The Daily Zeitgeist - Ted Cruz: Totally Authentic Beer Lover, Plandemic 2.0: Bigger And Wronger 09.01.23

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

In episode 1541, Jack and guest co-host Super Producer Joelle Monique are joined by comedian and musician, Caitlin Cook, to discuss… Ted Cruz: Awkwardly Guzzling Beer On TV To Own the Libs, Nobody Wants To Buy Rudy Giulliani’s Apartment, The “Plandemic 2.0” Conspiracy Theory Explained, Sorry Taco Bell... We Don’t Want A Cashless Future and more! Ted Cruz: Awkwardly Guzzling Beer On TV To Own the Libs America's Alcohol Czar Wants Stricter Federal Guidelines for Drinking Ted Cruz Roasted for Bizarre, Beer-Chugging Newsmax Rant: ‘Everything He Does is Cringe’ Health Canada recommends limiting alcohol to just 2 drinks per week Nobody Wants To Buy Rudy Giulliani’s Apartment Can Rudy Giuliani Get $6.5M for His Upper East Side Apartment? Rudy Giuliani, who keeps telling courts he's broke, just got hit with a $132,000 bill from a judge No Support for Viral Claim That COVID-19 ‘Lockdowns’ Are Returning This Fall Hollywood studio Lionsgate brings back mask mandate amid Covid spike What Is Lockdown 2.0? NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week COVID Relief Spending Sorry Taco Bell... We Don’t Want A Cashless Future Yum! Brands plan for fully digital transactions at restaurants Retailers want to go cashless. But opponents say that’s discriminatory Say No to the “Cashless Future” — and to Cashless Stores Cashless Retail Transactions Promotes Discrimination in our Communities Fact check: There are no federal laws on cashless payment, but some states prohibit businesses refusing cash LA considers ban on cashless businesses because they exclude low-income people, people of color, and seniors Rep. Payne, Jr.’s Bill to Protect Cash Passes House New Jersey Bans Cashless Stores Cashless Cafés And Businesses Are Breaking New Jersey Law: State The Psychology of Cashless Transactions Reverse ATMs take bills, dispense cards as stores go cashless Another Move Toward a Cashless Society Get Tickets for Caitlin Cook's One-Woman Bathroom Graffiti Musical The Writing On The Stall! LISTEN: Starlight by THE ØĐĐ ĐREAMERS, D NOTESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti and I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career.

That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. around negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 302, episode 4 of Der Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. This is a production of, this is a podcast, this is a podcast where we take a deep dive into america's shared consciousness and it is friday september 1st 2023 welcome to september at long last i i think maybe the biggest overrated we've had over the past couple months is summer so we're nearing the end of summer everybody's ready for some cooler months some cooler climbs my name is jack o'brien aka gonna steal some artifacts to sell to you my twitter handle is my ebay handle too i've got some stuff from gree Africa. Gonna sell the things instead of give them back. Oh, that is courtesy of Blinky Heck.

A little Africa by Toto, a.k.a. about the British museum curator who was just taking that shit, just taking priceless national treasures that colonialism had stolen and brought to England taking that shit, just taking priceless national treasures that colonialism had stolen and brought to England and just selling it on eBay.

From an eBay handle that is the same as his Twitter handle. That's really an amazing story that we talked about on a past episode, but I'm still not over it. And I am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest co-host, the producer behind shows like Fake Doctors, Real Friends,

a brilliant writer you can read at Vulture, AV Club, Team Vogue. You've heard her on Pop Culture, Have You Hour. It's the brilliant, the talented, Joelle Moniz! Hi, Jack. How you doing? I'm all right. How you doing? It's Beyonce weekend here in Los Angeles so I am beside myself

not emotionally prepared for what's about to come. Just edge of my seat not fully present anywhere I go. My mind is always with Beyonce. It's always in that stadium, that future spaceship, futuristic spaceship that landed somewhere in Englewood a couple years ago. It's always in that stadium, that future spaceship, futuristic spaceship that landed

somewhere in Englewood a couple years ago. It's wild. Yeah, that place is wild. How are you observing? Are you going to a Beyonce show? Jack, so instead of going on vacation this summer, I bought tickets to see Beyonce on her birthday in the VIP section of SoFi. Wow. My baby cousin's flying up tomorrow amazing come with me i just found out one of my best friends also has tickets the same day how we missed this information i don't know but we're gonna get ready together it's gonna be a whole spiritual awakening it's my first time seeing beyonce jack i'm very excited she's my number one diva. Congratulations. Thank you. That's very exciting. Well, we are very excited to have in our third seat a comedian whose one-woman bathroom graffiti musical,

The Writing on the Stall, is about to have a three-week run off Broadway starting September 6th. Has had runs at places prestigious, prestigious, places like the Edinburgh Frburgh fringe festival please welcome to the show the very funny the talented caitlin cook so good to be here what's up caitlin oh my god i'm so jealous of your beyonce tickets that sounds so fun i'm very excited did you do any concerts this season there's a lot i've been to so many shows unfortunately my partner's favorite band is fish so i've been to a lot of fish shows this year and what do you think what because i went to

a fish show like tour and i was like i there must be something to this i'm gonna go i'm gonna enjoy it and i did not what what is your experience then well i'm a musician so i can find things to enjoy um i like the way that they like sort of talk to each other through their instruments the lights are really cool it's fun to do drugs and go right you know that i've never felt so comfortable in a crowd of mostly white men because there are so many white men. Happy hippies. Holy shit. I was not prepared for how uniformly white and male it was. So, so very much that.

