The David Pakman Show - 3/24/23: Abortion pills in focus as Dershowitz and Kari Lake off the rails

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Democratic Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey reminds pharmacies that they must stock abortion pills -- Attorney Alan Dershowitz complains that arresting Donald Trump would "violate the Bible" -- Kari Lake's latest story is that God actually told her she would lose the election, but still have "the victory" -- Caller asks if Trump's handling of COVID-19 could be considered a genocide -- Caller asks about Democrats focusing on crime during campaigns -- Caller talks about artificial intelligence replacing jobs -- Caller asks if Trump will flee to Russia to avoid prison -- Caller wonders if capitalism is to blame for everything -- Caller asks about the effects of working from home -- Caller talks about how their life is improving -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Trump misled public about arrest, Iowa passes gender-affirming care ban, Finald picking 10 people for happiness masterclass, and much more... 📺 Get Curiosity Stream for 25% OFF (code PAKMAN): https://curiositystream.thld.co/pakman_0323 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com -- 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

Speaker 1 We knew when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that there would be further actions when it comes to restricting access to abortions at the state level. And one of the battle lines now is trying to essentially banish abortion pills, as they are called medication abortions from pharmacies in all sorts of states around the country. And there is now controversy involving involving Walgreens and some other chains related to this. The relatively new governor of Massachusetts, Democrat Maura Healey, has issued a declaration. Pharmacies must stock abortion pills. The Associated Press reports the governor of Massachusetts reminded pharmacies Wednesday they are required to stock a key abortion pill,

despite a nationwide effort by anti-abortion activists to ban the medication. The action comes as a federal judge in Texas is considering a lawsuit that would overturn decades old federal approval of the drug. Democratic Governor Maura Healey issued a written statement saying they pharmacies must maintain, quote, a continuous sufficient supply of all family planning medications, including Mifepristone, misoprostol, emergency contraception and contraceptive prescriptions. Now this is great, but there's already very little problem with abortion access in the state of Massachusetts. But the most important takeaway is that this is an action, the trying to block and ban and prevent these drugs

from being available. This is being carried out by a political movement that claims to be pro-life when this is actually an extraordinarily anti-life thing to be doing, limiting access to abortion pills, which is the next sort of battle that they're fighting now. It's bad health policy, and it's also extraordinarily counterproductive to their own stated goals. Number one, abortion pills are a safe and effective way to terminate pregnancies in their early stages. When you limit access to these drugs, it can lead to more unsafe methods of abortion, more dangerous methods of abortion, and it can delay abortion until later in the pregnancy, which is never an ideal thing to look for. It puts the health of women at risk. It can potentially put the lives

of women at risk. Unsafe abortions are a leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide. So when you limit access to the abortion pills, you're essentially forcing women either to have later abortions or to have more dangerous abortions. And it's a very bad thing when you look at the health data. Now, of course, the people that are against the pills don't care. And to some degree, they believe if we limit access to these pills, a lot of these women simply won't have abortions altogether. But we can talk about that as well. When you limit access to abortion pills, there's the philosophical issue, which is you're violating the bodily autonomy of these women. Women should have the right to have these tools available and to decide with freedom and liberty. Is this something I want

to use or not? Let me make a decision about my body and my health with doctors. When you limit access to these medications, you violate that fundamental principle of freedom, liberty and bodily autonomy, which these right wingers claim to defend. But then let's go to the end. OK, think of the economic and social consequences of this. If you succeed, if you succeed at preventing abortions by making the pills difficult to access. Women. If they choose not to have the if they're unable to have the abortion because you limit access to these pills, they might end up carrying to term and ending up with a child that they were unprepared for or for whatever reason did not want to have. You then have a situation where and I

know that this sounds so cold, right? But the economic impact you are now going to have individuals who will lose income due to time off, suffer economic hardships, people who have children that they don't want to have. The outcomes aren't good for the parents and they're not not good for the kids. And so then you lose the economic productivity of that person. It sounds crazy to even be talking about it, but this is part of their entire thing. If if that's something you care about, then your actions in trying to ban these pills are counterproductive, not to mention for those pregnant mothers who do have the ability to go to another state, for example, to obtain the pills or obtain a surgical abortion. Now they are going to have

to take time off and that's going to have an economic impact as well. So no matter what you care about, whether you care about philosophy and ethics, liberty and freedom, whether you care about safety, whether you care about economic product, whatever you care about, trying to prevent access to these medications makes no sense whatsoever. Let's look at a couple of wacky things that have come across my desk over the last couple of days. I do want to play this clip that many of you sent me from attorney Alan Dershowitz, who still says that he is a liberal and that he votes against Trump. But he increasingly has been a defender of Trump from the perspective of I'm just giving you the legal argument. Alan Dershowitz says that if Trump were to be prosecuted, it would violate the Bible.

