Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 133: The Promise Zone

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

This week on the Trillbillies: Ewar and the DNC resort to mad scientist tactics, Amy McGrath bombs a few more houses, and the gang enters the Promise Zone, a weird and mysterious place where your labor will be even more exploited than it already is. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

All right, Tom. Sounds like Mr. Ray is dodging some questions about ending up on Team Liz's email chain. Yeah, that seems to me, too. It's been going around. Let's face it. Luckily story. Let's face it. Last night didn't go the way we wanted it to go.

You're Pete so much better than you're Liz. That's pretty close we were hoping for a better result new hampshire and a lot of volunteers and grassroots supporters fought really hard to make it happen it hurts to care so much work so hard and still fall a little short god damn ain't that the truth so it's okay to take a moment and feel that pain or process that disappointment take a walk around the block eat an extra piece of chocolate hug your pet adopt a pet watch videos of cats and dogs who are friends watch videos of cats and dogs who are free. What? I feel like this is a PSA to convince someone not to hang themselves. Oh, goddammit. I just hung up on Tom because I got another call.

Who is fucking with us? Sorry, Tom. You're going to have to tell your bill collectors to give us a fucking hour. My bad. I hung up on you. You missed my punchiest joke. I said, watch the Nickelodeon Nicktoon Cat Dog.

God, that's a good one. Call a friend, whatever works. But once you've let it all out, take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and make a plan. A plan to fight back and win. A plan to help make sure

that we don't have to feel this way again. Elizabeth has only taken the first few steps of a marathon. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary decide less than 2% of the delegates. Today, we start fighting even harder for the next 98%. Tom, what the fuck? She basically said, fuck this low-limit bullshit. Let's go for the big prize.

It's time to persist. Elizabeth needs your help to run an aggressive advertising, organizing, and outreach program to grow our movement across the country. We have a plan to win, and you are part of it. I don't know. So, did you watch her speech last night that she gave i did i also watched amy klobuchar's which i've asked which i've seen twice before she gave the exact same speech that she's given twice before she has a problem with doing that

oh amy yeah she'll tell the same joke like over and over again she's on repeat it's like a little biden-esque i won't have y'all talk about queen amy like that i'll be honest with you i'm getting seriously dark and chaotic vibes from liz right now um chaotic evil yeah i'm getting chaotic evil vibes from Liz Warren right now. That's no good. Seriously, like, her first instinct was to attack Bernie. Love that. Love that. Right.

She's had that instinct for the past two months. That's been her go-to. Her greatest hit. Do you think this is why people don't like her i mean i feel like she was okay like before i mean personality wise like she was fine before this election but she's really like bitter yeah this is what ambition does to people though like i mean i when people talk about liz warren not being likable i don't find her unlikable to start peeling into her record i think she's fine i mean the whole cherokee thing is weird and not cool but i mean like just to talk to her i think yeah she's she's got this kind of folksy affect and she's she's more or less fine there are only like

three likable people in politics who Who in politics is likable? Yeah. It's ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous. None of these people are likable. Who are your three, Tanya? AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Bernie. And Bernie.

Yeah, that's about right, honestly. It's my top three. I don't know. I might be able to get in a little more, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head honestly yeah in elected office well you don't like senator kennedy from louisiana i don't know lindsey graham no yeah lindsey's favorite. What a baboon. Well, it's the day after the New Hampshire primary, and hopefully you've all been watching videos of cats and dogs who are friends.

Cat dog, cat dog. Alone in the world was a little cat dog. God damn it. Remember that, Tom? Adopt a cat dog. That's the new Warren platform. Ad a little cat dog. God damn it. Remember that, Tom? Adopt a cat dog. That's the new Warren platform. Adopt a cat dog. Scientific. That's a good one.

Fuse two animals together at the hip and adopt it. Warren's on some evil mad scientist shit. Some evil chaotic shit mad scientist shit. She's like that Italian doctor that was going to do the head transplant on the Russian guy. Did you ever read about the experiments with monkeys trying to transplant brains and they lived for a few minutes? Oh, yeah. Like intense pain.

Man, that shit fucked me up. So dark. I had one of those guys in our list of profiles in Courage. Oh, wow. Sergio something. I forget his name. It might have been Vladimir Demikhov. Yeah, it was.

Vladimir Demikhov was a Soviet scientist and organ transplantation pioneer who performed several transplants in the 1940s and 1950s, including the transplantation of a heart into an animal and a heart-lung replacement in an animal. He's also well known for his dog head transplants, which he conducted during the 1950s, resulting in two-headed dogs. This ultimately led to the head transplants in monkeys by Dr. Robert White, who was inspired by Demikhov's work

Did Did you have that bookmarked? I did Jesus fucking cross Well How successful is Demikhov? Well he Um

Well he Well he successfully In the 40s and 50s I'm going to say not very By the time American surgeons became aware Of Demikhov's dog had transplantations In 1959 he had already been performing These procedures for 5 years In his garage In his dacha, his summer home

This is fucked up In his garage. In his dacha, his summer home. This is fucked up. What happened to Mad Scientist? What do you mean? Why are we just not doing that anymore? They became celebrities and billionaires. Yeah, everyone's kind of mad now. Yeah, yeah. Elon of mad now. Yeah. Yeah.

But Elon Musk is not exactly a portrait of sanity. Oh, no. Right. He's also not a scientist, really, but details. You know, I don't know if this is unique to capitalism. Okay? I don't know if this is unique to capitalism, but is this the only economic system where scientists, philanthropists, billionaire, playboy, industrialists, that all gets thrown in the mix and nobody really...

What are Elon Musk's credentials? Does he have a PhD in rocket science or something? Do you know what I'm saying? I don't think so, man. I think he's like literally a rich kid who started paypal no one's ever told him no this is what happens these rich people they never hear the word no it's very important for people to hear the word no and be able to accept it it's it's interesting because like you look at like meteorologists on TV aren't really scientists either.

