Some More News - Terrible Florida Bills, Gas(oline) Prices, and EVEN MORE Trump Planes

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Hi. Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) joins Katy and Cody to talk about the dreadful anti-LGBTQ bills being passed around the U.S., the myriad reasons gas prices are up, plus we all remember that time Donald Trump told a kid that he was Batman. 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! Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit http://athleticgreens.com/morenews today. Ready to give your brain some TLC? Download Best Fiends FREE today on the App Store or Google Play. That's friends, without the r—Best Fiends. 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, welcome back to even more news, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll, motherfuckers. Holy shit and fuck and piss. Hi, I'm Cody Johnston. Hope we bleeped all those and I just started recording and we're here. Did you start recording after you said all that? No, I started recording after you said what you said. Or in the middle of what you said what you said.

So it's all there. It's all there. Joining us today again for I believe the third time is Parker Malloy, writer of the newsletter The Present Age and former editor at large for Media Matters for America. Hi, Parker. Hey, how's it going? I think it's my second time. Maybe third. I don't know. Who knows? I'm happy.

I'll come back whenever. Well, if it's your second time, then the first one was just so good that it blooms large in my memory. Double the fun. Exactly. It was a special double edition. But the truth is, I could have dreamed the third one. I have a very hard time delineating what's in my

imagination and what's real life these days and that's funny but it's true as well um because my dreams feel very vivid and i'm frequently like that thing you said and they're like nope nope so i watched the um just really quick just wanted to say that i watched the spotify video that guys did, and it was so good. Oh, thank you. Because in college, I majored in music business, which was a big old waste of a degree. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, it was definitely my, it was right up my alley. I was like, yeah, things suck. That's why I don't work in that industry.

You know, I went from writing Andrew Bird's newsletter to writing my own newsletter. Really? That's where I've gone in my career. Well, that's a pretty straight trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. Lateral. Lateral move.

Thank you for saying that. We've had a chaotic couple of weeks in the production end here. You know, we've really ramped up our production lately. And we had one script wasn't quite ready and it's going to be great and so then another writer who was working on that spotify script tom ryman um hustled and turned it around really fast and i was really impressed you know it's it's hard to keep up with everything yeah it's really good on this note if you're listening we will eventually have a video out about ukraine but yeah videos take time to write and research and also when there's a war one would think that you should maybe take your time and be delicate

with the information and the misinformation the disinformation that is out there to make sure that you're creating the most accurate video possible, the disinformation that is out there to make sure that you're creating the most accurate video possible about the terrible event going on in the world. We stumbled into some backlash for the timing of our video. Just wanted to point that out. It's not prompted by anything. Nobody's making me say this, but as if we just snap our fingers and the video's ready.

No weeks of research and writing. As if we just snap our fingers and the video's ready. No. Weeks of research and writing and then at least a week of production to shoot it and edit it and turn it around. Guys, we're trying. But you know what you should do, actually? As soon as the war starts, have something out five days later and make sure it's accurate and correct. And hey, anyway, if it's not, it's it's not. If it gets the eyeballs. Exactly. As long as it's the topic that gets that click.

It doesn't matter. Teach the controversy. I'm writing part of that episode and I was going to just make it memes. Should I be doing that? Should I not just? Oh, thank God. Oh, no. As we discussed, only memes only memes you're like don't

worry i've been doing my research i've been on rt and sputnik and i've just been taking everything in and i've got a very very accurate version of events i'm sure i got a lot of leads from truth social also yeah madison coffhorns newsletter yeah yeah ukraine's woke ideology according to madison coughorn sorry katie you go it's okay i i i really like i there's a delicate balance between keeping the flow going and knowing what and and giving bits room to breathe right but knowing when we're done also well i know when we're done um and because it's really important that i shout out today being march 10th national mario day only because march 10th looks like mario when you write it mar 10 um is mario day okay and then Day. And then tomorrow, March 11th is National 311 Day. Cody, do you want to

tell that a little? I was a 311 fan for, I would say, a good year and a half in high school. I went to a couple of free concerts that they did. I believe, I want to say Papa Roach played with them. Our

producer, Nick Mundy he also was a big fan of 311 during a brief period so we bond over that and he got to celebrate something he got a we were having a little get together some more news get together finally first time seeing everybody

in person and Nixon Texas he couldn't be there. Anyway. So he got a cameo from Nick Hexum to congratulate us. And who is that? As he might say, Nick H-E-X-U-M. This is the lead singer of 311. Yeah.

For those who don't know. Anyway. So happy 311 day, I guess. We should post that video on our social medias. Anyway. 311 is also, I should note, it's the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization

declaring it a pandemic. So, you know, happy day. Happy day? We need to amend the national holiday calendar there you go that day was the day tom hanks tested positive it was the day the nba shut down and then it was the day that sarah palin was revealed on mass singer it was that crazy night yeah so the really heavy hitting yeah wait when what went down uh the last one was a sarah palin singing baby got back on the best singer which then went directly into trump speak giving his speech and at one point he was on a hot mic

and he's like oh fuck which is like cool cool that's good memories are fun right i know i remember the most pointless stuff but i can can't remember my wife's phone number. Well, why would you need to know that? You've got it stored. Parker, things have changed in your life since you were last here for the first or second time. You have since launched The Present Age, a subscription newsletter. And this is your primary way that you're now featuring your writing. And I wanted to touch base and talk about that.

