Some More News - Tennessee "Democracy", San Francisco "Crime", and Even More Gardens "of" Evil with Robert Evans

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Hi. Today Katy and Cody are joined by Robert Evans to talk about the Tennessee legislature's attempts at democratic destruction, Clarence Thomas' attempts at ethical deterioration, and tech centrists' attempts at narrative criminal fantasy. Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews  Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949  SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh    Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1  Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news   Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  What's better than getting one pair of Shady Rays and not worrying if you break or lose them? Getting two! Go to https://shadyrays.com/morenews and use code morenews and for a limited time, when you buy one pair of Shady Rays, you'll get a second pair FREE.

yeah no welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast different intro today i guess perfectly different introduction my name is katie stole What's your name again? Katie Stoll. That's a Blink-182 reference. Yeah. Hi. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow, Cody. Well done. Well done. Very proud. Good coming at ya. That's right.

I'm Cody Johnston. Welcome to me on the show. And with us as this time. I'm Robert Evans, and I'm here to bring you the news that aliens exist. Another Blink-182 song. Right. And I think those are all the ones we can name those are all the ones there are i'm certainly drawing yeah what's my age again the aliens exist and then the you know say it ain't so song that's it that's that's all i got yeah the sweater song

the sweater song i don't know what that one is not weezer that's weezer yeah that's that seems right now weezer definitely in the top 48 fans of the 90s oh yeah uh my maybe even the top fans maybe the top 45 that sounds like a rolling stone article oh that's right robert evans is here with us today i am it's gonna be the day sorry we're having a good time yeah yeah everybody's everybody's happy oh not for long actually we'll see we can stay happy we can keep this going all the news has been good lately right yeah yeah some of it good is is relative, I think. Before we get to that, let's talk about some holidays.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Everyone's favorite part of the show. Tasty. Oh, April 13th. Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Oh. Happy birthday, old man.

That doesn't feel like a holiday. Yeah. April 13th is the last day of Passover. Perhaps should have said that before thomas jefferson's birthday but i know less about passover than i do about thomas jefferson's birthday do you know much about thomas jefferson's birthday well i know that we sing the birthday song oh yeah i don't think yeah you know i know that uh he was born and he was a he died that's oh you're nailing it i'm not sure why we celebrate it i we don't know that he was born and he died. You're nailing it. I'm not sure why we celebrate it.

We don't know that we do. I don't think that we do. I've never heard of anyone celebrating Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Well, it was included in my notes. April 14th, National Gardening Day. Wow. Excellent. Beautiful.

So, Cody, how are those seedlings doing? They're gonna sprout In a couple days Hell yeah You just planted them Yeah earlier this week They got like a week Before they

Wait that's how long It takes for it to sprout? It depends It depends on the thing Yeah It depends on the thing It's just tomatoes And peppers and stuff

But we'll see Yeah April 14th is also National Ex-Spouse Day Ooh The holiday encourages Those who have ended their marriage to forgive their former spouse and move beyond anger and bitterness. I'm sorry. This is making a lot of assumptions about the disillusion of someone's marriage.

And I don't know, man. Maybe it's about Martha Jefferson. It's, oh, full circle. Maybe it's for her. Forgive Thomas. Divorce? divorce no but he like her i mean he had illegitimate children yeah and stuff and he had those slaves all that yeah i care more about the slaves than the illegitimate children yeah i don't really care about the illegitimate children slaves i feel like that's that part's yeah that's a real problem it up right yeah yeah it

sure does you guys i'm not going to encourage you to uh forgive your former spouse if you're not ready to i mean if you are great but you don't need me weighing in on that i don't know the details if you wanted to submit the details i'd be happy to unpack them with you yeah no i don't know if you can forgive them or not katie, I'm going to take an extremely judgmental tact and say, if you're listening to this podcast, you were the one who was in the wrong, not your spouse. You have done the wronging. You have done the wronging. Beg for forgiveness. This is national beg for forgiveness from your ex-spouse day.

From our listeners. From our listeners, yeah. Someone like Wellcat, no. Yeah, from our listeners. From our listeners, yeah. Someone let Wellcat know. Yeah, from our listeners. Maybe we should just make our own National Today calendar. National Wellcat Day is the first holiday, I would say, that we should suggest. Maybe that would get them to finally come on our show to comment on their holiday making. Are there any Wellcats in this batch?

It doesn't sound like it jonathan uh is still on paternity leave and uh he is the one that usually flags when something is well we've got our wonderful marco doing the research for us this week but he's not he's not like a well cat head you know what are you talking about so robert well cat we do these national holidays or like made up holidays every episode. We don't make them up. We don't make them up. Sometimes it's Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Sometimes it's, you know, the last day of Passover.

Sometimes it's like national, like throw a pie at your cat day or whatever it is. And there is a company that we've slowly realized has a lot of uh national holidays that they have registered um and they also sell like herbal supplements so like every couple of episodes like oh this holiday sounds really stupid oh it's from wellcat the company that makes fake holidays and then sells supplements one week jonathan reached out to them to see if he could get comment. Also wanted to know the process of how to make a holiday and to see if we could make a holiday. And they really shut him down. They weren't happy. So I would like to get them on the show.