But, you know, it takes me a while to get into them. They are not a band that I would choose to go to nearly as many times as I have this year. Watch out for the drugs at those concerts. My one and only experience with fish was back when I was still doing stuff like that. And I ate an almond that just made my brain disappear. Oh, no. I don't know what happened after that. Cyanide almond? What was happening?

I don't know. An almond. They Cyanide almond? What was happening? I don't know. An almond. They were like, this almond is a special almond. I was like, I've never heard of that before. Was it dipped in acid? Might have been. But I would hope not. I would hope that acid I would have remembered.

Yes, that's true. It was lights out for me, Caitlin. We are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. Also, I wonder, so your show is really cool. Like you're taking actual graffiti from actual bathroom walls and incorporating it into a musical journey. Yes. I got to watch a clip where you were comparing the difference between the graffiti in men's bathrooms and women's bathrooms. But how did you come to this idea? Have you just always been obsessed with graffiti? I have. I studied art history in undergrad, and I got really frustrated with how pretentious that world can be. And I was in a dive bar bathroom, and I saw written on the wall, since writing on bathroom walls is neither for critical acclaim nor financial reward.

It is the purest form of art, discuss. And I just loved that. That really made me giggle. And I took a picture of it and I started photographing bathroom graffiti. I ended up writing a whole section of my thesis on bathroom graffiti. And about five years ago,

I decided this would be a really funny song if i could take these things that i've been photographing and turn them into lyrics and i bought a little foot pedal that is mostly used by like orchestral musicians that need to turn their sheet music and i use it to tell dick jokes and project the images of the graffiti behind me as i'm playing guitar piano and singing what's on the screen behind me as I'm playing guitar, piano and singing what's on the screen behind me to the audience. And that song, that first song did so well that I was like, oh, there's something here that people are really connecting to. Everyone's seen bathroom graffiti and thought like, what's the story behind that one? Why did someone write that? So I did. I went

back to my folder of a million bathroom graffiti images and I made a song that's men's versus women's stalls. I wrote a song that's called Conversations with Strangers. That's people that respond to each other on the stalls. I wrote a song that's called the sad poetic things that people write. And I turned it into a whole musical where there's literally a toilet on stage. I treat the audience like we're women bonding in a bathroom. It's very silly and very fun. So I feel like if we had a constant stream of just like what was being bonding in a bathroom. It's very silly and very fun. So I feel like if we had a constant stream of just like what was being written on the bathroom stalls of America,

like that would be one of the prime features of our podcast. Like I think what better way to like plug into the zeitgeist than like what people are writing on bathroom stalls. Like it's totally unpretentious, a little bit drunk. Yeah. Sometimes very drunk. But, you know, sometimes that's when the truth comes out. Not totally. All right. Well,

we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of the things we're talking about today. Ted Cruz is trying to like show off his conservative bona fides with this clip where he like went on Newsmax and went with his his patented catchphrase, kiss my ass, which I think he I think he thinks he might have made up. Oh, no, because he really seems to like lean on it like he's really proud. And wait, do you hear this? This one I came up with. Anyways, he's mad that someone might one day suggest that people only drink two beers a week and he's treating it like it's the new bedtime that has been instituted for all of America by the FBI or something. So we'll talk about that.

We'll talk about Rudy Giuliani's apartment not selling. We'll talk about the plandemic 2.0 conspiracy theory that is making the rounds on social media. A lot of this stuff is just like too dumb for bathroom stall graffiti. I feel like it would get scribbled out really quickly. HBO Max or sorry, just Max has come up with its worst idea yet. Maybe. I don't know. They got a lot of bad ones. And we'll talk about Taco Bell's proposed switch to a cashless future and what cashless stores actually mean.

