Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 4/13/21 - MN Cops and J&J Vaccines

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Tonight we discuss the latest maddening case of police brutality from Minnesota, as well as the situation with the J&J single dose COVID vaccine. Fret not, the mood is lightened by some hilarious Dumbasses, and we also dig back into the reality of rural America with Stephen Smith and Katey Lauer of West Virginia Can’t Wait.Support the show

First thanks first, first, rest of peace, DMX. Pour one out for the dog, everybody. With that said, thank you for joining us today's Tuesday. April 13th, 2021. I'm Trey Crowder. That's Mark Adjie. What's up, Mark? What's up, Trace?

A little sad about how the Amazon Union vote went. Yeah, yeah. We spent a lot of time on it last week. didn't go our way, went Amazon's way two to one. But like, in a way, that's kind of to be expected, right? That's what they do. Yeah, I mean, they did a bunch of fuckery and surprise, surprise, fuckery works. I mean, the original population of that warehouse was like 1,600 people.

And Amazon moved 3,000 people in there that apparently when you hire Pinkertons to do personality profiles and all your employees to figure out who's pro-union, who's anti-union to track all their work communications. and so forth, you can tell pretty accurately who you want to transfer to Bessemer to vote against the union. So that shit works, man. Yeah, right. Well, it seems like effectively their propaganda boils down to, like, if you do that, your job will be fucked up, if not, if not gone entirely, right? And it's hard to, that really sucks, but it's hard to blame, you know, just a regular

work in person for being freaked out by that, you know, or for that being affected. Yeah, it's, I mean, this is what happened when you don't have an actual, like, control, like a government with who's interested in protecting against people because their pitch is like, look, if you don't let us fuck you over, we're going to move to a place where we'll, we'll be able to fuck over other people who will have your job now. So, I don't know what the answer to that is other than, I know. I understand why people would vote against it. It's like, oh, shit, I'm barely surviving now if they take a day of this job from me and fuck, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know the answer either, but I think it could begin with, like you said, a government that actually gives us shit and does things about issues like that and helps out working people, which we will get into a little more later with our guest this evening. But with this as always, is producer Matt doing the damn thing.

This is weekly skews tonight. We dive into the latest maddening example of police brutality from the increasingly typical state of Minnesota. also Johnson Johnson's having themselves a little vaccine trouble should the rest of us be worried we'll give you our opinion then as I just referenced we'll have a conversation on one of our favorite subjects here at the skews the future of progressivism in rural America with two people on the very front lines of it Stephen Smith and Katie Lauer from the organization West Virginia can't wait I can't wait for that talk and for the rest of the show it's going to be a great one but first as always we begin with the daily dumb ass Matt graphic please We got some great ones for you tonight. We've got some great honorable mentions, but for our first dumbass up top, it's going to be a little different, actually. If you've been following us for a while, you know that former president Donald J. Trump has been honored countless times in this segment for his dumbassery. But tonight, for the first time in the history of the skews, Trump will designate our daily dumbass.

That's right. I'm not going to say anything else. Let's just hear it. the clip, please. I'll go. Trump called Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a quote, dumb son of a bitch. I love that clip. Like, it's just so, it's like, it's always better, I think, when you're like distance from Trump and he isn't running your, you know, the country that you live in and, and all that stuff.

And you just hear the shit that he does and says kind of like second hand like this, particularly when the target of it is someone like Mitch McConnell. But the context of all this makes it even funnier, right? No, yeah. He's a, I mean, when he has no power over you and the only person he's torturing and making miserable is Mitch McConnell,

he's amazing. He's perfect. I love him. But the context of this is, so Trump is stealing money. That's what he does. But one thing he's done is told a small dollar donors to not give to send a Republicans instead to give to him.

so he can decide who needs to be primary to whatnot, which is a nightmare for McConnell, of course, because Trump wants to primary everybody who's sane. So they've been kissing his ass to the point where I think Matt has this. So the Senate campaign committee, one of the Republican fundraising arms,

rented out Moralago this weekend to try to buy Trump's love so he'd stop fucking making their lives hell. It was at that event that he roasted Mitch McConnell. Yes. So, yeah. Not just him. It doesn't just like they held this event to, like, try to curry his favor.

They really, they really pushed the boat out. Matt, put up the screen grab if you've got it. Here we go. Yes, President Donald J. Trump receives first NRC champion for freedom award. They made up a freedom award and even got a little freedom bowl to go with it and presented him with it. Yeah, I mean, another way to put the inaugural version of an award is we made up this award to give to this moron. Like, they just basically dumped some candy out of a bowl and handed to him and said, you're the champion of freedom.

And he's like, thank you. I appreciate this gift very much. I'm going to still make your lives hell. It's awesome. Yes. Yeah, that was the context of which he called Mitch McConnell a dumb son of a bitch. But, I mean, I got to say, like, it seems like a good plan to me, you know, like the plan they had, where Trump is concerned, give him an award called the Champion for Freedom Award.

It comes with a nice little bowl or whatever. like you could expect that to work you know but yeah they caught a lot of shit for it republicans ridicule for gifting trump made up tiny bowl award what a wonderful headline that i mean like uh there's a there's a piece in new york magazine today made like talking about why republicans are so like they're so mad at corporations like moving out of georgian putting up putting together these like chamber of commerce statements about like how to uh you know how to push back against a um uh republican you know the Jim Crow efforts to curb voting and shit. And it made the point that like all these people who'd split the bill for four years who were like, not going to be a super pro Trump, but just kiss his ass a little bit and not going to go full, never Trump.

