The David Pakman Show - 10/6/22: Biden with DeSantis in Florida, Herschel Walker Story Collapses

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Bill Keller, founding Editor-in-Chief of The Marshall Project and author of "What's Prison For? Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration," joins David to discuss incarceration in the US, system issues affecting corrections officers, approaches to incarceration in other countries, and more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3Cf1SNo -- Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears in Florida with President Joe Biden and begrudgingly praises the Biden response to Hurricane Ian -- President Joe Biden is caught on a hot microphone speaking to someone in Florida where he says "no one 'f's' with a Biden, and right wingers flip out about "tone" -- Failed former President Donald Trump speaks at a Hispanic leadership event in Miami and seems visibly disoriented, glitching badly throughout the deranged speech -- It turns out that the woman accusing Herschel Walker of paying for her abortion also is the mother of one of his children -- Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker is losing to Raphael Warnock by 12 points in a new poll -- Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker gives a very strange answer when asked on Fox News about his son, Christian Walker, denouncing him -- Right-wing extremists pray for Herschel Walker and rebuke "the devil," who they blame for the recent abortion scandal -- Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly provides some advice to Hershel Walker for getting through the current scandal -- On the Bonus Show: Job openings plunge by more than 1.1 million in August, Michigan judge drops felony charges against 7 people in Flint water scandal, US appeals court sends DACA case back to lower court, much more... 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 👕 Rhone: Code PAKMAN saves you 20% at https://www.rhone.com/PAKMAN 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 🛌 Get up to $350 OFF a Helix Sleep mattress + 2 free pillows at https://helixsleep.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Well, President Joe Biden flew down to Florida yesterday and met with Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and they did a sort of sort of assess the damage and comfort people type event after Hurricane Ian devastated Florida. And I don't even want to deal in this segment with Ron DeSantis is hypocrisy, wherein he's previously in Congress voted against funding for disasters like for Superstorm Sandy in New York and New Jersey, and then is begging for the money in Florida. We've already talked about that. That's not new ground.

So I don't want to focus on that. What I want to focus on is how either I mean, listen, reluctantly, reluctantly, Ron DeSantis praised Joe Biden and the federal response to the hurricane, indicating they gave us everything we asked for. Joe Biden praised Ron DeSantis. And even though DeSantis had a sourpuss on his face the entire time, it proves that these people can work together. And on so many issues, there really shouldn't be any disagreements.

The disagreements are basically contrived for the voters to feel as though my guy is doing something. So anyway, let's look at a couple of clips here. Here is Ron DeSantis again with a scowl on his face and a sourpuss saying Biden's handled this fine. This general area, we were very fortunate to have good coordination with the White House and with FEMA. From the very beginning of this. We declared a state of

emergency last Friday, September 23rd. This wasn't even this was a disturbance out there by Columbia. And then the next day we got a major disaster declaration approved by the president. And we really appreciated that. And that basically set off the massive mobilization that we had ready to be able to respond to this storm. So thanks to Joe Biden, they were able to do everything he felt they needed to do. As of now, there have been over twenty five hundred rescues effect. OK, so there's the Santa's sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all good. Here is more appraised to some degree from Ron DeSantis of Joe Biden. And I think we've worked as well

across state, local and federal of any disaster that I've seen. And so I want to thank Administrator Criswell from FEMA for being on the ground, being supportive and being very responsive. I think one of the things that you're seeing in this response, we are cutting through the bureaucracy. We are cutting through the red tape. And that's from a Democratic president letting you cut through all of the bureaucracy and red tape to get you what you need. That's pretty good. Local government, state government, all the way up to the president. So we appreciate the team effort. So there was like a really strange feel to the entire thing. Here is President Biden also praising DeSantis, which, again,

fantastic. These seem like genuine, genuine compliments. I think it's a great thing. So difficult to hear. But Biden said he and DeSantis have worked hand in glove. It's been great. He's been dealing with the crisis well. And then another just really interesting moment here was when President Biden was praising Governor Ron DeSantis and says one of the great things that's happened here is we've recognized there is such a thing called global warming. Well, the governor's done is pretty remarkable.

So far, this is what he's done in terms of, you know, it's it's, you know, first of all, the biggest thing the governor's done and so many others have done, they recognize this thing called global warming. The world is changing. Yeah. And DeSantis not thrilled to have to sit through that for sure. And the reality is hurricane response is very different under Biden than it was under Trump. Here is Trump. You might remember shooting paper towel rolls like they're basketballs not long after being

very confused about whether Puerto Ricans are American citizens in the context of one hurricane response. Then he showed up and shot paper towels like basketballs. And it's all fun and games for Donald Trump. So certainly different. Now, here's my my big takeaway on this. This is a reminder that so much of the partisanship really is contrived. Now, there's two perspectives. One perspective on this would be now the partisanship is real. And both Biden and DeSantis have to kind of turn up their noses and hold their breath and sort of praise each other begrudgingly.

