Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 129: Burners and Berners

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Today's episode is about the extremely online topic of Bernie vs. Warren. We apologize in advance, we recorded this before the anti-anti-backlash. We'll be back with regularly scheduled programming next week and won't be offended if you SKIP. Oh and we also talk about rioting miners in Pike County, Kentucky, and Moms4Housing in Oakland. Support! The! Patreon!: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

yeah i think i got a booty judge impression down hit us with it so these questions that you're asking me wolf i think that they're good questions wait i think that um that's a classic rhetorical like when you need a second to gather your thoughts restating the question you've just been asked or doing some sort of candid like that. Oh, we got a special guest on the show today. Mayor Pete, welcome to the cabin. Welcome to the show, Billy. Thank you so much for having me here.

If you'll look at the papers in front of you, Tanya, I have a bill that will make me the mayor of every city in the world. That is pretty good timing. And that's how we're going to change this country. Fuck. I lost it there towards the end. God damn it. From the top.

That's how we're going to change this country. I don't know. he's got like he honestly sounds a lot like people have said this but he sounds like christian bale in american psycho and he really does sound exactly like yeah he sounds like a robot tanya that's a good point that you bring up he does that he does this this with his eyes wide open. He moves his head with his eyes. Honestly, I was so... The debate last night was so awkward and hard for me to watch that when we'd go back to Mayor Pete, I was relieved. I was physically relieved.

I'd say, no, it's a cringe debate. Totally. Well, I did want to remind you that you and Mayor Pete have been... Y'all have been on a parallel kind of. Trajectory. Yeah, y'all have been connected ever since you had that lobotomy. And he skull fucked you. Oh, yeah, you're right.

That's how I can do the impression. Yeah, he's in you. In a Mayor Pete presidency, we're going to be doing economic development in every major American city. And that means every city will get its own cia that is good mayor pete it's getting there yeah that's close i'm working towards it well have do you work on it in the mirror um i have been in the last so you get your eyes ready yeah yeah yeah yeah um last 24 hour pete what do you how was moran's uh performance last night it doesn't matter how warranted because we're going to be changing this country from the top down i don't know you do have to commit to ending every statement on a

high tick yeah yeah yeah you're right right. That's just like public speaking 101, just the worst. It's absolutely worse. He did say something about sending Biden to the, we're going to be sending Biden to the dustbin of history. He said that? Did he say that?

I think he did. What? I turned it off by that point. I watched the Duke game. you know tanya you are an excellent american citizen because you don't care about politics getting in the way of your good time yeah run this country without boring me how about that without getting on my nerves that's the thing about mayor pete is he's both extremely unlikable and incredibly boring i like him now i'm all in for mayor pete mayor pete's good now well he school fucked you i went

yeah yeah i went through some sort of portal last night where like my okay so I went through a brief 48 hours where like I was a burner a hardcore Bernie bro like a brief 48 hours signed up to do the texting did the texting and then after the debate last night I was like like, wait, it makes so much more sense to just be with Pete at all times. In fact, cuck Chastin and be with Pete. So you're gonna be the other man and the Chastin Pete. Well, Pete's probably obsessed with himself, so me doing a good impersonation of him would probably work. He'd probably be into it.

How'd Chaston get a blue check? I don't know who this is. His husband. You don't know Chaston? We recently had Chaston Appreciation Day, Tonya. On Trailbillies? No, on the world. The Globe had Chaston Appreciation Day. Is that right?

Wasn't there, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they take like a kind of a picture at the Holocaust Memorial or something? They did, yeah, they did. Something like that. It doesn't matter what happened here. All that matters is what we're doing to make the world a better place.

He's putting that in the dustbin of history. That whole cost. See that moment when Tom Steyer had said something about his McKenzie work and praising it, and then Pete corrected him and actually said he had a higher body count title at McKenzie

than Tom Steyer even credited him with. Actually, Tom, I increased bread prices in the Yukon or Saskatchewan provinces in Canada higher than you can ever imagine.

I'm just going to do this and it's going to be unfunny for an hour and a half. And then finally, it's a slow burn. We'll come back to it and think it's hilarious. It hasn't been funny the first five minutes of the episode, but maybe if I do it enough it'll eventually get funny. Well,

I mean, he is so boring that he's kind of unfuckable with. Unfuckwithable? Yeah, well, I mean, it depends on your definition of boring, Tanya. A parody of Mayor Pete can't even be funny because he's so deeply unfucking funny.

How does SNL do it? I don't think they have a Mayor Pete. They don't have a Mayor Pete? It's telling. Call us. Mayor Pete would do anything to be on SNL. Call me. I'll do Mayor Pete pete on snl

they're like this isn't even halfway good well what else you got that was a cringe debate though yeah who else even on there the the after all i've seen since are just clips of E-War and BB. Okay, so we have a lot to talk about today. Today's going to be one of the defining episodes of our career. Today is going to be one of the defining episodes. It just sounds like my voice now. Well, that's good news since I'm at about 2 out of ten percent right now uh my energy level is at a 1.5 well okay so the reason i say that is because um the entire left is in disarray at the moment because and one man's responsible for that man's Sam Adler Bell. It's all

Sam Adler Ding Dong. Sam Adler Ding Dong. Which I read his piece, by the way. Sam, if you're listening to this, I have to say I disagree with you on a lot. And I've been too nice to actually put it on the TL. So you're just gonna

do it passively here. So I'm just gonna do it cowardly, in a cowardly way behind the microphone and we'll always have cincinnati pal this is the first time terrence will ever actually cut something out of the episode um so i actually read his piece and it was way more benign than people were making it out to be people really did freak out over it over nothing basically the the so the genesis of what has happened right now is not in sam's sam adler bell's piece in the intercept about warren and bernie needing to have a unity thing but it is relevant it is a like a nice little lodestar for our current moment. So basically, all Sam's piece was was just like talking about people on the ground in Iowa and other places who are working to make sure that if it, you know, when it goes to the convention, they're working to make sure that either Warren or Sanders, who they have determined are the non-corporate wing of the Democratic Party,

are able to withstand basically like the onslaught of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. Right? Biden, Buttigieg, the club, and Tom Steyer. Which I don't know. I don't even know if Tom Steyer's in. I mean, he is. Was he at the debate last night?

He was. He was. So what have we got? Five of them? Six. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bloomberg's still there.

Yeah. No, he was in at the debate, though. But he is in it. You're right. Oh, I thought I saw him. No, it was Steyer that you're thinking of. You're right. The guy with one tie.

It's worth $2 billion. So a lot of what I guess we'll be talking about today, or I guess is what a lot of people want to talk about, is was there ever such a thing as unity between Warren and Sanders? If not, should there be? But for me, an even better question is, okay, I kind of know where Bernie's at on this, but is Elizabeth Warren a corporate candidate

with progressive leanings, or is she a progressive candidate with... Corporate leanings or if she is she a progressive candidate with corporate erstwhile corporate donors and you know other people in the elite who are willing to come out for her yeah so that's my question so so is there a significant difference i would say so because if if it's the former if she's a corporate candidate with progressive leanings then that means that there is no hope of unity with bernie and there never was if she's a progressive candidate with some you know elite corporate backers um then yeah i think that you could probably make the case that she's uh that she could make some kind of coalition with bernie so i can't i told

you earlier i kept thinking i must have missed something because none of this has made any sense to me because they are obviously two candidates running against each other for fuck's sake it's like i don't that's true this is a presidential campaign we do need to state the obvious they are opponents yeah and so um is there a precedent for there being some type of unity like this or whatever what is sam calling for exactly because i'll the only thing that i the only way i've seen this happen that i'm understanding is someone drops out and then they support another candidate and campaign for them. Well, that's basically. So is he calling for one of them to drop out and support the other?

