Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 351: If You're In Line, Stay In Line (To Do A Coup) (w/ special guest Mina Parkison)

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

This week we're having our old pal Mina Parkison on to talk about the latest news with Biden, how the Affordable Care Act blackpilled a generation of liberals, and how you can help cancel out medical debt for people in Tennessee Donate to cancel medical debt: quilt-tn.com/debt Quilt website: quilt-tn.com Mina's social media: Twitter: @getinthedevice Insta: @thirdeyewideus Website: thirdeyewide.us Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Um Did you all see the video? There's some really good ones going around this week, but it was like Biden was speaking at some White House event and someone was doing ASL and It's like I I have litter. I don't know why like I've been waiting for this to happen the entire time But I was like surely He will get someone like an ASL signer who like has no fucking clue what he's saying. And like when you, I don't know if

you guys- The hell of a gig. Did y'all see this video? I didn't. That's what we like to call in the disability justice area called accessibility conflict because the man can't talk and when the man can't talk the the person doing sign language cannot sign yeah it's it's I mean it means everybody's on the same level so I guess that's accessibility that is true everybody how do you say we killed Medicare and ASL?

The universal man what a what a fascinating, you know, like we're recording this Wednesday night July 10th We're joined by our old pal Mina who we did an episode with What was that like a year and a half ago, two years ago, 10 years ago maybe? 10 years, four scorn. 10 years. 10 years. Coming to you live from gay city WFAG. My favorite radio station.

And my favorite. We're gonna talk about Mr. Beast or Mr. Bust Playing the hits but yeah, no like obviously by the time this comes out who knows when it will but By the time this comes out a lot will have changed but like let's just you know, put stick a pin in this Wednesday evening July 10th We're we're receiving word that Biden actually has more stamina than George Clooney. The Biden administration,

so today to catch you all up to speed, today George Clooney said Biden needs to step down. And the White House's response was to imply that actually Biden has more stamina than George Clooney? Biden's going to challenge George Clooney to a push-up contest. To a bust contest. He's going to challenge him to a bust contest. That's what I assume he's talking about, stamina. When you talk about stamina, come on.

Come on Jack, let's do ookie cookie. Come on Jack, I was on Generalokie cookie. Come on, Jack. I was on general hospital in the 90s. Or ER. ER was what he was on. Right? ER. I spent more time in hospitals than you've ever been in one.

Than you've ever been in one. You don't even know. You wasn't even an accurate portrayal. Oh, man. Hey, how's he going to come for like, you know Kentucky's Proud of son, you know George Clooney. Yeah, did you read his op-ed for us necessarily? But did you read his op-ed in the New York Times about George about Biden? What'd he say dude? It's the most pathetic

Groveling shit I've ever seen. It's just like, I love the Democratic Party. I love, I fucking love it. I love the Democratic Party. Like he literally says I love the Democratic Party at least 20 or 30 times in- Was he giving some tough love? Now I love the Democrats. Which is a cousin to- now I ain't got a racist bone in my body. Yeah, it was a cousin. Yeah, he was employing cousins.

Yeah. Yeah, there was some cousin love there. He was, yeah, but he was tough love, I guess. He was saying that Biden needs to step down, but I don't know. I mean, I just saw this thing just now. Biden aides have said privately if majors don't come along, if major donors don't come along, we'll do it without them. Just like, dude, we are straight up. This is, like, I've been saying this for months, that Biden is actually the authoritarian that's gonna bed

down in the White House and like become, he has all the markers of it, right? He's gonna refuse to leave. become he has all the markers of it, right? I'm gonna refuse to leave that he's got all the markers of it Right because like the thing with Trump the thing one of the things that chomsky said that is correct He's not said a lot of correct things. But one thing that he did say ever die. I don't know if he ever died or not Yeah, some some I think some random person on Twitter said, yeah, RIP Noam Chomsky, everybody just ran with it. The man still answered an email, so.

One of the things he said that I think is correct is that it's really hard to have a fascist in America because Americans are so greedy. And so it's like, you can basically buyist in America because Americans are so greedy. And so it's like you can basically like buy them off with pretty much just about anything. And that's like Trump to a T, right? Like Trump is a fascist like ideologically,

but he's also extremely lazy and greedy. And so you can pretty much just like lead him away from anything with enough money and distraction. Whereas like Trump, Biden on the other hand is like this, I mean, I mean, it is, I think they've pointed this out on Choppo, like he's a Nixonian character. He's very much motivated by these like grievances and like this spite, but he also is like, he's not corrupt in the same way that a lot of these other leaders are. So you can't really buy them off either. And so taking the maxim that every accusation

is a confession, I have thought for several months that Biden will actually be the authoritarian that like bunkers down in the White House and you won't be able to get him out. What would a Biden January 6th look like? Oh. What would a Biden January 6th look like? Like who would be, what would the MAGA, blue MAGA people scale the walls and all that shit, you reckon, or would they all, they would do it,

but they'd stand in a single file line and do one at a time in there. They'd wait to get the tickets to get in. Right, yeah. Their maxim would be, if you're in line, stay in line to do this coup, you know. That's right. Very disciplined, very well-ordered army, very deferential. 15,000 pussy hats just in a line all the way down the concourse.

It is, dude, it the concourse It is dude. It is truly is crazy Like I cannot like stress this enough if you seriously take like a kind of Marxian 18th Brumare approach to this and like I tried to do this today like plot out the various like actors and Constituencies on both sides. It is so garbled and incoherent It's fucking crazy on the pro-biden side. All right, let's start on the anti-biden side, right? Okay, first you've got like hollywood, right michael douglas and george clinty they're coming out against biden They've said he's got to step down. It's time to hang it up old man time to hang it up then you've got uh

Various uh billionaire donors who I don't even know who any of these people are ostensibly they have a lot of power though I mean if the Biden because this is the thing the Biden campaign keeps calling out elite the elite have you guys have you'll notice this? The elites want us to step down you are the elite Yeah, so I guess that he's Illuminati confirmed at this point. Oh, yeah He is 100% I saw we've me and Tom been talking about that all week like they've really got to do something quick because He really will start saying Probably not only just like the worst slurs and stuff

But he'll probably start like spilling state secrets at a certain point right like right he's got to he's got to Just yeah like like the doles brother. Yeah, they killed JFK man. Yeah, we built the pyramids Yeah, like like the doles brother. Yeah, they killed JFK man. Yeah, we built the pyramids We built the pyramids in 1914. There's a giant there's a giant emerald disk a thousand miles underneath the pyramids It's one atom thick and it can teleport across the country We have to They better get a I'm saying they better get a hold on it Oh, okay. So they've got the elite donor class Hollywood is sensibly is also getting yeah, they're getting a little squishy. They're a little squishy

And then ask you a question. Why is it the need time? There's politics happening George Clooney like rears his gorgeous head I know. What makes him the politics authority, you know what I mean? Has he played the president before? That seems like a thing that George Clooney would do. I don't think he has. Yeah, I guess Michael Douglas has, right? Wasn't he the president?

Or no? Michael Douglas did play the president. What was that movie not wag the dog? Everybody's gonna hate this part We can't go any further Cut this whoever's editing cut this He played the president in a movie called the American president the American president. That's right. That's right. Very nice. I don't know, that's a great question.