I think they thought that we were making fun of them. And to be fair, we are now. We are now. Almost every week. But after their disrespect. After their extreme disrespect. We wanted to submit a holiday, but they only get to make them? I don't know about that.

No, we do. And our holiday is National Wellcat Day. Anyway. Anyway, we vamped about that. Robert, how the heck are you? I am, you know, I'm hungover as fuck, actually. Cool. But otherwise, I'm hung over as fuck, actually. Cool. But otherwise, I'm good.

I went earlier this year to go speak at Oxford and afterwards had a little vacation in Ireland and Scotland. And so for like three weeks after that, I didn't drink at all because I felt like I needed to do that in order to not die. And last night I fell back off the wagon and had me, I was watching, I'm preparing for the Vince McMahon episodes, and so I have to watch about 40 hours of wrestling over the next few days,

and for whatever reason, it's just impossible to do that without drinking. For whatever reason. For whatever reason. There's something about it that I can't quite put my finger on. You can really tell. There's a lot less charm, I think, in the more recent stuff

than some of the like the rowdy roddy piper days you know when when there was still a little when vince mcmahon hadn't like so fully stamped his uh his his image over the entire concept of wrestling yeah yeah but i i you know i watched like a documentary about mankind and then another one about like rick flair and there's a good rick flair story but it's not really a rick flair story I watched a documentary about mankind and then another one about Ric Flair. There's a good Ric Flair story, but it's not really a Ric Flair story. Vince was partying with a bunch of wrestlers, and he took them all up to Ric Flair's room without Ric knowing. And because Ric wasn't there, they decided to take turns drinking and then pissing on his bed for hours. Oh.

For hours. Hours. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of pissing on Ric Flair's bed. I don't know anything about these people, to chime in. Did he deserve it? Is this, do we hate Ric Flair? I have no opinions about Ric Flair.

It's funny, though. So that's fun. You're hungover, but you're here, and we appreciate it. All true. We missed you. i have missed you guys as well uh it's been lonely without some more news but hopefully that the series of lawsuits that resulted from our last episode will will wind to an end and we'll be able to to all talk again on that podcast soon on that unnamed. On that unnamed podcast. On that unnamed podcast. Once we're through all of our litigation. Once Bernie Sanders finishes coming after us in the courts. Yeah.

Good luck, you old goat. Wait, bleep that. They can't use that in court. No, no, no. Don't actually bleep it. Looks like summer's almost here, and you're going to want to look your best when you're getting all geared up, driving to the beach with the family, and finally getting to relax and also fight that sea lion who scared your kid last year. Luckily, Shady Rays has your back. Their extra durable sunglasses not only look good, but have polarized lenses for clear vision and sun protection. That way, your only focus will

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Go to ShadyRays.com slash more news and use code more news and for a limited time when you buy one pair of shady rays you'll get a second pair free that's s-h-a-d-y-r-a-y-s.com slash more news code more news to get a second pair of shadyady Rays for free. ShadyRays.com slash more news. Code more news. To the death, beach monster. Okay, it's that time, boys and boy. Boys, I would say boys and girls, but I don't need to address myself.

People. Go for it. You're included. Yeah. Boys and myself. All included yeah boys and myself all right boys and myself it's time to talk about the news i love the news current events yeah oh my god of the events current ones are easily my favorite yeah for sure yeah so a lot of stuff was going on in tennessee this week and last week starting right after we recorded oh well that's funny because you all are the only tins i see oh my god

my goodness i'm blushing okay so just to recap we're very attractive so just to recap we're very attractive and after a mass shooting at a school in Nashville what a pivot

it didn't feel good is everybody still with me has everybody stopped listening I don't care about you I care about our sweet listeners i'm sorry about that this is what happens when we're all together wow these are pre-written the segment when you try to like have fun do a little comedy but you're on the news you know what do you yeah yeah sometimes you have to say that yeah i guess you guys are all familiar. You remember the not the most recent mass shooting, unfortunately, but the mass shooting that happened recently in Nashville took the lives of six people, including three children. Well, after that, Representatives Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson led a group

of protesters in the chambers of the Tennessee Hall to call for tighter gun control laws. And the Republicans there accused them of, quote, disorderly behavior. And then they voted to expel just the two young black legislators, the Justins, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson. But Representative Johnson, a white woman, I don't know, somehow she didn't get expelled. Interesting. I won't look into that or think about it.

Yeah, you don't need to. I'm going to take it at face value. And honestly, if you did that would be bad of you because it would be disingenuous and you know, I don't mean that. You don't see race. So it's racist of you to even think about it. People do. I know this about that. You don't see race. So it's racist of you to even think about it. Even though other people do.

And maybe. I know this about you. Consider it as. Anyway, brought so much attention to the story. Huge outrage. You guys all lived through it. You know. And then this week, Representatives Jones and Pearsons were both voted back into the state legislature by uh local

representatives but yes okay so tennessee law requires uh districts of expelled lawmakers need to hold special elections to officially refill the seat so now they both have to run again that's bizarre to me they got kicked out for two days and now you got to spend money on a special election smart moves guys yeah let's keep doing it they'll keep expelling them and they'll keep uh doing the special elections and then nothing will happen yeah i mean it's hard for me to tell like how bad this is because obviously the potential like especially when you look at there's that bill winding its way through the uh the state house in uh florida to just like ban the state Democratic Party.

