Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 10/25/22 – Referendum Roundup

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Most of the midterm focus so far has been on the various candidates/maniacs running for office, but on tonight's show we'll look at the other ballot measures being considered. Weed, abortion, guns, education, healthcare, etc.  Join us. Support the show

Howdy everybody. Welcome back. Happy skews day to you. It's October 25th, 2022. I hope everybody's feeling good and spooky out there. I'm Trey. That's Mark Aegee. What's up, Mark? Happy skews a week, Trey. We've got a fun show today. We're talking about ballot initiatives and Missouri. highway patrol being used in a pro weed legalization ad and then immediately haven't announced no weird don't worry we're still the least cool motherfuckers on the planet so that's gonna be fun a couple of things talk about before we get to the show are we talked a lot about how polling's fucked up and I think we might talk about more on the on the Patreon episode but like a couple good signs I don't think anybody should pretend they know what's good they know what's going to happen on election day but

like, as of yesterday, almost a million Georgians have early voted. It's 60% higher at the same point in 2018. The people showing up are older and blacker than previous elections. It's voter enthusiasm appears to be up. So that's good. Early voting is booming all over the place. So maybe the polls are way off. And let's hope they are in a lot of places.

Also, like, I don't understand how Oz and Federman are closed. but also it looks like Chuck Grassley might lose in Iowa. No of this makes any fucking sense to me. It's all nonsense. Right. It generally hasn't it been true in the past that when early voting is up, that's generally supposed to be good for Democrats? Or

is it just like it's gotten so like normalized or whatever now that maybe the rules are changed? But also it's like for good and bad, it seems like people are more, you know, engaged and motivated and shit. Like you would like the turnout just keeps

going up, evidently. So it seems like people care. It's just all different types of people who care very, very much. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because all this polling stuff is based upon, like, there's like political science is based on, you know, like, the history of American voting. That's how they put together sampling for polling and stuff. But like, it's all, we've only had 45 presidents. It's all small, it's all very small sample size. All these people, Well, the party and power, the party and it has the president always loses seats in the midterms. Like, based on what? Based upon, they're all totally different situations.

Every election's fucking different. Because there's always something for people to be pissed off about. You know what I mean? And it's always the president's fault. So it's like, yeah, it's just a rule of thumb that there's a backlash in every midterm, you know, the pendulum doth swing. What are you going to do? Yeah, we need a parliament, Trey. We need a parliament.

So when we talked last week, I was pissed off about like, like when you say when you vote based on gas prices you're essentially letting the kingdom of Saudi Arabia decide how you're going to vote right then this article from the intercept came out this week Saudi sold old productions cut so deep and surprised even Russia and in it they have a video clip I can't play it because it's in Arabic so I'm just trusting the translation but the it's from 2004 it's Prince Bandar it said it was a Saudi ambassador to the US from 83 to 06. He said, I'm quoting here, the kingdom's oil decisions can influence the election or not election in the president of the United States, the largest and strongest country in the world,

for that to be taken into consideration regardless of what the kingdom of says to do is in itself evidence the strategic way to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He said it out loud, and we're still letting them do it. It's fucking insane to me. I'm sure there's a very good reason for it. And also, I'm not advocating for this. I'm just saying, given our history and the truth of what you just said, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been any of the big CIA coup. or something over there. You would think we would have done more to just usurp control of this country

because of its value to us because, you know, that's not something we've shied away from in the past, but I guess not. Yeah, I mean, we've done everything we could to keep the House of Sout in power. And it turns out the stuff the CIA does backfires, right? I don't, who fucking saw it?

Again, I'm not saying this. I don't want them to do that. I'm just saying it feels like something they would have done. But I guess they have been doing that, but for this particular regime. Yeah, yeah. We even let him get away with 9-11. But while we're on the subject of Middle East, I want to talk about this, because this is from today, this story, maybe laugh a lot.

So this billionaire hedge fund guy named Tom Barrack, who was like a good Trump buddy who was, like, chairman of his inauguration, he took the stand as though. He got arrested in his own trial for, he was arrested under the, like not registering as a foreign agent because he was taking money from the UAE and Saudis to like, I guess the government's theory is he was like legally lobbying the Trump White House for Middle Eastern policies. And his defense was, I could not have lobbied the president because he was too fucking stupid to understand what I was saying. Yeah, stupid like a fox, but yeah.

Yeah, I got to keep them on their toes. That's one way to do it. Yeah. Lastly, before we get to the show, financial times are this really weird puff piece around DeSantis this week. When the headline doesn't even match the content in the article, to me it's just sort of a sign of how the media is just totally not built for this moment because they have these plug-in-play type pieces where, like, if DeSantis is popular and rising in popularity with party, that must mean there's something good there, so therefore let's find it, right? But Barry within this story, which the headline, the headline of which is Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump with brains and without the drama. Remember, this is a positive piece about him. Had this anecdote in there, these two things. He did an uncanny impression of baseball star Jose Cansego, which I'm sure was not racist,

even though you know, Sanchez is Hispanic, so maybe he can do it. But he would, on first dates, he would say they like Thai food, but intentionally mispronounce it, thigh food. And if the women corrected them, he would find an excuse to lead because he didn't want a girlfriend who corrected it. that is wild dude and that's like it's like you said that being in a positive puff pace it's like you guys are going to love this listen to how he used to manipulate women in this uh but yeah it's like no he's like he's like you know dumb and subservient that's how i like him any woman that's going to

tell me uh anything at all not my speed uh also he's italian right isn't he a spaghetti person i thought he's a lasagna american on the American, yeah. I guess I never looked it up. I guess I assumed Cuban, but I don't actually know. Well, it's funny because, like, I also assumed that, but I covered him on Patreon where I review politicians, and I covered him on there,

and I just remember being surprised to find, uh, I think that he was, yeah, he's of Italian descent. Yeah, so there you go. Okay. There we go. I can totally wrong by that then.

I just assumed Florida, so Cuban. Okay, cool. Ron DeSantis is, I'll tell you. Here we go, we learn something. All right. Well, actually, we wanted to enjoy one moment before we're going to end in the show, right? If people missed it, this is just, this is Ted Cruz getting booed at a baseball game.

