Weekly Skews - Skews 3/01/22 – SOTU / Ukraine

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

Tonight we pre-game for the State of the Union address (not by partying or anything, just by running our mouths, as is tradition), and also get into all the latest from Ukraine. And yes, there will be dumbasses. Join us. Huge thanks to Podcorn for sponsoring this episode. Explore sponsorship opportunities and start monetizing your podcast by signing up here: https://podcorn.com/podcasters/Support the show

Hey y'all. What's up? It's Trey here. Listen, before we kick off this week's audio episode of weekly skews, I want to give a quick shout out to our new sponsor. Podcorn. That's right. Listen, as y'all know, we started weekly skews as a way to keep ourselves sane when COVID shut down the world back in 2020. What started as a live stream conversation between Smart Mark and I has turned into a podcast that reaches over 70,000 people every week. And for that, we are surely grateful to you. Now we're working to connect our show to sponsors who will, ensure our podcast is here for the long haul. That's why we reached out to Podcorn. It's an online marketplace connecting podcasters and content producers like us to amazing sponsorship opportunities. We like Podcorn because there is no middleman. Podcasters of all sizes can browse and choose opportunities right on the platform, set their own rates, and collaborate with brands directly without any exclusivities.

So if you're a content creator looking to connect with brands that will get behind your work, check out Podcorn.com slash. podcasters. Thank you. Here we go. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Happy Skews Day to you.

It is March 1st, 2022. I'm Trey Crowder, and that's Mark Audey. What's up, Mark? What's up, Trey? So you sent me an interesting text over the weekend. I guess you got anti-mask protested. Well, I mean, I didn't. I didn't show up at my house.

house to complain about how I kept wearing a mask. But yeah, on the Sunday, I took my sons to Hollywood for a little VR action. And we were standing in the lobby and I heard some screaming and whatnot and then an anti-mask mandate protest came through and they were being pretty aggressive, you know, like, and I was, me and both the boys have mask on and I was just, I was preparing myself to get real pissed off, you know, if they, like, if anybody said anything. Because it was specifically geared towards kids too like unmask our kids and all this shit and i just knew somebody was going to like say something it was going to be a whole thing but like i said we were kind of off the street in the lobby and then they let us in to where we were going and by the time we

came out they were gone so i avoided any uh you know over-to-top bullshittery but they were out and about for sure did uh anyone bother telling them that there is no more mask mandate in california yeah you know i didn't i wasn't even thinking about that like i texted you And then you said that. And I was like, oh, right. What the, dude, I don't, I don't know. I mean, maybe they had it planned already and they didn't want to, you know, didn't want to backtrack. It's like, well, we already made the signs.

I don't know. It's like, what if we, like, what if we didn't protested like Elvis swinging his hips on TV? Just like, let's pick some old shit to keep protesting the vote. Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, we got it. We're pre-game in here for the big state of the union, right? It's starting right now, right now. It starts right when we're done, I believe.

I thought it was at 8, but I don't care to watch it anyway. I feel like when Trump was, I think we moved the show last year so we could watch it or something. We did, we moved. I think there was a debate that was. Oh, yeah. It was that first debate was going to be up against the skewers, so we back down. What a shit show that ended up being.

But yeah, State of the Union, you know, I'll at least get the cliff notes. I don't know. But what's, what are we going to expect from it? Well, well, he's definitely going to say the state of the union is strong. That's when, it's what's a fun. Spoilers, Mark. Come on now. Yeah.

I, like, we should really go back to, because it wasn't until TVA, as they started doing it as a speech. Because all the constitutional requires is like from the time to time, from time to time the president must inform Congress by the state of the union. So you can literally just send a telegram that says the state of the union is fine. Like an email might even work. But it's, you know, it's useful to get out there and get your face on. TV, I guess. It does, like, it was always, you know, interesting to watch when Trump was president, because he might do something fucking nuts. But Biden, anything Biden says interesting is going to be, you know, aggregated. So probably just watch basketball instead.

Matt, because he does organizing, he got sent, like, the talking points email from the White House, but what they're going to be talking about? And, but like the context, a lot of Republicans are skipping it. They say because they did a testing mandate. to show up at the state of the union because the president's 97 years old. And Matt is the interesting theory that literally both Marco Rubio and Dan Crenshaw both said they don't have time to take a test, which I have to get tested every couple weeks for work. It's two minutes in and out. And I bet you if you're a congressman, they'll come to your office for it.

I don't get why those guys feel the need to even make up a bullshit excuse like that. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know why they don't just say, I refuse because it's my right as an American. to do so it's my freedom or whatever yeah like instead of just trying to be like oh you know i got a really busy tuesday i don't know if i can squeeze that in i i think they're trying to cover their ass because it is sort of a wartime footing and they don't want to seem like bad americans are not pulling together so they got to make up a principal reason but matt has a theory and because these people are asshole ghouls cynical as hell i have no reason to to uh disagree with

that they just don't want to have to decide whether it could cheer or boo ukraine because it'll piss off some signal their base either way so they just like you're just cowardly running away like cowards so that's mad's theory because i mean that i totally that that's just that's my head cannon now that's just true i just i mean i could totally see that they don't want to get into a position where they feel like they have to respond positively to something biden says or whatever when ukraine comes up but they also don't want to do the opposite so they're just like let's just not go say we're too busy yeah I'm too busy to put a cute tip up my nose for for 15 seconds it's like 15 seconds 15 seconds it's like no I'd be doing um so speaking of Matt he's also fired up because now he's always getting pissed off about Midwestern politics so Iowa's governor uh Kim Reynolds is given the official Republican response there's a bunch of responses we'll get at a second but she's the one picked and like uh he's pissed off because she's going to slam Biden for irresponsible spending when she took 3.2. $2 billion from the CARES Act.

And not only did she take it, he's a responsible spending, but she spent it so responsibly and auditor ruled she had to give some of it back because instead of spending on stuff to help her constituents use it to pay some of the personal governor's staff with it. Dude, a prominent Republican politician being baldly hypocritical? Surely not. That's crazy. Stop the presses, everybody. Yeah.

