Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 2/28/2023 - Work Them Kids

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Tonight we'll be talking about every good capitalist's ideal scenario: children working 12 hour days! That Dickensian prospect is in the works as Republicans set their sights on loosening child labor laws. Yay! Plus plenty more, so join us. Support the show

Hey, everybody, welcome back. Happy Skews Day to you. It's February 28th, 2020. I'm Trey Crowder, and that there's Mark. Mark, I'm just really excited because Tom Brady has announced he's going to try his hand at stand-up comedy. It's going to for your spot, bud. Is that real?

I saw that. That's not like some kind of sports. Like, you know, there's all those bullshit sites. and stuff out there, like, he's really going to do that? Why? That website is legit. Why would he do that? Actually, didn't double.

That looked like a legit news report. I actually didn't double check. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm falling in crap played as in disinformation, but it would be hilariously funny because you know what's going to happen. He's going to do one show, each shit, then pivot to all right stuff and cancel culture. Do the Elon speed run. Bring Elon out, all that stuff.

Yeah. I just don't know. Especially considering like, uh, he's already got like a, 300 plus million dollar deal with Fox, right? Like whenever he's ready to start, whenever he's ready to start, he's Fox's number one commentator guy in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Like, just do that or nothing. Just do that. Or also nothing would be great. You're the goat. You're super loaded. You know, you've got divorce, play the field, do whatever. But for God's sake, he's going to be going up at comedy connection and Providence and shit.

Like, why? And I love that club, but why? Why? I don't get it. It made me laugh because, like, of course he thinks he's funny. He's extremely good looking and he has hundreds of millions of dollars. So, women have always laughed at everything he said. So, like, yeah, like. Well, he is, he is kind of funny sometimes, like, on his social media and stuff.

But I've always assumed he's got, like, a whole team for that or whatever, like, you know. But even if he is kind of funny, and we all know there's, like, a difference, you know. But anyway, whatever. best of luck to him if he ends up like crushing at that then just kill me that's like yeah what if he's the goat at two things straight yeah and one of them is the thing that i do that's that's rough i was imagining uh him trying to be relatable it's like do you hate it when you kiss your son on the lips open mouth and you just ate a strawberry so you get a concussion yeah yeah well that's uh pretty has weird health beliefs if you guys don't know inside baseball stuff but a lot of times

and comics get huge, so I wouldn't know. But when comics get huge, they like, they tend to become less relatable because comics write about their day-to-day lives and what they know and who they hang out with and stuff. So you see comics blow up and all of a sudden they got like 20 minutes on hanging out with Katie Perry or Shaq or whatever it is. And, you know, it's just, so, yeah, Tom Brady's like already starting from that place. I don't know.

The whole thing is so weird to me, if it is legit. Yeah. That's why Chris Rock goes up at, like, 2 a.m. in New Jersey. because you can try to find a crowd that's hard. You know, it's hard to find a crowd that's hard when you're that big. All right, so news before we get to the show, the lab leak theory is back and dumb again.

So the Wall Street Journal had a report this weekend since confirmed by Washington Post that the Department of Energy's Intelligence section has a low confidence opinion that it's more than likely that it had a lab war. This is what... Everyone is yelling at the Internet over this. It's one of like 80 intelligence agencies

in the federal government, and one of two that thinks they might have come from a lab and they don't have any confidence in the report. Most people still think it was natural origin. Also, it doesn't fucking matter because nobody thinks they did it on purpose. I know that's, well, that's what I was going to bring up and ask you about. First of all, you know, my old stomping grounds, DOE, I wasn't in the intelligence division. I didn't do any biological warfare stuff.

But like, I don't know if this was part, if they, you know, ran in this data at the national lab in Oak Ridge or wherever they did it. But like, they got super high tech shit. that you know they're generally pretty competent but like you said this says low confidence also I don't know the people behind the actual study but more importantly like you said I did I don't really understand because yeah even that like theory that it was a leak it's not a malicious it's not biological warfare right it's like oh they fucked up and this happens and I get that that would be a big deal but it's like I don't know it happens we all went through the whole thing whether it was one dude who left a vial out or whatever and

a lab. I'm not saying it's irrelevant. I just don't. Like, I don't see what it really changes, you know, all that much. The only way it would be relevant is if it was because of gain of function research, which is, you know, where they try to make viruses worse to study how viruses become worse, right? That's one reason. Also, people, biological weapons, you know, like stuff like that. But like, the, the, I have a buddy who's, who's been a big believer in this because he's, he's a sci-fi writer and but we become a good sci-fi writer is you are very paranoid about technology and stuff. So he's been, for this gain of function research for a while.

But also, it's just like, it's all above our pay grade. Us yelling each other on the internet. It's going to stop governments from doing gain of function research. But anyway, that would be, maybe we should dial back gain of function if, in fact, this was a gain of function virus that escaped, but it probably wasn't, so it doesn't fucking matter. Another story I wanted to talk about before we get to the show, this absolutely killed me out of Arizona.

Read this headline, Arizona Republicans disavow wide-ranging bribery allegation. So Arizona House Republicans have been holding nonstop hearings about. election fraud right yeah some pretty pretty much if they let anybody testify about voter fraud it's like like the level of evidence is like the old simpson's joke i saw a principal principal skinner miscarbobble in the in the closet making babies and the babies looked at me it's like that level of fucking right so they had a one the last few days where there's a conspiracy theory that Katie Hobbs, Arizona's new governor who beat Carrey Lake, they say she's being paid off by the Sinaloa cartel through a bribe being bribed through real money

laundered through real estate. Anyway, so they invited us got to testify, but without getting any his testimony beforehand, which is usually what professionals do without seeing his evidence, they got there and accused a bunch of Republicans also. Yeah. Yeah. a drug for a tell funny. Oh, congratulations.

You played yourself. That's so funny. And I went to Uno Reverse card, man, live in front of everybody. But it gets even funnier because they tried to ask him how he knew this. And they got a 40-minute presentation from one named Jacqueline Brigger, who's an insurance agent from Scottsdale. So, you know, her stuff's good.

And the after where she got information, she attributed to a report written by a, like, a lawyer who I think lost his license by the name of John Thaler. And when they asked him for more evidence, he said he got, he knew because of two women working on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel used fraudulent mortgage documents to launder their money to a wide range of officials. And the, all the people checked online, the two women he was accusing were his ex-wife and her mother.