Not just booed, heckled mercilessly. Yeah. I love to drive you I love to love New Yorkers, man. Dude, he was in New York because he was doing the view to promote his new book. And he got roasted on the view even harder than he did at the fucking Yankees. game. So, like, this dude just loves being hated.

Like, Kate Robo and around what his person is like. Yeah, he does seem to get off on it. Like, that's, that's the thing. It's like it empowers him. Hatred fuels him, apparently. Yeah. Hatred and disdain. So.

But you guys, beware, if you ever booed Ted Cruz in public, you were just helping him come. So there you go. All right. On that note, let's get into it. With us, as always as producer, Matt. This is weekly skews. I want to remind you, of course, two quick items of business. Number one, if you'd like to see me,

perform live. Go to Trey Crowder.com. I'm mostly in Southern California up until the big holiday shows at Zanis in December with Corey and Drew. Those are always fun, but I got a lot more dates in 2023 all over the place. So go to Trey Crowder.com, check it out. Come and see me. Number two, if you enjoy this program, I would like to show your support, you can do so

by signing up on Patreon. $5 a month, get you access to full link bonus episodes. We're going to record one later this week. going to get into why the polls seem to suck, amongst other things. We've got plenty more in store, so we hope you'll consider going to weekly skews.com slash more, or you can just go on Patreon and look me up. Either way, it'll work. Sign up on there, get some more skews in your life.

Now, as for the show tonight, so far, most of our focus when it comes to the midterms has been on the candidates slash lunatics running for office, but tonight, instead, we turn our attention to the various ballot initiatives across the country, some hot button issues, abortion, weed, gambling, education, health care, immigration, all the usual suspects. And you could probably guess how they're going from Red State to Blue. But we'll break it all down a little later. But first, of course, we begin with a daily dumbass, Matt. Tonight's D.D. Bs for being communists who hate private property rights, apparently. You'll get it in a minute, maybe.

Police in Western Massachusetts feeling the sting of a dangerous situation. So a woman is now facing criminal charges accused of using bees to attack sheriff's deputies. Now the sheriff's office says the woman was protesting an eviction at a place in Longmeadow. They say she does not live there. The department says she opened several manufactured beehive boxes that she had on a trailer and unleashed the bees. Deputies say she flipped one box to the ground, making the bees extremely aggressive. They say she even put on a beekeeping soup. before carrying out of tower here of bees

near the front door to stop that eviction. We are lucky that we're talking about this as a unfortunate situation, very odd and unique in its own way, and nobody got seriously hurt or killed. Assault. Yeah. So, they charge this woman

with assault and deadly weapon for throwing bees at them. Well, hey, they could have been allergic. Actually, in that part, like, one of them said he was she asked if one was allergic or one of them said he was allergic and she said good and then hurled bees at him or whatever i wonder if she was inspired by tommy boy remember that scene where the cops are going to like pull them over so they get out the car and start screaming bees bees and the cops freak out and run away like maybe that was she was like cops hate bees i'll go with that also i feel like in beekeeping circles this is probably seen as a dick move don't you think like i don't know if you're supposed to weaponize your bees you're Mark, but maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Maybe some of them get into it solely for the purposes of using bees as a deadly weapon.

I don't know. I'm not up on my bee stuff. But yeah, pretty wild, pretty wild choice of protest methodology. They charge it with four counts of assault of the deadly weapon, which is, I don't think, are they charged? Is it one charge breach cop or one charge breach bee sting? Or like, I know it was really how they do this. Got to be for each cop, because you'd think it'd be like 300,

And 150 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, you know, because that would be the number of bees. Each stinger is a weapon, potentially deadly. So, yeah, I don't know. Good luck to the judge, parsing all that. The good news is the judge didn't give her any bail, which is like, I mean, didn't charge. They released her without, with her cognizance, which is like good, because obviously she's broke if she's getting evicted or not liquided per se. So that's awesome. but there's got to be a charging hitter with

it's not like doesn't carry a serious jail time for which essentially it's a little bit of fucker my dad was deathly allergic to bees he carried an epipan if you go if you're that allergic you have an epipan it's not like there's no there's not going to be any threat of anyone actually fucking dying but it's just I don't know Mark

did you see the 90s classic my girl tragic you know that tragic man it's killed by bees at the end not a dry eye in the house so you know

yeah so this woman a fellow girl woman named Rory Susan Woods She's apparently into fighting an eviction for like, you know, for a full two years. So she gets, she pulls up in her SUV pulling her beehives behind her. And she sees the cops trying to evict her shit. So she put throws on her beekeeping outfit and it starts hurling bees. This is also like a like a terrible supervillain from a cheesy 70s comic book or something like that. You know, but she fights with bees.

Like someone calling squirrel girl to. combat, this menace, this bumblebee menace. Yeah, I don't know. That's wild. Good for her. Okay. Our first honorable mention for Daily Dumbass is Arizona GOP candidate Randy Kaufman for not whipping it out literally anywhere else on earth than where he chose to pull out his penis.

He was arrested for masturbating in a truck near a preschool. That's right. The officer didn't notice him at first, but then saw his fully nude, erect, penis and full display with bicyclists and people riding by and preschoolers, frolicking in the yard or in the playground across the street. And so action was taken, Mark. Yeah, he said, so Scott, I don't think he was actually, I don't think the kids were a factory because they said he was looking at his phone. So, like, I think he was probably looking at porn. But he was caught, he said, I'm sorry. He said, I was, I'm sorry, I fucked up.

I'm just really stressed. Yeah, you know, who among us, right? You know, like, I've been stressed, but I don't know, I ain't been this stressed. And yeah, like you said, well, he wasn't staring at the kids, thank God. But, like, have some situational awareness, man. Like, grab up to a Waffle House like the rest of us, you know. He said, so if you're wondering what his campaign, he was running, he was running, for a Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board.

And if one of his platform is, one of his recent Facebook post was, our children have to be protected from the progressive left. So I guess he did a quick turn of his platform. But when he was getting arrested, the cop mentioned something about it. He was being there at preschool when he said, wait, are you going to put that in the report? You don't think that's part of it, do you? That's just a truly horrific coincidence.