So among the other responses, large brain marge is doing her own for the, for the, for America First Caucus, which, if you're going to claim the mantle of America first, you should have to be able to name for the countries, I think, should be a good rule. But she's a, the balls in her. Like, she spent the weekend, she spoke at AFPAC and CPAC to see, well, maybe she wasn't invited to CPAC camera, but she did speak at AFPAC, which is Nick Fuentes is America, America's first political action committee. Fuentes is a Nazi.

A Nazi, yeah. And not even a way that he would dispute that label. he literally before he brought her up said they're comparing Putin to Hitler comma like that's a bad thing um are you serious literally yeah yeah damn so

yeah so and not only she's still getting some sort of weird state of union response but she's calling at the America she's calling she's using his title America first so fuck her uh she had a weird weekend she got half disowned for 10 minutes by the entire Republican establishment who are still going to

support her campaign for re-election, where Corey's buddy Marcus Flowers is running against her. There's also going to be a few Democratic responses, at least three, I think. People are going to be the most mad about her suited to Lebes,

even though she's going to say she supports everything Biden's saying and is going to say Democrats should put their money where their mouth is and actually support this. We'll get the actual stuff he's going to propose in a second. But one of the other responses is given by John Gotti Timer, who's the guy who sabotaged Biden's whole agenda when they separated the two, you know, the infrastructure bill from the Build Back Better Act.

He was the driving force behind that. He's the one who is driven Biden's approval ratings in the mud and see called Rashid to leave crazy for doing her response because he's trying to blame her when they support everything he wants to do. I can't remember. Is that typical? Does that normally happen response from? I know that I know that there's always a like opposing party official response. whatever i remember that happening every year but from the same party is that is that always a part of it i can't remember right now sometimes usually they're very obscure um these aren't going to be because of the

times we live in but yeah i mean it's definitely happened before whether it should i don't know what they're going to say but um as far as what biden's going to say he's going to brag about the job numbers everybody's been ignoring um he's going to propose trying to bring more manufacturing stuff back on shore for both economic supply chain and presumably national security reasons because of us not be able to get microchips from China and oil from Russia. But as far as the wish list stuff, like it is a good wish list. I just wish to live in this country is going to ask for legislation that lowers the cost of everyday expenses of working families and lowers the deficit by rewarding work, not wealth.

It's his language. Layout practical measures that would reduce costs for families, including prescription drug cost and health care premiums and child care and pre-k costs and energy costs. They've been running on like negotiating prescription drug prices since 2006 and even when they're in power, they don't do it. He's going to propose raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, which he ran on him, but his own party is not going to let him do it. Right.

Create a national comprehensive paid family medical lead program. That'd be cool. No one's going to do it. This would, of course, be paid for by taxes and corporations than a rich. It's not really clear whether he's talking about raising rates for just actually collecting what people should be paying through. enforcement of existing laws because they all cheat like crazy on the fucking taxes. The one thing that seemed missing to me was an environmental agenda because this is like the

perfect moment. So I saw somebody proposing like, why don't you tie green energy bills to Ukraine arms because like part of the problems, like we don't have energy independence. So we're caught up in all these horrible situations. Well, it like I'm not saying that this is why or that it's the same thing or whatever, but you know, like right at the very beginning of the Russian invasion over there, John Kerry said he had in an interview he was like you know it's just it's a shit i don't i'm paraphrasing but it was something like it's a shame that there's stuff like this happening and no one is worrying

about the about climate change or the environment or whatever i feel like he was just trying to say like which is a truly existential threat to all of us and instead it's this bullshit that you know is is actually happening he got fucking dragged for that dude like and i'm not saying it wasn't tone deaf or whatever, like picking that moment to make that point or however, you know, you want to say it. But I mean, like, it does seem like, what will have to happen before it does become an actual priority? I know it pops up every now and it's like a talking point or whatever, but I mean, you know. I mean, there are pretend for a minute climate change isn't real, right? there's still good reasons

to invest in wind and solar energy. One, wind and sunlight are free given to us by the almighty, our provider, Lord and Creator. And secondly, you don't have to worry about having to kiss the ass

of, say, the genocidal king of Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Or, like, we stop and sanctioned Russian oil and gas because we can't afford to because. Isn't that, exactly what Germany just did, meaning they just used this whole thing as an impetus to

up their commitment to being, you know, fully on the renewable energy path. I saw that headline the other day. They, they up their deadline for being whatever percentage, you know, renewable energy reliant as a direct result of this whole thing, because they were so reliant on Russian energy sources. Yeah. I think that's referring to nuclear. I think they got out of the nuclear business promised entirely after Fukushima, and now they're realizing that was a mistake. I mean, like, I'm not an expert on it. Some people consider nuclear, fairly green energy source. I'm not sure what we do with the waste, but that's, but that's not, that's an argument's above my head, and that's for environmental scientists and physicists.

But like, so it is an opening, and even if Biden doesn't see it out in public yet, Joe Manchin did. That's why Joe Manchin proposed a bill today to open up way more oil and gas. which was countered by Ed Markey introducing a clean energy bill. To be like, hey, why don't we do this instead? So that's good. So here's a list of good things that could make the world a better place. None of which will happen. Yeah, right.

So just pretty standard, par for the course. Yeah, I guess we'll see how it goes. Okay, well, with that said, producer Matt is here with us doing the thing. This is weekly skews. I want to remind you all of a couple things. Number one, if you're vaccinated, want to see me live. You can go to well-read comedy.com for tickets. I'll be in Knoxville this weekend where I started comedy.

That show is very nearly sold out. So if you want to go, please holler at it now. And also a reminder that we here at the skews have started a Patreon for those of you who just can't get enough and want to support us. We sure do appreciate it. We've done two bonus episodes so far, one on the War on Drugs and Joe Biden giving out free crack pipes. At least that's what the Republican said he was doing. And then the second one on blood money, dark money, all. kinds of shitty money and the effect that it has had on the whole situation with russia and

ukraine we're going to have plenty more bonus stuff for you coming up having a good time with it so as matt just put up there and go to weekly skews dot com slash more or you can just search for my name on patreon and get set up and uh we hope you will consider it okay for the show tonight we're going to be talking about what else ukraine uh putting up a valiant effort so far to be sure we'll talk about what's happened so far and the prognosis for the future and how much Vladimir Putin sucks. A lot to unpack there, obviously. But first, let's do some dumbasses. Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's DD, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, for expecting racism to not kill for a conservative conference

crowd. Matt, play the clip. He has some good points. I have the reputation of the... the biggest races in the country. Think of that. Well, I hate to. I hate to. What are you clapping for that I am or I'm not?