DeSantis is definitely begrudging in his praise of Biden, but not because I genuinely think DeSantis is unwilling to praise Biden. It's because he knows it's going to hurt him with his voters if he praises Biden too much. Biden, on the other hand, seems to be having a grand old time with the fact that, hey, guys, listen, there was a time and Biden was involved in politics when it was the case where it wasn't controversial that on something like a disaster response and many other issues, even foreign policy issues, in many cases, Republicans and Democrats are basically united and work together.

Biden actually is part of that era where that was a thing. And so the takeaway for me is so much of the nonsense that we deal with where, oh, there's a pandemic. Well, let's all band together and just do the oh, wait, you're not going to do that. You're not going to do that. Oh, OK. Here we have a foreign policy situation. And let's just all we're on the same page that Vladimir Putin. Oh, we're not. We're not on the same page. A lot of it is completely contrived at our deficit to our dismay as voters and the people. They could be completely united and take out of the political

realm so much of this stuff. So very interesting to see it. And one particularly interesting moment when Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but there has been this viral moment yesterday when President Joe Biden flew down to Florida to survey the damage and to make some announcements alongside Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, where Biden dropped an F-bomb and said no one F's with a Biden. And of course, a bunch of Republicans are like, oh, this isn't presidential. This isn't the right tone to be striking.

Huffington Post article president on hot mic with Florida official. No one F's with a Biden. He made the comment during what looked like a laid back exchange with Fort Myers Beach's mayor while touring the area damaged by Hurricane Ian. Biden was recorded. One of this was one of the areas hit by the hurricane. Murphy can be heard. Ray Murphy's the mayor of Fort Myers Beach. Murphy can be heard thanking Biden for coming to the state before both officials exchange the phrase keep the faith. And then Biden told Murphy no one F's with a Biden. So let's take a look at the clip and we do have to bleep it because we're on radio and television and we don't want any FCC problems for our stations. But if you want the unedited version, it's easy to find.

Speaker 2 I was I was known. Speaker 5 Yeah, I got the. Speaker 5 I can't argue with you. Speaker 6 Outside the house. Speaker 5 That's exactly right. That's exactly right. All right. Speaker 6 Thank you, guys. Speaker 1 All right.

So a bunch of right wingers. Oh, this isn't presidential. This isn't how a president should speak. Imagine thinking this is a problem. So first of all, first of all. This actually is the real Biden, right? Remember the classic when President Biden was vice president and they signed Obamacare and Biden was on a hot mic telling Barack Obama, this is a big effing deal. He's just enthusiastic in that way. It's the real Biden, which I appreciate.

There was the Peter Doocy S.O.B. Hot Mike incident. What do you think? What do you think? You think you might be political? I don't know. That's a great asset. More inflation.

What a stupid son of a bitch. OK. And so, you know, all the way back to the Trump administration, you know, the Trump administration, you know, the Trump administration, you know, the Trump administration, you know, That's a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch. OK. And so, you know, all the right wingers have to do their dog and pony show about its unbecoming of a president and all this stuff. If your belief was that one of the great things about Trump was that he talked like a so-called normal person and he told it like it is and he said what's on his mind and you don't have

some fake reverence for elite media people and all of that stuff. And it's good when Trump does it. How can we possibly believe you're really upset at Biden dropping an F-bomb? Give me a break, guys. It is so pathetic and contrived that we shouldn't even really give it attention. And so I'm not going to spend more than the two minutes on it that I already have. This is Joe Biden. This is one of the things I actually like about Joe Biden in the context of lots of things I don't like so much. It is absolutely implausible that these right wingers are actually upset about this in this

way. And if they are, they're complete and total hypocrites. Take a quick break and we'll be back right after this. All of my meals. But our sponsor, Athletic Greens, just makes it easy to make sure I'm getting the nutrients I want. I've been using it for almost a year now, and it's great. AG1 by Athletic Greens is a delicious plant based blend of 75 high quality vitamins, minerals and probiotics from whole food sources. If I have just one small scoop of AG one a day, I know I'm getting the nutrition and nutrients that I want that support all of the things that are important to me. The only alternative would be to take 20 different vitamin pills and things every day. I'm not doing

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percent off the most comfortable shirt you'll ever own. That's R-H-O-N-E dot com slash Pacman code Pacman saves you 20 percent. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. So Donald Trump spoke yesterday in Miami, Florida, at a Hispanic leadership conference called the AFPI Hispanic Leadership Conference. If you put Trump and Hispanic folks together, something weird is bound to happen. And this is one of the strangest speeches I have ever seen Donald Trump give beyond bizarre, super glitchy, his skin almost matching the red step and repeat behind the lectern. Everything about it bizarre. I have never seen Trump's brain glitch this badly. Here is the

first example. Two glitches in one sentence. Trump trying to talk about during his anti trans rant, saying without parental consent, he calls it parental consult. And then in trying to say he will oppose the Biden administration, he says administrating. And every time it happens, he looks disoriented. It's that glitchiness. And Trump does not look good, folks. Teachers should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent. No, nobody has to have parental consent. And we will totally oppose the Biden administration at this this administration. The Biden administration's sick plan to require.

Yeah, visibly disoriented. And then at another really strange moment, Donald Trump seemingly stumbling on what the U.S. population is confused about the American population and kind of turns it into a rant about immigration to try to save himself and just really looking confused up there. We'll never be behind China, even though they have slightly more people than we do, like about a billion more. They have 1.5 billion. We have actually, our country is so crazy now, we don't even know how many we have.