So he used this Arizona house hearing to say he knew that everyone was on the payroll of the Sinaloa cartel to burn his ex-wife and ex-mother-in-law. yeah it's like i can't believe that our policy of inviting fringe lunatics with no credibility to testify before congress ended up backfiring you know in any sort of way on i can't believe one of these maniacs said some crazy shit about us i didn't think they'd go like that i guess they just assumed that all the fringe lunatics are on their team you know would be the assumption there's like if they're going to do something like that it's not going to be about us like we're we're like this yeah but yeah little we know that all of us are also rhinos but i also I also want to congratulate this Thaler guy for reaching a hereto unknown level of divorce. Perhaps only reached by Tom Brady. So there we go. Right on. Yeah, that's some good shit there.

Well, let's get into it. With us, as always his producer, Matt. This is his weekly skews. Before we continue, I, of course, need to remind you of a couple of things. Number one, if you'd like to see me perform live, and let's face it, you should. Go to traycrouter.com. Check out the upcoming dates. I'll be in Texas, Dallas, and San Antonio over the next few days.

plenty of other fun cities coming up after that adding new ones all the time i hope you'll come and see me go to tray crowder dot com and check it out number two also in tray news my special my comedy special damn boy is available for purchase now on amazon core rind forster and drew morgan also have specials on there you can get them as a package deal the well-read comedy special or you can get them individually whatever melts your butter either way i hope you'll check it out go to amazon holler at that special and lastly if you enjoy this program and we'd like to show your support you can do so by signing up on patreon you go to weekly skews.com slash more or you can go on patreon and look me up either

way works five dollars a month get you access to full link bonus episodes we're going to record one later this week we cover things we don't get to on tuesdays or things that come up in between or just shit we want to talk about we have a good time with it we think you will too so go to weekly skews dot com slash more or look me up on patreon sign up get some more skews in your life. Now, as for the show tonight, we'll be talking about every red-blooded capitalist favorite white whale unrestricted child labor. That's right. Oh, people don't want to work anymore. Well, kids don't know any better. It's almost too perfect. At least that's what Republicans, especially those in the state of Iowa seem to think. We'll be talking all things kids working a little bit later. But first, we begin with the Daily Dumbass. Matt, graphic, please. China is our daily dumbass tonight for not realizing just how easy it would be to sigh up Matt Gates. Watch this clip here. Matt Gates.

Is that Azov Battalion getting access to U.S. weapons? Not that I'm aware of, but if you have information, happy to care. The CPM's consent to enter into the record, the Global Times investigative report that talks about training. from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab, citing that the Azad Battalion was even getting stuff as far back as 2018. Without objection, so ordered. Any reason to disagree with that assessment? Is this the, I'm sorry, is this the Global Times from China?

No, this is... That's what you read. Yeah, it might be. Yeah, would that be a reason? As a general matter, I don't take Beijing's propaganda. No, no, yeah, but just tell me if the allegations is two points. I mean... I don't have any evidence one way or the other.

As a general matter, I don't take Beijing's propaganda. and at face value. Fair enough. I would agree with that assessment. People. So. Oh, the fucking military Stephen Colbert up there.

What guy, like, uh, he wasn't having it. I love the utter diss dine he had on his face when the things. He was like, he was just like, I don't, do you have information about that? He's just like that right there. That, that face right there. He's like, I don't, what the. Okay. Uh, it just cracks me up.

Yeah. The face of kill me is that the black dude over his over, over, over, over Colin Cale's right shoulder. We're just like trying to hold stifle a laugh and he realizes Matt Gates' face-planning. But like, these guys all spend their entire lives warmongering about China. And then it takes a press release

in the Chinese Communist Party and reads it in the congressional record about how we've been funding the Azov Italian is that, you know, the Ukrainian militia that may or may not be Nazis. And I look, I, whenever this America arms people tends to backfire, if you think we're creating the new ISIS, I'm not going to argue.

with you. I'm not sure. But anyway, we say we're not Army Navy is off Italian. I mean, but on the note of what you're saying, you know, like all they war monger and talk shit about China all the time, but you know, we'll not hesitate to introduce Chinese propaganda in the congressional record, but it's all, and I know that you feel the same way. All that matters is that it fits, you know, what they want to believe or what they're trying to say

or fits their narrative, right? It doesn't make, if they can find anything that, you know, agrees with, their own currently held conceptions or notions about how things work, they'll point to it and be like, see, look here. And then the opposite is also true. It doesn't matter how reputable of sources. If it disagrees with what they think, then it's fake news and they throw it out. And that's like, that's become like chapter one shit for their whole side. That's just how they operate. Yeah. So what clearly would happen there is some intern was tasked to find some gotcha proof about, you know, CIA war mongering in Ukraine. And that's all he could find. So he gave it to his boss. And now that turn is getting yelled at for feeding his boss bullshit and not telling us from China. But it's like, you get what you, you got exactly what you asked for, you fucking dumbass. Mark,

if you ever gotten Chinese propaganda on your doorstep out here in L.A.? These newspapers like that? The epoch Times, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the Epoch Times is run by the Pheleng Gong, though, which is anti, which are enemies with the Chinese Congress?

Anyway, but that reminded me of like last year, we were coming out of COVID-a-year-a-year-to-a-year-go, coming out of COVID lockdowns. My gym is a 24-hour gym, but it hadn't gone back to me in 24 hours yet. And this guy in the locker room asked me if I thought it might go, it might, when it might go back. And I go, well, you're having a vaccine mandate. So it feels like things are opening back up.

So it might be back to 24 hours soon. And he goes like, you know, I got the vaccine and all that. But really, what they're not telling you is you can kill COVID by eating foods with a lot of very low acid or basic foods. And he said he read it in the epoch times. And I was like, oh, I'm glad this guy who's. fully naked in my gym locker room is telling me that Phelongong wants me to eat more avocados. Right.

So why would they not be telling you that? Do you know what I mean? Like that one in particular. Like you said, avocados cures COVID. It's like that would, what possible reason would there be for keeping that under wraps, you know?