I don't think Sam's really calling for either. I think Sam was interviewing people who are calling for one or the other. Sam's just reporting the news. Just reads them how he sees them. Well, I don't want to put words in his mouth Because he's not here and he's my friend But I do think that Sam thinks There needs to be unity between the two

And I think What does that look like? Am I supposed to door knock on the same door For both candidates? Now here's what you do You knock and you do the Bernie pitch And then when they close the door You knock against Ella. And then like when they close the door, you knock again. So while I'm here, I'm also here with Elizabeth Warren.

Right. Jesus fucking Christ. Who I like marginally less. And then leave him with that. So if he hasn't completely turned this off and unfriended me, I just want to say I have no interest in misrepresenting his opinion here. But if I understand it correctly, it's not so much that he thinks

there needs to be unity it's that for bernie to win he's going to need warren and one example he used was in 2008 what pushed obama over the line to beat hillary in the primary was dennis kucinich basically dropping out and pulling the delegates that he had at the time towards Obama. Isn't the point of running as a fucking Democrat that when you get the nominee, you have support of all the stupid fucking Democrats? Or else he'd just run as a socialist.

I mean, it depends. I guess previously it's been a question of aesthetics, right? Because the difference between Obama and Hillary in 2008 was, well, I don't know. What was the difference? In 2008, I think there were some glaring differences. Well, how they ran and how they ended up being, not so much. So I guess what was Obama running on? In the war, close Guantanamo.

Yeah. Was he running on the, I guess the banks hadn't fully... Like, the financial collapse hadn't started until late into the... Late into the... Well, almost to the election. Right, right. Right before the election. Yeah.

So, I guess that wasn't an issue, really, between him and Hillary. I have no memory of him. I know. Well, I was talking to Tom the other day. All of these campaigns will be a blip thank you tanya i don't remember i don't remember shit oh man you can't single one out terrence i haven't even seen this but i've been moving shit all day look my personal disposition is towards bernie and i understand if people get really pissed off and passionate when i talk shit about warren but um i mean that's not the question right now

the question before us is is liz with warren a snake in the grass that's the big thing or a snake in the swamp like what's the difference yeah anyway i guess we're getting ahead of ourselves here okay we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Okay. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. So we've... Also, why are we demonizing snakes? Snakes are good creatures. They're very important to an ecosystem. I agree, Tanya. Let's not do that. I agree.

Yeah, we're pro-herpetology. We're pro-snake here. I agree. We're parcel-toned. Yeah. There's a little harry potter reference for you under a buddha judge presidency harry potter starting to be funny will be mandatory does he play quidditch i'm gonna be 100 honest i've never read Harry Potter or watched Harry Potter. There's so many references.

I've lied through so many conversations about Harry Potter. Yeah, you're lying right now. You've lied through conversations about Marx, Harry Potter, everything you're supposed to have read but haven't. I've lied about it. Everyone else has too.

Dude, it doesn't matter. But I have read all the Harry Potters. I've definitely not read all the Harry Potters. It's even more embarrassing. That's obvious. I read them as like a 22-year-old. I read them in my early 20s. Well, my mom, my sister had a hard time. She still doesn't like to read.

But early on, you know, when you're supposed to be reading, it's more of a flag. It should probably be a flag now too. But she bought harry potter book she bought like the fourth book and we didn't know it was a series so we read that book as a family i read the fourth book yeah the gauntlet of fire that's the one we were in that's funny oh fuck anyway um the movies are great though okay um you asked a question let me just rein us back in here please you asked a question you said is elizabeth warren is she a progressive candidate just has some you know accident slipped on a banana peel and took some donations from billionaires. Canada. Or is she a corporate candidate that is with some progressive street credentials? Because it's the demarcation I'm interested in.

Is there really a corporate side of the Democratic Party and then the grassroots Democratic Socialist side on which Warren is? I mean, if that's the case, then I need to know which one Warren is in. Just make a call on me. Okay, Tom. The only reason we even think Elizabeth Warren is a fucking progressive call on me. Okay, Tom, go for it. The only reason we even think Elizabeth Warren's a fucking progressive is because she talked mean to that Wells Fargo guy one time. Let's keep it honest.

Like, when nobody was doing that shit, she stood up and, like, made her name off that shit, and she's done nothing to earn her title. I mean, progressive means fuck all anyway. Yes. But that's why we think of her that way. Okay. Also, let me throw out some other names, and let me ask you why we think they're progressive.

Sherrod Brown. Like, when we talk about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, who do we think of? We think of Bernie, we think of Liz Warren, we think of Sherrod Brown, AOC, da-da-da-da-da. Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich at one point.

Yeah. Yeah Yeah Keith Ellison Keith Ellison is another example Who's an abuser Allegedly I'm sorry allegedly Allegedly Where there's smoke there's fire Okay

So what you're saying no is that she's not you don't think you're not buying it no well i think also here's the thing i that and it kind of confirmed my suspicions about liz warren last night with that etude brute job she did okay it was some foul shit it was the i mean it was just the foulest shit i've ever seen i don't need to go back and watch it well she couldn't even look him in the eye she looked down yeah it was it was truly a friend of the show jack allison called it the assassination of bernie sanders by the coward liz was warned and honestly it was it was total coward shit it's just like if you're gonna stab someone in the back like that at least have the fucking decency to look look them in the

fucking eye when you do it it was fucking rough tanya it was insane so did bernie look like his feelings were hurt no i thought she put but she did put bernie on skates for a second with that because he kind of doubled back with that 30 years thing. Which was good because I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to serve her a little bit. But in the moment, it wasn't the best look. I don't know. I thought it personally.

I thought my in the moment reaction, my IBS has been so fucking bad, man, for the past two days. And I think it's related to this. I genuinely think I've been shitting nonstop because of this somehow. But my first reaction was like, okay, I'll give you the play by play. They asked Bernie if he said this. He said, no, I did not. If you find footage of me i did not i did not

tommy was so sanders i did not say that about her i did not say a woman can i be the president i did not oh hi mayor pete okay so he said i did not and then he and then he said which is a great retort he said he made two great points which is that if you go on youtube you can find plenty of videos of me saying over the years um they made three good points like you know that a woman could be president and then he said i asked her to run in 2015 and she said no because she didn't want to buck up against hillary she thought it was hillary's time and then he said which i think we even had this literal discussion on the podcast recently he said

hillary actually won the last election so i mean like i don't even believe that a woman couldn't win because the woman did win the last election. She won the popular vote. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so then after that, and I may get this wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the moderator, and the moderators at this thing, I had to turn it off because it was. God bless. Dude, it was. They were, they were, they were just ex, ex people is what they were.

