Some More News - Fascism in Italy, Hurricane Ian, and EVEN MORE Crystal Flutes

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Hi. This week, Katie Goldin (@KatieGoldin) joins Katy and Cody to discuss the recent election of a right-wing government in Italy, the path of destruction left by Hurricane Ian in Florida, and the bizarre outrage from Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and others over Lizzo's playing of a 200-year-old crystal flute. Also, Katy was referencing a NYT article on flood insurance near the end of the episode. Here's that article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/climate/hurricane-ian-flood-insurance.html 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&utm_campaign=9949&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Some%2BMore%2BNews  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&nd=1  Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news  Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Get an immune-supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit athleticgreens.com/morenews and try AG1 today. High-performance beauty and skin-care products made with clean, skin-loving ingredients. Right now, you can get 15% off your first order when you visit thrivecausemetics.com/MORENEWS. Wildgrain is the first bake-from-frozen box for artisanal bread. Plus they have amazing rolls, pastries, and even handmade pastas. Sign up at Wildgrain.com/morenews and, for a limited time, you can get $30 off the first box PLUS free croissants in every box. Prose is the healthy hair regimen with your name all over it. Take your FREE in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off your first order today! Go to Prose.com/morenews for your FREE in-depth hair consultation and 15% off.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 stole hello katie stole my name is codyston, and this is The Thing You Said. Yes, sir. Joining us today, our friend, some more news writer and host of the Creature Feature podcast, Katie Golden. Buongiorno. I forgot your most important title which is italiano i'm not actually i i have to preface it with saying i'm not actually italian i'm an expat living here which doesn't make me italian as i'm reminded often never would have guessed with how you said buongiorno buongiorno i mean that accent buongiorno buongiorno buongiorno buongiorno how are you loving italian life well you know it's interesting because when you set aside the

fascism it is actually quite nice here and the people are lovely yeah an interesting thing navigating this world of ours where you're where it doesn't matter where you are. There is a lot of there's a lot of bad shit afoot. Yeah. And it's interesting to navigate your own life's blessings and take space for that and also be aware of what's happening. I don't know.

Not to be super serious right off the bat, but that seems to be the... No, it's okay. I mean, it's funny because I come here and then, like, I meet some Italians and they're like, wow, what about that Trump thing, right? Huh? Huh? And then now we get, like, basically Italian Trump and it's, you know, it's something that, and trump and it's uh you know it's something that like materially i have not felt the effects of it yet but it's not you know good news we're gonna talk more about that in a second because i

have already questions but we gotta call it the holidays right we gotta make room for what's important here and today thursday september 29th is national carson day carson national carson daily it's it's that's good dedicated to celebrating people with the name carson i don't know why this is a day but i do know all 12 of them i did not mention this to my dad but if i did he would have lit up and referenced Carson from that fucking show. The British people with the mansion. Downton Abbey. Oh, Downton Abbey.

He'd say, keep calm and ask Carson to bring you tea. He loves that shit. Anyway. Carson's the butler? He's the butler, yeah. He's the butler. He's the kindly, lovely but. He's the butler. He's the kindly, lovely butler.

Friday, September 30th. International Podcast Day. Yeah. How about that? How about that, guys? So funny, because we're on a podcast right now. I feel like all of us have podcasted in the past. Wow. That shouldn't be a day.

Yeah. Okay, that's enough for in the past. Wow. That shouldn't be a day. Yeah. Okay. That's enough for holidays. Katie. Yeah. So you do not feel the effects of this election yet, but what are some things that you are... Well, we're going to talk about this. Katie's on the show today to talk about the Italian elections, and we're going to run

through it. But first, I am curious of some of your own personal feelings at this time, being an expat as well. I'm not sure. Yeah. I mean, you're an American. I'm not, I don't know what that's like. Yeah.

I mean, it's, so I think like in terms of day-to-day life, I live in a fairly like liberal progressive city. It's, they did not vote for Maloney here. And people that I interact with are generally, you know, friendly. And so I, in my day-to-day life, I have not really noticed too much, although I have a story maybe for later about meeting a Maloney supporter. But I think it's more, you know, just like intellect. I mean, it's like after Trump was elected, right? Like you don't have an immediate impact of that feeling. It's more of a feeling of,

you know, oh, well, you know, this is going to be a thing, isn't it? And I think it's I was not surprised because I think this was I mean, to Americans, this may be very surprising, right? Americans living in America where you don't get Italian news all the time. It's super shocking. But I think we've known for like a while, like a couple of months that this was a pretty likely outcome. It's like seeing a slow moving train wreck but yeah i mean it's not it's not good uh it's very bad and i think but i also think that the perspective that all my friends back home uh have is that like oh my god like fascism has come to italy and it's like well it's very very concerning just like the election of trump was super bad. But it also is not like I'm not looking outside and seeing like fascists marching down the streets. And it's not I don't think quite accurate to say that, oh, Italians are fascist now.

But I also don't want to like downplay that. It's bad. It's not good. Well, it's also a little bit of a i mean it's not a little bit it's obviously a misunderstanding the situation but also fascism didn't leave italy like this fascist party has been around since mussolini right i mean i might be getting that wrong but yeah no but also she didn't get she actually didn't get that significant of a percentage of the votes, if I'm not mistaken. This is just like how it works.