They could take the judges and the fundraising and the tax cuts and not have any the stain, the bad shit, any of the stink on them. And what they realize is even though Trump's gone, they did not get away from the heist clean. They are fucked. And because corporations are chasing young people.

It's what they do. Young people tend to be more left wing. So there's nothing Republicans can do to Delta or Coke that's going to actually affect them because old people don't spend money on shit. So they got no leverage here. They got no card to play. They're talking about raising Delta's taxes. But Republicans aren't going to raise corporate taxes. The only reason to exist is to cut them. So they're just, they're screwed. And it's a fun, it's fun to watch them be a little tortured, even though they're going to win the long run. Because evil always triumphs over good. But if only, if only there was ever a story written with the moral about how like getting easy wishes or deals with the devil or you know like like a monkey's pause how

they work and how they never come out good in your favor if only somebody thought to tell them those stories ever been told before if there were cautionary tales about going with the devil in this way yeah but you know when your whole thing is dealing with the devil uh and then the devil starts calling you a dumb son of a bitch like that's just kind of what happens you go from there um All right, our first honorable mention tonight for Daily Dumbass, this particular White House reporter for coming at Jen Saki with some weak shit. Matt, play the clip there about Biden's tweets when you got it. Senator John Cornyn called Joe Biden's tweets unimaginably conventional

and said that his comments were largely scripted and questioned whether he was really in charge. Does the White House have any reaction to that? Well, I can confirm that the President of the United States does not. spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories he spends his time working on behalf of the american people boom what so like i kind of like the subtext of this that's like uh seems like his tweets are like scripted and stuff because they are like grammatically correct and you know properly written as opposed to the previous president or you could tell it was tweeting for him on behalf of himself because of how insane everything was.

And so does that mean that he's out of touch and not spending enough time connecting with Twitter America? Cornyn's trying to, the normal Republican move is you walk right up to the edge of conspiracy theory and let somebody else fill in the dots here. So he's doing that dot, dot, dot, dot coloring in the line, connecting dots thing to try to say that Biden isn't really president, that he's just a puppet. without actually saying it. So he actually almost, he said who's in charge, basically. If nobody's writing Biden's tweets and he's not doing public appearances,

how do we know he's actually being president? And my answer is, I don't, if the things that are happening are mostly I'm in favor of, I kind of don't care who's doing. Also, dude, who, we,

that's kind of what I'm saying about the subtext. Like, we shouldn't want him to be the one who's actually tweeting, in my opinion. You know what I mean? Like, he has better shit to do than be tweeting. Like, I hope it's not him who's actually tweeting from his account because he's got

other shit to preoccupy himself with. Yeah. It is, it's, I mean, apparently, like, they spent the last four years thinking, I mean, president was only being culture warrior in chief. So if Joe Biden's not going to be involved in the culture war, then what is he doing? Essentially, he pulls down to the argument. But it's just like, it's another way in which they're fucked and out. I mean, they're out to lunch.

Like, they've been trying to figure out a way to pull against the infrastructure bill. The best, they've got, it's like 70, American people love it, like 75 to 25. They've got nothing to go against it. So they're doing conspiracy theories about, you know, whether Joe Biden's a puppet. I don't care. Yep. All right. Our next honorable mention had to come back up.

Congressman Matt Gates for a lot of reasons. Yeah, we've got a few different things to cover here as far as this goes. This guy, he's really. Boy, in an era of, in an era of, you know, dip shit monkeys flinging, shit in that party. Like, he's really, he's really out here doing it, breaking new ground. They don't even know what to say about him. And for evidence to that point, let's watch this Fox News clip where they were as allegations. Jessica, why are not only other Republican leaders, but most prominent media conservatives not out there defending Matt Gates? We don't have a clip to

play from Fox. Well, I think for two reasons. One, the allegations are incredibly serious. And, You know, we all have friends in life that, you know, maybe go down the wrong path. They marry someone we don't like, but not all of them end up being sex traffickers. And we didn't Venmo all of them, $900 to be distributed by potentially, to potentially underage girls. And then the second element of this is that Matt Gates isn't particularly liked. He's brash. He's insensitive.

He's crude in a lot of ways. I think that a lot of people, even Republicans, look at stunts like what he pulled in the skiff with the chick filet or wearing that gas. mask on the floor mocking Democrats who cared about their personal safety when the COVID-19 pandemic was breaking out, which obviously has claimed, you know, well over half a million American lives at this point. So Matt Gates has done his best to not make many friends. President Trump is still his friend, but even that statement that he issued, you know,

two sentences saying he didn't ask me for a pardon and then he didn't do it. Let me get to, let me jump in and get to that. So that is chef's kiss on a lot of levels. The first part of the argument said, like, well, no one wants to defend him because, well, we've all been involved in relationships for the person turned out to be a sex trafficker. That's one. And two, the second part of it is it's not his fault. Nobody likes him. It's like just fucking amazing.

I love it. Right. Well, I feel like the first part of it was being like, look, we've all had, you know, previous relationship. Hell, not that long ago. We were talking about old girlfriends. I was talking about how mine is a Q&on lunatic now. I'll tell you that. That's fine.

She's not a child sex trafficker. You know what I mean? Like, it's like hard to defend. a previous relationship when it's that hardcore. Also, it doesn't seem like it's that much of a previous relationship, right? The guy they're talking about is old Greenberg, Joel Greenberg, who, um, they mentioned the $900, you have that screen grab, Matt, put it up there, Gates. They were using Venmo for the-POMO for the-Public-V-M-M-M-Transction.

