Some More News - Some More News: Car Ownership and Car Insurance Are Kind Of A Giant Racket

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

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Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name's Katie Stoll and I'm wearing a hat. That is so true, Katie. Thank you so much for that little factoid about yourself and for that wonderful introduction to the show. Not to me, who is Cody though. Hi, I'm Cody. He is Cody though, hi. Not wearing a hat, Johnston.

Not today. Jonathan is also here. Hi, I'll leave it to the listeners who aren't watching to guess whether or not I'm wearing a hat. Post your comments and your bets. Well, they can't post comments if they're just listening. So if you're watching, close your eyes. They can leave comment on like what, like Apple podcasts or like?

I guess they can. Give us a review about whether or not you think Jonathan's wearing a hat. Give us a review. Five stars, nice hat, end of review. But also include the amount of money that you're betting on whether or not Jonathan's wearing a hat. Well, what's, with that, what's our top topic today, Jonathan? Former president Joe Biden has aggressive Metastatic prostate cancer apparently he just got

Diagnosed with this the other day apparently it's a it's a very serious Aggressive cancer it's in his bones. That's like that's Rough it's very painful. There have been some Suggestions probably not credible but suggestions that oh he There have been some suggestions, probably not credible, but suggestions that, oh, he must have been diagnosed with this years ago if it's now in his bones and they kept this hidden from the American people. You'll find plenty of doctors who say that this is quite common, that people will feel fine, then they'll start having some some urinary problems and they will

be diagnosed with this very aggressive cancer later than thought. So this story does not necessarily fold into the existing Biden discourse. But it doesn't necessarily fold out of it either. It's all just a part of the conversation of this person being very old and obviously failing for a very long time, whether that had to do with his cancer diagnosis or not is kind of irrelevant to me when it was just very clear for so many of us. And also we are seeing more and more reports of how bad it was before anything happened before he

dropped out of the race. So that's irregardless of the cancer diagnosis, but no, people can have cancer and not know it for a very long time. This isn't news to anybody. And it is hard to talk. It's not hard to talk about this. It's another one of those situations where multiple things can be true, which is that this sucks. This is a terrible diagnosis and a very painful one. And I don't wish anybody to be going through pain. I hate that we have been dismantling funding for cancer research. It will devastate his family. And I don't like the man at all. And I hate that the Democratic Party

let this clown show go on for as long as it did. I hate the mess that they created. I hate the mess that he created. I hate what he's done to fucking Palestine. I hate so much about him. So multiple things can be true. Yeah, that's true. We don't, uh, I agree with all y'all completely y'all. What I'm doing. There's a,

yeah, we'll get more information as the days go by, maybe in the months go by, uh, cancer sucks. And, um, he did say that he was going to try to cure it by the end of his term. Um, noble cause. I think it's, we're just gonna see so much nasty stuff and reasonable stuff, because as you mentioned, Katie, there's all this reporting about, uh, his age and ability to do the job at that age. And a lot of that reporting is coming from people who did the covering up, which is also frustrating, maybe a different conversation, but I'm not, Oh, we'll be having that conversation soon.

I don't like, you know, like Jake Tapper out there, like, well, they were, they were trying to hide from everybody saw it. Um, we all knew what was going on. It was very, very obvious. In 2019, during one of the debates, it was even pointed out, like, you just forgot what you were saying, Joe, like it's whatever. There's that, and then there's this,

and it's just hard to talk about without sort of thinking, like, okay, but they've just been hiding everything and trying to protect it. But also at the same time, it's like, okay, but they're just, they've just been hiding everything and like trying to protect it. But also at the same time, it's like, well, yeah, if you were, like, I don't expect, this isn't a, this is presented as like, oh, the Dems are such, oh my God, the Dems are doing this and like,

this is why you should leave the Democratic Party. All parties and politicians would have done exactly this. Oh, 100%. If they're like, you can slap an R on this, slap a D on this. Sorry for saying that out loud. Slap a D on it. Like there's no world where a political party

didn't do this and try to like, well, we can't let people know that like our guy who's the president who we can't like get rid of is getting a little old and slowly dying in front of us. But it still is bad, and maybe they should have dealt with it early on. But specifically Joe Biden is, what a fuck up, Joe. What a bad, what a bunch of series

of terrible, terrible decisions that got us to this point that you're out there now being like, well, I gave it my best, I think I would have won. Fuck off, Joe. But also sorry about your cancer. Regardless of when the diagnosis happened or not, this is what we're talking about when we say that we shouldn't have ancient people running everything.