How's it going? Is this fulfilling? Is it what you wanted it to be? Where can people subscribe? Yeah. No, it's going great. I decided to jump in on the newsletter craze, mostly because I was the post 2020 election, like period where I thought that it was going to be nice and relaxing before between Trump and Biden, just kind of got a little hectic with like, the attempt to overthrow the government right right you know so so i was kind of burned out on uh media matters related stuff so decided to start this newsletter and it's been going okay um i've

got a decent number of subscribers still nowhere near glenn greenwald or matt iglesias or anything like that but i've been less than a year yeah it's been less than a year and i can almost pay my bills with it almost hey that's something so and you can find it at read the present age.com all of that okay the present age.com or just you know it's like i post about it on twitter constantly because i am in desperate need of subscribers. Well, you're so talented. I think that you're going to find your base. I think that you are finding your base. This is the perfect move for you. I applaud everybody moving in this direction

where you find your people that support you and you can just write to them and you don't have to answer to people that are trying to edit you you know, edit you. It's a lot of fun. I can say anything I want and I can spell words however I feel like they should be spelled. And, you know, just trying my best.

Just kind of, a lot of it's very stream of consciousness. Just kind of, here's an idea that came on it came out of my skull and now it's yeah in in word form and i found out that the newsletter the the format that i use because i do it through substack um is is they they have the option to add footnotes so i've just been using footnotes to go on little tangents. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, this thing is like 90% footnote. I really like that. Tangents are important. Yeah, exactly.

And then hide the explanations for the footnotes behind the paywall. So that's a great idea. Little Easter eggs. Gmail cuts off emails if it like thinks they're too long. And sometimes you have to click view entire message. And I sometimes I'm like, oh, the newsletter is over. And then I click that. I'm like, oh, there's all these footnotes.

There's there's like four other details. So it's like a bonus PS newsletter that you were getting. Well, I always so there's a little thing at the top of the screen that says like you're approaching the limit. You're too long for email. And I'm just like i'm just gonna blow through it smashing my fingers into the keyboards speaking of your your newsletter before we move on to the news this week you wrote about all of the vitriol uh directed at taylor

lawrence yeah you know largely you know based on her referring to journalists as having a brand and and building their brands in this day and age and then uh the backlash to that um and yeah we were wondering if you could talk on that a little bit and a little bit of insight into that so anytime taylor is in the news uh it's usually because i mean she'll she'll put out a story yeah and then she'll say something and then a bunch of like really well-established journalists will mock her for something yeah or a right ring right wing group will try to call her a pedophile which is a really weird thing that keeps happening. And it's just so bizarre to me. So I decided to write something about it because this

latest time, she gave an interview to Business Insider, where she was basically just talking about the problem with work in these sorts of these days where, you know, the longer you're at a job, the less relevant you become as an individual, as an individual brand. And that's why a lot of places are struggling to keep talent. New York Times even, you know, that's where she was working at the time. And she recently left there to go to the Washington Post. And so she gives this interview in this piece that is really good, just about the challenges that the New York Times and other newspapers are having to try to try to retain talent. And a bunch of Washington Post and New York Times journalists were just mocking her for it, which I just found that to be so odd, given that it's the place that she was working up until like two or three weeks ago or whatever.

And the place that she is just about to start working at, like that's kind of suck. So, yeah, I decided to write a little bit about that just because people like to downplay her sort of beat, which is this, you know, the intersection of technology and culture and power basically really important yeah and and people can sit there and they can roll their eyes at some story about uh some story about tiktok or whatever but i mean trump just sat down with some youtuber dudes who i had no clue who it was, but Taylor was on Twitter like, oh, these guys are from this house and I know exactly who they are and I have a story. Stories that you've, go ahead, sorry. Oh, just, I mean, people like to mock her, I think,

also because, like, just from the term, like, influencer. She covers, like, influencer culture and stuff like that. And, like, yeah, influencer culture is silly. I would agree with that. But like they're influencing people. And it's a part of our life that we can't deny. There's a reason. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. You have to take it. You have to seriously look at what's happening and the movements that are going on there and how we are being affected by internet and this technology on a mass level you know anyway well and and one thing that that kind of irks me about the way that like it she gets talked about in right-wing media especially is for instance here's a quote from a uh washington i want to make sure yeah washington free beacon article. Lorenz has more than 500,000 followers on the spyware app, referring to TikTok. For the sake of comparison,

Brooklyn Queen, the internet celeb whose 16th birthday Lorenz attended in 2021 has more than 5.5 million followers. Cybersecurity experts have warned that TikTok is a quote unquote magnet for pedophiles. Like there's no reason to word that that way, if not to try to suggest that she's a pedophile, which is. It's absurd. Absurd.

And I mean, it seems relevant that that is becoming kind of a common attack as the as the Florida situation is sort of, you know, hinting at. Well, we're going to get to that, too, in a moment. But fascinating, but gross. I mean, yes, right wingers. But yeah, journalists from the Washington Post, you know, different people, colleagues of hers, joining in and amplifying this purposeful misunderstanding of what she's saying, even, you know, it's, it's just why you're threatened by this. You're a journalist.

