Some More News - Giuliani's Vocal Cords, Putin's Risk Board, and Even Boar News w/ Alex Schmidt

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Hi. Alex Schmidt (@AlexSchmidty) joins Katy and Cody to talk about the bomb threats targeting HBCUs, the crisis in Eastern Europe, Trump's plan to seize voting machines, Rudy Giuliani's appearance on "The Masked Singer," and much more. Support SOME MORE NEWS: http://www.patreon.com/SomeMoreNews We now have a MERCH STORE! Check it out here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news Grab Liquid I.V. in bulk nationwide at Costco or you can get 25% off when you go to http://LIQUIDIV.com and use code MORENEWS at checkout! Visit http://Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the TOP of the homepage, and type in MORENEWS and you'll get a special offer that includes a 4-week trial PLUS free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts.  Follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenewsSupport 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 prove it just kidding i believe you hello katie i'm hello cody hi welcome thank you doing this show nope i'm not gonna do this bit um joining us today is our friend, our former colleague, comedy writer, and host of the podcast, secretly, incredibly fascinating, Alex Schmidt. It is so good to be here. Thank you, guys. This is great. Gosh, you're such a jerk, Alex. How could you be so rude? Yeah, tone it down. I like that Cody challenged Katie to prove it immediately. We're sticking to evidence. We're all about facts, figures, numbers.

I actually do have my ID right next to me. Good, show it. But it doesn't say Katie. It says my real name. What? My full name. Right out of the gate. Yeah.

The social post is going to be each of us holding up our credit cards, numbers, sign out. Just letting everybody know here's my social security my birth certificate and my home address today February 4th I have got to acknowledge that it is

national thank a mail carrier day thank you mail carriers really truly thank you mail carriers you deliver our mail. Yeah, it's true. I appreciate it. They carry the mail. And I especially appreciate the four free COVID tests that were in my mailbox yesterday.

Ooh, you got them. Did you guys get your four free COVID tests? I didn't get mine yet. No, not yet. No. US.gov. That was a fun store page, though. Wait, so like everybody here now, when did you order them?

The day that they said you can order it. The day the site went up? And mine came the next week, so I guess my route is more prolific with the tests than yours. Maybe mine were stolen and I need to start posting on Nextdoor about the mail thief that I'm imagining in my head. But make sure to thank your mail carrier because it's not their fault. Maybe they're the one doing the stealing. February 4th. I'll find out when I post on Nextdoor.

Sorry, I can't remember. It's also National Homemade Soup Day. And I got to say, I make homemade soup all the time. But it's specifically that homemade style can of Campbell's chunky soup that I open it and pour into the pot and I think that that's homemade enough because it was in my house and I made it

it's fine I'm agree with you it's about as good as it gets here home heated so it's actually incredibly easy to make soup but I have never done it secret incredibly easy secretly incredibly easy hey that could be my home show great it could be i guess the podcast is a home show because i tape it at home and then it's a home making show is the other thing i mean this is your home different rebrand for you. Secretly, incredibly easy.

Fascinating recipes. Soupily, incredible food. For the soup inclined. I don't know. We'll work on that. You said that holiday and I legitimately made chili from scratch on February 2nd.

Did you? I heard that holiday and I was like, too soon. I blew my wad way too early. Celebrate early. No, no, no. Sometimes you just can't wait. You know, put the Christmas tree up in November.

That's fine. You take it down in February. That's okay too. Time is a fuzzy thing. If you want, celebrate every day. How thick does something have to be to change it from a soup to a stew? That's a question for the experts.

Folks, I'm just a humble chili maker i'm just stirring my pot over here i can't believe i asked that question and no a stew is a type of soup to me i would say it it's sort of like um if it reminds you of cereal a little bit right like it needs a little bit of something because there's like soggy i think like sogginess leans more towards stew are you but it's like a cereal to a soup well i'm saying like in terms of like the ratio of you know in that case i make stuff all the time the veggies and the things to the broth right cereal to milk like it needs some sort of ratio there not just like a slop that's right which i think is the question right because if you don't have enough of the cereal it's just milk well i well there's no other name for it um because

there's no you don't you know there's no word for cereal and milk it's just like your cereal and you assume that there's milk involved it's not like a soup where you say like my oh my veggies and broth no it's my veggies and broth well i i I guess you could look. They're all they're all different forms of packing a bowl, right? We can all agree. But that's the phrase to describe the many things we yes, packing a bowl, packing a bowl. Happy packable day to everybody. Happy packable day. However, you choose to celebrate.

I know how I'm going to celebrate now, but before we talk about the news news let's just talk to you for a moment i you know you host a podcast secretly incredibly fascinating we've been on the show like you secretly you secretly host a podcast you secretly hold an incredible you don't tell anybody about it you record it every day not sure what the point is yeah but we're we're blowing the spot on that podcast today. So we've been on there twice, once to talk about the iconic screen painting and a second time to talk about my favorite utensil, spoons. And it turns out that a lot of things are, in fact, secretly incredibly fascinating. How did you get started with this idea?

And are there any favorite topics that you've covered? These are such nice questions. Legitimately spoons, because when you guys were on about the scream, we just got into the idea of spoons because Katie suggested like that seems like a fit. Absolutely. And yeah, I always want everything around me to be more exciting than I think it is. And I think you can get there with like facts and reality. You don't have to make up weird headcanons. You can just learn why there's more to everything.