They're people with communications degrees like me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I will not have you slander meteorology. Well, I'm just saying it's just kind of proof that we do live in that Adam Curtis-y like sort of semi-synthetic world where like, you don't really have to be, you know, learned in anything to like do it at a high level. And for people to think you're like,

you know, and I'm not saying that's like necessarily the end all be all to have right credentials, because I understand people don't necessarily have access to education in this country either. And all that sort of thing. But, um,

it does inspire confidence. If like Elon Elon Musk had, like, you know, built some, like, rockets in college or something like that, you know? Wow. No, you just have to be confident in what you're saying and doing. I mean, I'm a complete dilettante. I have zero expertise in shit. Thousands of people listen to us every week. But thousands of people listen to us every week we don't but thousands of people

listen to us every week and well punditry is like a number one the arch example of this have y'all ever watched this documentary called the world of dr nakamatsu no no so it's about this guy he's like this like kind of japanese eccentric that like calls himself a doctor. It's not clear if he is actually a doctor or if he is, it's not clear that he's even like a, a doctor that would like, you know, that would lend itself well to do what he does.

But he has, he holds all these patents and he basically makes these like wild grandiose claims about the patents. Like he's got this like machine that looks like a hollowed out like uh racing usa or cruising usa like arcade game you know like the one you like you sit and drive the car in yeah and then like you put on this helmet that's attached to a tube and it's supposed to like wipe your bad memories or something. And what's interesting is like, he's kind of revered as like sort of a kitschy cultural figure in Japan, but like he also gets like,

like on the documentary, like George H.W. Bush had written him a letter, like congratulating for his like accomplishments and stuff. And like really what it is, is he's just kind of like this like rich borderline sociopathic like weirdo and that's all it takes to get purchased in this world truly truly well i mean if you need no further proof like you've got fucking um mayor pete basically yeah look no further so yeah this is the day after the new hampshire

primary um bernie won but you literally would not know that yeah if you got all of your news from mainstream sources msnbc cnn i was texting you all last night in disbelief that they wouldn't even say Bernie was winning. No. They just kept saying top three, top three. Amy just soaring. My Apple News Spotlight notification on my phone. Hello, Klobuchar, goodbye, Yang.

Oh, and a winner was actually declared. Here's what comes next. It's like didn't say who the a winner was actually declared here's what comes next it's like didn't say who the fucking winner was i don't know why i keep being shocked but i am i'm kind of just floored and i'm almost scared it's so amazing they're trying to make amy klobuchar story it's like she lost by what like 10 000 votes or something and they want to like it's like she lost by, what, like 10,000 votes or something, and they want to like—it's like what you were talking about earlier, Terrence, with the participation trophy stuff. The Democrats are doing nothing to dispel that trope about themselves that the Republicans hold. I'm genuinely convinced that the reason Warren hasn't dropped out yet is because every candidate gets their round.

Like the DNC told Pete, like, all right, Pete, you're going to get Iowa. Amy, you're going to get New Hampshire. Biden, you'll get South Carolina. And Warren, you'll get Nevada. You know what I mean? Like they're just anointing each one in advance. Because it is all media narratives, ultimately. Did you watch Mayor Pete's speech?

I did. He's starting to sound more and more like Obama. He's starting to sound more and more like Obama. I couldn't believe, I closed my eyes even and tried to imagine Obama. He sounded so much like him. We've talked about this a lot on the show, but there have been a string of candidates for years now who it seems like they have hired the exact same PR firm that Obama used used like allison grimes talked exactly like obama yeah joaquin castro talks like him now pete well they i mean they've been hung up on the story of

us since then that was like they created this whole like new not new they packaged it as new way to tell a story the story of me the story of you the story of us the story of we the story of now the story of the future right and they think what no go ahead i'm sorry it's, it's an equation they think they can keep sending down the line. Well, ultimately it's because, and we talked about this last week, it's ultimately because it's still inconceivable to them that people would vote for a candidate outside of the same sort of market logic that dictates every other sort of product and commodity. So like they genuinely still think, and I think this is why they fundamentally hate the Bernie movement and why they're just ignoring it altogether,

is that like they don't have a consumer base in the Bernie movement. It's like they can't sell them anything. Whereas like with Pete, you know, you can easily market him like any other. Like this has been the sort of MO of politics

going back forever, you know, until Trump came along basically and sort of shattered it on the right wing. Well, they talked about this on NBC last night. MSNBC, while they were talking, they started ranting. The only time they really talked about Bernie was they went on a rant about how Bernie only indicts. He doesn't incite hope.

And hope is what historically has won Democratic elections. That's what they said. And Bernie only indicts. He only talks about what's bad. And Bernie only indicts. He only talks about what's bad. I'd like for my, I'd like for Joy and Reed to go talk to my mom who's waiting on an organ transplant and say that. Literally, it's like, what hope is left? The Virginia Statehouse just passed that they are going to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2025.

In 2025. Not only that, they announced that they will not be passing a right to work or, you know, doing away with right to work. Yeah. These, they think,

and this is with, after they've got a slew of new progressives in there or whatever. Right. That's completely insane. 2025. I've got an idea for a candidate. Here's what

we're going to do. What was the Russian guy's name again? Vladimir Demikhov. You couldn't remember Vladimir Demikhov? I'm going to go out on a limb and say Demikhov. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Demikhov. I'm going to go out on a limb and say

that Comrade Demikhov isn't in the Union anymore, is he? No, he's dead. Is that what you're implying? Yeah, well, we'll have to go find Sergio Caro, whatever his name was, the Italian dude that was going to do the head transplant on the Russian guy.

Here's what we're going to do. We're going to go pluck Juan Guaido out of Caracas, and we're going to fuse Mayor Pete's head to him. So what you have is a two-headed Obama boy. So Juan Guaido looks like Obamaama but mayor pete talks like him so you get both of everything and it's going to incite some like like some obama nostalgia when you have this like fucking freak hybrid human candidate i like it and trust me mayor pete would do that if he could be president

the democrats would 100 do that if they knew it could be Bernie. They would run a science experiment with Mayor Pete. They're going to do that. They're going to fuse Amy's head onto Pete's body. Because this is what they keep saying. They're like, if you combine all of them together, they'd be Bernie. Yeah. They want a superhuman. They want some. It's insane. They really Bernie. Yeah. They want a superhuman.

They want some. It's insane. They really are. They want to be a superhuman. What would the Biden-Klobuchar-Warren-Budich hybrid look like? Lucifer. No, I worship Lucifer. Never mind.