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So take care of your owls and try it today. And to make it even more easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune-supporting free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit athleticgreens.com slash more news today. Again, simply visit athleticgreens.com slash more news to take control of your health and give AG1 a try. Gosh darn it. And yes, the Florida Senate has passed its don't say gay bill or quote the parental rights and education bill. If you want to get funky this week, I was going to say kinky, but I changed it to funky on the fly. Anyway, the bill allows parents to school districts if they think their children have been taught material on sexual orientation or gender identity in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally

appropriate for students. I mean, there's so much to say. Sounds like a fun time to be a teacher. Right. I know. We might as well start with that. There's so much to unpack about, you know, what this means for the LGBTQ community, also LGBTQ teachers, but just teachers, just teachers who for the vast majority are good people that like want to teach your children and love your children and care for them. And they're putting them in a possible situation as to what to do. And like also being threatened with lawsuits if they don't tell parents that their child has expressed some like, oh, you know, that they want that they are a different gender or that they want to use different pronouns, whatever it is. And so if a parent, if a teacher doesn't share that information,

then regardless of they know that the situation would be abusive. regardless of they know that the situation would be abusive. Yeah, it's definitely not a great bill. I mean, obviously. And other states are kind of jumping on that train. It's been a bad couple years for LGBTQ rights overall, and especially trans. I mean, things affecting trans kids these days.

I mean, it's a nightmare out there and i do not uh i do not envy parents or teachers or students um especially if they are or they know someone who is lgbtq which i think would probably cover most people well yeah And the pandemic probably doesn't help either. Yeah, it's very awful and very vague by design. Like all of these we're going to be talking about. Oh yeah, spoiler, we're going to talk about some other awful legislation. Well, it just seems to be their sort of MO now of these very, very vague bills that can be interpreted however you want, kind of, depending on who you're talking

to. And so yeah, I don't know. And then also then you can, like, they'll, you know, there's people arguing, like, well, it doesn't actually say gay in the bill. Yeah. Exactly. That's the thing. Yeah, it's by design.

And it's going to be misinterpreted by so many people. And it's designed to make kids afraid to be themselves or to exist, right? Like that's the goal here. And not to mention, how do you properly educate by excluding something that these all encompassing, you know, like LGBTQ people are a part of everything. How do you talk about, you know, Jonathan in our notes highlighted, you know, like Oscar Wilde. How do you talk about literature or history? Harvey Milk? What are you talking about? We don't, we don't talk about this. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really frustrating, because what they do is they, you know, they, they go, well, this shouldn't be taught in these schools anyway. And at this age, between kindergarten and third grade, yeah, okay, I mean, sure, I don't be taught in these schools anyway. And at this age, between kindergarten and third grade, okay, I mean, sure.

I don't think anyone's arguing that there need to be like lessons specifically. I'm not giving sex ed to three-year-olds, five-year-olds or whatever. But that's how they talk about it. Those are the terms in which they discuss these bills or the need for these bills. And then they go and they make it so broad

that it covers all sorts of stuff. And then they go and they make it so broad that it covers all sorts of stuff. And it's it's just bad news. And I mean, it's it's same thing with the critical race theory bills, the anti critical, you know, it's they're worded in such a way that especially the ones in these GOP states that are are making it so people can just sue schools or sue librarians. The whole point is to scare them from, scare teachers away from actually even coming close to these topics just out of an abundance of caution. I mean, this is a good place to insert that Florida's Stop Woke Act. On Thursday, florida senate passed its stop woke act most embarrassing name for a bill i know i've ever it'll allow school lessons or workplace trainings that

cause someone to feel guilt or shame about the ancestral actions of their race or gender like what i mean it's just to the point of all of this but yeah yeah also like i the big thing now is uh with like the don't say gay bill which is like not what the bill is called because they're not going to call it that why would they call it that then then you'll know what they're trying to do um and like you know some people in the media are picking it up and referring it uh to it as that and now the big thing's like well the woke media are like adopting this thing they're pushing their agenda by calling it the don't say gay bill and it's like you got these fucking stop woke bills that's the that's the name of the bill yeah like they called it that it stands for woke

in that bill stands for wrongs to our kids and employees so stop the wrongs to our kids and employees. So stop the wrongs to our kids and employees act. I hate and love that you know that. It's, yeah, I do. That's not a good name. I kind of love when they have to like backfill, like create a backronym for something. They're like, I need this to be called the Patriot Act. So we're going to find some things that start with-

Surely there are words that fit there. Yeah, and you just sort of like, just sort of backfill it with anything. then sometimes you're just like ah screw it and start skipping words so you're right the o doesn't count the o can be or something yeah yeah it's you know but it's gonna suck when ron desantis is president and oh god he's gonna be a nightmare and i you know i there's a very good chance that he will be president which is scary to me but uh he only won like 60 000 votes too governor yeah was it that oh it was so close well because he's like and most of these people nobody likes them uh

like even if like ever obviously they want Trump to be the president. But if it's not him, it's like DeSantis, I guess. Like, even he's not, like, popular. He's just the best one for them who's not Trump, who apparently is the best one for them. He most openly hates the people that I hate. That's kind of it. Exactly, yeah. He's doing a couple of the bills that make people scared.

Yeah. He themselves, you know, like like he has a the Florida Surgeon General the other day put out a statement recommending that people do not like kids should not take the vaccine. Like that's clearly just just him trying to, you know, caters to his debate. Just him trying to shake things up. He caters to his debate. He's doing the things that the people, the worst people, but are his best supporters, and he's playing to them.

And he knows that people will react. It gets him more attention. That's the playbook also from Donald Trump is that you do a thing and you give it oxygen because of course you have to call out and recognize the fucking thing that he's doing but it's like you're feeding the fire and it's getting bigger

yeah I think that's probably why Ted Cruz is hanging out with the DC convoy this week because he's like no I'm like Trump you like me right and everyone's like boo we don't like you that's the Cruz stuff is so funny like him claiming that like every Like me, right? Everyone's like, boo, we don't like you. DC convoy.