Now, do we care about that? Well, that's a different question. You talk about how this is bigger than Trump, about if you're able to do this to political opponents and dissidents, it sets bad precedent. It allows prosecutors to go above and beyond, and it actually makes us less free. Without a doubt, there was a South American dictator who said, for my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law. You can use the law to get anybody, as Justice Jackson said, or as the KGB had said, show me the man and I'll find you the prime. This is the worst example in my 60 years of practicing criminal law, of targeting somebody

for prosecution and then rummaging through the books, giving people immunity and trying to concoct a crime that doesn't exist. And if this is allowed to succeed, none of our liberties is safe. You know, today it's a Republican who's a target. Tomorrow it's a Democrat.'s a target tomorrow to Democrat. Let me just say a little bit about this. They keep saying this. Nobody is safe if Trump is indicted.

What you mean is nobody's above the law. Trump's not being indicted if he is indicted in an absence of any evidence that he committed wrongdoing. We have a situation where there is evidence and the fact that he was the president doesn't put him above the law. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. Speaker 4 And the day after tomorrow, it's your uncle Charlie or your nephew or your niece. There'd be no limits on what prosecutors can do to their political enemies. And they're going to do

it to people who are running against them for D.A. next. And it's just and by the way, I think it's important to say we already see. Economically biased prosecution where we know that there are certain crimes for which poor people are much more likely to be prosecuted than rich people. We already have that. And the Trump thing doesn't solve nor exacerbate that problem. The Trump issue is a different one, which is our presidents above the law. A violation, not only a violation of American law and civil liberties, it's actually

a violation of the Bible. The Bible instructs judges to things don't take bribes. That's obvious. But the number one thing is don't recognize faces and don't. That's exactly right. Yes. Do not favor anyone in the court. Yes, that's exactly right.

Yes. Continue. Sorry. No, that's and that's why it violates every core of American values. Yeah. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess if you like this argument, the Bible is not controlling the law in this instance, thankfully, although if it were up to Republicans, the Bible would actually be the law of the land. And that's a horrifying reality. Hypothetically, if there were a court that would hear a so-called

Bible violation, then the Republican Party also wouldn't be able to exist since they regularly violate the principles of the Bible despite claiming allegiance to it. But that's a different issue. Alan Dershowitz, once a widely respected lawyer, increasingly a laughingstock. And it really is sad. I don't say sarcastically. It's sad. It really is sad. Carrie Lake has not been mentioned on this show for a while, but this is just too outrageous not to mention. Carrie Lake now has a new story about what happened in November. The new story is God told her that she would lose her election in practical terms, but she would still, quote, have the victory, whatever that means. Carrie Lake did a church prayer rally. It was completely ridiculous and cartoonish. But here's what she had to say.

Speaker 4 I think I if you follow me, you probably know that about a week or two before the election, I had I was praying and I just happened to the Holy Spirit. So I'm feeling it. And yeah, don't you remember how she told us that right before the election that she was in her room and the Holy Spirit was inside of her? Totally reasonable story, right? God gave me word that this might not go the way you think it's going to go. Oh, really? The way I thought it was going to go because of what I was seeing on the campaign trail,

with the people of Arizona from all walks of life, whether they're rural, whether they're a rancher, whether they're a stay-at-home mom, a businessman, a student, a youngster, we had come together in this great movement because we want to have our state go in a great, prosperous, wonderful direction. Right. And so I figured with this movement, unlike we've ever seen, that was led by God, who used me with the skills I had to help lead it and get everyone together, we were going to have a landslide victory.

Which, by the way, I'll let you in on a secret. We did have a landslide victory. Did you really know? So you're going to lose in the earthly sense, but you will have one in some other cosmic sense. And I just said to him, it's up for you, whatever you want, whatever you need. And I do believe with every fiber of my being that we needed to open more eyes and wake more people up. Right. So listen, take your pick. Is this a grift or is this mental illness? Who's crazier, the person who says this or the person who believes it? And I continue to be shocked by the amount of time that God has for American politics, Arizona politics, as well as athletic

events and everything. It's just it's it is unbelievable the detail oriented nature of this God. And so I as of course, everything she says is incoherent. I guess now she's saying we did win in a landslide, just not by the by the votes, but you have the victory. And God told you this a couple of weeks before. At some point, there really needs to be a public conversation in the United States about the toxic relationship with religion that exists among the American right wing. It's not that the right are the only ones that are religious, but this particularly toxic relationship where they're alleged religious, whatever, are used in this particular way. It's one of the most toxic things that I've said before. I'm not saying Italy is perfect in any way.

But, you know, in Italy, Italy is a Catholic country and I have lots of friends from Italy and they all nominally identify as Catholic. They are all horrified by this form of religion and its interplay with civil government in the United States, because being Catholic in a place like Italy, for most people, means something dramatically different than when someone in the United States on the American right says, I'm a Christian. We're talking about very different things. And this is so toxic. But again, who's crazier, Carrie Lake for saying this stuff or the room full of people that accepts it? You tell me. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, which you can find at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. is ZipX nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting smoke and vape oils in

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Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPIXtoothpicks.com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. There is nothing better than being able to say that all of you fine folks really are the bosses. You are all in charge of the show in the sense that our primary source of funding is just everyday folks like you who listen to the show, watch the show and get a membership at join Pacman dot com. I implore you consider supporting the work we do. If you value it, if you think that this is trash, then I don't want your support. But if you do value what we do, I would love for you to sign up at join Pacman dot com. Let's go to the phones, by which I mean discord and hear from some of those very important

people, the people in the audience. You can find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. Always use proper show calling etiquette. You get right to your question. You have good audio and all of these different things. It's going to be a beautiful, beautiful day of calls. I am sure I can just feel it. Let's go today, starting with Lucas from Massachusetts. Lucas from Massachusetts. Welcome. You're our first caller. Let's hope for the best. Hey, David. Hi. So now what? Can you hear me? I can't. Are you in a in a in an echo? Where are you in some kind of Turkish bath or something? All of my door of my dormitory. Oh, you're in the hall. I was here. Beautiful.

