The Daily Zeitgeist - Depopulate Through ConTrendception 3/12: Government Shutdown, Mahmoud Khalil, WikiPortraits, Sleepmaxing

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

In this edition of Depopulate Through ConTrendception, Jack and Miles discuss the potential government shutdown, Gavin Newsom getting slammed for his dumb podcast, "dangerous times" at Columbia University, photographers trying to fix Wikipedia's bad celebrity portraits, the "Sleepmaxing" trend and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why would you do that to me? Los Angeles, 2021. A friendly neighbor appears out of nowhere and promises to make all my dreams come true. Let's not forget that David Blum was a professional con artist, so you didn't stand a chance. But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. I'm Caroline DeMore. Listen as I take down my scammer on Once Upon a Con on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up y'all? This is Eric Andre. I made a podcast called bombing about absolutely

tanking on stage. I tell gnarly stories and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she jumped on stage and threw a big haymaker punch to my nose. Listen to Bombing with Eric Andre on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of Depopulate via contraception. Oh, depopulate by. What was that? What was that? Oh, I thought you're going to stick the landing. Was the abortion. It was an endorse abortion.

Yes. Depopulate by endorse abortion. And this is from the Christian Nightmares. Christian Nightmares. Twitter page. Still so good. Just I'll play a little bit for y'all just because. Depopulate by your contrast. And the thing just said Christian reggae hits different.

It's like a pro-life reggae. So yeah, he's saying he's saying what they want you to do. Yeah, he's not saying what we should do. Maybe we should be throttling back our consumption and all that, but hey, whatever. Nah, nah, nah, nah. Just dip up, go in raw. As a Christian, my main thing is go in there raw. You know what I'm saying? Hell yeah. Anyways, my name is Jack. That over there is Miles Gray. And this is what is trending on Wednesday afternoon, March 12th. Got a spending bill coming up. Yeah, there's a, yeah. So basically to avert the shutdown right now, as it stands, Republicans passed their continuing resolution. Basically, they're getting the Republicans have able to keep the bill that pass that keeps the government

funding. They passed that in the house. All the, all the Democrats, except for one government funding. I can't stop. Like my brain is just stuck on that shit. Now it's going to be a real problem for me. I think doing it in public enough and be able to go, you hear that white dude singing reggae like that? Will probably help. That weird voice. Tamp down the enthusiasm. Or make you double down harder. And you're like, how come a white man can't sing reggae? I've been saying this, Miles.

You and Adrian Brody. Or what was his name? Yeah, Adam Brody. No, Adrian. Yeah, Adrian. But anyway, now, so it's now past the house. It's up to the Senate to pass this. The thing is they need 60 votes for this shit to pass in the House and in the Senate. And right now there's talks of Chuck Schumer getting the fucking votes together

to pass this thing, to keep the government funded, because they don't they don't want to have a shutdown and having us be blamed. So strong. Just so we're clear, this bill that they passed, there's nothing fucking like, as as they say it's a clean bill There was bipartisan because maybe one fucking Democrat who's so lost voted on it. It's gonna slash spending It's gonna cut fucking Social Security staffing emergency food assistance It's like it's gonna allow Trump to just redirect funds However the fuck he likes so for everything you think it's gonna keep the government funded asshole can just be like, nah, I don't really want to fund it that way.

So it is what it is. So I don't understand what they think they gain from being like, well, we're not going to, we don't want any part of it. I don't want them. I don't want the finger pointed at us when the government shuts down. Motherfucker, the finger is going to be pointed at y'all because you are a party to this nonsense that the Republicans are doing. That's what the fucking issue is here. And it's even wild too to have other Democrats and stuff out here being like, do not fucking vote on this thing, you losers. This is Ted Lieu saying to the Senate Democrats, please be fucking for real for once. This is not some shit that we need to keep this shit going. This is Ted Lou. House Democrats are very clear. We're asking Senate Democrats to vote no on this Kareem resolution, which is not clean

and it makes cuts across the board. And it's going to be one of those things where people are going to look at this vote and every bad thing that now happens with Doge and Donald Trump, Elon Musk, they can go back to this vote. So we're asking Senate Democrats to vote no. Yeah, pretty easy. I mean, what's the fucking point? The government is basically being shut down in front of our eyes. Yeah, already they're dismantling the government. And I don't just is you signing off on that. And the only benefit to Democrats right now is like with John Federer being like,