Right, dude, I, like, listen, I take, I take acting classes and use VIMO to pay for it, and I put those on private because I don't want my buddies bust my balls about me trying to be a thespian or whatever, right? I do that. They are publicly Venmoing child sex trafficking monies in full view. They've since deleted them, but they're, so this article that you could see here, the first two paragraphs of it, just listen to how this is laid out. In two late-night Venmo transactions in May of 2018, Matt Gates sent his friend, Joel Greenberg, $900. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women varying sums of money in total.

Those transactions amounted to $900. The memo field that you fill out, Gates wrote the first one he wrote test, but in the second one he wrote hit up blank where he included a girl's nickname. And then when Greenberg turned around and made his payments to the three young women, the reason he wrote in, you don't have to write a reason in. The reason he wrote in was tuition, school, and school. So, I mean, it's really just front and center with the petterastery here. Like, I mean, they're not even trying.

They're trying to get caught deadly. Yeah, New York Times right before you came one, had a new story come out that says that Greenberg has been cooperating with the FBI since the middle of last year, which that'll be, that should be fun for Gates. And one of the things the Greenberg told them is they did give these women money cash and gifts in exchange for sex. One of the woman they've been moat is now in porn. If you're wondering if she was there, a person who would have sex for money, the answer is most definitely yes. Yes,

but Mark, a lot of the public fully supports Matt Gates. And you can tell by how he describes it himself. Listen to how much people support him. Matt, play that next clip. We have your back. That is the sentiment I have heard from thousands of Americans at restaurants,

walking through public park sometimes just out on the street in emails online donations and i can't tell you how much it means to me this past week has been full there you have it mark people are literally yelling at him as he walks through the park they're stopping him in traffic to say hey we love you you're great go sex with teens that's what they're saying to mac we're all for it this reminds me of like i had a buddy that i grew up was one of those pathological liars, you know, because, like, of deep insecurity. But his parents had some money. So he always, he had, like, nice cars and stuff, but was not, he was not otherwise, you know, in our parlance, hitting at all.

And he used to tell us, he would come over and tell us stories, be like, dude on the way over here, two girls ran out in the middle of traffic and made me stop just so they could get my phone number. Like, he used to say shit like that, you know, all the time. Yeah. And that's what Gates reminds me of here, except as we've pointed out before. He's a U.S. congressman saying this in a public speaking setting, you know? People are just screaming at him. We love you, Matt Gates. We think it's great.

All that didling, you're doing. To backtrack a couple of minutes, I think I'm more concerned that those men I said a few minutes ago sounds like I was against making fun of sex workers or against sex work and I'm pretty libertarian on those fronts. I just think no one should have sex with Matt Gates for any reason. It's pretty sure. But no, I know what you, but you were just saying like, I mean, it's, had another sort of, I mean, I think, I know why you're saying what you're saying

now, but I think it was a valid point to make. It's like, you know, this is the person who he was doing all this with. There are literally no reasons to doubt any of this as far as I've seen. No, I mean, you like, there's, it seems like, I mean, I know people are under jails for way less evidence and less contradictory stuff. It's like, so I don't like, I don't know what you do. This guy's being framed. It's a fucking masterful frame job by the deep stuff. this fucking killer. And again, running theme, they all know it too.

And you could tell, by the way, they react when his name actually isn't even yet brought up when it's about to be brought up the way they react. Matt, play this next clip.

What do you make of the allegations against your former... I don't have anything to say. Anything else? Anything else? Don't even get to his name. Like,

what do you have to say about your former... And he's like, okay, that's good. I don't, I don't have anything to say. Yeah, I mean, DeSantis is going to be running for president in 2024. He doesn't need this clip. Right. All right.

So, yes, Matt Geis, oh, Lord, what a dumbass. A dumbass for the ages. I got a feeling this particular dumbass saga has not yet been saying in its entirety, Mark. I think there'll be more to come. Yeah. So, moving on, as we mentioned up top, is there. I'm sure many of you have seen. today, big news in the COVID world, the Johnson and Johnson single use vaccine. It's been

recommended that the U.S. pause all administrations of that particular vaccine. The reason for it is six people, six women, not that that necessarily matters, but it's true, six women from the ages of like 18 to 49, have developed blood clots after receiving this vaccine. Now, those six women are out of a total of 6.8 million people, 6.8 million people Americans who have received the vaccine. So out of what the organizational or the regulatory organizations themselves called a quote, abundance of caution, they are pausing them. But what kind of effect do you think this is going to have on vaccines in this country? Well, I guess the good news is that this scientists it fucks up there every aspect of the communications over the last 14 months so no one's

listened to him anymore so I don't think it might have any effect on any of this because the sheer panic of panic over this we just went through this with Astorzeneca they did the exact same fucking fuck up where how the shit get construed so six people out of six million have blood clots they're pausing the thing to make to see what happened to see if any more people have blood plots and maybe we need to double check the math and the science or whatever but to give you some perspective I think one out of every 3,000 women minute or 30,000 women, it takes over-the-counter birth control was going to have blood clots. The mat, like, it's just, after Zinica had this problem, they had, like, four people in their, in their study come down with blood clots.

