech enough that they'd go, No, sir. Here we draw the line. But part of the shocking rapidity is like, no, dude. No one has any spine at all. Every elected official is like, yes, sir, yes, please, whatever you want, sir. It's insane. It is.

And there's no time. You can't keep up. Yeah. Because it's so fast. But I'll bring it back to the pot. Because, yes, I agree with everything you're saying all of this. And the merging of the billionaire class with the government is. terrifying and maybe maybe the people can realize that the common enemy is not each other

but the powers at B and our corporate overlords and money and politics and maybe maybe I'm just being super hopeful on a Sunday well yeah I mean that's that's what Trump is for right he's going to take on and you guys do a good job just keep making people aware of this yeah If you know me, you know I am always on the run. Work commitments, social commitments, bake sales, escaping a T-800 from the future who thinks I'm crucial to stopping the next cyborg war. It never ends! Well, fortunately, I've found a solution for activeware that feels great and doesn't break the bank. Fabletics!

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this. But given the attacks from the Trump administration and Republicans on vote, voting, they kind of think we can because they are doing everything they can to make it harder to vote. And we can go through some of these things right now. There was this, I think, a leaked memo that came out a while ago that said that the National Guard quote will be trained in crowd control and civil unrest deployed in all 50 states by April of 2026. And then Pete Hegseth did not deny its existence when asked about it last week. So they're planning to have National Guard all over the place by the midterms. And they are announcing for the elections happening in a week, they're dispatching election monitors, Department of Justice branded election monitors to California and New Jersey because of spooky irregularities they made up.

Yeah, they're making a big worrying soup for people to feel. before and during and after and they've done it for a long time what he did from the start saying like well they're gonna they're gonna steal this and steal this and then when we say it because he's doing it then we sound like we're being alarmist or hypocritical because we're like but you can't he made it he made it up and then he did it and now we're saying he's doing the thing

and now you have just that sort of that relationship of like okay but he but he's saying he's doing all this stuff just because, am I making sense? Yeah, it's the only tactic. There's only two. They've been through since the dawn of the country. One is, no, no, no, it's not the Lord of the Land's fault. It's that guy, or it's that stranger over there.

And then the other one is the one I feel like Cody's elucidating, which is, you know, similarly just anything you do will endanger yourself before it can endanger the system. So just like, keep your head down. You know what I mean? Stay focused on your business. Yeah. And now, yeah, it's just, and so now we're like, oh, they're like trying to rig the election.

It's like, well, I thought saying bringing the election was actually irresponsible of you to say. It's like, well, it was when he was lying. Well, and it's the end and who's mad now trick. It's like anything or it's like someone chasing you around all day, flicking you back in the head. And then if you turn around and push them back, they're like, oh, you've started a fight. Now you're touching me. Now you got an assault charge on your hands, mister. It's just like provocateurism, I guess.

Yeah, and it's purposely chilling. It's to intimidate. It's too putting people on edge. And if things go south in a way that they don't like, then they have people there already in place. That they have to lie about. Like even like these like poll watchers, they're sending like, okay, that sounds like maybe they shouldn't be doing. that sounds a very chilling thing for Trump to do. And like, well, it happens all the time.

Yeah, but not like he's doing it. So what are you trying to, like, get away with here? Yeah, I mean, they're sending election monitors to certain places, and it's not done in the normal way that they normally do this. They're usually, like, it's usually like a very specific, like, we're targeting areas that are historically discriminatory or have, like, election. issues that we can actually display evidence of, and they don't like displaying evidence. And they're normally state appointed, not the Department of Justice, or in this case, I assume, a text from the president or a truth social post that was DM'd or whatever to direct this to happen.

I mean, it's voter intimidation, right? It's old kind of southern Jim Crow style tactics, and they kind of already know that they've lost. lost all those gains they made with the Latino community because their numbers are in the toilet with the Latino community. And so they say, okay, let's just intimidate them and hope they don't come out. Then if we lose the vote anyway, our backup position is to say it's not true. Like there's all these crumple zones of delusion, I feel like, where, yeah, so we're in the middle of the range of options they have. Okay, well, if they won't vote for us, then don't let them vote. If everyone still hates us, like, we'll pretend they don't exist, then we'll murder them.