Because that's when you die. That's when you start to develop incurable conditions, when your body starts to fail. So you start losing a step or two. Whether or not he had it, whatever. Good chance he would have developed something within the four years of winning the presidency. Good chance Donald Trump, the unhealthiest man alive,

also will develop something during the terms of his presidency. So instead of focusing on the, ah, Dems, nitty gritty, like, ah, you did this, parsing out the little details, how about we step back and have actual conversation about age limits? When is it appropriate for someone to take a step back from the workforce in general? We've got so many old, old, old people getting diag- working in public service, our congresspeople, fill in the blank, you guys follow me, who are too old, who are too old and will be getting diagnosed with things and having strokes. And it's a problem. And who also aside, like there's obviously,

those are all true issues. And you also, because you're that age, many, most, all don't really know how to contend with a lot of the legislation that they should maybe be writing and sort of contending with the modern age and technology with like I don't know if we're gonna talk about this today or later later in the week but like all these sort of restrictions on like we can't regulate AI the first 10 years

like all these sort of things like no we should be regulating AI now but they don't understand what even is going on so So there's, it's a lot of problems with it. I don't want to be extremely ageist in this conversation. I understand that some people are very sharp and on top of things later in life and all of that. And I think there was room for that conversation, but we just have to be very, very realistic here about what we're talking about.

Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult to talk about what's going on in the Democratic Party with Joe Biden and what's going on in the Republican Party with Donald Trump and act as if they're on this same level. But of course, since this diagnosis came out and we're having this conversation about Biden's cognitive abilities. Anything that is brought up about the other side is like, well, you're just playing in what about-ism. We went the last week, we talked about other stuff, we weren't talking about Trump's clear

cognitive decline. It comes off as like trying to equate these two things. But the two sides are held to very different standards. Trump's doctors' reports for years have just been like, this is the healthiest man we've ever seen. He had that weird doctor that they did a profile of, then later said, he's like, yeah, they just wrote something and I signed off on it, I'm a doctor, right?

Like, it's completely absurd. Trump will if he lives long enough, God willing. One in eight men eventually get diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I think all men, if they lived long enough, would get it, right? If people just kept going and nothing else happened, everyone would get it at some point. It's just something that's going to happen inevitably. As we age, with some people it happens in their 70s and 80s. Biden is in his 80s

Donald Trump is 78 Donald Trump clearly has myriad health problems that we don't know about No, they're perfect results. Perfect. Well, we're never seen a healthier man I mean I don't know if I came on the show and the first words out of my mouth were about how I aced a cognitive exam That is given to determine what level of dementia you're at No, I didn't I I got a three out of five on the how are you doing? a cognitive exam that is given to determine what level of dementia you're at. No, I didn't. I got a three out of five on the, how are you doing?

That's why you weren't talking about it, okay. Right. Inevitably, because the Democratic party screwed up so much and let this get so far and that Biden and his advisors hid stuff for a long time, it's inevitable that we're getting the Jake Tapper book talking about how Clooney was like shook to his core. Of course we're getting, I haven't listened to it yet,

the Robert Herr audio that, you know, when that happened a year ago or however long it was, all we had was a little bit of footage of I think Obama putting his hand on Bynes back and walking him off stage. And we were like, oh, that's it. That just looks like a guy putting his hand on another guy's back.

Turns out he couldn't get off that stage on his own and didn't know to leave, and they had to help him. They hid this, and now they're paying the price for it, when of course what we should be talking about is the guy ranting about Springsteen an hour before he's talking to Putin. Maybe we should move on and talk about that guy. Yeah, yeah, we can talk other stuff, before he's talking to Putin. Maybe we should move on and talk about that guy. Yeah.

Yeah, we can talk other stuff. Because it is just new news. And we're going to get more information. And people are going to be doing their little lies and their little truths. And it's going to be gross in a lot of ways, probably. Probably not grosser than what's going on in Gaza. So I don't know. I don't know, Joe.

They're just gonna clear it out and Trump wants to relocate a million Palestinians to Libya. So maybe Joe Biden would or wouldn't have done that. Who knows, who cares? Probably wouldn't have, but also, yeah, who cares? Who knows what he would have done? I don't think that I could, I don't see a world where Joe Biden has the fortitude or the strength of will to say to Israel,

no, we're not doing that. Oh, literally, he wouldn't. Because he would just roll over and show him his belly. Israelis admitted that he never asked for a ceasefire. They never put any pressure whatsoever. They were never, whatever the the phrase was working tirelessly. Just wasn't happened. They lied to us about it. And we have to deal with the ramifications on getting trust back. Killing American journalists? That's okay. Killing journalists at all? That's okay. Sure. Joe Biden. Like Donald Trump said on Truth Social, Melania and I are wishing him the best and hope for a full and speedy recovery. Yeah. Also, like David Axelrod said, conversations about Biden's mental acuity should be more

muted and set aside for now as he's struggling through this. Okay. Don't talk about it, folks. Don't talk about it. All right. So the FBI director, Kash Patel, FBI deputy director, Dan Bong Director Dan Bongino, I forget. We talked about him a month ago, I forgot how it's pronounced. They gave an interview to Fox News and they were asked about Epstein. What really happened with Epstein? It's very clear that Cash Patel and Dan B thought-

Danny B. That they were going to get into the FBI and immediately see all the hidden evidence and all that stuff. They were true believers. They were ready for it. They're on Fox News and they say, you know, there's not really a there there. He killed himself. That's all there is to it. You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don't believe it. Well, I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion, but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know, a suicide when you see one. And that's what that was. They killed himself.

And MAGA is not happy about this. They're part of the deep state. Well, they're Democrat chills or whatever. Now you see. This is always what was going to happen when you have these conspiracy guys who are just like radio shock jocks more or less and what Patel is. Literally. And is, yeah, literally.

And then Cash Patel and his little don't mess with the king, buddy, book for kids or whatever. You have people like that, and then once they get in the actual positions where they have to be responsible people, right? You get into, I mean, you know, I think their behavior will vary on that front in terms of responsibility.

It's a serious job for serious people. Uh, like most of these jobs that these weirdos are getting, they're serious jobs for serious people. And it seems like they sort of got a lot more information and a little on the inside and like, Oh right. This is a serious job for serious people. We can't just be like, I think actually that the government hit gold on it. Like, there are just so many things that they have said over the years that they didn't have any evidence for, just wild conspiracy speculation. And yeah, they're in a position now where they're like, oh, here's the real information or like, oh, here are the consequences

of that. Of giving the real information or like, oh, here are the consequences of that. Of giving the real information. Yeah, and so, or of like, here are the consequences of like lying to everybody all the time or all of that whole world they were a part of and now they're stepping their foot into this other world of adults. And I think they're just like, oh, right, things happen.

And like, we need to like take this job a little seriously. It seems to me, though, a bunch of these guys are knowing grifters. Benny Johnson is just a grifter and he'll say whatever. I was under the impression that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino really believed this stuff. Like, they were in. So were they just grifters, or are they

dealing with any level of cognitive dissonance now? Because they didn't go on Maria Bartiromo and say the Democrats must have destroyed the evidence. No, they didn't. They said, there's no there there, Epstein killed himself. They were convinced by the evidence that we all- They were very serious. Exactly.

They weren't even winking or anything. It was just like, no, straightforwardly just like, the only time you've ever seen them make a normal serious face. So but here's my point. What this indicates is maybe Trump said, do you have to dig into this Epstein thing that much? There's so much other deep state stuff. Go at that. Move on, move on. And they said, yes, sir.

Maybe we'll listen to you and not dig up Epstein stuff anymore. Kind of give that vibe to me. I don't know. It's interesting. Not that they would have any sort of self-reflection, but you would think there would be some sort of a, look, I believed all this. I was deep into it.

I was wrong. Instead of like, no, guys, don't look over here. It's fine. I checked it out. There's no acknowledgement of the torch that they've been carrying for years. There's no. Well that's not in the cards, they can't do that. They're never gonna be able to do that.

Maybe not, but it just feels like such an abrupt turn that it, yeah. Makes me more suspicious. Well they're gonna release those Epstein files any day now, so they already did right? They gave it. They're doing it again. It's a Chyra chick walking out. Yeah, she got the binder They're they're doing another round though. They keep talking they keep mentioning how they're gonna do it around They found another one by Trump's bathroom

That is a that is a good point though. That is a potential explanation. I Mean I got you. Yeah, that is also speculation obviously, but like I you know now that you said it's like yeah I guess I was giving them too much credit You know for like what of course they're not like serious people. What are you talking about? Look at him look at any picture of cash Patel and his face that he makes There it is. I can't I can't open my eyes. So yeah. So yeah, there are a lot of possibilities there, but it is funny how is just a I like

Trump 2.0 in so many ways. It's just it's a fell for it again. A word factory just cracked up to 12. It's quite a quite's quite a show. They're like the inverse of that succession line. I love you, but you're not, but it's I hate you and you are not serious people.