What part would you keep from all of them like you gotta have uncle joe as your talking head though hey we have to have joe's eyeballs yeah you gotta have joe's eyes bloodshot eyes bloodshot eyes you gotta have amy's um steely gaze her steely determination um you gotta have e-war's chaotic energy her howard ratner-esque energy her hands like she talks with her hands are a crazy lot yeah yeah yeah and then you gotta have mayor pete's combat skills last night they didn't even um when they like the news anchors talked directly to elizabeth warren yeah and they didn't even really ask her to speak about why she lost they asked her about the department of justice shenanigans which as a senator oh she's like it was really really wild day for the senate huh like like this fucking primary didn't just even

happen they will give everybody as much benefit as of the doubt as they can get like at first you know over the last few months i was like they're making a huge error by throwing all these candidates at bernie because like they're going to be they're all splitting up the same electorate whereas bernie people have been with him since the beginning and that's been more or less true but it really is unfortunate that and i think that this really was their plan all along to put as many people into it as possible. Because, like, Bernie barely squeaked by in New Hampshire, like, with 3,000 votes or something. You know, and in Iowa, we saw how that went in Iowa.

So I think that it really is hurting him having all these candidates in the fucking race. Like, especially Warren. She needs to drop out fucking, yesterday but she won't but they still he beat nine fucking candidates i know and they won't even say that he won nine people nine fucking people well let me ask you i don't know if y'all been lucky enough to finagle yourself off the dnc mailing, but there's something interesting that came down two days ago that Barack Obama announced. What's that? It's called the Democratic Unity Fund.

Just let me read this email. Before New Hampshire Democrats start voting tomorrow, I need you to read an important update about the critical importance of the Democratic Unity Fund and then donate $10 to that fund to fund the infrastructure that our nominee and candidates down the ticket will use to defeat Trump and the GOP. Here's the most disconcerting part. The Democratic Unity Fund, an effort announced and spearheaded by President Barack Obama back in May, addresses key concerns regarding our eventual nominee in their fight against Trump.

This historic primary process has been thorough and long. Democratic candidates have spent months spreading their message of progress across the country. Our party can't afford our future nominee to burn out once the general election starts. The Democratic Unity Fund is the key to ensuring that that doesn't happen. Trump has been fundraising and campaigning tirelessly since his inauguration. He spent millions on advertisements, staffing, and rallies before the general election even started. The Democratic Unity Fund will help bridge the resource gap and ensures that our nominee, whoever that may be, will get a head start.

No matter who our nominee is, they're going to need a groundswell of support to combat Trump's incumbency advantage. We'll need to unite and mobilize millions of people to the polls on November 3rd, but the Democratic Unity Fund can make that happen. And so far, 92,000 have shown their support for the fund. And then it says, unfortunately, our records show that you haven't supported us. So basically, the Democrats have started this fund, it seems like, as a way to help out the cash-strapped people that are vying to win the nomination. And it seems like it's in part sort of the fulfillment of the promise of Barack Obama who said if Bernie Sanders starts surging, then he's going to do something about it. It looks like the thing they're doing is trying to level the fundraising discrepancies between Bernie and the other campaigns with this shit.

Yeah. I think that's exactly right. Well, we're really just propping up, you know, whoever our nominee is down the line. But it says that like, that we need the infrastructure no matter who our nominee is. So it's just interesting that, that, you know, this seemingly innocuous thing, which is never innocuous because my hunch is that, you know is that Michael Bloomberg is probably the 96,000 donors in a trench coat.

Right. Yeah, this is how they're going to funnel Bloomberg's money to everybody. It's wealth redistribution, guys. Yeah, it is socialism of a kind. That's for sure. But I don't know it's just it's just the rat fuckery knows no bounds last night i did watching the returns i did start to think about the uh the dnc the uh the actual what did they call it? The convention? The convention, yeah. What about it?

Just like, what we might have to do. What we are going to have to do to actually... Yeah. You know, my first thought was I'm going to have to get on Signal again. Yeah, we're emerging from Social Justice League retirement. And we're getting back into the game.

Downloading Signal, masking up, writing our attorney's name in Sharpie on the inside of our arms. Mine's tattooed. I got it tattooed permanently, so I don't have to worry about it anymore. Carrying milk around for when we get tear gassed. Oh, my God. Yeah, the True Bellies are reemerging from Social Justice League retirement to do some DA. So, Democrats better fucking be on watch, Because we're coming back with the DA. Are you scared?

You haven't seen a Trillbilly DA since 2016. Or 17, maybe. God. It's the last time that she... Yeah, there's pictures of it on the internet, though. Speak for yourself. It's also the last time terrence was wearing a suit yeah although this very day i had lunch at pine mountain grill and out in the foyer

where you come in and out there's a little cork board and someone had put up a flyer uh advertising a men's rights group meeting and i ripped it down and took it out. What the fuck? There's a little DA for you right this fucking morning. Yeah, that's some DA. I just walked out with it. Mattel was like giggling behind me. Like, oh, I need this. I'm going to call these people. That's some DA.

All right, so let's switch gears here to Kentucky. There's a few Kentucky items I want to hit today. Giddy up. Now, I have to fucking... Okay. So, Mitch McConnell's challenger, Amy McGrath, opposes Medicare for All and free college in new ad. And I can't fucking open the goddamn article because it's behind a paywall. Is it New York Times?

No, it's in the Louisville Courier-Journal. It's like, good God. Bro, you gotta get those thumbs, man. You gotta hit that X. You gotta move it quick. You gotta move it quick. Oh, dude, you can't do it for this, but I will open it in private. Does that help?

Yeah. You can do it in incognito mode, I think. No, you can't. Oh, you can. All right. Y'all want to watch the ad? I think, Tom, you should be able to hear it on your side. Let's see.

Let's see if we can pull it up. I feel like I haven't heard anything from her in a while. She's laid very low. It's very strange. They had a deep spiritual cleansing and re-strategizing process, Terrence. They've been hiding out at Fort Knox. Oh, Jesus Christ. Like, this is what they're running against Mitch.