I would never shut down the government, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is not the fucking, all this is being done is because they are very worried about their own reelection chances. So they just don't like the label of having the government shut down. It's, they're not standing up for fucking anything. So again. With the majority of the population behind them,

it comes down to a game of chicken and they're like, actually, we're not even going to get in the car. Because we are afraid of car crashes. So much of the Democrats' problem comes back to just their main ethos being, I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want people to be mad at me. Like that is institutionally who they are. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I hope y'all, all y'all get primaried for this nonsense. I just get, I mean, again, keep,

but you know what, keep revealing to people that you are actually have no ability to help or protect American people, that you are one in the same with the Republicans in terms of basically saying, we're fine with this kleptocracy we have and let's just maybe some, they're just, I don't know if like maybe deep down the Democrats,

like maybe something easy will happen that'll make it a lot easier for us rather than fucking fighting. But you're going up against the softest fucking scared Republicans ever. And they're even like, yeah. I don't know. They're so addicted to triangulation that they just like, haven't been able to.

So addicted to triangulation, um, that they can't give it up. They just can't give it up. This is why it's so nice to hear from Bill Burr every once in a while. Uh, if that just continues to be on a heater. Went on fresh air with Terry Gross. I haven't listened to fresh air in a while, but he was talking about these fucks who are eating almonds and competing to have the biggest infinity pools who are making life miserable for everybody else

and getting away with it. And Terry Gross was like, and who besides almond eaters are you talking about? I was like, wait, I don't think he was specifically saying like anyone who eats almonds are bad. And then he just like goes off on Elon Musk in a way that's really funny. And just feels like, I don't know, if one politician, one democratic politician just tried to talk like that, I feel like they might recognize, uh, how, how people are actually feeling right now. Um,

it's also went off on the quality of Jordan's on a complex. Yeah. I think it's like, he's, he's, he's got, he's got our vote, I guess. But yeah, it just shows it immediately. Like there was a thing I saw in New York Mag that was like, why AOC and Bernie just are doing so much, they're so much better at this than the Democrats. And it was kind of like, sort of not really saying the most obvious part

is that they're not fully beholden to American capitalism as the reason why. They're able to speak critically of it because they don't think it's the fucking Undergirding of all that is great in this country. They're like, no, there's actually this cause of all of our pain Yeah, they're like, yeah, well other people struggle they they found a way that they also have been Ideologically consistent. It's like just talk about what the problem is like they're actually speaking to the fucking problem, which is all of this inequality and

problem is like they're actually speaking to the fucking problem which is all of this inequality and they're able to point a direct finger at the this financial system that was anyway so there's a lot of wow what is different what what can be done differently and the problem is these people they're there to protect the status quo so of course they have no idea how to talk shit about it or talk about it critically because they're in office to protect it and nothing else. And they've been rewarded because they are so dedicated to protecting the status quo and twisting their mind into the weirdest shapes to be like, actually, I'm doing a good thing for working people

by bailing out Wall Street. I'm doing a good thing for people by getting real mealy-mouthed and inconsistent on what human rights are or what police brutality is. Anyway. I'm doing a good thing for working people with this massive spending thing that is actually funded by private equity and will retrain you to be data entry.

And I'm also doing great because I'm having Steve Bannon on my fucking podcast. Yes. Jesus Christ. Gavin Newsom. Again, again with the triangulation. Like this is just this is who they are. Yeah, it truly is just the only thing they're capable of. It's like asking people to have you ever seen like the footage of pigeons in zero gravity? Like they took animals up into zero gravity in space shuttles,

almost seemingly just to fuck with them. And like they just like, don't know, don't know what to do. Extra funding lying around. They're like, yeah, exactly. They experiment and they just look so weird and confused, like trying to fly. But like they're just like kind of floating. Their entire reason for existence, their entire like moral universe, like functional like universe is oriented

in this one direction. And when you ask them to change it, they just like, they're like, okay, yeah, we'll change it. I'm going to be Joe Rogan of the left and I'm going to have Steve Bannon. So I'll just have Steve Bannon Yeah, because the only thing you can do is triangulate that's the only that's they can't do anything It's so mind-blowing to be like how do you popularize? left oriented politics For two for the masses