That's like the levels of escalation we get. Some of the places being targeted by this are, I mean a lot in California, Fresno, Kern County, Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law. Some of those are fairly conservative. I think I should read this Trump post from today where he kind of like sets up, here are all my fear, here's all the things. that I'm going to be talking about now for the next year. This says, what's worse? The NBA players cheating at cards and probably much else. Or the Democrats cheating on elections.

The 2020 presidential election being rigged and stolen is a far bigger scandal. Look what happened to our country when a crooked moron became our, quote, president. We now know everything. I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much, quote, gusto as befitting the biggest scandal in American history. If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming midterms. No mail-in or, quote, early voting. Yes to Voter ID. Watch how totally dishonest the California prop vote is.

Millions of ballots being, quote, shipped. Get smart Republicans before it is too late. I hate that. Also, wait, before we talk about this, is he trying to downplay this cheaty scandal, though, of top? He's like, this is about, like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, the NBA cheating scandals also kind of underplaying.

Which is funny. Wait, wait a minute. That's not the point of this, but. He is trying to make. a connection he wants to take a shot at them but i guess he's right if there was a stolen presidential election that would be a bigger scandal that's worse yeah but like that's still not good let's not i feel like there certainly has been whichever part of you believe also and probably much else is an odd phrase i don't know if he intended to say and not much else like it's like it probably didn't

cheat it much else or like and much else yeah it's it's obvious that he's laying the ground work for And he always does this, you know, spews a bunch of stuff, potential, floats, whatever excuse he's going to give way. He's a floater. If we lose, it will be because it was false. And then if he wins, he goes, no, it was good this time. It's just, you know, it's endlessly frustratingly transparent. We won or we won in spite of them cheating. Yeah, there's just, it's all, it's all, there's so many angles they're doing too about this.

election and the next year, Newsom is out recently talking about how ice agents might be at polls and during election day, which honestly, that's probably true. I assume that they are planning to do it, but at the same time, maybe he's giving them the idea to do that by saying it. And just by mentioning it, it does have a potentially chilling effect where he's talking about, like, yeah, they're going to have ice agents there. Well, people might hear that and go, well, are they going to, like, they're picking up, like, random citizens in some cases, should I even bother voting? Hopefully, people aren't necessarily getting that message now. We will see also, you know, he's, Trump's appointed a lot of, like, election deniers in his whole administration. There's a recent article in New York Times about how they, a lot of them are, like, these 2020 election deniers are, but, overseeing elections now and they're talking about declaring like a national emergency and like

how they can how they can effectively dictate how states run their elections um next year i will say and i don't want to be like because i'm rarely optimistic do it do it states run their own elections sure he you know liked the idea when uh zolensky was there like oh when you're at war you can cancel elections great he can't like he can't say whatever he wants but like states will hold their votes and i'm not saying he won't say they're fraudulent throw them out that we can't sit this house whatever but like he can't stop it from happening in california everyone gets a mail in ballot please do that because it's scary to like have to walk by like masked uh guys holding guns outside of a polling place maybe people should all just wear their passports

around their neck like in a lanyard or something you know papers get your papers ready get your papers ready but no you're right jonathan i tend to lean towards that it's terrible everything that's happening this shouldn't be a conversation's were even happening but yes we have mail and ballots you know i do worry about the spin of mail and ballots uh because they hate it and if you win by majority mail and ballots then what are they going to say about that and they're going to say the same thing if everyone shows up in person exactly uh should we talk about the voting rights act oh boy so a few weeks back um the supreme court heard the case about getting rid of the part of the voting rights acts they hadn't gotten rid of already and it seems based on the arguments they heard

that they want to do it um so as a bit of a reminder this This goes back to a case from Louisiana. The state legislature was ordered to redraw its map because Louisiana is very politically polarized by race. Black people tend to vote for Democrats. White people tend to vote for Republicans. A third of the state is black. So they said, great, two of these six districts need to be majority black. You have to redraw your map to not have only one.