Dog, it must have been like. Shooters is all they were. Dog, it must have been like... Shooters is all they were. Yeah, it must have been like living in ancient Rome and seeing Caesar getting stabbed to death or something by 80 people. Because it was insane. All the moderators were out against them. But what she said, what the moderator said,

she turned to Elizabeth Warren and said, so when... Oh, no, no, no, no. She said, so you're saying that you never said that to Elizabeth Warren. And he said, I did not say that. moderator said she turned to elizabeth warren and said so when said oh no no no no she said so you're saying that you never said that to elizabeth warren and he said i did not say that and so then she turned they said so how'd you feel when bernie sanders said that she said yeah how did you feel and they both laughed i saw that clip and sanders and warren both laughed when she said it well and so like, if you have any fucking integrity,

to me personally, if you have any fucking integrity, you would say, you know, you would intervene or something. Like this isn't a fair question. The framing of it isn't fair or something like that. To me, like I feel like if you're a normal person whose analysis of reality has not been just completely ruined and warped at this point by careerism and triangulation, you would look at what just happened and see that Bernie is not like lying or, you know what I mean?

Like he's not like manipulating the facts or whatever. Like, and you would see that Elizabeth Warren is clearly lying. I want to go, I want to go ahead and tell you this. This is the most cynical deployment and reappropriation of the believe women thing that I've ever seen. I mean, it is pretty bad. But what do you think, Tonya? You got to look on your face like I needed to throw the ball your way. No.

No, I didn't feel that way. I mean, the last year. I'm talking like Neera T a tandem like saying this oh believe women until it's inconvenient for your narrative shit yeah yeah i mean the last year i have been uh but uh it's been wild to me just to watch me to come about become about um workplace microaggressions and it's like or literally anything is somehow equated to sexual assault all of a sudden exactly except actual except actual sexual assault yeah Yeah, it's just, yeah, I don't know how we become safe in this world, but. That ain't it. That ain't it.

It's probably not through electoral politics either. God help us. And it's certainly not funded by corporations. Women's safety. We need to burn something down very soon. Something needs to be in ashes very fucking soon i don't know how you queue and elect and when does escalation get queued up when when do we get when do we trigger ourselves why there's not an entire train full of coal on fire in pike county

right now i don't know why we would block a train we already did that it didn't fucking work blow that to smith or fucking rings burn down you pike burn the whole fucking city down why bother all right we're gonna get to that here in a minute i'm sorry stick stick a big big hot pan in that sister we're coming back we have a lot to talk about i'm all i'm ready to burn down my old house my new house so then you know you had the 30 years thing which was funny to me was the hardest part to watch

I don't know why well that's what I was talking about when she put him on skates a little bit like in my opinion what he should have did it was such a stupid banal thing for her to say that anyway just let her and fucking practice girl Klobuchar have their little fucking shit and let Bernie just kind of sit that one out.

Well, I mean... So you think Bernie, you think he made an error in... You think he should have just let it slide? I think he should have said what he said and then left that whole... I mean, I thought it made her look like a dumbass though Elizabeth Warren? Yeah because what she said is that like

no person up on this stage has beat a Republican in the last 30 years other than the women on the stage isn't that what she said? and Bernie said well I beat an incumbent Republican in 1990 which is interesting. No, no, no.

Go for it. 29 years ago. 29 years and two months. Andrew Yang told us on Twitter tonight. But that was funny because I actually looked at that election and he blew that guy out of the water as an independent, which is pretty fascinating. He wasn't even running as a Democrat and of the water as an independent which is pretty fascinating you know he wasn't even running as a democrat and he's running as independent which i think bernie should just run as a socialist fuck the democratic party fuck them well we might get to that here in

a minute um i'm sorry i'm just tired no i start lobbing bombs when i'm tired i'm just aggravated cocktails over here like a dehydrated yeah the whole shit just made me so goddamn mad i can't say straight but i feel like i'm trying to be measured because i don't want to say something that kftc robbie's gonna say i hate women over i don't know like every time i say something about warren i get dumb asses like kftc robbie and kftc jeff and kftc it's like they're the asap mob but the lame version oh my god like really woke anyways uh they don't deserve the time of fucking my time of fucking day at all. Have they endorsed her?

I don't know who they've endorsed. But I do think that the Warren thing says a lot about politics as they are currently constituted. This does feel like her panic button. Like she hit a panic button because she's dropped's like dropped in the polls now more than she has right she's like on she's on her way down in the polls right right which polls are garbage she is but these people believe in them right this is the uh magic they believe in she's not polling as well as she could be and so this could as well as she was right as well as she could be. And so this could be. As well as she was. As well as she was. That's exactly right. Because she was in the top three. She was like, she and Biden were neck and neck, right?

Right. But instead of coming for Biden, here we are. Well, see, that's the other conspiracy theory floating around is that Warren's cut a deal with Biden. So that's a theory that like Warren could be making a deal with Biden. And I was talking to you about this before we started recording, and the evidence that people use on this is that she's kind of had, like, kid gloves with Biden in terms of,

I don't know. Also, also. Well, she shook his hand last night. Also, she could just feel kind of sorry for him. Biden was struggling. Hell yeah. Dude, it was rough. I've never seen, I mean, like, I know he's got a stuttering thing or whatever,

which, why didn't we know that until this year? I never felt like that was a thing, like, in 2008 when he was running around. This has to be medical. This man is on death's door. He's on death's door. Which, you know, honestly, be right it should be running the democratic party i'm telling you i cannot help but just bring us back here to uh a um enlightened comment by a listener probably a year ago that said this podcast is just listening to you three talk through every

week your abusive relationship with the democratic party where you expect them to do something different than they've always fucking done well but here's the thing i'm glad you said that because the entire bernie thing was always premised on can we actually smash the democratic party i'm under no illusions as to like what the bernie thing is i'm aware that it is you know some form of like watered down socialism call it reformism or social democracy or whatever it is it's not as left as i want it to be or as i am however i do think it does afford us it does offer us sort of an access point into what we've said i don't know what has been called before like

mass politics right the large masses of people who are politically unengaged who are unengaged in political struggle and so that could offer us an access point into it at points over the course of this show i've been skeptical of that and then other points i've been not skeptical of it downright embraced it like yeah i've always been aware that the democratic party is dog shit and needs to burn just absolutely needs a spiritual cleansing to its we need to dip uh tom perez in the waters of lake minnetonka like don't let him come back up that to me has never been a question forever float them out to sea yeah like that to me though has never been a question the question has always been is it structurally philosophically literally possible or whatever to actually stage some sort of coup in the democratic party and use its use it as a vehicle to some form of leftist

politics sort of like in the way reagan did with the republican party in the 80s and the only evidence we have is that bernie has already drugged this entire party to the left that we have evidence of that here's the thing but the problem is it's probably too little too late i've been thinking a lot about this though i like partially when i turned that fucking debate off last night the first thought i had was that all politics in general and this includes everything elizabeth warren to the right is moving to the right i know we think that when we say that the democratic party has been pulled to the left because of bernie and stuff but you look at what these people are saying and as we get closer and closer to the general i feel like they're tempering their messages more and more towards a centrist audience.

And I think that even includes Warren to some degree. Like, I don't feel like what she's running on would have been considered radical in 2008. Like, I don't know. I mean, granted. Shit, I don't know. I mean, yeah, technically Obama ran on health care. Let me ask y'all a question. True.

Right? And we never fucking got it. No, we did. We got it. We got it, Tonya. Yeah, they fucked us. We got a $2,500. I've been living off that bronze plan.

Careful what you ask for. No fucking telling. We have a bronze. there's a bronze plan that is kind of sick and it's just like even even little things like let your county pass in a second amendment sanctuary bullshit

is telling it's like they're living in 2016 or something but also it's just like it's like they're living in 2016 or something. But also, it's just like a fight, a race to who's the most fascist. Yeah. So I guess there is evidence for that, too. God damn. It's bleak.

