This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Discussion on 2024 Presidential Politics with Amy Bell

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Amy Bell makes her second appearance on the podcast to discuss the 2024 presidential race as well as some other political issues.  We try to answer the question: Who do you vote for when you like neither candidate and live in a state where your vote likely won't count anyway?

Hi, I'm Mike Chernivsky, and your listen to this podcast is Un Called For. All right. Hi, Brad. Welcome back to the podcast. So joining me today for the second time on the podcast is Amy Bell. Hi. All right. Good to see you again. Good to be here again. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a couple of years since we've been on. We've had jobs. It was virtual fringe. Yeah, yeah. We just got done doing actual fringe. That was a lot of fun.

I bet. Yeah. I keep thinking I need to take my own podcast there sometime. That would be good. Yeah, that would be interesting. Yeah, it's a challenge in performing, recording in front of the audience like that. But it's a lot fun. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah. So the reason I wanted to bring you back on is we got to talk presidential politics in 24 to timestamp this for everyone. You know, one of the I remember from last time you're on the show that you had some reservations about to our current presidents. And we're at that point with me, this election. cycle. Yeah. Obviously, I'm not going for for Donnie. Right, right. But at the same time, I can't stand Harris. You know, and what gets me is that whenever you, and I think this really is holding us back as a nation, especially in our political sphere, is that when you have a criticism of the Democrats, they shut it down every time.

with, well, that's how Donald Trump wins. And to me, it comes off an awful lot like when, you know, the left tries to criticize gun control or something like that. And the gun right supporters will be like, well, now's not the time to talk about that. Now is not the time to talk about gun control. But the time never comes. Yeah.

Right? So you're not allowed to criticize. the Democratic candidate because it's an election year, but then you're not going to be allowed to criticize them because they're gearing up for the next election anyway. Right. We're in perpetual election cycle. There is no room to try to make ground on what, at this point,

a lot of Americans want to see much broader change than what any candidates are offering us. Yeah. But I'm officially sick of the centrist, and centrist is charitable. Let's go on with the corporatist wing of the party controlling pretty much everything, pushing people like you and me pretty much out of the party. Uh-huh. And criticizing us for running against their preferred candidates who are centrist as fuck.

And the more people that they knock. off to the left, the more they blame the left on all the left that's been knocked off. So rather than looking at, you know, how do they gather the people that they've let drop off because they've moved so far right, they keep trying to court the right further and further. Yeah. And the more the left wing of the party complains, the more they attempt to throw the left wing off the platform entirely. This is an older

quote that is coming to mind, but Bill Maher when he used to be funny. You know, I have memories of that, but it's been so long. 2010, I actually attended his concert at Amerstar. Yeah. That was pretty damn funny. And that was about the same time he did

his religious documentary. Yeah. Which was pretty funny as well, but about that time, this quotes comes in mind. The Democrats have moved to the center, but at this point, I think we can agree center right. Exactly. And the Republicans have moved into a mental hospital. Yeah. Well, they've been in the mental hospital for quite some time.

Yeah. And this mental hospital is starting to look very fascist. And you're not allowed to tell people that, though. You're not allowed to define fascism because they don't like looking at the fact that it's starting to happen here. That's also frustrating. Immediately when you're like, well, this is a fascist policy, they will say, you know, that's hyperbole, you can't.

say that or not. But, you know, I've... The comparisons are there. I've read Hitler, and he would run a competitive race in American politics right now. I mean, if you don't believe me, you need to go read Hitler. You know what I'm saying? I borrowed my conf as a middle schooler from the library. Go buy a copy, actually, because it, the proceeds go to, um, Holocaust victims' funds. It's perfectly acceptable, ethical to buy a copy. So you heard it first, buy a copy at my conf. Do it, read it.

Yeah. It is a huge book from what I remember. And really poorly written. And with the most hilarious note from the translator, which is like, well, some of this doesn't make sense. And that's not my fault. The translator had to weigh in at the beginning to say, He doesn't make sense.

It wasn't me. So I think we're definitely in agreement. We cannot let Donnie win. No. No. Lost in popular votes, both times so far, we'll lose a third time. But at the same time, I can't bring myself to...