All of that. Plenty more. But first, Caitlin, we do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? So I recently was searching dive bars in Midtown because I was doing some promotion for this show and I was trying and I had to do an interview in person and I had to find they wanted it do the the interview there at a at a bathroom that had graffiti in it so i like had to do a bunch of research for dive bars in midtown found a couple so now if i'm ever in midtown i now have some safe havens of places i can go that are actually cheap drinks and calm and not crazy filled with tourists and people dressed up as fake elmo and whatever else they do in times square yeah what. What is your definition of a dive bar? Does it have loud music or no? I mean, I suppose some dive bars do, but my preference, my favorite dive bars do not. I want

to go somewhere where there's cheap beer and I can have a conversation and hear the person talk to me. Yeah, me too. That's what I like about the dive bar that pops up in my head when I hear the word dive bar is that you can actually hear the other person. But there are some places I've definitely heard of referred to as dive bars that are not quiet and are just trying, just very loud Bon Jovi at inappropriate times. I think any time, any year now

is inappropriate for very very loud bunch of you do you not like when people turn a regular bar into a karaoke bar i'm good with that yeah i guess it's like on a one-off thing but like when it's just a walk like a non-stop wall of sound like that's not what i'm looking for from a dive bar no definitely not i feel like i do a lot of nodding like yeah i can absolutely hear you and this conversation is totally making sense to me i can't ask what a third time so i guess i'll nod i think it should be understood at that point if someone said what what and then the last time they just nod kind of that that they are just

giving up and you should give up as well they didn't actually hear you and you can proceed in the conversation as though we've just given up on ever hearing each other on that one yeah what uh what's something you think is overrated i think people have been talking a lot about having main character energy and while i think that is so great for people that maybe do not take charge in their own life i don't think you should be the main character all the time i think that's very overrated i think sometimes you need to be a supporting character sometimes you need to be the comedic relief sometimes you're just like a little cameo that's dropped into someone's life it doesn't have to be about you all the goddamn time it also sounds exhausting to constantly be in main character mode uh if

you're the main character of a book bad things are happening to you terrible things yeah you're really struggling it's hard uh and you're winning not often because otherwise the book is over yeah there's a lot of drama if you're the main character all the time there's a lot of drama surrounding you and that seems exhausting no thank you yeah i think too many protagonists not enough wacky neighbors is probably a good prescription for the united states at this moment really don't you want to be the wacky neighbor you can have so much more fun as a side character you get to really be a character as a side character you're the person who's either making someone laugh or providing like structural support to them during their difficult time or you're the villain and that can be fun too yeah yeah villain energy i'm into that and you never have to change the

protagonist by definition has to change which is uncomfortable but like the wacky neighbor stays wacky you know it's it's like kramer suddenly like learns to control his limbs you know what uh what is something you think is underrated popsicles i've been obsessed i so i bike everywhere in the city and that's how i get around and it's very humid i know you were you guys were saying that someone a previous guest had said summer was overrated and i and i agree it's very hot and humid here and i'm biking everywhere and when i home, I want a popsicle immediately. And I just found these new popsicles. They're not sponsoring me. They're just Halo Tops pineapple popsicles. They're so good. They're so underrated. I ate a whole box in one night, two nights ago. I'm just obsessed with popsicles right now. So I think they're deeply underrated and everyone

should be eating popsicles all the time.'s such a ringing endorsement now are these halo are they special is there like coconut milk mixed in there or is this just like pure pineapple flavor i think it's just pure pineapple it's like it says like only 40 calories per popsicle and i'm like how how they taste so good how is this possible yeah they're delicious buy some of these i was looking at i don't know rocket pops is doing like some kind of advertisement for a new video game but every time it comes on like man when's the last time i like a rocket pop like those things used to rule my summer because that's usually you get whatever is in like the little plastic and they're like blue pink green whatever and they're those are good they're tasty they're cold standbys but if you get a rocket pop you're balling somebody has paid you to mow their

lawn yeah you have gone to a friend's house who's rich and you're just really living high on a rocket like i'm an adult i gotta have one of these whenever i gotta reinvest in my childhood yeah i think i think popsicles maybe is a smaller thing for what i'm really saying is underrated which is like yeah absolutely doing the things as an adult that you wanted to do as a kid and being like i can do this anytime i want to eat a whole box of popsicles in a night absolutely yeah i did that has popsicle have we been improving on popsicles? Yeah, it seems like we have. Like the Halo Top pineapple popsicle. Again, Halo Top doesn't, I think they're lying to us, but at least we feel better when we're eating their ice cream and frozen treats.

There's also Good Pop, and they make like a mango chili pop and like a watermelon agave pop, and those are also like very good and supposedly healthier for you so yeah total wine is making margarita pops and i have just transcended to another earthly plane they're 18 with the tequila in them or well let me see hold on let me see variety pack they're gluten-free, children. Get rid of that. They got a mango margarita, pineapple, strawberry, and lime. Does contain alcohol.

Made with real tequila. Wow. How do you freeze that, though? I don't understand that scientifically. Cut water frozen margarita pops. I don't know, but I want to purchase these. Every time I've tried to do the homemade popsicles, they don't turn out. They're more icy than I feel like the ones that you buy in the store.

There's two. I feel like there has to be some sort of concentrate. It has to be concentrated juice. You know what makes the best homemade pops, Jack? Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid does? But Kool-Aid I feel like is very watery. Not if you add extra powder to it.