This is anti-democratic in a way that's deeply unsettling. I'm seeing a lot of folks kind of just celebrating the fact that it seems to have galvanized people behind these representatives. And, you know, there's a chance that they'll get back in there. And, you know, there's a chance that they'll get back in there. But I do worry that it's just kind of another step towards effectively having two separate countries, you know, in the United States. And, yeah, I don't I don't I don't feel optimistic about kind of what this represents. No, it's deeply unsettling. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a little bit of both because I think that it does speak to like, well, there are obviously like it is galvanizing people and like getting attention for the good reasons but also it is indicative of this sort of thing and like there you know there are going to be instances like this that don't get as much attention um i think that's one of the the big like sort of warning signs of this like it happened to be not just about like a topic that people care about, but also, you know, it was,

it was this social media. It sparked a lot of attention. And a lot of the things that the Republican party is doing specifically about elections and democracy and things of that nature, aren't always going to be on the radar. They're kind of by design supposed to go under the radar so it's good that this did get attention and is getting the pushback that it deserves but i think it does sort of speak to like there it's not the only place this kind of thing is happening

and going to be happening yeah no i think that's very true both of those things are true i really did enjoy that speech uh that sort of goes through like a list of all the other thing, like the all the other representatives who didn't get expelled. Like it's like, yeah, we had a pedophile here, not expelled. Somebody pissed in that guy's chair. That's what I was about to say. Yeah. Who did that?

Do you know who did that? I don't know. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-real. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. All right. Well, I guess we kind of mind as much as we want to say about that. Unbelievable. Unfucking real. Yeah. Yeah. I mean.

All right. Well, I guess we kind of mind as much as we want to say about that. Yeah. No, I agree with what both of you guys have said here. It's disturbing. It's scary. Also, it definitely blew up in the face of them. The GOP there for now anyway,

in that, you know, it galvanized people, but what's the long-term effects here? It keeps exposing also, like you see like the, I mean, the Matt Walsh of the world, but like,

you know, like pundits being like, yeah, expel them again. Just do it. Like they're outright saying how undemocratic they actually are and want to be and, and sort of admit that they

have to be uh and we've seen we've talked about this before but we see it more and more of just like they're they're partying like the punditry class just sort of acknowledging like our ideas aren't popular um with people and so we have to sort of like lie and deceive and trick and like do these sort of like shady things in order to get done what we want to get done and they're saying it they're saying it out loud more and more um it's very disturbing to me also how few people and just generalization of on the right seem to care i dance around this a lot when we talk about things it's like or at least in our private our meetings and stuff when we're discussing things cody it's like yeah the disconnect they only care if it affecting if

it's affecting them but they do not care if it's in support of their team or their side they do not seem to care about democracy yeah i mean those instances they're like yeah well this is if if this is because they want to take away my guns then yeah do whatever it takes to shut them up robert i know that you're pro-gun like you have a different i mean it's not like i about that like to be honest the the the fact that like it like my opinion as to whether or not the specific laws these people were advocating doesn't change the fact that like attempting to force your political opponents out of office for supporting a law that you don't like is like authoritarian bullshit you know like it's extremely simple and the context of like a protest. I'm referencing conversations that I have with new people in my life who there is a disconnect sometimes when I'll say like, well, if you follow this logical conclusion, then you can't do this kind of thing, even if it is in support of your law that you want.

It's the thing that I always encounter when talking to conservatives in my life is some variation of like you know this is just what they both do you know it's no different from like what the what the democrats do in in california or something and they don't like actually like it is different yeah right it is but like it's the the the degree to which like partisanship has kind of accelerated in the last few years kind of means that you can have sort of two conversations with conservatives about stuff like this. One of them is, oh, well, you know, I don't support, you know, them doing this, but, you know, it's some state that I don't live in, right? It's not like my Republican, you know, party or whatever. And then the other is, well,

you know, this is politics. this is what you do you know it there's there's i i i feel like we've we've we're kind of continuing to like this this is why the republicans are able to kind of get away with shit like this in their own states is this attitude of like kind of perpetual aggrievement on the right that like we're always being unfairly treated you know the government's against us the media is against us so the degree like you know playing dirty or whatever is just the only way in which that we and like it is actually like the only way for the republican party to remain viable on a national level is dirty tricks it is like uh uh disenfranchising

people you know i saw a lot of democrats you, cheering those big marches in Tennessee, the kids coming out in support of gun control and being like the Republicans, you know, are about to lose Tennessee for generations. And it's like, well, no, they're not like they have they have laid plenty of legal framework to make sure that like barring some kind of absolutely sea changing shift in demographics the fact that a bunch of you know young people in the state are angry about this isn't going to threaten gop control of the state house like it's just simply not it speaks to like the generational shift i think it but like not in these sort of local areas necessarily. Well, and it's the generational shift is part of why the GOP has embraced so many

anti-democratic measures. Like that's why they say that's why they go. Yeah. Like, like that's the Walker says, like they all say it out loud. Like, Oh,

we we've lost the youth. So we need to get Scott Walker to do youth outreach. Cause that's what I'm doing. Or we need to stop young people from voting and like exactly exactly so i guess that's kind of where i am on like is this has the gop shot itself in the foot i mean in the long run if they don't succeed in retaking you know the the federal government at any point in the future maybe but for the foreseeable future possibly the rest of our lifetimes just the sheer degree of gerrymandering at the state level like i don't see how that gets

