The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 7 (Best of 1/16/18-1/19/18)

Episode Date: January 21, 2018

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 14 (1/16/18-1/19/18.) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts what happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on i am going to share my journey of how i went from christianity to now a hebrew israelite for some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. They try to save everybody.

Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer this season on the new podcast Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive

bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest.

Because the company had promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laughstravaganza.

Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. We had a quasi-crisis over the weekend in Hawaii, in our westernmost state. I guess Alaska is our westernmost state. Is it? I think so, yeah. But Hawaii is way out there. Far out.

Far out, man. And, you know, just surfing, hanging loose. And they got an alert around 8 a.m. that said a ballistic missile was incoming. And, oh, yeah, seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill, which is – Whoops. Yeah, it was a mistake, as people probably know by now, due to the fact that we're not in a thermonuclear war, nuclear war.

Nuclear. Nuclear. But, yeah, it was, I i don't know for 38 minutes everybody was miles you said you know some people who live in hawaii and they were yeah my girlfriend's uh college roommate is from hawaii and lives out there and like she was saying like it was wild like they were calling each other being like hey like if we don't make it like i love you like like really people were forced to examine their mortality like in those 38 minutes and like her friend's sister lives in the mainland and is the only one that is on the mainland right now so she was out there her parents were calling

her like hey the missile might come and like like someone on her sister was like having a meltdown too because she thought everybody her family was just about to be like, who knows what was going to happen. Sounds like a very traumatic situation for people who were involved. All because it was a mistake and we have outdated software to, you know, sort of moderate all this kind of stuff. Right. And I mean, I guess people could have figured out that it was a mistake when they weren't dead after five minutes, which is apparently how long it would take for the missile to get from North Korea.

That's how long? Five minutes? Five. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So you'd have five minutes. So really use that phone call, that first phone call carefully.

Yeah. It's a crazy story. This is something that we covered a lot back at Cracked, how many times during the Cold War there were just these near misses where, you know, one glitch would happen. room that like you've seen in movies where it's like all these screens and stuff they once left a tape in there that was a drill for a nuclear attack and they actually like had the president like up in the air and everybody was freaking out like getting ready to launch weapons uh there's this story about stanislav petrov this guy in who, you know, was the guy who was in charge of if there was a missile incoming, he was to like call the command and say, launch, launch an attack on the United States. He saw one missile and he was like, all right, that could be a glitch. And then

like 12 missiles followed, like exactly in the form uh formation that you would expect coming from the united states and for whatever reason he just decided like okay we're i'm not gonna end the world i feel like this this doesn't feel quite right and he was right it was like uh a sun glare or something like that um but they wait what a sun glare looked like 12 missiles yeah it like fucked with the um like the satellite radar or whatever yeah but he basically saved the world by not doing his job by failing to do his job um and yeah could you imagine if like we reacted to this in the wrong way? Right.

It's like, oh, shit. Well, I guess it's going off. And then because it happened in Japan, too. Right. Like on Sunday. Right. Or I think, yeah, or maybe tomorrow. The timeline is kind of weird.

But anyway, yeah, I think it was Sunday or maybe Monday anyway in Japan that it was another fake warning of like a seek shelter. But they got they got like the just kidding alert out, like within a couple of minutes. So it wasn't a full blown, like 40 minutes of like existential dread, like the poor people in Hawaii did. But yeah, the guy who did it,

Vern Miyagi, shout out to Mr. Miyagi. He felt terrible about the mistake, which I'm sure he would, because after here, like you could see there was like a photo of him. He looked like really like I fucked up so bad.

I'm so sorry. But yeah, when you look at there was like a photo of him. He looked like really like I fucked up so bad. I'm so sorry. But yeah, when you look at the interface that he was using, it's just like literally clicking a link to send one out. That's like they're not like properly organized. I could see how you if you weren't on your shit, you might accidentally hit that. Well, no, but I mean, yeah, the technology is just crazy out of date, like surrounding all nuclear weapons. And yeah, it's just the hardware and software. 60 Minutes did a story about it. And you look at it, it's like out of an 80s movie.

It looks like an 80s movie. A lot of the technology that they have both guarding and controlling nuclear weapons. Was he trying to send anything? He was supposed to do, I think, a test. A test. Oh. He was supposed to do one that says, like, drill. Right.