Why is George Clooney the politics decider? He's kind of like, he's- He's just such a charming guy. He's handsome. He was absolutely a gay awakening for me when I was younger. Oh, 1000%. Every single movie that I saw him in, I had a friend whose dad looked like George Clooney

Damn that I never George Clooney never really did it for me. He was not my he was not my gay awakening I don't know why he just never really did it for me. He's a handsome. I'll get I'm not saying he's not handsome Don't before anybody comes at me. I'm just saying he just there's something about him like he's Conventionally handsome, but he's he's too He's too straight-laced. He's like too. He's he's not like a bad boy. He's not like you know to mean you like oh You know what I mean like he's Danny Ocean. What are you talking? Yeah, yeah, he's so smooth. He doesn't read as a bad boy, but he Well, he's come out against Biden

Along with a bunch of other powerful donors ostensibly Also the media like the New York Times CNN Fucking Jake Tapper was on TV this week reading a transcript of a bite Answer in an interview fact of the matter is how can you assure you're going to be out on you know? On your way to go, you know work tomorrow age age wasn't you know the idea that I'm too old It is so crazy. It's so crazy for like the past four years all of us and anybody with two eyes and two ears have has been able to be like this man has lost his marbles. Yeah, but now all of a sudden I mean we were you know

I was I was trying to find some articles and looking at stuff like a, like the normal pervert that I am. And every single news website is just filled with basically like, we need to old yeller Biden. We need to take him out back outside the white house and put him down. And like that type of unanimity you don't really see I mean you saw it like what you know I hate to you know we hate to relitigate the 2020 election but we did see that like that hegemonic like force all you know together around Bernie Sanders right and then now I mean you can really see how the media class will just fall in line who's who's the guy that's going around like making that

point now that congressman that's making the TV rounds everybody's like see now they're saying the representative something something saying the quiet part out loud I know who it is because he has the same name as OG classical economist Adam Smith. Oh He's a he's another Adam Smith the another Adam Smith and he's getting he's getting a lot of Getting a lot of likes and retweets in the you know Well, he's he didn't I I need to point out he did not say that as an indictment He was saying that as like a good thing. I don't know if you watch the crap if you watch the clip He was basically like yeah, I mean like we had to get rid of Bernie somehow

But yeah, I think I saw it like people forget how how like fucked up that election was remember when Pete Buttigieg won, Iowa Through some convoluted guerrilla math and it turned out that the app they were using for the caucus Like he was heavily invested in sure and then he became the first candidate to win a primary Contest to drop out before Super Tuesday, uh-huh Okay, that was incredible gambit That was very true. Incredible gambit, sir. It was an incredible gambit. I'll just fuck over his generation and be like 16 heartbeats from the presidency.

And do terribly at that job, might've I. And then finally rounding out, well there's several other anti Biden like Mark Warner That guy was like going for Biden. He was trying to assemble like a Justice League of various You know resistance breakaway like unreconstructed resistance libs like

It's a it's a very strange. A lot of factions are forming. It's very, very weird factions, okay. And then finally, there's the voters themselves who seem to be selling on Biden. They don't seem to be. Like, Sherrod Brown this week was like, all my constituents are dumb dumb with Biden like they

You know, you know take that for what it's worth. It's fucking Ohio. So who knows what that means? Well, I just mean that like he represents conservative a lot of concern like Republican constituents as well But then like on the pro Biden side,, we've got like Hunter and Jill and Biden's sister who he thought was Jill that one time remember Stuck for Jill after his big super Tuesday win We've got the GOP who wants they're very pro-biden because they want buttons to stay in obviously like They're the most pro-biden faction. I've ever seen like I'm going on these conservative news websites

And they are rah rah sis boom bah Biden Biden. Yes You notice how like for the longest time? You notice how like for the longest time conservatives like they've they've like like Poloid Biden as like, you know crazy losing his marbles and rightly So like everybody else has right and now they're like getting soft on him as it gets closer to it Like they're just not saying anything about Yeah well, it's good, I mean I

Think it's because it redounds to Trump if Biden could take the keep taking the spotlight in this way It's almost like the negative Trump effect It's kind of like how like the more media coverage Trump got in 2016 Like it just kind of was what pushed him over the finish line in the end regardless It's like it's almost the opposite with Biden now like the more the media just keeps focusing on him the force It is for him is never skip going down But this it's like it's like truly I mean

I guess this is why they had to call in Danny Ocean because they have apparently like nine as we're recording this they have like Literally nine days to pull off the biggest heist in history. They're putting a team together. They're putting a team together They are they have like nine days apparently after days, there's some sort of deadline coming up that makes it extremely hard for them to do anything before the convention. And so they've got like eight or nine days and if they cannot fucking push him out in like eight or nine days, then he's basically locked in.

My man's locked in. The thing that's so concerned about that too is like, did you see this, the Dick Durbin quote going around? Like even the people that are Biden true believers have this to say of him, I watched the debate, it raised a lot of questions. He's trying to answer those questions. In some respects he's done so effectively,

in other respects, not so effectively. And like that's the most full-throated endorsement like his supporters can give him. Right. Well, I think Nancy Pelosi today sounded like she was waffling. Schumer today was sounding very much like he was waffling. Or- What did they say?

I, again, you have to take this with a grain of salt. This is in Axios. Schumer according to three sources is open to dumping Biden at the top of the ticket. So I you know I don't know it's again this is Wednesday night who the fuck knows what happens. Who the fuck knows what happens? Um, I don't know if this is old news Yeah, I think it was but I just remember that that ad of dick Cheney saying that Trump is the most dangerous threat to America No, and I hope he still maintains that and I hope he's still riding with Biden. Oh, yeah point Great. The fact that that man's not dead is so crazy to me. But the fact that he's he's hitching his wagon to Biden is also kind of the

funniest reality we could live in. The man lived without a heartbeat for over a year and killed and shot a guy and shot a guy. Yeah, he also did the Iraq War war by the way. He also did that Did 9-eleven He also did 9-eleven Unity of government That's what Biden is gonna talk about his cog continuity continuity of continuity of government shit. Oh man

PNAC Just even hearing cog that brings back so many We didn't know how good we had it, did we? So yeah pro-biden. We've got the Biden dynasty. We've got the fucking GOP. We've got the squad The squad that's a curveball, right right that's a little bit of a girl Not not just a OC not just Cory Bush, but Ilan Omar Yeah, it's just it's uh It's democratic centralism is what it is. It's it's party line. It's

You're right. Yeah unity struggle, struggle, unity, all right? That's how this works. You're right. I mean, that's so true. Like if only we knew we had some Demsense on our side, like this whole time we could have been controlling them ourselves through party unity. That's right.

Now we're acting like a damn party. I know. Yeah. We fucked up our whole approach on the left with regards to the Democrats we should have been ingratiating ourselves to like, you know the Yeah, the dick Durbins of the world Mac the countryside surrounds the city. All right the city all right um and then I'm trying to think of the other pro-biden fact uh factions that are here um oh of course blue maga right like that's that's a whole other faction that's it's like it's hard to even like I know that that that overlaps onto several other factions But like we have to think about them as almost a separate constituency

And the only reason I say that is because they're so weird and off-putting they may as well be cueing on people You can't talk to them They're in they're literally insane So I don't it doesn't help that they started that like the White House started doing like red eye laser Biden memes. Like that that like truly, I think, has teetered people over to the edge of like, actually, this is this is a Biden clone that got out of the chrysalis a little too soon. The new one's still cooking in the vat. He got he got. We're we're we're in between buttons.