And you're not serious people, yeah. From us to them. Hate you and, yeah. I just hear clown music so often in my head these days. Like reading these stories here, I hear du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du. It is true what I'm saying. I hear it a do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. It is true what I'm saying, I hear it a lot.

I'm losing my mind. No. Are you okay, Katie? Is everything okay? Do do do do do do do do. You're doing a bit of a Cash Patel face right now, Katie. Yeah. Are you sure?

Are you okay? Should we talk about how much Trump's birthday parade is gonna cost? Yeah, I do wanna talk about that. Yeah Up to so dumb. So maybe not this much but up to 45 million dollars It's for the 250th anniversary of the army But it's also going to happen on his 79th birthday on June 14th, which I think is also flag day So a lot a lot going on there. Donald Trump was born on flag day

This is so absurd, especially when we're talking about slashing budgets for programs, literally killing people all over the world in the name of saving money. It's a fraud, but we're gonna spend this astronomical amount on a fucking parade. No, it's a lot of money. His one from a few years ago was gonna cost even more. So they got rid of some of the waste, fraud, and abuse a lot of money. His one from a few years ago was going to cost even more.

So they got rid of some of the waste fraud and abuse in that previous parade. Good. Finally, we dozed Trump's birthday military parade. To have this one. According to the Washington Post, the parade will involve dozens of warplanes. This is a quote from them. Dozens of warplanes, hundreds of army vehicles, and thousands of soldiers from across the country sleeping in downtown government office buildings an army spokesperson said Thursday. So look

we're contributing to the economy we're sending money around going to I assume those soldiers and those hotels and the government buildings and the military contractors. They're being asked to fund their own transportation. We got a hotel guy don't worry about it we also got a car guy there too, so don't worry about it. They're gonna be sleeping in the empty cyber trucks. Yeah, exactly. As far as the guys can, you know what we could do? We've got all these cyber trucks sitting on lots

that can't be sold. They're metal, you could easily put solar panels on them and then just turn these Tesla lots into solar panel fields. Yeah, fields and solar panels. This might really, we could solve the housing crisis. Mobile solar panel. We don't want them on the road, nevermind.

Oh, right, so people live in the cyber trucks and they're solar powered, and so we're solving a bunch of things that, as we know, Elon Musk cares about, housing, climate change. Yeah. We can dump some of the dirt from those hollowed out tunnels in there. It's cruel to make people live in a cyber truck,

specifically. Or drive or be near one. Or be near one or look at one and think about them. It's much less spacious than you would imagine for that hulking piece of metal. Yeah, it's very stupid. Maybe they can use the metal to cover the streets of D.C. to protect, because they have to do that

to protect from the tanks. Because if you have tanks going through the road, you can't do that, They're gonna destroy the road So they do they do have to lay down metal to protect the the streets for this parade It the streets get ripped up like in Goldfinger when he drives the tank through the streets of Minsk We can ask Dave I'm sure he knows cool very fun Something for us all to look forward to. Yeah, it's very silly, because also it's one of those things

where he can't even do a fascist parade, right? It's about him. It's not even like we're gonna do this big military parade about our might and we're gonna do all the... It's just like, no, I want a birthday party and I'll tie it to the military because that's easy to sell to the stupid American people but I

Don't know something about it's like it's your birthday man. So weird. What a gross thing. They're playing It's your birthday We're gonna have a big parade. I'm sorry. Well, yeah, there's a number of federal agencies that are not prepared for natural disasters because of cuts that have happened. A new report released by FEMA says they're not ready for hurricane season. FEMA cut emergency training last week. Also the National Weather Service has been without critical overnight

support at a lot of places that have recently had tornadoes. In Kentucky and Missouri, I think 27 people died in a recent rush of tornadoes. They did call in emergency people to fill in the gaps, but so many of these national weather service offices no longer have overnight support. And so as natural disasters tick up, as we know they do every year now, things are looking ugly because the federal government no longer seems to want to aid people. They want to shift it all to the states and let the chips and the tornadoes fall. And something that feels like it will compound over time, you know, as states get more and more tapped out, more and more people slipping through the cracks.

Pick your poison in terms of which state to talk about how this would affect them based on their natural disasters. But right now Los Angeles is, for example, really struggling, it turns out, in terms of soil testing. There is extremely high levels of lead and toxins in the soil and nobody's testing or having the conversation of what to do about it. In the meantime, these areas have been opened up. Children are being affected by it.