They're running the same thing as Mitch. They're really literally running female Mitch. Yeah. It's fucking incredible. Here it is. As a fighter pilot and a Marine, I was always focused on the mission. And you couldn't buy your way out of a tough spot. Then, as a national security advisor

i was focused on keeping our country safe i'm amy mcgrath and now i'm running for senate because it's clear we need a government focused on doing what's right for regular kentuckians we need a senator who fights for things like affordable health care college and technical school not tax cuts for wealthy donors that doesn't mean free college or medicare for all What the fuck? Amazing. Amazing. Imagine fixing your fucking lips to say not Medicare for all. She says.

You don't deserve that. The way it was framed, it was so bizarre. It was, it was, um, that means getting away from wealthy private donors. However, that does not mean I support Medicare for all. I'm against that. I'm against Medicare for all. Did they poll? Did they do any polling um do they really think

that kentucky's we had one of the most successful states of the affordable care the expansion of medicare yeah what do you think that is tom do you think they polled or do you think that that's all intuition like they think kent Kentucky's very conservative, and therefore they need to attack to the center. They don't want to be left... Sorry, go ahead. First off, what needs to be said is that

these are the literal dumbest people you could imagine are running this campaign. So that needs to be said off the top. Right. Okay. Literally, they've got Vladimir, whatever his name's, corpse could imagine are running this campaign so that needs to be said off the top right okay literally they've got vladimir whatever his name's corpse in a trench coat along with the two-headed boy juan guado pete buddages right and that's spelled juan guado slash pete buddages uh for your transcripts so we should never suggest that they've pulled anything out

because the reality is they haven't because the reality is the McGrath campaign is not a serious campaign that's geared towards stopping Mitch McConnell it's a fucking shell campaign that's geared toward fundraising and making her like a national entity she's on a one way ticket to being an MSNBC

pundit and I don't think you can take anything that comes out of that campaign seriously. Because she's been running for goddamn two years now and is only now coming to an ethos. You know what I mean? Right. And it's a bad one. And it's a loser. It's a huge fucking loser.

But she's going to be able to get into Rob Reiner's pockets with it. You know what I mean? So keep going. Did Bernie not win Kentucky? Did he just win Eastern Kentucky in the last presidential primary? Didn't he win all of Kentucky? No, he lost by like less than 1,000 votes, like 800 or 900 votes. It was really tight.

They basically split the delegates, I think. I mean, Hillary got more, obviously, but he picked up a lot of delegates here gotcha um i think he'll win pretty pretty outright this year it's just it just floors me that they think i mean literally half of kentuckians signed up for healthcare when it suddenly became available with Connect. Well, when they examine Mitch McConnell's unpopularity,

they never ask what's behind it. Like, this is what's fascinating to me about this talking point that Mitch McConnell's unpopular. Unpopular for what reason? Is it because... For why? Is it because he's, like, beholden to... For why? Is it because he's beholding the corporate donors or is it because he's never actually done things like

Medicare for All or any of this stuff? He's a ghoul. It never occurs to them that he might be unpopular because... He never does shit for anyone. He's never done anything for Kentuckians. Right. So it's like they just want to run and they did this exact same thing with Alison Lundgren-Grimes in 2014

where they ran a candidate who was Mitch Light and lost, and they were—I mean, like, they just—they don't want to win. But you're right, Tom. That's not the point. The point is to get Amy a job on MSNBC doing the exact same shit all the other MSNBC pundits do, every night bashing Bernie. Well, you can also, it's like, the really egregious thing about that is, is the same people casting aspersions on Bernie are the people that never fucking win anything.

Like, Claire McCaskill needs to shut the fuck up because she lost her election, right? Right. Claire McCaskill needs to shut the fuck up because she lost her election, right? To my knowledge, Senator Bernard Sanders hasn't lost anything except for the 2016 primary. But when the big prize is at hand, he shows up. It's fascinating. Someone pointed this out on Twitter. I can't remember who it was.

But it's a sort of general observation and one that I've felt for a while, too. It's that MSNBC hates Bernie way more than CNN and even Fox News. Fox News last night was like Bernie won New Hampshire. You know what I mean? Like, they could just call it for what it is. Like, MSNBC will not. Well, because Fox News doesn't care. Right.

They think there's, they are sure they're getting four more years of Trump. Oh, absolutely. They don't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck about this primary. MSNBC, everything, everything that's important to them. It hangs in the balance. All the comforts they have in this world are hanging in the balance of this primary. And Fox News could not give less fucks no about this stupid fucking primary you know how bad it is last week we had that episode where we were talking

about trump's like unhinged post impeachment speech well he gave that speech um and in so doing blew off a photo op with Juan Guaido. Who's that? He is the Venezuelan opposition guy. Like the guy who declared himself leader of Venezuela or whatever. Also, one half of the presumptive 2020 nominee. Yes, biologically one half of the 2020 nominee once he's fused with mayor pete's body oh right gotcha um but so the democrats threw a big fit about that that that trump blew off juan guaido and so as a one-up against him nancy pelosi called him in and had her own press conference with Juan Guaido.

I mean, these people have to be utterly destroyed. Buried. Completely destroyed. Like, we are, our generation now has the historical necessity, like, the historical task. If nothing else, even if we don't get Bernie in

the presidency, we must destroy the Democratic party we have to whatever it takes yeah i mean imagine honestly i almost prefer it this way because i was actually kind of today talking to michelle and imagining if the democratic party actually rallied around bernie and like just was like okay this is the party now if they were just that desperate you know yeah and we're just trying to pick up all his support and just pull it into the party and pretend like that's the party now right and i almost i'm like that that that would piss me off more honestly right because i feel like i've been so pissed that they've they've fucked him over so much And I almost am like, that would piss me off more, honestly. Right. Because I feel like I've been so pissed that they've fucked him over so much and have been just like. They fought it so hard.

Such fucks. But honestly, the alternative pisses me off too. Which I just really leveled with today. This is all very bizarre. Yeah, it's all very bizarre. Well, another bizarre thing coming out of kentucky another thing i wanted to hit um so every now and then i feel like we have a few kentucky episodes this is going to be one of them so we've spent half an hour talking about the

presidential election though so i don't know um well trust me there's some more i've got some some dirt some juice um he's got some bookmarks folks buckle up um so okay so i wanted to say you know this is item number two on our sort of kentucky centric list i wanted to kind of make an announcement to the audience and um the announcement is this i know it's easy to feel like uh you know there's no justice in the world and that like you see guys like trump winning and um you know there's not a whole lot of hope and you don't know if the things will ever get better or more more importantly you don't know if there will ever be retribution for the people who have brought all the bad things to the world spoiler i just want to probably won't but i just want to i just want to say

that if that's you and you're not feeling any hope in that realm, far away, tucked in a tiny corner of eastern Kentucky, is a little county called Letcher County, where the elite of that county, for 20 years, tried to bring a prison here, and then put all their eggs into the Trump basket, thinking he would be the person to bring the prison here. Finally deliver that. Yes.