overcome even by a groundswell of of righteous indignation quite frankly there's just not enough it people who are angry in tennessee about, I think, shift things fundamentally away from the Republican Party. Yeah, this is like, again, I am I'm broadly speaking, I think, more optimistic now about things just overall nationally, like the overall national political trends, but I'm deeply pessimistic about the ability to continue kind of resisting Republican dominance in a lot of the very red states, because the shit that just keeps getting pushed that we're seeing making its way through the state houses in Texas, not just the anti-trans stuff, but, you know, bills, you know, meant to restrict voting and all this kind of shit. The fact that fucking Greg Abbott is about to pardon that guy who murdered a protester, like the the that kind of stuff.

I don't I just don't see a possibility for effective resistance politically, at least in places like like Florida. Now, I think that I mean, that's probably unfair because we have seen in some states, Democratic state legislators basically holding up votes and whatnot in order to try to stop the passage of like anti-trans legislation. I don't want to like ignore the fact that there are kinds of resistance that are effective. But just in terms of actually, I just I don't see Tennessee going blue. I don't see Texas going blue. I don't see Florida going blue, kind of no matter what happens. It doesn't seem unfair to say that, like, we're not discounting the fact that there are people on the ground there that are trying. We started this section discussing three of them, you know,

but it is, it is hard to ignore that reality that you just painted yeah it's important to acknowledge it it's tough to sit with that too because i don't know well yeah i don't like to say things that feel hopeless you know but it is the reality no and i don't think it's hopeless because again i think for one i think in terms of stuff that's hopeful, like this massive push against trans people that is going to be so devastating in a number of states has failed for them electorally on the large scale. I think it's accelerated to an extent the kind of collapse of their ability to hopefully the collapse of their ability to like win a presidency, you know, or even retake, you know, both houses of Congress. I just that doesn't seem likely right now. You know, Joe Biden is a very unpopular president, but he's not unpopular because people think the Republicans might be a good bet next time.

He's just unpopular. Right. But but most Americans like Biden out and I think meatball. No, it's like they're like that. Biden's not my favorite guy to be president, but he's not a howling madman and so like on the national level i i think that that's i'm more optimistic about shit than i certainly than i was in 2020 you know when we were when we were starting the worst year ever it's just i i don't know i i don't know what can be done politically i think outside of politics in in the realm of activism, in the realm of community organizing, there's a lot that can be and is being done by smaller organizations within red states.

Absolutely. But in terms of like actually stopping a guy like Ron DeSantis, I don't I don't know how you do that right now. I don't see much potential for that at the moment yeah i mean trump's gonna stop ron desantis it is it is funny how bad he is going to do if if he tries to run against donald trump like because that's i mean that's the thing about so many people in these these part this party where it's like yeah locally or like on a state level yeah you're popular and you can like win these elections but like as soon as you get to the national level or like people are like actually like talking to you with scrutiny or having you're having to do a debate or whatever then it sort of falls apart because most of the country doesn't really subscribe to like the Florida of it all.

And, uh, also Ron is just like, not very good at it generally, but yeah, it, I mean, he's,

he doesn't have, I don't think he's, he's certainly not, doesn't have what Trump has. Right. And, uh, you know, that's not the only way to win the presidency,

obviously, but I don't think he has what like George W. Bush had, you know, like, no, but if things had gone differently and or whatever, there was a moment when Trump didn't seem to be doing so hot.

And there's a, a world where if for, if Ron DeSantis had managed to get the nomination, which I don't think he will now, it does give me pause. I think that he could beat Donald Trump. I mean, could beat Joe Biden, but. Really? Yeah. I, I don't know. We'll talk about this for months and months and months. pause i think that he could beat donald trump i mean could beat joe biden but really yeah i i don't know we'll talk about this for months and months and months but it's not gonna happen he's not the one that's gonna oh no because it's i mean i've said this here it's because because biden is not popular and there's a lot of people that voted for him because they didn't want to vote

for donald trump and ron desantis is somebody new and isn't i don't know this is all anecdotal based on conversations that i've had with people that like seem to like him and like again like sort of once you elevate him to the national level then he has to be like then he has to do his bad trump then he has to do his bad trump impression in front of everybody and say like we gotta like lock up the transes or whatever he's gonna fucking try to do you know and that's when it sort of like falls apart because like he can he can say stuff that's like what the fuck did you just say and it won't work whereas trump can say stuff like what the fuck do you just say and it works for a lot of people and i don't think and we know

again it's before we'll say it again i don't think he has the juice but i do understand that you've talked to people who think he does have the juice. It does make me nervous, but he's not going to get the nomination. So it's moot. I mean, I, it would, I mean, obviously, you know, there's always the possibility that like, you know, the economy collapses

and Biden, the unpopularity starts to extend, not just like Biden's kind of disappointing, but people are kind of desperate for somebody else. And yeah, maybe theoretically, I don't I'm not going to say it's impossible. I don't think he's got what it takes to whip a sitting president. That's a tough order. And he just doesn't look like a great campaigner his his power and his staying power has come from he is he's he is effective at wielding the power of the state against his