Like it's just. Yeah. I mean, talk about it bunch of these people don't understand how actual conspiracy theories work. Government, as I said before, governments always do lie about pandemics, but in the other direction and want everyone to think things are fine because

government likes it when people think everything's fine, like people going to work and making, paying taxes and spending money at stores and stuff. So like, it's like they, governments do not want you hiding in your house. Well, they have to mail you free money to keep the economy alive. But before we move on from Matt Gates, he also had another big fuck up recently. This came out this week that he, uh, represented Matt Gates under fire for inviting a huge murderer to a pledge of allegiance. So what he did was he met this guy back home at a gun.

Club, who's a National Guard staff sergeant who served in Iraq and got a purple heart. And all that sounds cool. So he invited him at the Pledge of Allegiance without, I guess, Googling him. And it turned out he shot two people in Michigan a few years back, kill one of them. And the only reason he didn't go to trials because the woman he shot didn't want to testify against him. I think there's some sort of family relationship there. Anyway, this is all under the rubric of the Matt Gates learned how to use Google Challenge. So you know what you're reading in Congress and who you're invited to give the Pledge of Allegiance. Right. Yeah. He me to do the Florida gun show and it's like it seems like a stand-up guy and then the

guy turns out to be an actual murderer but hey murderers can still love America mark okay doesn't impact your patriotism also I didn't realize I guess maybe the dude's white or whatever or also I'm just law dumb but like he didn't like because he shot two people one of them died a lady didn't die because that lady won't testify about it at all one way or another that just means it's like well that's it like they don't have like ballistics or anything like that it can be as simple as that if people it's like that mob thing where it's like you know kill somebody in broad daylight and nobody says anything then you're going to get away with it it's i mean i don't know the details of the case maybe it was disputed whether it was self-defense

or struggling over a gun and federal testimony they couldn't make it stick or maybe they didn't have the gun or maybe it's only proof they have was this woman's word and maybe i don't i don't know the details but yeah if you're white you need more proof than just a dead body all right moving on our first honorable mention is the hamburgler and grimace because frankly their silence on East Palestine is deafening unlike this gentleman here play the clip Matt what's your specialty today how are you today nice to meet you hello everybody that's a nice beautiful looking so I know this menu better than you do I probably know it better than anybody in here we're going to take care of the fire department have it you do buddy yeah

So, like, he, all right, this is like one of the time, first of all, it's so hilarious, it's so typical of him that he's like, you know, he's like, really, I'm probably the best McDonald's eater on earth, really. A lot of people would tell you that. Like, nobody's better at eating McDonald's than me. And I think, you know, many smart people would attest to that. But that's the one time that he does that, that I kind of believe him, except he also opened with what's your specialty today, which, you know, McDonald's, I don't know if he's, the promo. I'm like, you get the shamrock shake going or what do you got back there? But either way, it's, yeah, but this is in East Palestine, Ohio out of McDonald's, of course. He's there buying burgers for the cops and the firemen and whatnot.

Yeah. First of all, I made cop up because last week I said Trump had already gone to East Palestine. I was wrong. He went the next day. I was mixing up two different Trump speeches. So, yeah, he went to East Palestine. He gave a little talk about how it's all Biden and Pete Buttig is his fault. And it's, you know, nobody cares because East Palestine's white and it's reversed by racism against white.

people and then he took a he took he there's a palette of water there that he took credit for delivering but it wasn't clear it might have been a donation from amazon that he just like claimed and then but then he took he took the fire department out to mcdonalds so that's cool you know it's good yeah give one of the good city departments uh a free hamburger that's um but anyway like i don't this is uh i can't believe the democrats of bumble fucking the politics and this so bad and i read an explainer about how like the hedge funds that and the private equity groups that own Norfolk Southern and actually give a ton of money to Democrats, many more than Republicans.

So this is sort of like a pain of the ass headache for them, as it rightfully should be, just why you don't fucking take blood money. But so Pete Buttig just gave the weirdest speech. He went to East Palestine and some brand new, like Italian boots. And don't do that. How do you not know not to do that? It blows my mind, man. Like fucking.

Yeah. And then he gave it, he gave us. speech about how, like, the railroad industry, uh, whenever they try to introduce new regulation, always lobbies against it. And the railroad industry should stop doing that. I was like, buddy, regulate them anyway. Stop. You can't make money to not do money stuff. That's not how this works. Right. Yeah. Exactly. They just don't fucking listen. You don't have it. It's like that him saying that like presupposes that we must, you know, go along with what the lobbyists say. It's not our fault. Like if it gets lobbied hard enough we really have no choice and it's like that ain't that if that is how it is it

or not be you know like that doesn't if they were going to do it voluntarily they're going to do it voluntarily there wouldn't need to be any fucking regulations right if everybody's going to drive 55 we wouldn't have to put the sign up right oh god just like just do just do your jobs guys just fucking crack down these assholes even if they donate to you you know there's old thing in old expression politics if you can't take their money in a back room and then go out in public and slam them, then you're not, then you're not suited to this business,

you know, so. Hell, yeah. All right. Our next honorable mention is, uh, my home state of Tennessee's governor,

Bill Lee's thighs for not rocking our world sooner. You guys may have seen this. The governor of Tennessee appears to have dressed in drag in high school, a yearbook picture of him from the class of 77 Franklin High surfaced with him wearing a skirt and a wig and all that good shit. If you guys have been following me, For a while, you've heard me tell the story multiple times, and I subjected it to everybody, again, suggested everybody to it again yesterday in a video I made of when I was in high school

in Tennessee in the early 2000s, we also had a drag show of sorts, and it makes it a little ironic that now the state is trying to outlaw such performances. It seems like it's only a problem if it's the gays doing it. Straight dudes in a dress is, you know, pretty okay. Yeah. Seems to be generally fine with that because he hasn't denied this because he can't can't because it's him. And his like spokespeople and stuff, you know, and the other Republicans in the state Congress are like, oh, it's ridiculous to conflate lighthearted school traditions like this with, you know, actual evil demonic gay drag stuff. He didn't literally say that last part, but that is the implication. And it's all just bullshit. It's not it's not just the implication. It's the literal law. Because like the way it's written, it would criminalize drag performances in public and in front of children. And I'll bet you the

were children at that football game, by the way. But the difference here is. When I did it, we were children, we were all children. The children were in drag, and everyone there was a child in rural Tennessee. So, you know, and they say of a prurient interest, which is like, oh, it's obscene or sexual in nature. Well, I didn't see my buddy Kobe's outfit, all right, because his balls were hanging out, okay?