He got into the machine with Major. He got into the machine from the fly with Major. And now this is what happened. They gave him half of Major's brain. You're right. It's true. That's why he kept staring off. He saw he saw a squirrel. They gave him half of majors brain Going after the mailman Oh my god Yeah, you want to talk about like just absolutely bizarre it's like World War one

Level like incoherence. Yeah, I think a lot of people have just become In the last decade much more politically active and now that they have put things under a microscope, it allows these, like, micro factions to appear, because this shit didn't... It really, you know, excuse my naivete, but I just don't remember shit like this happening to, like, the fractal levels of conflicts that we are seeing like every single time a new a new Biden thing comes out like another another faction appears yeah it is it is World War one level of like I can't even keep shit straight

right like no one will be able to piece this together in the future yeah nobody's gonna figure out who's fighting anybody like even like we even some of the blue MAGA stalwarts, I mean Jeff Tiedrich he was like he was doing some like fanfic tweeting before the debate about how Biden was going to like do some cartwheels and roll in there and Call Donald Trump fuckface and then after the debate he goes he tweeted. What did I just see? And then after the bet he goes he tweeted what did I just see? You know some of them are some that that's a we say that's like a rock-solid coalition But I mean if the big dog T-drake breaks off who knows what's gonna happen. That's true Well, what was them? Oh

I forgot to put in that list on the anti-biden side ostensibly anti-Biden, but they're way too squishy. The Pod Save America people, like they're, they came out against Biden at first, but like I feel like they've gotten screamed at by their fans so much that they, and hey, I get it, I have been screamed at by my fans so much so that it's made me question some things So I get it. I understand

Gotta hate your fan base though. You gotta hate your fan base. You got it exactly right mean it you have to hate them I don't know. I I that's a that's it. Just it's just a weird melange Those are like the guy like the weird melange. Those are like the Japanese soldiers on the islands in like the 1960s. Those are the holdouts, man. How are you losing those dudes? Right. That is, well, I think there has to be, there's a lot of things going on that we can't even see.

I saw someone speculating today that the fact that axelrod and George Clooney have come out against Biden is proof that Obama is behind the scenes trying to rally the troops against Biden and I don't know. What do y'all make of that like is that? To what end that's right every sign every single time I hear one of these theories It's like to what end right put who in to who in the office? To make Kamala the one? I mean sure, who fucking cares? Right. Why not? What they've done is they've essentially are in the same position right now as to why we can't do assassinations anymore.

It's like nobody knows who's up on stack, they're too busy circling back, they're getting lost in these email chains and stuff like that, so they don't know who the heir apparent is. You know what I mean? As a Kamla, that's what most of social media is speculating, but like, you know, it seems like maybe people at the top are not so thrilled about that prospect. Maybe they look at Gavin Newsom, maybe they look at, I don't know, Kathy Hochul, who wants to wage war on Canada. Uh, you know? Sure.

If, wow. Yeah, wow. If White- They'd be comfortable for too long. That's true. Too good for too long. If White-collar work was at the same level in 1963 that it is now, the Dulles brothers

never would have been able to assassinate. And before that matter, also 9-11 as well. It's the reason they can't get rid of Biden, right? It's just like, it's bogged down in too many circling back. Like we have to circle back. I just wanna piggyback off something you said, Wallace, about hitting him with the heart attack gun. I just wanna push back a little bit on that.

I want to push back a little bit on the heart attack gun and lightly suggest that we go with the exploding his brain option because that would be a more flashy statement. But it's not getting anywhere. You know, Dulles, I really love that. That's, you know, it's more, this is more of a comment than a question. I was wondering if... I... I...

You know, I've seen these new reports from, from our man, Jolly West. I figured we could get him, I figured if we could get him in some, in some enclosed spaces with some of these pals, we could, we could fix a lot of problems that we have Yeah, I want to make sure we're all got a guy in New Orleans I want to make sure we're all being intentional about how we show up in this space

I am just you know meditate on that Yeah, that's that that's why they can't land on an option for Biden now So I don't know it's the situation in France has produced some interesting Discourse here. I don't know if y'all have paid attention to that at all, but like As far as I understand it the center-left has had to enter into a coalitional government with basically

like the far left and as a result I've been seeing all these like takes that are like this is how you do it America this is how you shut down fascists and I'm maybe I'm missing something granted you have to assume that I am not very well read and that like there is some meta discourse happening here that I'm not privy to.

But correct me if I'm wrong, but how would that work in America? We don't have, there is no such thing as a coalitional government in America. How do you partner with the center left to shut down? Right. That's what, when I see takes like this, this I'm like we have a different system of government. It's worse We we have two parties if that a

Parliamentary system allows and affords for more parties which allows for these types of coalitions We just have like individual caucuses in these parties and these individual caucuses. Like there's no, the only disciplinary mechanism amongst these people is like, oh well we're not going to go to the bar together afterwards. Right, like yeah I'm gonna leak your nudes or something. That's the disciplinary measure. Yeah. Yeah. There is no way they can, there's no way that, like yeah, United Front, sure, but that doesn't work on, that doesn't work in our system. Right. Not in the way that people want it to, and it's like sweetheart, I really do love the idea of doing that, I guess.

Hey, we give things a shot in the arm, you know? Sure, yeah. I mean, the worst part about this election in France is me having to read French and learn more about France than I would like to. That's truly the deleterious comeback of the horrid Anglo. That is so true. Yeah, I don't know, interesting,

some interesting things going on, I guess, is the thing. And Clooney, the funniest thing about Clooney coming out against Biden was that it was on the front page of NBC News, it was like, breaking. Clooney comes out against Biden was that it was like on the front page of like NBC News was like breaking Clooney comes out against Biden. That is truly what we've been reduced to is like this this dunderhead actor is saying that it's just saying the president should run again. I mean that that that shake when we killed Kassim Soleimani is like who are we going to kill, SpongeBob? Like that take has never been more correct in history.

Because it's like, this guy played Danny Ocean and was a doctor on television. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, and a guy that has not, I mean, I'm not saying he's not an A-list or anything like that, but his relevance has definitely waned in terms of being a matinee idol. Maybe that's intentional, you know, or whatever, but it's an interesting choice to be like, oh no, Clueney's the surrogate that we need to hear from in the celebrity donor class world. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were vying for the title, but you know.

A little too Boston strong for what we're looking for. It would be great to get the rest of the oceans guys to write articles. Yeah, get them. Get the entire crew back together for one last job. We gotta take down the president. Just the little small guy that can do crazy gymnast things. He's like, I'm voting for Ron Paul on this one. He's a libertarian.