We have no idea. Because I believe the number of people that came into our country and will come in this year is 10 million people, not 3 million. It could even be 12 million people. We have absolutely no idea what it is. So it's hard to say how many people we have because we have no idea how many people have come into our country illegally. But we as you can hear this, the crowd sitting completely silently, and I don't know if that's the most interesting rant to a group of Hispanic leaders. At another moment, Donald Trump told a completely bonkers story

about how if he ran against George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, he would defeat them by 40 percentage points in some hypothetical time traveling election. I believe I remember a very famous pollster, very well known. John McLaughlin came to my office just prior to the plague coming in. He said, sir, if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, sir, came alive from the dead and they formed a president vice president team, you would beat them by 40 percent.

What a deranged statement. I mean, it's so dumb. It's like you can't even fact check something so stupid. And the idea that that's what a pollster is telling him, it's like you lost by a record number of votes to Joe Biden, who, as you claim, ran a campaign from his basement. How embarrassing. You're not defeating George Washington and Lincoln when you can't even beat Biden campaigning from his basement?

Give me a break, dude. It doesn't make any sense. Trump then ranting about the Mar-a-Lago raid. And Trump says he's thinking as he speaks here. And that's a really dangerous thing for Trump to do. You know, they spend all their time on nonsense. The FBI. Nonsense. Some raiding Mar-a-Lago. Let's let's raid Mar-a-Lago.

But leave the cartels alone. How about that? They think of this. I'm just thinking as I'm speaking, you don't mind if I go a little off script. But I think they raided Mar-a-Lago. But the cartels, they they have their own Mar-a-Lago. And those are fine. Leave them alone.

Let them continue to destroy. It's interesting likening Mar-a-Lago as the physical center of a crime family to cartels that that's actually pretty fascinating. And as you all know, when Trump's on the teleprompter, it's a disaster because he can't read it. And then when he's off the teleprompter doing the free association, it's bad because none of it makes any sense whatsoever. Here's one more clip where Trump says the raid at Mar-a-Lago has given him a lot of free publicity and woke and they should be penalized very severely for it.

The banks have let the community down. I think they've let the country down. Biden is not only wrecking our economy, he's destroying the rule of law. You probably read and heard about the document hoax. Has anyone heard about the document hopes helicopters flying over Mar-a-Lago? Well, they've given us about five billion dollars worth of free publicity. I will say, you know, it's a nice house. If it weren't so nice, they probably wouldn't be doing it because probably not, as he says.

And then last clip here, just total stream of consciousness, verbal inkblot. Horrible, of course, will make it prosperous again because we don't take our oil that's under our feet. Pamela, right. We don't take what's under our feet. I caught liquid gold. We go to them to get far inferior product that we refine in the United States. You know, we have the only refiners because what they have is tar. Right.

It's very rough. It's not light and sweet. It's rough stuff. And they talk about the environment. So they go into Venezuela to get stuff that's really bad. It's refined in the United States. So if there is anything goes in the air, it goes in the air in the United States. Right. But even if it went to another country, it blows over. The whole thing is so crazy. Yeah. We don't even know what you're talking about.

It's so crazy what they're doing is so crazy. So we're begging Venezuela. We're begging Saudi Arabia. We're begging everybody for oil. And we have more than everybody. Yeah. Remember, the truth of the matter is that domestic oil production has actually increased under Joe Biden from where it was under Donald

Trump slightly. It's a small margin. The data is publicly available and you can find it. So really not looking good is Trump here visibly confused and making very little sense and the crowd seemingly recognizing it sitting in complete and total silence. The Herschel Walker story is becoming, dare I say, completely Kafka esque. So earlier this week, the story came out of a woman saying Herschel Walker claims to be against abortion. He says abortion is murder in his Senate candidacy in Georgia. But he urged me to get an abortion when he impregnated me and he paid for the abortion. And after that story came out, Herschel Walker denied even knowing who the woman is, saying he doesn't know, saying he definitely didn't pay for anybody's abortion and that that's part of why the story is made up, because he

doesn't even know the woman. It turns out, based on new reporting from The Daily Beast, that the woman in question is someone that is actually already the mother of another one of her Herschel Walker's children. And this just blows the story wide, wide open. It is an unbelievable new development in the story. And later, we're going to play Bill O'Reilly's advice to Herschel Walker. And to some degree, Bill O'Reilly's advice is making sense, which is he may just want to come clean on this. She had an abortion with Herschel Walker, reads the Daily Beast headline. She also had a child with him. Herschel Walker has claimed he has no idea who the woman could be. Here is why that is surprising. And Roger Sullenberger for the Daily Beast writes, there's a good reason the woman finds the defense that Walker doesn't know who she is.