Well, I guess I have to ask people this who are genuinely into the Warren thing. It's like, do you... I mean, this is a genuine question, but it's really not because i'm really not that interested but like i just don't i don't know what it is about it that to you would offer any way out of this like even i'm even skeptical of bernie being able to do it but like i said before i am putting certain things aside to enter into the fucked up world of politics but with warren i don't even see how i just don't see how anything she offers offers a way out of this like well what is she offering i mean have you spent much time with any statements of support from progressive orgs and groups that have endorsed Warren?

The only one... Just the Working Families. Yeah, just the Working Families one. That's really the only one. Well, that one is unique because it was like a vote. They ran a voting system. And all they've ever really defended

is the vote. They just wanted to like... They let their members vote or whatever, which is fine, fine. But my most like shocking endorsement has been from this like independent group of black women in movement leadership, a handful of which I know personally and really love and admire the work they do and their vision for the world. And when and it's called Black Women 4. Y'all haven't seen this. It started as well. You mentioned it to me the other and when and it's called black women for y'all haven't seen this it started as well you mentioned it to me the other day but it started out as 100 women like a

list of 100 names that that they like released like we're supporting more and within a week it was 200 names and now it's like hundreds i don't know how many we can pull up the instagram and see but even their language like i'm i should pull it out to quote it more accurately because I'll probably be put on a spit for misquoting someone but it's it's still even the language of why they would support her is like we believe she will listen like we believe we can move her do you know I mean it's not exactly like what she's already doing it's like we like she's willing to listen more malleable they think than anybody else yeah yeah and it's just like we are so we've been so fucked like we're so fucked that that that's the

bar is like we think that um she will consider black communities or she will consider women when she makes decisions it's like that's the fucking lowest the lowest that should be the lowest consideration bar consideration is that they even consider us for fuck's sake but they're not wrong it's like these people don't even see us right they don't even see people of color when they're making bad decisions but i mean and i guess it's pointless i mean it would make more sense to actually have one of them here to talk about it but like i just don't see any difference in how bernie or warren would do that like i don't i any difference between them yeah i mean i don't see i mean in in them? Yeah, I mean, I don't see,

I mean, in this specific situation, I don't see Bernie Sanders, I don't think he would sit down and be like, you know, fuck those people. Like, you know, I think that he's surrounded by plenty of people. And to me, the biggest thing about, when people ask me about, like,

you know, why Bernie instead of Warren, it's like, well, just look at how many fucking people support Bernie. To me, that's just the easiest answer. Granted, if way more people were supporting a national socialist, that would have some qualms about it. But to me, it seems to me that this is a actual grassroots movement that needs to be influenced by the left and needs to be steered towards actual leftist policy goals and levers of power. And so I don't know what, I don't know why. Can I read this verbatim?

Yeah, go for it. Because it says accountability, not perfection. So like their whole endorsement framing is about how there's not a perfect candidate, which is true. Sure. These people will all lie, cheat, and steal to get to the fucking crown. I'm going to stick up for Barney on this, though. Yeah, I will too in a minute.

I don't care. Yeah. Go. second crown i'm gonna stick up for barney on this though yeah i will too in a minute specifically an accountability process that includes naming the harm accepting responsibility outlying steps to make those who are negatively impacted whole and change impacted whole and changes in behavior this process will be outlined and ratified at a people's policy making summit so it's like how they feel like they can control her basically well what is the what is the what is the average the non-profitization of fucking politics this is what i've been working towards for 40 this is all this is i'm sorry i'm sorry all right and i listen i don't say this to disparage anybody i say this because i lived it Now we're getting into the meat of what we're actually talking about.

Because look, I was interested last night. You're familiar with this guy Hamilton Nolan. He used to write for Splitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he wrote a thing a few months ago about how we need unity between Warnie. Warnie. Yeah, exactly. We need Warnie.

Warnie ticket. Yeah, we need unity between Warren and Bernie and what he said in the piece. I went back and read it last night and was just pulling my hair out about how fucking stupid it was. But he was basically saying, the end goal is to take down the capitalists and the bankers.

I don't care if it's Elizabeth's wonky policy approach or Bernie's movement approach. I just care that it gets done. And it's like, actually, i have been in the non-profit world long enough to know that the wonky approach will get you nowhere let me tell you what the wonky approach does well it's not even that it's not even that i see grown-ass people every day of my life i work with grown-ass people who are otherwise serious people or consider themselves such okay serious people that honest to god think they can move people

way worse than liz before like they think they they exist in this world where they deal with people that are recycled fucking clinton knights obama it's or whatever to the point that they feel like they're these political animals that somehow have their finger on the pulse of things and kind of understand how the sausage is made and the rest of us are just like, oh, that's cute. You think Bernie can win. But let me tell you how this really goes. Exactly. We work with people who patted themselves on the back for working with Hal Rogers.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but this is the thing. And this is, to me, this is the- A malevolent, one of the most malevolent forces in American political history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but this is the thing, and this is, to me, this is the- A malevolent, one of the most malevolent forces in American

political history. Right. Truly. This is the fundamental difference, for me, between Bernie and Warren, and you need to hear it here on this show

because you're not going to get this perspective anywhere else, but the fundamental difference is between one who is willing to harness collective mass energy

to, I don't know know probably not going to be able to pass any of the things he wants to pass but at least engage in some form of class warfare or one who wants to give you wonky prescriptions on how to fix the economy and how to make billionaires be a little bit nicer and how to make uh you know basically yeah just to have a little bit nicer society. And I can tell you personally that I've only seen one of those work, and it's when people are collectivized into a mass movement and are using that to wage conflict on whether it's their bosses

or the levers of government or it's teachers going on strike in West Virginia or whatever. That to me is the only way you get change. I just I don't know. And even they ended up having to settle for a wonky policy that ended up fucking them in the end. Right, right, right. They ended up. You know what I mean? it can't like collective organizing can't lead to compromising in a fucking boardroom

over benefits packages right yeah yeah well but the thing is is that because that's what they want they're like we deserve you know it's like we we we we have not we have been struggling for so long we are so deep in this bullshit that we it's hard to even envision what we actually fucking deserve and could easily have with them with the wealth well that has been falsely created i think the way that you figure that out though is in common struggle and i don't see that when i look at the warren campaign i don't see like a venue or an arena for common struggle i see wonky policy prescriptions that just have all the same ring to me as all the non-profit shit that i was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out over the last decade you know what i mean yeah if it was gonna work it

would have worked under obama and i and it didn't it didn't i mean i don't know i i don't know no i don't know no well well we had as hospitable of a we i'm saying like those of us that you know consider ourselves somewhere on the left had as hospitable a fucking i'm trying to phrase this it's so weird to kind of shed your like, to kind of speak at like as a former liberal when you're not that anymore. But what I'm saying is the Obama administration was as hospitable an environment for liberal, like environmentalist or whatever, as,

as you could imagine it would be. Right. And what did it avail for those causes? Didn't in Mount Topper mobile. No. Uh, I mean, I guess you could make the argument that

far fewer permits got through but the most destructive ones still worked out don blankenship was still allowed to do what he was going to do yeah sure he went to jail got the slap whatever but still the overall effect is nothing ever changed on that fight right you know what i mean well and and this is the really the big question for me in terms of Sanders and Warren. And this is the question I think the listeners of our show need to ask themselves. It's like, what are your politics? Because if they're anywhere to the left of Sanders, do you think that they're going to be welcome in the Warren camp? I mean, I don't even know if they're really welcome in the Bernie camp.