and the lawsuit that is before the Supreme Court is saying no, no, no, that itself is racist because Louisiana is just doing it to score points in politics, which you already said in 2019 in Rootho v. Common Cause was okay. So now the fact that they are having to draw majority minority districts at all is itself racist and against the 14th and 15th amendments and it seems like the six are fine with that and the question really is are they going to wait until they would normally release that ruling in June or will they rush it out for some reason in January so that all of these maps can be redrawn by November so sorry about that optimism a few minutes ago I'm back I'm back on the sad train I mean it does

underscore why Prop 50 is important and what other states are trying to do. I guess Virginia is going to try to do some make some moves after they. We're trying to balance it out and there was this graphic that's kind of helpful in the New York Times and it's like here's how much Democrats would have to win by nationally if the following things fall. So if these states redistrict but these ones don't. At worst, it feels like California's probably going to do it, but it looks like at worst, Democrats would have to win by up to six points in order to be fairly confident that they will have a majority in the House. You know, they won by nine back in 2018, right? It's definitely a possibility that we can pull that off. Yeah, to your point earlier,

They know that they're unpopular, especially during the midterms, like it's happened before, and all this is before, all this is on again. And they know that it is imperative that they do as much chicanery as they can to maintain their stranglehold. And people are unhappy. And so it is not outside the realm of possibility that it'll be fine. People are very unhappy. And I'll just say, not just people that you think that agree with us already, not just the people that voted against him, you know. Yeah, a lot of buyers are morse out there.

There is. And there's going to be more of it. Oh, and I think they knew that. Or like, I think obviously all of us are mired in delusion and Trump and his accolites more than most. But I do think there is an aspect of enough clear eyedness about themselves. that it's like, I do think deep in their hearts, I don't know whether they say it to each other behind closed doors or not,

but they live with this unspoken truth of, you can only rob and oppress that, like, eventually this shit we're doing. Like, I mean, just because we haven't even touched on as much, another whole aspect is just you can think of it as evil or racist. You can also just view it all as kleptocracy. Like, you can see every move Trump makes as just enriching his friends literally just here to make money.

So, like, even through that lens, I think they know and have always known, look, we won't stay popular forever. And even we know that. I know I'm robbing these morons. And when the hicks catch on, here's what we do. We have this army in place. We do this. We do this. Like, I think they plan to lose.

Or, like, they plan to not be the majority. They don't care that they're not popular. They're prepared to lose. They're not winning hearts and minds is not the path of chosen. And they, yeah, they're not trying. They're not trying to, yeah. Right. But they are trying to stay in power.

And that's a dangerous combination. We're like, oh, so you want to be hated, but hold on to power. Uh-oh. That's usually not good. Mr. President, you said you were building this ballroom, but it looks like an underground bunker. Why is this an underground ballroom? Yeah, why does the ballroom need to panic room down into the earth a mile and a half? Does it really need three titanium sheets holding it in?

What's this sign is? So long suckers doing here. I'll bring it back to where my own naive hopefulness at the top, which is, yeah, they're just doing this. And they're saying, fuck you one by one to the different demographics that got them elected. And people are pissed. And I do think this is going to snowball. More and more people will start to believe it. And, you know, the farmers, the ranchers, construction.

industries, hotel industries, tourism is down. This is going to be felt and is being felt. And I hope that this is a moment that can break the spell that this man has over this party. And I'm not saying that that means elections are going to go well or that they give a fuck. But I have hoped that maybe more people wake up. I think you're right in the long term that the evil could never... There's a reason good is good. Or like that at least can give us hope, right?

Like, I firmly believe and truly believe. Cooperation is better than, like, ruling through love is more effective than ruling through fear in the long term. Diversity is stronger than homogeneity. So, like, of course it won't. I agree that it will fall apart. It's just, like, watching in horror as, like, I want to be. wonder how much damage is how much damage and how much we can recover from I wonder if it will be like the dark ages again for a while before we are able to yeah and in the meantime the very real

effects that this has on people's everyday lives um and it's sad as as i get older to watch the younger generation um like interacting with enough gen z people i've had multiple heart to hearts with gen z at this point of my life where you're like, what is it about that thing where you don't give a shit about jobs or retail? And they honestly go like, why would I? Like, I'm just on a cliff. Like, it's all over for us. I'm like, man, that's so sad. That, or even there was a profound sadness when my dad came to me and said, as kids he would always say, one cool thing about humanity is I truly think over the long term, we always go up and up and up and better and better. And we had like 55 or whatever, he came to me one day and was like,

I don't think that anymore and I'm really sorry. And I'm like, man, now I'm getting that age to the younger generation. I'm like, yeah, it's hard to admit. Yeah, it's worse than I thought it was. Or I thought, like you said, history had wrapped up, but no, we're still doing history. Yeah, we're still doing history and it'll, you know, it'll be, you know, it's the, you know, we're just, we're working towards the cleanup, right? Right.