And he had just like just a bra on, just absolutely no decorum, but ended up winning anyway. But I'm just saying it's, yeah, it's just, it's worded vaguely. So they already have obscenity laws in Tennessee. You can't show your dick to a kid or any. It's not like that's currently legal and they're making that illegal. They already have obscenity laws and it's worded in such a vague way that it could be interpreted to basically make it illegal to even be trans and public because they're, you know, are kids in public or make it problematic to do pride parades or any of that type of shit. It's just a bullshit unnecessary law that's part of their effort to legislate these people, trans people in particular, out of it. existence, basically.

They just don't want to around. That's what I was about to say that the prurient thing, purient means you as a potential to make someone horny, which is, that's totally in the eye of the beholder, right? So like, if I get horny looking at a picture of Bill Lee, is he illegal now? Is it his fault I got horny? And who's defining what makes people horny? So it's like, it basically allows cops and prosecutors to hang a charge on whoever they feel

like if if a guy who has a ponytail pisses off a cop how can you prove that he's not violating this law right so like this is all this is all such dumb horse shit and it's going to pass and i hope the ACLU and whoever else has a fucking fun successful time fighting against this dumb anti-first amendment anti-freedom anti-gay bullshit yeah yeah i heard that brother all right this next one god damn this next one there's a next honorable mention for Daily dumb asses. Technically, it's children for only being worth like 38 cents and minerals, but y'all have got to see this clip from the Alaska State Republican Representative David Eastman. It's got to be seen to be believed, in my opinion. He's talking about victims of

child abuse. Go ahead, Matt. In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit to society because there aren't needed for a government served not over the whole course of that child's life through the chair can you say that again to say a benefit for society um talking dollars now you've got a 1.5 million dollar price tag here for uh victims of fatal child abuse um it it gets argued periodically that it's actually um a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise, you know, be entitled to receive and need based on, you know, growing up in this type of environment. Through the chair, representative, I guess that would be the idea, if I can use a really bad analogy,

when you hit somebody always back up because it's cheaper to insurance. I don't pertain to that, and I'm really, I'm not even sure how to answer that, that there's a cost saving to the death of a child. the impact that that has on a family in us as an society when a child is lost, especially you think that's good. Yeah, so you guys get the idea. So this dude is saying that, you know, if a kid, there's absolutely nothing funny about child abuse, particularly when it's fatal. We're laughing at the like bald-faced, bloodless evil of this guy's take on the subject, which is basically, you know, saying the quiet part out loud. That seems like a lot of their philosophies revolve around.

the idea that we society would generally be better if we just let certain types of people die like people die you know but they won't normally they won't actually just say that but uh this guy took another took another track i think you try to pick out all the different things i hate about this all right so this is a house hearing of where a report was written to try to get assholes like this to care about victims of child sexual and domestic violence and they to try to get assholes like this to care they talked about about it in dollar amounts, saying that, like, if a child grows up in being domestically abused, they estimate that it costs $1.5 million to the state's economy because of future, you know, earnings potential and tax revenue. And so this guy here is that if a child gets beat, it costs the state $1.5 million. And he says, well, if they die, it costs his disease. So, like, even by his own psychotic lot, they're trying to buy into his psychotic logic to get psychos like him to care and he just goes more psycho right he just good and like this guy he got censured for this by like he's the only one that voted against his own censoring which is really funny

to me um he's been censured before because the guy has a fucking maniac he's from wissilla by the way just like sarah palin so they know how to pick him up there uh this guy was in is in the oathkeepers he was at january 6th he voted against a bill to honor humong homongs are like a uh a a a a a a I think minority in Asia. He voted against a bill to honor Hmong veterans and more than 100,000 Hmong people who died in the Vietnam War support in the United States. I don't know why you'd vote against that. He voted against a bill honoring black soldiers who constructed the Halaskan Highway

was just a fucking sign. And he voted against a recognition of black history much. I don't know why Alaska is still voting on that in this recent, but whatever. It's just like, these guys, what the fuck, Alaska? Yeah, I mean. Yeah. It's hard to know what else to even say about some shit like that because it's like, but again, they're just getting more and more awful, outwardly awful, you know, and more like shameless about it. It's been the trend in the years and it's pretty wild. And I wanted to talk about that because tonight's show is essentially all about the monetary value of children.

But before we move on, I wanted to show one other quick hit from the state legislature. This is Minnesota House Minority Leader Mark Johnson, who we've talked about before, explaining how not-racist he is, and it has to be seen to be believed. Look, folks, we brought forth good faith amendments throughout the night. There are holes in this bill. We're not calling groups any names. What we're saying is we need to protect Minnesotans. It doesn't matter what your race, your color, your creed, Norwegian, Polack, Somalia.

look folks we have concerns about this concerns up on this tonight we were called we love them all man all kinds of people even pox yeah mix mix whops all that we love them all you know here in Minnesota

I like it as in Minnesota so they made sure to include Norwegian that's important a little bit of constituent service there so yeah shout out I wonder if they have a slur they surely do right I don't know it I bet they probably got one like Sweden's got one for them I bet they've got to yeah usually proximity creates racism so like I don't know enough for Norwegians to know those slurs against them but yeah I bet you I bet you Finland and and uh you know uh what the countries around them uh do Sweden Iceland, Norway.

Germany. Are they close? Yeah. I don't know. Germans probably got, German's got to start for everybody, though, yeah. Yeah, our American is showing right now. Yeah. I don't know. Fucking rushes over there beside them.

It's up there. Yeah. It's in the upper left. Santa Claus. Yeah, right. Oh, man. All right. Well, yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed that clip.

But now, yeah, let's talk about. child labor law something that I wouldn't have had on my bingo card frankly I don't know why I'm shouldn't be surprised by anything they do but this is just one of those things it's like I wouldn't have thought this would come back up I would have thought this is one of those things it's like can you believe what people used to do and then finally we realize we shouldn't do that anymore and then we never did that again you know what I mean like that's I thought this would be in that category of the animals of human history child labor but um Apparently not, not in Iowa.