I mean, like, I don't even know if they're really welcome in the Bernie camp, but I do feel like the Bernie thing has been at least opened up a little bit. Yeah, other times. I mean, like, I mean, man, if you've got a presidential candidate talking about removing all troops from the Middle East and, like, granted, it's a politician's promise, and you can't trust the paper that a fucking politician's promise is written on but i mean i do feel like bernie's as good as we got yeah i i mean warren's voted for war many times it's not even like we have to imagine we don't even have to guess what

she'll do we already fucking know right i have she was the let's put the solar panels on our tank shit you know what i'm saying she wanted a green military so like so all this asked to me this circles back to the question of do we need these people to win and i mean so i was having this thought last night and i was thinking about sam i was thinking about sam adler bell because i think that some people in life, Sam included one of them. He's a good boy. He's a good guy. Sam's natural inclination is to seek out the ways

in which people have commonality and to bring them together. It's like that one argument we had on the show that one time. My natural instinct, obviously, is to see the differences between people, right? And to see what divides... My natural inclination is to tear people down between people right and to see like uh what device my natural inclination is to tear people down right to tear people down and to critique

everything i'm not saying this is a good thing i'm just saying that this is you know just the facts the facts right right easier to tell tear down than the build-up so keep that in mind when i say uh keep that in mind when i say that i don't think we need the warm people to win because there are cooler heads in the room, more rational people in the room that think, that say, we do need them. But what that actually looks like, I'm not even advocating for people to go out there just

shitting on Warren all the time because I think that's a big waste of energy. It's a huge waste of energy but also too because Liz Warren's probably going to finish fourth place in the aisle. I mean, are there Elizabeth Warren voters who won't vote for Bernie if he's the candidate? I bet they would. They probably would.

These people are probably. That would vote Trump? What's going to be the third? What's going to be the third party? Here was my read on this a little bit. And I admit I'm a dumbass and could be wrong. But I think. That should go without saying for all of us.

Yeah. We're dumbasses who've stumbled onto public platforms. could be wrong. But I think That should go without saying for all of us. Yeah. We're dumbasses who've stumbled onto public platforms. Go easy on us. Here's what I think Elizabeth Warren's miscalculation was last night. Liz Warren needs if Liz Warren

comes out of this successful in these primaries which I don't think she's going to but if she does, she needs the Bernieie coalition far more than bernie needs her coalition and she fucked herself out of a significant chunk of it last night yeah well that's another thing a lot of this is spilled milk there are a lot of bernie or bust bitches there are for sure but i don't i don't know that there is that in the elizabeth camp i am burning your bus in a way i mean yeah that's what i'm saying there's a lot of people who just feel like they can't i mean it's fucking hard to even vote for bernie at this point it's just like voting almost feels like passive just support for this whole fucking system that's literally

just shoving us deep into the cracks of our fucking houses. Well, the thing is, and this is... I've come around on voting. Well, no. It's not so much that. It's that some campaigns try to harness the individual and the individual voter. And I feel like the thing about the bernie thing is that like now the

forces arrayed against it have made it such a unique and uniquely targeted movement that the people engaged in that struggle together are like i don't feel like they're just gonna fall away after it's over like i don't i don't know how to really convey this but like again this is a lesson i've learned in my life and it's you know for better for worse but when you engage in common struggle with people like you don't just let that go away right you know and um we may not get a bernie presidency and we may not even get any kind of uh immediate like short- gains, but I do feel like, again, it offers an access point for radical politics into the masses.

Right. And there are millions and millions of people together on this now. And if you're shooting for social revolution, I think that's the point. Then you do need Elizabeth Warren camp. If we are really trying to mobilize people away from a two-party system,

away from an entire structure that relies on human misery, then we do need a lot of people. Well, what's the pitch you make to them then? Bernie or barbarianism. Yeah, but that's not going to work for them. You know what I mean? And here's the thing and here's the matter of political trust with people that abetted this shit last night like if you're if you're a serious person that takes yourself seriously not us yeah but like and you

saw that last night do you do you really think bernie that? Come on. In 2015? I know like die in the wool shithead misogynist bros that wouldn't say that because they know it's not 18. When it was 2018. Maybe in 2015. You're fucking stupid if you think he really said that is what I'm saying.

I kind of am like who cares? Well that's not the thing, too. I don't want to make y'all have to defend Bernie, but it's just like, would Elizabeth Warren lie to become president? Yes. Would Bernie lie to become president? Yes. Would Terrence lie to become mayor of Wattsburg?

Yes. We're going to have a entirely new walking trail people are gonna stand it's gonna float above the city it will float above the city and um and lead to pine mountain space needle spot there will be mescaline distributors fountains along. Along the walking trail. The thing about all that, and listen, I've got to cool it

lest I venture into the most unsavory Bernie supporter archetypes that these people believe in that aren't really fucking true by and large. But, I don't know.

It's just like two plus two still fucking four yeah these people they're running they're in an election running against each other and i don't know it just seems so bizarre this is why i kept feeling like have i missed something did something else happen this is the truck this is all just like twitter fodder like like he spoke against women these all of these people have voted against women like you know what i mean it's just like yeah here's the here's the thing on the whole on that shit if there hadn't been an obvious concerted like bernie blackout media thing if there hadn't been all this sort of and and you can say what you want to as much as like oh that's just sour grapes because they're not talking about your boy

no the guy's been pulling top three and they acted like this guy's not even a factor every fucking major media out in the country okay yeah we're literally reading verbatim brett stevens right well if if if all that weren't true and this came out, I would be like, I still wouldn't believe it, but I would pay lip service to it. You know what I mean? I would be like, okay, well, let's hear what that meeting was about and all that kind of shit. You know, let's explore that a little bit. Maybe he was just saying, you know, he didn't feel, it's just so, it's just so, it's so it's just you know president trump had something interesting even trump was like that's not a thing bernie would say what trump said that no way to me i'm

not so much that's a fucking joke i don't well he really would say it but i've not i know but to me that it's i'm just so angry i can't find the words i know i know what you mean because it's like a concerted uh hit job it's a fucking hit job it's a hit job we know it's so you all think it's been successful oh no probably no no no like people are angry enough about like donald trump was elected by grabbing pussies it's just okay i guess we are four years later and now maybe bernie can't get elected because he may be in a dark room said a woman couldn't become president i know i don't think that dad will have any we have a rapist to me in the fucking to me bernie whether he said this or not is immaterial to me me, that's not... That's what I'm saying.

Well, okay, but let me just say this. I don't think it matters so much what happened in the room. I don't think it matters so much what happened on the debate stage. What matters is, going back to the original hypothesis of this episode, is there an anti-corporate wing of the democratic party that needs a war a worry a warny coalition to smash the corporate side of the democratic party and uh if that's the case well then we might be fucked because i think it's spilled milk. I don't think you're putting the milk back into the bottle or the genie back into the...

After this? Yeah, I don't think, like... I just, I think that... You're not putting the milk genie back in the container. Yeah. I kind of think it's a different party. The Dems are over. Well, and so...

But this is... It's not a thing. We saw Liz Warren pick our side last night. That's what it was. But this is one's not a thing we saw liz warren pick our side last night but but this is one of the pitfalls of electoral politics and i hope that people stick with me here the thing about american electoral politics is that they are so personality driven like it's not even like the labor it's not even like the uk it's not even like a party that's running for government it's a single individual a person which means everything that person says or does could be entirely the whims of that person i mean we were talking in the hellfire chat today maybe it's the consultants

around warren that told her to do that or maybe elizabeth warren has been a singularly ambitious person in american politics, obsessed with solidifying her own legacy, as most politicians are, and probably thought that this would be the right calculated move. And if that's the case, then I say, fuck it. Let her go down her path. We've seen other politicians do this. This is how politics works.