And everybody freaked out, and, like, they had to come out and be like, look, that number of people, whether or not they got the vaccine would be expected to develop blood clots. We didn't promise you the vaccine would make you never die. We cannot. I'm sure, like, two people in a study at piano. drop on them. The vaccine doesn't have shit to do with that. I don't know if the vaccine has to do with this, but the panic around it is dumb. I think it's probably fine. I would take the Johnson. Johnson vaccine. That's the only thing that I'm worried about is any kind of, like you said, panic surrounding it because there's no reason to panic whatsoever. As

Matt pointed out over here in the comments, he said, this proves how serious they're taking safety. They're throwing themselves under the bus for six people. But yeah, I mean, it, like if anything, it proves how well regulated and the degree to which they are, you know, taking the safety of these vaccines to heart that that kind of failure rate is caused to like shut the whole thing down. There's absolutely nothing to freak out about at all. But I just, anytime a headline like this comes out, you think like the people that were already ready to shit all over the vaccines will take any opportunity they can

to be like, see, look there, see, God damn it. And, you know, and we, that ought not be allowed to happen because it's not, it's nothing to freak out about. NBC News is online disinformation reporter who covers a lot of anti-vax stuff. Her name is Brandy Zand Drosny. She went on MSNBC today and called it Christmas for anti-vaxers, which it is. Absolutely, right, exactly. And that's the thing that worked.

I mean, they did what they should. They did what they need to do. I'm not mad at them for doing it. But, like, that's the thing that, like, upsets or worries me is because, yes, it's Christmas for anti-Vax. They're just going to latch on to it, even though there's nothing to latch on to. But what do you do? America's don't understand science.

Our textbooks are written by people that think that politicians. You think dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. So we're just fucked on this. I saw 40% of Marines have to turn down the vaccine. So if this was a Chinese virus engineered to weaken our national security, it's absolutely succeeding, but only because we're fucking stupid. So, oh, no. 40% of Marines?

Yeah. U.S. Marines? Yeah. Well, they should, like, hide the vaccine in crayons or whatever. So then they'll eat it, they'll eat the crayons, and they'll get it automatically. You know, it's like piding a pill in your dog's food or something. That's what they should do with the Marines. Then your death threats to Trey Crowder.

Yes, I know. I know. One of the absolute best friends is a Marine. That's why I'm aware of the jokes. I'm just making a joke. I know I don't have the rack because I'm in the armed forces, but still. Yeah. If you were, if you were, if you were, if you were, if the audience was all army dudes or

Navy dudes right now, you'd be murdering. Yeah, they'd love it, right. But no, yeah, my good buddy James Bain, U.S. Marine Corps, and he taught me all those jokes. Here we go. I met James, yeah. Yeah, James, he rules. He's one of the best people I know. Anyway, so before we get to our

guest here at a few minutes, we are going to talk about the latest situation in Minnesota, as we mentioned earlier. It happened not 10 miles from where Derek Shobin is standing trial for killing George Floyd. A 20-year-old man named Dante Wright was shot and killed by police after a, you know, routine traffic stop.

He had a warrant for his arrest. That came up a, you know, disagreement ensued. The lady cop who shot him yelled Taser, Taser, as he was scuffling about in his car. And after yelling Taser, shot a firearm once, which is what ended up killing him. He drove off, died from the wound a little bit later. But that just happened this weekend. Protests have been escalating. And, you know, we're back.

Here we are again. Great timing, too. Not that there's ever a good time for something like this to happen. But they seem to have a six cents for doing the worst possible thing at the worst possible time where all this shit is concerned. There's so much that's like, like, okay, I'm thinking a lot about this. Like last summer, I think we talked about this somewhere. Like, like George Floyd's would galvan ask people because it's horrific. But to me, um, um, uh, uh, that Louis.

I'm blanking her name right now. The one we got killed. Brianna Taylor. Was it was a much more typical and evil example of how the system works because of how it like like it was the shocking depravity of watching the guy choked life out of a person on camera for nine minutes that molest people. It's easier to say that's like that obviously was very like sociopathic and heartless

and whatever. But like this is just the normal course of how business works. And so much of this, it's like they did a pretext. text stop about either, depending of who you ask, what day the news is, either it was an air freshener hanging from his review mirror, or he didn't have county tags yet on his

new car he'd just got. Say, pull him over, pretext stop, which pretext stops. The Supreme Court has said those are fine. You stop a person or their false pretense just to fuck with him or to double check their papers or whatever. So do it to stop this guy. They found out he has a warrant out. The warrant is for

a failure to appear in court. He didn't rob a bank. He didn't commit a violent act he didn't do anything like it's just like he had been arrested for weed and I think a gun possession or something and he didn't show up for his trial show up for your trial you're supposed to show up for your trial also they would have never known that if it didn't stop him up for some bullshit

right um it escalates it escalates she appears to have genuinely believed she was firing her taser which is it's not the defense you think it is one it's it the department's using as a defense like oh it's just a mistake could have in anybody except

it's like the off of that is your defense you're essentially saying, look, it's not our fault. All we do is have very poor hiring standards and training. Or even like, right, it, like you said, it's not the defense they think it is because like, okay, even if that's true, okay, I believe you. She thought she pulled her taser out and it was an accident. But like, that is crazy that that's such a simple thing to have happened. I don't look it could happen to anybody. It's like, it shouldn't be able to happen. They should be like very different weapons, you know, like that shouldn't be a mistake that it's, you're even capable of making.

I know heat of the moment, very intense situation, but like it's just one of those things where like that just it, that don't make it okay that it's like, oh, this could happen very easily. It's like, it just, that it shouldn't be true what you just said, that it could happen that easily. It shouldn't happen. You just ran his ID, you know where he lives,

let him drive off, go to his house and pick him up after shit's calmed down. Like it's like, it's not, this wasn't some big, he wasn't wanting for, like, a major crime you can really let him drive off you absolutely can like like driving off from a from a traffic stop is not a death penalty offense um and and like here's the fucked up part about this i suspect if she gets convicted it'll be precisely because she if you watch the video she seems to immediately feel like she fucked up and she didn't mean to shoot him and so her

usually defensiveness is i was afraid for my life and i had to shoot and they always get off into that she obviously isn't going to be able to use that defense because she immediately showed she fucked up and showed when you feel she felt bad about it. So that's not defense isn't going to work. So she's going to end up she's going to end up in prison for being honest

about her mistake is the tragedy of the situation. She just owned it and says she was really scared the big bad black guy driving a truck. She probably would be good off. And like they're going to ask, they're going to say there's a failure of training. She was a veteran of 26 years in the force. She was a field training officer who was training someone

when she did this traffic stop. As Derek Schoen was a field training officer, we had three trainees with him when he killed George Floyd. She was the president of the police union. She's helped other officers get away with bad killings before. Everything about this just stinks all the way through. And I hate it. It sucks.