So it doesn't matter how progressive the VP is. I cannot stand Harris. Never mind the corporatist angle. But it seems to me she doesn't have any concrete plans for if she gets elected. It's all, oh, I'm, oh, you should vote for me because I'm a woman. Or you should vote for me because I have so much joy for joyous, for bringing joy back. what I've seen her being saying to yeah what does that I mean yeah what to use a local example and yes I'm going to criticize the corporate ring of our local party

but it's like a local Democrats running on the on the topic of education all right they keep doing it's and frankly it hasn't worked it will never work and and you tell which candidates to have no idea what they're talking about is it always comes back down to it comes back to education like and I think it doesn't work for a couple of reasons one the right have already also can't ban on that issue and B

I don't practice what they preach I mean you probably saw the I for the interest of full disclosure I'm guessing your kids are in the East feeder yes yeah of the donations

yeah yeah they're talking we're talking about donations going to the individual schools that don't struggle down through the resolution on mission school districts and

the The vast majority of them go into the East feeder. Right, right. Which, of course, has the reputation of being the rich kid school. Right. For good reason. West, by the way, was at the bottom. I went to North.

Yeah. I went to North. You know, we're, you know, I know that there's good benefit to my kid being in the East District. I know that. I mean, like, sometimes you've got to be a pragmatist there. but I don't think that the quality of your education should be based on your address. Right. And my employment is kind of affected here as well because almost all the schools that we do with the HHS Club in the Shine Mission District are East schools.

One right over on the corner there. Yeah. Yeah, what was it? I saw on there something like MIT was wanting to develop a test that could identify people that would be top performers and get into good colleges. And people are like, well, you can already test that based on their zip code. Yeah, yeah. All you've got to do is look at their zip code about how they're going to make it,

how far they're going to make it. and, you know, there's outliers. And this country just loves outliers. We just love them. Every time there's an outlier, we're like, see, this is what our system produces. And the outliers aren't what we should be looking at. Right. Right?

The average student you should be looking at that. And heck, I love a success story. I love an outlier that, you know, makes it against the odds. I root for them too. I celebrate their successes. They shouldn't have had to work that hard. They shouldn't have had to work twice as hard as someone who lived in a different zip code or even had a different skin color or gender or any of those factors.

They shouldn't have to work twice as hard to get to the same place as people that live in these privileged areas. But having said that, heck yeah, we looked for a house in one of the privileged areas. You know what I'm saying? Right. Because that's the system we live in right now. Yeah. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality. You know, I have a lot of people who are like,

are you going to run for office again? Ask me like, you know, run for office again. I said, no, they don't. It's not just that it's a lot of work or something like that. It's that I am literally too far left to be supported. You can't win in a district where you're saying things like, actually, the children in my area should not be privileged over the children in another area. You can't win a race that way.

I am wholly and completely unelectable, and it's fine. I'm okay just being a voice as best I can. Yeah. Right. In my case, well, too many goddamn corporatists running and winning in my district. What district were you in? I forget. Senate 21, House 22.

Okay. Yeah. Of course, Senate 21, Diana was a Republican when she first won, and is a perfect example of what we're talking about. She switched parties because the Republicans got too insane. Well, and we're celebrating how blue Johnson County has become, and a lot of people have forgotten that a lot of the reason Johnson County has become more blue. Because people like Dinocke's switched parties. And that's not really us making progress. That's just a reflection of how far right the Republicans have gotten now.

Again, Belmar, the Republicans went to the mental hospital. And I will fight to the death. Anyone who dares tell me Logan Healy is anything not other incorpidists. He is not progressive in the slightest. And that's some of a bitch is on the OPC Council still. And then never mind trying to unseat the guy. People will not give you money being as far left as we aren't. Yeah.