Although neither did Hitler. Right, exactly right. Neither did Hitler. But again, like you always point out, it doesn't, these things take time. Hey, you with the hair. How's about the hair of yours? It could be head hair or beard hair or whatever hair you hold dear. We are a proud people of many hairs or less hairs, depending on the person.

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for those croissant to throw at the kids. Right. So I could. Do you want like me to talk about the Italian government and stuff? Because I can do that. We can. Yeah, man. Whatever you want.

We've got. Well, Jonathan has prepared notes and stuff for, you know, but we just intend to let you you let you talk. I'll do talk about the Italian government all in sort of like with pasta metaphors. No, I'm not going to do that. But it is I think it's it is significant. I think it's important, actually, to understand the I'll just do a very brief overview of elections in Italy, because I think that's important in understanding how these things happen. And I think like, when you're in the US, we get very little education about other countries in their governmental systems, or even ours, to be honest. That's true. Yes, exactly. So in Italy,

elections are quite a bit different from the US. There are many different parties. This is not like a two party system here. It's a mixed mean, there is a right wing and a left wing, but there are many different parties and they're often kind of like weirdly intermingled. Some of them can have very left wing views, but then also some very right wing views. It's kind of it's a little more of a, you know, more of a lasagna. I don't know. That's the only pasta metaphor I'm going to use. So do not edit yourself if you don't like why limit it. There's so many pastas available.

There's so many pastas. But yeah, so essentially speaking, so like in the election, you have many different parties. But in order for them to get like enough votes, they often form these coalitions. And so they can like basically if you if that coalition gets votes, then they all get that slice of the votes. And so you have this these coalitions, often different parties that maybe have different sort of platforms or slightly different viewpoints, but then they form a coalition so that if you have another party that's like formed a coalition, you have your own coalition so you can actually compete with them instead of everyone getting like, you know, having like 20 different parties that are getting like 2% of the vote or 5% or whatever. So that's how it works. And

essentially the right wing was really good at forming a coalition this time around. Of course, there was Maloney of the Fratelli d'Italia, which is Brothers of Italy. That's the neo-fascist group. Now, they don't describe themselves as fascist. They will say we of a fascist party that did occur after Mussolini. So they formed a good coalition, whereas like the center and center left had kind of a shaky coalition, but they were very disorganized. And then it kind of collapsed at the last minute. The centrist party pulled out of this coalition because it was mad that the Democratic Party, which is what they're called, but they're not like the same as the U.S. Anyways, the centrist pulled out because they were mad that the further left wing were also being included in this coalition and they didn't think that government would work. So they pulled out. Coalition collapsed. So essentially, the right wing did not have any big players who were going to be able to really sort of bite into their votes. In addition, Maloney and the right wing have been really good at preying on the frustrations

of people in Italy. Draghi's government, which is the one that kind of collapsed beforehand, people would blame it for all sorts of problems in Italy, like, you know, they were unhappy about inflation or the COVID mandates or, you know, just like these these kinds of things that were going on. And so they were frustrated. And. Maloney's party, the FBI, were the only ones who were not part of the Draghi government. And so they were seen as these outsiders that maybe could come in and shake things up. And because they've tried to clean up their image and say, no, no, no, we're not. We're not fascists. Don't worry. We just believe heinous things. Don't worry about it. I think they were able to successfully propagandize and clean up their image that people were voting for them thinking, oh, we're not voting for fascists. We're just voting for someone who's going to like them thinking, oh, we're not voting for fascists. We're just voting for someone who's going to like stop, you know, welfare or stop illegal immigration. You know, these things that

it's kind of like in the U.S. I mean, obviously, our right wing party is very fascist. Like when you when you're in Europe and you see what the left and the right wing is in a typical country, it's like the right wing in the U.S. is very far to the right, such that really they're very similar to this fascist group where, quote unquote, we're not fascist anymore, don't worry, in Italy. And so I feel like people are panicking about Maloney from the U.S. and it's like, she's not different, really, from like, she's like a more well-spoken Marjorie Taylor Greene, honestly.

Yeah, 100 percent. Katie, that was a really excellent rundown of Italian politics. I know Cody has got a lot of stuff to say about fascism, probably. I'm gonna let him have it. First, I didn't want to interject. It seems not to take anything away from your pasta analogy, but this seems like more of a pizza situation with toppings. And that is a serious contribution to this conversation that I have. I have the exact, I think the exact vote tally.

So Maloney's Brothers of Italy got 26% of the vote. Right. The Anti-Immigrant League of Matteo Salvini got close to 9%. That's Lega Nord. Excuse me? Lega Nord, I think. Is that the one? Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it. Yeah. And then what the AP describes as the more moderate Forza Italia of former premier Silvio Berlusconi got 8%. And those three are what make up the, it's like the, what is, I guess, a center right coalition if you include the centrists in there.