The Cruz stuff is so funny. Like him claiming that every flight he takes, a pilot will come up and hug him and thank him. It's incredible. What an incredible man. He's really just trying to, you know, Trump for years did the whole thing like, big, big strong men came up to me with tears in their eyes.

It's like, first off, no one's just encountering the president as they're walking down the street right but yeah it's incredible casting he's so and he's done this for so long as soon as uh he was you know uh just like utterly destroyed and embarrassed publicly um and debased himself uh by choice in front of the entire country um a few times and then culminating that sweaty photo of him calling for trump uh ever since then he's like memory yeah but it's ever since then he's been like i could do it i could be trump i can do that um he's just been cosplaying for so long failing at it yeah it's real funny whenever he really tries to do that like the beard obviously like you know going to the border with his little uh camcorder like i'm at the bar i'm gonna catch

these folks and like and now the sit like sitting in a truck uh which we trump did it already man we've already got the picture of the guy in the truck and it's just funny when he tries really hard to do that and like the story is like, yeah, everyone's always thanking me. I can't go anywhere without being thanked. It's just funny when he tries to emulate him. Yeah. Just fails. He's got to be so sad at night when he falls asleep, knowing it's all a lie.

And Ted Cruz is so young, too. He can run for president for the next like 30 years or something, basically. Oh, fuck. Cruz is he is he's 51 oh my god I would have guessed older than that yeah yeah yeah and DeSantis is only like 44 upsetting meanwhile the youngest through the youngest like Democrat who might be president is like 90. I don't know. Not good.

Going to get Dianne Feinstein in there. Yeah. President Feinstein. Yeah. Jimmy Carter. It's her time. Jimmy Carter is still eligible for a second term. Oh, God.

Idaho passed a bill this week that would make it a felony punishable punishable by up to life in prison for providing trans youth with gender affirming care alabama has a similar bill which would make uh providing hormone treatments a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison you know texas i'm i don't i hate to lump them all up because they all deserve their own time. It's also just that it's hard. It's the same thing that we're seeing happening across the country. And like you said, it keeps happening and will continue to keep happening. And every week is like an onslaught of terror for people in the trans community. Yeah, it's it's not fun. I'll, I'll, I'll say that much. But one thing I do want to just kind of mention is that, you know, so Rick

Scott, so you know, stick going from DeSantis to Rick Scott, yeah. Florida man, number two, he put out the this like plan for like if the republicans retake the senate and a bunch of the stuff in there you know you got like the anti-abortion stuff obviously and then you've got a bunch of anti-trans stuff in there that sort of follows this you know no doctor will be allowed to perform irreversible surgery surgical or gender altering procedures on a minor child um it's like that that's in there but the thing is that trans kids aren't having surgeries that's right surgeries are few far between that is not the norm um and you know so they're doing this and just like with the don't say gay bill they're framing it as look

we just don't want the you know we don't think it's right for kindergartners to have a live sex show, you know, like stuff like that. They create a problem that doesn't exist. They're also adding the word grooming to it now. Yeah, that's a pop up a lot now. I mean, it's like that's if. Yeah, it just says everything. It's a buzzword from QAnon community, you know, like, oh, I mean, it's a it's a buzzword from q anon community you know like oh i mean it's a it's a thing that happens but that's not what this is obviously not an education not in our

schools i'll also highlight we we this we didn't end up talking about this several weeks back um because of time but i i can't remember which state is doing like legislation about furries in school like saying like there was a litter box in the school for i mean it's so offensive yeah yeah some of the stuff that was a story that uh there there's this twitter account that annoys me so much called libs of tiktok and uh it was the one that kind of started this uh the furries thing like for kids who who say they identify as a cat is it true that you put a put a uh litter box in one of the restrooms and the school had that this happened because it happened at of course like a school board meeting and the school was like we have no clue what you're talking about right and people are

liars but also you guys you don't know don't care what a furry is clearly or it doesn't matter you know that this is bullshit yeah anyway and and the thing with the the trans the focus on trans kids the reason that it bugs me is so so i didn't uh i didn't come out as trans till i was in my 20s and uh it sucked puberty sucked yeah um i mean like puberty i think generally kind of sucks but puberty really sucked um and it's like a it's body horror shit you know it's it's not good and if i can spare someone from having to go through that, I would love to because it's not fun. And it's a lot of it's permanent. I mean, the thing is, you know, all of the stuff that, you know, it was only a couple months back that the big talking point was about trans athletes it was about um oh we just don't want trans women have an advantage over over cisgender women you know like that was the big talking point for a little bit but the reason

that that's true in some some cases not all obviously um the reason that that can be true is the fact that trans women are often forced to go through a testosterone fueled puberty, which make them taller, which will affect their voices. And you know, bone structure, you know, like all of these things are these are permanent changes. And when people oppose getting trans kids, like things like puberty blockers, they go, you will Yeah, but I mean, what if what about the what if the there are permanent effects we don't know if there are it's like well we we sure as shit know that there are permanent effects if we know if you don't you know if if you don't let them have this and it's it's not fun you can't