And not only money, but they will deliberately divert volunteers away from it. It's an act. I even had people spreading rumors that I was anti-choice. Yeah, we talked about that now last time. So, I mean, it is interesting. I do recommend, for those of you who are really confused about how our government has gotten the way it has gotten run. Run, and you'll see. You'll see how it operates in.

there you'll see because it you don't have to be a special person to run you don't have to be you know anything other than a good citizen that wants to yeah put yourself out there and once you do you learn a lot of things you learn a lot of things about the party you learn a lot of things about the state you learn a lot of things about your neighbors you know there are there were people with really strong opinions on cat leash laws that would talk your ear off. There were people that would cuss you out.

That's more of a local issue. Nobody, but like. Same with education. Now, unless I'm running for an office that's specifically about education, shut the fuck up about education. But nobody understands. Like, you know, I'm sure if you're listening

to this podcast, you actually understand the different levels. government the different kind of on hopes you know around who covers what areas but the average person really doesn't you know you're running for

state offices and they're asking you questions about immigration it's like well that's a fatal issue none of my business none of my business there now I do have opinions about how immigration is not the problem that everybody's making it out to be it really is it's just a right-wing talking point yeah honestly but uh you know they

they would ask questions about that they'd ask they they would grill me about my opinions on afghanistan at the time or something like that i'm like again uh i do have opinions they're not relevant to this race yep um nobody nobody's even contemplating giving me that kind of power right now so i'm not not the person you should be talking to Or cats on leashes. And, you know, I was like, let's talk about state taxes and highway funds, you know. Which, you know, even stuff like that, they...

Which at the time we were each at our race is, yeah, taxes were a big... Huge deal. Taxes were the thing. And back to Donnie for a second. If you want a good example of what... a second done term

would look like economically just look at Kansas circa 2010

2018 2018 yeah yeah it got pretty rough

here for a while you know I do have to say though I have a lot of

criticisms I have a lot of frustration we're on the same page here

I'm also going through a moment of being so freaking happy that they got Biden out

in a land where we're not listened to ever for any reason it's never the right time to criticize it's never the right time to offer different suggestions they heard us kind of kind of sort of

you know personally Biden wouldn't have been my first choice to be president but I think you did pretty good job all these things here. I mean, I'll put it this way. You know, my cohort was really hit very hard by student loan. And Biden played a significant role in student loans. And this isn't just political theory.

This is lives put on hold. This is the reason millennials didn't have babies. This is the reason we weren't able to buy homes. These, like, it is the reason our generation was wholly stunted. And he tried to promise us that he was going to repair that damage. And then he didn't. Yep. And it's, ugh.

Partially in his defense, a lot of that was Republicans who, they say, blocking or threatening to sue him for even trying to address that. issue. Well, but he was instrumental in getting Democrats on board to pass the legislation in the first place. There's a lot of things that I don't blame the Republicans for the fall of Roe v. Wade. I mean, they're responsible for stacking the court. But any reading of Supreme Court history. history, reading of the United States, reading of the Constitution, nine justices is not a requirement. It was not set in stone throughout history.

It is not something that's so traditional that it's never been done before to adjust the members of the court. It has been done before, and the reason it has been done before is because of the court situation that we have right now. Legal experts were touting that, and that the only reason the only way that you handle a fully lopsided court like this that was going full activist was court expansion didn't even try now i don't necessarily believe that biden would have succeeded had he tried but there is a certain amount of we're never going to

get what we want if our leaders aren't trying for the pie in the sky they need to shoot for the pie in the sky and then if they fall short we've got something a little bit better but instead they start from this fall short compromise position and then let it get worse I agree and you know he didn't step up he didn't step up and push for a change in the court that was his position as a leader to push for that the president yes does not make that decision alone not naive there but that is a leadership role and the leader should have been pushing for our best interests and our best interests were not to let that court continued to do what it did and he just sat there, wrung his hands, watched it happen

and tried to blame somebody other than him and he's in the driver's seat. You can't sit in the driver's seat for four years and blame all the bad stuff that happens on the previous administration, especially when you've made no effort to take the previous administration's power away from them after the fact. so that you know Biden no on that he failed us there and then this is kind of personal experience that I think you know I I've talked to other people that are in the same boat I went self-employed and I'm striking out of my own it's you know it's fun it's great I love I'm doing good work.