You know. Oh, my God. That's like when you accidentally screenshot a conversation and then send it to the person you're talking to. Right. And you're like, no! Right. You're like, damn, iOS 11 glitch.

Then I just, yeah, I'm like, it was a glitch. It was a mosteric. Right. Yeah. like, damn, iOS 11 glitch. Yeah, I'm like, it was a glitch. It was a mosaic. Right. Yeah. Photoshop. That happens probably hundreds of thousands of times every day. And yeah, so we shouldn't have technology that makes it possible for people to do that with nuclear weapons. I mean, how many people you think involved in that took stock of their stock of, like, their relationships, too? Like, how many breakups

do you think happened after this, like, missile warning? Where it was like, yo, honestly, like, in that 38 minutes, I thought, like, of somebody I was really trying to be dating, or, like, the fact that we're kind of done, and I still haven't done anything yet. And you're like, sorry. This is, I took stock of my life in those

38 minutes, and this isn't going to work out. I feel like there has to be something. People just come clean with like death confessions someone needs to option this story already i mean it's it's a rom-com for 2018 yeah for sure um yeah and trump was apparently golfing so uh right and just i can thank god he's like well they knew he doesn't do his job they knew within minutes right that it was a fake thing they told him and thank God he's like, well, they knew within minutes, right? That it was a fake thing. They told him and he was kind of like, all right, you could have tweeted something. A lot of people follow your Twitter. So I'm sure you could have probably put some people at ease, but right.

They didn't send out a correction, right? Not for 38 minutes. 38 minutes. It took him to be like, Oh, false alarm. My bad. So, yeah, they're now saying that people will know when it's a real one because they'll send a follow up being like, and seriously, we didn't fuck up this time. This is an actual. Then you have to enter a capture code.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Prove you're not a bot. Like what? You're warning me. Miles, things aren't going so well for the GOP and the liberal strongholds of Iowa and Wisconsin. Western Iowa. Yeah, so Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, who are the senators for Iowa,

they did their annual tour where they go to the 99 counties of Iowa. So naturally, they stop off in rural Iowa because it's probably going to be some little – town halls won't be very charged. But, yo, did they get a surprise because at Chuck Grassley's, they were like – people were sincerely asking. He was in a county that had their Republican registration. They outnumbered Democrats two to one, and Trump won it by 35 points. So he's in like Trump country. And these older white voters were there to take basically grassy to task and be like,

what do you think? Like, do you think he's mentally stable? It's like, well, it's not my job to know. And they're like, well, you know, like what's going on? We feel like you're obstructing the Russia investigation. Like he was getting questions that were like you thought indivisible was there being like, hey, OK, this is how I can ask him. And this was seemingly completely disorganized, an organic sort of pushback from voters then

joni ernst she doesn't do a good job either she's at a town hall meeting and they are pressing her like it's and these are not these are trump voters this one woman asks her like yo his xenophobia and racism is like basically making our country look bad and like i feel like other countries we have really bad relationships and he's not sticking up for like other countries these are american values and so this is what joni ernst's reply is when saying our our standing is tarnished and we're not sticking up for little countries he is standing up for a lot of the countries that where we have. Name a few. Could you name a few? Yeah, you bet.

Norway is one of them. Oh, boy. The room just like laughs at her. They laughed at her. I mean, for real, though. She was saying he's standing up for a lot of countries around the world. Right. And that her answer was Norway.

You can just hear the nervous breakdown creeping up in her voice. She knew like, oh, this is an indefensible position. She knows it's a bad answer. Her brain is like, hold on, hold on, hold on. And her mouth is like, I'll take it from here. I got this. So that is not a good sign, especially with Democrats trying to take back the House this year in midterms. Like when you have people in these like really solidly rural areas being like talking like this or, for example, in Wisconsin, a Democrat won a state Senate seat from a really well-known Republican, which is another big shock. Like even Scott Walker, the governor, was like, whoa, whoa, what's going on?

Like it's definitely causing a panic. So off of that, right, there's all these like like weird, unexpected Democratic pickups. There's some momentum going. There's a Washington Post article talking about sort of Trump like looking at 2018 and in discussions about like, you know, are they nervous about the midterms? He basically like brought up like he's in this in this article. They say, quote, in private conversations, Trump has told advisers that he doesn't think the 2018 election has to be as bad as others are predicting. He has referenced the 2002 midterms when George W. Bush and Republicans fared better after the September 11th terrorist attacks, these people said. So it's almost as if he's predicting a September 11th-like event will happen between now and those elections. Yeah.