Highly doubtful. She is the mother of one of his children. Folks, the story is falling apart. The article writes, When the woman first told The Daily Beaster story, we agreed not to reveal certain details about her identity over concerns for safety and privacy. Then Walker categorically denied the story, said he didn't know who was making the allegation. Wednesday morning, Fox host Brian Kilmeade asked Walker, did you figure out the woman's identity? Not at all, Walker replies. And that's what I hope

everyone can see. It's sort of like everyone is anonymous or everyone is leaking and they want you to confess to something you have no clue about. Walker called it a desperate attack and on and on and on. The anonymous woman said the defense sounded ridiculous. Sure, I was stunned, she said. But I guess it also doesn't shock me that maybe there are just so many of us he truly doesn't remember. But then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something to the woman told the Daily Beast. Her chief concern with revealing her name was because she is the mother of Walker's, one of Walker's own children, and she wanted to protect her family's privacy. Walker has publicly acknowledged the child as his own, and the woman proved she is the child's

mother and provided evidence of a long term relationship with Walker. It's one of the mothers of one of his children. Remember that Walker went on the Hannity program and answered about whether he knows the woman in this way. Start with the Daily Beast, Herschel. I mean, serious accusations that in 2009 that you paid for an abortion. First question, do you know the woman that is making this allegation? I have no idea, but it is a flat out lie.

Yeah, he has no idea. A new interview with Hugh Hewitt, where again, he says he doesn't know who the woman is. So just to put a bow on it, do you have any idea who this alleged former lover of yours is who says you paid for an abortion and fathered a child? Any idea whatsoever? I have no idea at all. And that's the problem is, you know, when they said I had the kids that I was hiding, a lot of people don't know that this same reporter found out that this was not true, never wrote a retraction, never said anything. They just let it go and went off.

And that is, of course, untrue. Roger Sullenberger didn't write a retraction because the story is accurate that he originally wrote about Walker's kid. And Walker actually acknowledged that as well. Unbelievable implosion. It is not only a woman who was impregnated but then had an abortion at Walker's request. She also birthed one of Walker's kids. And 24 more hours is probably all that this story has, given that the pressure is really mounting on Herschel Walker. Let's look at new polling in Walker versus Warnock. Now I want to remind you, most of the polling here is still pre abortion scandal, but the

race has already turned in Raphael Warnock's favor. And that's a very good thing. Since yesterday, there have been two new polls. There is a Fox five insider advantage poll, which has Warnock plus three. And then there is a WXIA TV Survey USA poll, which has Raphael Warnock plus 12. These are the only two polls currently that include any of October. But what's really important is that the Survey USA poll, by the way, Survey USA has an A rating on 538.

The Survey USA poll includes some October, but 95 percent of the poll was conducted before the abortion bombshell story involving Herschel Walker. These new numbers still don't fully include the full effect of the Herschel Walker abortion story. And if you look at the chart, you see the red line, Herschel Walker, almost a vertical decline, while Raphael Warnock is benefiting from this decline. This is not about using personal dirt to hurt candidates. This is about Walker has no business being in the United States Senate. And the Georgia voters are so weaponized by the disinformation that has been shot at them that they don't know up is down, down is up, day is night. They don't know what's going on.

And they are using special pleading and they are using selective enforcement of their supposed values to continue saying, I like Herschel Walker. It seems as though some of them, some of them are bailing by Monday, by Monday. My prediction is the polling will put Walker even further down. But in the meantime, we assume nothing. Everyone must vote. Don't stay home, et cetera, et cetera. One last thing on the Herschel Walker stuff. Herschel Walker appeared on Fox News. He was asked, why did your own son come out against you? That was really damaging to your campaign. As many of you know, we covered that Christian Walker, a right wing influencer who is Herschel Walker's son, denounced Herschel Walker,

said he would threaten us. He tried to kill us. We had to move six times as a result of his threats. He's a fake. He's a phony. All these different things. Christian Walker denouncing his own father, Herschel Walker appearing on Fox News, being asked about it. And his answer is completely incoherent. He's doing tremendous damage to you by coming out with those statements. Do you know why he's saying this? Well, the damage he's doing tremendous damage to you by coming out with those statements. Do you know why he's saying this? Well, the damage he's doing is letting people know that the left will do whatever they can to win this seat. And I told you when I got in this race, I'm going to win this seat.

People see someone sitting here in front of you right now that's been redeemed. And I want America to know I'm living proof that you can make mistakes and get up and keep going forward. But you can only do it in this country right here. And you can only do it. And we get this election read correct. This come November. What?

What on earth does that have to do with your son, the Democrats? His son is a public MAGA right winger. His own son has decided to tell the country, my dad sucks, for lack of a better term. That has nothing to do with Democrats. And this absurd rambling answer, I have to tell you, on the one hand, this has to be extraordinarily difficult for Herschel Walker. And I empathize with that to see your son turn against you in this way. But it also has nothing to do with Democrats whatsoever. But maybe the saddest thing about it all is many Republicans who just don't want Raphael Warnock to be the next senator in Georgia or to continue being a senator in Georgia.