enemies and at restricting the ability of people to vote uh when it's bad for him and he's also effective at once he's in power doing stuff that uh riles up the worst parts of the republican base but that is a different animal from from running for election i i just don't i don't know i i don't think that's i i think that if he's running against joe biden some shit would have to really really really go wild for him to have uh much of a shot that's shot. That's where I am right now. I'm certainly not going to say it's impossible, but, you know. Well, I definitely don't disagree with everyone's impressions of him at all. And, you know, I don't think it's going to come to this. I just purely based off of conversations with people who voted for Biden reluctantlyantly and have said ronda santos like i

kind of like but would that hold up probably not you're correct but he's weird he's a weirdo it sends shivers down my spine like you do yeah yeah you know what else your spine you know what yeah my spine wants to advertise to you right now with this and we are back from uh that spine break to talk about some more news oh yeah oh geez can we can i can i bring up a story that I'm paying attention to right now? We love this, yes. A couple of weeks ago, Bob Lee, who was the founder of Cash App and the head of another tech company, was stabbed to death in San Francisco. Very shocking.

It's like it was this, it was obviously very shocking, very sad. He seems like he was a nice man you know there's been a lot of uh a part of the response has been perfectly reasonable a lot of people who worked with and knew the guy just sort of mourning the death of a nice guy but also a huge chunk of the the kind of public response and especially the response by a lot of more conservative media outlets like the daily mail, the New York Post was like, San Francisco is falling, another lawless. A lot of tech centrists.

A lot of the David Sachs of it all. Yeah, yeah, there were a lot of like, this is just another example of how the city's falling apart under progressive leadership. And first off, San Francisco is one of the safest large cities in the United States. Right, I was gonna say like, isn't violent crime down a lot? Most cities have much more yeah it's this this year there's been a little bit of an uptick but

it is still one of the safest cities in the united states like it is uh like whatever like you know uh conservative politicians like ah new york city the cesspool of crime and degeneracy it's like actually it's like really safe yeah it's really safe people are very rarely like murdered or whatever like yeah a lot of people like jack shit from corner stores there's like okay converters and stuff getting stolen maybe but like so this immediately like i think literally like one of the grossest pieces of this was the fucking daily mail published what i think think, I think it was, um,

security camera footage of Bob, like stumbling with his fucking hands over the stab wounds and his chest. Like just, which is like, that's not news. That's not, that's just like her. And we're,

yeah. And described it as like a murder in lawless San Francisco. Well, the police made an arrest and it's another tech executive. Like he was, he was in a car with like the founder of another company. They had some sort of argument and that guy fucking stabbed him. At least that's what the police are saying. Like not a rant

like not a San Francisco thing like another rich tech guy stabbed him. We don't really know why. Somebody he knows also which is also like they were in a car together. A relationship that has already existed. Still very sad, but nothing to do with the so-called degeneration of San Francisco. It was like, you know, a guy was killed by either.

I don't know if you'd call him a friend or if they were just acquaintances, but like they knew each other. Somebody he knew. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah and it's it's just it's just very emblematic of how in portland's another city that like anytime the right can like make some sort of look at how this progressive city is filled with violence they absolutely will and in this case because of what actually happened it's just wound up being kind of even more even grosser than it normally is um and i i just like it pisses me off both because it's such like it's such transparent bullshit like it's this it's it's it's an industry right

like publishing articles like there's a bunch of hack journalists out there who pay their rent by just finding any report of crime they can and like these two specific cities and trying to make it as part of this, like, look at what the progressives have done. And this is because of how flagrantly it was with Bob Lee's murder. It's so gross. This is a human being who died horribly, and it was immediately, people could not wait,

including some people who claim to be this guy's friends could not wait to turn this into part of their we need to crack down on the homeless yep bullshit in san francisco it's just very gross to me yeah um i i saw that this morning and i that's immediately my was my thought of just like yeah of course and like it's always sort of used it's it's not the same thing but it's sort of similar to the feeling i had after that shooting where like you could sort of sense which one like the um the nashville one where like you just didn't get the sense of like oh you have been salivating for you you just wanted to say trans killer you wanted the words trans killer to be on the front page you've been like craving this and it's this sort of similar thing where it's like you have this

thing that you want to to push and literally any like anything close to that is going to be uh right ballooned and pushed out and then like also they're not going to like adjust their thinking now that this has been revealed like i can't imagine like david sacks isn't going to go on like sorry like elon's like actually i like san francisco now like it's just gonna there's no addressing it people that uh decided in their mind that this was an example of the fall of san francisco and you know the rise of lawlessness will conveniently not notice this new article. They will conveniently not pay attention to this part. So that's a fun reality.