A little goose egg. thinking he would be the person to bring the prison here finally deliver that yes and and i know we've mentioned this multiple times on the show but once again trump has passed another budget that has squashed their prison homes and you get another round of them all of all of these fucking ghouls and pieces of shit in our local newspaper just being like yeah well shit well honestly this is the first time they've actually admitted it because before the coverage if you remember has been on the front it's all it's always on the cover of the paper and we have the we have today's paper here to confirm this this round but before it's always been they've gotten a statement from hal rogers saying like hal rogers confirms prison still possible here right right and then you get into it it's like

despite all of this to the contrary. Yeah, despite the recent presidential budget for the country, that doesn't include our prison, Hal is still lying to us about everything that he's ever promised, he's ever done, and we're still believing him. I'm going to tell you something, Tanya. You have probably only 10% less juice than Howard Rogers in terms of power at this point. Buddy, today I felt very powerless.

The guy, he ranks on embassies. He's no longer the head of house appropriations. It's like putting your faith in Howard Rogers at this point is like putting your faith in CBD. You might as well put your faith in me, baby. Putting your faith in the Blue Notes without Harold Melvin, you'll never go platinum. But finally, this cover. I got that backwards. Yeah, I think I see what you're saying.

Harold Melvin without the Blue Notes. Sorry. Finally, they admit Trump don't want the goddamn prison. Right. Trump, prison's not unneeded here, folks. Listen, folks. He wants funds taken. I don't know where this says funds are going, but Terrence always says they're going to the wall.

That's what they've said in the past. They want it to go to the border wall. Fascinating shit. that's what they said in the past they wanted to go to the border wall fascinating shit i mean of course you know that would mean there's nothing here to celebrate ultimately but it is funny just on the sort of microscopic level seeing these people who have lorded over us for years, like basically stepping in shit, falling in shit, really, ultimately. Constantly. It is. Here's a good, here's a speak your piece about them falling in shit.

It mentions the sanctuary city. It makes no sense, but it's so funny. This podcast will be one hour of us flipping through a newspaper. this podcast will be one hour of us flipping through a newspaper it's a shame a man can't buy a pizza without the sheriff violating his second amendment rights sanctuary county doesn't mean anything if they want your guns they'll find a way to take them they'll find a way to take them man can't buy a slice of pizza in his town without having his rights violated they always do all right so this is the third thing i want to talk about today

um and it comes by way of an op-ed in the lexington herald leader and it's it's called kentucky promise zone has delivered on jobs education in eastern kentucky has it so before i get started here just a little historical context um the kentucky promise zone so you know that um what was that roadside picnic uh the strugatsky brothers there's a short story called roadside picnic by the strugatsky brothers tanya uh and the the um you just assume i didn't know that you kiss my ass honestly truly you're right i didn't know well the premise is

um there is something called the zone where apparently like something like an alien life force landed there you know years ago and now it's just like this weird uninhabitable place where weird things happen and people can do telepathy and all

that kind of stuff um but basically it's like an irradiated uninhabitable zone it's called the zone and it's all i can ever think about when i hear kentucky the promise zones because like promise zone is the most dystopic term you could possibly imagine and for those who don't know what it is it was a program by the obama administration sort of like you know how we had that one episode about the power plus plan and the reclaim act and all that it was kind of like that but it it was even less hands-on from the government's perspective like correct me if i'm wrong wrong tom but wasn't it wasn't it like a just a grants program it was just a point system it gave you if you lived in a promise zone in in the country which they were

like five we were one of like five it gave you an extra point on a federal grant because they're apparently the like federal grant rubric process is a point system. It's dope. If anyone's ever gotten a federal grant, they know that they're terrible, and you don't want to deal with it, in fact. Well, they made a bunch of these promise zones around the country. One of them was in eastern Kentucky. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I guess that included like NEA, NEH stuff, which Trump has, he's only budgeted enough

money to close those agencies. Right. Under Trump, it's completely meaningless. Under Obama, it hardly meant anything anyways. Yeah. But in a way, in a way, they do kind of mirror like the Strogatzky's version of the zone in that they do put, designate an the stragetsy's version of the zone and that they do put designate an alien life form to every one of them in our case we got sandy curd absolute alien

absolutely the most dystopic thing i think i've ever seen in my life was sandy curd coming into pine mountain grill wearing a headset like she's goddamn t Robbins and saying to the crowd, there's something interesting brewing in Letcher County. Anybody know what it is? And, you know, I'm, like, looking to my right and left and being like, you know, I don't know. What is it? Maybe these green jobs are finally coming.

And she goes, that's right, folks, the prison! And it was like throwing a pep rally to build this monument to human suffering that's going to bring very few jobs, and the ones that it does bring are going to put the holder into an early grave. Pure misery. I mean, so it's, yeah, it's human misery all around. Right. And meanwhile, she looks like she's like goddamn denise austin leading like jazz aerobics or something up there

truly she's sweating it to the oldies parked in the handicap spot right in front of the door oh okay um so if you want to know sandy kurt is that's a chaotic evil right there she's maybe she's running the fucking war campaign we don't know so herald leader kentucky prime zone is delivered on jobs in education in eastern kentucky written by jerry rickett i don't know who that is but oh i know you i assumed you probably did know that oh jerry's one let me see the picture. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've literally talked to this man in person about the prison 10 years ago. This is one of Hal Rogers' favorite pork princes. Nice.

He sends him a lot of money. He's over. Run down and read his byline. I'm pretty sure he's the director of the Somerset Highlands Investment Corporation, Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, which is coordinating and managing the federal promise zone. I can't imagine. I can't imagine they'd toot their own horn. I'm fucking losing it.