Yeah. If we actually look under the surface and dig around a bit, there's actually a lot of very weird, bizarre occurrences that contribute to this random thing that we're talking about. And the very first one was about U.S. post offices. So now anytime things happen with the mail, feel connected to it and felix i'm like oh yeah there's another thing i know i know i know that system very well yeah so this thing do you thank a male person in that episode i think i had a male carrier reach out and say they enjoyed hearing it while they carried that's nice which felt great like it was all just so full circle. Very good.

Alex, you are also a four time Jeopardy champion. Yes. Was so over the moon when you were in Jeopardy. The coolest thing. We're all so proud of you. How was that? I just want you to talk about being on jeopardy and like did you hope to become jeopardy yes what is jeopardy uh and should you be the new host i know you're not

but you should have been i i mean i would love it but it would be like it would be like suddenly getting selected to play major league baseball like it would be so exciting i i would short circuit and then i don't know if i could do it but it'd be great i it was very fun it was 2018 i was on and so it was still alex trebek and it was pre-covid and it was a very smooth and fun experience like i drove over from pasadena to it almost they taped five episodes in a day. So all my shows just happened in one day. And on some level, it felt like a weird freelance gig at the Sony in Culver City. I was like, this is a cool check for this freelance gig. Otherwise, you know, just kind of hit my marks.

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. It's weird to have a tiny bit of film and TV prior experience going into it. Yeah. And everyone else there is just from some random state but you're like no i'm i'm business i'm biz adjacent mr hollywood here mr hollywood over here what what's the conversation you get asked the most about your time on jeopardy like what's the question you get asked the most i guess oh what was alex trebek like uh and also did i how did i prepare and alex trebek was everything i was hoping and then yeah i didn't i mostly just watched the show a lot which i have done for fun like my whole life especially it in chicago it airs at 3 30 and so i would come home from school and watch it and then proceed with the

rest of the day yeah you were like a super fan from a young age, right? You had like the book and stuff and like the factoids about like the show and all that. Yeah, they put out a book. I think it was in the early 90s maybe and it's this yellow cover with a very young Alex Trebek on it and then I would carry it around middle school and I had had a teacher who very nicely did a question with me each English class when I came. Follow-up question. How cool were you in school? About as cool as I was with my Beatles trivia book

that I carried around at that age. Your what book? What kind of trivia? I had a Beatles trivia book that I would carry around with me. Oh, right on. Awesome. I should have gotten into Jeopardy, though. What are the Beatles? Oh, I'm short-circuiting. I don't know.

Hey, Stamp fans. Do you like stamps? Do you like putting stamps on literally everything, regardless of if you're mailing that thing or not? Boy, if that's the case, then you're gonna love this ad for stamps.com. Listen here, Mick, sometimes we got a lot of mail to send. And so while the post office is super hot right now,

perhaps you just don't have the time to go there. Well, geez, stamps.com makes it just so darn easy to print official US postage right in your home. That's for any letter or package or class of mail to anywhere in the world. Not to mention that on top of having the services of the post office and UPS all in one place, Stamps.com offers discounts of up to 40% off post office rates and up to 62% off UPS shipping rates. Stamps! It rates. Stamps. It's a stamps.com ad and you love it. So you know what to do.

You gotta try out these darn stamps. There's no risk. And with our promo code more news, you get a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage

and type in more news. That's stamps.com, promo code more news. You love stamps? You stamp had you? Get all the stamps today. What happened to me? I can't stop, I know! Alright guys, I think it's time for us to dig into some news

some some some news topics we're ready for this news it is february and february as you guys should know is black history month uh and this year to kick off black History Month, a number of HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities, received bomb threats earlier this week on Monday and Tuesday, including Howard University, Morgan State, Xavier University and many others. Yeah, this was a pretty dark start to the week. You know, no devices were found at any of the locations um the fbi has identified six persons of interest who are all juvenile uh another word for underage uh tech savvy uh you know and they used a lot of different methods to hide their identities one of the callers made elaborate claims describing seven devices hidden around the campus and that a gunman would open fire later in that day. The caller claimed to be from the neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division.

It's bad. This isn't great. Benny Thompson, chairman of the House, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said, It is not lost on me that these threats are targeting African-American educational institutions at a time when we're observing Black History Month. I don't think that was lost on the kids who did these bomb threats either. And it is pretty upsetting. I mean, it's upsetting in any circumstance, but to know that these are minors, again, especially since the hot button topic and vogue is the banning of critical race theory,

something that isn't even taught in grade school, but just this whole conversation, you know, that's resulted in the whitewashing, the banning of just basic facts and misrepresenting what everything is about. You described this exactly right. And I'm frustrated that the internet makes everybody an adult. Like whatever you're doing on the internet, you're essentially an adult.

It doesn't really matter what age you are in real life. But then, I don't know, it seems like maybe it'll make it harder to prosecute these punks is way too weak of a word. I don't know. These assholes for doing what they're doing you know little shits so just a little bit about the state of the critical race theory conversation in case you guys haven't been listening to this show but this is from axios uh since last year 14 states have imposed such restrictions through legislation, executive actions or commission votes and Education Week analysis found.