But when you're out on your own, you don't get those corporate health insurance benefits. No, you do not. And you are forced to go to the health care marketplace and get your ACA plans. I have an ACA plan and had this change it for this year, and I'm happy with the plan I have right now. That's good. I wound up with a, I can only get health care from CVS. And the plan options have gotten progressively worse every year. When I first, because when the Affordable Care Act first went into place,

I had an Affordable Care Act plan, and it was like a normal insurance plan. You know, I had deductible, but I also had copay type stuff. I had, you know, and now they've increasingly become just major medical plans. And my son's pediatrician does not accept any ACA plan. Wow. Because they're not doing it right. So we lost his pediatrician that he'd had since birth. my husband's doctor doesn't accept it

my doctor doesn't accept it the only place we can get care is at a CVS and CVS kind of has a bunch of different like weird little menu of health care things and you know it's really easy to pick one that's not the covered one you know you're like one free doctor's visit a year for the thousands of dollars that you wind up paying not only have we not moved closer to a single payer or just any sort of like proper industrialized nation's health care system

just keeping up with what international standards are in health care the ones we have had have gotten progressively worse and accepted by less and less doctors. So I just, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being told that this is progress. Sometimes you just need to pull the Band-Aid off and go be. bold and do so, you know, shake us out of this. I mean, we're stuck. College funding hasn't gotten any better.

No, it has not. The expensive college is, I mean, the generation behind us is going to get screwed just as badly as my generation was, and it's appalling. You know, they want to be pro-loyalty. life, pro-children, pro-family, pro all of these things, but they're... And another comedian comes in mind here, George Carlin. Oh my gosh. They're not pro-life.

They're anti-woman. Yes. And at this point, they're now starting to get anti-young adult. Because the landscape of young adults is still just hostile. Yeah. And trying to make it on your own is just hostile. and it's gotten worse to the point where the younger people that I know are really struggling to come up and buy houses, start families, do all of those normal things, and the people that are getting houses,

they're younger, repeatedly you're hearing that, you know, their parents helped them, they got inheritance. I mean, heck, my parents helped me buy a house, you know, and you're either lucky enough to have that, or you're out of luck right now. Yeah. Yeah. Even though I inherited my mother's estate, I'm in the out of luck. Cat Gordia, unfortunately, will see, because I am getting a portion of her portion of my uncle's estates.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so you see. Yeah, yeah. We're navigating the Texas probate system there. Well, you know. You lived in Houston. Texas is Texas.

Texas is going to Texas. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But, but, yeah, healthcare's a perfect example of what we're talking. It's when we were starting in politics. this whole debate about health care for everybody and universal health care, single pair. You know, we should have gone that direction, but instead, you're talking about start that compromise position.

That's what the ACA is. It was a compromise position from the get-go, and the rights just could put in it in the right. How dare they say that the ACA was socialism? And let's be honest here, they used the term socialism because they couldn't use the N-word. Well, I mean, they use a lot of words instead of the N-word. Yeah. And they're pretty proud of results for it, it seems. I tell you about the time 2008 doing phone calls for Obama, we got one particular Republican, he said, and I quote,

We ain't phone for no fucking, and he actually used the N-worm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a certain. And that his wife forced him to apologize to me on the fucking. You know, there's a certain amount to be said. You're like, I, the dog whistles are actually making it really hard. Because we all know they're dog whistles.

We can all hear the dog whistles. Everybody on both sides can hear the dog whistles, but when you point at it, they all pretend like they didn't hear the dog whistle. And so you can't actually address the problem. So, you know, I wish they were more boldly saying that they were the racist that they are because it's making it really hard to hold their feet to the fire. when they're just slippery yeah and yeah our they have my criticism of Harris is clearly from the ideological perspective is nothing to do with race

it has nothing to do with gender is because of that fucking no-nothing nothing corporatism that comes out of her mouth I I have yet to hear a solid plan of out of her and and all that and that's why I can't see myself voting for her and I know because the way we elects presidents in this country our votes aren't going to count anyway

because this state is going to throw six electoral votes towards Don't fuck yeah and I do find myself explaining to people an awful lot like if I lived in Michigan I would not be debating whether to vote against Donald Trump. But when you live in a state that is going for Donald Trump no matter what,

you do kind of consider whether a vote for, I don't know, like Jill Stein or something, is going to be sending a message. And, you know, then they'll say, well, your vote doesn't matter. And I'm like, well, then why are you so gung-ho on me voting for this? They, they, they, it's Schrodinger's vote. Hmm, that's, it's, it's incredibly important that you vote for Harris, but nobody will pay attention if you vote for Jill Stein. Mm-hmm, yeah. So, you know.