Just like the notion of a promise zone. When you enter it in, things get more promising. This was Sandy Kurd's boss. He hired that maniac. When you enter this promise zone, things get more promising. And by that I mean your likelihood of meeting a violent death or being forced to celebrate a monument to human suffering increases exponentially.

Very high. It's a promise made six years ago. A promise to improve the lives and livelihoods of families in the region hit hard by economic distress and hampered by educational attainment. Progress. Hampered. Hampered. Is that what he said? That's what he said.

Progress continues to be made in the Kentucky Promise Zone. He said, progress continues to be made in the Kentucky Promise Zone, a 10-year commitment that established one of the first five federal promise zones in the country and the first one in a rural area. Bell, Harlan, Letcher, Perry, Leslie, Clay, Knox, and part of Whitley County have gained competitive advantage in applying for federal funds and assistance from those agencies. All right, let me pause for a minute all the while what they could have just done was send all the goddamn severance tax back to our counties dog so i think a few times i've made the observation that like how lord's over a fiefdom

and by that i mean like he literally resides over a network of nonprofits that kick up cash to him. And he's rigged it in such a way that with the Promise Zone, he now can get nonprofits to more easily get federal grants that they can then kick up to his Taj Mahal in Som um where is it somerset yeah it's literally where house from he is i mean he's a genius in a totally different way than mitch it's more of a web than you can even imagine like he's he has built section 8 housing so that he can literally double dip and get paid by the government to house people and collect rent. Totally. Oh my God. You dig in. I'm in the form.

Absolutely. When you dig in, and you find all this out when you dig in, when you actually dig in to Hal Rogers. Right. And what he actually has earmarked and sent pork to. Almost all of it goes through Jerry Ricketts. Right. And they've all gotten grant funding to build you know

incubator entrepreneur incubators and section 8 housing and all this like infrastructure to then rent to people and get money right to run programs through it's been it's oh yeah it's bananas it's a total it's it's like it's a circle jerk it's exactly what it is and for those of you who are just now tuning in and don't know who how rogers is who i mean i guess he's the biggest villain in the trailbillies universe but he's our yeah congressional representative tom's gonna run against him one day i took tanya biscuit in a six-pack la and said tanya you need to run against Howell Rogers. And she, I think her retort was,

they're going to drive a dump truck right up to the fucking, right up to the halls of Congress and dump all my skeletons out in the parking lot. It'll take an 18-wheeler. Tanya could have been the OG Katie Hill if she'd played her cards right, but... Now look at you. You're here. All my sex tapes would be released. The Kentucky Promise Zone has grown from an original 12 partners to 96, provided more

than 450 grant applications with letters of support, and identified $840 million in announced investments. Jesus Christ. applications with letters of support and identified 840 million dollars in announced investments jesus christ strides have been made in three areas of in the three areas of labor participation tourism and education what the fuck is labor participation he's going you know that's going to be ill he's going to explain it to you yes you know it's going to be so bad in the last two years six promised zone counties have increased their labor force at double to quadruple the rate of the state average so basically we're making more exploitable wage slaves essentially oh yeah hal rogers has says almost every time he opens his mouth in front of a room full of people is like kentucky's greatest asset is our low-wage workforce he's making no bones about it we will work for free little to free we'll work we'll work for

beer he's basically just holding a cardboard sign on the side of 75 say we'll work for beer if you're still on the fence about marxismism, these guys actually prove the concepts just in what they say. You don't have to even look any further. When you have your public officials touting that you have a cheap, uneducated workforce as an asset, that should tell you something. They look at people not as human beings, but as profit centers. Exactly. The total number of people employed throughout the zone grew by 50% more than the state average.

So in the zone, your wage labor becomes more exploitable as soon as you enter the zone. The promised zone. They set up toll roads all around the zone. You have to pay to get in it. Yes. One of the bright spots is teleworks usa an initiative an initiative of eastern love this the zone in the zone all the grass is dead like i'm telling you all the uh animals are irradiated it's like chernobyl kind of yeah the initiative of eastern

kentucky or an initiative of eastern kentucky concentrated employment program ek sep teleworks recruits companies to bring work from home jobs to people through a virtual workplace or at one of its eight hubs in 2019 the initiative was responsible for more than 600 remote job placements with pending job retention and an estimated 13.7 million dollars in new annual wages for eastern kentuckians since 2015 teleworks has helped generate more than two 2600 remote job placements with an estimate blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah okay so that's the labor uh participation i'd like to interject a story here. Please do. About EKSEP. I believe I maybe have even mentioned this before. But they moved in. I happen to be working in the Perry County

Unemployment Office building, which is a large essential airport hangar. But it used to be like a sock factory or something. And they've turned it into just like the unemployment office. There's an educational cooperative in there. The teleworks. They run like a food pantry out of the back. And they convinced EKSEP when it got its big funding to move in there. And this is what happened. All of their employees live in Lexxington and commute to hazard two hours every morning that's indictment number one two hour drive they hired a lexington interior designer to remodel a part of this warehouse hangar to the point that they put in

archways. Meanwhile, I was working in a cubicle on the other side of the building. There's not one window in the entire building. They put in archways. They had white leather couches, in the entire building they put in archways they had white leather couches tons of art like framed like the ugliest artwork you can imagine right their their their whole part of the office looked like uh it looked like a room your mamaw creates in the house that the pension bought that no one's allowed in you know when they everything must be pristinely preserved yeah she that's the room she set up with her inheritance after papaw died right right and it's blocked off and no one's allowed in there and you only go in there when the insurance man comes to come and he's allowed to sit in there that's what it looked like the whole fucking place

truly bizarre everyone else in the building who worked there hated them it was like an epic war zone that's what you get when you come in the zone baby warfare the promise zone class warfare it did kind of play out like class warfare because it was like the people who worked at the unemployment office and klp and teachers and then these motherfuckers that would yeah any sociologists needing to write a dissertation go check that out that would be some fascinating shit and and they all are sharing the same bathroom multiple stalls but same bathroom teleworks teleworks is prime example of public private partnerships utilizing grants from USDA, Appalachian Regional Commission, Department of Labor, and other federal agencies,

along with local communities to match employer needs with a well-trained, willing workforce. So that right there, I think, just gets at why eastern Kentucky, and Appalalachia specifically is such a problem for the elite and why they also use it as Trump country scapegoating for elections. Because say what you want about Eastern Kentuckians, but if they can't be domesticated and tamed into a willing workforce, then I think that's what presents the biggest problem to these people like they have to be exploitable and it's and it's honestly kind of subversive and hilarious when people are like fuck that i'm not gonna work at all like i'll

fucking live on the dole fuck it like that is a form of resistance, kind of, because they're basically saying, fuck that, I'm not going to enter the workforce. And it's fascinating. This is the sort of locus that all those narratives grow out of. Trump country, and what's the matter with eastern Kentucky, and all that shit. I judge a country's economic activity. So, you know, the jobs reports are always coming out, and, you know, they do everything to fudge those numbers.