In addition, 35 states, 35 states have introduced bills or taken other steps to restrict teaching of critical race theory, a concept that focuses focuses on the legacy of systemic racism or how or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism. Basically, these proposals allow state officials to punish schools and educators for discussing racism and the history of people of color. Here are some examples in Axios. Teachers may also introduce Malcolm X, but not read his speeches. Mention soul singer Marvin Gaye,

but not discuss his What's going on lyrics or point out rosewood florida or tulsa oklahoma on maps but not talk about the racial atrocities that occurred there i mean there's lots of stuff like this yeah it's wild i mean it's not wild completely expected um and predictable and uh still disappointing but there's so many uh and they say it out loud um just sort of the purpose of these is to get rid of any negative depictions of of u.s history um it's this sort of push to get like it's like that patriotic like loyalty like we're great there's nothing bad um and the even the bad things we're just going to talk about the good parts of them which kind of really just uh yeah it

like that's not that that like defeats the purpose of history we just like learn lessons and like learn what happened and how we get here and how history's progressed so you can maybe not like not repeat certain atrocities um or not hand wave them away um we're going to talk a little bit in the uh future about possibly uh the whoopee of it all um and i think that's like an example where like you're not like there's like we need to talk about the worst parts and why those existed and why they happened. Right. Instead of just being like, well, the U.S. is the greatest country in the world and all of our history was good. Yeah, it's exactly right.

And it feels like they're looking for like a cheat code to just erase a lot of the facts of history. Like they just found the term critical race theory and a dusty book in one corner of one university and then they were like oh we can just use this as a hammer great we can yeah we can just yeah no this can mean everything basically and it's gonna scare parents enough um all you need to do is say that word or that you can keep it vague enough so you're not even really sure what it means like they can just say oh critical race theory and then not actually ever really explain it and it just becomes this catch-all in terms of like how they they package it to people i mean it's it's it is mind-blowing uh to think about like what i just read 35 states introducing this like this isn't yeah but there's probably like 400 states or something like that

probably but we can't know for sure. We can't. But, you know, as you guys, both of you were speaking, I'm thinking about like basic political science classes that I've taken about how like a core thing is just that history repeats itself and that there is something in us where we develop to a point where we refuse to remember the lessons we've learned and then just recreate them in a different setting over and over and over and over again. And this is how. Yeah, I also think we don't even, we don't want to teach the lesson. Like these are kids, whoever's doing it, who clearly didn't learn some of the lessons of history and now we're banning the teaching of those lessons the the biden administration last

summer announced that they were going to step up efforts to prevent violent white supremacist attacks and that they were going to focus more on domestic extremism but i think those are all law enforcement efforts and there don't appear to be any efforts you know as a society to to do anything in education federally or to counter the ideologies that lead to bomb threats against hbcus it's like well we're gonna we're gonna give the fbi more money to track down domestic extremists but we're're not going to like we're going to we're not going to teach anyone anything so that there won't be this number of threats in the next generation. Yeah. In fact, we're going to teach them less, apparently. Right.

And I don't know how you talk about that on a federal level. You know, that's a that is really good point, though. You know, that's a that is really good point, though. Like it is like, no, we're going to just like blood law enforcement with money and hope that they can like put the Band-Aids on instead of get the knives to stop making the scars. I mean, white supremacist organizing all of that. It happens online. Like there's all sorts of different cells of people don't even know about. Like you can go about your day thinking, oh, racism's fine, but it's never gone away.

It's always been organizing. There's always this movement. And I think it's important that we also have a conversation about law enforcement during Black History Month, obviously for many reasons, but black people for a lot of reasons don't have very much confidence that law enforcement will have their best interests at heart. And I think a recent story

from the past couple months that you may or may not have heard about kind of illustrates that. And it's the story of the deaths of these two black women, both from Bridgeport, Connecticut. And I believe they died on the same day, separate incidents. And the police didn't even notify their families they'd been deceased. They didn't look into any sort of foul play. This is against the backdrop of what we all were swept up in in the national search for gabby petito and brian laundry and then not months after that we're talking about this and and like truly truly galling the yeah the the parents the family members of one of these women had to go to the house of the person that they knew had gone out with her.

And he told her that she died and literally gave them her belongings, which the police didn't even take. Didn't even look into whether or not there was foul play. And it seems like there might have been fentanyl involved at least in one of them but that even of itself is a really fishy catch-all with all stories like this i'm like i really want the police department involved to like explain what they do do with their time right what what are they for if not everything that they should have been doing there i don't know one of these um stories the lauren smith fields who was 23 a formal investigation into her death was only started after cardi b tweeted about it right right um and there was like public and social pressure for right bridgeport to

like reveal what they had and like do a bigger investigation yeah and cardi is the police commissioner in that town like she's doing her job but what about the other officers right commissioner b commissioner b yeah she mentioned that the the uh other victim uh was brenda lee rawls who was 53 um and yes they were both found on the same day. So it's pretty upsetting. Should we try to talk about Ukraine and Russia? We're not Ukrainian Russia experts here, but it's hard to ignore that this is happening. Russia has amassed about 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine. Ukraine is a former- 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine. Ukraine is a former...

100,000? 100,000. Yeah. Okay, that's too many. It's a lot, right? It's a lot for a person that says that he's not trying to do anything.