undo a lot of this stuff like some of it you can but i mean they want to they want to create this situation where trans women are people they can pick out of a crowd that's what they want they want this like stereotypical oh ha ha ha burly dude in a dress kind of like idea of what trans women are and i think that there's this fear that if trans people aren't obviously trans that people will maybe start to accept us a little more and if people start to accept us a little more then their bigoted platform doesn't work out so they're trying to force these kids to go through hell so they can keep their horrible bigoted you know ideas going. It speaks, I think,

to the ignorance to the topic in a lot of these bills. Because the Idaho bill is like we're adding a bunch of amendments to a bill about female genital mutilation. And that is like, oh, you don't get

this at all, do you? Or you just want to be cruel. You want to be a jerk. Also, you're making female this at all, do you? Or you just want to be cruel. You want to be a jerk. Also, you're making female genital mutilation a thing that isn't really, I mean, a thing in America. Like, you're bringing that fear into people's lives that that is something that happens that you should be worried about outside and associating it with anyway. Yeah. Yeah. side of it and associating it with anyway yeah well and and and just like really really quick on that all of all of these anti-trans laws that that target trans kids health care their their

whole thing the basis is these kids shouldn't be having surgery performed on them which again extremely rare um but they will also have like carve outs in these bills to say that it's still okay to perform completely unnecessary surgery on intersex babies to to normalize them which is something that the hypocrisy that yeah a lot of people in the intersex community are very much against because yeah they're like you know some people just are very unhappy with their lives after that. And that happens to them as a baby. So these people say they don't want surgery for kids, but then they're like, oh, but we'll be sure to leave

the completely non-consensual surgery in there. You know, it's frustrating. We have to take a quick break. This has been fascinating. And then we'll be right back for more news. Even more of it, I meant to say. I should say. Boy, I sure do love adult activities.

Paying taxes, driving to the post office, renting a car, voting, applying for credit cards, purchasing cough suppressants, betting at the horse track, and of course, playing colorful online mobile games like Best Fiends. It's a match-three casual puzzle game filled with tons of cute characters designed for adults to play. Not a kid game, this game. This is not one of those. You slap it right out of your kid's hands.

You will, because it's for you, big tall person. Best Fiends is a great way to kill time While doing all of those boring adult things in your life Like filing a lawsuit or adopting a child Or being called into jury duty Or getting married without the permission of a guardian You're picking up what I'm laying down there, right? We all have those long spans of waiting in our lives And Lord only knows what we did before smartphones.

Did we whittle things out of wood? I guess. Maybe. The point is, you can play Best Fiends whether you have minutes or hours to spare. Why not give it a look-see and download Best Fiends free today on the App Store or Google Play?

That is friends without the R. Best Fiends. Try it out out you majestic grown big person you all right we're back all right well and we are back as promised for even more news we're back we are we're back all right we're back fine and we're gonna talk about gas yeah gasoline about gas yeah gasoline it's expensive right now folks boy yeah it's at a record 4.25 that four and four and a quarter 4.25 i would like 4.25 dollars please it's really going off the rails here. And it's somewhere around $6 here in LA. Jonathan's corrected me.

It's $5.78. Like I said, somewhere around $6 here in LA. And then I Googled it and added it in. I'm sorry. That's somewhere around. Don't be sorry. You made it better. You're both right.

We're both right. It sucks. Joe Biden announced earlier this week that the United States would be cutting off oil imports from Russia, a move intended to hit their, you know, major primary economy. This, of course, will is exacerbating the already increasing gas rates we have been dealing with dealing with here. You know, it's tricky because it's feels like it's the right kind of thing to do you want to do stuff but it also doesn't do that much because the majority of people countries that depend on russian oil can't just sever ties and also russia can probably make up that oil with china you know so there's that and then you know biden

immediately goes to um starts to explore saudi arabia as a potential place to to make up the difference which you know is problematic in so many ways and also underscores what we've all been saying about how we care about this war, but we don't care about other wars. There's only one war, Katie. There's only one war. There's only one war. And it's between us and the climate. And all of this doesn't help that. Frustrating. I just have to say, we're going to talk about it. But I get very hung up on the fact that here's a prime opportunity for us to all talk about green energy and an opportunity. I don't know how this works, but Biden could probably do some sort of an executive order. That's like an emergency measure. And we start to, you know, focus on green energy here. And

sure, the next person might roll it back. But whatever it is, there's a conversation to be had right now that we are not having. We are despite all of these climate change warnings, despite all maybe we'll get to it later on but there's a million things happening um i got off topic well i mean yeah it's frustrating like this is uh not just like uh wow if we had like done a lot more work before this we wouldn't be having to worry as much about this also it's the kind of thing that he's just going to sort of use is like gas prices are high because of this well i know it's happening which is like not it's a talking point from the right wing but it's also it's like yeah the conversation

two weeks ago three weeks ago was inflation and gas prices and what's biden gonna do about it and now it gets to become putin's problem right um to a degree i don't know if that's has an elasting effect on people but um it's obviously that's part of what's happening here yeah uh gas prices are i don't know i haven't driven a car in like 12 years. Yeah. For you. All right. You know what? My wife has a car. She drives. I just never pay attention to anything and never leave the house.

Sort of. But I think it's funny that there was that that convoy thing going on and they're like protesting tyranny and complaining about gas prices and protesting this all by like driving wasting gas like we're gonna keep driving in a big circle and that'll show you I guess a lot of diesel getting guzzled yeah it showed me something yeah what restrictions

I say what restrictions are you protesting but um still you know you know obviously uh this is a bigger problem than just Russia and Ukraine. The prices have been on the rise for a while. There's lots of reasons. U.S. oil companies intentionally scaled back on production during the pandemic when people weren't traveling as much. And it's difficult to get those production levels back up from pre-pandemic levels. Just all of a sudden, a lot higher demand now that COVID restrictions are easing and whatnot.