We're just like, survive until the cleanup. Well, hopefully it's growing pains, and that's crazy to say about people suffering. But I mean, in the rear mirror, rear view mirror of a thousand years, hopefully it is growing pains, yeah. Yeah. And like what you said earlier is like, it is one of those last grasps of like, but like, what if we had it all? And they're trying to hold on to it and while it crumbles. Or it almost seems like we might be ready to get rid of money in the next couple hundred years. And they're like, but money is everything that my whole lineage is built around the money symbol.

it feels like money is kind of making the last stand. How will I have my value if I don't have that to value? And statistically, one of us will be a head on a robot body to see that in a thousand years. At least the iPad on a segue. Yeah. One other thing before we move on that the Supreme Court is looking at lately on November 7th, they are going to have a private conference to decide whether or not they want to hear arguments that could essentially overturn Obergafel, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. You know,

there's a huge segment on the right that wants to do this, that wants to make this push. Clearly, some people on the court think there might be enough supporter that they can convince a holdout or two. There need to be four of the nine of them who agree to bring the case. and so you think they wouldn't do that unless they think they can get to five out of nine so you know they'll have a little chin wag about that in a week there's not much to this case it's it's Kim Davis again this horrible person

just desperate to be back in the news and mess up people's lives but I don't even want to go into the case there's like nothing there it's so yeah we don't yeah it's more just sort of like if they are like well cultural victory let's do it um i wonder we're like well we have the ball let's do all the horrible we're here exactly to do right um i do wonder this is the one one of the few sort of cases where i'm like i wonder how trump would talk about it and address it because like most everything else is like well like most everything else is like either like i'm trying to be a king i need to i need to be

present forever or a business thing i'm going to make the economy thrive yeah Or like, oh, this decision helps me either, like, stay in power or make money. Roe v. Wade was different. But I think he got into the point where, like, it didn't necessarily personally affect him. And he knew, like, oh, this is going to help me, like, maintain power and, like, give me sort of, you know, clout, I guess. It was strategic when I was maneuvering on that. But, like, this issue is one of the few things where it's like, Trump's, like, playing along. he like you know he's a new york like real estate guy in like the entertainment industry and he's got a lot of gay friends

and i'm sure if you were to ask him before he was president like yeah of course like get married i don't care like they're like yeah we're all people even now in his brain like deep down he probably like has the same thing right just hang out what else i just wonder if this like but like now and like does he does he think that this is an issue that can benefit him in some way or is he going to view it as like, wait, why are we doing that? I thought like that was fine.

Probably try to stay out of it. I don't know. That's sort of where I land. I was like, oh, he'll just not mention it. And let J.D. Vance go out there and say what he really believes. Oh, boy. I'm super biased because my dad was gay growing up. So it's normalized, hyper normalized for me

or like always seem this way. But there's a new dimension, the more further into the future we get, homophobia is the one that, I guess because I'm not religious, but it seems so arbitrary. You're like, it's really important to me that gay especially,

I know gay expansive, of course, any same-sex marriage, but I'm just thinking of like, for example, my dad, those two guys over there, alone in their house, who can't reproduce, I don't want them to get naked

and touch each other's bodies. How does that affect you? Why are you thinking about it? Why are you thinking about that? Like, why does it even cross your mind? Who cares? Who cares? It's one of the biggest contradictions.

I mean, there's so many. They had the hypocrisy. But the part, you know, screaming about personal freedoms and, you know, government out of my life, out of my home, blah, blah, blah. And yet I care so much about what's happening in my neighbor's bedroom. Oh, like you, yeah. I mean, it's old hand now. But as everyone is saying, I agree, it's like, part of the shocking surrealness is also been like, yesterday you were like, I thought your whole thing was don't tread on me with a shotgun on your porch.