Don Chaitle doing his Cockney Rhyme slang. Yeah, you're right. They should get all those guys to come out and do op-eds. Doing that scene from Ocean's 12 with, like switching out the Faberge egg, but like the nuclear football Guys this is our this is our easiest job yet. We have to convince a crazy old man to leave the White House You take you take a quarter out from behind his ear Yeah, they show up they show up and then like who like steps from behind Biden on the podium, but Andy Garcia's character

Oh my god They need some meta Fourth wall breaking of the fourth wall, you know how they had like Julia Roberts in there as Julia Roberts Yeah, they need to bring Julia Roberts fantastic. That's what's happening with this article That's what's happening. They think that's George Clooney. That's Danny Ocean. That's actually Danny They think that's George Clooney. That's Danny Ocean. That's actually Danny Yeah, I don't know this is crazy I just um, you know we can

We could talk this one to death, but I mean just genuinely I guess you know and It can move on after this but like I guess what I'm trying to like drill down on here is Like what is going on behind the scenes? We'll never know the answer to that probably Unless something crazy happens next week or something who knows but like I'm kind of interested in like if Biden manages like truly manages, let's just hypothetical game this out, if he manages to fend off this coup attempt, this palace coup, how? How the fuck does an 82 year old senile man with his top aid advisor being his like drug addled son manage to fend off the top donors in the Democratic Party, George fucking Clooney, CNN and New York Times, how do they manage to do that? Is it like, are they really that Machiavellian and brilliant?

Is it just like an indication of how rotten the edifice of liberal ideology is that they can't even put out anyone on the field. I mean, it's, I don't know. I guess what's really astonishing to me is how it's gotten this far, because you would imagine time is of the essence here. Like you don't really have any days to waste. If you're really gonna- Like how long ago was the debate? Two weeks ago, basically? Two weeks ago, yeah. Like you don't really have any days to waste. If you're really gonna-

Like how long ago was the debate? Two weeks ago basically? Two weeks ago, yeah. Like you're running out of fucking, like time is of the essence. You have to fucking get someone out there and get fucking moving. And if they haven't been able to do it at this point, I don't know. I just, and so my question is, is like what what explains that like are they just that expert like political? Machiavellian figures are they is there something behind my personal?

You know filling on this is that I just think that liberal ideology is it is so rotten to its core Not and I don't even mean that in like a disparaging way of course I do of course I like hate liberals, et cetera, et cetera, all the other caveats you have to make. But I'm just saying objectively speaking, it's lost its vitality. It's completely zapped of all flexibility. Like George Clooney.

Like George Clooney. Yeah. George can't fuck, that's what the White House is saying. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm, doesn't have the stamina. Are they just resigned to it? Yeah, are they resigned to it? Like what? Because to me, the only other person that could potentially do it is probably Kamala.

Because she's the Vice president and she's like on the national stage and people know who the fuck she is like regardless of however like we or anybody feels about them she's famous enough to do it but like you know Kathy Hochul like the only reason she's the Michigan lady? New York. Or Gretchen. Gretchen's the Michigan lady. Gretchen, yeah. Okay, I was thinking about Gretchen. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, like, maybe it's just like,

we're rolling out the celebrities to get Biden out, and I feel like it is like the contest of celebrities. Of like, maybe they realize like this is a sinking ship but like to them this is the best that we got because anybody else that we would shift into that position just isn't famous enough. I mean Trump was famous. He's going up against like the most famous man in America and the only other most famous man in America is the president. So there's no there's no parody. There's no parody there.

You have to do it. What if they did this? What if they just Chuck Schumer made the call and said, George Clooney, you interested in this? No. And then they just go on down the oceans 13 line until like maybe, maybe they get, uh, yeah. Elliot Gould or Don Cheney. I want the gymnast Chinese guy

I want him to be president for the amazing yen. That's right Like thinking about like George Clooney would probably be a good get in terms of like celebrity presidents Like I think that genuinely he would poll better than most people. Well, I think you're right. He's agreeable, you know, like for John Q. whoever. He's basically white Obama. He's handsome, he's smooth talking, like he's just boilerplate lib. He's bisexual.

He's bisexual. He's bi- He's theoretically bisexual. He's bi. He's theoretically bisexual. Theoretically, I would say. Yeah, I just like who are you going to swap out for him? I just I think it does come down to like celebrity star power at this point. Like if we if we are in a nation of spongebob and Spider-Man's, that those are the only people that are like figures, like there has to be somebody else who's just

as famous that people know. Here's another thing that we should float that's probably happening we haven't thought about. But the matinee idol has been pushed aside for the for the streamer the content creator Basically, you know what I mean? if you were to like if any of us would be like enamored of Brad Pitt or George Clooney is as youths, but like mean a little more so on the Clooney thing, but But now you talk to kids and it's like, you know It's like the Jake Paul's of the world, the Mr. Beast's and like those people.

Like, so maybe the natural progression is the former Matt Neidl is pushing out the Bidens of the world and all those people. So now those guys are in politics. Like Matt Damon, whenever he's done hawking cryptocurrency, can be like, you know, like run for like Senate in Boston or something like that. And now the content creators are assuming the role that, you know, that the matinee adults, the former celebrities have Mr. Bees because Mr. Beast, we're back to Mr. Beast. He's not, he's not 35 yet though. We got to get a, who the fuck is there are no 35. If there are 35 year old streamers, please.

He is a CIA So mr. Beast, maybe they'll waive that for him. Mr. Beast is CIA. Have you heard that that? That's him like is it strange connections to the military? I I this is something I do Genuinely believe and I'm not just trying to give myself an out here, but I do genuinely believe that all streamers Not podcasts, but all streamers were chased Yeah, our CIA because where the fuck do these people come from like vowsh? If that even is how you say that guy's name. How are they so popular or?

Contra points or like whatever like Like who are these people? I mean granted I guess you could say the same thing about me but like, I don't know my bio is pretty easily accessible. A little too much so in fact. Do you watch four hour long YouTube videos? I don't, no. I mean yeah, like people love, cause a lot of the people that are enamored with you know, specifically like political YouTube's like YouTube or twitch streamers are like

annoying high school people or people who like Who think about like what they should have said in the shower or like people who punch drywall or punch their pillow? like people who like want to form arguments in their head but are too afraid to pick up the telephone. Like that's the level that I think like we're dealing with like a lot of these political streamers. But I do think like you're 1000% right. And maybe things will cleave and old, you know, Hollywood will go conservative,

streamers will go Democrat and then we will have like Mr. Beast versus George Clooney or like The Rock or something like that. Like that to me is like the ideological conclusion of our celebrity America. I want to read something, okay, just thinking about this just now, about George Clooney, like about how like, in my mind he's basically white Obama. By that I just mean that like he's like this middle-aged, like I said, handsome, like comforting, enlightened, liberal. Relatively inoffensive if you don't dig too deep. like comforting enlightened relatively an offensive guy like they if for people who are like Obama nostalgic you could probably run him and get that vote but

like it's something I thought about like and this kind of goes to support my theory that I was kind of working towards earlier that like maybe all this just has to do with like idiot a lot of ideological exhaustion and and I also do think that like a lot of I Also do think that a lot of Democratic figures don't know how to be leaders I do think I also just think that this is true across the board everywhere in the world except for probably pretty much China and like Hamas like I think that like

That that like people don't really understand how to intervene into the stream of history anymore Honestly, I genuinely think I've been reading black reconstruction in America and like it's really funny about like Du Bois talks about like how bad the Confederacy leadership was just like how absolutely just stupid they were and like just looking about it like objectively like they were completely vain they were completely they were lazy they didn't want to do it point out I want to point out they had a giant the. The guy from our hometown, was once the world's tallest man, he was a Confederate soldier. They had a giant! He was seven foot eleven! That's who Joe Biden's gonna run.