Just because I touched upon it briefly up top doesn't mean we don't say it. Yeah. So President Biden has considered a trip for White House officials to Saudi Arabia to ask them to drill more. a trip for White House officials to Saudi Arabia to ask them to drill more. And I guess the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates declined phone calls. And then Jen Psaki was like, no, they didn't. So who knows? But the Saudis, I guess, are upset with Biden. They want, quote, more support for their intervention in Yemen's civil war, with biden they want uh quote more support for their intervention in yemen's civil war help with their own civilian nuclear program as iran uh iran's moves ahead and legal immunity

for prince muhammad in the u.s since he faces lawsuits over the murder of jamal khashoggi uh so uh do we think that he should uh we should then support this other war to fight the other war? Is that going to work? Is that a good, fair trade-off? I think that we should invest in solar energy. No war here. War over here, good. Oil here, good.

War, good. I think it's not war, good. I think it's don't look at this war. Look at that war. Whether or not war is good depends entirely on whether the place has nuclear weapons or not. Apparently. I think it's important to note that the wars that we're discussing here, you know,

Saudi Arabia's war with, with Yemen. It's, it's responsible for 230,000 deaths over the last six years and it's a huge humanitarian crisis that we never talk about and the media doesn't report on here

I disagree I know it's rare I don't think it's fun okay you don't think it's fun this is fun here in California Gavin Newsom's state of the state address was this week and he said he was planning to give a rebate uh to consumers to blunt the

impacts of gas prices um uh but and his economic advisor uh dd myers said after after the speech you'll have to be a california resident and you'll have to own a car and we'll go from there. So what I mean, I at first blush, yeah, you give the people the rebate if you own the car. That's just giving money to people that have have things and not addressing, you know, all of the myriads of problems that we have. You're giving people that have money, more money, their cars. Well, and also and also also i mean high gas prices affect people everywhere whether you have a car or not i mean yes that because places will raise their price on their goods and pay more for shipping and stuff you know it all comes back to all of us so it does seem a little uh i don't know maybe not super smart to go with the you must have a car aspect of this but yeah well i don't know maybe not super smart to go with the you must have a car

aspect of this but I don't know we'll see what happens if that's actually the way that they go but Jonathan texted me that and I was like what yeah no we're definitely that fun tidbit it's more expensive now just gas nothing else everything's the same

it's a good thing that rent prices are going down yeah I think it just like speaks to what happened. Obviously, higher gas prices along with higher prices of everything hurt people, hurt working consumers. But the media has a special sort of frenzy when gas prices are very high. Yes. Oh, yeah. There's a real focus on it.

Local news loves it. I don't know if you saw that. There was a parody of here's every Local news loves it. I don't know if you saw that. There was a parody of, here's every local news broadcast when gas prices are high. I can't think of the name of the comedian who did it, but it's just standard shots of people filling up and the number going up at the pump and all that stuff. There's just this frenzy because it's very uniquely American.

It's very like we run everything on gas, and it becomes the biggest problem in America. And they like seeking out the gas stations that have the absolute most ridiculous highest prices they can find. Right. The most alarming. Yeah. They're like, let's find a place that has $8. You know.

Yeah. There's photos like $7 in California. It's there. Yeah. $3. Every, there's photos like, this is $7 in California. It's there. Yeah. $3. Everyone knows that's the one at the Olympic in Fairfax. Where's the $3?

Exactly, yeah. Right, it was like by the Beverly Center or something. It's like, okay, yeah. Jonathan, I'm going to throw it to you now to walk us through some broken news. Oh, boy. Oh, did the news break?

Bring us home. I can bring everyone home. I hated that. Bring us home? You can cut it. You try things out. Cut that, and it'll be me saying, I can bring everyone home. It'll be inexplicable.

Perfect. So WNBA star Brittany Griner remains detained in Russia, supposedly on drug charges that she apparently had vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. There's still very little information we've got about her condition. Some have speculated she's being held. Is hashish oil weed?

Not my area of expertise. I think it's weed in oil form i doubt we have any listeners who could correct us on this and the state department's reportedly working on this but it's unclear what progress they're able to make and it really hasn't been a bigger story she's one of the biggest uh stars in the wnba obviously, if Tom Brady or Kevin Durant or someone were over there, it would be like a 24 hour news cycle about it. I don't know what there is to be done about it, but you're right. This would be a much bigger story if she were a male athlete. Yeah, I did see someone.

I did see someone point out that apparently her people wanted to keep it kind of quiet. I see. Because they didn't want it to turn into a hostage situation, kind of. Right, right. That makes sense. But I don't know. It's just ridiculous that she's being held, though. Anyway.

You know, it's also, it happened at this moment when it's becoming um an international incident so it almost seems like maybe it wouldn't have happened had pudin not been ramping things up it's very tough to know behind the scenes um how this kind of stuff is going especially in the russian legal system which can be very obtuse from our perspective but it's just terrifying to someone's uh that someone could be stuck over there i agree with you completely i don't have a point to add but that's fine we can talk about crypto i know that excites everyone uh president biden signs an executive order this week asking the federal government to take a look at the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies

this has long been expected uh the white house wants policy recommendations uh oversight details about a potential u.s central bank digital currency um the crypto people really liked this announcement um because it definitely seemed to, I think for the most part, it seemed to legitimize. Yeah. Like Bitcoin jumped 6% when it happened. I mean, like our first blush, yeah. I want Biden to try to explain what crypto is.