And the cop says, don't you see how alarming that is? There are children nearby. It's like, yeah, yeah, you've got a good point. Anyway, he's too late to get him off the ballot, but he essentially quit the race. So at least he's capable of all his shame. So he's one of the, in this context, with the current crop of Republican candidates we have,

he's one of the good ones because he has enough shame to walk away when he's got jerking off near a playground. Yeah, such is the standard. Our next honorable mention is Bo Duke for becoming even more of a papal than Uncle Jesse ever was. Check out this hot new movie trailer. Oh my God, this killed me.

Yeah, this is John Snyder, right? Yeah. The name, yeah, from the Dukes of Hazard. He's got a self-funded major motion picture coming out soon about, you know, flags and freedom and stuff like that. I'm just trying to kill them. Yeah, we're gonna

I want you to take it down From where? Your truck My truck, my flag Some people find offensive What if I find them offensive You're gonna take that down Why not take the new trail

Because I like the old trail It's my road too I know but there are other roads Do you on? I got a shotgun It seemed to me Some things are worth losing Your job over me

Not to me Fourth of July's over Take your flag down old man It's always fourth is alive All of the grass So grow And the water run told you what would happen the next time you touch my flag, Tano.

What are you doing with that, man? I can't get out. I can't cut him out. You guys get the vibe. Yeah, there's more of that, just a collection of, you know, boomer patriot cliches, generally, him being angry at a Mexican, him decrying the loss of freedom, him brandishing firearms, him refusing to change his ways, and so on and so forth. And the final shot of the trailer has him standing in the yard and the sunset behind him the Lord's own sky looks like none other than the American flag mark pretty

impressive VFX on display if you believe the audio he dies in a hail of gunfire a gunfire while clutching a flagpole and there's also a middle part where he obviously gets sentenced to jail for flying his flag and they show him shaving his head and preparing for prison yeah and you talked about being self-funded he went on and did the newsmax interview we talked about him and his wife sunk all their money into making this movie, and he's begging people to watch it, or he'll be ruined. I was like, buddy, there's a shave, head shaving. You're fucking ruined.

What did you do? But, like, what planet are they on where you're not allowed to fly a flag? You're allowed to fucking fly up to the corner store around the corner of it? We're in communist California and has a flag hanging up the side of it. And everyone's like, yeah, it's a flag. It's cool. Where is, what planet are they on? Right.

And they're like, he's obviously trying to make Grand Tarino. like his version because like he befriends all these people who hate who he does politically like he buddies around this little kid

and they're all like I kneel for the flag and it ends with like I defend your right to kneel you should defend my right to fly the flag and it's like yeah that's that's everyone's fucking position

who are you arguing with right these people drive me absolutely insane but there's a there's a whole burgeoning subgenre of cinema in recent years right of these the Patriot

the Patriot Cinematic Universe or whatever you want to call it. Like we covered the Hunter Biden one. And I know Gina Carrano got a lot of projects in development, right? Like Ben Shapiro's making movies now. They're trying to cash in. Seems like none of them are really doing too great so far, right? Yeah. There's another new one.

So this guy who's a right-wing influencer makes a comic book artist called like Rebel Run. There's like a, like a, like, think Captain America, but he wears a Confederate flag. It's for the Confederacy, yeah. Yeah. And he beats, and he's going to make a movie out of it. And the problem with the crowdfunding stuff like this is like, like, GoFund me in the sites like that stop taking like stuff for like Nazi causes a while back. Because they started up a bunch of parallel like fundraising infrastructure. And the one this guy used was a guy in China who was like, we bank for the unbanked, right?

So if you got canceled by your bank, we'll help you raise money. So it raised like a million dollars. through this guy's site. But the problem is, over in China, this guy was also running a Ponzi scheme where he was doing just like try and sell scam PPE gear during the pandemic. And so he used their money to help pay off some one of his other investors for his other things. All their money is fucking gone.

So they can't make their Nazi Captain America thing. Yeah. I can't believe the bank whose whole thing is targeting shady enterprises turned out to be a shady enterprise. It's wild. They would have more, you know, fiscal integrity over there at, you know, Crooks International or whatever it's called. But apparently not the case. Yeah, I hate we're going to miss out on Captain Confederacy's adventures against wokeness or whatever was going to happen.

I will say, though, at least this guy isn't ruined because he's smarter than Sean Schneider and did not use his own fucking money. Right. All right. our final honorable mention for Daily Dumbass is everyone who ever died for not being alive today to vote Republican. That's right. This is Kerry Lake,

Arizona gubernatorial candidate. Yeah, yeah, we talked to very a lot. She's fucking insane and she did this paint by numbers thing that they all do that's maddening every time. I'm a true believer that if MLK, Reverend Martin Luther

King Jr. were alive today, if JFK were alive today, if JFK we're alive today, if our founding fathers were alive today, they would be America first Republicans. I really believe that. I'd be right about JFK because it was a hardcore culture, like anti-communist

and I didn't care about civil rights. So he might be right about him. But Martin Luther King was a socialist and Abraham Lincoln was so radical, the conservatives blew up the country instead of fucking letting him be pressing. So I think these people don't, they have one thought in their heads,

Republicans good, everyone else evil. Therefore, if history says these people are good, they will be on our side. Right. And they can all get fucked. I don't, like, I don't know what the, you know, they don't reapply. Yeah. I mean, it's been tough, you know, like with Abraham Lincoln, of course, you know, the party of Lincoln, they still call themselves that when everyone who knows

anything about American politics knows that the parties, you know, essentially flip-flopped ideologically, you know, between then and now. And also it's like, Carrie Lake would have. been, you know, she would have been with John C. Calhoun. Actually, she's a woman, so she wouldn't have been allowed to do shit. But she, like, you know, she'd been all for slavery if she was, if she was active in the 1850s, you know, most of these America first patriot Republicans, uh, would have been. But like, in the modern American political context, Abraham Lincoln was like to the left of

Bernie, like, for his day. And I don't understand what the, like, in modern times, He probably, he'd be extremely considered extremely racist, but it's like, judging relative to his own times, he was extremely progressive. So I don't know like what the fuck. Yeah, I try to make sense to these people. So, yeah, let's talk about some ballot initiatives. There's a lot going, you know, it's not just the candidates on the ballot this year. A lot of referendums, measures, things of that nature. Propositions, California's beginning of propositions, me and Mark both live here, and we've been saying countless ads for these various propositions.