No, no, they've already moved on. Like the fact that this, like that's, again, the right's incredible at this. The fact that the actual story does not feed into their narrative at all. Well, they'll just pretend it never happened. They'll move on to the next thing. Right, they won't adjust their narrative we'll make them think like oh maybe there's a problem in the in tech or whatever you know like there's not gonna be any sort of in another couple of days there'll be a video of someone getting punched

or like i don't know stealing a cheese from a fucking safeway and you know that'll that'll be they'll spin it back up you know yeah and or like yeah another uh store will close and it'll like they'll have announced they were gonna close it five years ago like you're gonna close down some stores and they'll be it's because of shoplifting this year that they're closing this store it's like okay well how do we talk to each other at all yeah yeah that that's the I mean like I used to go to the i mean i i don't like i used to go to it my gym used to be right next to the walmart that just like left portland that the entire right wing media was like all of the walmarts are gone from portland well yeah it's because there's a

bunch that surround portland like the walmart that closed was like six minutes away from another walmart and there probably wasn't enough business for two of them like and like it's like oh the walmart's they're gone they're gone now well are they going are people going other places yeah yeah we've got winco up here guys like you know i mean people still go to walmart in my town of course um like yeah all right we're gonna talk about some more news i don't see what is there oh my gosh two words clarence thomas go guy and he is good and we wait wait wait wait i take it back last week a pro publica investigation revealed that supreme court justice clarence thomas failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and travels from gop mega donor harlan crow over

the last 20 years okay now go i mean yeah uh there's also like more reporting today uh they found like a some d like deed of like a property uh purchase so yeah there's like a lot more details that uh will be revealed i, about this sort of thing. I wanted to briefly talk about the Hitler of it all. Yeah, let's talk about the Hitler of it all. So this guy, Harlan, has historical memorabilia, let's say, and a lot of it Soviet themed is in what he refers to as his Garden of Evil. He presents it as a reminder of the evils of uh of authoritarianism i love i love the idea of having a garden of evil um and i i think i'm going to steal it from this guy uh

i've always wanted some busts so yeah i i just i think it's a good idea you know or just like fill it with like it's like this is where i grow cabbage and like shit that i the garden is my cauliflower area uh-huh cauliflower and a statue of nikolai chauchesku yeah exactly yeah um but i think one thing curious about this man's garden of evil is that one person you might think of when you think of like evil uh leaders throughout the history is hitler specifically adolf hitler of nazi germany if i have to be even more specific and he's not in that garden of evil uh he's his stuff is inside yeah the nazi linens yeah he's got linens he's got he's got third reich linens with like eagles and swastikas on them

um one of the articles i read said that like he keeps it out of view in like a fucking cabinet or something but like why it's one of those things if it was just like yeah he's got because he has a bunch of signed shit he's got like literally like signed shit from like columbus and stuff like he's a billionaire so the fact that he has a signed mind comp on its own i'd be like yeah, yeah, I don't know, whatever. Like that. That's not necessarily weird. It's the linens are where I'm like, why the fuck do you have those? Like I get collecting his books from historical monsters. If I could get a fucking original copy of Saddam Hussein's book that he had signed, I would absolutely put that in my house.

The fucking Nazi linens. Who does it? Like, what is that? It's very weird. I don't know who does that. It is very weird. I can make assumptions. But also, if you have like art and you're like, yeah, this is my George W.

Bush, who I admire. This is my Rockwell. And this is my Hitler. Two Hitlers, Cody. I'm sorry. These are my Hitler. Two Hitler paintings. These are mine Hitlers hitlers yeah there we go

it's just like man put those outside or like it's a weird presentation of uh a claim that you're making about what you're saying with the collections of memorabilia and art that you have uh here's my garden of evil insides where i keep the good shit that's like hitler and george bush who i like you know like yeah and i would say you know maybe a a billionaire um american conservative who has a lot of conservative values and who demonizes uh the i like the very concept of like communism or like just like helping people or whatever like is so anti-communist i would maybe believe that they have a little admiration for some of the things that hitler did um i think that's not it's hard to not believe that a wild leap to make but my main issue with this entire conversation is like i don't care i don't fucking care it's funny this doesn't change anything about the story that is actually going on about clarence thomas

and how compromised he might be with this financial relationship that he hasn't divulged i mean for decades we specifically have now talked more about uh exactly the nazis than the clarence and you have this like law this big conversation like all these like national review writers like i know him and he's not a nazi um and like all this and like i actually went there and i thought it was uncomfortable to be there and so you have this conversation of like whether or not this man has like nazi sympathies which is like yeah maybe we find that out it's good to know yeah but it's not the story and it seems like a big distraction from uh the actual reporting of what this is about.

And so, again, Katie, you're right. We did just talk about that quite a bit. Yeah, it's funny. I think it's a little funny. It's super funny. You know, the thing that's frustrating is like the Clarence Thomas of it all, because again, like there's this this is renewed calls that like, oh, we need more. We need to regulate the fucking Supreme Court more right.

Like these guys are effectively the least accountable branch of government and he has clearly been it seems pretty clearly been breaking the law for decades knowingly on purpose yeah knowingly on purpose and no one's gonna nothing's going to be done like people are like saying shit but like they're not going to do anything no one's going to do anything like nothing is going to pass that restricts his ability to do this i don't think um he can't be fired like it's it's again it's kind of like it's also not gonna force any conversation about changing i think it's forcing a conversation i just don't think that conversation has any chance of like changing anything because like we can all like we can all have a conversation about like yeah man maybe we

shouldn't have like god kings yeah sure amongst us the people but yeah in terms of the those that would potentially be able to make some changes it's not sparking a conversation with them yeah i mean aoc keeps bringing it up and good for her. Um, yeah, but it seems like kind of maybe the only one who's really actually like going for it. Yeah.