Was the giant from Kentucky. The Confederacy passed a law that said if you had 20 slaves you didn't have to fight in the war and like that's like that pissed off so many poor white people because they were just like I Mean, you know Obviously you're like you're like slaveholding middle class if you have 20 slaves, right? You know what I mean? Like that's not like a ton, but it's also like it's also just this it just kind of goes to show like how? ideologically committed to This is like this racialist hierarchy of the world that they were that they like could not even see

strategically like how to Actually, you know embed people into their cause and everything and our in our coming Civil War that's gonna be extracted out to if you have 20 Airbnbs then you're exempt from enlisting. If you have 20 rental properties you're exempt. But any less I'm sorry pal you gotta go out there and get it. Yeah well I think that in the same way and I've mentioned this on the show before, but I do think neoliberalism has made leaders, it has created a very specifically type of bad leader for like the current moment. People who just like don't understand what they're even supposed to be doing.

Just because we have so extensively blurred the distinction between like public and private like people don't even know like What am I am I running a business? Am I running a government like what am I supposed to be doing like I guess I'll get on a zoom call and do some Slack chats like and that's leadership I guess but I don't know like maybe someone will tell me what to do, but like oh wait I don't have anybody telling me what to do. I'm supposed to be telling me what to do And I think that like I just I just think that like that I think that could explain a big part of it

But I wanted to read this thread from one of my favorite fucking tweet tweeters I think he lives in your neck of the woods Mina Give me the name I did he used to go by dr. Vox now. He's dr. Volts David Roberts Something I've thought about this. I love this shit this this guy is he he is a Premier sued I love it. Yes into my veins baby grab the belt grab it up Something I've thought about frequently over the years Barack Obama was a galactic political talent able to Articulate left values in a way that united virtually all non-mega Americans and yet at the end of his term

He just dot dot dot vanished has basically been invisible since there's no better representative for Dems But he just peaced out. I'm genuinely ambivalent whether to view that as unforgivable Things have gone to shit. We could use some help, or admirable. He did his time, fuck all y'all. At the very least, it's striking. I don't know. When I think about the kind of person I want going up against Trump, I always come back to Obama. He was both incredibly eloquent about the better angels of America, and embodied in his person America's potential. Yet that weapon has remained holstered bummer

It's just like this is the exactly where that weapon should go and it's in his fucking mouth As soon as you said I don't know I'm like you don't you don't Don't know that's true day It's just like saying George Bush just disappeared like just that let's like revealing that you have like that you Don't have object permanence truly. It's like hey. Yes, like oh you mean He just they get two terms David you kind of have to like disappear. You can't come back to David also the only man in America that somehow managed to stay off the DNC email list because they slept Barack Obama's name on every third one of those Still

He's hitting me up every hour Yeah, every hour on the hour. Yeah You know, I I don't know you going to believe this, but none of us can get have bus fare. Can you please donate $15 to the DNC? Listen me now. Now, did I produce a, a series of films for Netflix and, uh, you know, do I get six figure speaking fee? Sure. But in Biden's America, you know, inflation Netflix and you know do I get six-figure speaking fees sure but in Biden's America you know inflation is yeah I

Just to me it speaks to like this larger lack of imagination and really will to power just that like Well, I just want Obama back. No, I just want Obama back It's just it's just like you guys are the same as the fucking conservatives. It's just like you just want one person to just be, I mean, granted, you can critique the whole electoral system and that we have to have term limits and all this stuff, and I don't give a fuck because it's not really my game

at the end of the day, but this is the game you all signed up for. You wanted term limits, you wanted electoral electoral college you wanted fucking all these things and now you're just bitching and moaning because You're at the end of your limits on what you can do about any of it And so now like the best you can do is just either whine about not having Obama or just throw your hands up and defeat Against Biden. It's I mean, it's really astonishing to watch up in defeat against Biden. It's I mean, it's really astonishing to watch.

This is the same way that like people get nostalgic about video games to me as as somebody who plays video games like you liked it because you were younger. Right. Like that's it. That's it. That's it. You were younger. It wasn't better. In fact, it was probably, well, it was probably worse just in different ways. Uh huh. You were just younger. And that's okay. You're getting old and you'll eventually die. We all have to accept that. Yours is just sooner than hopefully a lot of other people. I don't know why I'm wishing death on this man. I don't know who it is But he's got he's got poo brain. I don't like this. He's he is a

He's the quintessential I see my life slipping away from me I see my life slipping away from me Like Gen X like why can't everything just go back to being stable and normal again Like I'm running out of years and you all should either shape up you all should shape up and like help me fix my midlife Crisis so that like I can die comfortably and it's like That is what a lot of the chatting of people like our age or a little bit younger, like is about ultimately. It's about like, can y'all just let me die in peace?

Or like die in relative comfort, you know? And y'all got some years to figure that out. But just like be an adult for a second and let me continue to, you know, make money hand over fist until I fucking perish. Right. And it usually follows like whatever a person's hobby is specific and it sounds like this person's hobby is politics

of like I remember, you know, I remember when my hobby was better and my interest was better and it should go back to being that because now it's weird and different. Right. Old man yelling at cloud sort of shit. No that's literally 100% it. In a similar vein, I've been thinking about this idea that like, you know, cataclysm and that things can only end poorly is something that's kind of been sold to us so that we

kind of mortgage our own future in a way so that they can, you know, I was thinking about this just riding around Lex the other day and I was seeing like billboards that say 666, Mark of the Beast, you know, the end is nigh type shit. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, you see them in Tennessee too, man. And I'm thinking to myself like, is that stuff just like,

has that just been so thoroughly beaten into us, I mean particularly in the South and other places like it, to where it's like we just can't conceive of a future because all of us assume that it's going to end with the great whore Babylon like, you know, riding into town and like cutting our heads off or something you know. Like we can only imagine a future where it ends poorly, and so that's sort of like, run an interference for people to, you know, rapaciously destroy the planet and make money off that, for example, and every other thing.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like the new millennial dispensationalism stuff, where it's like, no, like, we're trying to bring about the apocalypse. You know, whether it's trying to get every Jewish person into Israel so we can bring about the apocalypse. It truly is just, I'm never, you know, I used to write articles, I'm never gonna do that again. I promise I'm clean, but I'm clean.

I've been sober. Damn it, what's your secret? I still look at them. I still look at them. Don't read them. I still look at them. Okay. I still look at it. I do a little window shop. It's like going into a bar and just drinking club soda. It's just like, yes. Yeah, but it's, you know, there's a series of articles that I wanted to write that I wrote outlines for.