Or, honestly, I'm contemplating just writing in Bernie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Frankly, these third party candidates don't thrill me either. Kennedy's crazy. You know? I would, to me, I would love to see more than two parties in American politics.

I would love to see coalition governments. I would love to see people actually fighting for what they want and having the compromise situation that happens in other countries. You know, I actually got to interview Jill Stein twice. Once when it was off presidential campaign and once during her campaign when I was over at, KKFI and she's delightful I like her a lot and you know I have gotten to spend a whole day with her it was fantastic she's she's very smart but it's it is a feudal race right it is futile but they're proposing things like the Green New Deal and stuff like that it's I like to see you those big radical policies like throw them out there like wouldn't it be nice

if we had all of these things and like well it would be hard to get this because of this like okay we'll cut a little bit of that off and then come to your you know grand compromise but we're just backsliding we're just backsliding now I was pretty excited with Biden leaving that you know I I was like, all right, reward to the Democrats. I'll just go cast my vote for Harris, call it a day. Then I saw her responding to people protesting the genocide in Palestine. Oh, yes.

Yeah, that's going to bring that out to. I mean, this is, it is gaslighting because they're telling the nation that we shouldn't be concerned. about genocide. And they're telling the nation that if you're concerned about genocide, that you're basically a Nazi because you want all Jewish people erased. And, you know, the state of Israel is not the Jewish faith. No. And we know plenty of Jewish people who probably would disagree with what's going on in Israel. Yeah. Jewish people. have varied opinions on that like any other people do but and wanting the genocide of Palestine to stop is not saying erase Israel there are there are several layers of

you know stop the genocide you know and what I never hear said and this bothers me so much what we need to be talking about as a nation is how we atone for our role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to begin with. How we atone for the fact that we as a nation

let Jewish people that we knew were going to almost certain death in Germany. We kept them from coming to this country. And when the war ended, we didn't let them come to this country either. And you basically forced the hand of creation of Israel. Now, there were plenty of people who wanted the creation of Israel.

It is a whole convoluted mess. I know I'm not trying to get all the way into it. Yeah. We're going to talk about it a little bit. But our responsibility there, our responsibility is a nation. We owe not only the Jewish people an apology for not being a better ally to the Jewish people. We also owe an apology the Palestinian people for inexplicably pretending that

they were vacant land that there are two victims there and I don't think the bad guy

is necessarily in the Middle East on the situation and it would be nice to not be condescended to

by the candidate amen when you bring up very valid concerns about human life and the value of human life and how to protect human life. So the last of our fringe, our life fringe shows was with a Palestinian woman, and she had told about how the genocide was affecting her family.

I do suggest she would give that lesson when it comes out. I'll share the link with you and when it does come out. But that kind of me a little upsets for a few reasons. One, because genocide is just wrong. Two, that psychopath has no business being in leadership. And, yeah, there are better solutions than trying to kill people. But civilians. Civilians.