So, I mean, he's – I don't know. The way it's being told, it's like, well, I don't think it's going to be that bad. I mean, September 11th helped out the Republicans in 2002. Right. Is he predicting or is he hedging his bets and, like, hoping for a 9-11? I don't know. Either way, that's fucking scary as shit. It really is because, I mean, his favorite person is Putin.

Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin. He speaks very, you know, bombed a bunch of apartment buildings, killed a bunch of Russians and then blamed it on Chechnyan terrorists, even though it's it was obviously like journalists have, you know, basically proven that it is done by the FSB, which is their CIA, essentially. So, yeah, that's always been a big worry of mine is either what happens if a 9-11 organically happens or uh if he makes one of those things happen because he seems like the worst

person for one of those things to happen yeah because they might even on the campaign how he was like oh russia i'd love your help or like wikileaks please show those things like where you kind of suspect that he knew as he said that stuff and then when he sort of juxtaposed that with him sort of privately being like well you know 9-11 helped out the republicans like no people are saying so i don't know it's it's that's a weird that's a weird very weird quote the thing that a lot of people are talking about right now is that the president aced his cognitive exam yes and uh aced his physical exam he is the same height and body weight as uh nfl quarterback jay cutler oh wow tall lithe athletic jay cutler yeah same uh same frame apparently uh when you look at them next to

one another uh that that would seem to be physically impossible. Well, I was worried, but then I saw on the Internet that the president is big and strong and smart, so I could just check out now. Yeah, there you go. No problem there. But so the president allegedly requested a cognitive exam so he could show all those people shouting him, the haters, that he is in top-notch condition and is, in fact, a very stable genius. And he got a 30 for 30. Not an ESPN documentary.

He got a score of 30 out of 30. And yeah. That means he's smart. I was impressed until I saw the exam. It's like got a drawing of a lion and is like, what is this animal? And he has to name that correctly. He's like an African. There's one hard question where you have to remember like a series of five words a couple minutes after they're said to you.

So, you know, but it's, you can do that. It's weird though. Right. Cause we were saying like his, the weight that he came in for his height, which is like, so they're saying he's what?

Six, three, six, three, two 39 for a BMI score technically puts you just what? One pound below obese, one pound below obese. What a lucky stroke of,

damn. Interesting. So, uh, yeah, that was my, my friend Chris sent me that this morning he's like isn't that lucky isn't that amazing wait but it is even six three uh you know the internet still says six foot two like that's still what the internet has decided he is yeah google google president trump's height it'll say six two uh there are lots of pictures of him next to people who are 6'1", and he looks either shorter or exactly the same height as them.

There is a picture of him next to Jeb Bush during the debates, and Jeb Bush seems to be at least two inches taller than him. Jeb Bush is 6'3". So, yeah. 6'3 is one of those reach heights. Right. You know what I mean? Like Charles Barkley was 6'8". So, yeah. 6'3 is one of those reach heights. Right. You know what I mean? Like Charles Barkley was 6'8", supposedly.

He was actually like 6'3". Like, nah, come on, baby. Yeah. So- That's why I think there may be a little foolery going on, sadly, with that doctor. Yeah. It's interesting because the doctor, like we looked into him, he was appointed by President Obama.

So it's not like he's trump's crazy like hack partisan pal even though his name is what dr dr ronnie dr ronnie hey dr ronnie call dr ronnie uh yeah that does sound like a jersey shore nickname uh well ron yeah dr ronnie and went to high school with her. With Sam? Sammy Sweetheart. Sweetheart? Yeah, Sweetheart. What?

No. Yeah, it was crazy. That was the thing that was, like, super embarrassing when that show came out, and everyone was like, oh, is this what Jersey's like? I'm like, no. Well, Sammy was in Hollywood with me. I know her. Snooki's my friend's cousin.

Fuck, all right. Yeah. Yeah, I am. Yeah. Get you. Anyway. Super producer Anna Jose has a look of shock. What happened? Oh. Yeah, gets you. Anyway, Super Producer Anna Hosnia has a look of shock. What happened?