One of them is all the different types of Americas and one of them being Nazi factory America, the other one being theme park America, and then the last one and the most pertinent one to this conversation, death cult America, which is like every American wants to like, every American it seems like average Americans dream is to like kill themselves

and everyone else around them like it is like whether it's you as a man sitting in your car being pissed which is like the like average location for the average American man to be at any point in time is to just be sitting in his car and pissed or like or like in a bank like trying to get like your cash out But you're also like casing the joint to see like yeah so if an intruder came through this door then I would do this type of judo move and then kill it kill all of Them like it's just constantly like You're totally right. It is beaten into us, especially here in the south of just like seeing those billboards Like when I would drive to I went to UT Knoxville

I would just see those all the time and of course like parallel to them are like all like the lion's den sex shops on the right shot us to the lion's den I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say,

I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say,

I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say,

I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say, on the ground otherwise you'll lose your shit or you're like Constructing your own drone luftwaffe in your in your suburban Yeah, suburban the suburban rike that you live in like that's exactly like what we feel I live I die live again. We all want to see for how it It's true. It's true, but we're never gonna do anything worthy. I think something that I've something I come back to a lot, at least with regards to the liberals and their lack of any kind of vision for the future, which, by the way, one of the fucking craziest things I've seen was this week Biden saying Google project 2025 But they had not taken out any like ad searches And so it's like if you googled project 2025 it just takes you straight to the website of

all the right-wing people Proposing project 2025, so it's just like basically they're just doing the work for the right-wingers at this point but like regardless, you know, that's that's a whole other thing but like Something that I just keep coming back to a lot like I do I genuinely think that a big part of the reason the liberals don't have any future vision of the future anymore It has to do specifically with the whole experience with the American It has to do specifically with the whole experience with the American

Care Act or the Affordable Care Act the ACA Obamacare I think that like if you look at the trajectory of that and Just how like I remember start to finish. I remember this fucking thing start to finish This is when I first started getting politically active And I remember all the fucking debates over the public option and how that eventually got like winnowed down to like what we eventually wound Up getting and how we even like there were even things that they had at the beginning What's that Tom? They said what we ended up getting I said the bronze plan the bronze plan We wound up getting the bronze plan. I got the tin plan plan we wound up getting the bronze plan I got the tin plan the aluminum foil yeah my doctor spits in my hair and sort of muscles it up I visited Oracle on top

of a yeah on top of a hill in East Tennessee somewhere it's it's really the only thing and and I can see people coming at me and saying like well what about the inflation reduction act? What about all the things that they did during kovat all of that? I genuinely feel was purely of the moment was contingent on historical circumstance And they've already started pulling all that fucking back anyways with the exception of like some large-scale infrastructural projects and government spending, that kind of stuff. The welfare programs, they have all started scaling back. But the Affordable Care Act

was not something of historical contingency. It had to do with these deep ideological convictions of the Democratic Party. And it was something they had talked about all throughout the 90s talked about it all throughout the 2000s Just kind of like waiting like Qui-Gon Jinn in fucking Star Wars for the force field to come down on the Bush administration So they could get in there and finally do their fucking health care reform and what they wound up doing was this massive fucking handout to the health care industry and It's I mean like if you look at like I couldn't even really understand it at the time but like looking at it holistically now with the benefit of hindsight and just seeing like

How poorly the goddamn thing works now how? premiums have gone just Continued fucking going up and up and up and up how you can't even get a fucking plan now without a deductible beneath $8,000 Exactly the whole thing and just and and just also taught just went looking at like the the utopian Language that they they use when they rolled it out We're people more people are now are covered by healthcare than ever before. We're finally tackling health discrepancies

in this country and all this. And how it all fucking flopped. It's a huge failure. I opened the fucking New York Times today. There's a story in the New York Times today about how people are joining community groups and clubs for when they finally meet their deductible and that that's cause for celebration That is one of the grimace things I have ever heard

Me and my friends finally hit our nine thousand dollar deductible this year. We're gonna treat ourselves Like I think that this is a I think this is an untold story really like I think it has a lot I also realize how much you have to be unwell to even like hit a $15,000 deductible You know I mean you're like you probably have a chronic condition. You're managing or something like that. Yes exactly It's not good to hit your deductible. Yes. It's a bad generally a bad indicator Yeah, I had I had Surgery we won't go into what it was Got some parts flipped around It turned inside out, but anyways, I had surgery back in 2020 ladies

but I had surgery back in 2020 ladies but And I had to have surgery again and it was like me Pressuring my doctor be like can we get this in under the year? Yes, yes shit already cost me like ten thousand dollars. I hit my deductible. If we do this shit before Christmas, I'm fucking golden. I won't have to worry about anything. Like that's the level of like trying to bribe a doctor to be like, yeah, you're fit enough to have surgery again. And like those are the types of like lengths

that people will go to. Yeah, it's, or go ahead, Meem, I'm sorry. No, no, I mean, there's all sorts of other like fun hijinks of like, of like having to like go through, and I've done this, but I also know other people who have of like having to go through like, like veterinary medical supply companies

to get the medicine that you need because it's cheaper to do it wholesale. I've done that, I've done that. I ain't proud of it. Oh buddy, yeah, you need some broad spectrum antibiotics. Look at, look at what you can give fish. Yeah, get some silver nitrates, cauterize some wounds. You can't get that shit unless you lift it

from the doctor's office or you go to a man who is gonna use it on a horse. Yeah, or if you haven't had an uncle involved in organized crime. That's right. We were talking about the insurance plans. I'm not going to reveal too much about what I do in my professional life, but it has to do with medical science. And one of the things that I get super frustrated with arguing with people about is I was, you know, I'm a Marxist and I always try to bring class into things and the best way that I can do that is adjust to gross income when it comes to scientific and medical research. And the thing that like people do now is like whether or not,

like the best that they do is like whether or not Somebody has insurance which is like such a bullshit indicator to me You are like required to have insurance at this point insurance is very cheap, but you will have like a $40,000 deductible so like what's the point you can't really like Assess whether or not somebody is you is of a certain income bracket based off of whether or not they have insurance. Maybe you could have done that 30 years ago when you had HMOs and all the shit that they used to talk about on ER, but now it's kind of-

Cluny. All goes back to Cluny, baby. So I just get into these arguments with people and it's like that's where it leads to like You know to me frankly awful science. I wish there were other ways that they could assess it That wasn't just like a checkbox of whether or not you have insurance When the research is being done at hospitals that require you to have insurance right when the research is being done at hospitals that require you to have insurance. Right. Stupid. Stupid country.

Well, I think the thing, yeah, I think this experience, honestly, goes a long way to explaining the... just the withered, just the decayed foundation or even edifice of liberal ideology Because I they can't even pretend that this is good. I mean genuinely like I Know we talked about it many times over the course of the pandemic, but it is Phenomenal for at the end of the day all the things you could say about Bernie Good bad supported him, didn't support him, whatever, that candidacy,

that was purely basically a campaign for universal healthcare at the end of the day. That was basically one of the lead demands there. And the fact that we went through a pandemic and got nothing out of that, I think genuinely goes to show to how desperately people like Obama and a lot of these people held on to trying to preserve things like the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare. And I think that the fact that we didn't get anything after that and that was not even on it wasn't even on the table I think it's kind of become this thing where they they don't

They know they don't even really have anything to offer anymore. What else would they offer? You know what I'm saying? It's like them. Well, it's like like like what those elections became about Preserving Barack Obama's legacy and these elections, which was the Affordable Care Act, these elections are just about giving Biden what's due Biden in his own estimation. There's nothing, there's like no legacy really to protect. I mean, I know everybody talks about it. You're right. It was even, that was even cynical and grim when it was preserving Obama's legacy.

It's even more grim now that we're preserving Biden's legacy yeah and and and what we should pay filthy to him because he was a good boy to to to capital for 50 something years I don't you know yeah not sure what the bargaining chip is there I I just want to give a quick insight into just a quick example of how things how badly things have degraded This was in the New York Times today in constant battle with insurers doctors reach for a cudgel AI At his rehabilitation rehabilitation medicine practice in Illinois Dr. Ezlin Tariq typically spent seven hours a week fighting with insurance companies reluctant to pay for his patient's treatment.