Civilians. I mean, and you can love the people of Palestine and love the people of Israel and not... But let's be honest about American support for exclusively Israel, especially on the rights. We know why they do that is because they literally take the Bible seriously. They want the world to end. and I believe the Jewish people destroyed that too yeah that's a

this is not a love for the people no this is they want biblical prophecy to happen yes and it's not it's not kind it's not from a place of love you know I just it boggles the mind because they have convinced us

that genocide is an act of love and it's not and it's not and you don't have to hate to be opposed to genocide also and this is the problem with

taking sort of like the Bible literally that book was written in response to what was going on with the Roman Empire at the time all right it has nothing to do with

modern times and all. And shame on anyone who, uh, who, uh, wants to, uh, impose, uh, ancients, Israelites, uh, Roman era, uh, Palestine, um, beliefs on the modern, uh, era. And Christ isn't coming back. All right. Resurrection ain't happening. So, well, but if you are going to take the Bible seriously, how about thou shall not kill? Yeah, that's, not kill that you know yeah where in the bible does it say gay people are bad where in the bible does it say abortion's bad yeah yeah it doesn't come come at me with the beatitudes and you know that that's that's the religion that should be preached yeah yeah i think jesus himself

And it writes, I love that neighbor, and it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye the needle than for a rich man to enter the king of heaven. And go have dinner with sex workers. Yeah. You know, treat people with kindness doesn't matter who they are where they're at. It's not your business to judge them on earth. It's not. That's all in the Bible.

Yeah. But we get wanting to bring about. Armaged. In times. Yeah. And it's not love. No. It's not...

Genocide is not love. Anti-genocide is not hate. It is actually that simple. Yeah. Just be a decent human being, you know. I think that's the basis of what Jesus was trying to teach. Just be a decent human being, you know? And you don't have to be really...

don't have to be religious to be a decent human being. No. But also, this goes back again to, just because it's very simple that being anti-genocide is not hate and being pro-genocide does not love. Those are very simple concepts. That doesn't mean that untangling all the hurt and energy and, you know, injury and anger in that region is,

easy. Yeah. But where are the leaders that are keeping sanity into the conversation? By saying, no, genocide is bad. No, we don't hate Israel. No, we don't hate Palestine. You know, let's all work together to untangle this. Um, you know, is Hamas powerful enough to, end Israel? No. No. They're just not. Is, you know, an escalation of this conflict, something that could wind up harming

Israel deeply? Yes. Yes. Sanity is not winning out here. You know, Iran is getting pretty agitated. You know, Iranians. are not insane to support and want to protect the Palestinian people. That's not an insane stance.

But as this keeps snowballing, we all wind up insane. Iran is an Islamic version of what the right wants to do to America. A theocracy. Yeah, yeah. And that was always my biggest complaint about. Heron back was that he's a fucking theocrat. Yes. Yes. So I just, I am tired of being...

We are not theocracy, people. I'm tired of being... I'm tired of being told that I'm insane. Yeah. Because I'm not. And, you know, not in politics, right? Right. You know, we've all got our issues, maybe.

But to be opposed to genocide is not... not an insane stance. Exactly. And you can understand. Nobody's saying that opposing genocide means we're going to get Israel and Palestine to love each other tomorrow. We know that's not how tension works.

It's not how conflict works. But we should be consistently standing for, you know, not killing. Yeah. We're talking about Palestine and Israel. What about Ukraine and Russia? That's a little closer home for me, being of Slavic descent. If no I am Polish, Poland would be next if Ukraine were to fall. Well, except Poland's in NATO.

Poland's in NATO, too, yeah. I mean, and I don't think... If Poland gets hits, then, yeah, we're going to war with Russia. And I don't think Russia is going to do that on purpose. No. I don't. I hope not. But I think it can be arguments that's what Russia is trying to do to Ukraine

could also be considered genocide. I mean, it definitely seems to be an unprovoked conflict. You know, I don't, I guess the reason I have reservations on that is because, to me, genocide is the extinction of a peace. people. And I just haven't seen them wanting to make Ukrainian culture extinct so much. I just have to hear what Putin has to say. He doesn't consider Ukrainians real people. Oh, I thought he just thought they were part of Russia. Well, that too. He just thinks they are Russians. Yeah. Yeah, they're Russians. There's no such thing as Ukrainians. That's his thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they're not such thing as Lithuanians. Yeah. I do have a bit of Lithuanian in me too, so. Well, but the Ukraine is one of the central points of old Russian culture. Yeah, it is both part of the old Soviet Union. Well, and even farther back, the people that became Russian, their original strongholds were

I believe in Kyiv. So, I mean, they are very tied to each other. I mean, yes, I think we agree in the concept of what's happening there. I'm just very particular about when I want to use the word genocide. That's what it is. But we agree on what's happening there. Yeah. And, you know, I say this a lot, too, is that Russia's going to Russia.