He's just defending himself against the West and America. But, okay. They're just there. Yeah. And I've played risk. Like, if you want to defend yourself

against Alaska, you garrison Kamchatka, right? 100%. And then the dotted line there, it's hard to invade through. It's basic strategy, people. Basic strategy. So he's for a long time wanted Ukraine.

He's wanted it back. Of course, in 2014, the invasion of Crimea. Look, we all want Ukraine back, but... Let me just get what you want, all right? Gosh, this is why we have you here for this. Yeah, I'm just trying to explain everything to everybody in a way that they can understand.

Russia has denied that it is planning on invading Ukraine and instead says it's only concerned about its own security, like I mentioned. Putin has made several demands of the United States and NATO, primarily that NATO halt eastward expansion and guarantee that Ukraine will not join. They also want a missile defense system in Romania removed and a few other things. So basically couching this as I'm only doing this because I don't want Ukraine to be a part of NATO. And can you blame me? Can you blame me? Why would I want them to be a part of NATO. And can you blame me? Can you blame me?

Why would I want them to be a part of NATO? It's not my fault. I like the concept that NATO is expanding eastward. It's an alliance. Aren't they just signing people up? It's not sending troops through. Amazing. Yeah.

Really good. But Putin doesn't want Ukraine to be a part of NATO because then NATO forces can come and help defend Ukraine against Putin because Putin wants Ukraine. You know?

Okay, so US and NATO say no way, baby. Not gonna happen. Yeah, but it might consider some secondary concessions, things like arm control and greater transparency, military exercises. OK, so basically right now it's a little bit of a diplomatic stalemate. It's it's seems like everybody's amassing more troops. Biden announced that 3000 troops will be deployed to Poland and Romania, although U.S. troops will not be going to Ukraine. If there is an invasion,

we're just going to go there to those other places. But also, we're going to give Ukraine a lot more weapons, which you already have been doing. And in this conversation, of course, are the poor Ukrainians. You know, a lot of them are still reeling from conflicts in the past. Again, the annexation of Crimea. There are a lot of pro-Russian separatists. There are a lot of people that don't. And it's bad for them, ultimately, from what I've been reading. You know, it's the other places. I don't have it in front of me. The other place that Putin took with the promise of it being good for them.

But economically, it's not. They're in a weird limbo zone where they don't have as many employment opportunities and trade is difficult to get through. And it's not necessarily good. The U.S. has accused Russia of planning of a false flag attack in Ukraine, something that, you know, that Putin is going to do as a pretense for an invasion and the u.s strategy through all this has been to say like hey we know what you're going to do so you can't do it anymore no one's going to believe you're like propaganda video

about some um attack in eastern ukraine or in russia that you say ukraine and nato are doing if we're like giving away the game beforehand and it's kind of unclear if this strategy is going to like work or if putin's going to be like well now i'm just going to do it i'm maybe it's weird but i feel for whichever russians like love the ussr and we're really excited about it because it seems like that's the the fan base for this like they're the the imperialism they want to get back to is just fully rolling tanks into eastern Europe and that's really messed up I wish they had a different thing they missed you know nostalgia it's everybody different you know like the British miss being the British Empire so they

did Brexit because they want to leave Europe and feel special. Like the Russian one is really, really, it's not even, it's like command and conquer. Like they all think they're Yuri from those games or something. I don't get it. Don't do that. I can't see how this would necessarily be good for Russia, but I can't predict what is going to happen. And you would think Russia would be all wound up about the Winter Olympics. Why aren't they focused on that?

This is your time to shine, guys. They blood dope for it and everything. It's like their favorite thing in the whole world. They forgot about it as well. Nobody remembered that there was a Winter Olympics. The reason why he hasn't invaded, he's like, oh shit. Nobody let me know? Why wasn't this in my Google calendar? I would have planned this better

they're just focusing on the the the you know the real olympics war right and i i was reading about how putin's been like kind of planning his economy to be able to handle the inevitable sanctions that the u.s would place on him because he knows that the u.s isn't going to like go into Ukraine and fight against him. So militarily, he's like NATO's going to sit there and like maybe do a buildup of troops. But like if I want to invade Ukraine, I'm going to invade Ukraine and take it. So it's really just like can Russia economically withstand the sanctions that we'll place on them, which Biden has threatened are going to be like above and beyond anything we've done before and they're also trying to like let him know like hey this we're giving ukraine a lot of weapons there might be more casualties on your side than you anticipate um and i think right now that's what putin's weighing um but you're right katie like from everything i've read this seems to be entirely about

what Putin's gonna decide to do and when and like we just have to sit and wait and that's kind of a thing that I mean I've never met a man so I can't speak oh you've never been? you've never met?

but from what I get he's a little bit of a scamp he's a little bit of an agent of chaos you know a little bit of a like a shit stirrer uh so i believe again from my limited perspective that he enjoys fomenting that like look uncertainty around his actions that's probably a big part of it. The insecurity, you know, people, I mentioned what Ukrainians, I mean, imagine how terrifying that is for them and the tensions being raised really high. And again, there are a lot of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. It's a muddy area.

So how can this, you know, weaken their government and weaken everybody? Like how can, well, yeah, probably a lot of Russians don't want this to happen too. Um, yeah,

probably a lot of Russians. It'll, there's like, there's like mass helplessness. Apparently the worst sanctions we're going to do. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Also is Putin like 120 years old or so? How is he always the leader of Russia? I'm sick. I do think of him as sort of like Slytherin. He's just built up an immunity to polonium. And so it made him stronger. Wow, he's only 69. Don't say it.