Oh. She just did with her mouth agape. I thought that President Trump had resigned or something like that based on the look on Super Producer Anna Hosnia's face. And it was actually her response to Danieliel knowing members of the jersey shorecast uh there was also uh eric trump uh was on fox news talking about his dad how his dad is colorblind yeah because he can't be racist oh oh that's not racist yeah that was not a cognitive thing got it yeah he said his dad only sees one color and it's green i don't know which would be troubling physically yeah this is on fox and friends, I think, this morning.

Yeah. People in the meeting said some things about race and that people who are calling him a racist for the last five or six days. I know you don't agree with that, but is there anything you could bring to this conversation you think is important? My father sees one color, green. That's all he cares about. He cares about the economy, right? He does not see race.

He's the least racist person I have ever met in my entire life it's total nonsense the least racist person yo come on who's the least racist person you've ever met we were saying that how can you even give anyone that title it's ridiculous i think the only person that makes sense you'd be like well martin luther king jr right was the least racist person to live i know plenty of people that i don't think are racist but even like like to give someone that title just seems impossible well trump loves superlatives you know what i mean so you know i was voted a least racist person in my high school so like i think it's something he would lie about also that that would normally be like a president's child being like he only sees green would be like an angsty thing that like the way they would criticize that.

But in like when you didn't come by baseball game because all you think about is money. Yeah. But other other things that he needed to nail for the cognitive exam include drawing a clock at 11. What is it? Ten past eleven. So tricky one is it? 10 past 11. Oh, tricky one, huh? That's something. Just looking at this quiz, it really goes downhill quickly.

The very first category is visual spatial slash executive. Which sounds very complex. It sounds pretty advanced. And then question number two, draw a clock. Question three, naming one of these fucking animals. Right. Right. And what's funny is the guy who created that test, he's like a Lebanese-Canadian immigrant, and he was like finding it ironic.

He's like that he's depending on somebody with all his like Muslim bans and anti-immigrant shit that, oh, like my test bailed you out. Or you're trying to act like this test made you seem that you are the most sane and stable person but he also points out that that test has its flaws and it's also like it just sort of it's meant to do a basic just be like okay your brain is sort of working but it doesn't test like anything psychological or judgment or anything like that yeah that guy who made the quiz uh is maybe the most sweetly naive person i've ever heard in my life because he was interviewed and he was like maybe the president will learn from this and soften on his immigration policies like oh buddy no you think he's gonna know you made this cut back to the studio and they're just all like wiping tears from their eyes laughing so hard yeah yeah no that's probably gonna happen uh so apparently miles you were

saying that dr sanjay gupta also spoke with dr spoke with Dr. Ronnie about the president's heart health. Yeah, because apparently like in 2009, Sanjay Gupta had heard that Trump had basically started having these, quote, tests that are actually looking for the presence of calcium in the blood vessels that lead to the heart. And steadily up until this past week, when he had to perform it again, those numbers have gone up. And when they get to a certain age, that means you have heart disease. So Gupta followed up with Dr. uh and was like asking him about these tests and this is what he had to say quote it was interesting when i spoke to dr jackson at first he said he had passed all the tests with flying colors gupta said when i asked him specifically about that test about the calcium uh he did then concede that in fact the president does have a

heart disease right they're going to be increasing medications, including cholesterol, lower medications, et cetera, et cetera. So basically what they're saying, I mean, one way to look at is that he's technically within the threshold, a measurable threshold that will put you, say technically that you do have heart disease. Right. But the doctor is saying like it's manageable or whatever. Yeah.

And so, I mean, I want to trust this guy because he's a doctor who was appointed by Obama. He's also a military guy. And the people who most benefit from having Trump in power are also the military guys who are actually running our country. But, yeah, like he was specifically asked. People were like, wait, so how is he so healthy if based on the diet that he eats? And Doc Ronnie was like, uh, Oh,

he's just got the best genes I've ever seen. He's the perfect genes. Genetically. He's, he's the best. It makes me feel like a crazy person though. Cause like I also, as soon as I hear about this,

it makes me start to question, is this doctor on the level? And that makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist because I, cause if he had given me the information that i believe in my heart to be true i wouldn't be questioning anything right this doctor who obama appointed like no he's he's he's healthy i don't know it's fucking weird to me too man uh yeah exactly so i don't know let's just keep our eye on it. You know, obviously we're not hoping for him to have bad things happen to him. No, not at all.

But I just feel like, you know, is this doctor? Is he really measuring him at 6'3"? I would love to get my stats because then it would probably finally put to bed that I am 6'2". Right. Yeah, Miles is a giant. That's grown since this morning. Only 6'2"? I can't believe it.