And some of them are wild to me because there's one about dialysis clinics. And like it literally, literally, the ad is like a sweet old man staring at the camera. And he's like, hi, I'm Rodney. I'm a dialysis patient. And if you vote yes on Prop 29, I will literally die screaming. And you're like, oh, no, that sounds bad. I don't want Rodney to die screaming. Why is this on the ballot?

Who proposed this? You know, and then you look into it and it's all just moneyed interest and big kidney. and shit like that. And, you know, it's all like corporate disputes and stuff. But, yeah, it's hard to parse with this shit sometimes. You and I were texting about that one because we were trying to figure out what the fuck it was. And it's just like a labor dispute that unions and these companies are trying to like resolve by buying a law. And it's just like that guy in the ad isn't wrong.

Right. But the reason that the clinics would close is because the company that owns it would rather close the clinics than hire one extra nurse and accept Medicaid. patients. Right. So, like, you can get fun. Like, everybody involved can get fucked. Just right. Yeah. Like, there's also the gambling ones, which are like, there's two separate gambling propositions that are confusing your shit and both are probably going to fail because everyone's so confused by them. And I couldn't tell, one legalizes online gambling and one has something to do with casinos and you've got native groups on both sides running out and yelling at each other. I'm like, I know you guys are fighting over money. I can't tell who's, who I should care about

getting their money. No, yeah, well, it seems like there's tribes that have the casinos and like, so, you know, they back the casino one, but the other one is supposed to be like some of the taxes from legalizing to online sports betting is supposed to go to help like homelessness and also the native populations, the ones that don't have casinos. And so it's like it feels like it ought to be that one to me. Also, I like to gamble on sports online. I'm not going to lie.

But yeah, if you just watch the ads, you know, you can't tell shit from just the ads. and they run them like crazy because they're just obviously they're biased everyone knows that but I'm saying like people if they want to make sense of this stuff which is what everybody should do but you really got to like get into the fucking weights and read up on it you know and how many people are going to do that I don't know yeah just get a voter's guide is what I always just go like I get a couple different voters guides and look at it and see what the reasoning is and like someone might agree with someone but don't get it but anyway it's like the ballot initiatives to in our state

are a vehicle for people with money to buy laws that the legislature cannot overturn. So it's completely corrupt and fucked up and why California

is a clown show a lot of the times. Like it's like everyone screwed up the one last time where they thought they were voting to help Uber drivers

an excellent screwed Uber driver is it's right but other states are more straightforward where it's just citizens signed petitions and then sometimes the legislature

can refer a ballot initiative and then people vote on issues and the vet citizens get to decide which you know the whole idea of this enterprise is self-government so while let's use it while we have it let's talk about things that are going on let's start with one of our old favorites weed uh legal in most states now but it's on the ballot in five more states this year and slim some that you wouldn't expect the only blue states considering such a measure of maryland uh where a question it's called question four and so easily going to pass i would imagine but other ones where it's on the ballot are Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

So I'm not sure what plucky potheads got that on the ballot there, but more power to you. And even in Arkansas, where the next governor is probably going to be Sarah Huckabee, it's going to win by like 60% if you believe the polling. Right, because like no one hates this, really. Like even Arkansas papals don't really get, at worst, don't really give that much of a shit about it anymore. and most people are pretty down with it, even in, you know, deeper at Arkansas or any other ad state.

Yep, you know, Tennessee still ain't fucking with it, but what do you expect? But yeah, it's just the, you know, like, I know we're going to talk about the cops, but it's just like the cops and the private prisons and big farm, you know, just like lobbyists who keep it from passing everywhere, basically. Real people don't, you know. I mean, even like old people now, the people that intend to vote concerto and everything, thing or like all lie about having been at Woodstock so it's not like they were going to tweet but uh yeah we're talking about Missouri because I saw it a funny ad last

week and I pulled it for the show it was on YouTube and when I went to put it in a rundown it was deleted and it got deleted because Missouri Highway Patrol hit it with a copyright strike and what they do it the reason was the ad um Matt and Matt do you want to try playing it so we can show we're talking about but I pulled it from the and I said it's going work because it's from a news station website which is some of them or some of those are kind of hinky when we try to play video from but we'll give it a shot because they the news can talk about it because they pulled it to discuss but they can't actually show it on television because they yeah yeah we'll say 19 states have legalized marijuana now it's our turn

missouri a yes vote on amendment three is a vote to let the police focus on serious crime and give millions and new funding to veterans health care for our police for our vets vote yes three. All right. So, yeah, so I'm not necessarily going to copy a strike strike because this is a vaguely cop looking guy around in a motorcycle, but they said, oh, this is, we didn't authorize the use of our logos from Missouri Highway Patrol, but there's no fucking logos in the thing. So I don't even know what they, but anyway, yeah, the point of the ad was support our cops by legalizing weeds that can focus on serious crime. That's a good message. Right. It's actually a good, that would help cops. Right. Yeah, but they don't want, they don't want that help. Yeah, this is from the pro weed people and it has nothing to do with the cops. The cops officially denounced it and everything.

But yeah, it's pretty, pretty shrewd of the, like back the blue, legalize weed. But yeah, no, like cops, you know, they like weed being illegal because it's a lot more probable calls and shit and more budget for their departments and all that type of stuff. But, you know, you got to have something you claim to smoke. mail if you want to illegally search somebody's vehicle or whatever, try to arrest them on some trumped-up charges. That's just police in 101. So, you know, got to keep it illegal. It's easier to solve the crime of smelling a joint than it is to actually solve a

whodont. So, like, if you're trying to look busy, you want weed illegal, so you can at least look like you did something that day. But there are people who are on the left who are against this bill. The premise of which is like that the way that weeds getting legalized, where is crooked and corrupt, which is true. Because basically, like in Florida, for example, they basically got the licensing in order before they legalized it.