I mean, something we don't think about enough is the concept of being an adolescent was reinvented fairly recently. And so, like, that's where you see those pictures of, like, you know, 11-year-olds and hard hats smoking cigarettes and whatever. It's like that's what life was like before we had child labor laws. And we talked a bit about Iowa was a child labor effort last weekend, but a bunch of shit's happened since then that has made this a much bigger issue. But let's start talking about Iowa because the Iowa unions have gotten on this hardcore and are fighting it. And here's a video from a protest where they took over the Capitol yesterday. You get a vibe for the, yeah. We are drawing a line in the sand now.

Our kids are not for sale. We are not. We are not selling our kids out to multinational corporations for profit. We're not selling. are kids to multinational corporations for chief labor. I didn't cut it, Matt. My kids are not. So, yeah, I believe that Charlie Wishman,

who's president of Iowa Federation of Labor, AFLC, AFL, CIO. We'll talk a little about Charlie in a second because he's actually a friend of the show, sort of. So they, about 75 union members protested the proposal Monday afternoon. They were chanting kids not for sale, which you just saw. need any more kids working in factories and packing plants.

That's from Jesse Case, who's secretary of Treasurer of Teamsters Local 238. We need to pay higher wages for their parents so the kids don't have to work in factories and packing plants. Yes. Republican lawmakers said they're already planted to change portions of the bill that shielded employers from liability if a teen worker was injured on the job

to make it clear that student workers are eligible for workers' comp if injured. So I don't know what the settlement they're going to be offered, but if you lose your leg in a sausage ground, it's probably like 50 bucks in a ride at the prosthetic place. These fucking ghouls, man. They also, didn't it? Part of it was that it was approved apprenticeship program, so they were like a work release type thing,

and they were planning on holding the schools or something liable. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, initially they weren't going to hold the companies liable. It was going to be like the schools or somebody else, which I didn't understand why they would, why anybody. I thought it was that no one was going to be held liable, but maybe I'm confused, may I misremembering. So Secretary of Labor, soon to be outgoing Secretary of Labor,

Marty Wash was asked about this the other day. And here's what he had to say, which I think, he's actually a good Labor Secretary as far as, I mean, what I'm familiar with of his work, he's been good. That's an ad of staffing shortage. The legislature is looking to use children to fill the gaps. a frustrating proposition for federal officials. Yeah, the answer is not child labor.

I mean, we have labor laws in this country. And organized labor, quite honestly, one of the big reasons organized labor formed in the late 1900s, early 19th century, 20th century is because of trial labor laws. The bill and question. Right, can cut it, Matt. So one of the reasons the unions want to stop this

is because they're trying to undercut wages and union jobs, right? So, like, yeah, union money is on the line here, But isn't it nice when your morals and your financial incentives align? Right. When you don't have to be a shit person to fucking make money. And it's like, like shoving 13 year olds into like I saw a union worker giving a speech about how I went to a long apprenticeship to work this kind of job to be able to do it safely. These kids are not going to go through that process. And these jobs aren't going to be union.

So like it's just like they're signing up to get mingled. Yeah. So the whole thing, like I said, like, oh, nobody wants to work anymore, to something that keeps saying there's a labor shortage and we've said a million. in times it's like it's just they don't pay people enough like that you know when there's a genuine labor shortage the answer is a raise in wages which I don't want to do and so this is another way for them to try to get around that like I said you know kids don't know anybody or you can pay them less and how they can probably figure it out well enough and it also the other part it seems like the companies were like okay but like kids are dumb and uncoordinated so like

what if one of them loses their leg or something like that happens and then they were like oh don't worry about that we'll just we'll put the whole thing in there as says you don't even have to You don't have to deal with it. And then they were like, okay, well, yeah, we could get behind that. That sounds pretty good. But it's just a way for them to fuck as many people over as possible while, you know, saving whatever money they can and just, yeah, it's gross. The whole culture, the whole fucking, we're in, and there's a subreddit for this,

but we're in like, we're in fucking late stage capitalism now, man. It's like, shit's getting real gross. out here and real bad and it's just you're saying what's really going on. There's a quote from like I think a Silicon Valley venture capitalist dude. He's talking about like well he's talking about labor movement and said well we don't

live under laborism. We live under capitalism. And like that guy was being an evil asshole but he had a good point. It's like money money's making the decision here. There's not a single person you can point to to say that that person's the evil one. Because if that guy tried to make a more responsible decision, the money would find someone who'd make the irresponsible decision and it would

flow to him and then the irresponsible decision would get made. Do you know what I'm saying? He just undercut the guy who's trying to be ethical. So like this is where it gets, but like, so I wanted to talk about Marty Walsh a second because like there's got to be, I don't know what the federal government can do here, but there's got to be fucking something. Like, I, if there isn't, if the federal government doesn't have the regulatory authority to stop this, then they should be fighting to get it.

Yeah, right. Because it's, okay, the way a state can make a state can make a law that's more strict than a federal law right but they can't make one that's less so so this implies that are there no federal child labor laws or they just don't cover these specific things or whatever because if because if they were and these things were explicitly outlined at like a federal level then they wouldn't be able to do this and that's you know maybe they or do that if they haven't I don't know how much power any individual state has over child labor laws but yeah I was like really really this story out of Florida today, and I'll make this make sense in a second. But the Florida

Democrats are trying to pass a law that will regulate where dogs can ride in cars because they're trying to stop the epidemic of dogs riding with their heads hanging out the window, which is just adorable. And I don't know why they're trying to stop that. Like we, our dog has a little thing that clicks in the seat belts. You're riding the back seat because, you know, like airbags are bad for dogs. But if we're in a long road trip and she's feeling lonely or nervous, we'll let her up in her lap for a little bit, which maybe we all not do that, but it's not illegal. Florida's trying to make it illegal. And I'm thinking like, why did Democrats to do this shit. Like, this kind of dumb bullshit is why the public thinks of them as nanny state

people. But here's something where that actually needs regulation. The railroads need regulation. And they just completely sit on their hands. Like, like a guy I used to read a lot of the thought was really funny about politics, was talking about like what people think about California versus what California is. And it's like, California liberals will give cops more money and refuse to regulate them. But we'll make a law saying you can't have a pet. ferret that's sort of like how this goes just don't do the dumb nanny state bullshit but do the good nanny state bullshit so like i don't understand but anyway i wanted to say clip of marty wash and him like shrug like jim being like well they all not do that but then that's as far as he's going so far

because charlie wishman i talked about a minute ago uh i guess he reached out last week when he talked about this iowa child labor thing because um i guess he watched his skews which shout out to charlie thank you for your work but he said uh he said we aren't getting a ton of help and so we feel still alone, but we're so pissed, brother. I just want to let you know that the working class out here isn't a bunch of all dudes in MAGA hard hats. Most of the speakers are women and we are a diverse movement. Our best door knocker and volunteer is a Latina, lesbian steelworker.

So shout out to her and shout out to them for fighting this bullshit. And by the way, this happened today, according to Charlie Semi, the legislature passed something called Rule 25, which banned demonstrations on the second floor of the Capitol, includes wearing clothes of particular type and carrying signage or chanting. So they saw these people chanting and made it illegal. And he says, you can only demonstrate in the basement pretty much now. So yeah, that's the response to like, hey, you guys are being assholes for trying to put children in meatpacking plants. And they go like, stop yelling at us. Yeah. It's mean. You want to yell, go to the basement. Yeah, it's like,

that's another thing. I don't know. If they can just do that, you know what I mean? If they can just dictate how you can protest and where and when and all that, then I don't know how i don't know what you know protesting is supposed to be you know what i'm saying like if they can just if you show up me protesting they're like no not like that and then you can't do that anymore you can go to jail or whatever it's like it doesn't seem like it's actually a right uh right it's like when president bush travel that have designated free speech zones for people to protest him but like how do i have free speech if there's only a zone where i can have free speech right yeah yeah so but if you wondering why they're trying to make this legal or give it to cover of law. It's because they're

already doing it. There's a ton of child labor all over America, which the New York Times made clear in a pretty devastating report this week. And I want to play this clip from the, the reporter who one of the reporters who broke it to set it out. Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia for the story, speaking to more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states, Hannah. Can you lay out the scope of this investigation, what you found, and were you shocked by the speed of the Biden administration's response and your evaluation of what that is? Thank you so much for having me.

I mean, when I started this reporting, I thought that we might find that some kids were working agricultural jobs, maybe dishwasher jobs. I never anticipated that we would find the scope of children working these really industrial, adult, dangerous jobs in all 50 states. So really what I discovered is, I think. The lead on their story is this girl in Carolina who's working at a Cheerios factory after midnight. And she's 15 years old. They found 20-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee, underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi, and North Carolina.

And children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota. And they talked to over 100 kids, but if 100 kids, if they could find 100, And 100 are willing to talk, especially 100 who are here pretty much on temporary immigration status. How many fucking are there? Right. Yeah. A shitload. 50, 100, 200,000?

It's also, you picture like a Cheerios commercial with like kids over bowls with the sun shining in and they're all smiling and, you know, laughing at the little, like, the little bee. If it's honey nut Cheerios, you know, the little bee mascot going through. and it's all idyllic and precious and stuff. And then that cereal's being made by children and three in the morning and fucking brutal Michigan winter. It's like that's kind of just sort of a snapshot of the whole damn thing right there, you know. Right. And like maybe maybe that's a, you don't know, Trey, maybe that's a free box of Cheerios. She got her job that she loves making Cheerios and she's eating Cheerios to get the energy to go make more Cheerios.

Right? That not occurred? So, these are, these are mostly, these are all, the subject to the stories about migrant workers, all right? They're, they're not undocumented, but they, they're, uh, here, I just want to quote this before I get to that. Time spoke more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states to describe jobs that were grinding them into exhaustion and fears they have become trapped in circumstances they never could have imagined. Children scrubbing dishes, running milking machines. They're running milking machines at a goddamn dairy, delivering food delivery in New York, build lava rock walls around vacation homes in Hawaii, which is bleak as hell.

13-year-old girls working in hotels, washing sheets in Virginia. This one teacher talked about, at a middle school in Miami, talked about how almost every eighth grader in her English learner program, about 100 kids, was also carrying an adult workload. So these are kids who most of you came to America. they were unaccompanied minors at the border. All right. So I'm not, this isn't a conspiracy. This is like a situation where a bunch of different fucked up things about America and have created a confluence of events to fuck over this group of kids

and turn them into like wage slaves. Because like, so one of the big holes in immigration system. So they're like they stopped taking asylum seekers during COVID, right? That was a rule that Biden tried to stop and a Trump made them keep. And then Biden wanted to keep and then a Trump and the judge made Biden stop. It's fucking, it doesn't matter. But for a long time, migrants are being turned away from applying

for some, theoretically because of COVID. The one exception to this was unaccompanied children. All right. They would let in unaccompanied children. All right. So we used to have a situation where, like I worked at restaurants with a bunch of like undocumented immigrants

who were in America to make money to mail home to their families, their kids. Now I'm a situation where kids are coming to America to work jobs to mail money home to their parents. All right? Right. Yeah.

And they, so they get let in, but they're not, they don't just like say, all right, you're under 18, so you're good. Go ahead.

They, there's like, they get put into a system, right? Like they've got like caseworkers and ostensibly, they're watched and they have sponsors and everything. It's like there's a whole thing about how it's supposed to work, but they just don't.

They slip through the cracks. Like, they call them within the first month. Hey, is everything going okay? But like 80,000 of, of them just don't pick up the phone and they're like well I don't know

guess we'll see them never and then that's the end of that and the sponsor some of these sponsors are basically like brokers for child labor and that type of shit or just manipulating these kids and taking these positions and it's like the whole it's just the whole thing's pretty fucked up

and predatory it has a way it's supposed to work but like many things in this country it's not really working Republicans aren't wrong I say the board is being overwhelmed, they're wrong, and their solutions what they want to do about it. And no one wants to spend enough resources to actually make it function because

there's too many of these kids for the government to actually help and keep track of. So yeah, they're supposed to find them a sponsor and a place to stay at a home and then check up on them, but none of that's happening. Also, they're not vetting the caseworker said they're rushing through vetting the sponsors. So even the people that they're placing them with, the sponsors and the people