That's what they meant by Joe Rogan of the left rather than will you have the same guess as Joe? Rogan on your podcast, but you're on the left. Yeah It's like yeah, I have Nazis on too. I have science denial on my podcast, too Right, and my whole shit is that I just like think they're pretty cool I think they're neat and I'm gonna tell them that I like what they do. This video is perfect. These pigeons are fucking confused. Flapin'. Pigeons in zero gravity. Zero gravity pigeons is what the Democratic Party is right now.

They're just, they don't know which way is up. I mean they know which way they're supposed to think is up. This is why more people just need to start trolling these people and just primary them. Like regular people. Just to fucking make them waste their money. Because like if you say something even remotely normal, I just have a feeling just that people's appetites are fucking up there, are pretty intense for something that is anything other than, well you know the Republicans are just maneuvering in a

way that's making it very difficult. Just say it for what it is. These people want are actively destroying just any semblance of what America used to be. And you're just basically there being like, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. I guess I'll, I'll kind of, I won't sit at the same table, but I'll definitely dine in the restaurant, the same restaurant as them. Right. Right. All right. So we've talked on the past couple of episodes about the arrest and attempted deportation of Mahmoud Khalil. Yeah. And so there's still we don't have as of this recording still hasn't been charged with a crime, still his lawyer still can't contact him. Yeah. And legally did he, again, green card, like he's married to an American citizen.

He's fully an American, eight months pregnant by the way, eight months pregnant American citizen, uh, and you know, just taken away from his family. They're going to try and deport him because he, uh, led the protests. So just like they're, you know, openly trying to deport him for saying things that they didn't like. Wrong thing. So yeah, one thing in particular for some reason.

But I just, so at Columbia University, I just wanted to read this New York Times article that was at the top of the front page of the New York Times. Days after immigration officers arrested a prominent pro-Palestinian campus activist Administrators at Columbia University gathered students and faculty from the Journalism School and issued a warning. No a Warning. Okay. Yeah, so I I'm maybe expecting if I'm a student at the Journalism School. I'm expecting

You know a speech of like, look guys, like this is obviously very scary, but you have the institutional power of like one of the most respected journalism schools that you're back. Uh, students who were not us citizens were told they should avoid publishing work on Gaza, Ukraine, and protests related to their former classmates arrest urged Stuart Karl, a First Amendment lawyer, and specifically said, you guys only have two months before graduation, don't fuck this up, it could be bad for your career.

If you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East, he told The Gathering in Poulter Hall. When a Palestinian student objected, the journalism school's dean, Jelani Cobb, was more direct about the school's inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. Nobody can protect you, Mr. Cobb said.

These are dangerous times. That's maybe what they should have said up top. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know. They're like, look, nobody can protect you, A because we don't have the fucking spine for it. And also be like, these motherfuckers are just doing whatever the fuck they want. Truly. I don't know what the fuck we can do. And yes, you're right. These are dangerous times you are having. These are dangerous times, which I'm sure everybody is aware of. Yeah. Whisked away by the White House's secret police, ICE now,

who's just using their fucking weird ass jurisdiction to terrorize these people who are not United States citizens and completely try and put a nice chill on our ability to organize and protest in a time when it's probably going to be one of the few, at this point, still somewhat guaranteed rights that will help us, you know, potentially navigate whatever this fucking new regime is, but yeah, it's.

Just FYI, we don't have your back. Nobody can protect you. You're on your own. Get right with Trump and Jesus or get fucked. Thank you for coming to this meeting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just do that. And just like, just nuke your accounts, man. Just don't.

Oh, it's real bad out there. Goal. Yeah. I mean, at least they're kind of telling the truth now where they're just like, we're not going to, we can't fuck. We can't do shit. We're not doing shit. All right.

No. We're not doing, and doing shit. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. And we're back. We're back. And wanted to shout out 404 Media. First of all, met a couple of people who work there. Really cool.