So friends and relatives of people in the legislature had the market all locked up and all the permits before. Yeah. So you also have the problems where, like, a lot of places you can't get licensed if you have a weed conviction to sell weed, which is like, you're the most experienced person to selling weed. It should be the front of the line. But that, you know, all that is obviously.

see crooked, but one thing this this would do is expunge people's records for old weed arrest. It would not let people who are in jail for nonviolent weed arrest out, but it would stop people going in for nonviolent weed arrests, which I think is important. And I don't understand why you'd object to something that's only moderately good because it's not perfect, but I'm on the ground in Missouri. So again, get a voter guide, figure out what you should do. But why on the subject to people getting arrested for bullshit? Let's talk about criminal justice ballot initiatives.

To start with the bad, Alabama's got one called Amendment 1. They're calling Anaya's law. I'm not sure if I pronounce this woman's name, right? So I apologize if it's Anya. It's named to this woman who was a community college student who was killed by a guy who was out on bail. And the reason they named it after her is because what the bill would do is allow the state, what the amendment would do was a lot of state legislative. legislature to determine offenses for which male

baby be denied. Now, the May is doing a lot of work there because judges will deny bail if they can because a lot of them are fucking right-wing authoritarian psychos. And just a reminder, people who are arrested for crimes are not convicted. It sucks this

crime. I don't know how they relates to the first crime or what he was arrested for the first time, but people that are out on bail don't habitually just go back to committing crimes. Well, to me, the main thing is, yeah, I feel like people hear stuff like this and they're like, okay, but if it's a violent crime and if they're dangerous, like, they shouldn't be let back out on the streets or whatever, but it just completely ignores the fact that, like, people get wrongfully arrested and shit all the time.

You know what I mean? Like, our criminal justice system is flawed to say the very least. So it's just they don't need more authority, you know, to use against people in, you know, in cases like this. Like, it's just like, it's the same way I feel about the death penalty, which we've talked about before. which is like, I think there are certain people who, you know, it wouldn't hurt anybody ever. All of society would be better off if they didn't exist, some truly horrible people. But we know that we have put people to death who actually were innocent. It's happened countless times.

And so you just can't have that. I mean, we still do. But like, I feel like you have to oppose the death penalty because that's not ever worth it. Like that cliche about it's better to let a thousand guilty men go free. than to lock up one innocent man or something like that, you know. And I tend to agree with that. That shit's horrific. So that's what laws like this, that's why they don't hip for me, Mark.

Yeah. And the fucked up, like, perverse incentive of it is if you're guilty, if you're denied bail, that counts as time serves. So you just go ahead and start serving your sentence ahead of time. So that's like you're helping out the guilty person. But if you're innocent and you get off at trial, not that innocent people always get off at trial, because that's not. But if you're found not guilty, you don't, that time you spent locked up is just taken away from your life.

You also couldn't have a job. So you come back to nothing. It's like you probably lost your house. Maybe your wife let it. It's like it's completely fucked up. And like there shouldn't be. This guy got bail. Like I'm not sure what is.

I should have done more research for this. I apologize. But like the whatever crime is arrested for, if it was a serious crime in Alabama, I bet it was a lot of bail money. So either he's rich or it wasn't that serious of a crime and he shouldn't have been hell without bail anyway. Right. So yeah, whatever. But speaking of the death penalty, another amendment in Alabama would require the governor to notify the victim's family before granting granting a granting a commutation or reprieve of a death sentence. So just you've got to make the governor call the people up and tell them that you don't feel that bad about the relative dying before someone can get mercy. So, yeah, there you go. In Ohio, this is just a troll one about an issue required judges to factor in public safety and a person's criminal record when setting bail and

bail conditions. Yeah, that's, they do that. I'm not sure what the fuck you're doing here. That's what the whole, that's what a judge does is judge stuff. So I don't know. There are some good ones here. In Montana, there's a ballot measure that would require a search warrant to access someone's electronic data, which you might not be aware that they don't have to do

that. But no, apparently in Montana, the cops can just read your fucking emails if they want with no judge's oversight. is constitutional amendment 48 i would be in favor of that if i lived in montana but i don't so again check out a voter guide uh he's another good one in georgia um i can't believe even have to say this but there's a there's a measure that would suspend compensation for public officials that are indicted for a felony because apparently in george up until now you could be like i don't know a cop or a state rep or uh the governor be indicted for murder and suspended

and still get your paycheck so yeah maybe that's probably be a good one. We need us, we need us murderers in public office, Ray. I'm firm on that. As a general rule, yes, I would agree with you. Yeah. But yeah, you know, if they can't be suspended with pay, you know, for doing something horrible, what's the point of being a public servant, Mark? Did you think about that part? Come on. There was like, I remember in a cop that was like on suspension with pay for like three years. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, how do I get? Right. Being a bad cop is the best gig in the world. Well, no, I think. being a terrible college football coach with past success because it's the same thing.

You get a buy it. They pay you, but they pay you millions of dollars to not do your job. So, yeah, cop in is like the lower version of that. Yeah, there you go. One of the big ones, of course, is the selection cycle is going to be abortion. And there's five states that abortion measures on the ballot. Three are voting on protecting abortion rights and two are, you know, doing the other thing. real quick through the good ones.

California is trying to enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution. Also, Vermont, those are just going to fly by and probably won't do make much difference because no one's going to outlaw here anyway unless the federal government, well, the federal government outlaws that it's going to superseded state constitution, so it's not going to matter. But the big ones in Michigan is called Proposal 3. They were to get almost three-quarters of a million signatures, like a couple days after job decision to get it on the ballot

because people were fired up at that time, not so much anymore, but I hope they get more fired up. But it's obviously more urgent in Michigan than California because Michigan has a 1931 abortion ban on the books, though it's been blocked by the court so far. You also have a legislature

controlled by Republicans. But polls have found the citizen-initiated measure leading and also the presence in the ballot might also have both Democrat turnout, which would help Gretchen Whitner get elected and keep that. psycho Tudor Dixon out of the fucking government's office, so that'd be good. On the bad side, Kentucky has a measure called the No Right to Abortion and Constitution

Amendment that would make it obvious. You can't get an abortion in Kentucky, which is already the case. They already had a trigger law, but there's still an ongoing legal battle over that. So it's not in full effect yet, but I imagine it will be eventually. The worst one, I mean, the Kentucky one doesn't do anything. thing because of abortion, they're just, all these things are just such signaling, a lot of them, including this one. Montana has a born alive referendum on their thing, which basically says you can't kill a

baby after it's born, which is always the case. Yeah. Has that been on the table up until now? Like, I failed to realize that. Like, but yeah, no, it's right. It's makes it illegal to murder infants who are born alive. So thanks for clarifying. that, Montana. I mean, literally what is the, what's it's like, it's part of, is it part of that whole

narrative, like they try to make people think that that type of shit is happening, like that babies are being, like literal babies are being pulled out and killed and stuff. Like, you know, that's part of the propaganda that they push or whatever. So this law is trying to codify that or something. Like it's trying to, I mean, I don't know. It's like a boogeyman, but yeah. I don't know. What the hell?