What's going on? So this is a loaded question, but not long ago, I watched a Tom Hartman segment in which he asked the question if Trump's handling of COVID should be labeled a genocide. I just know what your thoughts are on that. Yeah, I got a similar question recently about something related to trans and genocide. I, you know, I don't find it super compelling to weigh in on that because the truth is you can make these linguistic arguments one way or another. The reality is that Trump handled covid terribly and more people died than would have if he

had handled it better. But I don't know that any country handled it perfectly. And I think in every country, some people died that that could have lived had it been handled better. We had limited information, etc. Trump was particularly bad. So which is the genocide that anyone died that didn't have to or that more than other countries or it's tough.

It's really tough. Yeah, I guess because Trump there's evidence that he wanted more blue people in blue states to die at the beginning. Yeah, sorry, you're saying it is what Trump did in genocide because he wanted more people from blue states to die. Isn't he on recording saying that I might be remembering wrong, but I'm not aware that it was that he wanted people from blue states to die, but he ignorantly saw that the early infections were in blue states because that's where a lot of the big airports are.

And he wrongly thought it wouldn't come to red states. How wrong he was, though. It was very wrong. Yeah. Anyway, that's the only question I had. Thank you. And can't see this on the show. All right. Lucas from Massachusetts. Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it.

Let's go to Casey from Kansas. Casey from Kansas. You're next today. What's on your mind? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. OK, and I think social murder would be a better word for what Trump did there. Social murder rather than genocide. Interesting. OK. But. Back to my question, I guess.

So recently, Joe Biden and Eric Adams, you know how they've pivoted on crime? Kind of like the 90s tough on crime era coming back again. I know Eric Adams did. Did Trump as well? I'm not aware. I'm sorry. Did Biden as well? I'm not aware of that. What did Biden do? Well, you know how he blocked the recent D.C. bill and he's been, you know, kind of like going to the right a bit on crime, pretty much trying to set himself apart, I guess, from progressives and other Democrats who haven't focused on it as much. OK, yeah, I'll I'll I'll concede that a little bit. I'll concede that at least for the purposes of your question. OK. But. From my perspective, at least from the midterms, it seems to me that the Democrats like Fetterman, who didn't focus as much on crime, that they didn't lose their elections.

But the Democrats in New York, who kind of fearmongered over it, I feel like they kind of campaigned against themselves in a way by kind of giving into like the Republican narrative on crime themselves. That's interesting. There's anything to that. I think that I need to look a little more at the numbers and the specific races you're talking about. But I do think that there's a risk to the focusing on crime aspect to a campaign, which is if the people you're talking to don't actually believe that there is a crime problem wherever it is that they are, it can absolutely backfire. And one of the things that we have determined is that if you zoom out, the violent crime rate in the United States has been declining for a very long time. Yes, there were some spikes in some places over the last three years at different

times. But the narrative of the dangerous blue states and blue cities is certainly not true. At the state level, you see higher rates of crime in red states, even within cities. For all the talk about New York City, the crime rate and violent crime rate in Oklahoma City is higher. And so I think the risk, which you're astutely pointing out, is if it doesn't resonate with people, if people are sort of like, yeah, you know, I feel very safe and they're not talking about anything else, I'm not going to vote for them. That is a real backfire that can happen. It's another thing for me, too, because even if people don't feel safe where they are because they're, you know, listening to 24-7 media that's worried

about crime, who are voters going to go for? Are they going to go for the Democrat that is doing tough on crime light or are they going to go for the Republican that is doing tough on crime light? Right. Are they going to go for the Republican that's tough on crime, you know, ultra or something? Right. So you're saying either way, it's better for whoever is going hardcore on the crime stuff. Well, I don't think it's good for Democrats at all. It's not good for Democrats either way.

I think that you're onto something. I think that you're onto something. I think that you're onto something. I think we can probably try to verify this empirically. I don't have the data in front of me, but yeah, I think that you're absolutely onto something, Casey. Okay. Do you think it's a good strategy for Biden in 2024 to focus on crime or? I don't think so. Listen, Biden's not focused on crime. I agree. He's talking more about it than maybe we expected or we might expect or, you know, might think he would. I don't think he's talking about it so much that it's really going to be detrimental in the way that you're talking about. OK. Well, that's all I got. All right. Thank you so much.

Very much appreciate the call. There's Casey from Kansas. Let's go to Ryan from D.C. Ryan from D.C. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David. Great to talk to you again.