So it's a coalition of 44% of the vote, but the majority of that was the brothers of Italy. What you're describing is also this world that we're living in of everything that all the problems a to z that you could talk about is more so even in europe because there's a whole lot going on in europe that is going to have pressure put pressure on all of the different individual countries and there is a fracturing of what people think is the right thing to do, which is the right moment in time for parties like these to gain power. I mean, one thing that's galling is just straight up the name. What's the one anti-immigrant league?

It's just there in the name. It's just in English. Well, no, I know it's not. The anti-immigrant is the descriptor of the party. Okay, it's not in the name. Which in English newspapers, they just call it the League Party. I think it's just called Lega Nord, which is just like North Leagues. But they're very, I mean, they're very anti-immigrant.

My point is that it's not a secret what they want. Whether they want to call it fascism or not not what they are for and what they are against it's deeply troubling cody oh i mean i'm just agreeing with everybody oh i just know that you have so much to say i'm sure it's all bullshit and bad well like to what i think what katie golden uh was saying about like you know they say like we're not fascist we're not fascist and it's easy to paint yourself as like just saying like that i'm just saying like what you know what everyone's thinking literally everyone's thinking it yeah there's an article today or yesterday maloney isn't far right she just says what we all think when i listen to the new italian prime minister

speak i hear mainstream conservative values that millions of people share. You can say that. This is a U.S. article by a conservative. No, this is, I believe this is, I want to say this is The Guardian. Yeah, I mean, I think somewhat there was like a U.S. conservative pundit who said something similar. And honestly, I don't completely disagree. I would just say that means that conservatives in the u.s are fascists like it's it's just one of those things where it's like you're saying you're not saying what you

think you're saying you're just saying that you agree with these fascists you're not saying that it was the telegraph sorry okay yeah that makes sense which makes you know they're going through a lot over there they just lost their queen they just lost their queen and the pound because of like giving a huge tax cut to the rich and having like no sort of oh like i don't know guys heavens that turns out to not have been good and uh they ran out of money i mean this is like i mean speaking as a woman i think like obviously women leaders can be great, but it does reveal like this, like with pure identity politics where it's like where you're putting someone in power who is like a woman or something and then not caring about what their platform is, why they're there, anything else like that. That's bad. Like, you know, it's that um megan

mccain megan mccain had a yeah about that like well what so like you don't like women when they're conservative oh my god i mean yeah but like revealing when they're bad yeah i there's something that we're working on and i want to include this as part of it when we get there. So, OK, what are some of the things she wants to do? Yeah, so first, I think, you know, it is important to point out. So she is the leader of the FDI, Fratelli d'Italia, Brothers of Italy, this like, quote unquote, post-fascist group. brothers of Italy, this like, quote unquote, post fascist group, they have kept the symbolism and ties to the ancestor political groups that were fascist. So the tricolor flame, this was a symbol of the these like fascist parties that emerged after Mussolini. So they

aren't completely cutting ties from their past, even though they're like, oh, no, no, no, we're not fascist. So they were formed in 2012. They were a split from the right wing party of the People of Freedom. It's not just that they inherited this symbol. from the National Alliance, which was a rebrand of the neo-fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, which was founded in 1946 by supporters of ex-dictator Mussolini. And also Maloney was a member of the National Alliance Party. So in essence, Giorgio Maloney's party, Brothers of Italy, is a rebrand of a rebrand of a rebrand of a fascist party who and

they're like they say like oh we're not fascist but so their platform is they are nativist and very anti-immigrant which is great to hear about being an immigrant yeah they have this i mean let's be honest like you're not the type of immigrant they're talking about, though. I'm white and have money. And so that puts me in a privileged class that is much less likely to be targeted by any anti-immigrant laws. These are targeted at poor people and people coming from Africa, at refugees, people coming across the Mediterranean who are desperate asylum seekers. But it could, I mean,

not to like, it could affect me, but that's not what's the most important thing right now. That is not the urgent thing. Of course not, but both things could be true. Both things could be true. Yes, you are of a privileged class of immigrant in italy

and also that causes a certain amount of uncertainty for you as well you've got resources you know you'll be fine but it's but it is a scary time to not be there to not to be there but not from there yeah it's i'm not like terrified but I am uncomfortable and I'm very concerned for fellow immigrants who do not have the privileges that I have. So, yeah, they have zero tolerance on, quote unquote, illegal immigration. They want to block migrants from reaching Italian ports. But this also includes asylum seekers. So to call them illegal immigrants is kind of like you know it's bizarre but also i mean personally i'm super like i think we should have open borders across the world but okay

even when you're operating in your like weird rules of like oh we only don't like illegal immigration well asylum seekers are technically legal immigrants they go through a process but they're still you know being attacked by this plan of like setting up blockades and stopping people from coming here. They used to be more EU skeptic, like maybe Italy shouldn't be in the EU, but they've toned that down. There's a lot of practical reasons for that. That's not very popular amongst other right wing parties that they have to form a coalition