So Wikipedia is still one of the last Good things that hasn't been completely ruined on the internet One place that they're lacking a little bit that you might have noticed Is that the photos they have of people look like shit like when you go to somebody's Wikipedia page like they're they like Scott Bayo's page is Scott is all fucked up. Scott Bayo in 1985 being shot from like across his prom. Like I don't know. So like everything's like blurry. And the reason is because Wikipedia editors like just have to find public domain photos.

And when it comes to like famous people, it's hard to find that because there's such a huge industry of people trying to make money off of their products, off of their image. And so a few years ago, like this group got together and was like, we're just going to like make it so that we can like have good pictures of celebrities. And so they started in the 80s. Yeah. Yeah. And so they started like going like getting press credentials where they could. A lot of times, like the media event will be like, we don't really consider you guys

to be a media outlet, really? Even though their circulation or like their reach is like billions and billions of people every month. And yours is like you're giving access to like zines that have like dozens of people. But yeah, so they basically kind of pro bono. I think they like put together a little like group and like a little bit of funding to like go and take these pictures. And there's just this one interaction with Jeremy Strong that may like kind of highlights what I'm talking about where it's just like, oh yeah, it's just a person, an uncomplicated way that someone's like, this thing should be better. I'm going to do something about it and get tangible results, despite that not being how things work anymore.

The article says, since last January, WikiPortraits photographers have covered around 10 global festivals and award ceremonies and taken nearly 5,000 freely licensed photos of celebrity attendees. And the celebrity attendees are often quite excited about it. Dixit, for example, found Jeremy Strong of Succession at a New York showing of The New Apprentice and asked to take a new headshot of him for Wikipedia. His publicist said no, Dixit said,

but Jeremy said, wait, you're from Wikipedia? For the love of God, please take down that photo. You'd be doing me a service. So he stood and posed and I got a shot of him. Strong's old photo was from 2014. So it was 10 years old. Yeah. But that's just like, that's such a clear, yeah, there's so many people in the way who are like trying to be like, no, we have to protect this image so that the maximum number of people can make the maximum amount of money off of it.

And not even like doing the base, the most basic fucking job of a publicist, which is to think about what your public image is. And you're like, yeah, bro, let that fucking 11 year photo cook on Wikipedia of you. So when they look you up, they're like, oh, he's still wearing fedoras. Exactly. Like that is a bad thing. Every publicist should be trying to get a better picture of their client on Wikipedia. And instead, they're just willing to go along and be complicit with a system that is just maximizing as much profit as they possibly can from the system as it exists.

I do like this Instagram page. It's like all the bad Wikipedia photos. There's one of this footballer, Kyle Bartley. He used to play for Arsenal as a youth player, but like the photo of his is like a dude's like fingers scraping his mouth and nose mid action. It just has a hand in his face. So stupid. But yeah, just again, I think they don't realize to publicists most people's first foray into understanding your client

is probably Wikipedia page. Yeah. To be like very first. Yeah. Let me get that 10,000 foot view of this person. I do that shit all the time. If I don't know somebody is, I'm first, I'll pull up the Wikipedia and then don't realize that the first page that they're going to see or the first photo they're going to see, damn, the Farrouzabalch photo they have of her. Don't do Farrouzabalch like that They she has so many better photos than the one they put on her page. Oh, yeah. Farooza Balkh is cruel. Yeah, there's so I mean,

some of them seem like they were put there by people who were mad at them. Yeah. Or like you dropped a publicist and they go to Wikipedia like, oh, I actually have a license free photo you can put up of this. Yeah. Let me grab this one for you. The most fucked up one you've ever seen of them, but yeah, it's just Again, yeah to your point They'll prioritize vanity fare over the thing that most people are seeing their client on. Chapel Rowan should fire her publicist for the Wikipedia photo that's up there. It's just like, oh no, they got about probably is it like ten years ago Chapel Rowan?

It's not even that old, but it just like doesn't. Oh, yeah. It's like so not her vibe. Yeah, it's not her sitting like with sitting. I look like she's at a like Comic Con panel where she's right, you know, answering questions about her, you know, book that she wrote about Star Trek, the next generation and Marxism or something. Oh, Chapelappellrone. Chappellrone, you know?