So you just go extra... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go extra hard on it and then you pour them in a Dixie cup, right? And maybe about halfway, stick your popsicle in, freeze the whole cup, and then you just pop it out of the plastic. It's old school and it's delicious. That sounds good.

I'm going to have to do that. Popsicles are great. All right. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about some news. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades.

based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions.

Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four

of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

I know I'll go down to history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them.

Why is that? I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch.

She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. And we're back and ted cruz i think we we've talked we've checked in with him before on his journey of trying out his catchphrase of kiss my ass like there was a point where he said my and my pronouns are kiss my ass, which I think he stole from Roseanne, like a Roseanne stand up special. Sounds right. But he's back trying to differentiate himself, make people care what he has to say. And so earlier in the week, he shared a video of a cop car knocking down an environmental protester who was blocking the road to Burning Man with the a literal orgy dome, because that's what they were protesting, is people flying private jets to Burning Man. But somehow that wasn't his cringiest

move this week. So recently, the director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said in an interview that the group could hypothetically one day adopt Canada's recent health guidelines recommending that adults should consume no more than two alcoholic drinks per week. No, Canada did not say you go to jail if you drink more than that. They just said we would suggest that it is healthier if you drink this much as opposed to more than this much. And then the person from the U.S. made this just loud, unwavering statement. He said, I mean, they're not going to go up, I'm sure with regards to like the alcohol guidelines so if alcohol consumption guidelines go in any direction it would probably be toward canada

and that is what the right has seized on and been like no you will take these beers out of our cold dead hands unless it's bud light unless it's bud light in which case they're cool but yeah so then he went on this news so he goes on newsmax and does just the most performative act of beer drinking from anyone that's not a 14 year old at their first house party he's just i don't know he he just seems so uncomfortable and he's like talking shit about how they don't want you to use house fans or ceiling fans and then he's like and if they want us to drink two beers a week frankly they can kiss my ass and then he cracks open a cold one and then there's like these cowboys behind him did you guys see the video he's like

in a barn with like six cowboys standing behind him holding beers also and then when he takes a sip of his beer like they take a sip of their beer but it's like very quiet like they do it all very quietly like nobody makes a sound so it's all just like solemn like men drinking in a dark room is the vibe which terrifying yeah terrifying and also like probably you know if you're trying to be like nobody has a drinking problem here like just all these guys silently drinking in a dark room like with just the weirdest vibes ever is probably not not the thing you want to go for but it's clearly alcohol is meant to be consumed quietly with no talking yes and then the anchor is like well ha ha you you said it ted uh i'm gonna i'm gonna crack a non-alcoholic beer here due to station policy

because I'm not allowed to drink alcohol on air. So that just made it even more embarrassing. And incidentally, the Canadian guideline classified as a standard drink, 12 ounce serving of five percent alcohol beer and he was drinking a scheinerbach which is 4.4 so the beer that he's talking about wouldn't even count as a drink under the canadian guidelines that's amazing yeah i think ted cruz was having flashbacks to his college days of like trying to get into parties and being roundly rejected and he was like no guys i'm really cool look how i I drink this beer. Like, watch me fit in. This is how you do it, right?

Watch me chug one. Fellow kids. Yeah. Yeah. He's a, that's a character. I like Craig Mason, who some people might know, is the showrunner of The Last of Us. He also worked on the Hangover movies back in the day,

was his roommate when Ted was a senior and he was a freshman. And he's got great stories that still live on Twitter if you want to revisit some of Ted's crazy college days. was like man there's no way you could accept him as like a friend or a normal person but maybe if we had he wouldn't be here constantly trying to get acceptance from everybody a greasy film on everything my friend eric dubbed the substance cruz c-r-u-h-z rhymes with scuzz now there's cruz on my tv. Craig Mazin, January 10th, 2016. More delightful stories like that. Wow. Yeah, he also made Chernobyl, which was a favorite of ours. Craig Mazin. Oh, yes. A good show. Very good show. All right. Well, just moving down the conservative lineup, we've got Rudy Giuliani. We've got Rudy Giuliani. So we had covered before that he was putting his apartment up for sale.