Sometimes people in our personality-driven type of how politics works sometimes people in in our personality driven uh type of electoral system sometimes people make political choices and sometimes they take those you know choices to their logical conclusions and she can deal those consequences right and so there may there's nothing we can really even do about it at this point you just have to stay the course and just uh basically you know keep in mind what your objectives are throughout this whole thing whether it's my objective which is using this sort of cynically as a way to introduce radical politics into a larger mainstream audience or whether you are of the bernie cadre and you really genuinely want a social democracy in this country,

I think that those two visions need to be fused together for now. I think we need left unity, but I'm not sure that the Warren thing is qualified. Qualifies, I don't know. But, I mean, I told you this the other day. To me, the biggest, to me, the most, I don't know. But, I mean, I told you this the other day. To me, the biggest, to me, the most, I don't know. To me, the most promising thing about the Bernie thing is left unity. Yeah. Like, when have we seen that in our lives?

That's not a thing. You know what I mean? Like, imagine if, like, the left was an actually aggressive, powerful political force in this country i think bernie offers us a way to do that and and i'm talking about the entire left from fucking street anarchists to uh sock dims and people who want a sort of you know more robust welfare state i'm saying we need all of those things. But to me, Warren is the embodiment of just nonprofit, like, cynical gatekeepers. That's the thing. That's what it is. They're fucking gatekeepers.

They're not actually interested in building a mass movement. They're interested in saying all the smart things to you to let you know that they're aware of the problems in the system. They'll give you lip service to the fact that we need progressive change because we do deeply need it but they'll not actually go through with it right yeah yeah i think that to me is the in some ways you can respect an amy klobuchar or even a mayor pete more than that dog i have way more respect for amy klobuchar and pete because at least they're telling you no we, we're not going to fucking do this. No, we're not going to tape diplomas to everybody's seat.

Yeah, no, they're telling you we're not doing that. You're not getting health care. That's fine. Fuck them. At least they're fucking telling you. I don't have any time for this fucking intellectual abstract bullshit, which is like what we've had to put up with in the non-profits for the last 10 years yeah which is again people telling you i'm aware the problems exist i'm aware the blah blah i'm gonna read my new yorker articles about all the problems in the

world but not actually because look the only way you get change is through collective struggle and action and direct action shutting down shit that's the only way that's the only way i'm sorry you don't get it from enlightened despots who fucking know what to do with the economy and put a nice little wealth tax you need the threat of fucking pitch forks b-u-r-n not b-e-r-n exactly b. B-U-R-N. 2020. That is the left coalition we need, Tanya. We need burners and burners.

Yeah. I mean, because look, and I could see conceivably people listening to this and being like, well, this country just isn't that far left and you're just going to isolate more people. And you know what? What a fucking choice do we have? Exactly. Look around. You could be right. Look around. You could be right, but we don't have a whole lot of choices left

you have to keep going left that's the only fucking option because like to me the the debate just highlighted all my previous hesitations and preoccupations with electoral politics and mainstream media yeah and so and so to me the lesson i take away from that is keep going left try to build deeper bonds among the left kick out the people who aren't interested in that warren's not interested in it let them go their own way they'll do they'll do what they're gonna do maybe they'll vote for Bernie. Maybe not. Who the fuck cares? Do you think it's that people think that Bernie can't deliver what he says? I think that's like a lot of the Warren camp. It's like Bernie's just shooting off at the mouth.

He can't do any of that. She has, you know, a roadmap of how she's going to do these little incremental changes. Yeah. That we can believe in. Yeah, she was once a Republican, so maybe she knows the Republican mind. Yeah, it takes one to know one. Because that's just like, it's wild to me for people on the left, which means like you've caught a glimpse, like you have a vision for another world to not be behind the only person who is against u.s imperialism

like the people are rotting in cages this country over and all over the world under u.s occupation right now and any anything less than the end of that swiftly. It's unacceptable. It's totally unacceptable. Absolutely. That's disqualifying for Liz Warren 1. Completely. Yeah. Well, but... And everything is just kind of like a tributary under that. Yeah.

You're right. People do say that. People are like, you know, he won't be able to get his stuff done. But here's the thing. And this, again, this comes back to what I was saying earlier. Because I had someone in my mentions accuse me of, like, shilling for the sun god Bernie or whatever. Sun god? At no point have i ever fucking worship bernie you haven't been listening if you think yeah we've only been worshiping bernie for like three days yeah the only cnn right the only

thing the only reason i'm even into this is because of the numbers again it's it's that comes it's that simple for me. What he's been able to do. And to be fair, you've said that. I remember you saying something to me one day we were getting breakfast and you said that, you know, if Bernie doesn't pull this thing out, Bernie could still have the potential

to sort of spearhead a huge movement just by bringing those numbers and being this sort of, you know, union agitator type figure whatever you know i mean yeah yeah i'm just gonna it's like you know i hear if not bernie we write yeah and if bernie we still need to write and hopefully there will be less cages to put us in totally totally yeah also i mean as a practical matter the other thing too is this is if people get more conservative once they get in office i would rather have the guy that's starting with all this shit than the person that's starting with, we'll

eliminate 20% of your debt. You know what I'm saying? If we know all these people are going to get more conservative once they get in office, I would rather start with Bernie's position than anybody else's. Right. And again, for me, it's not even really, for me, when I look at the Bernie thing's it's not even really for me when i look at the bernie thing it's not even really so much the ends like to me it's the numbers and it's the movement yeah like if you are if you take leftist politics seriously in this country and you have

not completely just given up any hope for a social revolution which if you have i don't know why the fuck you would call yourself the leftist but whatever if that if that's what you if that's what you subscribe to if you're serious about that if it's about about radically transforming society you have to go where the numbers are and where the energy is and that's where it is yeah asking for a friend if you have given up what does that make you black peeled okay it's easy Me, five days out of the week. I've just been drawing the hermit card a lot, and I'm starting to listen. Just lean in to it. I was going to lean in to it.

Well, look, so we're an hour in, and there's still another big topic we need to get to, but we don't have to. I probably need to cut out a lot of my arson-y threats. You mean arson yeah arson is when you combine arson and larceny i said a lot of stupid things this episode just out of anger so just all right if you would just give me a soft cancellation instead of a full-blown cancel me please god just fucking roll me out on a gurney. Fucking dip me in the ocean. Okay. Set me out to sea. So the other big story in our world, at least,

is that there is now another coal blockade. This time in Pike County around Kemper? Is that where it was at? Yeah. Right around where Terrence got picked up. All by Zabulan. Yeah. Ah, yes.

Not even that far out. I thought about that. It is right where you got arrested. No, it really is, because I was like, man, I need to go check that out, but fuck am I. Yeah.

You don't want to go toe-to-toe with them motherfuckers again. You need to lay low, my friend. So there's been another... You've spent enough time on that roadside. Yeah. So there's been another you've spent enough time on that roadside yeah so there's been another coal blockade this time um against quest energy which is a subsidiary of

american resources corporation or arc another arc um the even darker arc if it's even possible um and uh and so these guys hadn't been paid since December 27th. That was their last paycheck. ARC owned mines in Perry County and Pike County, which are the two counties that are on both sides of the county we live in, in Letcher County. And Harlan County is the other adjacent county to ours, which is where the last coal blockade was back in the summertime.