That's what I want. Yeah, yeah. I want to hear Joe Biden off the top of his head try to tell us what cryptocurrency is. Oh boy, that would be fun. They should do that at the debates in 2024. Like ask each person

to describe it. I want to see them. Trump saying we've got apes like nobody's ever seen. What a beautiful dance that would be. What is it? They take their apes and you get the apes and then they take them.

Everyone's saying our apes are the most beautiful. I need that. Who's the SNL guy? He would... James Austin Johnson. He would do both of those. Perfect. He's so good at Trump. He's do both of those. Perfect. Well, he's perfect at...

He's so good at Trump. Decent guy, too. Yeah, he's really, really great at both. Because they're funniest when they're talking about things that don't matter. Yeah. And he's perfect at that. My reaction to this is more frustration. I mean, okay, cryptocurrency, legitimizing it, whatever, all of this stuff.

We're not having the conversation of that this is a new industry that's so bad for the environment. Like a lot of people don't know that. You know, they don't know. I was talking to somebody recently. She's like, my boyfriend is just really all in. You know, it's here to stay. I'm like, do you know how bad it is for the environment? And she like how what and then i was having a hard time explaining it but it is you know um anyway that's my reactions i just i think it delays how long we have to like deal with this stuff and think about it although i shared um cody and katie you can see this in the notes someone did a google trends search for nft oh this is funny and it like peaked in early january and it has plummeted since and that yeah i don't know if that's gonna hold but oh man it would be great if we got to

stop it is they oversaturated everyone realized how silly it was yeah exactly it was very funny little graph I just I also people are spending like a bunch of money on and cartoon apes I know whatever it's never accept it I think it's gonna they're on the way out I think it'll come out eventually that like all

the celebs who own them were just given them for free oh yeah by board eight yacht club or whatever the group was to inflate the value. Jimmy Fallon's not spending his own money on that crap at all. Yeah, I think you're right about that. Absolutely. No, they're like, do this, do this. Everyone's doing it.

Do it. So they do it. Then they go on TV and they're just like, here's my thing. And they don't know what they have gotta say this gonna dupe some people to get on board that I mean the Fallon Paris Hilton

clip is like so disturbing and surreal and weird it's a very dystopian feeling to me yeah cause they don't really know what they're talking about nor should they don't like it's stupid just don't talk about it have any of you tried to use crypto before like have you purchased any okay i've tried because i wrote an article about uh i interviewed someone who's an nft artist

uh a while back and was like i should buy some crypto i guess and try to buy an nft just so i understand i still don't get it and I think I lost like a bunch of money in a transaction that went somewhere and I don't like it's I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about technology but so much of it was just going right over my head and I'm like how are you going to explain this to an 80-year-old? Right. How does this happen? Right. You have to get this crypto wallet that you only have a code.

What the hell is? I don't know. I'm tired. I'm tired. I don't want to. And then when Twitter had that thing where they allowed people to upload NFTs to their profile and they get a special little hexagon profile picture or whatever, I had an NFT from when I did that story. So I was like, oh, I'm going to try this and upload it.

And then all of a sudden I lost like 200 followers on Twitter. And someone's like, oh, someone came out with a blockchain that auto blocks like anyone with those. So I was like. Oh, no. Oh, man. I just wanted to see how it works. Because I had an NFT that was like a little ghost wearing a beanie. And I'm like, that's just me. This is what you get.

All that crypto got you was a ghost beanie and fewer followers. Yeah. I guess it's a bad time to bring up our warm bow NFTs we do not have them there's a limited edition of 15,000 get them while they're hot so get them while they're just as useless

as they will be I'd love to do some some quick Trump dates if you're okay with that, Katie. Sure, fuck it. Real quick, I just wanted to play this one or two clips of Trump on that

Full Send podcast from yesterday. Get some rockin'. YMCA. YMCA is a track. It's an underrated track. Do you know, is it an underrated i think so well it gets a lot of views i can say but ymca uh the gay national anthem did you ever hear that they call it the gay national anthem but ymca gets people up and it gets them moving but we have a lot of

good selections and people love it when i do it he's so funny he's the funniest man who's ever lived i've missed his sweet voice he's like also like it's so weird seeing him like kind of lucid and like knowing like he's like he's aware of like what's going on uh but god i just can't even oh there's there were other moments in that interview where he very clearly wasn't aware well exactly it's this weird like okay so you kind of know what's going on here and then you just like you're gonna blame windmills for your massive dump and flush or whatever it is yeah um which apparently was because he was like a shredding documents and flushing him down the toilet you know i guess he also had something where he was talking about how it was bad that Germany was building up its military.

And his excuse was because of World War I and World War II. What? Oh, my God. That was another moment from that interview. And it's just like, what? He was like, bad things happen when Germany and Japan do another. He doesn't. Yeah.

He has no idea. He just doesn't know what's going on sometimes that he's throwing things at the wall and sees what sticks and then he goes follows what sticks um i have a question i have not heard of the full sun podcast what is it and why are they recording in what looks to be the senate chambers. I don't know. If you guys have seen the clip, they're in these fancy wood-paneled pillared room. These guys are called the Nelk

Boys. They're Canadian YouTubers and they just do prank videos and stuff like that. They must have asked Trump to be on the show and he said yes. They're not prank yet. That's so... Why haven't you guys had Trump on yet?. Their biggest prank yet. That's so. You know, why haven't you guys had Trump on yet?