I've spoken to you a couple of times, so I appreciate it. My audio. OK, welcome. Yeah, your audio is fine. All right. Perfect. I wanted to just ask you a policy-related question, but around AI. I mean, I know there's been a lot of news coming out in the last two to three months with ChatGPT and some of the language learning models that are now coming out for companies to use in kind of a proprietary way with their own in-house data. And I was looking at some of the interviews. I know the OpenAI CEO just recently had a big interview

with CNBC. And my question is really around the economy and job replacement. Okay. You know, it seems that ChatGPT4 just recently released released, and the improvement of AI is not linear. It is exponential. And it seems like the guardrails from a policy perspective are just not only are they not there, but knowing that the pace in which our government typically operates is not at all exponential. And so I have a concern around the economy taking a significant hit and just this being such disruptive technology. I'm wondering how do we kind of galvanize legislators, especially legislators that are not technically inclined to really kind of listen to some of the thought leaders in the technology space that we need to get these guardrails in place. Do you think that that is a topic that could be relevant in the upcoming election cycle? It seems that, I mean, I work in the technology space, so I might be a little bit more focused on some of the upcoming changes. But just from what I've seen, I mean, this is

incredibly disruptive technology and could easily replace large swaths of the white collar workforce for sure. Speaker 1 So here's the deal. First of all, on the potential to replace large swaths of the workforce, there are two views on this. I'll tell you what they are and then I'll kind of give you my take. One view is, I think, closer to what you're suggesting, which is that this technology is so disruptive that it is going to be unlike anything in the past in its job destroying potential is going to eliminate entire areas of work and replace it with technology and lead to technological unemployment, potentially irreversibly. That's one view. On the other side, there is the view that says, you know,

every time in history that something like this has come along when there started to be cars and people said, what's going to happen with all the horse buggy drivers? They'll have nothing to do. Well, the car industry brought with it the need for mechanics and more chauffeurs and all these different new industries were created, delivery services, et cetera. The technology eliminated some jobs, but it created more. OK, so those are the two extremes. Now, the difference may be and there are some technologists who say this is the case that where we are now, these are now destructive technologies from the point of view of employment. That's something like chat GPT. It's not going to create more jobs than it destroys.

That's what some people say. It's not obvious to me. I don't I don't have an answer to this yet because it is absolutely the case that there are tons of things, including in customer service and research and things that if chat GPT and those technologies get better, they still spit out wrong information regularly right now. But if they get better, it's true. There are lots of jobs that would be destroyed. But for people who know how to use these tools to draw new connections between things and generate new ideas, there are still there's still the possibility that

they will actually create new jobs in industries we haven't even thought of yet. So I just don't think I'm in a position yet to say whether it will be the destructive force. Some fear it will be or whether it will be a great thing or it will be more like Neil Postman says, which is there will be good and there will be bad and it will come down to how it's regulated. Yeah, I completely agree. And those are definitely the two schools of thought. I think a lot of the concern, at least in the technology space, is especially the difference in the distinguishing factor between the kind of AI revolution and things like the industrial revolution that created net new jobs is that the pace of improvement with AI is exponential in such an exponential way that is unlike any

other technological revolution we've experienced in all of human history. Yeah, that's the argument that some are making, like I outlined. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I just was thinking about that. I'm wondering if, you know, from a policy perspective, you know, if we do start to see some employment getting replaced, if that will be a relevant topic for politicians in the upcoming cycles. I think it should be. I think it should be. But I don't know that it will be.

Got it. Hey, David, thanks again for taking my call. Great to speak with you. All right. There is Ryan from D.C. very, very, very important topic. And eventually it's going to be a huge issue. Why don't we go next to Tony from the Bay Area? Tony from the Bay Area.

Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Tony from the Bay Area, you have to accept my invitation in order to talk to me. There's Tony. OK, hello. Hello. OK. My question is about if. Trump had the the ability and he knew he was going to be arrested.

But he had the ability to flee like Edward Snowden to Russia for the rest of his life to avoid being arrested or facing criminal charges. Do you think he would take that option? Speaker 1 Nope. Can I tell you why? Speaker 3 Yes. So Trump is a malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists believe that they are the smartest people in the room. They believe they can talk their way into or out of any situation. There are already articles from The New York

Times and The Guardian based on sources close to Trump that Trump wants to be handcuffed. He wants to be per walked. He's seeing all of this as a publicity tool. He has no understanding of the actual criminal legal risk to him and believes that he will absolutely come out on top. Now, that may be true, but even if it was likely that it would work out poorly for him, where it might actually make sense to try to flee to Russia, narcissists like Trump never believe that. And so Trump would not come to believe his best move is to flee to Russia. I agree with you. And I had one more quick question, if that's OK.

Sure. Um. You know, I just forgot it, so I'll let you go. Thank you, David. All right. Do Tony from the Bay Area. Beautiful question. Let's go next to Mattio from D.C.