You know, if you're fucking, you know, driving an Uber for 10 minutes a day, they consider you employed or something, even if you're not making, you know, any money. I consider the real litmus test for a nation's economic growth is when the welfare fraud numbers go up. So I'd like to see welfare fraud reach 10% this year. Right now it's like.0002, even though the Republicans are fucking, you know, act like every other person

is committing, you know, food stamp fraud. 80%. I really want to give them something to get pissed off about, so let's let those numbers go up. Let's get the... If you run against Hal Rogers, you should run on that. Like, I want to see the welfare fraud...

Through the roof. Take all you pop to the pawn shops, people. We're going to cut defense spending by 40%. We're going to put it all in food stamps. Not food stamps, food stamp fraud. You can only have this if you misuse it. So like I said, strides have been made in three key areas labor participation was the first one the second one is tourism uh direct expenditures by visitors poverty cosplay

direct expenditures by visitors increased 12.6 percent in the promise zone from 2013 and 2018 the level of direct tourism spending in each county also was higher during that time. Look for those numbers to continue to increase with many signature projects in the pipeline such as Boone's Ridge, formerly called the Appalachian Wildlife Center. This tourism and education venue will open in 2021 in Bell County and employ more than 200 people. The 80,000 square foot visitor center will contain museums, a theater, a restaurant, a petting zoo, and nature trails.

Oh, and the other side of the bridge to nowhere. You know what this actually is? A four-wheeler park. Totally. It's absolutely a four-wheeler park. This is a dirt, and they have a four-wheeler festival there every year, and someone always dies. Every single year

at least one person but closer to five die well to hear them tell it tanya that's a good thing a fucking wildlife viewing station with a museum and a petting zoo a petty zoo they're gonna have some what some black bears out there yeah and 200 employees someone's gonna get mauled by a bobcat i can't wait you know what they're probably gonna end up doing they'll start that crazy like you can pay five thousand dollars and come like they'll drive you right up to an elk point blank so you can shoot and take a picture with it you know what i mean and they'll just keep releasing more elk. Right, right. These elk aren't even native to this area. No.

These have all been trucked in anyway. If we're going to have them, folks, we've got to have gray wolves and pumas. Oh, God. We're going to release 6,000 pumas in eastern Kentucky. We're going to release 12,000 gray wolves in Eastern Kentucky. We're going to release 12,000 great wolves. We got to have some natural predators.

They keep expecting us to buy this when even to their own admission, it's been six years and they're still talking about what they're going to fucking do. What they're going to do. What's happening? Yeah. They really are getting away with just lying all day day long, all they do is just lie. These are just professional liars. Not just lying, but like the fascinating thing,

and we should have seen the writing on the wall that investigative journalism was done when all of these stories about how Rogers were coming out 20 fucking years ago about all this fraud. And no one cared. Yeah, no one gave a shit. Money just being sunk into projects like this. No one gave a shit. Money just being sunk into projects like this. No one cared. No one gave a shit.

Wow. So the first, labor participation, tourism, and the third is education. Education. As of 2018, six Promise Zone counties have higher high school graduation rates than the statewide average of 90.3%. Rates for the 2018 graduating class were higher in each Promise County compared to the 2013 graduating class, with the exception of Leslie County, which already had a 99% graduation rate. Perry County had the largest gain.

Our teachers and staff have worked tirelessly to make graduation an expectation for all students, said Jonathan Jett, superintendent for Perry County Schools. I'm confident I speak for all school districts in appreciation of the federal dollars invested in Perry County. Throughout the Promise Zone, partnerships forged, strategies implemented, and investments made will be felt for generations, but there is still work to be done. The poverty rate, which has decreased, is 33%.

It's only 33%, guys. God, come on. That's so good. It's only a 33% poverty rate. And double the poverty line. It's still fucking poverty. You're right. So it's probably more like 69 what's

the national poverty rate like 15 right i think it's like 15 or 16 national yeah so it's more than double it's definitely more than double the national right but i'm saying even like the income that they consider on the poverty line is so low right that even if you double that income it's still you're still it's still i mean you you still should be considered under the poverty line right right right so even this number is very small compared to a reality well this is something that we pointed out in that episode about the war on poverty and about um the power plus plan and the reclaim act and all that stuff which is that 50 years ago the liberal sort of approach to this was the war on poverty you have uh counties with like more than 33

poverty and so that's how they tackled it with large-scale federal programs and now like you can't even get the liberals to do that because promise zone was ultimately an obama program this is how they addressed the like a point system for a point system for federal grants so like it just goes to show you how far right the liberals have gone in the last 50 years or so. Because ultimately, the Promise Zone, even though it is a program basically rigged by the reactionaries like Hal Rogers, it was cooked up and implemented by the liberals like Obama. And it shows you, and this is the fascinating thing about Eastern Kentucky,

is that it cuts out all of the contradictions and facade. You just so easily get to see how the liberals and the conservatives work together to perpetuate the problems rather than actually fixing them. It's incredible. So, last paragraph. These complex challenges have been created over generations, and we must continue to attack the problems from all sides to achieve results. and we must continue to attack the problems from all sides to achieve results. The Kentucky Promise Zone is proof that tackling these issues through a multi-pronged approach is the only way to achieve real results. Our promise is to continue the collaboration.