Better said, since he's the incumbent, that wild rambling nonsense that we just heard from Herschel Walker. They'll probably accept it. And that's good enough for them and say, hey, listen, he addressed it. Did he? He talked about Democrats. His son's a MAGA right winger. Everybody makes mistakes of different degrees, but to not own up to them. And again, it's not a mistake to pay for an abortion. If you're coercing a woman to get one, that's a different story. And that may be part of the story. But the mistake of staking out a completely dishonest public position that goes against everything that you have going in your life privately and then lying about it and then

not admitting that that's what happened, it does show a lack of character and a lack of conscience. And to blame it all on Democrats who have nothing to do with your own son turning against you is really pathetic. Again, I think we have 24 to 48 hours left of this scandal before a complete implosion. I expect Walker's campaign to be all but over by Monday. We'll have these clips on our Instagram. Find us on Instagram by searching David Pakman show. The David Pakman show's longest running sponsor is Blinkist, the app that takes thousands of nonfiction books, boils each of them down into an explainer you can read or listen to in 15 minutes. Blinkist also condenses episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers.

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of sugar under five net carbs and is packed with 13 grams of protein. So it'll work for keto and Thank you so much for joining us. the David Pakman Show at David magic spoon dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. You can just tap the link in the podcast notes. Today, we're going to be speaking with Bill Keller, who was the founding editor in chief of the Marshall Project and also author of the book What's Prison for Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Bill, I really appreciate you being on today. Thanks for having me. So I mean, I guess to start with, at least in some theoretical sense, prison sentences in the United States are supposed to be for rehabilitation, right? The idea that someone has done something wrong, harmful to society and or to victims. They have been sentenced to some amount of time in prison and that that experience, the

time that they spend in prison is at least to some degree rehabilitative in addition to being punitive so that then they serve their sentence. They come out and now they're rehabilitated. Right. I mean, at least sort of theoretically, can you talk about whether in practice any elements of the criminal justice system in the US actually function in that way? Not really. I mean, you can find individual programs that function that way, some of them experimental,

some of them more broadly based, like college education programs that actually do rehabilitate. But there's a number of obstacles. One of them is cost. It's expensive to do rehabilitation programs. You know, you need trained personnel and so on. One of them is the puritanical streak, I think, in American culture. The main objective from that point of view and rehabilitation is just pampering. Also, prisons are not the most ideal therapeutic environment. They're scary, they're noisy, the people who police them are really cops, not therapists or social workers.

They don't have the training to administer those sorts of programs. So there are a lot of obstacles. The heroes of my book, if I can call them that, are the corrections officials who are trying to improve rehabilitation in spite of the obstacles. And the teachers, the volunteers, the, you know, prisons are kind of a mystery. It's why I chose to write about prisons rather than courts or cops, because there's been a lot of attention deservedly paid to policing. Judges and prosecutors, for the most part, run for public office and do a lot of their business in public.

Prisons are kind of a mystery. So that's that's why I wanted to focus on them. If we put aside for a second when there are actual rehabil rehabilitation programs, the sort of status quo day to day of being in your standard prison. At this point, we know beyond any doubt that's not a rehabilitative experience in any way, is it? And in fact, it could sort of be the opposite. Speaker 4 No, that's absolutely right. There's considerable research by people like Bruce Western at Columbia who show that the being incarcerated can actually

make you more likely to commit crimes when you get out. Right. And when we when we say that, I mean, there's this sort of general idea prison can turn you into turn you into a more hardened or violent criminal. And it's often repeated. But what sort of what sort of data do we have about that? Well, the one piece of data that's kind of shocking is that. Two thirds of the people who are incarcerated will be arrested within five years of their

release. The recidivism rate, it's a tricky metric and then people measure it different ways. But recidivism suggests that we are not doing a very effective job of rehabilitating overall. When we talk about the deterrent effect of the system that we have and the idea that at the end of some crime that one commits, if you are caught and charged and convicted, there could be a punishment that's coming. From what I've read, studies have found that the death penalty, as compared to life in prison without parole, does not seem to be a functional deterrent in terms of reducing the crimes wherein one

would be eligible for such punishments. What do we know more generally about prison sentences and the deterrent effect on those not in prison? There's a sociologist named Francis Cullen at University of Cincinnati who's done a lot of work on this subject. And he makes this logical argument that the deterrent effect assumes that before you commit a crime, you stop and consider the risks in a sort of logical way. Whereas a great majority of crimes are either opportunistic, they're done in concert with going along with a gang. They're spontaneous.

And to the extent that people do stop and consider the consequences before they do something illegal, they're they're mainly considering the chances of getting caught. Right. It doesn't make a difference to them whether the punishment is five years for a felony or 20 years for a felony. But that's just not the way people think. Yeah. You know, we were talking about jaywalking yesterday on our program because the California

governor Newsom recently signed into law a bill that that mostly decriminalizes jaywalking. And I think that there's sort of some gray area in the sense that, like, you know, I jaywalk all the time. And it is true that if I knew that life in prison was a possible sentence for jaywalking, I wouldn't do it. But you need these really extreme examples that that in order to really be able to make that case, whereas as you talk about with many crimes, murder in particular, murders are are such a type of crime where already you're talking about only a fraction of the population is