It's the thing. No one could possibly be against this. It's like, yeah, because it's not a real thing that you have to, that anyone has to be worried about. It's the rare government, government initiative that is going to have 100% success rate because they're just, Montana's banning the Babadook, Trey. I'm going to read this quote from a doctor in Missoula. He says, quote, it's just part of the propaganda and false narrative surrounding abortion. of boss abortions the result in live birth.

Yeah, it's just not something. It's not something to happen. That's according to a doctor. If you can believe them about doctor stuff, there's no real way to combat this, but this video, this is from a debate between incumbent Democrat, Susan Wilde and Republican Challenger, Lisa Scheller, and the Pennsylvania 7th for Congress.

And partial, Lisa Scheller tried to make this fucking point to bring up partial birth abortion. And then the only real response, Here's what Susan Wilde said here. Matt, you got it. She has already voted for legislation that legalizes abortion for any reason at any time on demand, up to including a minute before a full term birth at taxpayer expense. Representative Wilde.

Thank you. Partial birth abortion does not exist except as a figment of the GOP's mind. There you go. That's it. You can cut it, Matt. That's the only, what are you supposed to say? It's like, there's nothing, like, they just made up this thing to be against, and I don't know, like, it's so much for stuff. But that's like chapter one, dude, making up something to be against, you know, like that, they stay doing that. All their biggest issues are that, the fucking critical race theory and the goddamn kitty litter and cancel culture and this. It's all just imaginary boogeyman that

They get everybody ginned up over and it fucking works. That's the most frustrating part about it. It's like none of it's even real. All this shit they're driving the country into the ground over isn't real. I mean, the beauty of it is you can't fail. Like it says, 100% success rate. They're going to take office day one and be like, we've stopped the kitty litter in the schools and they will be correct. Right.

So while we're on the subject of abortion, let's talk about health care because abortion is fucking health care. this on the ballot in south dakota is an initiative to expand medicaid coverage this one's funny to me because south dakota does not take did not take the medicaid expansion came from obamacare and my read of this is it's more expansive than obamacare so voters are going around the legislature and making south dakota more progressive than it would be if it just took obamacare so i don't really make me laugh um i these things have passed in other red states because people like going to the doctor even if they don't like democrats um so you Yeah, I hope that passes.

A few things about election laws. We put these in two buckets, like we've been doing with other laws. The things that, the initiatives would make things better and the ones would make it worse. Connecticut's expanding early voting, which Connecticut randomly does not have early voting, which is there are only three other, the only states that also don't have it are Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire. I don't know what Connecticut and New Hampshire are doing. I know what Alabama and Mississippi are doing. Michigan is considering a proposal that would permit the use of ballot drop boxes and require nine days of early voting.

It's also no excuse use absentee voting, which is good. Everyone should vote to vote by the mail. It's the mail. It's make it easy. Nevada, here's the fun one. They're considering ranked choice voting, which we talked about in Alaska, and it's confusing to shut up everyone there. I am for it. I don't understand why people find it so confusing.

But the fun part to me is the Democratic Party is campaigning hard against it. I was trying to figure out why, and then I had the Eureka moment. It's, oh, if they don't have the lesser two evils argument, they can't get so many centrist elected because what a lot of progressives will do is rate the progressive first, the centrist dem second, before the Republican. And if a lot of, if the progressive hits for a lot of people, there'll be a lot more than office because they won't be able to have primaries to fucking beat the man with a bunch of money. So I have my assumption, though, that's what's going on there.

The ballot initiatives would make things worse. in Arizona the proposition to require a date of birth and voter ID number just to submit mail ballots and would tighten the rules for acceptable photo IDs for in-person voting. So it's just adding a bunch of steps because it's like, yeah. Again, what is the argument for this supposed to be? It's voter fraud, right? And I'm doing air quotes. But it's like, oh, we have people voting illegally that shouldn't be.

And so these measures are intended to combat that. Right. Again, not a thing. Like, it's not, you know, the only time fucking bullshit comes up in regards to elections is stuff they're doing. But, yeah, just add it to the list of land. I don't understand. I don't know. I guess maybe a lot of people don't know enough criminals.

But like criminals respond to incentives just like everyone else, right? You don't commit a crime where there's no angle in it. And in-person voter fraud, why am I risking jail time for zero dollars to help Joe Biden? get one more vote for president right what's the fucking angle it yeah it's like the fentanyl can't a Halloween candy craze why would a drug dealer give away $1,000 in drugs to kill kids right what's what's to what end right yeah yeah so yeah um but yeah but i guess the idea is here is if you i don't know how you need a voter how you can require a voter ID to submit mail ballots who you show the that each of you where they have to photocopy it

Or all this stuff is like you add, like, like, you know how they were kicking back ballots for not having signatures in the right place or whatever in your mail ballot. It just adds a step. You can, all this person forgot to fill in their birthday in their ballot, so that one's out. Right. Yeah. It's one more thing that someone can fuck up, which will justify them throwing their vote away. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of progressive cities have been allowing people who are undocumented to vote in local elections. And Ohio has a statewide law that would ban that. Yeah, Louisiana is also considering something similar. But in the other hand, Arizona is considering a proposition to allow non-citizens to get in-state tuition. So I hope that works because that way it. People should be able to go to school. If people who live in our country, you should want them to go to school so they can participate in society and contribute to the economy and all that kind of shit, right? You think?