Mattio from D.C. Welcome to the program. So great to have you on. Yeah, yeah, it's great to be here, David. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Perfect. All right. So I have a pretty quick question. It's not political at all. So as far as the memberships go, I primarily listen to your podcast on the Apple podcast app. And usually that's with ads and everything. And so I was wondering if you had ever considered charging for an ad free version for people who just listen to podcasts through a particular app, be it like, you know, Amazon or Apple, just so that we already

have it. It's a member. It's an existing member benefit. When you sign up for membership, there's a link in the member section where you can generate a custom commercial free audio podcast link for yourself. And then you just dump it into whatever podcast player you use. It works beautifully with Apple Music or iTunes or whatever it's called these days. So we're we're 10 years ahead of you, my friend. Oh, yeah, no, I know about that. But, you know, some other podcasters have like specific membership ones that come straight through that app. And so there's maybe not people like me who are willing to double dip who already pay for a

membership, but would also just love that sort of. Oh, you're saying like an iTunes only or Spotify only premium version. Exactly, Because I think that there are probably a lot of people who just primarily listen to it from that app, just purely out of convenience. It's an interesting idea. I think the concern is always spreading ourselves too thin. And then I will get flooded with emails from people saying, what's the difference between the premium podcast through Spotify versus the one on your website that I can add to Spotify? So let me look into that. But I would be concerned about spreading ourselves too thin and just creating a customer service nightmare. Gotcha. OK, makes sense. Just wanted to ask that question because there are, you know, crazy people like me who are willing to double dip and get both. But yeah, thanks for taking my call. All right. Thanks, Matt. I owe from D.C. And by the way, one more

thing. YouTube is launching podcasting in and of itself through the YouTube music thing. And everything we do is going to be available there. And I think the functionality will be fantastic. Let's take a very quick break. We're going to go right back to discord and hear from more people. So if you're holding on to talk to me, don't go anywhere. We're going right back in a moment. One of our sponsors is Helix Sleep. I have been sleeping on a Helix mattress at home for years now. I couldn't be more happy with it.

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The link is in the podcast notes. Let's hear from some more people via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. Let's go to James from Texas. If you're with us, James, I would love to hear what's on your mind today. Yeah, a longtime fan. Can you're with us, James, I would love to hear what's on your mind today. Yeah. Longtime fan. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Absolutely. All right. Longtime fan. Thank you. When I first discovered you, it was a interview with Peter Joseph. Do you remember Peter? Yes, I do. The Zeitgeist Movement guy. Yes, excellent. So my question to you is, Peter Joseph, Jacques Fresco, these two individuals published multiple films, and Peter wrote a book, and in which they've

discussed the decline of society based on our current economic model that produces the negative results we're seeing now, as in more mass shootings, more mental illness, et cetera. Do you believe that this is the case, that the economic system we're in right now is incapable of lasting and is going to continue producing these negative. So incapable and incapable of lasting is different than will continue to produce negative externalities. So here this is a huge topic, James, and a really great one. I so let's see where to even start. Of course, the economic system within which we live influences our daily lives in many ways. And in the same way that you can say, well,

the economic system allows us access to things we like, cheap stuff, diversity of food, all these different things, right? Things, things that we think are good, innovation, all these things. It also creates negative issues. We haven't yet fully dealt with the negative externality of pollution that industry produces. There's too much inequality. We have crime. We have mental illness, a health care system that's not working. All of these things right on both sides of the ledger are partially a result of the economic system. A lot of times sort of like typical grad school master's level analyses kind of end there. And they often end up at like, well, I don't know, capitalism is the problem. And like, I guess maybe for some people,

socialism would be the solution or for people like me, it'd be social democracy or whatever the case may be. I do think that understated in some of those analyses are the impacts of what we know from sociology and psychology and hard sciences and all these other things. Now, those who say no, no, no, no, no. The economic system influences all of that. Our psychology and society is influenced by the economic system. Yes, it is. But it's not only influenced by that. So my view is I think people like Peter Joseph and the late Jacque Fresco have very interesting things to say about the way that many systems affect the way any one of us lives day to day. What I don't like is when or I don't agree with is when some people become too focused

solely on the economic analysis. And I don't think we should minimize the economic analysis, but we should make it much more robust than just that. One and one more question. Are you planning to do interviews again? And would you consider having Peter back on after Zeitgeist four comes out? We do like 15 interviews a month or something like that. Ten interviews a month. Yeah. So it's not it's not considering we do interviews all the time. And I would be glad to have Peter back on the show. Sure. Excellent. I'm looking forward to it. All right.

James from Texas, thank you very much for the call. I appreciate that. Why don't we go next to oh, I don't know, maybe George from Virginia. George, welcome to the program. What is on your mind today? Hey, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Awesome.