even willing to commit a murder based on the research we have that the line between life in prison with no parole and death penalty, for example, it seems like it's a completely different type of consideration than my jaywalking example. Speaker 3 Right. I mean, I would never say that the risk of going to jail or being severely punished doesn't figure into anybody's thinking at all. I mean, deterrent exists, but it's just greatly exaggerated. And you weigh that against the the effects of being incarcerated to commit another crime. It's not it's not a convincing reason to lock people up, especially to lock people up, as

we do for far longer periods of time and for lesser crimes than most other countries. Yeah. I want to talk about that next. So can you give some specific examples of average sentence in the US for certain crimes compared to in some other countries for which we have data for the same crime? Sure. Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. Yeah. Any crime that you that that we could think of a difference in average sentencing between

the US and other countries? Oh, I know what I was going to say. Mass incarceration is a relatively new phenomenon for us. I think that's important to remember that for most of the 20th century, the incarceration rate in the United States was something like 100 people incarcerated for every 100,000 population, which was a little higher than the rest of the world, but not off the tracks. And then beginning in the 70s, we took a sharp right turn, and it became more like 500 people in jail for every 100,000 in the population. I mean, that's an incredible phenomenon. And part of that is that we incarcerated people for much longer periods of time.

I'm talking here about developed countries, mostly the European countries, the ones that I've taken a look at. Most countries don't have a death penalty. They don't have life without parole. In the book, I talk about the case of Anders Breivik, who's a Norwegian mass murderer who slaughtered 70-some kids at a political, you know, political party

picnic. And it's been 21 years now. If he's deemed to be a danger to society, a judge can extend that. But that's why we think that's a severe that's the maximum punishment. Right. Yeah. Are there you know, sometimes there's this idea that if you do the European style of incarceration where conditions, generally speaking, are better and sentences are shorter, that there is a higher recidivism rate.

But it doesn't appear to be borne out in the data, is it? No, the recidivism rates in all of the Scandinavian countries and Germany and most of the developed world are considerably lower than ours. So to me, what that says is that for some of the folks in the United States who are demanding the stricter prison sentences, I don't really think they care, Bill, about the rehabilitative effect or the odds of recidivism. I think there's a sort of you did the thing and now you deserve a strict punishment. There's kind of the strict father morality aspect to it that's totally untethered from the actual impact. What's your sense? That's absolutely right. There are a couple

of reasons why we should care, even if a lot of people are hard. So there's a, I guess, moral reason that Americans like to profess that we believe in second chances and redemption. And so if we want to live up to those ideals, we should be treating prison inmates as if they were redeemable. But beyond that, there's a pragmatic, down-to-earth, self-centered argument for rehabilitation. Every year, we let out 600,000 people from state and federal prisons.

Would you rather have those people emerge from prison, brutalized, alienated, stigmatized and lacking in any kind of skills that will help them reenter the real world? Or would you like to have them equipped with neighbors? I mean, the pretty convincing argument. Yeah, it seems the the preferable answer is is clear on that. To talk a little bit about the kind of society that is created within many prisons, you know, I I interviewed the author Ted Conover, who wrote this book, New Jack, in which he actually became a great book. He became a

corrections officer at Sing Sing in New York and talks about his experiences. And he did it knowing his plan was ultimately to write a book. And he talks quite a bit about the reality of the sort of culture around being a corrections officer in the United States and the pressures faced systemic and otherwise. And he doesn't excuse any of the behavior that he observed when he was in the job. But he sort of gives a glimpse into the realities of how the corrections officer circumstances impact how prisons are run as well. Can you talk a little bit about that? What what is unique in the United States about being a corrections officer and the expectations and the pressures? If you want to be a corrections officer in Germany, you have to take two years of college level courses, including things like human rights, law, psychology, sociology.

And then your job is essentially to be a therapist, is putting it a little too strongly, but to engage the inmates to try to figure out what it was that made them go wrong and see what programs would be available to address it. If you're going to become a corrections officer in the United States, and I'm generalizing broadly here, there's a saying in corrections that if you've seen one prison, you've seen one prison. Everyone has its own kind of culture. But for the most part, if you're going to become a corrections officer, as Ted Conover's

book demonstrated, you're going to get a few weeks of training, mostly about crowd control and self-defense. It's more of a paramilitary organization. As Ted emerged from that experience with a fair amount of empathy for the prison guards, that they're in a sense victims of the environment and the culture, too. And I think there's some truth in that. Yeah. And it seems to some degree. Oh, sorry, Bill. I was going to say there seems to be a mirroring in one of the things that it seems many police departments would benefit from mirrors, something that corrections officers would benefit from as well, which is more training along the lines of sort of social work and relationship building and community building. Speaker 4 Yeah.

And you can find leaders of organized corrections officers, unions and things who will say that it's in the last 10 years or so that they've begun to talk the talk a little bit. Unfortunately, they're organized in states that have really strong corrections officers, unions. They tend to be a source of resistance because they don't want to mess with the job. One of the things that is more unique in the United States is this concept of a for profit prison run by a corporation that contracts with various agencies.