Now you're pro the masked goons in the streets. Right. Me is fine. Like the total lack of any consistency where they're like, look, deep down, we just hated you. Okay. That's really all it was, man. The flag makes it very clear. They have been really fast.

You, I don't give a fuck about it. It's been around for so long now that they can't even go back. Like, I'm having flashbacks to the Fox News bits of like 20 years ago. And O'Reilly can't even do his like slippery slope nonsense. Or they're like, we're the free speech party. Frogs aren't marrying people or whatever you said on Fox News in 2005. Like, it's ridiculous. Blasted nutrients.

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Not at all. Just because I was literally a gog or it's, I don't know what it would mean to be literally a gog because I don't know what that means, but what I meant is, my mouth was literally a gape is what I meant to say. And yet every time, I love how we constantly say these days, it's like, well, nothing they could do could surprise me because I just know there is no. bottom. Then you see a thing every day. There you go. Man, when for me today? It was this thing in the duck. We're on the SNAP website. Of course, I already think it's unconscionable that they're doing this, that they're twisting it. I mean, on the day, blah, blah, blah. But literally on the website, it says, like, sorry, you won't be getting SNAP benefits because Senate Democrats want

to health care for illegal immigrants and gender mutilation for your children. Mike It's a language It's next level That's on the SNAP website Where you're just like Trying to figure out Why your snap shit is not

Going through today It's like Oh, genital mutilation I didn't know they were doing that That's interesting I had that moment on Friday night When someone sent me a link to that White House

East Wing expansion stages The architecture model No That's just like a big turd They do like a timeline of the East Wing or like the White House. Let's get this reaction from you in real time. I'm not going to read all this. So this is the like here's the White House.

Hey, the East Wing expansion. That's the ballroom and stuff. And so they go through major events. Here's the design, rebuilding after war of 1812, addition of the Oval Office, addition to the Rose Garden. And then Bill Clinton scandal. Muslim Brotherhood visit. I mean, this is wild.

You're going through a normal thing. It gets worse. You're going through this normal thing and then they're like, by the way, you guys, and this is like not a bad argument. They're like, hey, you guys are so. I thought he was just trying to justify. Look, people have been changing it over time.

I'm not the first to change it. But he's like, hey, well, we're here. Let's shit on. Wait, watch. Look, there's more. You guys are clutching your pearls about this ballroom thing. Look what happened in the Oval Office. Okay.

And then tennis pavilion, that's fine. Tennis pavilion. Cocaine discovered. There it is, Michael. And then Biden. This is in the White House. This is on whitehouse.gov. They're like, let's just, it's like, I mean, one of my comfort shows is the office.

They do this joke a lot. But it's like, let's just put Biden and something that will make our user base uncomfortable. Biden uncomfortable. Like Biden, Titty. So to people listening, not watching. Are you uncomfortable yet? You squares. At the Whitehouse.gov, you go to the bottom, major timelines.

You see the renovations and then. But right now we've got the next headline is cocaine discovered and there's a picture of Hunter Biden in a bathtub with a cigarette in his mouth. On the White House website, the next one is Trans Day of Visibility. It's got Joe Biden next to a woman with her top off. Presumably implied to be a trans woman who's topless in front of the right house. Moana's saying in chat that it's doctored, which I believe and that's also like insane that this is on dot go. Oh, yeah. And I got to say, it's just a gorgeous transnational.

person. So it's also like, she did do that at the event, neither here nor there. But like, it makes Biden look very cool. Makes Biden look cooler than he is. He's got his sunglasses on. He's like, hey, man. I see just, just to clarify Moana's saying, a doctored in the sense that, yeah, as you can see, it's a split screen. Like, Biden is not standing next to that.