I guess I should. I should ask. Maybe we should just ask. Jonathan, can you reach out? Maybe hop on Truth Social. Yeah. I don't know. I feel bad flying into his DMs. I'd say maybe we were mean to his son, but I feel like he'd be okay with that.

I think that we should at least reach out. If he's going to drop some gems like this dear donald john president yeah oh so i found the germany quote so trump said uh germany has now agreed to rebuild their military and they've just decided that they're going to go all out be careful what you wish for uh and then the interviewer says why is that he goes well take a look over the last two world wars take a look over the last two world wars with germany you know there is a theory out there that germany should not be rebuilding their military so much and japan is now going to rebuild their military just be careful what you wish for because a lot of bad things have happened with those two countries in their military.

What are we wishing for? I don't know, but he seems to think Germany is still World War II era Nazis. I don't know. He also is the guy who got mad at them for not contributing enough to NATO. They did the thing and then he's

like, no, now that's a bad thing. He has no clue yeah take zero positions and take every position that's oh the trump way god i've missed him missed watching him talk fun it's just nice to see him again and such good spirits and so well yeah he does seem uh he does seem healthier. He certainly is alive. He's healthier than when he had COVID. All right. At least there's that.

You know what? I agree with you completely. He does seem healthier than when he had COVID. And then the engine went out on his plane the other day and had to do an emergency stop. And then today he sent out a fundraising email because he wants his supporters to pay for a new plane for him. Wait. I am being 100% serious here. How is that true? Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's Trump Force One, he calls it. What? The fuck? Aren't planes like a billion dollars? Yeah, they're very expensive. But yeah, there's an article at the hill that is just uh yeah it says former president trump asking his supporters to fund his new trump force one private plane just days after flying it flying him to margo mar-a-lago made an emergency landing what

about the engines fail fixing the engine yeah well at the at the bottom of the article it says the full-size passenger airliner which bears trump's name across the side in large block letters, has fallen into disrepair. One engine is shrink-wrapped, and the other is missing parts, according to CNN. Let him keep flying it. Oh, man. This is so funny, Parker.

I don't want to suggest that that would be the... I mean, what a way to go. Not like Stanchra in a completely separate oh no not no oh yeah not like a chump like stan i'm sure i'm sure that the same people who think that jfk jr did not die in a plane crash would would accept his death with the kind of seriousness you know that my whole thing yesterday when i when i saw that news i was like don't say anything you're gonna end up in a twitchy article don't say anything you're gonna end up on one of those right-wing sites so sat there what's okay you're self-censoring

i'm trying to catch up i'm trying i know some censorship the scourge of our times. So he was, he's built, he's building a new plane. He's already building it. It said, it says he was already building it and it's been under wraps. And then this happened. And then,

so he, so then he sent out an email to get donations, but it contribute any amount to send your response to president Trump. get any amount to send your response to president trump so he's asking for money to respond to him telling the story about the update on his plane i still i need to i'm sorry i mean this i'm like try i'm trying to like process all of this at once and it's okay you don't need to you take as much time with it as you need. That's a healthy response. For some reason, it reminded me of that.

There was a story in like 2015 that was a boy got on a plane or got on a helicopter with Trump and Trump said, I'm Batman at one point. And so CNN ran a story that was like, Trump tells little boy on helicopter, I'm Batman and that is just stuck in my head for all of these years like everything that's happened just him

saying I'm Batman and I remember that yeah beautiful good man the dumb things that I remember it's like the theme of this episode and I'm so glad you do remember it's like when you put the what when you like the theme of this episode and I'm so glad you do remember. It's like when you put the what?

When you put the piece of candy on the Minions costume. Like you had the little basket and you just like put it on top of it. Top five. Oh gosh. What a trip down memory lane this has been. Parker, thank you so much for joining us.

This was really, really fun. Tell our listeners where they can subscribe to your wonderful newsletter. Yeah, you can, you can subscribe to my newsletter at read the present age.com. And, uh, right now, actually I am through the end of the month. One thing I'm doing is, uh, I am giving everyone a free 90 day, trial to like to the paid version of it so if you want that try it or just do the free version whatever it's all cool i uh just i just want people to read yeah that's a really nice generous offer thank you i appreciate that yeah you know i just i feel confident enough in the stuff that

I put out that I hope that after 90 days people are like okay fine it's worth it it's worth the price of admission for sure and it's good you have to you know what also that's generous of you but you're worth that you know you're worth people

paying money to support your work and we talk a lot about our problems with media and You're worth that. You know, you're worth people paying money to support your work. And we talk a lot about our problems with media and coverage. And it's a frustrating situation because our mainstream media is funded by advertisers and they answer to people and whatever. But the answer to that is supporting individuals in their work. And anyway, mini rant over again. Agree with you completely. Yeah.

Support, support. Support. People you love. Pay people money. Yeah. I'm so articulate today. And that's why we're here. That's why I do this.

This has been really fun. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And, you know, the next time I'll come back for what is either my third or seventh time.

I don't know. Somewhere in between. I think we'll be up to 10 by then. I don't know. All right. Well, we will be back next week and you better remember

that we love you very much. Much. Fuck. Please. Please. Please. Please.