No, smart people don't hit. Like knowing stuff ain't it, Mark. Like, you ain't heard about the liberal professors brainwashing our youth. Surprise you haven't heard about that. massive problem. You know, people learning stuff, bad for America as a general rule. Yeah. This last one on to do with immigration, in Massachusetts, there's a quick ballot initiative

that would approve a legislature passed measure that are allowed residents to obtain a driver's license, even if they're not in the U.S. legally. Now, the mechanics here is a legislature passed it, the governor who's a Republican in Massachusetts for some reason, who's popular. vetoed it because it's good for immigrants. And I don't know why they keep fucking elected this idiot. He was overridden by the Democratic legislature, but they decided to put the law before the voters, too, to cement it.

But like, here's my question is, why wouldn't you want, if someone's going to be on the road, right? Why would you want them to pass the driver's desk? Right. Yeah, if they're there anyway, if they're going to be driving, like, what's the, like, again, it's just another, I don't know, way to make their existence harder or worse. Like, it's another deterrent, I guess. something else they can, you know,

charge them with or fuck them over for. I guess something. The idea is if they go with like a DUI checkpoint, they don't have a driver's license, they're now committing a crime, which you can deport them for. But if they had a driver's license, they wouldn't be committing a crime.

But also the person is to drive on the road with other people. I want to know they can operate a motor vehicle. Yeah, but no, yeah, that's what I, yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Like, that's, I'm sure that is the thinking behind it. Yeah. But we got one more. to talk about right and then we'll get into some comments questions whatnot so y'all get those ready but yeah minimum wage what's going on

there yeah so three jurisdictions nevada nebraska and washington dc have minimum wage increases on the balance this year nevada would increase the 12 dollars an hour Nebraska would take it up to 15 by 2026 and dc would increase the minimum wage for tipped employees the same levels non-tipped employees which you and i both used to weigh tables that would be amazing yeah yeah yeah yeah that's the type of of thing that's like it's saying, you know, who would oppose it other than, you know, employers who want to pay people shit and, you know, but you would think there would be outnumbered by the people who, you know, think you'll get paid more. So I guess we'll find out. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. People with money are typically outnumbered by people without money. That's how money works. Yeah. Generally speaking, yet, they tend to rule the entire world on account of also how money works. Yeah. Matt, find us some questions. comments and whatnot, put them up there. I'm going to beat y'all the punch this week. How about this? Everybody hit the like button.

That's right. Like, share, tell your friends, write and review on the audio version, all that good stuff. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, all that internet stuff. Y'all go ahead and do it. Look at that. I remembered. Isn't that something? Yeah.

Why were we done comments up here? Go ahead. Did you follow this Mark of Rubio Canvass or the got beat up story? I saw that it happened. And he's like a proud boy or something like that. He works for Marco Rubio. This guy was canvassing in a thoroughly Republican area, which you remember when you hear this story, Highley, I think. And he got beat up.

Now, the story went like this. First of all, Marco Rubio said he got jumped by four animals just for wearing a Marco Rubio for Senate TV. Now, turns out, not only did it, was it just one guy, maybe two, but also. When they realized, the identity of the guy got released who got beat up. His name's Christopher Monzoon, a white supremacist who nicknamed himself the Cube Confederate. He was at the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. And there's a famous video of, like, there was a protest in Florida of some street named up a Confederate general. And he showed up and beat people with a Confederate flag on a poll.

So, yeah, this guy is a real winner. Good thing, Marco Rubio went to bat for him and just believed him. But also the guy that got arrested, he got beat up because the politics angle didn't hold up because his mom came out. The guy I got arrested and says, my son doesn't even vote. He just beat this guy up. That's funny. All the poem says that Rubio is going to win very comfortably, but he seems fucking desperate.

So I don't know what you got about that. Jim Gray says, boy, smart Mark is earning his money tonight. Yeah. Well, hey, Jim, listen, I wanted us to make sure we got through it and got to these comments like this one here. We're appreciating Mark, making me feel bad, but that's okay. I get it. Jackie Stoppel says the weed initiative in Arkansas is a little messy. Can't add new growers or dispensary. No private growing can't be changed by legislation. No price

growing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess maybe it just decriminalizes it or something. I don't know. Anyway, like like I said, read some local, you know, voter guides and stuff because all this stuff. A lot of this stuff is, some of the ballot initiatives we didn't get into it, but are literally just ballot initiatives that say, we've got to make ballot initiatives less confusing. And I'm sure the ads for those ballot initiatives are fucking confusing. Amy Taylor says, mailed my ballot,

check the website, my vote is lodged. So voted, smiley face. Yeah, good for you. I need to, I'm,

we've got our ballots here in California there. And I was, they send voter guides out to. And I was, uh, reading through. that trying to do my homework. I'll be sending mine off very soon. I hope everybody else does as well if you're able to and just, you know, whatever you can. Michael Noth, Nauf says, I remember being a kid and the adults talking about people putting drugs and razor blades and Halloween candy. Well, it never happened. Never happened to anybody I know growing up. The bull needs to stop. Yeah, that feels like one that's like always been around or at least like since I was a kid too for sure. It was like, you know, razor blades and candy apples and stuff like that.

Yeah, I don't know. Once we're through moral panics, we always realize how stupid we were, but we never apply that knowledge going forward. Right. Doddy Kelly says it was the myth of LSD and the candy when I was a kid. Yeah, you know, that'd be fun. I'd dripping out on Halloween. Why not?

But, yeah, people are not just giving away free drugs, like, as a pre-exam. prank as a general rule. Again, with the fentanyl and stuff, it's like, I think the ideas are trying to make the shitty drugs they have seem to hit harder for people, but it's so dangerous and volatile, you know, that it's really easy to fuck that up. And then so people do, I guess. But, but, but yeah, the old myths about, you know, people lacing weed with other shit, like just because and that type of thing.

Like, I have in no way arguing that fentanylone is good to take. Like, there's a bunch of people who died in New York recently from fendl-laced cocaine. And you're right. My understanding is drug dealers put it in there because it makes bad Coke seem like good Coke. Right. But they're also making a bet that a regular drug user has a built-up tolerance that it won't kill them because what any business, including drug dealers won't, is a repeat customer. Right. You just don't have any tolerance.