He often lost. So in an effort to spare his patients what he deemed subpar care and himself mountains of paperwork, he recently turned to an unlikely tool, Generative AI. For a growing number of doctors, AI chatbots, which can draft letters to insurers in seconds, are opening up a new front in the battle

to approve costly claims, accomplishing in minutes what years of advocacy and attempts at healthcare reform have not. Some experts fear that the prior authorization process will soon devolve into an AI arms race in which bots battle bots over insurance coverage That's just dog. It's just bottom of the barrel bottom of the fucking man, I saw this for I've told this story on the podcast before but

my mother Had liver disease and the complication of that is this sort of confusion some cognitive Difficulties that happen with it when certain toxins build up in your system or whatever. There's like a very effective treatment that came out a couple years ago that basically eliminated the old treatment which was just basically consuming this stuff. It's like a simple sugar that makes you shit a lot so it keeps like that the toxins at bay. So this new treatment basically eliminated all the unpleasantness of that it was much more effective and it became like this thing where my mother's gastroenterologist had to haggle with a guy who was an

orthopedic surgeon who worked for the Indianapolis Colts so he was like repairing like free safety's knees and working for the insurance company too. And saying like basically that no the old treatments good enough that like you know there's no sense in insurance to cover this and I watched this like little Filipino woman who was my mom's my mom's gastro call this guy on the phone look him up call this guy on the phone and say quit fucking with my patients' lives. Yeah. And it was approved, like, not long after that, thankfully. But yeah, it's scary to think about, like,

how many people don't have those kind of advocates working, you know, for them, that can do that stuff and kind of pull rank on some of these scumbags, and like, how many people just are suffered as a consequence of that, yeah. Well, I think the thing what's so fascinating about this is, I mean, this is in, the fact that you have to employ either,

healthcare to me is one of the most fascinating aspects of American political economy, because it is genuinely the only industry where the providers are constantly trying to drive down the price at the point of service. Basically what you were just saying Tom, basically trying to either get coverage from the health insurance providers or at the pharmacy. How many times have you been at the pharmacy and the pharmacist is like let me see if I can make this cheaper for you you right they try yeah, they try to do you a solid. That's crazy. I mean that's awesome

I think I support that the point is is it like it is just it's a very weird node in political in the sort of like political economic mix where people kind of understand that they're at this very It's very like interesting contradictory where people kind of understand that they're at this very, this very contradictory position in everything. And if you compare that with, like I said, the things they were saying about health insurance and how the ACA was going to change everything, and then fast forward 14 years later

to where we're having to basically like in list chat bot prompts to get prior authorization requests approved because fucking Cost just keep going up and up and premiums keep fucking going up and up my fucking premium is over $400 a month right now That's insane. I feel stupid saying that I feel like I feel like I genuinely feel bad saying that I feel like I've been conned I feel like a mark like a mark. I do I feel like I've been conned. I've been scammed I'd be like I feel like you know what I'm saying, but like that's the best I could fucking do it's crazy

Yeah short of be friending a veterinary It's crazy. Yeah, short of befriending a veterinarian. Oh man, I mean it's true. It feels like a carnival game. It feels like you have no idea how it works, how you're going to win, how you win, how you lose, and it's just straight luck. I mean, to your point, I'm having make feet fake emails to get manufacturer coupons that I've heard So I don't have to pay $200 for a medication that I did on a monthly basis that I have to go and see a

Psychiatrist in person and pay for a five-minute visit with the man So I can get a subs I can get a prescription to a medication that I need to live. That's the level of inanity that you deal with when it comes to anything medical. Now we're just offloading it to... Let's be clear here. When we say AI, we mean people in data centers in like third world countries who are having to do this. Like it's, it is like that is, that's all it is. It's just all smoke and beers on top of that. And now we're just going to like leave our healthcare system to this like, you know, this constant like fencing match between AI systems. Right.

Yeah. Well, sure, like, let them fucking do it. I don't, I'm not gonna do it. Right. Because, like, they'll just, they'll, now it's to the point where, like, if they have those systems, they'll just wear you down if you try and do it yourself. Like, because they have an unlimited amount of stamina and I have a very limited amount of time that I can spend on the telephone

Right talking to literally anybody or trying to message somebody through a health portal Yeah, I mean, you know we can start wrapping up here, but I just want to put like put a bow on this that like the Democrats they don't see any reason to change any of this because to them this is like This is like their signature policy of the last 15 years This is what they've hung their fucking hats on and they don't see anything wrong with this They genuinely have their cake and eat it too. It's a way just to transfer wealth to their health care You know pals, but also look like they're being altruistic and trying to get more people Access yeah look like they're being altruistic and trying to get more people access. Yeah. That's their go-to phrase. I think that's spot-on and I think it really kind

of explains how their whole ideology is kind of withered over time. Just that like on top of having to beat back like an electoral challenge from the left, from Bernie, and on top of having to like try to manage Black Lives Matter and these like street insurrections and the contradiction of race in America, like on top of all that, like they have basically just run defense for their quote unquote accomplishments that were again just a massive handout to this industry. And the fact that they see that as good enough and not only good enough, but like they are completely

content with even that collapsing. I think that goes to show that they don't have anything less in the tank. I mean, I don't know. I mean, maybe they are able to put Buttigieg or Kamala back out there on the field and maybe that invigorates them for another They're going the way of the wig party it feels like that genuinely like it really does I mean like I know we've said that many people have said that

many times about both parties for the last 20 years, but like If this splits the Democrats if Biden in, like what does that mean? You know what I mean? Like does it disaffect a lot of these people? Or do they just become like dead-eyed, just like no, we have to just rally behind him. Don't you see? We have to rally behind him.

Like you know what I mean? Like they get that look in their eyes, they're like. Yeah, I mean it just, it will become just like what you see is what you get. And what you get is a doddering old man who loses time and he truly exists in like a fourth dimension. And then he's a fourth dimensional being. And then everybody else around him like doing, like trying to keep him in the room like Like what you see is what you get in that situation

You should not try and read into like all these backroom deals that are happening more right like bald face like This is your guy This is your guy. Yep. It ain't the wig party, it's the wizzy wig party, baby. That's right. I didn't mean to do that. But there you go, wizzy wig. Well, Mina, this is topical. We wanted to also have you on so you could plug this project

that you've been working on in Tennessee. Obviously, I didn't even plan this, but hey, this tea is right up. I know, I was thinking to myself, damn, this man's a smooth operator. He's done this before. I've done it in time too. Yeah, big thank you for having me on.

Always happy to be here, but in concert with this discussion about healthcare and everything like that, I'm part of a group called Quilt. It's Queers United and Liberating Tennessee. And we're a queer organizing project. We focus on things like political education. We currently have an organizing school. And we focus on putting together community and really trying to invigorate

a group of people, namely queer people, who have been left out of the labor movement, the housing movement, kind of like since inception, kind of been maligned and shoved out of it and we're wanting to train a new class of organizers. And part of this project is healthcare and what we have begun to focus on, which started on June 22nd, I believe, is a medical debt project. So we are currently in the process of raising $10,000 to abolish $1 million worth of medical debt here in Tennessee. You know, this is a project that was inspired by a group out in Pennsylvania, but it was also, you know, I went to Cuba last year and they had a, you know, I won't go into this big story, but they had a group called Farmers Against Homophobia and this doesn't, you know, our project, it's called Burn Debt Not Books.