He's only 69? I mean, he looks like he's 40. I didn't say it. I said something else. That's only because you've mostly seen him shirtless on horseback that's gonna make anybody look 40 yeah yeah you're playing right into his hands by saying oh putin looks 40 he looks great he's or it's false i don't know that he maybe he does listen get him you know get him comfortable and then we strike with sanctions against his people, right? Yeah, and then horses and cannons straight from Alaska into Kamchatka.

Folks, once you're there, you got Yakuts, you got Irkuts. Come on. The old Risk board game really screwed up my knowledge of the nations of the world, and I needed Yakko Warner's Animaniacs song to really flip that for me in 93 that like really straightened me out although also quite dated yeah i won't i won't go through it that was most of the educational system in the 1990s animaniacs and risk and it worked

maybe was that now they banned all of the giants song then that one that was basically geography uh well there were two there were giant songs only one of them was mildly about geography and it was about one nation it's just about how one nation used to be called one thing now they're called another thing yeah the other thing was a a fable about a particle man so i don't think it was super educational okay guys we are going to take a real quick break for an ad from these sponsors but first a light-hearted joke hey folks you know water is a lot like milk in that you're supposed to drink at least eight glasses of it a day. And while it's pretty easy to get your milk in, personally, I like to chug it all at once, all eight ounces. It's best to just kind of like pound it out. Well, sometimes

it's not as easy to drink the proper amount of water that our bodies need. And this is why I want to tell you about a hydration product called Liquid IV. Not only does one stick with Liquid IV in 16 ounces of water hydrate you better than water alone, but it just makes drinking water a little bit more fun. Why? Because it comes in a bunch of great flavors like strawberry, pina colada, watermelon, and even caramel. No word yet on a milk flavor, but that just seems inevitable. Who doesn't crave a frothy glass of milk when thirsty? Personally, I find Liquid IV to be best right after a workout or

first thing in the morning. It also has three times the electrolytes of traditional sports drinks and features the vitamins B3, B5, B6, B12, and C. So just what the heck are you waiting for? Go on, grab yourself some Liquid IV in bulk nationwide at Costco or better yet, get 25% off when you go to liquidiv.com and use code MORENEWS at checkout. That's 25% off anything you order when you use promo code MORENEWS at liquidiv.com. Experience better hydration today at liquidiv.com. Promo code MORENEWS. All right, we're going to move on to our next topic of interest.

I think we are. I'm excited. The album flood, by the way. Yes. Sorry. We're going to talk about Trump for a little bit. And it's hard to talk about Donald Trump. We know.

We feel like a broken record. The raw sexual energy from just his name. Yeah, it's just powerful. It's distracting. Now, there's a giant. Folks, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Oh, gosh.

It's depressing to talk about him because we feel like a broken record it's impossible but we also have to talk about it because otherwise it's just happening and you're not yeah this is a new section called this fucking guy again or maybe it's called shrug what you're gonna do i don't know still beta test that one that one picture of trump shrugging where yeah like a little baby yeah so what has come to light this week is that trump's advisors in the last months of his presidency drafted two separate executive orders which would have ordered either the department of defense or the department of homeland security to seize voting machines and declare fraud in the 2020 election. At least one of those documents, which was never issued.

It's now in the possession of the January 6th House Committee investigating the insurrection. Just to be clear on what's happening right now, the January 6th panel is investigating whether or not the AG should bring charges against Trump. The investigation itself will not lead to anything from them other than a recommendation. And while this information is very helpful in presenting that case, it's truly very, very difficult to improve intent. I don't know. It's all frustrating. But how is it possible that someone who tried to undermine our election and do a coup is like pretty much certainly going to be the nominee for the next election? He's literally already campaigning. This news came against, I mean, I don't know the timeline. I guess as this news is breaking, he's having a rally.

His favorite safe space. I mean, honestly, I think this man just wants to campaign and not be president, but whatever. So he's at a rally and he stands up there and he's declaring that he would pardon the January 6th riders and encouraging people to take to the streets and protest and stand up he loves you know charges are brought against him but like against very pro we're talking about an investigation into him doing this exact same thing in to inciting a crowd, doubling down. And it does feel bad. It feels bad. It feels bad.

I was going to look for a different word. That's the word that came out. Yeah, I mean, it's a growing trend. And he's saying it louder and louder. And we've talked about maybe recently just like because he's doing these rallies now um and the people who the the everybody on the trump train all the all the politicians who are like i gotta do what that guy did he's a winner even though he lost um they're gonna listen to what he's saying and uh just repeat it uh in their own words They're going to try to take his talking points

because they think that's their viable path. Just like last week, like four days ago or something, there's a candidate for Michigan State Senate talking about how, just bring guns to polling places. The quote is, if we can't change the tide we need to be prepared to lock and load so you ask what can we do show up armed yeah and someone else was saying like if you suspect voter fraud unplug the machines it's it's so funny like it's not it's whatever just start beating it with a's whatever it's just like all this stuff

plugging it is gonna do it right well I mean I don't know but like it's just like tech support advice of have you tried turning it off and then just yeah yeah yeah yeah reboot it but just like every single situation all of these are just like yeah

they're so worried about this voter fraud thing and so they do it like they do it. Yeah. Like they do vote tampering because they're worried that people are tampering with the votes. Oh, good. The guy who said the gun thing is very vocal about how he's endorsed by Donald Trump. Oh, good for him. His banner says it.

That's nice. Oh, yeah. Good luck in Michigan. What a surprise development in this conversation. Great. says it oh yeah good luck development in this conversation maybe you're supposed to take the gun to the polling place because you know like you when you fill out like trump or biden you don't think it's filled in enough so if you take the gun and shoot through the hole that you're voting for that'll make it like really clear like or maybe you're an undecided voter so you bring a revolver and you have one bullet and you're

like I don't know there's six choices what's it gonna be and so you spin it and then um I guess like shoot into the air and if uh bullet uh is shot then you have to assign you have to assign exactly I had a time to assign who the bullet's for I imagine the bullet being shot would be Republican the bullet not being

shot would be Democrat yeah yeah um so it's just it's all about you know um just making the right decision in that booth being shot would be Republican, the bullet not being shot would be Democrat. Yeah. It's just all about making the right decision in that booth. One person, one vote. One bullet, one vote. Little tidbits about this story. I guess the idea of ordering a federal

agency to seize voting machines originated with Michael Flynn. Y'all remember Michael Flynn? And Phil Waldron, a former army colonel. Excuse me, it's General Michael Flynn. Oh, come on. It's called Respect.

Former General Michael Flynn? I think it's like Retired Lieutenant General. There's a couple. Disgraced clown Michael Flynn general criminal michael michael flint jr's father michael flint yeah um and then there's also the article from uh this is december 2020 that talks about how giuliani asked the dhs deputy secretary ken cucinelli if seizing voting machines was something they could do.

And that was before January 6th even happened. I love that question. Is this a thing we can do? I'm a lawyer, but what do you think? Speaking of Rudy Giuliani, this is what I wanted to get to. This whole segment is just setting us up for the big news of the day, which is that Rudy Giuliani has been unmasked in last week's taping of the masked singer. That's right.

Rudy Giuliani was on the masked singer and that caused judges, Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke to leave the stage in protest. Although they did come back on stage, not in protest, but under contract. Yeah yeah so that's right that's such a it's like one of those like disappointing uh reactions to something that's like an amazing opportunity um i'm not familiar with the max mask senior that much it seems like a fake show that is like a black mirror light sort of thing oh yeah this is like a this is

society now it's just the tone whenever i see a clip i'm like this is deeply uncomfortable to watch um this is very weird so i don't know like sorry tom ryman used to write columns about it and i would just consume it that way and i would let him tell me about it like it's a fictional thing he made up perfect as it should be um it does feel dystopian so i don don't know necessarily what they unmask themselves, and then they banter with the judges, I assume, for a little bit about the song. None of us have seen it.

I don't know. They all sing with the big costume and the mask on, and then when they lose, the weakest singers have to unmask, and they all guess. Like, is it Colin J jost is it you know uh guy fieri and then it's rudy it's rudy giuliani under under there okay nobody gets that immediately yeah but like uh but like in that situation like instead of walking out be like hey rudy uh do you feel like do you think it was smart to like

ask about seizing voting machines like bring this kind of stuff up right to his face on camera you're doing it's like audience there make him very uncomfortable instead of like oh we walked out and it but then we came back and that's that's the story uh and I don't expect like fucking like Robin Thicke to do that yeah you would be sleepy eyes Chuck Todd to be one of the massing and even then so why is it

maybe good actually that you did that or like perhaps you have an example of like a democrat who did it that I can bring up what if like Robin Thicke tried to grill Rudy Giuliani and then Rudy Giuliani reallyiani really effectively grilled robin yeah about his stuff yes exactly right like robin for some reason really knows about giuliani and all the things he's done over the years and and he was ready for juliana's ready for it it's like i've listened to your song. I know what you've done. My hot take on this is kind of like whatever. I certainly do not support the rehabilitation of monsters, blah, blah, blah.

But is this a rehabilitation? What this actually is, is somebody going on stage and acting like a fucking fool a little bit. It's a little bit embarrassing he's got to go and it's a little bit embarrassing is it though same like this is uh well this is four seasons total landscaping this is uh right this is like your hair is bleeding onto your face costume and having him parade around in a mask and sing oh i know it just seems like in order to like being on dancing with the stars right but in order to be embarrassed or an embarrassing thing you have to have shame shame and like it feels like a thing where he's like yeah i i got on tv i got attention and i

probably got paid right i don't know if you get paid but he definitely gets attention i mean it's obviously some a desperation of wanting to be relevant in some way. Oh, yeah. And no, I'd prefer if they're not. But to me, the only thing he's doing up there is looking like a dumb. He's also a monster who, if I remember how that show works in general, is dressing up like an actual literal monster. Yeah.

Aren't they all like huge animals and stuff? He was dressed up like Sidney Powell. It's. Yeah, no, they're like, again, it's like these sort of like big dystopian like costume mask sort of things that i mean they're huge there's yeah the more people feel like he's a kaiju i think that's probably good i guess i don't know like like ridiculous costumes anyway we don't have to talk about this anymore um i mean it's definitely like a degrading thing. And like most reality TV, it just seems like it brushes off of him.