are staying with, I mean, I'm not saying they're up to no good. They might be trying to help out a relative or a friend of the family or whatever, but like, no knows who they are because no one has the resources to check um so i'm trying to do this has this story has so many anecdotes that i don't turn into a cavalcade of horrors but just there's a bunch of other examples of kids uh working in meatpacking fans to me i was about to say i was about to say some of the ones that's most fucked up to me is there's kids working in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants and deboning chickens and stuff like that and that's like yeah that's brutal

gnarly work right there man and you know you got 14 year olds doing it into the wee hours of the morning and everything. It's pretty, pretty dystopian. Yeah. Here's a, a unit, a teacher at a high school in Grand Rapids said that he had a kid who was working nights at a commercial laundry and began passing out in class and fatigue and was hospitalized twice, but he couldn't stop working, so instead he dropped out of school. That happens all the time. Yeah. So Biden administration did respond to this story by saying their plan to crack now on this, by cracking down on the employers for doing it. But this doesn't like, if these kids have no social safety and have to support them once they're around in this country, I'm not sure what taking away their job does long. It's not

a plan, you know, it's one part of a plan to crack down to the assholes who are hiring these kids and abusing them. But like, they still need food and shelter, right? So like, it's just like another example. Like no one, no one has a plan beyond tomorrow. And all this is just like, so next heading I have in our outline is fuck out racism because we have, We have a bunch of fields, like, the worker shortage is real in a lot of different industries. A bunch of Central Americans and South Americans want to come here to work. The problem solves itself, but we're not letting them in. Right.

You know, it's like, I mean, this was years ago now, but I remember there was an instance in Alabama, I probably in like the early 2010s or something, where Alabama passed at the time the nation's harshest immigration laws, right? They really, like, cracked down hard. And then later that year, Alabama experienced record losses from their agricultural industry. Like, they lost millions of dollars in crops. It was a massive disaster because they didn't have anybody to work those jobs anymore. They couldn't find anybody to do it.

And they ended up fucking themselves over. And, yeah, it's like that type of thing writ large. And all these business owners and capitalists are all Republicans and shit, they want these people in here so they can pay them under the table and everything. You know what I mean? Like they want them working for them. Every one of them individually does that. But then they'll go, you know, fucking build the wall, secure the border, fucking, you know, all that.

There was a, it used to be like, used to divide the Republican caucus before they went full MAGA because the chamber commerce does like cheap migrant labor. Now, we should fight for them to get better wages and better workplace treatment also at the same time. I'm not saying that we should let people in to abuse them. I'm saying we should make the whole system more equitable and fair for everybody and not have kids working in it. That's a fucking ridiculous idea, Mark. Where you come up with shit like that, huh? Like, that's crazy. Improved the system for everybody.

I don't know what kind of fucking whacked out comedy talk that is, but not around these parts. So one of the last things I'll say is like, yeah, I was going to quote, just to reemphasize my last point, because this guy said it better than me. If the U.S. expands immigration opportunities for international workers, our labor shortage in Central America's economic laws should ease simultaneously. After all, there's no skills mismatch between economically desperate Central Americans and open U.S. positions. U.S. labor shortage is concentrated in a field that do not require extensive education. Any more kitchen staff, construction workers, and delivery drivers.

People are going to Central America's home to people who have all those fucking skills. It's like, it's such a layup of a policy solution that I can't know what to tell people. But the other thing that's happening here is, like, you might have heard about this inflation crisis that I, you know, I'm putting air quotes around it for people listen to the podcast. This is be, so a lot of different things are happening economically here. But like, the letting workers in is the easy win. It solves a bunch of problems because we have a labor shortage and inflation. And their solution is to try to raise interest rates to make the rest of us spend less money. so there's less demand for labor and services so that there are less open jobs.

That's their plan. Instead of letting people in who are of age to work is to lower the number of jobs that are available. And by making the rest of us poorer. Again, I'm not alleging a conspiracy. I'm saying this is a bunch of different fucked up institutions colliding and nobody wanted to take the easy win because no one wants to say, I like immigrants. Right. you're calling it a layup and I'm like I'm with you on it but I'm saying like I'm not surprised none of them are doing that because it's such a fucking you know lightning rod or whatever you want to call it but policy wise they'll get ripped apart by it'll be missed it'll be turned immediately into like he wants just to open the border let everybody in all day long do whatever he doesn't even might you know like they'll fucking run wild with that yeah but you know so let the let in immigrants

Pay them union wages. Pay everybody union wages. Don't make kids work more than 20 hours a week at an after-school job and let them be 15 or 16 before they start. And anyway, in conclusion, I want to play this last video from the protesters in the Capitol, summing up our point in Iowa. Our kids are 9%. Our kids are 9%.

Yeah. Our kids are not for sale. Yeah, thanks, Beth. All right. All right, man. Find us some questions and comments there. Sorry, you had something else, Mark. Oh, I was going to say I've been overwhelmed by the small world bullshit.

So when Charlie, the AFL-CIO guy, messaged me last week, Matt realized he knew Charlie, all right? And the video clip I played earlier of Charlie speaking was recorded by a reporter in Iowa named Tom Barton, who was an intern at the paper in Fort Worth that I worked at. That's pretty wild. I didn't see that last one coming. The first few parts I was like, yeah, well, Matt's like Iowa adjacent and also he works in that, you know, labor, rural shitties, and that's his sort of realm. But that last part, that's pretty wild. It's a, I don't know any of these motherfuckers, except for you and Matt. You guys all seem pretty cool to me.

Yeah. So, hey, tell me, Sophia Salas Malacara says, Trey will be in Arlington, Texas tomorrow. I wish I could go if it was a weekend. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that. Don't always work out. I was telling Mark before about, but anyway, I hope other people come and I'll see you next time. I don't know how close you are to actually, anyway, I'll be back in Texas in the future and

hopefully we'll have a good time. Mark, so you've got RIP Dilbert in here. So yeah, Doughert, Scott, you didn't even have this stuff about Dilbert, Dilbert got canceled, buddy. Okay. I know that dude is like a lunatic and everything, the guy that created it, but he ain't, he did, He didn't die, right? No, he did. He did a super racist YouTube rant about how black people were a hate group. And white people shouldn't hang out with black people.