Yeah, he took a selfie with, with a woman at the event. And then separately, that woman took a topless photo, uh, where I love it up as well. because I didn't I knew that news story but I never saw that picture the guy chilling in the White House bathtub with the cocaine discovery But this is not a photo Presumably it's a White House

Bathouse. Oh okay. Who is that? Hey, remember Hunter Biden? That's just the concept of the whole things. Okay, so yeah You got a good guy. Amazing. And the Muslim brothers. It's just flashcards of buzzwords

and things that will rile their people. Right. They should have just broke the water woke and just like, left it at that. It's like, and then it got woken. You hate that. It's the same as Marvel being like Ironman. I don't know. It used to be unseemly to do racist dog whistle as your tactic. Like people used to not be like, wink, wink, you know what I mean? Like he's like, we don't like Muslims. You used to try to really hide that and make it the quiet part and we're just done. Also, let's not forget that that timeline for a while was like, building the White House and adding additions to the White House and it was about the construction of the White House. It was about the building. It's not on top. It was just about the

building. It's not about the Clinton scandal. It's not scandals that happened in the White House. And there's a ghost in the east way. They didn't include Trump pointing at the sun while he's staring directly at it. Or like, yeah. Or January 6th. 3008 miles west.

Well, that didn't. Charlie Kirk was tragically. That was a Congress. That was another place. You know, they could have. But I feel like if there's ever a Democratic president again, they need to immediately just put January 6th up here, pretend it was at the White House. Who cares? Yeah.

I don't know how we also ever go back to, yeah, I mean, it's beyond saying people, feel free to say it if it makes you feel better. But when people do the thing of, so imagine back in the normal times when stuff was normal, imagine Obama did this. sequence of things. And I'm like, you can't, you can't even go down that road because it's not that time anymore. It's not normal time. It's like, yeah. Imagine it was normal, but it's not. I don't know how he pulled it off, but the consequences are different for this man than they were for that man. Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, imagine if Joe Biden called Donald Trump a pedophile. Well, well, you would. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, you're right. So, Michael, you brought up the words that are currently on USDA.gov that are just all about how...

Mutilation being the real one. The Senate Democrats want to mutilate you, and that's why we're starving. That's why you don't get your kids. That's why you don't get your snap benefits, which we hate, by the way, which we don't want you to have anyway, by the way. By the need more trans arm candy for his next white house. Got a great website for you to check out about it. As of November 1st, about 40 million recipients of food aid benefits are going to have fewer of those benefits. There's between $5 and $6 billion currently in the fund, but that's not enough to cover the estimated $8 billion in SNAP benefits due out next month.

So fewer benefits are going to go out. The administration is straight up blaming the Democrats and the shutdown on this, although they can. could dip into the contingency fund and are simply electing not to, cruelly. So this would be a great week or two to help out your local food bank because it could get a little rough for people out there. Oh, my God. Right before the holidays, you know, with this shutdown in general, sure, yes, the SNAP benefits and the amount of people that rely on them to survive.

And to be looking at price increases across the board. Health insurance is about to astronomically rise. Just how fucked up it is. But then, of course, there's all the government employees not getting paid as well throughout all of this. Also facing down the holidays. Also looking at rising costs. And it's just what is what is? this country that's a rhetorical question yeah but it's just depressing i'm just putting it in that

perspective i've seen people like the this uh you know the claim there's like 40 million people um who are going to uh not have these benefits and i've seen some people like oh 40 million people are on snap benefits that's that's like 12 percent of the population and then and like okay that's bad shouldn't we like try to like help them and like get fewer uh get you know get them help but also the amount of money that's spent on them is like 0.002% of the budget so it's like wow it's like you have to spend only a little bit of money to help so many people isn't that good like i don't know the whole thing is very i mean we'll send a bunch of money to argentina to Israel.

You know what? But not in the world. It only makes sense through the lens of cruelty because I thought the whole reason we were learning to make tools and now I can grow 10 times as many crops as I could last season is so that eventually like, you know what I mean? And like we can bail out the banks. We can pump money into AI no matter how many times it trips over its own computer generated multi-fingered genitalia.