I'm still traumatized from my last microphone malfunction. Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm hoping that today we can sort of like clear the air on it. Speaker 3 OK. So I was wondering if you've seen like. How there's been an influx of like people attacking the idea of remote work yes i have seen that um so there was recently article published in the new york times by stephen ratner and it's called is working from home really working and like this guy tries to blame SBV collapse and Mehta's failures on remote workers. And I can't help but feel like I'm being attacked because I'm a remote worker and like I don't

know what their motives are, but it's very disappointing. So I saw the article I read a lot in the last couple of months pro and against remote work. I actually think that we don't have nearly enough information yet to say for sure what are the long term impacts of more set in stone remote work. We are very early in, you know, we had the pandemic and a ton of stuff went fully remote. And then right now we're still in a sort of experimental phase where, you know, a lot of my friends who are lawyers at corporate firms, they have to be in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but Monday, Friday, they work from home or other people. It's we have a rotating shift. So like

part of the workforce is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Part is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Part is Wednesday, Thursday. You get the idea. I don't think we actually have enough information yet to say 100 percent what are all of the impacts of work from home. There have been studies about so-called productivity. And what's often repeated is productivity is no lower when people are working from home, because even if they're distracted during the day because home and work are at the same place, they end up kind of just like doing work at more times or whatever the case may be. For me, it's like it's less about that. My view is just a little bit different. My view on this is it can be better or worse for different people and companies,

depending on what the priorities are. Right. Even when you talk about productivity, I don't know how many people in my audience listen to Cal Newport's podcast. It is phenomenal. One of the few podcasts that I actually make a point to listen to. He has a number of recent episodes about this sort of thing. And in one of them, he talks about, you know, when we talk about being productive for some people, productivity means squeezing a ton of different things into a limited amount of time. And so you got to get organized for that.

For others, productivity means actually I want more free time. So for me, being productive means squeezing the things I'm expected to do into fewer hours to then free me up to do other things or whatever the case may be. A lot of this, George, is based on perspective. What do we mean? It's good or bad to work from home. Is it good or bad productivity wise, mental health, socially, environmentally? And I just think a lot of people are expressing opinions about this right now. And the jury is still sort of out on it. Yeah, I agree with that, David. And I want to say, you know, I am a coder,

so I am an introvert. So it does benefit me to work from home. And I realize there's other people where it does benefit it, like it actually helps them to work in an office and go in. But I just want to say, like, you know, you're right. We don't know. And people need to stop being so confident about, you know, blaming someone for failures at the top. Speaker 1 Yeah, there was this clip of Malcolm Gladwell basically saying working from home is like ruining everybody's life or whatever. It's like, yeah, I don't know about that. I'm not that that seems like a bit much. And I know he's being controversial and trying to be titillating. But yeah, I just I think we need a lot more information. And I know he's being controversial and trying to be titillating. But yeah, I just I

think we need a lot more information. And we not everybody will agree on what it means to successfully work from home. And unless you first say, what are we measuring? It's going to be very hard to get definitive answers. Yeah, you're exactly right. So, yeah, that's it for my call, and I really appreciate it. All right. George from Virginia, really appreciate hearing from you. Let's go with with some caution and trepidation to Oz from Kentucky. Oz, last time we heard from you, you weren't doing great. And I'm hoping that you're doing better today. Hey, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yeah, I'm doing a lot better, David. I haven't talked to you in a couple of years, actually, I don't think. Speaker 1 Has it been that long? Speaker 3

I don't think I've talked to you even since my grandma passed away from COVID in like 2000. Speaker 1 Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that. Speaker 3 Like I ran for Congress. Did I tell you that? Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. We spoke around the time of that. Speaker 3 Oh, OK. I didn't I didn't remember telling you that. I ended up I ran as an independent against Thomas Massey and I ended up getting 10,000 and. I think 10,000 over 10,000 votes, I got 4 percent of the vote. Is that right? So I got the most votes for an independent in my district's history, and I think I'm the only open socialist that's ever ran in this district. Speaker 1

So I see it. Right. Is it OK to say your name? I mean, you're a public person. Can I say your name? Yeah. So I'm seeing here the results. Ethan Osborne, you got ten thousand votes, four percent of the vote. That's fantastic. That's because I mean, Massey is sort of like a big time incumbent. Yeah, he's he's won every election since 2012 when he took office. Yeah, which is pretty. He's one of the fascinating. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as far as his politics. So what's more what's next now?

I don't know. I I think I'm just going to help other people. I have a friend who's running as a Democrat for state rep, and I'm, I think I'm just going to help other people. I have a friend who's running as a Democrat for state rep. And I'm just, I think I'm just going to help other people's campaigns, uh, next cycle. And, uh, I'm just more focused on organizing and, um, you know, direct action and activism for now. Um, that's fantastic. And listen, Oz, you're doing it in a place where it's so needed, which is Kentucky. I get calls all the time from people who are basically ready to abandon their red states because they need to for their family or for whatever reason. And I respect that. But

I also greatly respect what you're doing, which is you're staying in the place and you're doing what you can to improve it. Yeah, it's and it's tough to I mean, we've got some real problems with fascism here that's getting worse in this area. And I have I don't have much choice because, you know, I have shared custody of my son until I turn or until he turns 18. So right on him. So I'm here for him. Wow. Well, listen, I hope that you will rack up some improvements, be they modest or big in in your area. This is the critical thing. How can we improve the place where we live? And that's what you're trying to do. Absolutely. I think everyone in mutual aid networks right now as much as possible, because I think the left needs to start prepping.

I think that's imperative. Yeah, there is a left prep movement, by the way. That's an interesting thing you bring up. Listen, Oz, it's so great to hear you sounding so good. I really appreciate you calling in. Thanks for taking my call. All right. There is Oz from Kentucky.