with. Also, monetarily, that doesn't make a lot of sense because Italy really depends on money from the EU. So I don't think they will actually do that. And a big thing, actually, so it's interesting in the US, you often have this stratification of like in, you know, Republicans are able to basically take sort of poorer states. And even though it's against the best interests of a lot of people in that state, like they're able to, you know, carry these these poorer states in Italy, the South is much poorer than the north part of Italy. And in the South, there's a whole, like, the politics of the South is very complicated. I

don't want to like state anything really sort of firmly because I am probably going to get it wrong. But specifically to Maloney, she actually had a lot of problems getting any votes in the South because people are much less well off there. There's a lot of struggles with poverty, getting jobs. And so like there is this thing called the citizen's income, which is basically like a basic income for anyone who falls below the poverty line of 700 euros a month, which is like, I don't know, let's say it's $700. I don't know. I don't remember. I think maybe the dollar is less than a euro now, but it changes around, whatever. So it's a small amount of money each month to basically live on. And it was introduced by this populist movement, the Five Star Movement, which it's again, this is it's weird because the Five Star Movement also

has like anti-immigrant elements in it. There's a lot of weird sort of... Some groups can be really left-wing on certain social policies and then more right-wing on others. It's much more fluid, I think, than in the US's spectrum of left to right. But it's very popular in the south of Italy because people are poorer there. And so having basic income when you are below the poverty line is it improves your material condition. So people like it. But a lot of people in the north don't like it. Sort of more conservatives in the north because they're like, oh, well, you're taking our money and you're lazy.

You know, the same kind of dynamic that you have in the US. But in terms of Italian politics, like this, the fact that Maloney, the brothers of Italy and Maloney's movement are against the citizens incomes, basically saying like, oh, we need to cut them off. You know, they're lazy, they need to get a job, that kind of thing. That does not play well at all for people in Southern Italy. And so she did not carry Southern Italy at all. They voted, I think, mostly for the five-star movement in Southern Italy. And so, yeah, I think it's interesting because I think in the US, it's a lot easier for the government to often convince people, even people who are, you know, not economically that well off to like vote against their interests. And so here it's like,

it is interesting to see people saying like, hey, no, like we are benefiting from this welfare. And so like, we are not going to vote for that. Voting for their interests. And so, like, we are not going to vote for that. Voting for their interests. Right. I mean, but again, I mean, I think that voting for Maloney is voting against everyone's interest in Italy. So, yeah.

Then again, I think people do often vote against their own self-interest. No, I'm just talking about specifically this. Yeah. In this specific case, they were, you know, because, like, I think that's what happens when you actually like materially improve people's lives. I mean, that's probably why a lot of like conservative or neoliberal governments are so afraid of actually just giving out like things like basic income or welfare, because when you try to take that away, people get upset because they get used to having better quality of life. So, yeah, she's not popular in southern Italy because of this. Generally speaking, obviously, there's exceptions. And so there's a lot of stuff about her and her party being pro-Putin. And yes, she and her party have spoken favorably of Putin in the past.

But currently, they've kind of been pushed into being more anti-Russia because of the war in Ukraine. And so like she's basically like says that she's against Russia's actions in Ukraine and says we should, you know, arm Ukraine or something. But in 2021, Maloney had praised Russia for, quote, defending European values and Christian identity. And so Maloney is very much a Christian nationalist. She's she's talking constantly about, you know, sort of these cultural issues. She and her party are very anti-abortion, extremely anti-LGBT, anti-gay marriage. That's not legal yet in Italy.

But she's also against like adoption for gay couples, the kinds of benefits that civil unions here, I think, get right now. And she wants to prevent gay couples from, you know, adopting abroad or having surrogates abroad and even outside of the confines of Italy. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's very extreme. Like she's against sex education in schools. mean it's it's very extreme like she's against sex education uh in schools uh she's you know she talks about like you know that that she has these like weird speeches like being against quote wokeism um all these kind of like dog whistles like talking about globalists and financiers these are like thinly veiled anti-semitic terms speculators yes i mean even though she's like i mean it's the same thing when she's like oh we're not we're not fascist she'll say things like we're not racist

we're not anti-semitic and then she does like like vague references to these financiers and and globalists and it's like oh who are they i think she like she might name drop Soros, too. I'm not sure. She has before, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a portion of her victory speech that's indistinguishable from a Tucker Carlson rant. She goes, they attack national identity. It's up to you to determine who they is. They attack religious identity. They attack gender identity.

They attack family identity i can't define myself as italian christian woman mother no i must be citizen x gender x parent one parent two i must be a number because when i am only a number when i no longer have an identity or roots then i will be the perfect slave at the mercy of the financial speculators. I hate as a Christian mother and woman, I hate identity politics. I hate when I'm numbers.

Which is funny because I feel like it's weird because on Twitter at least, a lot of Christian mothers do do like Becky1577897257 and it's like but you guys love numbers. You love putting numbers in your name. Christian mothers do do like Becky 1577897257. And it's like, but you guys love numbers. You love putting numbers in your name.

So yeah, it's bad. Yeah. I mean, like there's also like speaking of Tucker Carlson, the FDI does promote like sort of the great replacement theory that immigrants are going to come in and replace Italians. And that's bad because dot, dot, dot, you know, they're different. Is she going to like bus Italian or bus migrants to Tuscany and like drop them off to make a point? Is that going to be her?