And so a bunch of newspapers, a bunch of newspaper finally dropped Dilbert. And Elon was going, going crazy about how this is canceled culture. It's like, you can't make, you can't force the law as animal was time to carry Dilbert. That's not what the first amendment's for. Justin Gilbert says, try. I feel like you kind of salty about losing that drag show when you were a kid. Well, like I said, goby's damn balls were hanging out. it didn't even have a real top on it was just like a bra

he just looked you know just like I said no taste no decorum what are you going to do um but yeah no some of the people I went to high school with they saw that video and they were like texting me today and they're like I'm still scarred by the side of Kobe and that and that get up and all this shit uh Nikon call the pacum probably butchered that but I know you've been around for a while and I appreciate

you says love in the background tray thanks yeah that's right there that's where the drag show took place scene of the soon-to-be crime Clay County, Tennessee. But yeah, let's see. Chuck Atkins, also been around for a minute, I do believe. He says, does Mark know anything about the Special Police District in Jackson, Mississippi? Somebody wrote this up on my Patreon. Was that Chuck?

It was Chuck. Chuck brought that up to me, too. What do you know about that? I know top line stuff. I know that, like, because Jackson's had the water crisis, it's mostly black city and a mostly white-controlled state, and they have, like, basically, the state version of National the police force? That's pretty much all I know about it.

Sounds fucking awful, but I haven't read up further on it. I will, though, for you, Chuck. So next time you ask, I'll be able to have a take on it other than I don't trust anything the white Republican leadership in Mississippi would do to the black state of the city of Jackson.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Okay. What actually got for us there? Matt. Let's see.

I'm interested. You want to need somebody. go ahead oh i was going to talk more about well yeah sure i'd love to hear more about dilbert but first we got okay now y'all are just fucking with me spur spur tigernum mactyric says i knew a guy named jeff who would cross-dress mainly to mess with guys because of how hot he was in a miniskirt that sounds prurient to me you know we so yeah uh drew we had episode of the podcast a long time ago where we talked about these high school drag shows way before this bill was a thing or whatever and drew was somebody they had one

too and this dude kept getting mad but he thought he was jealous of him and he's like super redneck and he's like he can't be dressed like that and it's like yeah I'm tired of damn gay he's making my dick hard out here I don't like it yeah it's like my favorite my favorite onion headline of all time as well he's gay guys keep second like oh yeah that's a great one that's from like the late 90s era yeah uh Jennifer whimmer denny says love that queen dahlia said thank goodness I was born a girl or else I'd be a drag queen. Yeah, she once lost the Dolly Parton look-a-like contest as a legend to a particularly,

you know, pro-level drag queen, I reckon. Well, celebrities never look the same when you meet. When I lived in Dallas, a buddy of mine, I was a huge Cowboys fan, was working a counter like a Macy's, and a guy came able to buying some dress clothes. And he goes, you know who you look like? And he goes, who? You look, Daryl Johnson. He was, okay, got to play for the Cowboys.

He was like, you look, Daryl Johnston, but smaller. He goes, yeah, I get that a lot. and he leaves, looks to the credit I oversee to the girl Johnston. That's like Tony Hawks, not his whole thing, but Tony Hawk shares those stories on his Twitter and stuff all the time. Apparently it happens to him all the day. Because I guess people just think, they just assume, nah, that's not Tony Hawk, but he looks just like Tony Hawk. And apparently he gets that all the time. Yeah.

I don't know. But yeah, Drew, going back to Drew Morgan, he also did a video about the drag wheel, and he was in it saying that Daly needs to say something. and I tend to agree. I'll never, I'll never malign the good name of Dolly Parton, regardless. But she's got, she's a gay icon. She has got to be the most popular,

like inspiration for drag characters, I would think, or she's got to be near the top. I don't know what the stats are. But she's got a longstanding history with them and their whole thing in it. She's from Tennessee. And, uh,

yeah, I tend to agree with him. Lauren, Lauren Russell Pank says NPR covered the special police district in Jackson. It is targeted. racially. In Mississippi, that don't sound right. Yeah.

I wonder if they drag bill would include, like, if cops could create if they could like, well, that black man has a lot of lotion on. That's drag. It's making the morning. Yeah. Everybody knows dudes not wearing lotion. What's this guy doing out here? Uh, Dale, what were you going to say about

Delbert? Oh, the whole thing is so fucking crazy because, like, what happened was Rasmussen was like one of those super right wing pulling outfits, the ones that used to show that Trump had like a 60% approval rating. So there's a 4chan level like level like alt-right messaging of the campaign. It was like, it's okay to be white, which yeah, nobody thinks it's not okay to be white. Just don't act that white.

But they pulled 130 black people to ask them if they agree with the sentiment, it's okay to be white, which if in 70-some percent of them said, yeah, maybe the other 20 percent knew this is an alt-right hate speech campaign and said, I don't know. And so he saw that poll that said 30% of black people out of a sample size of 130 said that it wasn't okay to be white and he went on his whole diatripped. So basically the right wing just like sigh up to one of their own members into getting himself canceled by misunderstanding a poll they did. That's pretty good. That's pretty good stuff there. Yeah, they stay playing themselves, man. That's definitely a running thing with them. And it's always pretty tasty whenever they do.

All right, let's see. You got anything else for us there? Matt, now, hey, happy end of Black History Month, everybody, since we're on the subject. It's been pointed out a million times, but it is pretty American, you know, they gave them the shortest month in the whole year, you know. Like, oh, that'll be fine with 28 days. How much could they really be, you know, we can fit all that in there? George Washington Carver, they got to make peanut butter.

that's all we were learned about the school with the peanut butter guy always and it's all ever and uh and tomorrow begins women's history month right correct yep i believe so well happy both to everybody out there how about that thank you all right all right again thank you all right thank you all right again thank you all for joining us and listen go to traycrouter dot com actually i mentioned the special earlier you go to traycrouter dot com i got my stand updates and there's a link to the special at the top of the website there so you know one stop shopping for all things me the specials called damn boy it's available on amazon now also cori and drew have specials on there you can get them all

together as well read however you want to do it and then lastly if you like this program want to show your support go to weekly skews dot com slash more get a sign up on patreon five dollars a month bonus episodes and uh you know show some support and love in the process either way we appreciate you coming here each and every skews day we'll do the same and with that said I suppose we will see you in seven days. So you love you, bye. You.