Four percent. I mean, listen, it's nothing to sneeze at, nothing to sneeze at whatsoever. And so so great to hear from Oz. All right, everybody, we will take calls again. Just not today. OK, just not today. I'm out of time and I will speak to everybody very soon. Quick break and then right back as the Friday show continues. news. including exclusive award winning films and shows you can't watch anywhere else. I just watched ancient engineering, fascinating insights into how stuff was built before modern technology and the industrial revolution. You can watch CuriosityStream on all of your devices, phone, desktop, game console, smart TV. I'm always finding great documentaries on CuriosityStream that I can't find on any other platforms. It's really the only place to go for documentaries. And they

have a special deal for my audience. You can get CuriosityStream for 25 percent off. Just go to CuriosityStream dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's Curiosity S.T.R.E.A.M. dot com. All right. Let's get into the Friday Feedback, a.k.a. Friday Feedback. You can email info at David Pakman dot com. Sometimes we will highlight for your viewing and listening pleasure or displeasure, a Facebook message that we receive or a YouTube

comment that we spot or could really come from anywhere. Yeah, let's just get right into it. First message today came from Cheryl via Facebook. Cheryl says, Hi, your sir are an idiot. When told by our auto reply that I'm unable to reply to every message individually, Cheryl added, yes, tell him to get his facts right. We here in Florida love our governor and the job he's doing. So pull your head out of your ass and get someone else besides Ruth left wing nut to rebut her. I don't have the slightest idea what Cheryl is talking about. And interestingly, we get a ton of messages like this. And it really is unclear to me. Like, I know that it's not that these folks aren't native English speakers.

I know that that's not the case. Sometimes out of morbid curiosity, we will look and it'll be like, oh, no, Cheryl was born in, you know, Jupiter, Florida or something like that. And is is a native English speaker. So are these typing problems? Are these voice to text issues? Why is it that the emails and messages I get from right wingers are so overwhelmingly disastrous when it comes to syntax and format and everything? I don't know. I don't

know. Vivian Kalexios says, I dare David Pakman to have an intellectual conversation live stream with Russell Brand and see how he holds up. Maybe a little humbling would do him some good, but only big, brave people rise up to a challenge like this. So it won't happen. I want to explain to Vivian and others a little something. OK, I get emails all the time saying, well, if you think Russell Brand is so wrong about stuff, have him on your show. If you think Ben Shapiro is wrong, have him on your show. You won't because you're scared. We invite all of these people. It is they who don't want to be on now in their defense. Maybe my show is too small potatoes or small bananas for them. Fine. But it is not because

I'm scared that they aren't on this show. It's because they don't respond to our requests to be on. Russell Brand is welcome any time. And Vivian, it's not because of me that he's not here. It's because he doesn't want to do it, which is his right. I don't think I have a right to debate Russell Brand the way some of these right wingers say. But Russell's welcome any time. The anti trans rhetoric is very strong among the right wing elements of our audience right now. Christopher put on YouTube, quote, I mean, so talking about my daughter, I guess. I mean, if you want your daughter to have to use the same bathroom as a six foot three bearded, muscular man, more power to you. The rest of us will make sure to protect our daughters, wives, mothers and other biological women in our lives.

You know, when I see something like this. I really wonder. Is Christopher really a dad? Like where my mind really goes to is to that, because I have to tell you, I know so many people who have daughters, myself included, and the trans bathroom issue quite literally never enters my mind. Now, I understand right now my daughter's two feet tall. She can't even walk. So the idea that she's going to end up in a bathroom by herself or whatever, like I get that it's not an issue. But even when I think about the next five years, the next 10 years and the things that, you know, going to school and travel and camp and all these different things, the trans bathroom issue doesn't even enter my mind as an issue. So it makes me question, like, what's going on in Christopher's life

that this is really what he's thinking about? Or is it all made up? Does Christopher not really have a daughter? Cuba on, I guess, CRT, Marxism, trans stuff. Cuba says he was right. It's taught. My daughter is in middle school in California and I've seen her homework assignments. When I was in high school, I had quite a few Marxist teachers. This is America. We believe in capitalism and free market. If you don't like it, move to Cuba. Ask any Cuban American why their family left and they'll tell

you the horrors of socialism. Listen, I'm the wrong guy to make this argument to. I have never been a defender of the Castro regime. I wanted normalization of relations with Cuba because the embargo was hypocritical. It was a double standard and I try to avoid absurd double standards. But I that was for the benefit of the Cuban people. It was not because I am a defender of the Castro regime. So I am very well aware that there is this overreaction among many Cuban Americans. Cuban Americans are one of the few groups of Hispanic Americans that regularly vote for Republicans. And part of it is because of their aversion, Cuba and the Castro regime, they see even like food stamps as socialism or Marxism, which of course it's not. Um, so I, I'm the wrong guy to do the go back to Cuba thing too.