Nothing's going to change. And this is just going to keep fucking happening. And this is something like Dante writes on to give a press conference today. And she pointed this out that one of rights teachers when he was in school was George Floyd's girlfriend. this is how fucking common this is it's like this I mean I know that's like the definition of coincidence but that's why

that's crazy it's always you know it's like you said that's how common it is that's how small of the world that whole you know yeah it's uh it's just rough

it's a rough subject yeah situation and the cops put up they started flying a blue line they were flying a the thin blue line flag the day after the shooting at the police station like they don't feel bad about this at all like not even the shooter's the only one who

does is the fucking weird part about her life's probably i mean she deserves to suffer some serious consequences you shouldn't you shouldn't be doing bullshit stops and harassing people until they escalate to the point of someone dies it's you're really bad at your job when you do that yep uh well you know until next time uh i guess uh move on for now let's get to a different subject subject. I hope we'll see how the conversation goes, but we've got some wonderful guests for you. Steven Smith and Katie Lauer. Stephen Smith is a co-chair. They are co-chairs together of the organization West Virginia Can't Wait. Stephen ran for governor in 2020. He is organized with the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights,

and the Harvard Living Wage Campaign. He is also the author of Stoking the Fire of Democracy. As I mentioned, Katie Lowers is his co-chair at West Virginia Can't Wait. and is the architect of the movement. Katie is a national trainer for training for change and the co-founder of the West Virginia Mind Wars Museum and West Virginia Trainers Project. Katie is currently working on a series of articles that tells the story and gleanes the lessons

from the West Virginia Can't Wait Movement. So with that said, welcome to the show, Stephen Smith and Katie Lauer, everybody. Hey, all. Hey. Hello, there we are. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, glad to have you.

Sorry for the depressing lead-in, but, you know, what are you going to do? America in 2021, right? Yeah, depressing is the only thing we have to choose from these days. I know. All right. I know. That's right.

No, but you guys are working to make things better. So that's better than what we're doing. So let's talk about that for a little bit. Yeah, good on you. So West Virginia. West Virginia has come up frequently. Also, it's one of the, I'm a shame to say this, but it's true. It's one of the few states I haven't been to yet to do stand-up comedy because I haven't been able to make it work out.

And I'm, it's the number one on. a list of places I haven't been that I want to go to because I know that that's my people there. I got love for West Virginia. So we were talking last week and at the top of the show about the situation in Bessemer, Alabama with the labor movement there. And West Virginia is kind of, you know, in a lot of ways, sort of the birthplace of like American United Labor disputes, right? West Virginia is the state of the working man, right? And because of that, Democrats have kind of reigned in West Virginia for a long time.

but you look at the way it looks now and you have people like Joe Manchin and you still see a D next to their name, but something seems a little off about it. It seems a little different. Can you guys talk about that dynamic in the state of West Virginia? Yeah, there's a lot there. Katie, you want this one? Sure. I mean, the short answer is corporate Democrats have rained for a long time. And so, you know, starting a few decades ago, Joe Manchin and his posse used the, the architecture of the Democratic Party to gain power, and now we're left holding the bag. Now we're left the results of that.

And so one thing we say in West Virginia is that our politicians don't have D's or ours after the name. They have dollar signs, and I think Joe Manchin is a prime example of what that looks like in our state. So I think one of the things that folks might not know about West Virginia, that's something that gives us a lot of hope for this. state and has been a big part of our organizing work is there's about as many registered independence in West Virginia as there are Democrats and Republicans. And one trend we've been

seeing over the last few decades that we've been seeing in other places in the country is that folks are so fed up with the corporate establishment of both parties that they're leaving them. And I think what that means is that folks are paying attention and that there's a lot of potential for working people to come together and win major victories in our state. Right. So kind of on that note, saw a stat in 1996, roughly 65% of West Virginians were Democrats, 30% Republicans, 5% independent or third party. About 2016, 20 years later, 45% Democrat, 30% Republican, 25% independent or third party. And so the thing, the takeaway there is that a whole lot of people in West Virginia left the Democrat Party, but did not necessarily

go to the Republican Party. The Republican Party line kind of stayed static, but the Democrat Party membership in West Virginia, you know, took a bit of a nosedive in those 20 years. What's the explanation for that? Yeah, well, there's two major myths that we hear over and over again, sometimes even said by West Virginians about West Virginia voters. One is the myth that West Virginia's vote against our own interests. And when Democrats held power for 82 years and your life got worse, your dad's life got worse, your granddad's life got worse, is not voting against your own interest to stop voting for a kick in the teeth, right? The other myth that we hear all the time, especially in the national media, is that Joe Manchin is popular in West Virginia because he's a

corporate Democrat. The truth is, his brand of corporate democratic politics works really well for him and has decimated the party and the labor movement in the state, right? That as Joe Manchin's star has risen, the Democratic Party of West Virginia has tanked. And that also shows us a path out, right? That rather than buying into this national narrative that West Virginians are at the bottom every list, that we're poor, that we don't know what we're doing, that we vote against our own interests, we can instead look to our history, for examples, whether it's John Brown or the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the teachers strike two years ago, that when you look at what happens at the top in West Virginia, it's often this sort of highway robbery by out-of-state

interests. But when you look at the grassroots, what you see is people who know how to take care of each other, know how to fight back and know how to fill in when the government fails us. And that's the root of what we're doing. It's not something we made up. It's something we've seen and are trying to stoke a fire that already exists. So why is Joe Manchin a Democrat? I'm trying to figure that. Like, is there any core Democratic Party belief or liberal belief that he has? Is he, decent labor issues at all or like I'm trying to figure out what is it about the party that appealed to him or is it just a better avenue to power for his particular personality?