It's, it's this, it's like, it's not just Clarence Thomas. Like he's the worst of them, but like, if you want to have this conversation responsibly, part of it has to be like,

yeah, man, probably should never have been up to ruth bader ginsburg whether or not to die in office like maybe maybe that shouldn't be their choice like because a lot's writing on this shit and also people look man you can call me ageist if you want but people who at a certain age and at a certain degree of like health problems, you stop being able to do your incredibly important job that affects the lives of millions properly. And it's the same,

it's the same shit with, it's the same shit with Feinstein where it's like, yeah, man, like she can't do the job anymore. That's bad. It's bad. It's embarrassing.

It's unfortunate. It's harmful. Uh, it, uh uh sets a precedent that like maybe we shouldn't be setting or i guess it like sort of uh solidifies a precedent and also it's not like we're saying like yeah she shouldn't be a senator anymore and then she should fucking die in the street like that's it's not like we're saying like we're not forcing her out of her like the job that at fucking target that she desperately needs.

Right. Thus sending her to the street like that is unfit to be serving office and is very old and doesn't need to still be working. Ruth Bader Ginsburg should not have been working and then died and kind of put us in that position. Look, it's the same. I think Fetterman going in for help for being depressed and for his other health problems is great. I don't have any problem with that. But if it were the kind of thing where, yeah, he's missed 40 votes in a row because he's not in good enough health, I'd be like, well, it's time for someone else to have the job because he can't do it. I'm not saying that.

I'm hoping. I think he's doing great. because he can't do it like i'm not saying that i think he's i'm hoping i think he's doing great but like were that to happen if three years go by and he's not able to actually do the job like what you can't just let people have the job because it's nice for them to have the job like this is important they wouldn't hesitate to call for him to leave too of course not yeah it also sort of sets this um again not like new precedent, but sort of like more solidifies this American sense of like work ethic that like, is that like, you always gotta be working

and you always gotta kill yourself to work. And you have to go till the last second. And like, there's a sense of like, yeah, like Dianne Feinstein is like, you're gonna be fine. You're extremely wealthy. And like, go have these last few years and relax and enjoy you got like a family right don't you want to not do this shouldn't we be encouraging like why are you people to live their lives and yeah you work hard and do this but then eventually like stop we can it's okay honestly i feel similarly about joe biden where it's like sure i mean it's not it's not that i think joe is like senile or unable to it's just that like i don't know i don't

think anybody should be working full-time at his age right like one of the most important like stressful jobs on the planet but like like why not enjoy the rest of your days i guess because it's fun to have power i'm sure he does enjoy it but like grandkids like go like yeah man a guy and yeah you got other shit to do like surely yeah you guys you guys go have fun with matt taibbi elon musk stuff what's going on there matt they're breaking up yeah they've broken broken up. Elon has unfollowed him. Elon, an expert at being broken up with. Yeah.

It's, you know, it's just Taibbi is this guy, if you're not aware of him, he wrote a series of books, you know, in the aughts, some of which were pretty good. He wrote one really good one called Griftopia on the financial collapse. He wrote a book about Eric, I think about Eric Garner that I haven't read that some people say was pretty good. He wrote one really good one called Griftopia on the financial collapse. He wrote a book about Eric, I think about Eric Garner that I haven't read that some people say was pretty good. And he was like a fairly well regarded, you know, a little bit of like a punk journalist type thing, but like reasonably well regarded up until like the last few years when he's kind of taken what seems to some people to be sort of like a rapid journey to the right and he's done

it for the reason that like all of these guys who pretended to be or or or were progressive have did it which is that like it's really easy to get money doing this right like if you if you like lean in on the cult the right-wing culture warshit it's the easiest way to make a big fucking pile of cash he's one of the guys who substack kind of um consider like he was one of their prestige hires when they they first became a thing like he's like look at subs they got him writing for them yeah and he's doing like dog shit reporting he's reporting for musk because like must pick them to be the twitter files guy and he wrote terrible articles um very basic mistakes very threads yeah he wrote he wrote

substacks it's dog shit it was like really bad like it's the kind it was the kind of basic mistakes including just like really basic like getting numbers wrong that like that's yeah that's why you have editors that's why you have fact checkers if you're purporting to do really important journalism um those are good things to have but you know he doesn't care about that shit anymore he and he's always by the way people who know more about him will point out like he was he's always been trash he used to write for he was he spent years living in russia um after the fall of the ussr and wrote for a little magazine called The Exile that was like kind of a little fringe, like expat paper.

And he wrote about like committing sexual assaults and a bunch of other really fucked up shit. So did other people who wrote for The Exile. His claim is that it was like, you know, this was joking around. It was like satire. Say it was not all bad satire. No, there's some like

some actually pretty dark shit in there but you know at the end of the day this is the story of a guy who was a pretty respected journalist cashed in that respect in order to make a bunch of money doing culture war shit and felt like elon musk would be a good meal ticket uh but then elon musk you know substack launched what was effectively their attempt at creating a Twitter clone. And so Musk blocked their links. And Matt Taibbi's entire ability to make money was threatened by this. And so the two of them had a big falling out because Elon does not give a shit about any

of the people he surrounds himself with and never will and never has. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Yeah. It's just funny. It's just funny. The back and forth between them, him sharing his private texts, and then immediately deleting it,

and just like he can't really handle interactions like that very well. It's funny to watch him do that. It's also frustrating because he'll never like nothing ever seems to catch up with him even when he like lies pretty obviously which one are you talking about i'm talking well i'm talking about elon right now um and seeing like people like taibbi like well i actually like him i think he's good like when like you know three years ago he absolutely would have criticized him for like his

union practices and things like that but now just does not and then uh what do you get out of it not much yeah so and also i thought there's a recent like uh bbc interview that also was like poorly done but whatever musk said that like he was asked about the twitter files like yeah well we did that i think it's time to move on. What? I thought it was the most important fucking story that ever was broken. No. And now you're like, we should move on from this.