A lot of the reason I think why Americans have such a problem with socialism and communism and stuff like that is because we've seen it modeled in the Russian way and Russia's going to Russia. Russia is a very strong man culture. It is not, it's never been a liberty-based culture. ours is same with China a lot of the communist nations that we have such a problem with are in authoritarian cultures and that's just not we don't do authoritarianism here right but that doesn't mean we can't do economic left right we don't have to be Russia to have social programs just like it

Just look at the Scandinavian, the Nordic countries. Yeah, that's a perfect example of east, east, west, just perfectly. You know, they've figured out, Norway, Sweden, Finland, they've figured it out, you know. I mean, I guess what it is. This is what it is for me, is I'm so baffled to look around. And everybody in this country, is arguing over things and saying we can't have this, we can't have that, and we can't do this.

It's a lot of can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. And the truth is, we're doing decently well as a nation, no matter what current stock prices are doing or whatever. As a whole, we're doing just fine as a nation, and we can have nice things. We can do better. We can have nice things. We can afford nice things. We can do nice things.

Affordable housing? Oh, there'll be on an episode about that eventually. And we brought this the last time just in our metro area. Let's get some decent public transit. We're slowly getting there. We ain't there yet. After 30 years at least of one person that was completely marginalized and called crazy, advocating for light rail.

Yeah. oh look everybody loves it yeah everyone wants it so much that not one but two extensions they're going to be complete in the next couple of years they got two more

in some phase of planning there's already talk about oh let's get some form of rail to the airport there's talk of that by state's sustainability yeah good luck with that

Yeah, that had better be rail if it's going to be truly sustainable, you know? Yeah. But, and Kansas City had light rail decades before. We had inter-urban rail, which I've heard to talk about that, too. We had a massive streetcar, much more massive than what we have right now. and I don't want to win the 50s because cars you know and I would love to see just in our little corner of the metro I'd love to see trains and the street cars come our way I want to see you know national railways interstate railways

passenger, passenger lines. My grandpa... Much better than Amtrak. No, no disrespect to Amtrak, but it got to do a very... Well, and those trains are so old. My grandpa was a train engineer. And when he was early in his career, he drove the passenger train from Kansas City to Salina.

And then it just turned into the freight train from Kansas City to Salina. and they just didn't take those passenger routes anymore. But imagine Salina to Kansas City. That's a pretty simple little route, but it was kind of like a... It stops in Amalene and then Topique, Lawrence. But, you know, good enough route that it's not a trip, but a commute. That could be a commute.

That distance could be a commute. And in other countries, that distance is. Completely commutable. We can have nice things. Other countries have nice things. I'm not saying we become London, but that is a good analog for what I would like to see locally because we're so fucking spread out

and everything in our area that it would behoove us to look at. Yeah, get out of trade, some sort of streetcar right here on Megaf, take its to the Pisa and take the streetcar up to the north

up to the north rail and jump on either to the airport or Liberty or I don't know get on a train out to the Blue Springs you know that that sort of thing Exactly and you know

again again we know that you don't build comprehensive rail infrastructure overnight we know that there are logistic hurdles that need to be overcome home. We know that there are parts of this country that are easier to get a good rail

system through than others. We know all of these things. But massive rail infrastructure is completely attainable. Every developed nation but us has figured it out. Where are the people advocating for it? Because when you do, marginalized. Yeah. Marginalized. We can demand these things. We should demand these things. We can compromise from our demand position once we get into the nitty-gritty of things,

but to shut people down that say, no, I demand we get railroad infrastructure. What is the point of shutting that down? Well, we're not going to get rail infrastructure if there's not people, pushing for rail infrastructure. We need the little clay chastain nationally. We need to have people that are bold enough to just keep making a statement that we deserve nice things. We deserve nice things. And then, you know, let's start moving that way. And the people in power need to be the one saying, yes, we deserve nice things. Do a study. Release the study. Take the study. Take the study.