And sometimes those contracts include a guaranteed occupancy where even if there is not actually a certain occupancy, the prison operator gets paid as if they were. So they have a certain expectation of guaranteed revenue that they are going to be receiving. Can you talk a little bit about even though most inmates in the United States are not held at for profit private prisons, what is particular or unique to the for profit prison experience in the United States? Or is it the same as in the state run in federal prisons? You know, there's another book by a journalist who went undercover as a prison guard, Shane Bowers book. He went underground in a Louisiana prison that is a private

owned by Corrections Corporation of America. And he he does a nice job, first of all, of demonstrating that the bottom line becomes a big factor in the thinking of those prisons. But also that the whole history of incarceration in America has various profit motives associated with them, starting most and most egregiously with the South, where prison labor became a substitute for slave labor. Without much improvement in the conditions and certainly without any pay. Obviously, with the South, where prison labor became a substitute for slave labor. Mm hmm. Without much improvement in the conditions and certainly without any pay. So it seems as though it's essentially quite similar, but with the profit motive added on top of it. I mean, is that fair to say? Yeah, that's that's I think that it's fair to say? Yeah, that's, I think that's fair to say.

It's actually, you're right in saying that it's a small percentage of the incarcerated population who are in privately run prisons. prisons contract for people to make services available to do medical care, to do transport, to run the cafeterias. Often those are contracted out to private. Companies that don't have any incentive to. To do more than they have to. Also there's elements of privatization even within state and federally run prisons as well. I did not know that. Also, there's elements of privatization even within state and federally run prisons as well.

I did not know that. Correct. One example that's been a big issue lately in a lot of prisons is there's a company that makes available tablets so that you can download books for your class and communicate with them. As a general rule, prisoners don't have access to the Internet, but they can get limited services on a tablet. But the company charges exorbitant rates for the use of them. Prisoners barely have any opportunity to earn the money to pay for them.

Yep. And that's we've seen that also with with exorbitant phone rates in prisons as well. Bill, we've been speaking with Bill Keller, who is the author of What's Prison for Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Bill, very interesting. And I really appreciate your time today. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm glad to spread the message. One of our sponsors is Helix Sleep. I have been sleeping on a Helix mattress for years,

and I always recommend it to friends. You'd simply take this Helix sleep quiz. It asks you about your body type, your sleep position, whether you have back pain, and this Helix sleep quiz. It asks you about your body type, your sleep position, whether you have back pain, and then Helix will match you up with the mattress that is personalized to your needs and they ship it to you for free. Another reason I went with Helix is that unlike a lot of mattress companies out there, every single Helix mattress is made in the USA by a skilled production team, which means when you buy a Helix mattress, you are supporting great jobs. I'm not the only one who loves Helix. Helix was recently awarded number one mattress by both GQ and Wired magazine. Every Helix mattress comes with a 10 or 15 year warranty. You can try it 100 nights and send it back for a full refund if you need to

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Now Herschel Walker claims to be pro-life. He claims that abortion is murder. He claims no exceptions for the woman, whether it's rape, incest or health or none. No exceptions ever. And he has now been credibly accused of urging and paying for an abortion for a woman with whom he allegedly already had another child. And the right wingers and the Christians, you would think that they would say, wow, well, this guy really isn't for us.

Instead, they held a prayer for Herschel and his wife. They apparently believe that these attacks are coming from the devil. They rebuke the devil. This is utter insanity. Take a look at this. This is the fight of his life. Oh, my God. Amen. And we call forth your ministry angels and we ask you to rebuke the devil. It whatever the results of this election, Herschel wins. Right.

And he's a winner. We are more than conquerors. Yes. Hey, you know, maybe if these values are so important to you, Christian supporters of Herschel Walker, maybe focus on the fact that he lied to you about his view on abortion rather than blaming the devil. So we thank you that we can support our fellow conqueror, our brother, our friend, the one that we are praying for today. We lift up his wife, Julie.

We pray for your protection. We know that her heart is sensitive to all of these attacks and all the things the enemy will bridge up and throw at us. God make her strong. This is this is not a satire. This is real. I hope people understand her with spiritual resolve. Yes.

Backbone of Holy Ghost. Yeah. Yeah. Or they will be stronger than it's ever been before. Yeah. So they have renewed faith in Herschel Walker. These are hypocrites, hypocritical Christians. This wasn't the work of the devil.

This was Herschel Walker's own doing and Herschel Walker's own lying and dishonesty. And by the way, praying for the guy after we learned not only about this entire abortion fiasco, but his ex-wife and son had to move six times in six years due to the alleged acts of domestic violence from Herschel Walker against his family. And they're praying for Herschel. What's Christian about that? And again, only if you're so deluded and also, by the way, willing to suspend disbelief in a way where you say none of this stuff is true. What's true is that the devil, Satan, apparently sent by Democrats.

Democrats have Satan on a hotline, apparently send them in any time. That's who's to blame here. This really is sort of like the cherry on top where there is no reasoning with these people. Now, why do I think the polling continues to shift away from Walker if his supporters are like this? They're not all like this. There are more casual Republicans in Georgia who they don't like Warnock. But after this, they're not going to vote for Walker independence as well. And that's why I believe that the next round of polling that we get, we'll probably know it by Monday, Tuesday after the Monday holiday. I believe that Walker will be even more underwater than he already is.