Right. Like he's still he's still kicking. He's still he's still doing this kind of stuff. But also, but I do agree that like whatever I it's clear, like nobody's learned anything. It's it's not it's like ridiculous that this show uh asked him to be on the show and thought it was a good idea um and it'll keep happening fucking you know after trump's second term uh he'll be on one of these shows and it's it's so wild that trump is like slam dunk the next nominee like i i try to find ways this stuff is fun and and it's gotta find on some level that

every other republican is deeply less popular than donald trump it is very funny the worst grossest weirdest president we've ever had is more popular than every member of the republican and yet somehow they will win back the senate in a few months um yeah the closest i think is uh de santis is like the closest to like i guess if we have to if it can't be trump who we love then then like there's this other guy who's just like trying to pretend to be trump and like not the worst at it like everyone's bad at it but he's not the worst at it nobody's nobody's gonna come out and push back against Donald Trump if he wants to run right Jonathan let's

go through some broken news stories real quick let's do it whoopee Goldberg has more like whoopsie Goldberg a thank you thank you thank you more like whoopee cushion because she's funny

sorry no it's fine we everyone knows what i'm about to say she's been suspended from the video for two weeks after she said on monday's episode that the holocaust was not about race she said holocaust is about man's inhumanity to man uh since uh it was about two white groups of people uh she apologized hours later on twitter saying i should have said it was about two white groups of people. She apologized hours later on Twitter, saying, I should have said it is about both. She shared a quote from Jonathan Greenblatt from the ADL that said the Holocaust was about the Nazi systematic annihilation of the Jewish people, who they deemed to be an inferior race.

I stand corrected. Lots of things here. Obviously, she's very wrong, and we should talk about that. I did appreciate, I thought her apology was pretty good um and i've seen a lot of people sharing the take you know i'm not jewish seeing a lot of my jewish friends sharing the perspective of yeah we we accept that it's a complicated thing that people are unpacking. I appreciate that she learned. And I think it's ridiculous that she was then suspended for two weeks. Like she actually took accountability for it. So I don't know. I'm just sharing that perspective. But there

is obviously so much wrong with what she said and is a big problem. and yeah you can tie that back to how we don't want to talk about history how we are misremembering basic facts because yeah the holocaust is about race people view yeah jewish as a race um and it is complicated because you can choose you can convert you know you can you can choose to become a part of it. But there is a racial factor. But they viewed, like, that's the thing, the Nazis viewed it as such. Right, they viewed it as a race. And that's why it is a racial thing.

I mean, there's a reason the term the master race makes you think of Nazis. And it's interesting, too, because it was about race for them. And it was also about man's inhumanity to man. One could say the same thing about like most atrocities like this. Right. Like slavery was about race and man's inhumanity to man. Right. It's both things.

It's like it's like both things. Right. Isn't isn't like racism about that, too? Is it racism? It's about. Yeah. Yeah. And also the Nazis

took a lot of cues from America's system of slavery and how they developed their policies so maybe there's something there too that more people should know about and understand about how our country was formed and grew and then influenced

other atrocities around a better way to handle this situation would be to continue to have the conversation to then the next day instead of Whoopi being suspended for two weeks because it's not like she's doubling down. She's saying oh I stand corrected.

Continue to explore that. Have people on to talk about those connections to unpack that a little bit more. I think that's a little bit of a missed opportunity. that would be a bit of a missed opportunity to let yeah let her talk more especially because she like she seems to understand the error i don't mean to be like also like only when it's people we don't agree with completely that we say you get kicked off of something well yeah also like i just wouldn't describe like i've seen people like oh they're canceling whoopie well suspended for two weeks is what that's not i

mean unless for some reason that's a stepping stone to being fired but right but like the word canceled is very explicitly like right right that's there's a reason that's the that's the word that's used um i've saw a lot of people like well if they're gonna do that they should bring like bring back gina carano and like there's these situations where also like in a lot of these situations the person doesn't understand and apologize in a way that people are accept and it makes clear that like oh yeah you do understand so it's just like seems like floundering to find like a reason i don't know i don't know what i'm saying anymore the idea that like swapping goldberg for carano like it's a

prisoner exchange or something is very right don't get it she spent her for two weeks put dita carano back on the mandalorian uh side note i still just think it's hilarious that people do that where it's like did you think that she was really good on the show are you really are you like a cara dune super fan or is it just this sort of culture war like thing that you have to pretend i saw a fucking tweet like something about like oh who was the oh who's the bad example it's like something about neil young and like they picked some dog shit band to be like clearly like they're better than neil young it's like kid rock or something like he's more talented it's like i just love when you have to or something they yeah they just get in these like the back into

a corner where like they have to pretend this person is like really talented and they've always loved them or this other like really talented person is like they're actually not that good because i disagree with them and it's like you can say they're good and you disagree you can say that this person you want to defend their freedom of speech or whatever and also they're not a good actress and like it was i don't know it's so it's a mess and with media too like this entire whoopee story of this maybe i'm like out of touch with what the rest of the country loves but like what is the view what is it for what do they do on that show like i thought i thought it was a chat show and sometimes they interview people and apparently they tried to like come up with new takes on the holocaust yeah so yeah that's a great question what is the format of that tv show