And the price point he's suggesting is six point five million dollars. And so no one has brought it yet, bought it yet, probably because, first of all, it's Rudy Giuliani's apartment. So it's like trying to sell a murder house. It might have actually been additive when he was America's mayor, but now things are wildly different, obviously. But it's being listed by the so-called broker to the fallen stars, who also had to sell off Bernie Madoff's penthouse. What a title. I know. just this person is like specializes in selling off the homes of people who made their millions in ponzi schemes and now rudy giuliani but people are pointing out that like it doesn't it doesn't even make sense like he's asking for like way more than it's worth another unit in the same building that's basically the same size currently on the market for 2.875 million and his is on the market

for 6.5 wow and the last sale in the building was 3.7 does he think that like the celebrity boost yeah we'll put it there that's wild i think it's desperation because he knows he has giant legal fees coming up there's no money coming in from anywhere everybody who's even halfway intelligent cut off ties with him so there's no i know trump's not helping him apparently he asked for some help trump was like get out of here well trump does not have money either so that makes sense right i mean what one theory is that he's actually doing that he's putting his house on the market to like show that he is in financial straits and like can't pay any of his lawyers or whatever and like i think there's like some legal reasons for that while

also like he doesn't want to sell the apartment and so he's basically putting it on the market at like an irrational like a completely unreasonable listing we'll buy it yeah interesting yeah that's kind of the idea is like that he wants to argue he's like close to broke in order to excuse the fact that he hasn't shared discovery documents in the case brought against him by Smartmatic, the election technology company that sued him and Fox News in 2021 over false claims of election fraud. And that like this way, no one will pay in order to have like verifiable proof that you're broke and therefore immune from certain legal responsibilities. And so in an earlier case, he actually automatically lost his defamation case in which he was sued by two election workers from Georgia for failing to turn over evidence. And in that case, he was also slapped with a $132,000 bill for legal fees.

So it's helpful for him to be like, I'm in duress. I can't pay any of this stuff. Please leave me. Leave me alone. Please have pity on me, sir. And it seems like nobody's buying it, essentially. Good. It's nice to see people get what they deserve, even if it's just so little. It's nice. Karma. I'm really, I can't wait to see people get what they deserve even if it's just so little it's nice karma i'm really i can't wait to see the behind the scenes of the mugshot like how trump's mugshot came about but also like what the messaging was to because like rudy seemed to have the same like be tough and like angry face as trump did but like i just want to, like, angry face as Trump did. But, like, I just want to know, like,

what went into all of those photos. Because he also looks just like a corrupt businessman who just got caught. You think they gave him a 3-2-1 countdown? Or a, like, smile, click. Yeah. He heads up or where they're just like, and stand here click next

be like wait what i because i feel like he would have tried to like i don't know appear less guilty yeah they both looked so guilty he looked really guilty he he was giving off like the subtext of his picture the first word in the subtext of his picture is guilty. He's just like, I would have gotten away with it too. Now I'm like, has anyone ever smiled in their mugshot picture? Oh,

for sure. Lindsay Lohan. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bunch of like celebrity ladies are constantly like, listen,

you won't catch me with a bad photo. I don't care where I am. This is my good side. Okay. Now book me. But in that earlier case, like the judge literally wrote, donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences. But in a court of law, this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straightforward defamation case and then you know found him guilty and charged him 132 000 legal fees so it's not i don't i also

don't know like what the theory is that like someone's going to feel sorry for him that his 6.5 million dollar apartment isn't selling Like that doesn't feel like a great strategy for making people like get causing people to feel sympathy for you. Yeah. Listen, it's all, what else could he possibly try? He was like,

you know, a bad housing markets. Totally. There's some people who could empathize with the difficulty there because he can't. What are you going to use like his family? No. His job situation. You did that. Hey, rich white guy, what else you got? Nobody's going to buy my house. That's yeah, it's an interesting strategy.

All right. And finally, let's talk about the plandemic 2.0. This is a new conspiracy theory you're probably starting to see because Trump went on a long rant about how left-wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates specifically to steal the 2024 election naturally. And yeah, I don't know know this kind of came out it seemed like he came out of nowhere but apparently it's been it's been a thing that's going going around for a little while first of all i just want to note that under the video that he posted on x like the two stories that they're linking off to that like disprove his claims are actually like approaching the debunking from the perspective of like actually trump's the one who started the lockdowns

which i get the logic of that like that even his even somebody who thinks the pandemic was like a scam will be convinced by that. But it does just feel like, I don't know, I feel like I'm seeing that more and more, just the embracing of the logic of like, yeah, well, we didn't need to go that hard and everybody overreacted. Right. Like we can all agree on that. right like we can all agree on that yeah from folks who seemingly before were like oh no i'm definitely like mask on and stuff it's been weird like a weird turn of events to watch folks be like and i'll never go back again i was just at a convention i just still can't understand why wearing a mask is seen as such an inconvenience it's easy. It hardly does anything other than make you smell your own breath, which, you know, is nice. If it's bad smelling, you should know.