Rickett is president and CEO of Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, which is coordinating and managing the federal Promise Zone founded in 1968. Side effects may include impotence, balding, enlarged prostate, trouble urinating, kidney failure, cerebral hemorrhage, and of course death. I have a theory about why they are able to claim that graduation rates are up too. They threaten you with juvie if you drop out of school well i want to know the the dropout rates because i bet dropout rates are actually higher and so like if you've got so if you're already dropped out you're not counting not this is only like people who flunk their senior year exactly only actual but anyone who was planning to flunk their senior year just went ahead and dropped the fuck out exactly saw the

right on the wall so they can juice those numbers if they get people to drop out amazing you know or they just suspend them incredible incredible um my niece just got suspended from fighting on this over fighting on the school bus hell yeah there's the best place to fight there were three angle videos of it dude 2020 growing up in 2020 is hell yeah no you can't get away with shit no you'll be on surveillance cctv all kinds of shit it wild. She was grinning the whole time. It was my uncle. It was wild. I loved it. Well, I hope you enjoyed your journey through the Promise Zone. We need like a Jurassic Park type tourist program for the Promise Zone.

Ooh, now you're talking. Yeah, and you get to do what? Instead of dinosaurs, you get two-headed fused boys. That's what I was going to say. That's exactly right. Well, before we wrap up, I want to do a little Valentine segment. We've gotten a lot of love from fans the last couple months, including some sweet mail in the snail mail. And so one of them was from Leslie, who sent us some very cute pins.

And the card says, Tanya, Terrence, and Tom, Thursdays and Sundays are my favorite days of the week. Keep fighting the good fight. Wishing you a prosperous new year. Thank you, Leslie. Such a sweet Valentine. It was very sweet.

And these are, read us your pin, Terrence. My pin says trust me my paranoia is entirely justified. Perfect. And that is literally the truth. And my pin I mine's at home and I forgot what it said but it has a menstrual cup on it. So it's you know it's correct. Right. Very accurate. And, do you want to hear what your pen says? Stressed, depressed, but well-dressed. That's about right. Could not be more accurate.

And then... Thank you, Leslie. Happy Valentine's Day. Thank you, Leslie. Happy Valentine's Day. You're a tribally Valentine. And then Rachel sent us some tea, right? The tea's from...

Tea and a glorious assortment of witch tools that I kept for myself. Oh, goddamn. Including a tarot book. What were y'all going to do with that? Didn't even consider widmolting some witch tools. I don't trust you to use them, honestly. And a very nice letter. So thank you for that, Rachel.

A lovely letter. She's out in that, Rachel. A lovely letter. She's out in Oklahoma City also fighting the good fight against nonprofits in Nonprofit Hill. Shout out to you. And she came out to our Nashville show.

Oh, yeah. We got to meet her there. I got to talk to her there. It was great. Yeah. She's probably familiar with the Promise Zone if I had to guess.

I bet they've got one in oklahoma i don't know there's only five and most of them were we were the only rule one and then there was one oh yeah territory but i bet yeah i bet there was a reservation that was on that though right or absolutely yeah there was um and um but if you're listening to this and you're like damn i want to show them some love as well i didn't get to send them anything you're in luck because you can subscribe to the patreon where you will not only get an episode every sunday um this coming sunday you'll get a special episode with singer song, even though he would hate it that I characterize him that way, Sergil Simpson.

Actor. Billy Gibbons. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top is what he means. Right. Yeah. So sign up for the Patreon if you're confused about how to do that. It's very easy. Go to your web browser and type in P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Trailbilly Workers Party.

No apostrophes or anything. Just straightforward. Uh, it'll take you straight to our page. You can plug in your credit card information and all that shit. And it will send you almost a hundred back episodes straight into your podcast app. Yeah, yeah. It will. Well, it'll give you a link that you need to copy and paste into your podcast app. Yeah. It's a mantis.

See? See? It's fine. But you can, like I said, if you want to send us some love, go over there. I think the Patreon, I think the premium episodes are indeed premium. They really are. We can say things there that we can't always say here.

I think kind of a fun thing to do would be for people to change their pledge from $5 to $6.90 for Valentine's Day. That's just me talking, though. That's just one man's opinion. Oh, I would love that. Yeah, far be it for me to tell you what to do on Valentine's Day. You also can mail us stuff too, but Apple Shop's probably not the best place because none of us work there anymore. Oh, yeah, we need to make an announcement. Don't send anything else to Apple Shop.

We will get a P.O. Box or something. Well, I have a P.O. Box. They can at least send it there. Okay, what's your P.O. Box? Or do you have a P.O. Box? I don't have one, no. You can send it to P.O. Box 456, at least send it there. Okay. What's your P.O. box? Or do you have a P.O. box? I don't have one, no. You can send it to P.O. box 456 Whitesburg, Kentucky. So that's easy to remember.

456. 456. Whitesburg. 41858 is our zip code. Yeah. So thanks for listening, everybody. Hope you have had a good week. This episode was a little bit light on the Bernie stuff, but that's because we're winning.

And so don't let anyone. You guys have been there before, you know? Right, right. We beat nine opponents this week. Right. You know, yeah, hold your head high. You beat nine fucking opponents, all of them craving dog shit. Yeah, so instead of watching cat videos, just go out here and piss in the streets.

There you go. Fucking hiss. Hiss at normies. Hiss at normies in the street and piss on people who are double parked. We don't have to answer to no goddamn body. That's right. And then continue to watch Bernie soar and pile up foreskins.

Foreskins. That's right. When you lose, you gotta give up your foreskin so andrew yang give us that foreskin you know bend the knee give the foreskin is yang gang turning into bernie gang they are out yang um i know they're out but is he gonna is he gonna get behind bernie or what i bet he will i'm sure he will. What you waiting on? Let's pour a little out for Michael Bennett, who suspended his very promising campaign yesterday, too. Don't even know who that is. Literally have no idea who that is.

I think he used to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm not sure. Wow. Well, pour one out for him as well. But also, if you live... What's the next state? Nevada. Nevada?

All right. Well, I'm sure we've got Nevada friends, but, you know, Canvas, do whatever you can. Let's get our man Bernard past this next massive fucking obstacle. Because it really will be a slog. It is now, you know, it should have dawned on us, I guess, a long time ago, but it really is going to be a slog. We're going to have to win every fucking step of the way.

So, yeah. Anyways, well, we can do it. We can do it. Hope y'all feel loved this week. Yeah. If nothing else, no, we love you. That's right. So, yeah, happy Valentine's Day. this week yeah if nothing else no we love you that's right um so yeah happy valentine's day and uh we'll see you on the patreon bye