You don't have to go like, both in the next year, we're going to have the entire time. Mike Kelly, let's do this. Yeah. We're not going to have the entire country criss-crossed with high-speed rail in the next two years. No, we're not. We're not going to have it in two years, but we can get the ball starting now. And to talk with Tom Garron, so he runs the streetcar authority about the possibility against streetcars at Johnson County. He's all for it.

He's all for. Of course, the Main Street line would have to be finished first, but he has definitely told me that he's not only for it, but that should be a plan in the near future. Yeah. And someone else at that same meeting I met with, this would have been an open house for the riverfront extension, currently being built, said, we need to get trains or some sort of transit at to Gardner. even further at them what we're talking about absolutely again other like other cities have that other countries have that other cities have that it is infinitely possible it is

completely possible you should argue for possible and in arguing for possible things you should be demanding that steps be taken to see what logistic requirements are in place let's see the budget let's see the requirements You know what? If it's going to cost X amount of dollars and we only have Y amount of dollars, let's look at how many years we can get to X amount of dollars. That's the debate with the North Route right now is let's find out how much we can do locally

with the state to help and then appeal to the federal government for the arrest. Absolutely. And it's why, you know, I have no criticism of the street cars downtown. Yeah. I mean, they're doing their best. and they're continuing to make progress that's what progress looks like that's right that's what progress looks like not this stuff where they're telling us

that they're progressive and telling us we can't ask for nice things don't tell me your progressive show it yeah yeah and take a step take a step towards that progress it can be a little step I am I am so

you know open to just the little baby steps that they take just release a study do a survey yeah figure out hey what's the best way to get a passenger train to high speed through the Rockies like get that problem yeah on paper solved get you know I don't know what hang up sorry I'm not a railroad yeah it's hard to say a high speed rail expert engineer that designs things not drives them um but like I know that there are problems, there are things that are holding it up, okay? Let's talk about them.

Let's look at them. Let's get into the weeds every now and then people. Every conversation that starts to get into the weeds, they want to shut it down. The weeds is where the progress is made. The reason we don't make progress is because we sit here and say, you can't, we can't have high-speed rail within one presidency. Okay, well, let's get in three presidencies. You know?

Okay. Let's have a route between Casey and Chicago. All right, that's a good start. Better than the anthrax route is currently. Let's get one line. Let's get one line of high-speed rail between Chicago, New York even. Yep. Just one line.

You know, start there, move along. But not, you know, not a compromise thing. Don't do a big infrastructure thing that's like medium-speed rail in one's place. you know go go for the whole thing in a small place and build from there it just it baffles me

because it defies logic mm-hmm yep I agree so we're coming up to close in an hour okay so any closing thoughts

well I am still just absolutely goody that Biden is not running. I hate that man. And it really took some pressure off because

I mean, I lost a lot of contacts over opposing Joe Biden as a nominee. And, you know. I'm sure we're both persona in the local democratic scene.

Yeah. And, you know, but the people who are on the outskirts tend to kind of come in and, you know, look, I'm not going to be the next leader of the Democratic Party. You're not going to be the next leader of the Democratic Party. But we're out here saying the things that we're not supposed to say within party boundaries. Right. And by saying it, those that might be the next people in power are hearing it. And that's what's important to me.

Listen, people. That's what's important to me. You need to hear these things. You need to stop believing the idea that nothing is possible. All of these things are possible. And it's not, you know, it's not delusional to want health care, to want high-speed rail. Right.

To want Supreme Court reform. To not want genocide. To not want genocide. None of those things are actually unreasonable stances to have. Now, it would be unreasonable if I expected it all next week. You're right. But that is not what anyone is suggesting. So they kind of try to make it sound like.

like we're being unreasonable, like we want this yesterday. That's not what actual progress looks like. We know what progress looks like. We're here to put in the time with it. And, you know, just come along with us. Make those steps. Yeah. Exactly.

All right. Thanks for coming back on. And next time, three-timers club. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. All right. I'm always here to cause a little trouble with that. All right.

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