She might. Yeah, I wouldn't put that past her, honestly. Yeah, well, one thing she did as stunt was that she posted a video of a woman being raped without censoring the woman really much. And like there was no permission from the woman who had been assaulted. And she posted it because the rapist was allegedly an asylum seeker. And the thing is, like in the video, the woman was also an asylum seeker from Ukraine. Oh, my God. I mean, yeah.

And so this woman, like, obviously, it's horrifying to post this traumatic moment that someone experienced online. People just see, like, you're re-traumatizing her. And but it's like it. I mean, this is the same thing that happens in the U.S. where people like, oh, look at these. These are immigrants who have committed crimes. It's the same thing that happened in Nazi Germany with a list of Jews who had committed crimes. It's like, oh, you find someone that commits a heinous crime who happens to be part of this scapegoat group, even though most of the most of the sexual assaults committed here are going to be committed by italians because statistics you know that's not a problem it's only a problem once it's a member of the scapegoat group but yeah i mean she she is capable of those very heinous stunts so uh it's not beyond belief that she would do something like that i imagine that that would that'll ramp up and there'll be a lot more like public like actual publications

of just like look at what these people these people are doing yeah and ignoring you know the fact that everybody every type of person does crime yeah oh she also wants to end hate crimes uh or in oh okay no no sorry i'm sorry i made it sound like a good thing. She wants to end hate crime laws of people based on gender identity, sexuality. And the concept of hate crimes existing. Right, right. What a Freudian slip. It's as if I want to end hate crimes or something.

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Yeah. Buongiorno. So I think that it is correct for people to be very concerned. And it is also a correct assessment that the FDI and Maloney are just fascists with a fresh coat of paint slapped on. The FDI and Maloney are just fascists with a fresh coat of paint slapped on. I think that the assessment that Italians have willingly and knowingly voted in fascism may not be super accurate. First of all, we talked about how like the way that the government works here. It's not like the majority of people voting for Maloney. It's more that they're not alarmed enough about the fascist aspects, I would say. I mean,

of course, there's tons of people who are very, very alarmed about it. But the people who voted for the right wing coalition were not alarmed enough. Sounds very similar to what you just experienced here in America prior to your move. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, it's very similar in terms of like like with Trump and the right wing and like, you know, Democrats not being able to get their shit together. It's similar here. It's like, oh, here's this like threat of super far right wing. And then the Democrats and the centrists cannot get their like shit together. But in terms of like panicking that Italy is going to like become a fascist country, become like a dictatorship, like that there's going to be a coup. I think that like this time around, it's not likely. And there's like there's a few things

that are working against that. First of all, we actually have both a prime minister and a president. And the president is like an elected king of Italy kind of thing. And his name is, I know it by heart, obviously, totally. I can tell. Is that Sergio Mattarella. So he is actually a sort of left of center figure. And while he doesn't have a lot of like real power, he does have some power to check the prime minister and the parliament, the executive branch. So he is actually like, he's like there to make sure the government

complies with the Italian constitution. And if they don't, he can actually block appointments. He has control, like he is the head of the like council of the judiciary. So like the judiciary branch is actually relatively separated from the executive branch, which is not the case in the U.S. So when Trump was president, he was able to just flood the country with super, you know, far right judges. I don't think Maloney can't really do that, I don't think. And so the president can like somewhat check the government if they try to do anything unconstitutional. And if they wanted to change the Constitution, they'd need a two-thirds

majority, which they do not have. So that's a good thing. The other thing is that the kind of weaknesses of the Italian government in this case are working to maybe stop Maloney's government from making any drastic changes, which is that it's very like, it's mired in a lot of bureaucracy. making any drastic changes, which is that it's very like it's mired in a lot of bureaucracy. It's very hard to get anything like make like sweeping changes. First of all, you've got your coalition that you're having to please everyone in your coalition. And if you don't, your government can collapse, which is what happened to Draghi. And doing like major changes is very hard. You get kind of blocked a lot and this is bad when

you're trying to do good things uh but good i guess when you're trying to do bad things so that's another thing also like we're about to enter into a pretty bad winter which is like gas prices are uh very high people are going to be trying to heat their homes. So it's going to be super expensive. What's it like energy bill wise over there? I don't even, I mean, I haven't started heating the house yet. We're in a nice, nice period of time where it's cool enough, where we don't need any like air conditioning, but it's not so cold that we need the heating on. So right now I'm in a period of blissful ignorance but I'm probably going to be wearing

a lot of sweaters because it's going to be very expensive but yeah so people are going to have not a great time and it's not just like even if you wear a bunch of sweaters everything's going to be more expensive and I think people are going to blame the current government and it's going to be them

holding the bag so they might not be so popular so I think like there are a good number of things. They also don't want to necessarily piss off the EU too much. Like if they scare the EU and Italy gets cut off from some funding from the EU, that would be really devastating to the economy here. So I think that they are going to try to have sort of this like appearance of being, no, we're not like normal. We just hate the people that it's OK to hate, like, you know, poor people and immigrants, which is bad. Like, I don't you know, I'm not saying this to say like, oh, everyone can just relax. It's like it's really bad, but it's bad in the same way that, you know, Trump was. And she might even have less of a lasting impact that Trump did because the executive

has less concentrated power here in Italy than it does in the US. So it's bad. Yeah. But it's not something that is irreversible. I think like things could get better and there may not be like there may not be a huge amount of lasting damage, but there could be, you know, it's we'll have to see. It's been a week less than Katie. That was really helpful and pretty impressive. You haven't even been there a year, but we're really grateful. We're going to have you continue to come on the show whenever you want to talk about this stuff. I'll give you status updates on Italy whenever you guys want. Italy and animals. What's your favorite Italian animal?