Well, I'm not. It's pretty great. Later on, and we didn't have to watch the whole clip, but later on near the end of that clip, he says he's talking about who was accused of racial profiling or whatever. And then he goes, at the end of that, he goes, and you know what? Maybe I was racial profiling. And he got another huge applause break when he said that. He was. Like he, like his, if you guys don't know, our Joe Arpaio was convicted of a lot of federal crimes and

pardoned by Trump. He was a sheriff in Maricopa County in Arizona. And one of the things his deputies would do was just stop people who looked Hispanic and asked there were citizens. So I think That's pretty clearly racial profiling. Yeah. And I don't know why a sheriff's like our national, our fucking foreign policies being run by sheriffs or gas stepped up on their own to buy. Good Lord. Fucking crazy country.

He's like, a lot of people have this take that it's like, one of the things Trump did was he made people feel comfortable saying racist shit again in public. For sure. And a lot of people have this take that like, oh, at least they're out in the open now. Yeah. I don't like it. I do not like it. I used to kind of subscribe to that because my argument was always like they already felt this way.

Like they are this way. So at least now there's no like duplicity involved, you know, but I do hear you. It's really like, I mean, it sure is upsetting and disconcerting for it because it seems like it's like mainstreamed amongst them now. I mean, literally fucking he gets a damn standing ovation for saying. that people think he's the biggest racist in America. It's like, that's, you know, no, we don't need that. I think when, well, I think people being racist in secret and private is preferable to making their case in public and winning people over to their cause.

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, you're right. I also think that in general, just interpersonally, I'd rather person be fake nice to me than honest mean. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's still, it's just, yeah, I don't know. I did like maybe maybe it does make people more comfortably up that point that guy's the racist and that guy's the racist and they're wearing the name tag says racist um yeah yeah now you said that I'd rather people be fake nice to me than honest me Matt said you should move to the Midwest then I mean marks from the south it's very much a thing there too it's you know bless your heart baby that's the that's the whole deal all right our first honorable mention for daily dumb ass a different kind of cop this Colorado Springs cop who fucked around and accidentally was doing good in her community That's weird. Yeah, so Colorado Springs police sent undercovers into the local DSA chapter, Democratic Socialists, and trying to find Antifa.

And instead, what she ended up doing was helping homeless people find housing and taking phone calls from people who had problems with their landlord. So finally some tax dollars put the good use. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. I like, what are they like, I just wonder what her briefings were like. you know back at the back at the uh the station where it's like what's your update for us it's like well they're they're giving out a lot of soup you know they're like trying to help uh people organize and you know and uh improve their living situation with their landlords like they're

just completely out of control in fact i wonder if their expectation genuinely was that she would get in there and uncover this like large scale Antifa eco-terrorist operation or something, like she was going to find them making Molotov cocktails to throw through the bank window or some shit like that. Like, is that what they thought was going to happen? Maybe they thought the soup they were collecting for the homeless was those cans of soup for my family that Trump was always talking about.

People were throwing cans of soup with the cops and like, oh, they're so innocent, soup for my family. That was pretty funny. That was pretty fun. I was the one time Trump was actually funny. Soup for my family. so maybe that's what they thought they were doing i don't know it's just like cops just do this shit and i don't really know what they i mean the dsa does organize protests and maybe they're

trying to like get intel on illegal protest actions uh but like why they're spending so much resources to stop people like a couple dozen people standing around the street corn chaining black laws matter i don't know i guess they can spend their overinflated you can't defund them but they couldn't do this tray what would they do without the funding to do this um yeah Yeah. All right. Our next honorable mention for Daily Dumbass is Lauren Bobert for not being prepared for a real shit storm in her upcoming re-election campaign. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at this new campaign ad from her newest challenger. This is wild. Okay. Oh shit! Oh shit! Ah!

all right we are real we are living wage small government that actually works and freedom of choice instead we have bullshit you get it

it goes so much further than that just so you guys know if you want to look up and watch the whole thing. He's not done with the poop. There's so much more poop. There's puke. It just, he's got like cell phones pooping into people's faces. He's got a cue guy, like, puking all over a picnic table.

And then he does a fake Lauren Bobard in her office spraying bullshit with reckless abandon, just all over everything. You know, and I appreciate the artistic vision here. But this is, this is wild, Mark. I don't know how to, I don't know exactly how to feel about this. I think the real dumbass here is us for being a country where this is highly effective. And this video got a quarter million views the first day it was up. So it was a big hit.

And I think this guy, I think this might actually be kind of smart. This is Alex, the guy named Alex Walker. And the landing page for his campaign website says, now you're wondering, is this guy for real? Dude, 100%. I put in the outline when I first watched this, I was like, this dude, some kind of performance artist or something. And like, this is like a, this is some kind of, this is a joke, I thought. But I mean, but he really is, so he's legit. It's all legit.

Yeah, he's a pretty moderate Democrat. He happens to be gay. I'm only saying that because it's like the first word of how he describes himself. He, uh, quote, the stakes are high and the fight could not be more urgent. Unless we act now, the insurrection party where rob disenfranchised communities of civil liberties for generations to come. Um, this is funny because this was. such a big deal newspapers

had to cover it and I was wondering how they wrote it up and they literally put the word turd in the newspaper which hit for me a lot of tards

man a whole lot of tards in this interview he says humor is how I dealt with the death of my brother humorous how I dealt

with coming out of the closet and humorous how I'm going to deal with going national and a really scary fight against a QAnon psycho who'll do anything she can and make my life a living hell

so yeah go go Alex Walker I guess this is like I mean he's He's going to get fucking, like, we've talked about before, but the guy ran against Marjor Taylor Green and Georgia had to drop out of the race because he got so many death threats and his wife left him.

Like, did the Marjor Taylor Green supporters ruin this guy's fucking life? And this guy, this Alex Walker guy's probably for a similar fight. So, yeah, I mean, you're definitely, he also said in his interview, he's like, look, you've got to take big swings nowadays. And I don't disagree. Like, one of my new favorites is Gary Chambers Jr. in Louisiana. but his ads were like in the first one he's smoking a blunt and talking about you know how marijuana laws need to be um you know fixed and about the effect it's had on the black community and all that type of shit but he's smoking a blunt throughout and then his second one he set the Confederate flag on fire so I mean you know that I'm all for that dude I'm not saying I'm not for Alex Walker here uh I'm just it's like I don't know No, it's a lot of poop, man.

He certainly went for it. Yeah. The, I mean, I think, like, to get an, like, to win as an incumbent, you got to, like, make a lot of noise. And Lauren, I think it probably would help to have a national profile running against somebody who's weirdly popular with Republican base like Lauren Bobert is. It's going to help with this fundraising. I get why it's, yeah. Well, you know, Lauren Bobert, she's got a lot of big ideas, Mark. And she's still coming up with them every day.

hear her take on the situation with Ukraine and her take away from that so far. So I pray for Ukraine, and I wish them the best. They have a great president right now who's really said clearly, live free or die. He said, I don't need a ride. Give me ammunition. The fight is right here. But we also have neighbors to the north who need freedom and need to be liberated. And we need that right here at home as well.

And neighbors to herself. So. All right. so fuck ukraine let's invade Canada i know it's like it's like she's it's like oh ukraine look what they're doing defending themselves against this hostile invading force trying to take their land you know what that says to me is we need to invade Canada and take their land I love what ukraine's doing but really we should do what russia's doing because Canada they've been getting away with being a little too uh you know little too lefty up there for a while okay we need to they need some

It wasn't even lefty. They shut down some GoFundees that were funding annoying truckers. It was like, that's what we're calling oppression in the Western, in North America right now.

But like, it's like so funny to me, it's like part of our argument's proximity. It's just like, just because like, yeah, that's some vague Canada. It's a shorter commute, right?

It's like, to quote one of my favorite comedy bits, uh, let the troops sleep on their own bed and drive to war. You know, it's like, like Jesus Christ. Yeah.

All right. Well, speaking of the war, let's get into. to it. Let's talk about Ukraine. So, um, I don't know. Well, you go ahead, Mark. Do a start. All right. So, um, Tren on, on the Friday, the bonus show, we talked about about sanctions and what was taken so long and why I was dubious. They would be that effective. They surprised me about this by how harsh they came down. Um, there's still not enough. For example, like I talked

about earlier, we haven't sanctioned Russian oil and gas. There's still, the stuff we talked about on Friday, like Italy having carpouts to be able to sell Gucci and luxury, other luxury goods, Belgian diamonds They're like it's like they We talked like about us the Swift Network which is the banking network where banks you know move money around the world They they

They kicked a couple Russian banks off Swift But not all of them so just like a brushback pitch But we talked to like Nazi The history of money laundering and The Switzerland just holding on a ton of Nazi gold For the rest of eternity apparently But guess who came on board baby

Right Switzerland. We did it. We're taking credit for this one. Yeah, we should. No, yeah, on the bonus show we talked about, we got into Switzerland and how I've been, this is just wild. I feel like people had been sort of arriving at the same conclusion because Switzerland had been on my mind recently about their whole neutrality thing. And I don't know about you, but I felt like I always heard about Switzerland being neutral growing up. But it seemed as though it was like, pitched in a sort of noble fact it was like a noble neutrality they stay out of it that's what they do and it's like that's what you think about you think about that skiing watches chocolate whimsical knives you know like that's what you think about when switzerland comes up but it's like there's a fucking blood money capital of the world and like being remaining neutral when one side is the Nazis is like that's i don't know how noble that is they've got like some of the best

PR ever, I feel like. They've kind of just generally gotten away with that and even been sort of applauded for it for a long time. But even they have taken a side on this one. So, I mean, I feel like you know you fucked up when you made Switzerland take a side when like their whole entire thing is not taking sides. Yeah. I saw somebody frame the way countries are divvying up sides here is like chaos

Muppets versus Order Muppets. And it sort of makes sense. And like it goes back to my theory that we talked about on Friday, that money runs everything. I thought maybe they wouldn't do any sanctions at all because it would fuck with people's money. And what I came around to was, oh, times are good for most countries right now, business-wise. And Russia's fucking all that up because war is bad for business in a lot of ways.

And so they're coming down hard and fast to try to get Russia to get us over as quickly as possible so everybody can go back to business as usual. If you're not familiar with the chaos, like all the Muppets basically, Jim Hansen told me his theory of comedy and like some of the Muppets are chaos Muppets and a lot of the Warner Muppets like Ernie is an order Muppet. Cookie Monster is obviously a chaos Muppet. Okay. No, I've never heard of that.

But that, yeah, that makes sense as far as the Muppets go. But what are you saying that like Russia is a chaos Muppet and the order Muppets don't like that? Yeah. So, like, this reason, even China is making no noise about it being opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is interesting because China would love to invade Taiwan for similar the reasons. But also, China's, like, I think the world's economic leaders are like, we're coming out of COVID. We're fixing these supply chain issues. Money's back changing hands, baby. Why the fuck you doing this? It's like, so like, like, China's doing great. They don't,

they don't want this fucking headache. They don't want to deal with it. Like, it's like, Putin just took a shit in the world's punch bowl and all the world's economies are reacting to it. Right. As far as the actual fighting on the ground, it's about 3.30 a.m. in Ukraine, right now. I'd imagine all their cities are getting the ship pounded out of them by Russian artillery and tank fire and cluster munitions dropping planes and yada, yada, yada. Russia bombed a Holocaust memorial earlier today, which is the interesting strategy and their quote, unquote, denazification campaign. The context of this, and like, we've been seeing a lot of feel-good stories coming out of Ukraine. I get why, because it's a David versus Goliath story. But there's a thing about David versus Goliath. It was a poorly mismatched fight. And David, would have had no chance in a heads-up battle if we had a lucky rock guided by the hand of the Lord and did its target. So they cannot hold out for long because Russia just has way bigger, more guns. Right. So, yeah, that's like, yeah, I'm glad we're getting into this because I've been thinking, like, you're right, a lot of the stuff that has been shared around that you've seen all over the Internet has been, like you said, it's got like a feel-good kind of aspect.

to it and it's like seems sort of optimistic and look they're fucking they're obviously they're tough as nails and they're putting up a hell of a fight and it's very inspirational and all that but it's like also our own bias and you know we're seeing what we want to see and whatnot it's been four it's been like five days now it's going to be a lot longer than that and um at the end of the day they're still going to be very outmatched and outgunned right like i didn't know i didn't realize it's one of the stories you sent that Russia's got multiple different sort of types of munitions and modes of attack that they haven't even employed yet because they I guess they didn't think they would have to and they're supposed to be far more devastating and

I'm not talking about nuclear weapons it's other types of weaponry that they have at their disposal but haven't rolled out so I mean it could you know could still get much much uglier obviously over there I think they're boxed in by well not that they're humanitarian but the second order effects of acting inhumane are big you're talking about like maybe losing death and domestic support is support if Russian people figure out how just how gross the war is which is happening you got like they don't want to destroy Ukraine or Ukraine they wanted to govern it they wanted to rule it so like that having to pay to rebuild it it makes their lives harder they just wanted Zelensky to leave and put in a public government government

go home. That's all they wanted. They didn't want to fight. Um, so it the, the, I would say to like, so Ukraine's basic military strategy, if it has one right here is to hold out long enough that the Russian, Russian people get fed up and the military get fed up to a degree that they'd some sort of coup on Putin or somebody figures out a way for him to save face and, and be able to declare victory and leave like we should done in Iraq in 2003. But like I saw somebody compare them to the

Ewarks the other day and I was like that's a good comparison because if that was a real battle, you think the EWox would have won? Like it's I'm loving all these Muppet-based or Muppet adjacent theories of the current geopolitical situation.

I'm appreciating those. But anyway, yeah, so Ukraine's the Ewak's. Yeah. Yeah, but it's like, so anyway, there are, we're going to have some, we're going to talk about some of the fun, uh, a lot of the stuff that Ukrainians are doing is essentially on the level of pranks, which is what you do when you're fucking completely outmatched and you want to make viral videos, but it, so it is fun. It is like, like, what do you call it, like, good trouble, I guess or whatever, but like it's not like, but really going out and standing in front of a Russian tank is only an effective strategy as long as they don't want to run over you. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like yeah so um on talking about like how they they're basically their fight as a pressure can a political pressure campaign which isn't new that's basically what the vietnam did it's what the confederacy did in civil war it's what you know it's it's a typical

gorilla tactic but there are some signs that it could be having some success like putin might be losing the elites there's a couple funny stories here uh first when uh sanctioned russian tv host cries about losing his italian villa uh this one made me really laugh so i guess Italy just, like, ganged his vacation house, and he went on TV and proud about it. So this guy's name is Vladimir Soliv. I don't know. Okay. I don't have a Russian tongue.

So he has a house like it's down the street from George Clooney's estate on Lake Como. His neighbors have been protesting since he bought the property. They even log out of petitioners where I make sure he didn't get Italian citizenship through his back door through his residence. He's been making a lot of dumb news about Ukraine, so Italy took his house. And he whined like a bitch about it. And that was really funny to me. The last year,

Alexi Navalny, who was a Russian dissident, who got poisoned by Putin, he runs his own, like, sort of dissident campaign network. And they, like, were doing stuff, like leaving Jew training and chocolates on his doorstep. This was a couple years ago. So they did they,

so this dude, he's still alive now? Navalny? I think Navalny's still alive. He was poison, he's in prison, yeah. Was it a failed? poisoning or was it like

Putin was like I'm just going to poison you a little bit just so you know that you need to act right like this is the real poison is coming later. I think he got poisoned and then went to the hospital and got treatment and survived. Well it looks like shit now it's one of those things he got poisoned in the gulag yeah then he landed back in Russia

I think maybe his plane got diverted so he could get in prison he wasn't trying to go to Russia but he ended up in Russia getting arrested now he's been in prison for a few years. This one this is my favorite one. We talked on Friday about how like No one has even taken away the Russian oligarch super yachts. Well, one Ukrainian guy decided to take on his own.

See, some Russian tycoon, who I guess is a weapons manufacturer, he's double bad. He hired a Ukrainian sailor who decided just to fucking sink as he's super yacht. I don't know if it's like a disconnect or just extreme hubris, but maintaining a largely Ukrainian crew on your super yacht. when you are a Russian war baron or whatever is like that's a hell of a strategy man like it's you know like but and you know came back and bit him in the ass because this dude wasn't having it this this is what happens when you don't see other people is real or you think politics are right this dude's got a family who are getting killed and this guy's just like I made 20 bucks

on a transaction it doesn't fucking is it's in a realty um so uh the detainio the guy got the the ukrainian sailor got arrested because of course he did Um, detainee allegedly stated the Mijiv, who's, I guess, the Russian billionaire is related to the manufacturer weapons. So he decided to take revenge on him after seeing an image of a missile hitting a block of flats in Kiev. Uh, he asked the other sailors, most of him Ukrainians. He had a bunch of Ukrainians on there. I know. That's what I'm saying.

He's got like a Ukrainian crew. Like, it's wild. I thought he would have gave them the weekend or something like now thinking like, they might sink my fucking boat. Maybe I've since where, you know, take. their homeland, but no, he kept him on board. He was, yeah, I'm sure he was like, hey, I pay him. They know better than to sink my boat.

Well, not this guy. Yeah. So he told the rest of his fellow sailors who were also Ukrainians to abandon ship, and then he opened several valves to create leaks, and partially sunk that motherfucker. I hope his boat smells like mildew when he's having sex well as dumb mistresses on it.

So we were talking about Ukrainians because of fun mischief and the stuff going viral. And it's been, considering what a Bogeyman in, Russia's been in the last five, ten years about, like, state sciops on the internet. It's been kind of fascinating how badly they're losing the info award here. Let's just get a little pallet cleanse. We have all those definite instruction talk. And watch this video of a Ukrainian redneck using this tractor to steal a tank.

We got that ready, Matt. It's a, like, hit, nah, bishers. You know, that Russian, russieck. and after it is shitting himself man like you can't be the guy that left the tank running or left it you know open to being towed away by ukrainian farmer like that's yeah that's not going to go well i'm really torn here because in the one hand i do want the ukrainians to fuck to to mess these guys days up as much as possible but also i fucking hate tow truck drivers so it's 50 50 i think here um there's also like a fun stories like there's i don't know if this is true there's been a lot of

stuff that turned out to be fake. We'll get to that in a second. I guess just go ahead and get it over with now. So some stuff we talked about on Friday that I told you could be fake because it was possible to fact check. It goes to Kiev, that fighter pilot shot down six fighter jets in a single night. That turned out to not be real. And the battled Snake Island guys, the ones who told the Russian battleship to go fuck themselves, the video stopped and the story was those are the last words because they got killed.

Turns out they surrendered after that, which is cool because I don't, these guys created the meme they got the content they did not die for the meme i respect that the video was real right like they really had that exchange yeah but then they surrendered as opposed to all getting you know yeah exploded by the russians i mean yeah i'm fine with that like i'm not like i'm not gonna hear that be like oh god damn i thought they were dead now i'm not in the story anymore you know like it's still it's still a baller move to tell them go fuck yourself just because they did not then murder you. They didn't know, like, when they said it, they thought they might explode us after we say this. So it's still some gangster shit either way. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm glad they're

alive. I'm not mad that they fooled me. Yeah. So there's one of those stories that's impossible to know if it's true, but it's too good to fact check. So we'll just tell you this story that's floating around. The reports of Russian troops trying to match on Tinder with Ukrainian women and getting catfished. That hits for me. me of a, there was an Eastern European women who were catfishing ISIS dudes and they, they took ISIS for like hundreds of thousands of dollars and like, that's awesome. Dude, I mean, I guess 20 year old dudes are just going to be 20 year old dudes, but it's wild to be occupying, invading a country and still getting on Tinder every day and just, you know, saying what's, if there's any hot singles in my area. It's not even clear they know they were going in an invasion. They're told they're in a training exercise.

So, like, some of the dudes might even know, might not even know their war. They might think they're fucking doing exercises in Belarus. Speaking of which, like, we're going to get, like, the Russian army is a lot bigger and more powerful, but it doesn't mean it's competent. That's where it's creating a lot of cracks for some fuckery. Like, like, some of the Russian soldiers don't have helmets. The Russian soldiers have been posting videos complaining that a lot of their field rations expired in 2015.

Here's a phone when Ukrainian civil militias have been capturing Russian soldiers and making them call their mothers, which is, hilarious and brilliant. This is effective because, again, their moms didn't know they'd been deployed. So you call the mom, I capture your son, oh my God, how can I help? Go out in the street and protest, tell people this war that's actually

happening. It's not just a training exercise. You're being propagandized. And call your commanding officers and call your son's commanding officers and tell them to go fuck themselves. So they're doing all that. I'll skip this dump. This is real quick. So on America Shores, Dennis

Miller chose to cancel his own Russia Today Show, which prompted me to ask the question. Dennis Miller has a Russian Today show. Right. Is Russia Today? Is it like, is it like Al Jazeera? I'm not comparing the two in terms of. I just mean like, is it also globally available Russia today? Because I know it's like the state-owned propaganda news outlet in Russia, RT, Russia Today. But like, what the foot? Dennis Miller had a Russia Today show. Yeah, apparently as does also William Shatner. What? who has not dropped his Rusted Today show. What the fuck, man.

Thumb reporter dug through the host and found one guy who hosts a show in Russia Today. He lives in New York. He was arrested in New York in 1999 for having 570 unreturned library books with $31,000 in overdue fees. It was just the weirdest motherfuckers in the planet. Yeah. So. A book bandit over here, man. Al Jazeera actually does pretty good news coverage.

Russia today. No, I know. I wasn't trying to compare them in that way. I just meant like I was just trying to say, is it like an outside of Russia operation also? Like they have like global programming everywhere. Because if they do, I wasn't aware of that. Yeah. I mean, Ukraine's been writing angry letters to a bunch of Silicon Valley companies trying to beg them to take down Russian propaganda because like I actually can share, you can just share Russian propaganda on Facebook in the metaverse and no one will do anything about it. So, you know, Going back to the Russian army being inept, you can throw that screen right back up there, Matt. So there's been a bunch of reports of Russian troops being taken prisoner and basically telling Ukrainians. We found out about this as the invasion three hours before you did. We thought were actual exercises and suddenly we were told to cross the border. Like there's been like, so I'm not a military strategist. I'm not going to do as read and tell you what I read, but like, so they basically did a Blitzkrieg type invasion. But usually comes in three waves.

you send in the army of tanks to blast through as quickly as possible. Then you have a secondary line come through and clean up the enemy forces that you push through and left behind. And then you've got to establish supply chain lines. And, of course, they did the first thing, but not the second, too. So they ran out of gas and food like 20 miles into Ukraine, which is why it's so easy to steal their tanks. The good news of the Russian army, though, is they got some good old boys right into the rescue. Played this video, man.

that end up. It's Tejas on the front line with the D-Nazi fires and liberators of Ukraine. These guys are tough, these guys are ready, and there's plenty of them. So far, Russia has used about 10% of its military power, and we're getting ready to bring the hammer down. These guys are going to save and liberate all the good people in Ukraine and the bad people. Oh, kick their ass. So one, one big old, good old boy with a ponytail is going to go over there and help Russia defeat the Ukrainian Nazis with the Jewish president. There's been people, there was a report debunked that a bunch of Australian proud boys were going to help out the Russians.

and then there's also stories about people going to join the Ukrainian side. Americans do this a lot. Like, there were Americans fighting in Syria for various different militias. I don't know why, except we love to fight. I guess if you believe in stuff. Are mercenaries or people just going and volunteering? Yeah, some like Canadian, like, paramedic went to join up. But I guess he's a medic.

He has skills, I guess, could help. I would advise doing that. I'm going to stay here and talk about it. You guys have fun now. spade for sure uh the we don't even show this video map but like pat robinson

did his normal thing came out of retirement to go on TV looking like old War Redenbacher the ghost of World War Redenbacher's dead mother uh and uh said that this is all in God's hands and God made Putin invade it wasn't his decision because it's going to help bring out end times

and the army is going to pivot south to Israel I don't know yeah yeah you'll have that yeah uh the Russian fuckups have been kind of funny because like the Russia's state media apparently had a victory pronouncement on auto post

that went live last night. So it just like did the mission accomplished by the way. Yeah, they did the mission accomplished banner. And it's sort but the takeaway there is like the fact that Putin needs to declare

victory so quickly is sort of evidence to me of how precarious his domestic political situation is. Do you know what I'm saying? like he didn't he shouldn't have to if he was actually strongly in power he wouldn't have to say shit right right we're at war fucking deal with it um it like said there's so much fog of war stuff happening here and as far as why ukraine is winning this um selinsky is like a social media star like yeah absolutely he is he's really good at this and um i i think his career like like trump's career in show business helped him be a good propagandist.

I think Zelensky's dead. Let's enjoy some Zelensky highlights. So Zolensky was on Dancing with the Stars. And let's check out his. He's got some swiveling hips, baby. He's got it all, man. I'll tell you what. It's like he's.

He's been a pretty stone-cold motherfucker over the past, you know, week or so. And then you see him out there just cutting a rug, man, in a pink leisure suit. This guy's, he contains multitudes. Yeah, he's a tough motherfucker who also cut his teeth on TV, playing Hava Nogila, pretending to play Hava Nogila with his dick. Do you have this video, Max? Classic. Classic. I love this video map, but I think we get the gist.

Yeah, that's just, that's just fun for the whole family right there. That's a classic bit. And we couldn't show this video because we're afraid of getting hit for copyright. Right. But Zelensky is also the voice of Paddington the Bear in Ukraine. Yeah. And you go look it up because his voice, he has a deep, scratchy smoke. Like, you put him to do something he smokes three packs a day. And he's like, they're, the Ukrainians are so fucking tough that even their cuddly bear is like.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Getting up the wacky hijanks and talking like this and a paddock bear. Yeah. That's pretty great. So as far as how this affects domestic politics, Republicans haven't settled on a real line for this. And I think it's like they're basically what they're saying it is. Ukraine, we want Ukraine to win now, but Biden, if Biden was tougher, Russia wouldn't have invaded.

But also Biden should keep gas prices low. Right. Which should also sanction Russian oil and also and also. Yeah, right. The funniest one to me was trying to square a circle with Glenn Yonkin, the new governor, Virginia, tweeted out that he supported Ukraine in their fight against the Soviet, fighting against Soviet Russia, which is, yeah, we're just like, I don't know what to do. Let's pretend it's 1991. So, yeah, I think, anyway, I think one of the reasons people have been inspiring about this, the last thing I'll say about this is like, worldwide, you know, populist nationalism has been on the march worldwide. And, you know, it's had a rise in United States, England with Brexit and Boris Johnson.

You got fucking gyra bulls and arrow in Brazil, Moti in India, Putin and Russia. There are far-right domestic movements in France and Germany. They're gaining power. And here's somebody saying, nope, fuck you. And it's like, it's just like it feels like, I think we talked about on Friday, what I was trying to get to is like the this could be a turning point where we all realize how corrupt money has made everything and we start having sensible worldwide financial markets less money laundering less dirt less whatever because yeah we all stay free it's wild that it's like it it seems to you know when one of the biggest talking points is how across the world we've never been more divided and i'm not saying all those divisions aren't still there but it's wild having a thing that has united the vast majority of most people on one side. It's also kind of funny that, like, Putin was always so terrified of, like, a unified

Europe, you know, so he was like, I know what I'll do. I'm going ahead and do a thing that unifies all of Europe very concretely, because he hates NATO, he's terrified, you know, the implications of NATO, and then now you've got Sweden and Finland and fucking Kosovo and everybody, Ukraine, are like, can we please join NATO immediately, you know, which he hates, but it's a direct result of. you know, oh shit, the consequences of my own actions. How about that? Yeah, here. I'm a hoistice this

partard. I hope I'm not on it. And he's like, it's also like supposedly Rush has been obsessed with the death of Gaddafi. Like he's watched that video of Gaddafi being drugged through the streets and sodomized with a bandette like over and over and over again on loop. And he's trying, like, it's his biggest fear is it happening to him.

And I don't think he's ever been closer to it. I know, right. It's like he's got a funny way of showing it. I totally buy that that video. would resonate with him. Like, you know, I think that's astute of him to be, you know, worried by that video. But I don't, his actions do not reflect it. It's like he's trying to, he's barreling headlong down that path at an ever-increasing rate.

So I don't know. Let's assume he believes his own rhetoric for a second. All right. If you, if that's your biggest fear and you think the Ukrainian revolution in 2014 where his puppet guy got chased out was a CIA coup. and you think that they might join NATO and everyone's out, the NATO's controlled by the CIA,

and they're all marching their forces against you. And next comes a CIA supported coup in Russia where you end up like Gaddafi. Maybe he thought this was the move. I guess, evidently. All right, well, obviously there'll be much more going on there in the coming weeks. We'll see what happens.

Now, Matt, you can start looking for some comments for people to throw up there. We've got a little bit of time left and go as long his last time while matt's looking for those i will remind you again more quickly this time you go to well-read comedy dot com if you want to come see me live which i would appreciate and also as we've referenced multiple times already we're doing bonus episodes of skews on our patreon which you should check out if you want to get all that extra good good you go to weekly shoes.com slash more or just go to patreon search for my name you'll find it either way and join us on there

Okay, let's get into it. Yeah, you know, like we were saying before, maybe also on the bonus episode, it seems like I don't think this has gone exactly the way that Vladimir Putin thought that it was going to, you know. But Diane Yob or Yob on Facebook says, GOP is going to miss all that laundered Russian money that they might not have easy access to when the smoke clear. I mean, yeah, there's a whole lot of, you know, fat cats who are going to be feeling it when it comes to these sanctions and stuff. That's why there's been such a kerfuffle surrounding them. Tray, do you remember Maria Bouttina, speaking of Russian money laundered into politics? Remember Maria Boutina, the woman who was giving money to the NRA on behalf of the Russian government? Yeah.

She catfished that guy. Yeah, I didn't remember her name, but I do know who you're talking about. Yeah. So she was on Russian TV yesterday saying that. Ukraine, like, the only situation in which civilians is, uh, citizens shouldn't have second amendment rights is like when a country's being, she's basically saying that Ukraine handing out weapons to civilians to defend themselves from invasion was a bad example of private gun at her shop.

That's the one you know. That's literally, that's the for, for the need for an amendment like that. Like she would, like, hear what fucking suckers those guys are. She was a front woman for a fake group called Russians for the second. amendment. They chose to believe that Russia has a second amendment. Right. Yeah. It's people on YouTube says who will fund NRA now. Yeah. The gun companies. Yeah. Dave and Tunis says Russia spent too much of their time and money interfering in American elections to be able to win a war now, L.O.L. I hear if you said it, I know it was in the outline, but like that they seem to be

fucking up on that front too, like in terms of style. and stuff where like we spent the past four or five years you know it seeming like they were this indomitable indomitable force in that regard like that's supposed to be their wheelhouse is that type of shit yeah i guess sometimes you're overwhelmed by facts on the ground that actually have more they at least have some truth to them like a tank did they get stolen guys and they did tell a russian board ship to go fuck themselves like at least like yeah i mean they got a bunch of so bo they're a bunch of Facebook busted a bunch of fake accounts

that were used by run by Russian trolls who were using AI generated faces they got that's the thing got caught was because the faces I guess if you AI generate a face they're incongruities like the ears look weird and one woman had mismatched earrings and shit so it's fairly easy pick out if you know what you're looking for and I was like just go take a picture of an actual Russian

you lazy fucks like you could have got around this brand yeah Tommy Parsons says I want to buy some merch where you can go to weekly skews.com if you would like get the t-shirt right there designed by producer matt uh master salesman sales job trade masterful thank you i appreciate yeah that's all matt buddy cueing me up there i meant to say like and subscribe and share and all that stuff too so make sure y'all do that um russian siops as matt looks for another comment i'll

make this brief this was we also i told this story on the patreon episode i was on reddit lurking around reading various ukraine related threads and in every thread one of the very top comments most upvoted comments was this guy saying you may have heard that post Poland is closed to Ukrainian refugees. That is not true. If you're seeking asylum, you can go to Poland right now, and it was upvoted to the top everywhere, and people were praising this guy. And it seems just like a dude trying to spread the good word.

Like, if you need to get out, Poland is an option. But then some other people dug into that dude's comment history, and it turned out that guy was a Russian troll or a Russian whatever, Cyop, who's like, what he was really trying to do is just it was part of a campaign to convince more Ukrainians to leave because that makes it easier for them to invade. You know what I mean? So it was like a Russian Saup that Reddit absolutely got

you know, yanked by initially. Then they found the dude out and he got dragged, drugged after that. Let me read this tweet before you move over a second. The shirts are so comfy. It was a little wrong topic. Sorry, I read that. Nicole Johnson says the shirts are comfy. Thank you. Some of the Russian stuff is so clumsy

that I can't even be people. No one would actually fall for it. So who cares? Like, here's an example. So the guy that wrote that article I was just talking referencing about the AI Generated page has been taken down as an NBC reporter by the name of Ben Collins. He, uh,

somebody replied to him, my avatar is from that website, but I'm a real person. How can you explain that? And he said, very good question, comma, and then just added their app name,

which was Comrade 738, 798, 79, 349. It's like it's so fucking faith. You guys are so bad at this, man. You just remind us. me when i took my sons of that vr thing one of them said and i i'm sure he got this from some video game or something but it was like we were like on a space team in the vr game you know and one of them said something like he was like let's go comrades and i was like i was like don't don't say

comrade right now we got to be uh blasting that out there carta on youtube says ukraine is preventing males 18 to 60 from leaving Ukraine, though. Yeah, it's a draft day. They're pulling news off buses and getting them and get them guns. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm against a military draft, but also, what do you want? Yeah, I think that's probably pointed at the story that I told about, which that wasn't the point of it. The point of it was just like, like I said, seeing this like however low level sort of Russian cyber operation kind of unfold and, real time. I just thought it was kind of wild.

Yeah. Seeing it get in some of work like that. I don't know how much you guys know about Battle of Stalingrad, but these people are used to hard fight. Like, it's like, it wasn't quite that old, that old, like, it's sort of apocryphal that they would give two people one rifle and say, when one of you falls down, another one would pick up the rifle. But they did machine gun their own troops for retreating.

And you can't see it. It's the inside joke between me and my wife. We have a cross stitch on our wall. It says Nishu and Azad, which is solid. orders to people at Leningrad, which was not one step back. And he literally did have general shot. They moved back a step. So that

you have that's a that is an inside joke between you and your wife and you have a like a needle point of that on your wall. Yeah, I'm trying to find. I can't. That's some smart mark shit right there, buddy. It's a, it's a joke we have in one of a script we wrote

together. So it's that it's sort of, but it's also just like, yeah, times are hard man. Not one step back. Motherfucker. What are we going to do? Yeah. I dig it. It's a great rally and cry, because I get what you mean. In a marriage, you know, push forward. I keep doing it. It's great.

It's just the, like, origin of it or whatever is. Oh, that was at a point we had really bad money troubles. It wasn't like we had marital troubles. Well, either way, I just thought you're both, like, creative pursuits and whatnot. So I just, I interpreted it that way. But it's just funny. It's like a battle of style, Stalingrad thing. Scott Prowse says, I'm loving this episode, but I'm fairly.

Loaded. Thanks Scott. Appreciate it. However you are, we're glad you enjoy it. And that will do it for us. We'll go out on that happy note there. Wellredcom. Join us on Patreon. Get loaded like Scott. Watch the stay of the union or not. Either way, we'll be back here in seven days. See you by.