By the way, I've never been to Cuba anyway, but I would be interested in visiting user one who sleeps not posted on Reddit. And this is an interesting topic. Is David putting too much emphasis on Ron DeSantis his lack of charisma. Pacman is frequently referred to DeSantis his abysmal lack of charisma and pointed out that he certainly doesn't seem to have the same energy Trump had in 2016. Seems true enough, but I wonder if it really matters. Art depicting of Trump often slims him down to a ridiculous degree. His stream of consciousness belly aching at rallies has been hailed as some of the greatest speeches of all times by his followers. His

extensive and obvious political failures have been recast as Machiavelli and Fordy chess moves to trip up and ensnare his enemies. Evangelical preachers have praised this lecture and thief as a true man of God or the tool by which God will restore the country to greatness. I don't think DeSantis is lack of charisma will matter one bit. People see what they want to see. And I don't doubt their memes and leaders will help them see DeSantis in an implausibly good light. I don't think so. And here's why. The reason that everything Trump does is seen as a great thing by Trump's followers is that many of Trump's followers are people who never followed the political system and many of them never even voted until Trump arrived on the political scene.

They are a different sort of voter and the dissent this voter, as I currently understand the dissent this voter to be, is someone who is more engaged with politics and is a little more connected to reality than the average Trump voter and wants something different than Trump. So my opinion right now and this could change is that the average DeSantis supporter or potential DeSantis supporter would be much more influenced by the reality of DeSantis and would be less willing to recast every aspect of DeSantis as a positive trait the way that Trump supporters are, because fundamentally, Trump supporters and non-MAGA Republicans are very different groups. I want to hear from you on that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my perspective is

wrong. Demon King commented on YouTube as a trans woman. I just don't feel safe anymore. Living in a less than progressive state is taxing. It's a shame that I have to carry defense items just to feel safe. Thank you, David, for always reporting the truth, as you always do. They will not stop until they have something else to grift to. History is unkind to anyone who chooses to try to suppress anyone's rights. Well, you know, I am reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent 12 minute video that he did last week or the week before. And he says in it, the people who try to deny others rights, they end up being losers in history. And he talks about his own Nazi sympathizing father. This is Arnold

Schwarzenegger. Check out the video if you haven't seen it. And so I do maintain hope. And quite frankly, I do think it's likely that the anti-trans people will end up losers. I mean, the anti-gay people have basically ended up losers. Gay marriage is now legal nationally. It's more acceptable culturally than at any point in American history of the modern political era. So the anti-gay people are increasingly losers. They're both losers legislatively and they're just losers when you, you know, at this point, it is far more common that if someone just casually uses the F word to refer to gay people, most of the people around them are going to look at them like,

what that dude, what are you talking about? Why are you using that word? So the anti gay people are increasingly losers. My hope is that Arnold is correct and that the anti trans people also will end up being losers and history will be unkind to them. But the concern is in the short term, they can really make a lot of people's lives very miserable. And that is what I want to prevent. But very good and sad comment there. William commented about my practice of removing the free Bibles left in hotel rooms from hotel rooms. When I travel, William said, David, I understand you have a right to remove a Bible from your hotel room, But I'm curious why, if it's in a draw, I think he means drawer. If it's in a drawer out of sight, how is it offensive? Well, I never said

it was offensive. I understand you are of Jewish faith. Are you not allowed by your faith to have the Bible in your personal space? It is not a question of what Judaism allows me to do. I'm not even a religious person. Here's the way I see it. When I rent a hotel room or reserve stay in a hotel room, I am looking to stay in a room that provides me a comfortable bed, maybe free coffee, a TV, Wi-Fi, a clean and comfortable bathroom, a quiet room far from the elevator so I can get a good night's sleep, you know, whatever I am not looking for, nor do I consider it something that is appropriate to provide me a hotel room that is all those things. Plus, it provides Christian reading materials. First of all, why? Why Christian reading materials? But why not some other? It doesn't make any sense.

I'm not looking for a hotel room that is all of the things I mentioned and gives me Christian reading material. So what I do, I'm not mad at anybody. I'm not looking to have anybody arrested. I'm not looking to have anybody insulted is I'm not looking to have anybody insulted is I just put that free Bible left by the Gideons out in the hallway or in the recycling bin. I'm not offended. It's not that I'm not allowed. It's just I'm not looking to stay in rooms that have been pre-populated with the allegedly sacred texts of one of a thousand religions. It's just not what I'm looking for. So I just do my quiet thing and I go, OK, I'll just take that out. The towels I want, the free soaps I'm looking for,

a nice conditioner to try to get my hair under control. Great. But the Bible is just not part of what I'm looking for in a hotel room. So if I happen to see it, I don't go looking for it. If I happen to see it, I just put it out in the hallway like a room service tray. A couple people wrote to me and were offended. Many people wrote to me and said they do the same thing. One person canceled their paid subscription. I'm not going to hide from you that that's something I do, if I remember. And I'll be honest, many times I stay in a hotel one night for some work thing. I don't even come across the Bible. I don't even check. It was probably there. It's no big deal.

It's just not a big deal. Everybody remain calm, please. We have a great bonus show for you today. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Replace the guy who canceled his membership because I put the Bible in the hallway and you can use the coupon code 24STARTSNOW to get yourself a discount.