Mm-hmm. And I did need to go to Wikipedia to find out who Chappellrone was at a certain point not too long ago. And Amy, go to her Wikipedia, find out that her uncle is a Republican member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Wow, they got all that in there. Damn. All right.

Are you sleep maxing, Miles? Am I? Sleep maxing. What was that? Talks. This is talk soup. I you sleep maxing miles? Am I sleep maxing? Uh, was that talks? This is talk soup. I'm a scent maxing. You're scent maxing. What is that? S that's what kids do. They're putting on I'm like criminal amounts of cologne and Axe body spray cause they're sent maxing says it's like, well, I want,

I want your eyes to water from the chemical reaction your brain is having from being in the presence of my odor. The trend doesn't even really seem to be sleep maxing so much as just like insert anything maxing. And now that I'm like, okay, this is how I optimize. I get on my grind set about getting enough sleep. It's funny that like Gen Z, they're what like billionaires are to quote, reinventing things or inventing new things is kind of how Gen Z or younger people just describe things that have already existed, but with like a new phrase, like, right, like just like the whole quiet quitting is like, yeah,

bro, we've not been giving a fuck at our jobs for a while. That's not right. That's not anything new. But again, I like the succinct nature of the new phrase. So sleep maxing is what you just sleep as much as possible. It's not sleeping as much as possible. It's like optimizing sleep with like a bunch of different bedtime routines and you know, it's, I, I didn't find anything that I wasn't really familiar with, but, um,

yeah, try the crippling weight of existence on your shoulders all day. And the first thing you want is to slip away into the darkness of sleep to give you a reprieve from the hell that is your day to day realities. That's forget the sit. This is from the CNN article on sleep maxing. Forget the simple bedtime routine of brushing your teeth, washing your face and putting on pajamas. I mean, that is about pajamas. And that's that I do.

Dothing your nightcap. Now, yeah, exactly. Holding a candle up in the candle holder and asking a dark hallway who goes there. Now people in search of the perfect sleep routine are adding steps that can include supplements, specific foods. I don't think you're supposed to eat before,

right before bed. It's not sleep max in my book Certain apps and other devices and a layered beauty routine another that Some this is called sleep maxing I like how one is some tip some sleep maxing tips are evidence-based other hacks may or may not work Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean I like on my I got a Apple watch that has because my other one burned in the fire But the new one I got has a new sleep function like where it does like sleep analysis Oh, and I thought maybe that I don't even know what to do with all that data

I'm like, yeah, I slept during that time Like yeah, oh should I need to start optimizing based on all this data? I'm such a bummer when you get you think you got a good night's sleep and then your sleep data is like, they're like kind of actually fucked up, man. Yeah. Yeah. You actually blew it last night and kind of sucked. Sucked shit from the mini bar. Oh my God. Wellness check, mini bar wellness. The first non alcohol related mini bar wellness check is what I achieved.

They weren't like, did you drink all of that? Yeah. It's just, did you eat all those snacks, man? You good? Usually when we see a spike in that kind of activity, the mini bar, it's because someone has fallen over and they can't get up and they've knocked it all down. They're thrashing and they're fine. Last time we saw a spike like that was at an earthquake, knocked everything off the mini bar. Anyways, I'm good. Things are good. I feel great. I feel great.

Those are some of the things that are trending on this Wednesday, March 12th. We are back tomorrow with a whole episode of the show until then be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Yeah. Get your vaccines while you still can. Get your flu shot while you still can. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. No.

We will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Why would you do that to me? Los Angeles, 2021. A friendly neighbor appears out of nowhere and promises to make all my dreams come true. Let's not forget that David Blum was a professional con artist, so you didn't stand a chance. But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. I'm Caroline DeMore.

Listen as I take down my scammer on Once Upon a Con on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Eric Andre. I made a podcast called Bombing about absolutely tanking on stage. I tell gnarly stories and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life.

Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she jumped on stage and threw a big haymaker punch to my nose. Listen to Bombing with Eric Andre on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.