It's totally terrifying. And they're waiting out, holding holding out hoping for FEMA funding, but FEMA funding is not coming, so then the state funds it. Okay, but where's that money coming from? It's all a very big deal. In areas affected by the Eaton Fire, which is in Northeast Los Angeles,

FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers apparently just removed the top six inches of top soil and called it a day. But then new independent testing has found that 80% of the soil in the area has lead above the recommended levels, arsenic, I think. And this is where people live, where people have to have moved back in, have to trust that their government is taking care of them. And you're right, Katie, no matter where in this country you live, there's something that happens there

that there's going to be less federal support for, which there has always been. It impacts blue states, it impacts red states. I mean, hurricanes are gonna, the hurricane season started like, is it? I mean, I don't know. Hurricane season is approaching rapidly. And also, I don't know, with climate change and everything being so extreme, what even is a season anymore?

Stuff happens. But no, we are good. We are entering the height of the hurricane season. You know, in one detail that we have here noted for us is specifically, again with LA, but the Pasadena Unified School District apparently announced this week that they did independent testing, yes,

and found elevated levels of lead and heavy metals in nearly 50% of their schools' outdoor spaces. And think about that. These children are back at schools and it's this contamination. This is exposure to this is bad for all of us full stop, but especially children. It terrifies me to think about what diseases

and developmental problems we will be seeing five, ten years from now, when you've put some distance between the events and the almost inevitable health outcomes. And you would think that because all of these states, including red states, are affected, and that local officials are saying, please don't make these states, including red states, are affected and that local officials are saying, please don't make these cuts, you would think that Republicans in Congress would want to stop these level of cuts, that would want to shore up support for these emergency systems. But they're afraid of Trump, so they're not doing that. Um, and there's, I think there's starting to be a real disconnect from, um, Republicans in state leadership in Louisiana and Arkansas, in Florida, et cetera.

Not that I'm going to stick up for Ron DeSantis here, but like, there's this real disconnect of like, Hey, you're taking away our ability to do the basic building blocks of government in our Society and Republicans in Congress are like well We're we can't have him coming after us Springsteen can take it we can't they're like we've got our hands full trying to take away Medicaid from people Yeah, they've they've sort of been chasing this idea For so long of like well any government is bad and the worst thing was the the writing quote about like the worst thing you can hear. And so they've been chasing

this sort of idea that like, yeah, any government's bad, you don't need you don't need the government. It's all a waste, all frauds, all abuse, and so on and so forth. Now they're getting the point like, well, there are some things that are necessary. I would argue that more things are necessary, but there are some things that are just like baseline. Like, no, this is just like what the government should be doing, Republican or Democrat or whoever. And they're, yeah, they're hitting this point where it's like, well, okay, but the president

says we're doing this and the other president is saying we've got to get rid of the waste of abuse and fraud and everything the government is bad. So what happens when people who voted for you are struggling or suffering or live in any area of the United States that needs something like this. And one point I want to quickly make is that states do have significant budget constraints that the federal government doesn't. I mean, I know that they do. But they don't really, because they print money. And if they need money for emergencies, they can print it.

And there are bonds and such and such. But I don't think the state of Louisiana can print money and get people you know get the cavalry there to help with a disaster the way the federal government can so Trump's whole thing of like why can't the states just handle it they've got things like yeah they've got things but they don't have the National Guard and the Army engineers and the infrastructure economy isn't like Louisiana bucks like they're like, that's not like every state. Yeah, it's the whole thing is pretty bad. Pretty bad. And John, like you're saying, I think some people are realizing, oh, so we can't do anything that we're supposed to do that we need to do. We're getting rid of not just like the services and things you need to do after an emergency, but also all the services and the data that you collect and that you provide

for people before the disaster happens. All the weather service stuff, everything that they're removing just makes it harder for everybody to do their job. And that seems like a bad idea. I agree with you completely. But we got that cool parade this summer. Heck yeah, we do. So that's not gonna cause any problems. Do you think that's gonna cause like a lot of problems actually?

Maybe they can be deployed right from the parade to wherever a disaster has just struck. Okay, guys, I think that does it for us this week. Real quick, real quick, before we go, I wanna shout out the hat that I'm wearing. It says Public Lands and Public Hands, and it was made by my friend, Katie. She's got a little Etsy shop,

and proceeds are being donated to support outdoor alliance to help protect our parks. And anyway, I think it's a cute hat. I like the cause. If you want to buy one for yourself, her little handle is mountains calling 13. So you can check it out. Okay guys, that's it for us.

We will be back later this week. A couple times. So we'll do that. A couple times, yeah. Too many times? It's just enough times. Just enough times. We love you very much. Just enough news, much.