So we're tucked into the two things yeah we are between the pack to the north harlem to the south yeah um so uh so these guys i mean i thought some of the quotes from this article were fucking crazy um so if i could just read you a few of the quotes from this article um i'm sure this uh let's see hold on i'm sorry hold on i'm sorry fuck fuck fuck um there's uh fuck let me tell you an intro while you're trying to find let me tell you an interesting thing i learned uh representative gooch in the state house everybody knows that bloated fuck he's yeah you know he's trying to ram through a bill right now possibly inspired by this that would make it illegal to protest certain types of energy infrastructure holy shit you know that's like

national security they're trying to make it like home like homeland security bullshit right i would love to just poke that fucker with a pen and watch the blueberry fucking goo just pour out of him. Let him do it. I say let him fucking do it. These people, like... People are already on the edge. Revolutions are made because the ruling class,

they get fucking... Kenneth Gooch was made. He was just born to get his head cut off by a bunch of angry people. Exactly. Let him fucking do it. Bring the pitchforks in. The irony of that and um

the liberal would have this retort uh which is uh kftc robbie would say this is there a robbie we say cut off the heads kftc um geraldine says um that the bevin administration the reason that this is all popped off, and I was telling Tony this before you got here, is the Bevin administration, I guess, was letting these broke-ass coal companies not post bonds before they got permits. Right, yeah. So generally, you have to prove to the state

that you're fiscally solvent. Solvent enough to cover everything you you need to but so bevin basically was like but but here's the confusing part i was telling tanya this from what i can tell the state cabinet was actually was actually being trying to be diligent about this stuff i guess but they weren't enforcing it or so i guess they weren't trying to be diligent about it but maybe they're trying to give the appearance that they were. He stuffed his cabinet with idiots. Charles Snavely. Yeah, literal like fucking... Coal

executives. Yeah. Literal coal executives. Who probably never spent a day in Frankfurt. Right. Even once they were cabinet-ly. It's like... They let the inmates run this asylum, didn't they? Look no further than his... Bevan's promotional video

where he took his entire cabinet out to lagrange and made them all throw grenades and then walk and slow-mo through the grenade smoke are you fucking serious you didn't see this no it's my favorite it's my favorite piece of film making just this man is you want to talk about a masterpiece and the whole thing is actually shot really beautifully until the end and he has insisted that someone do those like uh comic book uh um like silent batman versions where it's like kapow and it does like like kapow and it's like a pop up just like a thought cloud where it says like we're

throwing grenades at backroom deals and we're blowing up backroom deals we're blowing up whatever says the guy that would just four short years later take no this was a year ago this was this campaign this was this campaign okay this is very recent but yeah his whole campaign his whole his whole his whole cabinets out there walking in

grenade through grenade smoke smoke and slow-mo that's hilarious that's what they're doing they're not enforcing any any useful all right so the fucking herald leader has a paywall i just cannot get past it but but i did i did screenshot a few quotes last night but they're not the ones i was looking for but i'll just read you the ones i do have um near midnight monday mary and timmy george of pike county set by a fire at the tracks and worried about their three children the rent is past due and as for other bills it's coming down to the wire at christmas they did this at christmas it's been a month yeah uh or about yeah three weeks really that's the night i had my mental breakdown they're expecting them to come down here every day and not get a dime mary george said

we have families just like they do um and so then there was a couple of other quotes we just want paid that's it said this coal miner we don't want to block this train but it comes to a point that we have to you're gonna go three weeks without a payday you're gonna let that train go through here so they can put the money in their pocket and just say to heck with us no they can't do that um and i quoted that on twitter with this quote it's like dumbass like politics doesn't have to be any more complicated than this but as i was reading the quote i was like dude that's like so far beyond just regular politics like that is serfdom that is serfdom is what this is you go three weeks without a payday and let the train go through here so they can put the money in their pocket and just say to heck with us.

Dude, things are so fucking bad. I mean, you can see the mental. I mean, like, this is this is really well written piece written in the Herald Leader by Will Wright and Bill East. But you can see it in the people they interview, the calculus they arrived at to do this. They're like, we have no other choice. Like, we don't have they arrived at to do this they're like we have no other choice like we don't have any other thing to do yeah we are completely broke you know bills are way past due one of the guys in the articles and this is the quote i was looking for i can't find it one of the guys in the article says that he was like literally starving his family was

literally starving like they had no money for food this just goes to show you three fucking weeks even people with these like high paying skilled labor job whatever this like american dream fucking job even though it's literal torture these jobs that that have so much valor behind them and that we like worship the fucking coal miner even these jobs people are living paycheck to motherfucking paycheck totally that is misery that is violence living paycheck to paycheck is fucking violence right now like like stuck in this system that that in that inevitably someone's gonna go hungry yeah like there's no there's no other end game there's has to be losers yeah here's something I'm interested in with this one that really didn't factor in much in Harlan County

because there's not a ton of wealth in Harlan County. Pike County, there is a ton of wealth. Fuck yeah. Right there in the face of these people. So I'm interested to see how all those co-millionaires that made their money off the backs of those people are going to react when it's right there in their face in their own backyard versus Harlan County

where you don't really have that you know so there's a lot of things to say about this um and before we move on to the next thing about it one of the things i found so fascinating is how you know that scene is kind of a hack thing to do but you know that scene in inglorious bastards where he's like like, you know, after you go home, you're going to want to take off that uniform. Yeah. Like, that's how I've... This is how I've felt all week.

Can't wait to brand a bastard. This is how I've felt all week with every motherfucker who came out, like, whether they're a politician, a lobbyist, or whatever, who was running the Friends of Cole thing five years ago. Like, all the people who said they were friends of fucking Cole.

Wish they were branded on their motherfucking foreheads. And now they've just gone off into the world to work. Like, Bill Bissett now works at the fucking West Virginia Chamber of Commerce or something. Like, I just want, yes,

I want it branded on their fucking foreheads. They're so stupid, they're still driving around cars with those fucking plates. Every time I see a fucking Fokker plate, I get it branded on their fucking foreheads. They're so stupid. They're still driving around cars with those fucking plates. Every time I see a fucking fucker plate, I get so fucking mad. So fucking mad. FOC.

Right across it. Friend of Con. I'm just like, you sons of bitches. That's the fascinating thing about it. Maybe this is the thing about, maybe this is the overall theme of this episode. Who are your real friends, bro? Is it Elizabeth Warren? Is it people, is it the people telling you they're friends of coal i mean because like they poured millions of dollars into convincing people that

the bosses were actually their friends the real enemy was the environmentalists you know millions of dollars that they made off their backs exactly exactly it could be money the money literally came from coal production yeah because the coal companies just paid these fucking front groups to run a campaign. A PR campaign to convince their workers not to riot. Yes. Money well spent. Right. And so now we're in a fucked up situation where there's no bargaining chip, sadly.

There's no bargaining chip. And like we were talking about before you got here, me and Tanya were talking about this. Before you got here, me and Tonya were talking about this. Now the industry is so bad that it's not even robust enough to mount a serious union drive. Like the UMWA is so fucking just scattered. They're not made of fucking peat. So they can't fucking unionize. And have been. Right.