Anyways. All right. We're going to take a quick break we'll be right back after these messages i've been thinking about you i want you back in my life it's too late for that i have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything?

You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,

iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian,

now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila!

You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows.

That we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree

and still be in relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we're back. So we wanted to check in with the world of Trump supporters. I keep bumping into the fact that I live in a different bubble than an entire portion of the U.S. population. There's been the fake news awards that Trump released, I think, last night as we're recording this. released i think last night as we're recording this and uh people were so eager to see the fake news awards that they crashed the website where they released them um so yeah it's like their equivalent of obamacare going live and being like now you can have health care uh it was

underwhelming a little bit i'm surprised because it's sort of like stories that just had been retracted or edited for like inaccuracies. I thought it was going to be like, and this motherfucker is the worst and blah, blah, blah. It was kind of like, OK. Yeah, it was just a handful of stories that media outlets got wrong and admitted they got wrong about the Trump administration. I've reached a delirium about Trump to where it's so horrible that I actually love it now. Like I can't – it's like my body is rejecting more and turning it into laughs. Like I literally – I was sitting at Jit Lada the other day, which is a nice restaurant. Great time to kill.

And I started reading an article about him in North Korea and the leaders calling each other like fat and stupid. And I started crying from laughter that this is our reality and the inevitability of it in America that it would reach this point. And I can't take it seriously because the thing is every generation is narcissistic and thinks that their generation will be the one that ends the world. And I don't think that's going to happen with us. We are definitely close and we definitely could. I just don't think it's going to happen. But it is hilarious the things we talk about every day and the way this super insane narcissist has taken over all of our lives.

He's really good at what he does. And we can't do anything about it. There's nothing to do because we become so bipartisan and nobody cares about people. Everyone wants to get rich. And it's so horrible that it's the funniest joke of all time. I truly, I cannot get to a real place. So you think your existential dread has just sort of like morphed into just like, I'm just going to laugh myself crazy. What else is there to do? I mean, this is the worst person ever made is in charge of the world how is that not funny yeah i mean all i think because we have to like read about it every day

i don't i i've i've noticed that i in the beginning i just fucking ball my fists up what the fuck is going on and now i'm just like well look i have to just observe what is happening in the world i'm trying to be removed from it and also optimistic that really the only thing that can try and curb this is the midterm elections and begin to shift Congress. But I think the system is broken. And that's a whole other show that we can get into.

It is broken. And what's funny, it's weird because I wanted Hillary to win but even if Hillary won, it still would have been a broken system. No question about it. It's sort of like maybe it's good that we're all getting aware how broken it is yeah but uh it's also like oh man we're just fucked yeah really fuck go follow your dreams you know might as well yeah and i don't know that i mean i think narcissism and the fact that we elected our biggest narcissists at a point where i think our culture is maybe the most narcissistic

it's ever been with, you know, that social media was like built to sort of echo chamber our narcissism and like make narcissism the main value of like a culture. And then we elected our biggest narcissist, but I don't feel like that's a self-correcting thing where we're going to be like, oh, so it's kind of our fault for valuing the stuff that he's good at. I think it's just, we're going to look at the institutions and be like, they're, they're the ones that broke, not, not us. Yeah. Yeah. It's like ex machina. We built the robot that will destroy us. Right. Spoiler. Let's move on to a uh some california parents were holding 13 children hostage in a house that looks pretty small i was just kidding this this story is depressing

uh but he must have a good take uh no i really don't jack hates kids uh it is yeah it's horrifying uh i i spent yesterday afternoon like touring the town because i just never heard Yeah, it's horrifying. I spent yesterday afternoon, like, touring the town because I had just never heard of it. It's a name. Wait, you went up to the town? No, no. Sorry, I should have finished that sentence. Touring the town on Google Maps. I'm just kind of getting a feel for what the town looks like.