And you know, we want to focus on what the real issues are, which is medical debt. Medical debt in Tennessee is one of the highest in the country. It is also in the country one of the biggest reasons why people are homeless and the money that we raise will directly go to abolishing debt for the poorest people in our state. It specifically targets people within Tennessee and Excuse me, I need to go to the doctor, but I need to go to the doctor. It's a really great project. We've already seen a really big response. Like I said, it started just a few weeks ago on June 22nd.

We've already raised over $2,000. This is a small outfit. What that means is it's 100x. Every dollar is $100 worth of medical debt that will be abolished. So $2,000 means that we're going to abolish $200,000 worth of medical debt for people here in Tennessee. And it's a show of solidarity. Lesbians and gays support the miners. It's about showing that the divisions that the ruling class, the capitalist

class insert between us are artificial and not real and what this is about is solidarity and bringing us together. And you know, I would really love if listeners could help donate, help share. You know, I can send you all the link, but the link right now is quilt-tn.com slash debt, D-E-B-T, quilt-tn.com slash debt. It will take you directly to our fundraiser page. And that money's going up, which is really exciting. We've gotten some big dollar donations from individuals. Like we're not going the nonprofit route,

like trying to get funding, but it's super exciting. And I'm really glad that people have taken interest and I know I can speak for myself. Like I have tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt and I'm sure people on this call might have a lot of medical debt themselves or know somebody who has a lot of medical debt. And like it, you know, I don't make as much as I would like to, to, you know, excavate myself from that pile. But I'm still gonna help out and hopefully bridge that gap for a lot of people

so they can get their feet under them. Well, I'll put a link in the show notes for people to donate to. I think that would be very helpful if people could please drop a few. Drop a few, I few I mean you all were able to help us out with the flood you're you've been able to help us out with the miners lesbians and gays for the miners you were able to help us out

with all kinds of stuff so I think this is something you can definitely pony up for drop a rack all your listeners drop listeners, drop a rack. Drop a rack? This is a drop a rack challenge. It's just a rack. It's just a rack. Come on man, it's just a rack. With pocket watch. Yeah, you'll get a cool nickname like one stack, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, just one stack? Damn. Damn.

Damn. Whew, hard times. I guess this money's going to help you, huh? Only one rack? Oh man. But you can, you know, can I plug my shit? Yes, please. All right, let's plug it up.

Um, so you can follow me on Twitter, uh, at, at get in the device. Um... I love how you have a different handle every time we, every time we see it. It's a weird one, but I'm also a bookmaker. Um, I actually had, last time I was on here, I actually had some of your listeners commission me, which was super nice Hell yeah, very helpful but yeah, I Hand-make books so I'm by hand format them. I specialize in doing

out of print hard to find or ridiculously expensive texts. One of them especially that is close to my heart is Leila Khaled's autobiography, My People Shall Live. I actually reached out to her ghostwriter to get permission to make those books. So there's a little dedication to him and some of his words. to him and some of his words. But yeah, you can check that out at thirdiy.us. Same thing for Instagram, thirdiy.us. It's where I post all of the books and shit that I make. But yeah, I post stuff all the time

and it's always good to talk to the boys. Yes, we definitely agree, Mina. Last time we had you on, the audience really had a good time. They really liked it. Yes, they're saying fourth Mike for Mina. Fourth Mike. Yeah.

Fourth Mike Mina. Fourth Mike Mina. Oh yeah, you can actually see, I've been wearing it, you can see my Program to Kill shirt that I made. I was gonna comment on that. Did you make that? I made. Ah yes. I was going to comment on that. Did you make that? I was hoping what you were plugging was a Dave McGowan Institute opening in Nashville. Yeah so I make the Program to Kill t-shirts.

I also reached out to Wendy Painting and I make the Aberration in the Heartland of the Real t-shirts too. So please read those books, become pilled. Something Dave McGowan wrote, which is very fascinating. He wrote the weird scenes that... Yeah. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Laurel Canyon, yeah.

I was thinking about this when I was reading Black Reconstruction, but like, the whole notion of a lone conspirator is entirely a 20th century invention. Like, I mean, and it's been applied retroactively to John Wilkes Booth. I mean, like, there were multiple conspirators of the assassination of Lincoln Like it's been lost the time probably because of the whole

JFK assassination like single assassin You know concepts, but like Dave McCown wrote about there there This was a conspiracy to kill Lincoln there were multiple people involved the idea that it was just like one guy who just found him at the theater and just like capped him in the head is like Absolutely absurd but like we you know We even know this on an intuitive level like with Caesar and shit like this this never just one Okay, take out the top dog just one. No. I mean. Yeah. No.

They don't let you get that close. No. No, no, no. They don't let you get that close as a rando. No. Are you kidding me? No. I know two, I know of two 14 year olds getting cuffed and stuff by putting a laser pointer

on Bill Clinton. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah. And lucky, and lucky that's all that happened to that's right that's why you need jolly West to come in and program your friends mm-hmm how to program your friends and win people too yeah but yeah I make a lot of books I have a lot of parapolitics people who like to follow me and I make books for them too.

It's really great. And I'm, you know, one of my biggest things is literacy. I think that's a really big problem in the US. Even for people who can read, I don't think they're exactly literate. But you're not wrong. As evidenced by this, by some of the things that you all have to read on this podcast. But yeah, if you have a text that you're having a hard time finding or if you hate reading on e-reader

or anything like that, hit me up. I charge a flat rate. I don't really give a fuck. So look me up, follow me for now Elden Ring tweets because that's what I've been up to while I've been sick. Hell yeah. Our copy of The Life and Times of Corporal Fess Whitaker is looking a little worse for wear these days. Might need you to... Yeah, might have to say to you. I just made a copy of Black Bolshevik for a friend, which is Harry Haywood.

And it's like, these are the types of books where it's like these books cost like $500 to $1,000 and the publisher has a death grip on it and is not doing anything with it. And I'm like, fuck you. I'm going to make it and I'll sell it to you, sell it to whoever wants it for 50 bucks. If you want to read stuff you should be allowed to Hell yeah, great open up the damn gates of knowledge Drop a rack make a book

Program your friend program your friend program your friends cancel medical debt there we go For sure it was the takeaways from everything else was a lot of preamble, but yeah, that's right All right, well go please go to the show notes You'll find all the links just mentioned and you'll also find a link to our Patreon that you can go and support if you would like to do that Drop a goddamn rack there, you know at it. Drop a goddamn rack there. You know like. It's just a rack.

It's just a rack. You're not gonna miss it. You're not gonna miss one of those every month. Yeah. What's a rack between friends? Yeah. That's right. For some reason our numbers always go down in the summer.

So you know, you wanna offset that a little bit kids are out of school right? Yeah, you get a bunch of children Spend the extra five dollars out there dropping five dollars a month I find out you're independently wealth and you could have been dropping a rack Drop drop them go to the patreon and drop those goddamn things and So yeah, and and also Go to all the other links in the show notes So Mina, thank you so much until next time we will we'll have you back on force Mike Mina

We'll talk we'll have you back on soon Yeah, let's do it all right thanks for listening everybody peace later Thank you.