Oh, yeah. Good, cute. That's a good one. I think chamois. They're these cute little mountain goats that live in the Alps. And I went hiking there recently. And they're just so cute. They're just little mountain goats out there chilling. Oh're just so cute. They're just little mountain goats out there chillin

Oh, they're cute on grass. Yeah. Yeah Didn't know you'd have an answer excellent, but she Got a whole podcast on animals she's she's been she knew which ones are italian animals for most of her life probably um okay we're gonna hard pivot to some american news god bless america god bless america uh i may be an italian country but these colors don't run yeah Yeah, and God is blessing America right now. Oh, no.

With pasta and spaghetti. And pasta and spaghetti. We say it like Americans. It's hurricane with a chance of meatballs. Get it? Anyways, people are suffering, right?

People are suffering big time. we did not record last week and you know puerto rico was hit extremely hard and they obviously have not recovered yet from hurricane maria not that long ago anyway jonathan why don't we talk a little bit about Hurricane Ian and his path around the United States? Yeah, he's he's not a nice Ian. Yeah, he's hit. He Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida on Wednesday. It was just under a category five. Like the wind was a few miles per hour under where it would have needed to be.

Such bullshit. It's a Category 5. It was like a hot Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. Like if we were grading on a curve, maybe you'd just straight up give it Category 5, you know? Like really, really bad storm surge as high as 12 feet in some areas. Fort Myers Beach, I think, is pretty much much wiped off and emergency workers are having a hard time getting there more than two and a half million households lost power in the state um it it has since settled into a tropical storm and is going to become a hurricane again and by the time

you hear this it may have hit south carolina and georgia as a as a category one there's some videos online that are just like staggering to watch of like houses in naples florida being being washed away of doors like collapsing under the pressure of members of the media again forcing themselves to stand in the middle of hurricane force winds for a shot yeah that's really galling seeing that like what are you doing getting slammed into by branches that are going 100 miles an hour or whatever like it's not worth it not even that's a trend that will never die though they will they will always do that and and one thing i wanted to bring up is how you know we just had an episode go up this week about DeSantis' Martha's Vineyard stunt. And he had to stop playing culture war games this week because he has a state to govern.

And it's almost as if he like forgot that he had to govern this state. Yeah. And I saw a clip of him on Tucker Carlson last night. And Tucker Carlson was like, well, everything's so political now. Do you think Biden's even going to help and send federal aid? And like, what kind of question is that? Because of course, he thinks that everybody is like Donald Trump or like he presents it like everybody is.

Except for Donald Trump. He will not point that out when it's him. Right. And DeSantis was like, well, yes, no, I spoke with the uh when it's him right and desantis was like well uh yes no i spoke with the the president and he's been helpful and says he's gonna send help and he said i'm cautiously optimistic fuck him uh that he'll that he'll send federal aid i will say like that is all right this is of course he will um i'm just interjecting to say I don't like how Ron DeSantis at all. But I do not like going on Twitter and clicking on something, an update about this storm and seeing all a bunch of comments saying, good, they had it coming.

Yeah, fuck you, DeSantis. Oh, yeah. Every time. Don't be hateful to people that are suffering because they're led by a total twat like you know and no it's very frustrating and even if they are people that disagree with us we do not want i i want compassion for me and my family when i go through something and i want to give that to other people in return okay soapbox think about it on an international level too like when we had trump like would you say like yeah like like if europeans were like yeah you deserve

trump you deserve all this crappy stuff to happen to you and you're like well i i'm just a person living here i can't i can't like up and move out of the u.s i mean this is the same thing state by state it's like people can't there are a lot of people the U.S. I mean, this is the same thing state by state. It's like people can't. There are a lot of people who it's like, you know, they live somewhere that's red, but they can't just like change everything themselves. Yeah. People like to pretend that everybody who lives in a red state voted for it. Also, even if they did vote for it, like they don't deserve that. There is a conversation to be had.

I don't have this in front of me but you know development of coastal areas uh you know the ruining of marshlands that tend to protect against this you know the government officials have allowed for that shit to happen and you know and this is part of it but that's not what you're talking about online or what we're seeing and those are conversations to be had about preventing future tragedies but people are dying and a lot of people don't have home have insurance lost their insurance over the past year in florida what were you going to say katie oh just specifically who deserves it is like Ron DeSantis and also like Dave Portnoy. I don't even know. Like barstool sports guy who is like, you know, I think he's in Florida to like try to evade taxes for the wealthy.

And he is complaining about it. They specifically do deserve it. But everyone else, almost everyone else almost everyone else complaining about the hurricane. He was like complaining that like he he shouldn't have to deal with like the hurricane just so that he can get lower taxes. I think that was so he's like they should do. There should be a state I can go to that doesn't have any horrible disasters happen to it. It's like welcome to the climate future. There's nowhere to go. They should stop

doing hurricanes here. It's not fair. Yeah, it's not fair for him to try to get lower tax, more tax breaks for the wealthy and he has to deal with hurricanes. Also, yeah, I don't think he could have left for

the hurricanes. Anyways, it is because of climate change too because it's not I don't think he could have left for the hurricane season. Anyways, it is because of climate change, too, because it's not that hurricanes are caused by climate change, but they are worsened by it significantly because when waters are They're worsened by it. Yes, because when waters are warmer, there's more evaporation. You get more water in the storm, and then it dumps more of that water you know when it hits um it's also there's i don't know too much about climate science but there's also like the warmth of the ocean can make um current slower and so like it'll spend more time sort of

dumping all that extra water on land so it makes it worse and you know it's just we'll see it i can't recommend enough moving a little further away from the coast there if you're in florida i think yeah take uh shapira's advice yeah sell your home and move yeah that's easy just sell it and move yeah the thing in all of these tragedies and disasters that don't seem to get talked about that much, especially the cost of everything right now, but that the insurance, the number of people whose homes were destroyed that do not have insurance for that is a big deal. As we see these events continue to happen will be even a even bigger deal that is hard to ignore um is there like a very astute systematic reason that they don't have insurance like they're just too expensive or most of the florida homes in the path of hurricane ian lack flood insurance posing a major challenge to rebuilding efforts new data shows in the counties where residents were told to evacuate just 18 and

a half percent of homes have coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program. Within those counties, homes inside the government-designated floodplain most exposed to the flooding, 47.3% of homes have flood insurance. But in areas outside of the floodplain, which are still likely to have been damaged by storm surge. Only an estimated 9.4% of homes have flood coverage. So I don't really know how that's going to shake out, but I know a lot of people got fucked. New segment, flute talk. I'm sure there'll be a new big flute story every week. Lizzo played in D.C. this week, and the Library of Congress invited her to come through before

the show and try out a few flutes. I did not know this. Apparently, the Library of Congress has the largest flute collection in the world. Yeah, who else didn't know that? Anybody who was mad about this. No, all the conservatives knew that, I'm sure. Everyone is mad about this. They're super passionate about flutes.

So she selected James Madison's 1813 Crystal Flute and played it on stage briefly. And this has made people Astoundingly mad she also played it not so briefly right like in the Library of Congress like she There so there are other videos of her playing it and it's quite beautiful. She's very talented Yeah, she's no she is like a highly skilled flautist She's like a highly skilled flautist. Yes. A classically trained flautist from the age of 10.

Exactly. But the clip that was shared the most was her on stage dressed provocatively. And it was that's what really set it off. Right. The claim is the claim is that if the other clip was shown, then nobody would be mad. I don't think that's true at all, but that's what they want to say, that it was because of the stage performance and not that it was her doing it. Conservatives are angry because Lizzo played James Madison's crystal flute. I mean, she handled it very professionally.

I mean, obviously, she's a professional. So she handled it very professionally. She played it extremely skillfully. And she's clearly in awe of this flute, right? She thinks it's amazing. And that enthusiasm for the flute and for the history of this flute is like you know she's expressing this to the audience but she's also like in a unitard right is that what that's yeah like like a one piece um and

then she kind of does like a little jiggle dance and i think it's cute as hell like it's it's super cute and it's you know they wouldn't have cared if it was george bush being cute as hell in his little onesie playing the if george bush twerked and uh yeah play play the flute i'm sure they would i mean they probably wouldn't have cared if it was like lady gaga or somebody like it's because it's her there's one reason they care and they they're outing themselves. With this Ben Shapiro comment, this Lizzo flute controversy is a perfect example of what I have termed face tattoo phenomenon. Terrible name.

Awful. The phenomenon whereby someone does something deliberately controversial in an attempt to draw attention and then acts offended when you notice. And how is it deliberately controversial? Matt Walsh said the same thing. What's controversial? Matt Walsh says they are outright admitting that this was done as a purposeful act of degradation. No, they aren't.

No one is saying that. No one is. You are. It's like as they're outright admitting and don't support their statement. Yeah, they're just lying now. Yeah. Like, I mean, like they weren't upset when Donald Trump dry humped the flag. admitting and don't support their statements yeah they're just lying now yeah like i mean like they weren't upset when donald trump dry humped the flag no they weren't um well because

he's uh well yeah um yeah no it's very uh they're just lying it's very weird a little bit because there's also like it was that it like popped up randomly it's like there's other stuff going on why are you spending so much time on it and it's mostly because and like yeah obviously we're talking about on this podcast it's so they can do that their shows and like complain about it and say that like they're disrespecting you by humiliating the founding fathers by this this act where it's like first of all shouldn't instruments be played are we not are we pretending that like we need to have this weird reverence for like like jonathan you said there's like tons of flutes there she picked one no they actually handed her that flute like the the library of congress like presented her with that flute while she was performing and she was like oh my god and then

and was like this is this is crystal this is amazing but she was like she picked it i think earlier she like went through them right like them all and like tried them out and like then there's that video that that these people are claiming they would have liked actually no but under the ice even under that video People are complaining She's dressed too casually Or you know These are artifacts That should be respected So it doesn't matter

It doesn't matter Even yet Shapiro's like You know If she was Even moderately Modestly dressed It would be fine

It's like no There's no way You would be fine with this If it was slightly different If the situation Was a little bit different You wouldn't be changing Your tune No The your tune bodies cover yes that is a flute pun but also i saw like i saw it's so sometimes it's like very blatant sometimes it's not blatant there's an

like one of those fucking conservative like bugle fucking publications or something like that uh and they were like in response to this like well if she's gonna do this then when uh trump's back in the white house we're gonna have kid rock crowd surf on obama's portrait something like that and it's like so it like it it's the most obvious when it's when they say something like that because she's playing a flute which is made to be played uh it's an it's a musical instrument that she's playing like a musical instrument. And your response is to have Kid Rock, like, stand on a portrait of the guy you don't like. That's, like, it's very obvious what's going on there when they say stuff like that.

I agree with you completely. Right. And the vibes also, also like the vibes of the video like first of all i don't actually care if someone disrespects uh founding father's flute like do it i actually don't give a shit take it further do whatever you want to that flute yeah they were they were kind of they were messed up guys and they deserve a little bit of disrespect but she also wasn't so like, like, this is a thing. Like, I'd be on board.

Playing it is a very respectful thing to do. Right. Like, she was clearly nerding out about this flute. She was, like, super psyched about it. She thought it was super cool. And even, like, the, like, you know, like, the disrespectful twerking, which twerking's twerking. It's not, like, it's a fun dance. It's not, like. Oh, yeah. She also was not twerking. She wasn't really twerking's twerking. It's not like, it's a fun dance. It's not like.

Oh yeah, she actually also was not, she was not twerking. She wasn't really twerking either. And she was pointing out the anachronism of it, not like I'm being disrespectful to this respectful thing. She was, she made a joke where it's like, I'm twerking with like a, you know,

400 year old flute. And she, I mean, she just did like this, like this excited little jiggle dance and it was really fun and anyone who's like not so far up their own like you know ku klux ass like will be able to see that this is like you know it's just a fun moment man like chill out like what and look how many people are talking about a flute they didn't know existed and they didn't know father that they don't care about i think we've done it i think we've had this conversation nope cody's got his hand raised just one more thing because the allegedly according to like people like matt walsh specifically but also all these freaks the message is that uh history is meaningless and our heritage is

meaningless and uh it's like this degradation thing like he literally said like the message is that history is like useless and bad or whatever and like it's so funny because literally like the quote tweet the tweet the tweet that he is responding to is quoting lizzo as saying history is so cool right right literally the opposite of what he is claiming yepzo as saying history is so cool. Right, right. Literally the opposite of what he is claiming. She is saying that history is amazing. And he's like, I can't believe she's saying that history is bad. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, my friend.

No, she's like promoting the Library of Congress. She like, nobody knew that there were a bunch of cool flutes in the Library of Congress until Lizzo played it on stage. They're guaranteed that you will get way more kids interested in America's history from that than like, you know, the stupid moralizing that conservatives do. So, I mean, it's so it's the same like dumb stuff where it's like, oh, well, you did something like kind of like a little bit flirty we gotta bring hillar back like it's the same kind of stuff where it's like you know oh you kind of like you

showed your ankle yeah yeah you showed your ankle and so we gotta go back to caveman times and you know i mean it's it's it's so uh it's just so dumb. And it's like, also, though, hearing the crystal flute. I used to play flute in middle school. It was super hard. I hated it. But that flute sounds super awesome. It does sound really good. It was pretty.

It's very pretty. I'm so glad we got a chance to hear the flute that's been hidden away and tucked away out of reach of ears or knowledge. We got to hear the flute that's been hidden away and tucked away out of reach of ears or knowledge we got to hear the fucking flute yeah now we are ending this show i don't care what you have to say it's funny katie thank you so much for staying up past your book at a bad time and talking to us about italy please plug promote yourself whatever you Promote yourself. Plug whatever you want. So if you're interested in animals, I got a show for you.

It's called Creature Feature. I talk about animals, but not just your cute little kitty cats and puppy dogs. I talk about the weird ones. The parasites, the sharks, the... Probably a lot of animals you haven't heard of. Yeah, so... but I also on occasion

also talk about kitty cats and puppy dogs. So, you know, if you like animals, you'll like Creature Feature. So check it out. And next week's episode of Some More News, the one in the future, not the one that you just watched.

If you watch the show, I assume you do. Next week's episode is written by katie golden and it is extremely good we're excited about it thank you katie thank you for joining us we'll talk to you soon soon and to the rest of the rest of y'all we love you very much much