Bill O'Reilly, failed Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has come out of the woodwork with advice for Herschel Walker. And I promise this is it for Herschel Walker stuff for the week, unless something insane happens. This is really it for Herschel Walker stuff. This is more about Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly put together some advice for Herschel Walker that I have to tell you in some way makes sense, which is a weird thing to say about anything Bill O'Reilly had to say.

Take a look. All right. He's been on this program. I know him a little bit, but every two weeks there's another scandal about Herschel Walker. And the latest one is that he had a girlfriend and he paid for an abortion for the girlfriend. Now the news agency to put that out is a far left revolting news agency. Daily Beast, the Daily Beast actually does some pretty good reporting, but okay. You know, it's like, okay. And Walker went on Hattie last night and said this, Go. I never asked anyone to get an abortion.

I never paid for an abortion, and it's a lie. And I'm going to continue to fight. You know, I tell you, that's what they want. They want this seat. Okay, here's what you got to do, Herschel. And I'm just talking to you like a human being here. Please. This is a serious accusation.

If you did it, youation. If you did it. You got to say you did it. I don't know how you do that, but you can't lie about it. Especially at this point, how do you do it? You did not do it. Then you got to go after the Daily Beast. You got to have your attorneys sue them. And if there is a person alleging that she had an abortion, you got to see that person. Yeah. Now, remember that Herschel Walker three days ago said tomorrow morning we're filing a defamation suit. As of this moment, no such suit has been filed. And that's a really common thing that happens in the sort of celebrity and politics space,

which is you say you're going to file a defamation suit. But of course, if it's true, it's not defamation. And as Michael Cohen mentioned, when I appeared on his program, we recorded an episode. If filing that lawsuit opens up discovery and you might end up getting deposed. And so you really don't do it unless it's actually defamation. If you did not do it and you have to do that now so that the people in Georgia are going, what the deuce is this? Right. Every two weeks we got another child fathered by Mr. Walker or this or whatever. But if this is not true, then your lawyers have to mobilize now. Yeah. And why aren't they? And you have to hold a press conference with your lawyers and you have to say this is false. Imagine Herschel Walker

trying to read a statement at a press conference and going completely off the rails ever happened. And we're going to file this against the Daily Beast. Now, if you do that, and indeed if you did not pay for an abortion, then that will turn that race around. You'll win your seat maybe because Georgians will see you rightly as a victim of this smear. But if you did it, you lose. Right. Even if you admit you did. Yeah.

So I mean, Bill O'Reilly is kind of right here, only insofar as Walker doesn't actually have to admit that it's true. But if he doesn't and he keeps denying it in increasingly less credible ways and we learn more and more about the alleged truth, and that includes that not only is this woman someone who had an abortion after being impregnated by Walker, but is also the mother of one of his kids. It's going to become a very difficult story to credibly deny. So I have to say, to some degree, Bill O'Reilly giving some sensible advice.

We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Unfortunately, there are people we launched the David Pakman show finance channel. We're right at the cusp of 10000 subscribers on it already. YouTube dot com slash Pakman finance. It's a beautiful channel. It's financial education. But someone seems confused about what the channel actually is.

David, regarding your financial advising YouTube channel, I distinctly recall you saying, sir, that people should tune in and you will tell them exactly how to invest every dollar that they have. And you are a financial genius and you have made great money on doing it. I remember you saying that. And by the way, I'm just kidding. I'm so sick of your reading comprehension challenged conservative listeners. I know. Who call in and think they got you because they made up something in their head. It's like driving me nuts. It's like, come on, people. Good God. I mean, this isn't even actually reading comprehension.

It's listening comprehension. Yeah. But now we can see why they're so easily exploited. Bah! That's the conservative sheep, not you exploiting them. Thanks for all the fun stuff. Have a good weekend. I'm just calling because I'm too lazy to write.

All right. Very good. And again, I am not giving anyone specific financial advice on the Pacman Finance YouTube channel, but we do have a ton of education topics. You can find the channel at YouTube dot com slash Pacman Finance YouTube channel. But we do have a ton of education topics. You can find the channel at YouTube dot com slash Pakman Finance. We are like within 20 subscribers of 10,000. So if you want to be one of the first 10,000, check it out. Recent clips include what is your net worth? How do you simply create a basic personal balance sheet to figure out what is your net worth?

Why is it that we have seen a declining stock market over the last several months? What factors influence that? How do you improve your credit score? Why you should not try to time the market. That's one of the most popular clips and most controversial. I don't think you should try to time the market. I don't think it's really doable for the average person. And quite frankly, even most money managers fail to correctly time the market. A lot of really good stuff. No politics on the channel. OK, that's YouTube dot com slash Pacman Finance.

I hope that you will all join me on today's bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Well, yeah, I mean, we're funded by the audience. So in a sense, it's true that with a bonus show makes money. OK, Alex, you can sign up at join Pacman dot com. We will talk about job openings plunging in August. Is that a good sign or a bad sign? There's two ways to interpret that. A Michigan judge has dropped felony charges against seven people in the Flint water scandal and a U.S. appeals

court has sent a DACA case back to a lower court to consider a new rule. And the implications for DACA recipients are significant. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss.