Weekly Skews - Skews 5/03/22 – End of Roe

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

 Well y'all can probably guess the topic of conversation...the Met Gala. No, we will of course be talking about the earth-shaking SCOTUS leak and the implications thereof. For this we will be joined by TN-7 congressional candidate Odessa Kelly. Join us. Support the show

What's up everybody? Welcome back. Happy skews day to you. Well, I don't know if happy is the right word. It is a skews day. It's May 3rd, 2022. I'm trying. That's Mark, and this is weekly skews. We're going to do things a little bit differently tonight.

Later on, we will have a guest. She's a congressional candidate for Tennessee 7th District. Odessa Kelly, excuse me, we'll be joining us later. Along the way, we'll attempt to lighten the mood. at least a little bit with some dumb asses. But the news of this particular day feels like one of those things you just kind of jump right into, wouldn't you say, Mark? Yeah, I was thinking about today's show yesterday, and I was like, oh, what are we going to talk about? It doesn't appear to be anything earth-shattering going on, going on, but luckily, our hellscape fucking delivers.

Yeah. Earth was indeed shattered. Yeah. Last night, it's when it came out, right? It was leaked. Articco announcing that it would appear. that Supreme Court set to overturn the landmark of reproductive rights case, Roe v. Wade,

based on a draft opinion written by Sam Alito, which is pretty straightforward, I feel like. Yeah, it's right. Like, he makes it pretty clear where he stands, at least. It is, look, Supreme Court opinions are usually, like, obscurantist and nerdy and they hide their

emotional motivations behind you know quoting from 1742 this is one of the most strident belligerent like this could have been like a comment on a Breitbart post or like

a red from a Reddit forum on men's rights or some shit is fucking unhinged bat shit lunacy I mean like on Friday's Patriot episode, we talked about the guy who set himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court

to protest climate change. And we're like, in my head, I was like, that's got to be the bleakest Supreme Court story we're going to talk about for a while. It turns out not so much. The, if you guys haven't read it, I don't think it's 67 pages not count them of 30 pages of footnotes.

But like, the interesting thing about this being a like a rough draft is you can see how the the judges, the justices sort of vent their spleen, and then the clerks are left to sort of try to backfill illegal reasoning for it. The whole idea that these are guys calling balls and strikes, we've talked about this a lot before, but it's fucking, if you still believe that yesterday, you should not believe that today, because this opinion is absolutely full of shit.

And I'm not a lawyer, but I can read it and be like, this is, this is lunacy. This is fucking crazy. So on that note, neither of us are lawyers. I don't know how much of this you're ready to talk about, but just as far as like the process and everything goes. Obviously, this was leaked, which is also, I mean, it's literally never happened before in history, as I understand. So that's pretty wild, too. But the way it's supposed to, this is his first draft of the opinion, right, in the way it normally would work as it goes around to the other justices and they give like notes and shit, like in writing a script or something. You get

notes back from the other ones and it gets adjusted. So this is the very first draft. It may have, if it had never leaked, it may have been different by the time it came out, but the intent of it is clear. And as long as he keeps the votes, the outcome would not be any different, right? But the document we're seeing is, you know, that's his. That's his starting point for how this should be expressed. Yeah, I think, let's talk about the leak in a few minutes. But let's talk about it, because the actual motivations for who leaked it, I think, are interesting and not straight, forward as people might think.

But as far as the insanity of the text itself, he goes full on. This is like, here's, he's pulling from a conspiracy theory that Clarence Thomas has put out there before, but it says, quote, some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the effort of African American population. It is beyond dispute that Roas have a demographic effect. The high disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black. So he's going with the abortion is racist. In the context of who's saying this, he can sue me for once that I'll just say this.

Alito is a fucking racist. So if you want to like, if you need to further prove these people don't believe anything they're saying, there you go, right? It's like it's like utter horseshit to arrive at a conclusion. It's basically like this probably would have come up, but it's like one of the, like some of the shooting throws at the wall like that one. Like it's almost like he's setting up like, listen, really what we're trying to do. we're trying to help black people out

because this has been a scourge amongst their people and we're just trying to fix that. Me, Sam Alito, that I've got the black community's interest at heart. And sort of along the same lines, he talks a lot in here about how, like, the discourse surrounding Roe v. Wade has, like, ripped us apart as it's caused all this controversy and upheaval and everything over the years and sort of like the implication is like,

so this will fix that. You know what I mean? Like this hugely unpopular decision that we're about to do, you know, upending 50 years of reproductive rights progress should calm everybody down as far as that goes. So that would be nice. Yeah. It's also like shows the sort of the bubble they travel in because abortion is overwhelmingly, legal abortion is overwhelmingly popular. It's like the electoral problem Democrats are going to have is that like most people don't feel that strongly about it. but also it's never been taken away like this before.

Right. And you're going to see the Republicans who can't keep their mouths shut, like you're in safe seats, like your Marjor Taylor Greens openly campaigning for like a federal criminal abortion ban once they retake Congress in the fall while the people who are in purple states are trying to be telling them to shut the fuck up. And of course, they're not going to do that.

But there's no reason I think they won't do it. They'll nuke the filibuster and criminalize abortion nationwide. Right. Because that's the thing is it's like this is just overturning Roe v. Wade, which makes it a federal, this would turn it back over to the states, right? So if your state has legal abortion, it'll still be legal there. But if you're one of the 22 or 20 something states that are set to outlaw it or dying to outlaw it already, most of the red states, of course, then this decision would make it effectively illegal. in those dates, like, as soon as it passed or happened, right? You got a bunch of states have already effectively outlawed at, like, Texas and

Mississippi, which is sort of the court cases that led to this decision. I think there's Mississippi that, a Mississippi case that jumpstarted this one, but there was like a, Texas has like an conditional abortion ban up until six weeks. Something Mississippi's is like hard and firm. But the, uh, that's what, that's what prompted this decision. But like, I think another 13 states have trigger laws and say like, one. Once the Roe Evade is gone, then abortion is automatically illegal. So the minute the decisions handed down, there could be no recourse for women in those states.

Until, hypothetically, someone can outvote a heavily gerrymandered state. Like, Democrats can only get 78% of the vote. They'll be able to take the state legislature and overturn, you know, abortion ban. So good luck with that. It's worth saying, like, to the degree there is any legal reasoning in this opinion, it's extremely dangerous, not just to women, but to everyone, because the whole argument is that basically the word abortion doesn't appear in the Constitution. Ergo, Cart says moops, right?

Right, but there's plenty of things that aren't explicitly listed in the Constitution that have been litigated or codified or whatever the right word would be by the Supreme Court. so this could have really unnerving precedent where those things are concerned. And I know that, and again, I'm not a lawyer either. I'm just getting this from reading all the different analysis about it and everything. But this has massive implications in terms of privacy, laws that are related to privacy. This could undo a lot of that, which would be like privacy in your bedroom, i.e. gay marriage, but also like a couple's right to privacy where the method of contraception is concerned and all that shit.

All that entire can of worms could be. opened by this, even though he says in there, like, he says in there, this should not be taken to mean that it will impact other such cases, even though, like, the preceding 15 pages or whatever, basically outlined the opposite. I mean, they did that in Bush v. Gore, too. They said, we're doing this, but obviously this doesn't have any precedent. Please don't know the process to any future cases, but just last year, Brett Kavanaugh was quoting Bush v. Gore and other election voting rights cases.

So it's like, that doesn't, it doesn't work. you can't put the, you can't put the, uh, springy, springy snakes back in the can like that. It doesn't work like that. Um, but yeah, what your point to, uh, here's, let me quote from this piece. Uh, the obvious problem with this analysis is the Supreme Court has, has identified plenty of, quote, unumerated rights, end quote, that lack deep roots in American history. Most recently the court established the right of same sex couples to be intimate and Florence v. Texas. That was the case that, um, Texas had a Sodom and ban on the books. It was only ever used against gay dudes. It was never, uh, you could, a guy,

you know blowjob and his wife by the way blowjobs are also considered cosotomy but definitely or having or putting in his wife's blood was never that no one was ever arrested for that it was just dudes um the other rights uh the right for gave people to get married that's obergefell every hodges that was from 2015 um they're also uh you know just just no interracial marriage is that mentioned in the constitution and like right it's not to still my own take, I wrote earlier, but like, the idea that there isn't a right to privacy in the Constitution is insane, considering the entire Bill of Rights is essentially 10 different ways to say, mind your own fucking business.

Right. Yeah. And the, the breathtaking cynicism of this thing, like he, in his opinion, he compares Roe to Plessy versus Ferguson, which is the famous case you've forgotten your eighth grade history that codified separate but equal, right? This guy named Plessy was they were trying to make a move to a black car of a train and he sued saying this violates my 14th Amendment rights for equal protection. Now, Rose also decided under the 14th Amendment. And a leader does pretzels to say that compare those two horrific cases the same, but he used the same logic as the wrongfully

decided Plessy case to decide this case. It's that if the Constitution doesn't say a state can't do it, they can do it, right? No matter, the state has more rights. When they say state's rights, it's usually, people usually take it as like the state's rights versus the federal government, but these are states' rights versus like the rights of the people who live in the state. So it's essentially saying the state isn't the people who live in it.

The state is some unknown power that controlled the people in the state and they have to be giving priority. Yeah. Yeah, he also, in addition to, you know, making it clear that he's doing this for the benefit of the black community, he also implies he's trying to help women out here. And including there's a line in there that says that pregnancy is no longer the burden it once posed for women because, you know, we've got health insurance and better medicine and stuff now. So it's like, so, you know, who really needs an abortion anymore? Like, you guys are going to be fine. pregnancy. It's not a big deal.

Yeah, it's also that because you can leave your baby at the fire department. Does anybody ask the baby if you want to be left at the fire department? Right. Is that like, yeah, it's something, it's like, you know, listen, we're not saying they can't just get rid of it. Like if somebody doesn't want a baby,

yes, they have to have it, but then they can just do whatever with it. So it's fine, you know, which like points to the whole thing with them that's always pissed me off the most. It's been pointed out a million times by a million other people, but the fact that, like, for everybody that's super, super pro life and believes life begins at contraception, they also apparently believe that the value of said life ends at birth, you know what I mean?

Like, of utmost importance that you must be born. After that, fuck you. Like, we don't give a shit. What happens after that? And stuff like this, when him quoting the safe haven laws is like a justification, is as close as you can come to just outright saying. that. You know what I mean? Just admitting that that is true. Yeah, God intends women to be baby factories. So if you opt out of that, you're going against God's will. And the idea, like,

the idea of originalism or textualism or what you want to call his philosophy to the extent he has one is like the past he's trying to say, like the abortion is, like he basically goes in this whole historical diatribe about abortion was not legal at the founding. That's not really true. It's just not true. Like abortion was not really, the cast. The Catholic Church didn't say it was a sin until like the 1860s. It wasn't like a conscientious, a contentious social issue in America until the 80s when the moral majority rose up. The first state law trying to ban abortion in the U.S. was like passed in New York in 1820

and they couldn't find a single person who was ever prosecuted under it. The idea that like the founding fathers had a huge beef of abortion is insane because they probably didn't even think about it, except to the extent that Ben Franklin liked to frequent a lot of prostitutes. But the idea that you're trying to return this imagined past, that's like the whole reactionary movement. It's like you imagine a time when things were awesome, then try to take everybody back there and drag everybody to hell in the process.

It's also like promising ideal as return to your nation's mythological past is essentially every fascist movement, the one through line. Um, the, so, I mean, here's the idea that like, so like I said, like, uh, uh, Alito tries that rhetorical trick is like this, this opinion only applies to this, but like, it can't just apply to this. Once you open this can at worm, like, so here's a law professor from University of Texas. Um, the majority can believe it's only eviscerating a right to an abortion in this draft, but the means by which it does so would open the door to similar tax and other enumerated rights, both directly by attacking the underpinnings of those doctrines and indirectly by setting a precedent for such attack. And other professors said, this is total gaslighting. He knows as well as anyone if these other rights like Roe rooted in the right to privacy, if Roe is imperiled because it's unearated and not, quote, rooted in our history and tradition, these other rights are also subject to challenge. And I just, like literally a guy who, an editor for V-Dair, which is a Nazi website,

which shares a lot of crossover staff that Tucker Carlson show, post on Gab, Brown v. Board is next. All right. They're not fucking hiding what they're up to. Right. I guess at least Alito bothered writing any opinion. They didn't do this in the shadow do like usual. But I don't understand why they come up with intellectual justification

and it's what they want to do. They're just, like I said, they're just venting their spleen. They're just mad. They're mad. They had to learn the word sishet. They're mad that their daughter wants to go to prom with a Puerto Rican kid. They're just fucking mad. It's like there's no like.

So we made fun of a guy a couple weeks ago who said the unspoken part loud talking about like unenumerated rights in the Constitution and how the Supreme Court should approach this intellectual framework. And a guy was basically said, someone asked him about Loving v. Virginia, which, you know, a Supreme Court case which forced states to legalize interracial marriage. And everyone laughed, but like that's on the table under this intellectual framework. The Supreme Court does not believe the federal government can protect people's individual rights

when it bumps up against what a racist retrograde state wants to do. So we're about two years away from. Clarence Thomas being forced to decide whether he wants to make his own marriage illegal. Do you know, it's like, this is, fuck, this is like ridiculously bleak. Yeah, it is. But let's talk about the leak a little bit because I agree with you that it is interesting. Because I'll just, like, my knee-jerk reaction was that someone, either one of the liberal justices or a liberal working, a clerk working for a liberal justice was a source of this leak and it was meant to like, you know, do what has happened.

Everybody fired up and put it out there and then the pushback and the PR and all that stuff is what I assumed. I've read that like apparent the reason is one of the reasons that's never happened before is because this is like obviously a highly coveted position working in the Supreme Court. And to do that would be effectively to commit career suicide among other reasons. But that's where my head immediately went. But apparently it's not necessarily the case, right? There's some other theories and scenarios.

knows. So, all right, so my understanding of the Supreme Court works, okay, is they after the, after oral arguments, they take sort of like a, like a, like a straw poll, like hand vote for who's on which side of an issue, right? And so, uh, the majority, once their majority is established, and this case had five votes, apparently, the five ultra-arch conservative is without John Roberts. Um, the senior most judge in those, in that five gets to pick who gets to write the opinion. Am I just who wants to do it the most? Who's the horring is for? Who's the most passionate? Or who do, who has the clearest? the most consensus opinion among the five.

And then that draft gets circulated and then everyone else gets to write their dissent or concurrences or whatever. So politically within the Supreme Court, here's a good T-leaf reading of what might have been happening, all right, is the five have this opinion. They circulate it. John Roberts reads it and is horrified. So he's like, okay, I'm going to sign order to the majority so I can assign myself to write the opinion. and make it milder and leave row in name only while still allowing statewide heartbeat bills or whatever. So, hypothetically, if you want to lock in the five, this strided opinion without John Roberts weakening it, leaking it and making it firm in the public imagination, where everyone knows what's happening is a good way to keep that from happening. And also, like, someone made this point, but they kind of libs who work for the Supreme Court, clerk for the Supreme Court, these are like centrist institutionalists.

Like, they're not, these aren't activists. These are people who want to like work at White Shoe Wall Street law firms. and maybe do a little like pro bono environmental law on the side, what's they made their millions. Conservatives, you're not risking your career doing this. You will end up hosting a show on Fox News if you get caught. Just like Oliver North got in a prison for Iran-Contra became a right-wing news. I don't know, Mark, they're pretty upset about this leak. Okay, that's the other thing.

It's kind of funny about it is that the conservative media, Fox News, and them have been apoplectic at this news as well, but only because of the leak. They're like, no, the real problem here is that somebody, some snitch in the halls of Supreme Court leaked this information undermining the integrity of the entire institution. I saw one conservative pundit say that January 6 pales in comparison to these actions. And it's, quote, not even close. But they're very upset over the leak. And it's like, and well, you know why. You put it in the outline, but.

Yeah. They've secured one of the biggest. conservative legal victories in the history of the country, or at least in the past century. And it's a dog chasing the car. They finally caught. It's a 40-year legal project. They've won, but now they still get to play the victim. Which is their favorite thing, the unending persecution kind. It's pretty impressive, honestly, that even in this scenario, like you said, one of the biggest victories they've ever attempted, you know, they've been five decades in the making and they've still found a way to be the victims in this whole thing. Yeah. And this whole move, and this whole

movement, like they like to pretend like the bow tie people are different from the QAnon psychos, but they're not. It's all the same. They think all the same things. The difference is whether they can put a veneer of Ivy League bullshit on it. But what they all think, and this is the interview with Margie Taylor Green playing two or three days ago, this is what they all think and this will serve as our palate cleanser, transition to some dumb asses. It's whispered softly and gently into your ears and into your soul. And he tells you it's okay. And he says it's just just this one thing you're just going to get it done get it over with and then he tells you a promise he promises you all these dreams that that you have in your heart and that's how

satan sells a sin and that's how he sells abortion he tells a woman that all you have to do is you're just going to go to this clinic just going to get it over with you know and then you're going to that guy he's going to stay with you that that boyfriend or the guy whoever he is, he's going to marry you, sweep you off your feet. Isn't the idea that the man had to marry you if you kept the baby? That's what I was like, what's what I always heard. He's like, yeah, it's literally the exact opposite. Yeah, that's, yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous.

All right, before we get to our guests, we want to at least have a little bit of dumbassery on the show because this is the skews after all. So, Matt, let's do the Daily Dumbass. Hit that graphic, please. whenever you got Tonight's D-D is Antifa

for not just bringing cans of V8 to hurl instead of kicking it old school and bringing actual vegetation apparently. Donald Trump said that he reportedly feared for his life because of the prospect of being pelted with, quote, very dangerous fruit at rallies, Mark.

Not just your garden variety fruit, am I right? This is particularly dangerous and violent fruit. People are going to hurl at Donald Trump. Yeah, violent fruit, like the, you know, like not the good fruit like from the veggie tails. But so, so for the background of this, you remember in 2015, Trump told people at his rallies to beat up protesters that he'd pay their legal bills. So a group of those protesters fought a lawsuit and it's been stuck in Trump did his usual delaying tactics. So it didn't move forward until recently. and he sat for deposition, which produced all these quotes, and they are gold.

For President Donald Trump said he feared protesters with hitting with tomatoes, pineapples, and other very dangerous foodies to his campaign rallies, including in a sworn deposition that, quote, you can be killed if that happens. I think we all know that Trump wasn't a huge fan of fruits and vegetables, but this is taking it too far. I wanted to have people be ready because we were put an alert they were going to do fruit, Trump said in October 21. You're going to do the fruit.

Got you're doing the fruit, Mr. President. He added that, quote, tomatoes are bad, end quote, and they, quote, some fruit is a lot worse. Because if that happened, you could be killed if that happens to stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, stuff like that. Yeah, it's dangerous stuff. Now, I do want to go on record that I'd much rather be hit with a banana than a pineapple. Sure.

But the idea that someone's going to assassinate the future president by launching a pineapple from a treboshae, just fucking kills me. If he became the first president to be assassinated, a fruit. I mean, good Lord, what more apt headline for the times we live in. But yeah, and I feel, I don't know. I feel like if I have to get hit with a fruit, I don't think tomatoes near the top of the list of ones, you know what I mean? Any kind of melons, like you said, pineapple. I mean, tomatoes, the standard fruit to be hurled in protest. You know what I mean? Yeah. Many people, many people had walked away from tomato abuse.

Yeah. The whole reason they would hand out tomatoes to throw our performers during those Like medieval, like, is it a whole point of the tomatoes didn't hurt. Yeah, right, exactly. It's like, it'll be fine to hit the magician with this, you know. They did resolve one age old question, though, Trey. And that is, is the tomato a vegetable? This is it, this is the court proceeding. Another point, the lawyers took a few moments to discuss whether tomato is a fruit.

A tomato is a fruit after all, I guess, Dictor said that's one of the lawyers. You know what? Trump interjected. It has seeds, Jeffrey Goldman, a lawyer for Trump confirmed. It's worse than tomato. It's other things also Trump. continued. But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it's very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.

Mater alert. Okay. So one more thing, because there is something else going on today. The infamous Ohio Senate primary is going down. Polls are closed. I believe we've covered it a lot on here. And at last glance, J.D. Vance was in the lead, I believe. It's closing a little bit, but he has to leave. But even if he wins, J.D. will never be

done taking ls even from daddy i'll see this clip here that's what they're waiting for they're waiting for one race you know we've endorsed dr ross we've endorsed j p right j d mandel and he's doing great jd mandel yeah uh another thing humiliating thing it came out from that primary this week is like so there was a the battle for to get to get the trump endorsement between josh mandel and jd whose name's Trump just matched up there. The club for growth guy, who was a Republican, like, a tax goon, has been a big supporter of Mandel and was lobbying for Trump's endorsement for him. But Tucker Carlson's apparently the one who put the thumb on the scale for JD.

He called up Trump and told him that this guy's names McIntosh is into some weird sex shit, and that's what basically swayed it was that McIntosh is a pervert. And if you remember, the only reason Josh Mandel didn't get the endorsement is because someone else told him other rumors about Josh Mandel being a pervert. Right. So these people cannot, I'm glad this primary is over because they cannot come up with made-up sex rumors at this rate.

They're going to run out. Yeah, more weird sex undertones in this Senate primary than in most that I can remember. But yeah, okay, so we'll see. J.D. will pull it out, probably. Who knows? It won't happen after that, but we'll

keep track of it. But I say, let's go ahead and get to our guests. Our guest tonight was born and raised in Nashville. She spent nearly 14 years as a civil servant and then co-founded Stand Up Nashville, a nonprofit community organization that fights for working families.

She has seen firsthand how the political and economic system is rigged against working families who've spent their lives playing by the rules. She has organized diverse coalitions and already delivered for Tennessee and now she's ready to take the fight to Congress and represent Tennessee's 7th District. Everybody please welcome.

Odessa Kelly. to the program. Got Odessa in here. Yeah, hey, hello. Hey, Odessa, how you doing? I am doing. How are y'all doing? Thank you for having me. Good.

Thank you for being here. Thanks for being here. Yeah. And we're definitely going to get to your campaign, your goals, and what you want to do in my home state of Tennessee there. But I guess to begin with, just how you're feeling today where you're at on everything? I'm frustrated, you know, as an organizer, is it? anyone surprised, you know, they've been working up to this point for a good minute, you know, I think I've been saying constantly today to people is worth repeating again, you know,

what happened yesterday or what could possibly happen in what June, late June, is not symbolic of this country, just warproof, you know, that we've got to get these people in leadership out of office. These be more people that have a shared experience, what 99% of us go through, you know, on a daily basis. You know, we've got to be more responsible with our vote. and who we put in these positions to make these things happen. So on that note, I've wondered, what do you think that this whole thing will serve as any kind of motivating factor for the left or for Democrats, whatever, where the midterms are concerned? I feel like there have been, the people are worried that, you know, voters on the left might not

be sufficiently motivated or not as much as those on the right in these midterms. They might be a little discouraged or whatever. And I've wondered if something like this happening could maybe stoke a fire. under people, or is that just wishful thinking? Like, do you think we might actually have some of that? I'm hoping, you know, from what I've seen so far, it looks like as though it's energizing our base again and reminding them that, you know, you can't be in. You got to be all in. In mid-time, presidential elections, local elections. I hope everyone went out and voted today, you know, if you had an election like we did here. Every single last level, you know, a judge is racist, just as important as the presidential.

and I think they're showing up, you know, even what happened yesterday. I watched an interview you did with Tennessee Holler this morning, and I really enjoyed it. You made a couple really good points, and I thought that, like, you simply said it's on us, which I resonate with me because it's like no one's coming to say this, you know, it's like the idea that we just root online and then someone else is supposed to go do stuff is silly and damaging, and even though all we're doing right here is complaining online. you made a good point I thought also when another person brought the idea of like sort of a general strike by women and obviously that would be effective but you made the point that people can't afford to not go to work and that's part of the why reason our economy is structured the way it is right yeah absolutely you know that's one of the reasons also why I'm running for office you got to have more people who know the intersectionality and where like our urgencies are and then like where we're hurting yet a strike would be good great, you know, but if you want a huge strike, you got to really think about it. Can people

afford to take off of work right now? What type of repercussions will come? A strike can last one to 30 days, you know, and part of a woman's rights or reproductive rights is also poverty, you know, or work. It's class warfare, you know, don't get distracted by a lot of the surface issues. You really need to look at, look what's undergirding it, what's under it, and follow. the money trail because it always ends up being about money or it ends up about keeping us in positions, black or white because there's a lot of people in white rural Tennessee. They live in check to check just like everybody else and doing the best they can to make it, you know, and they put these things in place to keep us from actually focusing on the bigger

issues that we have here. There's been a corporate takeover of Middle Tennessee, and it's oppressing everyone here, you know, we should be more focused and have the energy of focusing on that than having to deal with silly things that we happen to deal with now, even though this is a serious issue. Yeah. Right. It's like effectively, this decision will make it just illegal for poor people more so than anyone else. You know, rich people still have any means necessary to get an abortion if they want one. So when you say it's class warfare, I totally agree with you on that front. Can you elaborate some on the corporate takeover in Tennessee that you're talking about and the impact of it? Yeah, absolutely. You're right on point, you know, like this ain't about left or right, you know.

This is about people and what we actually need to see here. You know, what do you live? I'm from the hood in East Nashville, you know. What do you live in an urban city, a metropolitanized area like I live in? What are you out in the sticks? You're in the hollows and the rural area, you know. We've got to bend together and think about the things that are really impacting our lives across, you know, every facet. You got Amazon here.

You got other big corporations that are moving to Middle Tennessee. And the reason they're moving here is because we've had several governors, including the one now, Bill Lee, yelling at the top of hill, move your companies to Tennessee. We have the largest percentage of people with low wage, we have the largest percentage of population with low wage jobs. And that's what he's saying. He was like, come here. Our people will work for nothing, you know? Or move here and move everybody here from your company here as well because we don't have a state tax and it just pushed us out. Nashville is full, and as you see, some of the rural areas in Middle Tennessee are becoming full as well, you know, and it's not okay.

We have the right to live the best quality like that we can. Those who are teachers, you know, social workers, people who pick up our trash, they make Tennessee, Tennessee. You've been fighting this battle for a long time, right? I mean, it's kind of your whole thing with your organization. I know I read something about when they were going to build the soccer stadium with public funding, like $300 million almost or something like that. you helped to organize a pushback on that and force them to use some of that to actually help regular people instead of just build a billionaire's stadium. Is that accurate? Like, you've been on the, you've been on the front lines of this for a long time, not just since you decided

to run for office. Hell, yeah, absolutely. I come with receipts, you know. I'm not a talk of this. You know, I walk the walk. Absolutely. With the reason, Amy, you that like soccer, that soccer is in Nashville. And we did that as a community together. You know, I'm tired of development coming into Tennessee and telling us what to do, like, we don't have a say in the places. It's our birthright to be here, you know? And so what happened back in 2017 is three huge things. The city employees for like the umpteenth time in a row, including me, we were told that we couldn't have a cost of living raise. Now, y'all know what it is like in Nashville. It's hard. It's one of the fastest growing cities. So the past 10 years, price keeps going up for housing and everything else, right? And so, you know, Reason why they said they couldn't give it to us, the city didn't have no money. Next thing that happened is that our superintendent at the time, he just asked for adequate part of money so he can fix some, you know, like maintenance issues in the school system, nothing absorbing it.

They said, no, we ain't got the money. Can't do it. 2017, close toward the end of year, they said, we're going to close our public hospital. So, a lot of our energy and people, you know, live in check-to-check who may not be able to afford health care because it's ridiculous here, they go there. And then I heard on the radios, I'm taking my kids. you know, to school, and I'm talking to them about accountability, you know, like get your backpack, I already have it ready to go, that we got $275 million to build a soccer stadium?

Right. Like, whose priority is not a whack? I should be yelling. And at that point, that's when me and so many other people, elected officials, clergy, people got together and it was like, that's not going to happen here. If you're going to build a soccer stadium, you're going to build it with jobs as 1550 an hour. You're going to make sure you put national people to work. We don't want to have any more, like, you know, issues on construction jobs.

We need a daycare in there for the workers and everyone else, and so on. You know, it's like, how do we really authentically do things for the people who are in these communities, just making it a playground for the rich? The thing you quote of Bill Lee, I'm sure you're paraphrasing, but Bill Lee saying, our workers are paid shit, come bring your company here, is extremely funny to me because throughout history, the way governors have sold people on companies moving in, is like, we're going to get good-paying jobs. And instead of pitching the company to the people like that,

He's pitching the people to the company saying they won't even ask for more and they can't do anything about it. Fuck them. You know, it's not. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm going to coach. Y'all. Go ahead. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, but please go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just him. It's been other governors in the past. This has just been a president, right? And it's not only just being Republicans, you know, before I was running against a Republican Mark Lee, I was running against a Democrat, you know, Jim Cooper. You know, what it is is that we have terrible people in regardless of the side of the aisle at their own who, claim that they represent working class people, that they claim to be about, it's just lip service. All I care about is money in their bottom line. You know, the majority of people us who live in check to check, we're not in debt because we bought a yacht. We're in debt because we want our kid to like go to daycare. Yeah. We in debt because we paid all our bills on time and then a hiccup came up and we had a tight. We blew out a tire, you know? We got a set of tires that wasn't discounted, you know? That's $700. And that will

send you in debt and put you behind. That's what we're talking about, you know? And so what has happened is that you have a lot of people who are out here and they have these buzzwords. So what they're doing is actually lying to you in your face. Amazon came here and said they had 5,000 jobs. I want someone to go look, ask them how many Nashvillians residents. People who've been here longer than, I don't know, last five or 10 years actually got them jobs. Maybe one or two, one diversity hired.

They put out there, look, look, look, we love black people. Or we're doing the exact same thing, right? And then what they're doing is, is they're moving hordes of people here from Seattle and all of the other tech valleys, you know, and not putting any emphasis into the workforce training that we need or all the other ancillary jobs with people who, you shouldn't get punished for not going to college or not having, like, a huge fancy degree. If you're willing to work and put it in a good, hard day of work, you should be able to have the best body of life that you want to live. And that's not happening here in any other urban metropolitan area around the country. Right. I've had conversations with conservatives before we're like what you just alluded to where you know you'll ask them like do you believe in this country a country that purports to be the greatest country on earth that a person who works a full-time job should be able to support a family right regardless what the job is if they're working hard 40 hours a week they should be able to support a family and most of them in my experience will tell you yes I do and then you ask well how come so many of them cannot like that's just objectively untrue for so many people in this country because of wages and so many other factors.

And then they'll start, then they'll usually start pulling on the typical threads of like, well, I'd just like to see that person's budget. Where are they really spending their money on? You know what I mean? They've got this thing in their head that poor people or working class people,

they just like blow all their money and then kick their feet up or something. Everybody who's ever lived it knows, like you just said, it's not that any extra money you get has to go towards like a new fan belt or whatever. Like it's very expensive. to be poor, and it's also very difficult, and people work very hard. And so it's always

really, really pissed me off that they spin it into this whole, like, well, they're lazy and irresponsible. And that's really what the problem is. If they were more responsible, then, you know, they would be able to have a decent life working full time, which is just, that's just not true. None of that is true. Absolutely. And it's not just the poor. It is like people like me and you, I got a degree, you know. Before I became an activist and before I ran for office, the reason I end up here is because I was working for the city. I work for metro parks and recreation, you know, the part of governor people are actually happy to see, hell, I was good in running Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts. We had basketball teams, giving people something to do. I hung out

with the seniors during the day, learn how to play cut spades and, you know, pinnacle and everything else, giving back to the community. And I could have retired on their job. But here I am doing a job that the city and the people that says deemed important, went back and got my master's yet I'm living check to check. Hell, I'm doing. I became an activist and running out of desperation for my own life. You know, I wanted to be able to buy a house with my own children. I got tired of being on the front lines of poverty and seeing parents with uniforms on, Trey, and y'all, they had uniforms on coming in between two, three jobs to get a food box.

We was connected to a school. I got teachers texting me. Can you put me a food box aside? There's something fundamentally wrong with the systems that we have when teachers, you know, got to call me, people who've been working two or three jobs, and ask me for the food box to the side. It ain't right, and we got to fix it. You have a, what's the couple of your campaign ads?

I can't remember the exact slogan, but is it from the city to the holler or something like that when you talk about the coalitions in your district? Yes, you know, and reason being is, you know, I wanted to make sure it's like, I mean, I can be real with everyone here. It's like, how do you appeal to everyone? I'm a six-foot tall, very pretty black one, you know, that's rocking some locks. You know, and I think sometimes people just assume, things about you and it's like, how can not people actually hear me? You know, you know, am I,

so I'm called the radical left for what? Because I don't want people to die in the cold. I won't make sure people ain't going hungry, you know. I defend, I don't think that Bill Lee or any of them like the Marjor Taylor Green was playing early, you know, they fake being Christians. There's no way in the world that can be, they try to cherry pick things out of the Bible. That's like the most unchristian thing you can do. They need to go read Leviticus again and understand why the good Lord got mad at the priest. Yeah. I mean, we talked about it last week, but Marjorie Taylor Green literally gave an interview last week where she said that helping refugees was unchristian.

It's like, oh, God. I mean, what Bible do you read? Absolutely. My opponent texts today, you know, like, he's back, he's doubling down at the course they're doing the right thing because we got to protect the vulnerable. He don't know, Neil. He is a rich man from West Point who has behind the fact that he's a veteran and tries to hide behind things that he knows nothing about. I'm from a vulnerable community. You know, I have three different identifications that make me vulnerable.

He has no idea who the vulnerable is, you know, and we need to make sure that we're not separated by these surface things and really think about what the issues are going to impact our life and move on. I want to talk about your opponent. I know you don't have to say anything because you've got to, like, be pulled, they're not poll tested because you're obviously not poll tested, but, like, I know you've got to be coothed, but he sucks. But I want to talk about your district for a second.

So you're running for the Tennessee 7th, right? Yes, brand new district. I was reading your website last night, and I just want to say, I love you. You're awesome. But you're in a real uphill fight. The one of the reasons I want to bring up cross, like the city of the hall or like you're focused on working class solidarity, which I think is really important. I wish people would stop seeing things through a lens other than materialism because, in a sense,

everything goes back to that first. But the district went for Trump, like, over Biden's 66.31 in 2020, I think. And it's Marshall Blackburn's old district. So I just want to point out how tough and determined you are because you're definitely running uphill. But I love your platform. It's very brave. And you're a very blunt and honest person, which we always like around here. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. And yeah, you know, I think that we got to get every vote that we possibly can, but the numbers are actually there. I don't know what the Republicans was thinking when they was building these new districts. I think they were so busy on trying to gerrymandar, you know, parts of Franklin. And what we built now is the new district

five. They also forgot about all the black people that live in North Nashville. They forgot about all the new progressives that are moved in downtown national. That is 120,000 additional progressive or Democratic votes that are now in this district. Between that, you got Clarksville, last four districts. They have elected. Democratic mayor and state rep by 70,000 out of Franklin, y'all, we got the numbers to do this. What we need is people like you to come out and vote and to tell your neighbor to vote and vote on your values and what you actually want to see change in, not just for some label and some guy here has just been giving you lip service and absolutely, absolutely no, no type of

constituency services whatsoever. Yeah. On that note, I mean, what can, you know, tell people about your campaign what people can do to help out if they're if they're so inclined because I know, you know, we're talking about the corporate overlords and the reality of it and there's a lot of even Democrats who are corporate pawns and we all know that. But the other side of that is they have backing from said corporate overlords, big money in politics and the devastating effects it's had on so many things that affect regular people. Somebody like you pushing back against that extremely vital. So, you know, how can people support? Well, I appreciate that.

Yeah, so you can go to our website that is Odessa for Congress.com. You can sign up to be a volunteer. We can use all the help. I'm a union person. What we do better than anyone is that we knock doors, you know, and we're going to be out. We've already been out all over the district knocking doors. Please come help, you know, give us some tips about where we should go and events that we should go to, you know, and donate.

In the last 60 days, we want to be able to go to. tip for tat. He can pull a million dollars out of his pocket. I can't do that. I'm a working class individual, but please donate so that we can be on TV as well and go tip for tap with this person and make sure that we can do everything that we possibly can because it's not

about just me as well in this position. It's about when you run it for Conyers, you've got to understand how to be a team player, you know, and by the team player it is it's like, what barriers can I move out of the way for the people that want to be good judges here, for the people that want to be good state representatives and for our local officials. And my job in Congress is to move every barrier out of highway so that we can build the type of Tennessee that we want to build.

So this is about everyone that's downbound as well as fighting for good people, you know. So donate to our campaign so we can say that we did everything that we possibly can do and to send the message. We're going to give a damn about you gerrymandering in these districts. We're here to stay. Tennessee is our state and we're going to fight for it to the last breath in our body. That's awesome. Right, run through a wall over here. I'll tell you got me fired up.

I'm so glad you came home. I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing. And thank you very much, Odessa. Odessa Kelly, everybody. Thank you, Adessa. All right. Yeah, it was, she's great. That's awesome.

I'm glad I do want to talk about where we turn about we get ready to pull up some comments. I want to talk about her opponent for a second. I'm glad we can let her go. She doesn't have to sit here and listen to be really rude about it. Because you're supposed to be cooth in politics. We don't have to be. baby.

So she's running against Marky Green, who was an Army veteran and became a doctor and started a hospital management company, so he's pretty rich. He also, here's the main thing, Trump nominated him to be secretary for the army. He was Trump's second nominee. The first one couldn't pass the financial background check, essentially couldn't figure a way to invest enough because he was some rich guy with some great investments. But Green also was forced to pull out because. Here's some things he said.

If you pull the psychiatrist, they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease. He supported the state law that limited access to public restrooms for transgender people to those matching illegal sex, not for genetic editing. So he's for establishing a general inspection force. And he told, see, a talk radio show host, C.J. Porter, that he viewed his support of that law as part of his duty as a state senator to quote crush evil. Did you know that state senators take an oath to crush evil, Trey? I didn't know that. No, like with Satan in particular, they've got to worry about Satan. They've got to keep your eyes on him.

Yeah. He also said if school, this is just funny example of how he's a dumbass. I mean, he went past medical school in West Point, so maybe he's not a dumbass about everything. But Green also said if school districts, quote, want to have a bathroom that's separate for all the, you know, guys or gals with question marks, but we're concerned, quote, the AFL-CIO is going to sue you while I got your back.

I got to assume he means the ACLU there. Yeah. and not the American Federation of Labor and Congress of industrial organizations, because they really don't have a stake in the whole transgender fight. Yeah. All right. Well, Matt, if you want to put some questions and comments up there for us, a lot of stuff going on.

Thanks again to Odessa. She was wonderful. And I don't know. I wonder how JD's doing. I wonder if he's hanging in there. Oh, yeah. Give us a JD update, Matt. Matt, let's say here, what's the, how would I look for that? Ohio primary

primary results. Matt had a graphic as refreshing, the pre-show. Let's say here. Yeah, I don't know. It says Vance at 29, the 20% of the vote in according to CNN, and Vance is at 29% and Mandel is at 23. Yeah, I don't, it's not showing the other voters for whatever. it is. Mark, so help me out with the end of this here. Crystal McChrystal Fitzhue on Facebook says we must seek out opportunities to volunteer and donate in every way possible to help ourselves in the midterm. And then does that say come over and over again?

I think it's a blue, I think it's a blue wave and a flag. Okay. What's the U.M? What? I don't see. You must be. oh i see a flag yeah i see it's okay well crystal hilariously i don't know if it's only my screen or if it's different i'm on pc or whatever but on my screen those emojis the wave is shaped like a c and then instead of an emoji it's you am so it looks like come okay written over and over again come come come come yeah come come come come yeah come come come come yeah which that's cool I'm all for

Larry Lori Coltis says small dollar donations matter yes they do the only way you can really

compete with you know if you're telling the corporations go fuck themselves and whatnot because that's

where most of the war chest comes from it's the one that it's like it just really sucks how all the culture

war shit it's really upsetting obviously and everything but how like pretty much every single

bit of it always just comes back to money at the end of the day like it all really is just about money and part of that is you know if you're not the party of of big money because you need money to compete and that makes it even harder to do so so yeah small donations do matter yeah um small dollar donations are kind of everything right out I mean one of the reasons Trump has a huge war dress is because he gets small dollar donations and sells you know nickels with his face on it for $100 and

shit. So Bernie got all his money off small dollar donations. So does AOC and so do a lot of people. And like I would say like everybody's fired up and wants to donate places right now. I would say that like seek out the people who aren't national stars. Like say don't just give all your money to the day. I hope Marcus Flowers beats Marjor Taylor Green, but don't just give all your money to him because he I think already has enough money. Find some underfunded races. State senators and so forth. Because, like, we always bitch about how old Democrats are, but they don't have a bench.

They haven't been developing a talent supply. It's like it's like a major league team with no farm system. There just aren't people common. I want people like Odessa to be pushed up and, you know, like people that really care. People want to fight for stuff and have a material stake in things. But you got to get them, you got to get them, you got to get them some political experience, name recognition and start building them up, you know, or just going to be stuck here. Right. Yeah.

Jim Gray on Facebook says if you want to confirm your voter registration and polling location, go to vote.gov. You can also register there too. Thank you for the information there, Jim. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think about what I asked Odessa as far as like the midterms going, whatever? Is that just like wishful thinking or like do you think? Because I feel like there has been, you know, we're just like we're deflated, right? It's been sort of them.

They're fired up. They're all mad at Joe Biden for everything. We've had to sit here and watch Manchin and send them and just fuck everything up and everything keeps not happening. And January 6 keeps getting not fucking prosecuted and so on and so forth. And so we on the left are deflated, whereas they're fired up. Midterms tend to swing back in the other direction. Anyway, it's all recipe for disaster. Do you think this whole thing could have any kind of effect to the contrary where that is concerned?

Well, I don't know whether people are going to be fired up or discouraged. Well, the one effect of this is you might see some swing voters who are contributing to like an R plus seven environment from the midterms like swing back the other way because there's suburban, you know, upper middle class people who just like we're mad about schools being closed and masks. We're not going to be mad about this. You know what I'm saying? So like that could sweet some votes. But as far as the extro-democratic base, I don't know whether people are discouraged or going to be fired up for this because it's like a six of one, half dozen to the other because like Biden gave a pretty disappointing milk toast statement about how he just got to vote this fall. Elizabeth Warren gave a pretty fiery impassioned speech as she was like sprinting across a law and they really resonated with people.

Chuck Schumer actually came out fairly fired up for Chuck Schumer and talked about how he's going to put a bill on the floor to codify Roe as a federal law, which would nullify the Supreme Court decision. He doesn't have the votes, but I don't think, because you've got to get 60. If you're not going to nuke the filibuster and, you know, a mansion already said he won't nuke the filibuster for this. There could be something weird happen because I knew Murkowski and Collins are kind of humiliated right now. Right.

Maybe get a 50th vote for a one-time modification of filibuster from them for this specific bill, but I don't know. Yeah, I was going to ask if that was like a possibility, because I know especially where Collins is concerned, if it could you know, if that could factor into it or something. He's got a big pressure. Yeah.

Yeah. So. It looks like J.D.'s going to pull it off. Looks like. was 31% of the vote in. and he's up 29, 23. Yeah, I know. Gay Washington's calling it.

I've seen enough. J.D. Vance wins the Republican nomination and will face Tim Ryan in the fall. Well, I wonder if it's like the silly, the antics and the literal dick measuring and papal fighting and all that stuff, obviously, some of that's going to fall by the wayside now that the Republican primary is over, but I just wonder how this race is going to go now. Tim Ryan, it never struck me as much of a circus act type of guy, but, I just, you know, there's still some more potential for absurdity in this race, I think. Yeah, I mean, it's going to get, I mean, like, the amount of stuff JD said should make for a bunch of really damaging TV ads is going to mean.

They could just run Josh Mandel's ads. And that should sink him, but I don't know. But like, it's like he, there was a rally today he did with Matt Gates and defended Matt Gates to ask him, do you think it's good to be good look to be campaigning with the guy who's accused. accused of child sex trafficking. And JD pivoted to saying a lot of federal investigations are the result of corrupt political corruption, essentially saying that JD is being framed for being a child sex trafficker. And like, again, that's going to be hung around his neck if Gates is indicted between now

on election day. Right. So, yeah. Well-being and health on YouTube says, I just confirmed my vote registration. Good to go. All right. Good to hear it. Because we didn't do some of the normal stuff up top.

like and subscribe everybody thanks for watching tonight and like and subscribe and share and all that good stuff helps us out if you're listening to the podcast leave a five-star review that'd be super cool also I didn't do these up top if you're vaccinated and want to see me live I'm doing solo shows this summer

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Yeah, I don't know. It's, you know, things aren't great, Mark. You heard here last, everybody. They're not great. Trey, did you think the founding fathers, when they thought about the Constitution, established a former government, they thought that what they were doing was setting it up

so our six lives would be dictated by a bunch of people, even when they were young enough to fuck, probably wore dress socks when they did it. No, no, I do not. Also, I'm going to read that thing because I don't think you read it earlier. An apocryphal quote, I guess you found on the internet says in 1787, there were a sizable block of delegates who were opposed to the Bill of Rights. One member of the Georgia delegation had to stay by way of opposition

and said, if we list the set of rights, some fools in the future are going to claim that people are entitled only to those rights enumerated and no more, no others, so. Yeah, that no one actually said that. It may not sure the progeny of it.

I think it might have originated in a West Wing episode, but the sentiment is correct, I think. That's Aaron Sorkin quote. Yeah, yeah. But people think it's real. But I do agree with, I do agree with the actual takeaway. But like, if you want to know what the founding followers actually fought,

people never talk about the Ninth Amendment, Trey. never know what it brings up the ninth amendment do you want to know what the ninth amendment says the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people it's literally saying if we just couldn't write something down doesn't mean people don't have this right yeah that's in there yes whatever we're talking about exactly why was wrote what was wrote aside another 14th amendment it's like the son of the ninth amendment says we can do whatever we want if we decide people have the right it's also just weird Matthew Kenyon on facebook says can't wait to see in kC trade

me neither going to get some of that barbecue is going to be a good time thank you matthew uh it's also just weird it's like he talks about it's not rooted in history and it's like it's such a weird thing to say to to me because it's like the world changes things change it's like we can't have any kind of laws that aren't based on something from 200 something like that's some straight up bible shit which i guess makes sense uh you know considering what we're talking about here but yeah it's like Congress can't regulate high speed trains because they're not in the Right, exactly, yeah. You can have a Labradoodle

because Labradoodles didn't exist in 17. Right, right. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's all so ridiculous, but thank you all for joining us and listen to us. Bitch about it. We hope you're hanging in there. Yeah, Tracrider.com, weekly skews.com slash more for the Patreon,

like, subscribe, share, retweet, all that good stuff. We'll see y'all next week. Say you love you, bye. Thank you.