You should be aware of what's happening in that area of your body. It's also great if you're, like, on the subway and you're practicing lines for, I don't know, an off-Broadway show you're about to do in a week, and you don't want to look like a crazy person. You can put a mask on, and no one will be the wiser. It's great. If you're having a bad day looking not great throw a mask on guess what now you're

mysterious who's that girl what she's up to yeah it's honestly such a help it's weird it's especially knowing that the numbers are going up and i really feel like folks are like i'm not going back inside screw all of you yeah it's very funny that like that's the mindset when it's like the opposition none of us wanted to do this it feels like the argument is like someone's planning this and they want to do this and i'm never going back it's like none of us enjoyed the lockdown right yeah that was not no nobody's like pro pandemic, but that is like how the argument is being. Basically, following suggestions from public health officials, the people who are at higher risk may want to wear masks in public following a rise in COVID cases. And some colleges and companies, including movie studio Alex Jones, shockingly, is responsible for this. He's claiming that on August 18th, he claimed that a TSA whistleblower informed him that mask mandates will return in September, followed by a full-blown lockdown in December, called an anonymous border

patrol agent who confirmed the oddly specific claims and said that we would imminently return to full COVID protocol of 2020-2021 and then perhaps because this is total bullshit he also gave himself an out adding that the lockdown may not actually happen because he had exposed it on the show

oh that's why I didn't have it thank you Alex Jones for saving us all yeah another lockdown crazy what a lunatic i know but people on social media kind of picked up on his claims suggesting that the new covid surge was somehow connected to trump's indictments so this this is like the social media brain malfunction where like everything like there's you just assume like everything is happening to the two this like only two or three people that you're able to it's like main character syndrome of like following world events where like oh well

because covid's going back up that must be related to trump being indicted like you just want to connect the dots on things that have nothing to do with one another because your brain is only so big and can only you know hold so much information oh man i don't even know what to say about like these conspiracy theorists who think, one, anyone is controlling the spread of a pandemic. Do you know how it would be so epic if somebody could? They're like, okay, date's coming up. I'm going to drop the pandemic right here in the same way I would drop a music video. I'm going to make sure this many people get it so that we go into lockdown.

There's just no possible conceivable way to start time releasing a pandemic or a disease. And then on top of that, to then think, how does this help and or hurt Trump? Right. Like the math is a math thing. Like either we are inside or we're not. I don't know what effect that has on whatever Trump is going, other than maybe it would delay his trial for a little bit right yeah yeah i think the main thing that is challenge is a challenge for trump

is that he is like the most indicted human being in the history of the united states and right is also trying to run for president while while dealing with that yeah The hubris on that guy. Amazing. It's wild. Wild. And pay the bail bondsman, too. Right. Yeah. Steve Bannon's podcast co-host, Natalie Winters, went viral for posting out-of-context screenshots

of Department of Veterans Affairs purchase orders suggesting that it was proof that the U.S. government was buying up equipment for a planned pandemic. And the equipment was testing supplies and computer equipment totaling $7 million, which is, like, to put it in perspective, like, they spent, I think, $4 trillion on the pandemic, like, across all of the different things that they had to invest in. Okay, girl,

I wish I could just post whatever and be fine with it. I know that's, that's what they've discovered. Truly. Yeah. Truly. They're like, the truth is suggestive, right?

Whatever the fuck you want. And it will be so. And then, so just like, it's a, it's a good study in how these stories kind of happen, because then, you know, it's it becomes this thing where it's like all these dumb little like one person pointed to a suburban Target store was putting in more pickup only spots in their parking lot. And like, so it's like all these ridiculous statements being made on various outlets. But then the Daily Telegraph published a op-ed warning about Biden's lockdown plot, citing Biden administration's buying COVID equipment and hiring pandemic safety protocol

officers, not to mention the return of the mask mandates at the Lionsgate film studios in Los Angeles. So it's like that's how they launder their bullshit from, you know, a couple of Twitter posts. And, you know, what Steve Bannon's co-host says to being in an op ed as like, and this is evidence. I like that they were like targets putting in more spots. It must be the pandemic. So listen, Target do that because it's so easy to order online and then you're not tempted to order inside Target. This Target delivery slash pickup is one of the greatest inventions ever. No more are you perusing the aisles getting lost in pillows. You definitely don't need 12 more of. You can just order and then they bring it to you and then you can go home with the money you intended to spend still in your pocket. It's beautiful. I promise it's not a sign of forthcoming pandemic lockdown, but nice try. It does feel like it probably loses Target money, though, because then you're not spending that money on 10 pillows you don't need. It probably hurts Target a little bit,

but also I'm consistently coming back, so I don't know. There you go. Yeah, it lowers the friction. That's what they call like the difficulty of buying something. If you just like go hit the button, show up and someone arrives and puts it in the back of your car. I will say whatever AI is operating their system to you has gotten pretty good at being like, hey, this is on sale. You could just add this to your cart. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing.

like hey this is on sale you could just add this to your cart right yeah well that's the other thing like they they've perfected like the ai and the you know web design and all the things for like our little skinner box you know smartphones that we all live basically live inside so that they can sell you more and actually that's what our next story is about, which is kind of the reason that Taco Bell and a bunch of other companies want to go cashless. So, yeah, let's take a quick break and we'll come right back and talk about that. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series

Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and L.A.-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.

Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.

And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry,

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on.

From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained?

This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. And we're back. And yeah, so Taco Bell made news recently for reportedly announcing that they hope to soon go 100% digital with only cashless payments in the future.

Cashless transactions really took off during the pandemic, but the push for cashless stores existed prior to COVID and was already pretty controversial because people have pointed out that 8.4 million households are unbanked. So that's a lot of people who couldn't, wouldn't be able to like buy something at a cashless business and in this case wouldn't be able to and this is one of the most important purchases somebody can make buy a crunchy taco supreme yeah you know that's not fair yeah it's super not fair especially when you consider like at least the last time i went to a taco bell which i'll be honest was maybe six years ago it's been a hot minute since i've been talking about but they have like 89 cent little burritos and stuff which if you are either a very broke

college kid or someone living on the street like you could scrounge up 89 cents and get yourself a little bit of food to eat it blows that now that might not be an option for some people because they deserve fast convenient food too it's rude yeah yeah agreed and it's like a prize if you find enough change on the couch cushion and you're high and you want to go to taco bell that's that's the prize yeah yeah i do want a chalupa absolutely now i want to go to taco bell wow i'm really thinking about it. This segment is sponsored by Taco Bell. I should say that. Thank you, Taco Bell. No, but cashless stores disproportionately affect people of color, not to mention adding more obstacles for undocumented Americans who have a harder time

accessing banking services for obvious reasons. So it makes sense that like groups like the NAACP have called on Congress to pass legislation to ban cashless stores. And contrary to what I would have thought, there's actually no federal law mandating that businesses need to accept currency as payment for goods or services, which I thought that was like kind of the whole thing. It's very surprising. Can you still then just open a store and do like trades it'd be like uh yeah you wash my car you can have that 20 pound ham sure yeah that's people are so horny for like a barter based economy like they just they like they're whenever they talk about like why economics is so good

they're like people used to have to just do i'm an artisan so i make you this pot and you give me one of your lambs or something okay well like that should actually never happened like they're they like that that's there's no sign there's no evidence anthropologically though like anybody ever did that shit it's just a fantasy that people kind of really want i feel i feel like if you just created some i guess burning man is this like some place for rich people to go to then like barter their wares to one another to bargain for things yeah it's also about super radical reliance which means i don't have to give you anything if you choose not to be a part of the trade and barter system at all and you're like i provided

for myself uh you're thirsty i have water i definitely don't need to give it to you because i'm not part of the rules here it's an interesting system it's it's lovely to see in actions when the heart of it is simply like oh i brought so much like extra stuff like i i have abundance and i want to share it and having been a part of like some burner events it could be fun also scary is this safe did you drug it what's happening in here it's a chaotic system i also think maybe too much renfair slash like old americana storytelling like your grandmother used to just give sugar to her neighbor and then her son would do our lawn and we were just we were more reliant on each other back then and it was a beautiful thing i really feel like that's where at least my ideas of trade and barter systems

came from like it's never like this old world thing it's like three generations ago yeah yeah yeah and i think that's like people looking out for each other is definitely a thing that happened but like any sort of systematized like state barter system there's not there's not evidence of that and i I think it's used to justify capitalism, I think, in a lot of cases. Capitalism's the best because the only other option is that you pay ham to have the doctor look at you. You need to pay with ham and ham goes bad. Maybe the doctor's not hungry for ham. These are the things that they like to, these are the problems they like to make up when suggesting an alternative to capitalism. But yeah, anyways, so with no federal law in place, some states and cities have passed laws banning stores from refusing cash payments. But people can also just ignore those, like New Jersey banned cashless stores in 2019, but businesses still risked fines and refused to accept cash. or simpler for consumers. It's actually more about corporations screwing us out of just a little bit more money

because cashless payments exploit a psychological phenomenon where we experience the loss more when we can see the money leaving our hands. But when it's just all being done cashlessly or with credit cards or whatever it is, they always talk about frictionless consumer environments. That's ultimately what they're going after. This is why Disney World has those bands that you can just like charge everything too. It's the same reason that casino use chips instead of cash. It's like makes it easier to spend money. And the more that you can not realize that you're spending the money, the more money you're going to spend and the better it is for them.

When I'm tapping my card, I just be like, yeah, great. Money spent definitely doesn't feel like it. Also feels like this will never run out. I'll just tap right into infinity. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny because to me, it's like flip.