From a sky view. Yeah, from a sky view. And, you know, you can do the thing where you, like, go up and down the streets and uh it's just a weird weird town um i obviously just know the headlines because i was too bummed out by the headlines to know much more they had 13 kids just chained up for for years yeah the kids are ages 2 to 29 uh the kids who are adults actually look like children because they've been so malnourished right um and yeah it was apparently part of some religious thing their uh parents were homeschooling them obviously right and apparently you can get a license to homeschool without

getting a visit at the house but yeah it Yeah, it's a really dark story. The town is weird. So I did kind of a deep dive on the town. Their biggest job creator is like Ross Dress for Less or something like that. But their second biggest is a company called Starcrest of California Industries. And when you go to Starcrest of Californiaia or starcrest.com the stuff they sell is so weird it like seems like it's a shell company for some like weird religious cult uh there's a family fun page and uh the products that they sell are jacks yeah the the game with

like the old metal metal your grandpa used to step on and be like damn it this website is 10 000 haunted by a baby ghost it's so crazy uh a puzzle and uh one cd uh kate smith kate smith uh the bell of the south or something songbird of the south of the south uh yeah so it's just i don't know i'm really interested in this town now that's a guilty Songbird of the South. is waiting for you to ring their doorbell so they can like cut your throat but uh the yeah it's just interesting give it a look on google maps a lot yeah there's like no nobody's in the streets there are no cars on the streets uh which might just be how google maps works but i feel like i always when i look at my street there's always cars well if you do street view yeah for sure you can usually catch cars driving yeah but it's just it just looks like an abandoned town like

beautiful there's like lots of beautiful nature. Yeah, it looks peaceful because no one is real that lives there. Yeah, exactly. I'm definitely buying this puzzle though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That puzzle looks great. I mean, I'm looking on the garden and tools section and this handy jack extra hold tape for $8 looks like quite a steal. They sell battery testers like those old battery testers from like the mid-90s.

quite a steal they sell battery testers like those old battery testers from like the mid 90s it looks like backs like old dead stock stuff from the 80s that they just couldn't sell i'm i'm obsessed with this now because this puzzle that i'm buying free of uh is called back in the good old days puzzle and it's designed to remind you of a simpler time and it's a person whose face you can't see they're at a grocery store where there is no cashier and just like animals running around on the floor. You know. You know. Those good old days. Yeah. And so this company that we're looking at that like sells a bunch of products that nobody has bought in 40 years is the number two employer.

It employs a thousand people in this town. Starcrest of California. What's going on, Starcrest? Let's get to the bottom of this. Yeah. i don't know who's buying their insane products like the owl stretch ring watch or the crystal expansion watch it's very odd yeah i would do some investigating elsewhere in washington uh there might be a government shutdown. And this is – all tied up in this is sort of how people interact with Trump. So one of the big details is immigration that evolved Trump's thinking on the border wall. And he probably did.

And he probably did. And also talked about how it was his idea to give DACA like the six months to allow Congress to fix it rather than just like saying doc is over like ice is coming for you motherfuckers uh and kind of happening sadly right so he's taking credit for that and this is like textbook how not to deal with trump like for whatever reason the people who work for trump have not learned that you don't ever ever ever take credit for, you know, telling him what to do, because then he immediately reacts badly. And our engineer and producer Nick Stumpf kind of put together an outline of just how this has worked with regards to DACA. So in September, Trump has this dinner with Chuck and Nancy that's supposedly very cordial.

And they outline a deal on DACA. No border wall is included. Everybody's happy. They take like photo ops and there's just mutual love everywhere. And then, you know, Chuck and Nancy, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi sort of crip walk out of the office and are just like celebrating for the cameras. And Trump is like, fuck that. The deal's off. I didn't agree to anything. Then more recently, Dianne Feinstein like owns Trump in this January 9th meeting in front of the press, gets him to agree to a clean DACA bill. January 10th, the media sort of crowed and made fun of him. And then January 11th, Trump is just fully dug in on this like hard line garbage position where, you know, he starts talking about shithole countries. he starts talking about shithole countries uh and now we have john kelly sort of taking a victory lap about how he influenced trump on immigration issues and says the six-month daca extension

was something he ordered and you know on on the wall he says quote certain things are said during the campaign that are uninformed uh yeah so that shit is like he's not going to be happy about that and that's and we're already seeing that trump has like is basically shit canning this bill that was going to sort of extend things and uh you know avoid a government shutdown right like there wasn't there some sort of bill to extend things moving well it seemed like uh dick durbin and lindsey graham had come to like a bipartisan solution of things and that's when like shit just started falling apart and the two like it's become a moving target to even know what trump wants anymore right like how to how to solve this like do we avoid the shutdown with uh just up like a limited spending bill but