You're not going to get a repeat customer. Even if kids know what they took and they got high and want to come back and buy them or you're just killing the kid, there's no, like, there's no fucking thought process to. So, yeah. Drug dealer is smart. these people that are panicking about your kids getting high is what I'm saying. Carter, Carta says, I wish we had an initiative in California to go after water thieves like Nestle.

Yeah, really looking forward to the water wars. Those are going to be fun. I don't know if I'll still be a fighting age when I'm drafted into the water wars in a few years. But yeah. For those that we don't know what Carter is referring to, even when California is in the middle of huge droughts, Nestle gets free water off our public lands to pump into their bottle water.

They pay basically nothing, and they sell that shit to us for way more than water should cost. Yeah, there was Nestle Pure Life. They get it from all over the place, but one of the places I know they used to get was from just a fire hydrant in Salina, Tennessee. A fire hydrant at a trailer park in Salina, Tennessee, they would like hook a water truck up to it. And I guarantee you, then later just put that into the Pure Life bottle and charge everybody, you know, a dollar per bottle in the vending machine or whatever. but Nestle is a fucking nightmare in every way. They've, like, literally killed babies in the past and stuff by selling people shitty or telling women to use their formula instead of breastfeeding specifically and all this stuff. And then babies got malnourced and died.

And it's just Nestle's a fucking truly incorporation. It's wild. You don't think about it because, you know, chocolate. But, uh, yeah, they're fucked up. That's a Supreme Court case last year. Aaron McCullough says, just so y'all know, the Facebook feed. completely crapped out. Well, that's great. It's the thing about doing live shit. I guess we are unaware of it until it's already happened. That really

sucks, though. Eric Laufenberg says, go to the YouTube feed. It is much better. Well, glad to hear that the Facebook thing is starting to become a major problem. That's good news. Yeah. Well, sorry about that, everybody. Robin Rules CW says, we'll be seeing you in Orlando O'Tray at the show and the meet and greet, can't wait. Love you. Love you too. Yeah, that'll be fun. Looking forward to going to Florida.

So, yeah, I'll see y'all there. Logitech says Mark Aegee is a national treasure. I agree. I think we all agree. Yeah. Not even my wife thinks that. I know who wasn't going to have none of that. You're in a couple's costume this year, right?

Mark, what are you being forced to be? my wife wanted to be uh ac slater and jesse spano so i have like some really loud like wrestling pants and a bay bayside high sweatshirts and cut the sleeves off of and a mullet which i'm not going to shave my beard so i don't know it's how the costume's going to hit but it's nice or whatever yeah stick your guns i like it i've i did a video once and i talked a bunch every time how wing comes up but it's always been kind of funny to me that in a lot of couples it's like you know typically the woman is like Like, I want to be this. And so you can be this.

And then you're like, well, I guess I'll be that. Right. Like, I'm always like Katie's sidekick or whatever. And if she ends up going through with it, we're going to be Nadia and Laslo from what we're doing in the shadows, which like, that's cool. But she's like, but you should be the bat version of Laslo because he's always turned into a bat. So she just wants me in like a big fucking bat costume while she has this elaborate Victorian vampire thing. But you know what? Yeah.

That's better than years past for me. I've been birds and all kinds of shit. She gets to dress up sexy and you have to be a fly rodent. Yeah, right. Andrew Culler says, I don't understand dressing up for Halloween if you can't trick or treat. Yeah, we've got sons who will be trick or treating. And Katie just loves Halloween. So it's usually a costume thing.

But generally, I mean, I've never been a huge Halloween person. That's blasphemy to a lot of people. But, you know, now that I have kids, it's cool. And she loves it. just go with the flow amethyst there's amethyst uh long time watcher says i want to see marcus slater well i'm sure it'll be on my wife's instagram because that's that's what we do everything is for my wife's instagram so right yeah producer matt be on the lookout for some pictures uh put them in there surreptitiously

back we're looking at my wife's instagram we stole those vacation pictures of you looking shredded and so maudlin on the beach beautiful sunset and Mark looking madder than hell Kirsta 007 Mill says how about that House of the Dragon finale? We were actually talking about

House of the Dragon right before we started the feed tonight. Yeah, pretty damn rad. Like a lot of people I think, I was very I had really no levels of hype from House of the Dragon because of, like, Game of Thrones and how it ended.

I actually hadn't even realized that it had started by the time it started. But we, of course, watched it and ended up really getting into it. Now, you know, it's going to be hard to wait two years to see how the story continues. But I'm very in. Yeah, I'm enjoying it. I don't really see the, I don't really see how, other than the fact that both shows have dragons and swords. It's such a different show than Game of Thrones, both the source material on the tone, the characters and stuff. But, like, it's just like, it's a different TV show that also has its good points.

You know, like, I think Matt Smith is great and everything. So as you brought up on a text thread, he's really good at leaning. Yeah, apparently, yeah, Matt Smith's in an interview or in a post, post-episode discussion thing or something. Matt Smith said that he had the idea that Damon would be a big leaner, that he would like to lean a lot. So that's a choice he made as an actor, which he can call. cooperated leaning into the character, and I just found that to be wonderful. Actors are an interesting bunch, man. Yeah.

My wife. Love them out for me. And an actress and writer. And one thing I learned when I first started dating her is, like, if you keep a spoon in the freezer, it'll help make your eyes less puffy after you cry. So that's a good knowledge. That's a good tip. That's a good tip for all of us out there in advance of the midterms in just the general world that we live in.

Put your spoons in the freezer, everybody, because you're going to be crying. all right so thank you sorry about the facebook thing hopefully won't happen again you know how we are with tech stuff but go to tray crowder dot com come see me on tour got to update that graphic too which i will and go to weekly skews.com slash more or go on patreon and look me up you sign up on there get bonus episodes which are not live and as such should be less rage inducing from a technical perspective. Matt also uses a, he actually edits it. We do better production stuff. So it's a whole different thing over there because we use a different platform. I was just laughing because you've been saying you're going to update that graphic for like three weeks. I know. I never think about it until

Matt puts it up while I'm looking at it. So yeah, anyway. All right. Well, thank you. We'll see you next next week. Have a happy Halloween, everybody. So you love you by.