Yeah, I mean, the Democrats were in power for a long time when Mansion was ascending to power, right? So it's the quickest vehicle to his own, to build his own presence and build his own power in the state. One thing we've seen interestingly or expectedly with different political leaders in our state is they also just flip back and forth between parties. So our sitting governor, Jim Justice, is a perfect example of this, where he ran for office as a Democrat was actually supported by Joe Manchin, and then he switched parties and now he's a Republican. And what we see in the state is there's this sort of opportunistic good old boys network that works across parties. They share consultants. They help each other get elected, and they go which way the

wind's blowing. And so when Joe Manchin began his political career, the wind was blowing in that direction. And that's why he's a Democrat. And so what we think we need in the state is a movement that can take on that good old boys infrastructure, regardless of party leadership. And that's what we're up to. Why do you guys think that so, right, you've got a long history of working people movements in West Virginia and still alive and well, you know, the teacher. strike from a couple years ago and whatnot. And you tracked that along with that it was a very, again, Democrat state for most of that time because that used to be the party of working people, right?

And then we see this precipitous falloff and Democrat membership in West Virginia in the past 20 years. Why do you all think it is that I know we caught corporate Democrats, but why did they just leave that sort of ball on the field, meaning like, how is it lost on them that that's such opportunity for, you know, not even like staking a claim because they had the claim already, the Democrats, I mean, being the party of the working people, but like reinvigorating it, you know, being the ones who speak to just working people. That used to be part of what they did. Like what happened to that? And why aren't they still doing that now in states like

West Virginia? Yeah, I mean, you'd have to ask them, right? I mean, I actually think that I don't want to glamorize the history of the Democratic Party in West Virginia. There have always been people at the top who have used both parties to do right by them and their friends. And that's why the project we're in is not about the Democratic Party or persuading a few politicians. We say, you know, our job isn't to persuade those people who have never had our interests at heart. Our job is to replace them. And that's the work. What we're interested in is governing power because anything less than that is just watching West Virginia get worse slower. And so that focus on governing power is sort of the core of what we're doing.

And the way that shows up is a few different ways. One is that, you know, we contest for power during elections. We build political machines and help working class candidates run campaigns, field, fundraising, communications, et cetera. If you're someone watching this and you want to run for office, you're not alone. and we'll walk with you from start to finish. Governing power also means helping those folks once they get elected. You know, in 2020, we had 101 of us running together, pro-labor, no corporate cash candidates running up and down the ballot.

Most of us first-time candidates actually representing the people of the state. 13 of us got elected in 2020. So part of our job as a movement is to support those folks who got elected, make sure they have, the policy help and the legislative aids and all of the stuff that you need when you're governing but you don't have if you're a working class person. And then the last piece of the puzzle is mutual aid. As West Virginians, we're used to pitching in when the government fails us and whether that's setting up a harm reduction program in your county when there's an HIV outbreak or whether it's driving your pickup to help your neighbor during a flood. We're used to that kind of

neighbors helping neighbors. And as a movement, we think that's an integral part of what we do is showing up when the government so often fails to. I think the thing I would say about the Democratic Party is that part of why it worked when it worked is because there was enough organizing among working people to hold it accountable and to push it. And so, you know, the history of labor unions in West Virginia is incredible. And what labor unions were able to achieve in the 1920s and 1930s and 60s and 70s. I hear stories from old union coal miners about the things that they endured and fought for on picket lines. And it's the thing that the state is made of. We don't have that kind of organized working class power in the state. And so if we want a Democratic Party or a

Republican Party or any kind of party leadership to actually work for us, it's going to take rebuilding the kind of working class infrastructure that frankly the state has lost in many parts of the country have lost over the last several decades. Like part of what we're up to is we've you've got to build institutions that can fight for it because the party leadership isn't going to do it on its own. Kind of on that note, what do you all think about Bessemer in Alabama and the Amazon situation there recently and the outcome of it? I mean, you know, again, you guys are kind of on the front lines of these labor movements in one of the states most steeped in the history of labor movements in this country. How do you all feel about that right now and, you know, going forward, seeing that result? You know, I read this great article by Jane McAleavy that was just sort of like a post-off on what she saw happen in the state.

And I think the big takeaway I had from it is from her writing about it anyways, is that you've just got to get door-to-door face-to-face and do the relational work that adds up. And one of the things that's happened to our organizing over time is that we've swapped out in-person, like knocking on doors kind of work. for social media campaigns and digital campaigns. And I think there's a place for that in our work and we need it. And I'm glad there's a podcast tonight. You know, I think we need this kind of stuff. And there weren't house calls that were a part of that campaign. Like part of what we got to do is get is double down on the relational work that adds up over time.

And I think the thing that's hard about that is it's going to take a while. We're in a generational fight and it's going to take a while to do that kind of work. But that's also the kind of work that's going to add up and mean that we can win. Mark. Yeah, it's sort of like the mutual aid aspect of it's like really always important, I think, because it's hard to be villainized as like, villainizes like a horrific communist is going to hurt you in the camps if the person's helped you, help you fix your porch. You know what I'm saying?