I mean, I know this is psychological, but because I almost never have cash on me when I do, I'm like, this isn't ever going in the bank. This is just my free money that i can buy anything with whereas like the card i'm like watching my bill climb up i don't know it's like flipped for me in my head recently that's good i do not have notifications on my card so when i spend like i know my friend when she spends like she gets a notification on her phone and she's like okay that's sort of replacing the handing over of cash feeling it's like oh negative x amount of dollars in your account sucks to be you i on the other hand went to a bookstore the other day and i was to kill time y'all i saw like four books i went of course

they are giant volumes of uh graphic novels i spent like 225 dollars in the books i was like yes i for sure need all of these books can't wait can't do a library must own them they're collecting dust on a shelf i'm sure i'll read them one day it's such a problem yeah and then the other thing that we were talking about you know taco bell will push people to pay through screens that allow the company to try and upsell orders with the suggestion of additional items based on past purchases. So obviously, when you go to the store and pay with cash, they have the signs and all the normal things that might get you to make additional purchases. But you're online they have all your past information they can make informed decisions about like what product to dangle in front of your face right i

wonder if that so obviously they'll be tracking the data for that and using that to package things later and everything but some stories if you upsell you get like a percentage of that upsell. You know what I mean? Like today, your guys' goal is to sell so many of those like cinnamon curly fries. Yeah. If you do, the whole team gets, I don't know, five bucks or an extra day off or something along those lines. There's always these incentives to try to upsell. And I wonder if these new systems remove that for employees. Oh, for sure. Because it's the AI that's doing the upselling or it's the, you know, a programmer that can

do it across multiple apps. And so therefore it makes it easier. So not to worry, businesses have found a solution to this that will make everyone happy, aka make the world a horrible Black Mirror dystopia. They are offering reverse ATMs. So these are machines where you can trade cash for store value cards in order to pay for stuff. So you can lose the card or not have exact change on the card

so all that extra coinage rolls over to the company oh also the cards cost as much as five dollars on their own so no no yeah no thank you i hate capitalism and sometimes they carry dormancy fees that start charging money if the card isn't used for more than three months okay fine i'll take God. Yeah, just pay me in ham. Fuck it. Well, Caitlin, such a pleasure having you on the Daily Zeitgeist. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? My handle on everything is the Caitlin Cook. Caitlin is spelled the Irish way and not the stripper way, which I once said on a date. And then the guy said, so not like my sister. Anyway,

my handle is the Caitlin cook. I have, I'm posting a lot about my show. If you send me a picture of bathroom graffiti and want to come to the show, let me know. I'll give you a little discount code. Come for tickets. Yeah.

And that's, that's all I'm plugging. That's all I'm doing with my life is this show. Is that where you get most of your graffiti is from people who are fans at this point? These days, yeah. I used to do a lot more photographing myself and seeking it out,

and now I get like 50 DMs a day. And you know when someone who you're not following DMs you a picture, you have to consent to seeing it. It's blurred. I used to play like, is it a dick pic or an illustrated dick pic and and now it's always bathroom graffiti people send me stuff from all over the world it's so cool i love it that's great that's awesome is there a work of media that you've been enjoying yes i've been really into this illustrator named rami nazer he uh posts a lot on instagram he's pretty popular on there his most recent illustration is just it's great it's about

things being good i just i mean i won't be able to sum it up you should go look at his his instagram but it's it's just a little every time i see him on my feed i'm like that i feel like there was a beautiful shining light in my day. And it just brightens it a little bit. It's great. There you go. Amazing. Joelle, such a pleasure having you on as guest host.

Where can people find you and follow you? Thanks, Jack. This was fun. You can find me all over the internet. At Joelle Monique, it's J-O-E-L-L-e-m-o-n-i-q-u-e you can also find me over at seed and spark my film is 31 funded if you want to help us reach 80 so we can get those funds out uh you can go to seed and spark slash fund dinner and uh give us five dollars uh it'd be so helpful and there are really dope prizes which we love and a social thing I'm loving is

a channel on Instagram called beyond the brick tv they just do little tours of Lego sets but the sets are massive I'm talking the entire Disney ride of haunted mansion I'm talking a train set that runs the

length and width of someone's backyard around a pool under a ladder. There's a mini carnival there. They're cute sets. It's very calming. It's cool to see how much work people put in. My favorite one is an entire water park, which includes a water slide, a log ride, and a wave pool. Who has the time to do this? I don't know, but they're great.

I love looking at them. I love that. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website

DailyZeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy super producer justin is there a song that you think people might enjoy yeah this is a quick little bop that's perfect for like a pre-game playlist and that's perfect actually because my sister joelle is going to the beyonce birthday show this weekend out uh so honestly i wish this song was like three times as long as it is. It's like a minute.

But it's a fun little beat. It has some up-tempo jazzy flutes over some 808s. And it just reminds me of a summertime cookout energy. Perfect for Labor Day. This is a track called Starlight by the Odd Dreamers and D-Note. And you can find that song in the footnotes. Footnotes. The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio.

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning. We'll be back this weekend with highlights from this week's apps. And then back on Monday to tell you everything that was trending over the weekend. We'll talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. Bye.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark vs. Angel Reese.

Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark vs. Angel Reese, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.

And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring people who do like negotiation expert mori to harry poor if you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation then i think it sort of eases us a little bit listen to let's talk offline on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you

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