But this tiny thing, they're like, we really need to cut back on that tiny little sliver of hope that the people have. And the only argument ever is, like, you should have to work for money. But I'm like, but no one does. Or no tech billionaire does. Isn't that the whole point of being a tech billionaire? Is you're not in the field hunting, cutting down trees? like, anyway, it's just, to me, one of the endlessly infuriating arguments is that people like

Elon Musk or anyone in that position is like, but I think ideas so hard that it's worth billions of dollars. I'm just like, I don't value human thought at that level. Yeah. I don't want to even bring it back to politics because it's just like in the face of such wanton cruelty. But like they clearly thought Democrats were going to fold in this government shut down and they're not and so they're like well what else can we do I guess we could like they they're not as cruel as we are so surely they'll fold if we start starving people so and say they're doing it they're doing it let's let's withhold food from people say it's them and they'll surely fold because we can we can outlast them with cruelty is they thinking yeah we're fine with

it we love it actually it's great for us we hate when they both ways yeah if and when they do fold because they're like fine fine we just got to feed people they'll be like see you're standing in the way now that you're cooperating it's all we saved your snap benefits is what they want to be able to say um but also it's also very clear that in their back pocket they're like and as people slowly wise up to the fact that this is all a lie, let's also get the troops quietly like to play. They're covering their bases on all ends. Put the pieces in play,

but also have the propagandist's in. I want a born again progressive. I feel like we have had many disappointed people who go, I give up, I will be a fascist. But where's the guy who's like, We're waiting for Marjorie Taylor green to come all the way around. I'm waiting for Stephen Miller to disappear into like a jungle island for six months and come back and be like, I know I can never atone for what I've done,

but my attempt to do so begins. I would like some toad venom, but, man, did I screw up? But the least likely one of the bunch, I'd say. Oh, Miller? That guy is. I think of all humans as like an innate. beautiful just animals trying to survive but he's like a pissant

or like a pips squid or like I've never thought of someone as like a you like a little squid like a little grumble he's universally revolting you're just that yellow bastard from Sin City yeah yeah yeah exactly and yeah you know I don't like

to think that way about anybody even people I dislike but whoof Stephen Miller there are few there are a few of them one of the most repellent guys I've ever become aware of him. Yeah, earlier. Like yourselves.

Is that a good segue? This was fun. Ah, yeah, we don't need to. I mean, I don't even want to point out that he, well, you know what? He's going to try to, he's going to try to arrest a governor by the end of the year, right? Let's not. All right. We've got a hard out.

He wants to arrest a governor. At least one. Maybe later this week. As a reminder, we've got more episodes just like this. More is. Even more. Even more. Even more of the.

the news, like and subscribe, et cetera. Michael, tell our listeners and viewers. And viewers. Where to find you. Plug the pluggables. Really appreciate the opportunity

just to catch up with you guys, but also to plug my plugables. Our thing is called small beans. It's how you would find the feed if you're just looking for all the free stuff, much like yourselves. We have a Patreon paywall where, if you join, you'll get much, much more content,

but you can sample anything just by searching small beans. We don't cover politics. We cover a variety of things, but by and large, film, video games. And recently, we've added television, and that's the thing I'm extra excited to plug, which is we're going to start covering series, which we never have before on our show Framary. And one of the very first shows we will be watching is Battlestar Galactica with one Cody Johnston. I love Battlestar Galactica. He will be playing the guy who loves the show.

Yes. And I'm playing guy who has not seen the show. The part I was born to play. Yeah. And it's extra tricky because actually I love the show and Cody's never seen it. So it's an improv exercise. No, that's bullshit. It's a normal rewatch show.

One of Cody's favorites. And I'm a huge sci-fi nerd who happens to have never seen it. So I think it's so far been thrilling. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good show. It's good. It's very good.

It's quite good. Just so you know. Well, I'm targeting you for Patriot. I hope you get ready for that. Okay, yes. I would be honored. The part you was born to play.

Do all my best friends. Roll out. I was bored for this. Yes. I love the Patriot. I was also, I'm watching Gilmore Girls for the first time. And that would be a DOB. That would be a rewatch you would do.

Yeah. He loves Gilmore Girls. Well, how many episodes of Battlestar Galactica are there? A lot. Four, were there four seasons? I would say maybe 50-ish. 50? 50.

Yeah. Oh, okay, so it won't take you that long to get through it. No, it won't be years long. It's not like covering Star Trek, which we also do if you're a Star Trek fan, but that show's been going for six years. We did it. We're at the end of our show. Check out those things.

Check out small beans. Like and subscribe. Come back for more on Wednesday. And remember that we love you very much.