It's interesting how political movements work. And so I like the, you know, sort of screw it, I'll do an attitude of this. Like we keep asking about Joe Manchin. don't talk about Joe Mansions. Like, we got 100 people running because we're going to get elected ourselves and do it, you know, because he's not going to get out of the way. That's right. You know, the best way to persuade an establishment politician is to work like hell to replace them. This, you know, what they, we think about Mansion or Capito or any of these folks, they're like a ball player, right?

That they love the spotlight, they love to win. it's a game for them because politics is a game for them because they have nothing for real at stake, right? So it's just, it's sport. And if you're a ball player, you only have to answer to two forces. One is your coach, right? That's your base, the party, whatever. In West Virginia, Mansion's base is Mansion, right? It's the Mansion machine. Or you have to listen to your opponents. You have to react to the people who are challenging you on the field of play. And so we don't think we're going to win with even the smartest messaging in the whole world or the best social media campaign alone. We're going to win because we challenge those in power

at the ballot box. We challenge them by doing what they fail to do. We challenge them by claiming governing power for ourselves. And that, as Katie pointed out, is unglamorous, day-to-day, courageous work that actually most working class West Virginians are used to doing and our job is organized is just to kind of stitch that together and breathe a little life into it and support that energy that's already there on the ground. So Manchin is kind of at the center of the filibuster debate, right? And trying to, the idea that the Democrat Party right now, while they have any measure of power that they have, should just get some policies in place, you know, as much as well as they can and try to get rid of the filibuster and all of that and i just want like mark

and i've talked a lot on this show in recent weeks about our opinion that put as many of these policies in places you can and if they if they work the way that we all say they will work right and help people regular people then you'll be fine and you won't have to worry about like backlash or whatever if your policies really do help people and do you all you know do you agree with that you kind of like you've talked about not being about like forget the democrat party or republican party we're just trying to do what we need to do to do to help the people here but that's kind of what it comes down to right like if you if the focus is on helping regular people and put more money in their pocket then the rest will

kind of work itself out right or at least hopefully I think we're both maybe chopping at the bit for this one. I'll go first, Katie, and then I'd love to hear what you think. I mean, you know, newsflash, Joe Manchin and Shelleymore Capito don't work for us. They aren't trying, they didn't get elected to deliver good things to the people of West Virginia. I know that breaks your heart to hear, but all evidence to the contrary. You know, you can make an argument that at most, Senator Manchin has gone to bat for working people three times in his 30-year political career and every single time was because he faced an imminent, credible, local threat to his power. I mean, this is, it's not surprising. What he's doing is not surprising to anybody who lives here.

It's literally how he got to where he is. And for folks who are outside West Virginia and get excited about what's happening here or interested in what we're doing, just encourage folks to reach out that whether it's supporting the work here on the ground or even just learning more about West Virginia, it's infuriating to us to watch the stereotypes and the national news circus surrounding the senator and our state and all of the things that are said about. So if you're watching this and you want to get more involved or hear more about what we're doing, just reach out. We're easy to find online. But we're always happy to talk about the real story of West Virginia, which makes it a lot easier to understand what's going on at the national level

and I think is instructive for those who want to build long-term power here. What would you add, boss? Just that I think, you know, I think we, if we're not careful, we'll also let Mansion sort of drag us through the muds. So one thing we keep seeing Mansion do is say no to a major Democratic agenda item and be in the national headlines from three weeks about how he's positioning himself around it. And then he'll come out as a yes, three quarters of the way.

And my very strong sense from operating in a state where Manton's operated for a decade is that he's going to keep doing that. And so I think the good news is for Democrats that are worried about how Manchin's going to come down on key issues, the answer is that I think he's going to get most of the way on them. And I think the danger for us is if we make him the focus of our attention, if we go on the roller coaster ride or we play a role in the play that he's already orchestrating, we could end up spending millions of dollars and thousands of collective hours chasing him. And our calculation is we've just got to build something else instead. We've got to take him on. Or we're just going to be in the place that is the weakest position for organizers, which is constantly responding to someone else instead of building our own powerful infrastructure.

Well, it's kind of that idea of like, you know, trying to work with him or whatever. And it's like, no, just get rid of them. No, just leave me alone. Yeah, right. Like don't waste, don't forget trying to work. That's never going to work. just go without them. That's the only thing you can do, right?

Right. All right. So before we let you guys go, we've already kind of touched on a little bit, Stephen, but I want to give you an opportunity, both of you to sort of explain to people how they can support what you got going on there

with West Virginia can't wait, and how they can follow you and keep up to date. And, yeah, Linda, help in hand, if so inclined. Yeah, so we're gearing up for 2022 right now and would love folks' support and doing more infrastructure and base building here. So what that looks like for us is running some rural media experiments. Thank you all for running a rural media experiment.

It also means we're recruiting candidates and getting ready to build out a series of people's platforms around the state for the next cycle. We'd also love to talk to you about how we can build infrastructure that takes mansion on directly as opposed to appealing to him. So you can find us at wv can't wait.com and we are more than happy to hop on the phone. So just drop us a line there. Yeah, if you're watching this, chances are you're someone who is already in the fight one way or another is thinking about hopping in. And I'll just say, in addition to what Katie said, if you're someone who's been involved before or never been involved before and trying to figure out where you fit and what kind of courageous action you could take, whether that's organizing your own workplace or a neighborhood or running for office, we love being in that moment.

with people who are deciding where they fit in this movement. That that's the question for all of us is how does each one of us contribute to this thing? Whether that's West Virginia can't wait or just something fighting back in your own backyard. There's no individual action too small that we wouldn't love to be in it with you. So if you listen to this, we're easy to find online. My cell phone is 304-6106-5-12. who we'd love to hear from folks. It's incredibly brave.