also add chip funding to get democrats on board the problem is like chip funding for the child health insurance program so yeah basically the i think in october the republicans just like we just let chip funding lapse so there are a lot of kids who rely on the government for health insurance like these funds are drying up rapidly. And now there'll be very vulnerable children who don't have access to health care that they need. Right. And this seems like a very easy thing to agree on. It's like we want, you know, poor kids to be able to have insurance or access to health

care. But it's become like this bargaining tool. And now, like, it's become this a game of chicken between the Republicans and Democrats of like, who's going to blink and let the government shut down or not pass it, you know, avoid a government shutdown. And it's ultimately looks like the Democrats are digging in. They're like, look, you have the Senate, you have the House and you have the White House. So don't tell us we're obstructing it because, you know, this is clearly you have a ton of infighting on your side of things that you haven't sorted out.

And we're here trying to say, like, we want paid in full and we also want a clean DREAM Act. So we don't want kids to die and we want people who have lived most of their life in America to not be deported to countries. Yeah, and people who are contributing to the country too. And I think it's crazy too because now they're trying to act like these kids aren't worthwhile people contributing to American society. That's completely false. Right. But because Trump feels like people are not giving him his proper respect, he's kind of stopped that bill from going through and is basically gumming up the works. But also it's no surprise that after John Kelly is like, I evolved the president's

piece or his position on it, that this morning he's like, ah, no. My vision of the border was never changed or evolved. So you should have known, buddy. I would love to live with that kind of blind self-confidence. I mean, that's all these stories come back to the same thing for me. It's like he can just say something and then

later say, I didn't say that thing. I always said this thing and enough people believe him. And it's like – it's just – that's what I'm – you have to take the positives out of horrible situations and all I'm doing is learning how to be. And I wish – I hope I maintain being a good person, but it's nice to know that if I'm a bad person who consistently lies, it doesn't matter. It's a good takeaway. It's really good. that if I'm a bad person who consistently lies, it doesn't matter.

Right. It's a good takeaway. It's really good. I mean, it would be fun, like the evil part of me, just think of like, if you, if the stakes weren't so high, like the kind of mind games you'd play with Trump to get him to do stuff you wanted and just like fuck with other people. Like, dude, watch how I'm going to get this shit done.

And just go in there and be like, dude, that was such a good idea, man. Right. And then get him to like declare it. Well, it's all very basic stuff. Like how you deal with the difficult bosses, you get them to think that a good idea was their idea, and you compliment the shit out of them about having come up with that idea. This is kind of a great insight into how the people around Trump are sort of learning about how to deal with him.

Lindsey Graham was asked if Trump was racist and his response was pretty telling. I think I think we have the clip of that. Why don't you ask me, is he a racist? That was my next question. OK, why don't you ask me? Do you think that he is a racist? Absolutely not. Let me tell you what, you could be dark as charcoal and lily white. It doesn't matter as long as you're nice to him. You could be the pope and criticize him. It doesn't matter. He'll go after the pope. You could be Putin and say nice things and he'll like you.

Here's what I found. He's a street fighter. It's not the color of your skin that matters. It's not the content of your character. It's whether or not you show him respect and like him. And if he feels like you're off script, you don't like him, he punches back. And as president of the United States, the only advice I can give you is that the street fight's over.

He mentioned, he goes, he's such a bad person. Lindsey Graham's a bad person because he's like pretending to be kind of liberal, but he's really a deeply conservative, hateful person. person i know it's so weird when he says woke shit you're like what the fuck are you talking about liar um also why are they asking a white person if he's racist it's so stupid yeah he's a street fighter man which one do you think he is i think he's blanca yeah or zangief maybe guile actually guile makes more sense at all. Yeah. But did he think that was a defense? I don't know.

It was like partially – Because like the two defenses that we've heard – Someone who fights against anyone calling him out is not racist because he fights against anyone calling him out even though most people calling him out are not white. Right. What are we talking about? That's the funny thing about like you don't get to say you're not racist. Right. Like if people are

calling you racist you're racist that's like it has nothing to do with what you think you are but i mean like the better version of that answer would have been like look yes he's racist but also here's the thing even if you're black he will like you if you just kiss his ass yeah so like there's a way to bypass his racism if you're just a sycophant that's a much better way to say yeah like which i think is what he was trying to say without like you know sort of like having a repulsive effect on his his base of like republican people who don't want to hear anyone in the gop call him racist so he's like no he's not but let me say this other shit that is kind of fucked up about his ego but not full you know not a full-throated

being like i think what he was saying is basically yes but i want to keep getting the kickbacks i get as a senator so no yeah like he's a piece of shit and then there was an implicit threat against the media there at the end like you're fucking with a president who will destroy you and like wants to destroy you so stop saying things he doesn't like was essentially i think like what when he was like the street fight is over and he's the president i thought he was saying that he doesn't have to that street fight mentality it is is no longer needed look i'm only speaking outdated 90s video and 80s video games so that's how i was actually pretty impressed yeah thank you uh all right we're gonna take a quick break. We session. 24 hours.

BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation.

KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church, and then a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked.

Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better.

With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we're back. Yes, we're back. And you know me.

I'm all about a big proponent of cannabis, adult use, medical use, and otherwise. And Prop 64 inia did a great thing right it created uh a legal adult use marijuana uh recreational we basically made recreational weed legal here but another great part of prop 64 is that it also allows anyone basically to have their past marijuana related offenses or crimes reduced or expunged completely which is wild because they're saying like, look, weed is legal. And I guess now that we know that, you shouldn't have to be completely punished for any kind of crimes that you committed in regards to possession, especially because a lot of people got like felony possession for weed and can't get jobs, can't get loans and things like that.

So this is like a very great opportunity for, you know, society sort of change these kinds of things and allow people to kind of start over anew. Especially because African-Americans in California were five times as likely to get arrested for a marijuana felony than white offenders. So these constraints disproportionately affected them. And now we're showing like, hey, this is part of the new era. We also believe that you shouldn't ruin your life because of some you're holding some weed right and how many people are eligible for this i think nearly like a million people or something it's pretty it's pretty uh it's i think it's roughly one million californians are eligible according to the drug policy alliance there is nothing more stupid than the fact that weed was illegal.

Like alcohol is legal. Like are you fucking kidding me? I think we should ban alcohol. I don't like anyone who drinks a lot. Obviously you shouldn't ban anything. You should let people do whatever the fuck they want and fuck up their lives and do whatever – deal with anxiety the way they want. But what are we talking about here yeah like if if anything like we just increases the economy of like amazon downloads and like like food delivery like it's just like it's just good

for the economy and who cares like what but also i feel like just the idea that drugs are illegal is just part of this puritanical myth that life has to be this utopia. Or people are always like struggling to, they're struggling to accept that life is not the utopia they want it to be, whether it's like socialist or religious, like Christian or something like that. It's just so offensive and horrible that people won't talk about what adulthood actually is, which is very painful. And we need drugs. Let's be real.

Right. So, yeah, I mean, it's good to know that, you know, that people are thinking about this too, because it could have just as easily been like,

Hey, the weed is legal and not thought about like, well, Hey, if weed is legal, what about all these people that are in jail or like have completely had their lives fucked over? Cause they can't,

they have to be like, Hey, were you ever convicted of a felony in a job? We're like, yeah. It's so stupid. It's like in Germany, like if people had felonies for being Jewish. You know what I mean? It's like what are we talking about here?

Like of course you should expunge it. This should never have been a crime. We made a mistake because we're scared of the truth. So this is us. Yeah. It's the government or at least the state of California making good on that. the government or at least the state of California making good on that. And are there law firms that are going to or funds or charities that people can look into?

I don't know. We don't have that information I guess right now. I'm hoping somebody is like dedicating themselves to just helping people get their marijuana-related offenses reduced or expunged. Yeah, well, I think that's sort of the next step is making sure that, you know, public defenders' offices and legal aid providers can, like, actually talk, tell people that's like, hey, just so you know, like, I'm looking through the records. I heard yesterday you got a felony, like, possession thing. You can actually petition to get this changed. Yeah, like an innocence project for people who got arrested for bullshit weed-related

offenses. I think it's funny because when you go get your weed card, all the doctors are like, Dr. 420 and all that stuff. So now there's going to be a lawyer 420 or like 420 Esquire. Right. Just everything is a chance for branding. The Weed Girl Network. Offices of green bud and

some other fucking damn real stoner over here seriously guys all right that's gonna do it for this week's weekly zeitgeist please like and review the show if you like the show uh means the world to miles he he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday. Bye. Thank you. Come up here and document my project. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends, and the applause fades, and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey

of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest. Because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Swordquest

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.