All right, man. I don't believe anything you ever say. I'm sorry. It's so funny. You don't have to apologize for that, Cody. I'm sorry. At all. But I don't believe anything you ever say.

Yeah. No, he's like and that that's like, there's an article, I think the fucking Reuters reported on it, where they were like, Elon says Twitter is almost breaking even. And it's like, I don't know, man, maybe do a little digging. There's a good amount of information about how many of his advertisers have fled. Like, you don't just have to report that because he says it. But there's also like, reporting about like, why maybe he's breaking.

Like, I can say, yeah, I'm, like, in the black. I'm breaking even. Also, like, I'm not paying my bills or any of my debts. I've fired everybody. And I'm not paying severance to people I owe severance to. I'm not paying the money that I need to. So, yeah, breaking even. Almost.

Almost breaking even. Even after all that, not breaking even. Sleeping, I guess, at Twitter break room. I mean, that seems like a lie, too. I don't know. It's just like this idea. He wants to be like this eccentric. Of course it is.

I sleep there by myself with my dog, who's the CEO. Ha ha. It's obnoxious. It's obnoxious. It's obnoxious. We didn't have to talk about him. A chunk of the problem is like the same thing we're talking about with crime in san francisco or portland or wherever we're like yeah man if elon says something and you print it that'll get

you clicks that'll bring in ad revenue you know it'll be one less thing you as the individual journalist have to figure out for the day which leads to this thing where he can just say bullshit and it'll get reported and even at the if at the end they're like there's no evidence that what he's saying is true that doesn't matter people don't read past the fucking headline half the time it's it's like you're all you're all hacks and frauds and somebody i fuck fuck you all that that's where i am but he's gonna go to mars and he's gonna daddy musk is gonna take us to Mars 50 years 100 years uh 100 years of if you're nice to him also I have to point this out yeah if you're nice to him um but even then maybe not uh if you if you're nice to him but you make him feel stupid then he's gonna be really mad

at you he's not gonna let you take your sub stack with you I did want to mention this this is really unimportant but he wanted to make a point about the verification badges and affiliate badges on Twitter. Oh, yeah. So he changed his name to Harry Balls on Twitter. He's fucking mad. Look, actually, if you get the affiliate badge, you can change your name without losing your checkmark. Isn't this a great idea that's not overly complicated? without losing your check mark isn't this a great idea that's not overly complicated but in doing this he changed his name to harry balls but it was b o like with the line over like the long o w l z

so like it's bowls yeah so like like it's not funny but in addition to that he did it wrong yeah he like he can't even do like the unfunny thing he's trying to do correctly it's so like you know we have the joke he's doing a big play for us well there's this job there too but all of it's bad this deeply persistent kind of you know meme in american culture that like the the wealthiest people there's always something like broken or sad i oh i just want you know it's the rosebud thing right like i really you know at the end i wish i could you know go back and and lost my innocence i've lost lost my innocence or whatever something with elon that's that's that is actually a part of him but it's like he desperately more than anything wants to be like a middlingly successful standup comedian.

Yeah. Like somebody who can fill consistently get like 300 butts in seats, you know, once a week at a comedy club. Like that's his that's his dream. Like he wakes up like imagining he could do that and is just like broken down every time he realizes he is not funny he's not gonna ever no people are never gonna think he's funny he's never gonna be respected in that way but in the meantime you can ruin any respect you maybe tricked people into giving you for a minute but yeah go on chase that i mean honestly it's like he wants to be the most popular kid in high school, not even a middling standup comic.

He wants to be voted most popular for his senior class photo. Right. It's like this sadder version where it's like, not like, oh, I lost something pure, good, or like, I need to get back to my roots or I need to like, I want, I want, I'm missing something. There's a hole and I I it needs to be filled by like some like meaning or humanity or something like that it's like no I just need to be liked I need people to tell me that I'm liked and cool um and that's like a sadder even sadder version

of Citizen Kane to me like but you know. You can buy it. Well, guys, we did it. We've really talked for an hour. We made it. We made it. We really did talk for an hour. We made it after all. Robert, plug your things, please. Plugables.

Yeah, I like plugging. I have a book called After the Revolution. You can find it wherever you find books. I have a sub stack like Matt Taibbi. Mine is not monetized because I don't like the idea of giving those people money. But also, it's kind of the best interface of the blogging thing. So I don't know what you want from me. I'm a hack and a fraud and a hypocrite like everyone else.

But you're doing your best, Robert. I am not. But you're not doing your best. I'm not doing my best at all. I have a sub stack. Anyway, that's me. Thank you for being here. This is fun.

We love it. We love to see you. And you know what else we love? We love you very much. Oh, I knew it.