But at the same time, it creates this situation. They mentioned this in the article. A lot of the equipment these guys were using was bucked up. Antiquated. Yeah, antiquated. So now you've got

the situation where the coal itself, the production is even more unsafe. The guarantee of a paycheck is even more precarious but there's no hope

for a union. I'll tell you this, I mean a lot of people don't believe this when I tell them but my brother-in-law who's still by no small miracle working as a coal miner, when he was working for Revelation,

they would have a guy drive out on the strip job and pay those men out in cash. That's crazy. Like cash, money. Yeah, seriously. This was the biggest coal company in the country a couple months ago until it should hit the fan with that hoop stuff. This is why I had a theory five years ago that all these companies buying up all these new mines

or all these old mines were just organized crime outfits laundering money. Yeah. Well, two things. One, there's evidence for that. There is precedence for it. Plenty of evidence for that,'s plenty plenty plenty evidence for that including this last like article that popped out where that this guy that owned a mine in um our mine was running a sex ring has been running a sex ring in laurel county and he literally in one of the text

messages that they quote in the article he says i'm gonna lay low for a few days gotta bankrupt this company that's literally quoted in text messages literally said that in a text message got to lay low a few days well but but but that was the first thing the second thing though is that revelation not to mention the i would like to see the numbers from quest or arc whatever is that there were multiple deaths like yeah like those people who blockaded that fucking train in harlan they had seen multiple co-workers die in the last two years oh well my parents were over there that one day they were taught they were telling us fucked up shit dog they were telling us some of the darkest things i've ever heard they said this guy died so dangerous cold dust inhalation just in

one fell swoop when it collapsed on him yeah he didn't die in the fall, but the dust was so much he inhaled it all at once and it overtook his lungs. They were telling us about guys being mangled in continuous mining machines. Yep, the cords. Literally, that happened. That was a 23-year-old dude. That happened like a year and a half ago.

And I freaked out about it because that's the company my sister's boyfriend works for. The kid raising my nephews. It was revelation. This was before I saw i saw black jewels for all this popped off but i read and i was like oh my god what the fuck because i thought it must have been at his mind but there were multiple minds in harlan county but yeah the guy literally died from being tangled up in cord yeah yeah it's fucked up my cousin donald told me and i don't say this to be macabre i say this to bear witness because people need to know that people still die every fucking day to so you can fucking

have electricity and shit the world over and all this here yeah the world over and people's like oh no no we're on natural gas not yeah well for the majority of your life we're all gonna die eventually in a long enough time. Yeah, totally. But he said that he was in a rock fall and he got hurt. Like I think it might have crushed his foot or something. He had to have a surgery or something. But his buddy died and he said he looked over and 10 feet from him, the guy's jaw that was like they were standing there was turned in.

He was sticking out of the rock pile and turned upside down. It had mangled him that much. And imagine seeing that shit. Imagine seeing that shit. And these people don't even have health care. They have health care

savings cards. Well, my same cousin has to do breathing treatments every night because he's got stage three complications. And they fucking all... He's 41 years old. Jesus. And they all have PTSD. Yeah.

Especially. You see something like that, you don't come back for that. I would love to see the numbers on deaths from ARC because if they're using all this fucking rusted out old equipment, these motherfuckers are not only working, they're like... Death traps. Absolutely. They're crawling into a death trap every single day. commitment these motherfuckers are not only working they're like death traps absolutely they're they're crawling into a death trap every my buddy keith i was talking to him and i was i was just thinking man i was like trying to encourage him like to go get tested for the you know do the breathing test and all that kind of shit because he was like man i worked every day

for 15 years and never wore a mask and like and was up there on the strip jobs where they're just like dust all the time. You're just breathing that shit in. Yeah. Bernie threatened to come to Harlan. Maybe he'll drop into Pike County. Maybe this will be how he – He should.

He should. He needs a good PR move right now. I don't even think that. I just think he should because he can win Kentucky. I'm telling you, he can win Kentucky if he wins Eastern telling you he can win kentucky if he wins eastern kentucky yeah it's just that i don't think if kftc robbie and the boys don't fuck him over i just feel like nobody feels like they need kentucky to win no no but i mean it's true they don't they don't but i mean eight electoral votes is a big swing especially eight unexpected

electoral vote um well i'm not really sure what to take away from all that not a whole lot of Eight electoral votes is a big swing, especially eight unexpected electoral votes. Well, I'm not really sure what to take away from all that. Not a whole lot of... B-U-R-N. Not... All the coal in that. Tonya, I'm glad you brought this up. I'm glad you brought this topic up. Because I think that they should bomb the coal train.

Thank you, Mayor Pete. I think they should strap C4 explosives to it and bomb it sky high. Mayor Pete, you could probably go show them how to do that. I'm going to go down there. I spent a lot of time blowing up... Villages? Villages. Villages.

I mean... Bread prices. Bread prices. Bread prices. Bread process. Bread process. Bread process. Bread process. Thank you. Thanks for being on the show today, Mayor Pete. Thank you for having me.

I'll be back if that's okay. I'll come back after I've won the primary. All right. We'll see you then. All right. Well, I guess go support us at Patreon. There hasn't been a whole lot of laughs in this episode. It's kind of got dark at times.

I was really just angry. I'm just angry. No, man. There's a lot to be angry about. I'm really exhausted and pissed. Everyone deserves to be angry, people. Yep. Elizabeth Warren voters, you should be angry.

All of you. Yeah. Everyone deserves their anger. Don't direct it at me. But definitely be angry. Everybody. Everyone deserves their anchor. Don't direct it at me. But definitely be angry. Everybody. You're right. Especially those coal miners, though.

Hopefully they get to a boiling point where, like you said, they blow up the train. But they probably won't. Because Americans just haven't gotten that push yet. But look. That's common. It's common. There was a point in American history where we were bombing all kinds of shit.

Like, honestly, the labor movement was nowhere in the world as militant as it was in the late 1800s. It wasn't like that in Europe in the late 1800s. In America, we're bombing, we're blowing up all kinds of shit. It can happen here. It has to start somewhere. Has to start sometime.

What better time than now? But seriously. Well, this is probably for another episode, but murders and bombings is one of the things that took out the local labor movement here yes and it could bring it the fuck back that's what we're gonna have to do to bring it back but it had again it has to start somewhere and you have to start injecting radical

politics into everyday interactions occurrences and everything and and you again, as a leftist, if you're a revolutionary, you need to look for all the ways to do that. One way is through Bernie. Another way, we didn't talk about this today, and this episode is almost over, but another way, I saw it, was those moms in Oakland who occupied that house. Fuck yeah.

Did you see that? That was fucking crazy. So sick. Yeah. But then the cops, you know. Drug them off. Do what they do do if you look at their response that should show you of how what the stakes are for this shit you know what i mean

like this their extra militant response that they needed SWAT tanks to remove families from a house because they have nowhere else to live so over plan their hand Don't get their head cut off. Exactly. Truly. And in Oakland, guarantee there are more houses than people. Yes. Oh, yeah. In the Bay Area. I was watching the press release. The woman was talking about like, if you're a working class person in Oakland, you literally cannot afford to live here.

They charge you to leave that city. Crazy. Craziest toll I've ever heard. Yeah. They charge you to leave that city. Crazy. Craziest toll I've ever heard. Nah. $15. Well, anyways, look for the, heighten the contradictions.

Look for the, look for them and heighten them. And then, like, break something. We don't have time to settle. That's all there is to it. Go to this Patreon if you want to support us.

We'll be there. If you thought this was good, we'll try to cool it by Sunday. We'll cheer you up on Sunday. Well, have a good week, everybody.