that's like jeopardy right how are we talking about this now as a product of a conversation on the view like because because the apprentice i know how all of the rest of this happened it's because one guy sucks but like like what are the segments on the view what is it for like i thought it was during the day and then and then some interesting stuff gets talked about it's ladies having opinions i guess i mean yeah they were talking about what we talked about last week they were talking about matt uh mouse the graphic novel being uh banned in that one by that one school board in tennessee and talking about holocaust education

and stuff and i think joy behar someone was like well yeah this all ties in with how we teach about the holocaust how we teach about race and Whoopi Goldberg was like well wait no no no these are like two separate things so that's how like they the view and I only know this because there will be a segment from the view that like goes viral once a month I think more

often when Meghan McCain was there yes because she would say stuff that would really throw the other panelists but they do like they bring in like about her fun events uh yeah they would talk about her dad a lot whoever that is but yeah all right jonathan let's do one more broken news story before we get on out of here i think you know what it's gonna be. I do. It's about the boars. About the boars.

According to an article this week in the New York Times. That's what we're calling all these roaming Teslas. Oh yeah, this is all a Tesla story. Yeah, feral pigs in the San Francisco Bay area are apparently, this is a quote, tearing up lawns, ripping through golf course fairways, threatening the drinking water, and disturbing the harvests at Napa Vineyards.

Many Californians want them dead. Haven't us Californians been through enough without the feral hogs making their way to our precious golf courses? Yeah. Do we know where they are teleporting from? Or is it like, have we traced these rats? Yeah, are there like, I haven't seen anything on like any sort of trace elements or like, like usually they leave, there's like a signal you can sort of detect and then triangulate from there where it came from.

But I don't know if they got that information because they're playing golf. They're not going to have those devices on hand. I'm reading the quote. I'm sorry. Jonathan included something from this article that I want to read. The Times says there is a feral swine bomb

going on in the United States at the moment. And here's what they wrote. For decades, feral swine bomb going on in the united states of the of the moment and here's what they wrote for decades feral swine armed with their knife sharp tusks that protrude from snouty mouths have torn up fields of corn peanut and cotton in wide swaths of texas in the south causing what the u.s department of agriculture estimates is two and a half billion in damage every year uh a mighty a military fighter jet was wrecked several decades ago after a collision with two wild pigs on a runway in florida weighing hundreds of pounds they can be extremely dangerous and in rare cases have attacked and killed humans well we know that but gosh i love their knifearp tusks that protrude from their snouty mouths. I mean, you gotta be clear on who we're dealing with.

We're no longer doing, you know, pro-boar propaganda. Now it's anti-boar propaganda, and they're being very clear. We must fear them. They do have knife-sharp tusks that protrude from their snouty mouths. Let's bookmark this for our next Bora episode. When I was copying down this when I was copying down this quote do you has anyone here

listened to hardcore history in the past not recently yeah there's a there's a podcast called hardcore history with Dan Carlin and he reads quotes like this and I just picture reading it in his voice and like finishing it with estimates 2.5 billion in damage every year end quote you know

oh yeah yeah no it's it's always the uh quote and again for decades feral swine armed with their knife sharp tusks uh yeah he's very he's like throaty and also breathy uh it's very entertaining i can i can listen to that man like read scary quotes like over and over and that's and i i would love to get him to to read this one that'd be that'd be amazing i have a two minute clip of me doing dan carlin from hardcore history describing the events of the phantom menace as if he's telling like the history of war now this is pod racing um it's uh i love his voice it's so good all right i think that does it for us this week but boy it's it's been fun uh alex thank you so much for joining us uh tell our listeners where they can find you online and where they can check

out your podcast and your work etc thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much. Oh, your camera's not on. Are you okay? My computer just fell. I'll turn the camera. Which bore was it? Describe them.

Describe the bore. Snouty. He was snouty. Self-driving bores. Snouty could be any of them. That could be any of the bores. I, I, yeah, nowdy could be any of them. That could be any of them, of course! I make a podcast called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. Thank you so much for the

kind words about it and for guesting and being so good on it. Anytime. I hope people check it out. We take one thing people think is ordinary, talk about why it's amazing and fascinating. The very latest one is about The Legend of Zelda games, which is probably the most upfront exciting topic ever. Oh, yeah. And before that, it was

bricks, bananas. The next one's going to be wool. It's things that are around you that you could be more excited about. There's a lot of interesting facts about all this stuff. Way more than you'd ever imagine. And yeah. And I've been listening to Zelda soundtracks all

the time now because of researching it. It turns out the music is amazing. I had never heard of the games. Oh, it's very good. Very good music. Yeah, incredible. A lot of the themes from Ocarina of Time are like locked in. They're very good. And also, let our listeners know your Twitter handle or wherever

where they can find you. There's no moon theme from DuckTales the game, but they're good. Sorry, go ahead. They can find you. And Alex Schmitty on DuckTales, the game, but they're good. Sorry, go ahead. They can find you. And Alex Schmitty on Twitter and alexschmitty.com. And then it's at SifPod for all the secretly incredibly fascinating. Do it. Follow the things. Do it.

Check out the podcast. And really, really thank you for having me, especially for a boar story. I don't know. There's something about it. You know, that's classic. It's such a thrill to have you here. The good days. We'll have you back. There was only one only one board as much as you'll come back

all right guys have a great weekend and remember we love you very much we really do