Incredibly brave thing you just did, man. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, Matt told us you give out your cell phone number on the campaign trail, so I notice it's your usual M.O., but it still seems crazy to me, but go for it. Yeah. Thank you all very much for. Thanks for y'all do. Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate you all. All right. Thanks, guys. Steven Smith and Katie Lauer, everybody, West Virginia, can't wait. All righty. Yeah, I love it. Again, I'm always, I'm just, I'm always so, by people that, you know, like, do stuff.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, as opposed to us. I love people that do stuff. Yeah, we talk about stuff. I run my mouth. I love running my mouth. But, yeah, people that got there and, like, do stuff, I just respect it so much. So, you know, good for them.

I'm feeling so inspired by this. So, guys, Trey's cell phone number is. Don't you do it. Don't you do it. I should just give up stories. People are mean to me, all right? It's a little different, not like, as if people aren't mean to them, I'm sure they are.

I'm just out of weak constitution. Let's see. What else had come up? What are we going to? What do we got? We're talking. Comments and questions for everybody. Hit us with whatever you got about.

Oh, well, we didn't get to get to it earlier. Have you watched any of Gutfeld? Yeah. Yeah. So if y'all don't know, Gutfeld is a new Fox News show

that's like attempting to be the Fox News version of the Daily show, I guess, because you know, everybody always says, conservatives can't do comedy. Let me tell you. Proving that, right. Matt, play the clip.

It's gut busting stuff. Watch your side. Make sure they don't split. Matt said he had the clip. Matt said, oh, shit. I took it down. Never mind. I'll just tell you.

First of all, they did a lot of things. But like one of their big leading bits on Gutfeld was where they impersonated Brian Williams and he was given a field report from the surface of Mars. He was like, yes, I took a helicopter to Mars. And while I'm here, I have invented the COVID vaccine and fist fought a Willie Mammoth or whatever. And, by the way, I didn't make those up. I put them in a different order, but those are actual things that they said. So, you know, got that riveting fresh off the presses, Brian Williams humor.

If you're not fully schooled in Fox News Cinematic Universe, Brand, the joke there is six years ago, the 10 p.m. MSNBC news host, Brian Williams, got caught. making up a story about flying in a helicopter in Iraq or something. And he lost his job hosting the NBC Nightly News with spending it for a while, came back as known as NBC. And apparently, this is still worth talking about in 2021. Right. Yeah.

The daughter was in Get Out. This is a different clip from Gutfeld to give you an idea of the tone Matt got, got ready for us. So play it. Not today, but we'll invite the bunny back for a future briefing. As always. But the bunny is wearing a mask. Hmm.

So that's where Adam shifts. Ben. Boom. I love the punctuation mark they put on the joke with the gut fail falling down. It's like fucking got him, baby. Got him. I didn't know. I don't know where Adam Schiff was supposed to have gone.

I mean, impeachment's over. I guess he's not of a big deal anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I did. It made me feel worse trades the other night. Like one of his horrific monologues, I tweeted what I thought was a self-deprecating joke about how I can't believe. believe they used all the jokes in my packet, but didn't hire me, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The number of people who thought I was sincerely complaining by not getting hired for Gutfeld. Yeah, right. Was it hurt my feelings on multiple levels. One, my joke didn't land on Twitter. Two, apparently people thought it'd write that level of joke. So I'm going to go put my head in the oven.

We have got an electric oven, so it's going to take a lot. Yeah, well, I mean, I have to be completely honest. a lot of the sort of like monologue joke examples from gutfeld that people have been making fun of are like they have that different bent to them the different slant but they're they're not that much cheesier or whatever than a lot of late night monologue jokes are if i'm keeping it real here you know well it's still funny and it's easy to make fun of but like it's kind of a lot of it is kind of par for the course in that i think they are but but the way worse but because because they're, they're, they're, they start from a point of view of being ideological and then work backwards from there. Right. Because if you're going to do an hour long, uh, political comedy show that has to be for the Fox News audience, where you're going to end up talking about is Brian Williams and, uh, you're 100% correct about that. Yeah. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're worse. Uh, I'm, you know, um, it's just, it's funny because they feel like they, they, I don't know. It feels like what it is. Do you know what I mean? It feels like like the Fox News version. of that thing, you know? It's a ratings powerhouse, too, baby.

They're beating everyone in the late night talk show space except for Colbert right now. Well, conservative just starred for good comedy, man. It's like they're tortured themselves to fucking own the libs. It's so funny.

It's like, I gotta be honest with you. I bet a lot of that really genuinely does slay for people, for their audience, I mean. Like, I bet a lot of it fucking plays

and they really dig it. Trey you watch longer clips of it like he like he can't even get laughs from his crew and the right his audience is just the crew and the writers. Yeah, but the crew is like those are people who like took a job or whatever, I guess a lot of, I'm just saying I remember people that I worked with in like their particular senses of humor and whatnot. And I feel like they don't, they would like they would sit there and laugh at the punchline because it's like this is the part where you laugh right here. Do you know what I mean? And like laugh really hard. Even do you know what I'm saying? Like they would, they're so dug in.

into what they're supposed to think about stuff that, like, they would, I bet you it's crushing some Republican households out there. That's all I'm saying. Kim Cousado says Republicans can't do comedy or satire. They should just stick to fear. They're really good at making the weak-minded afraid. I mean, yeah, 100%. They are their first ballot Hall of Fame, fearmongers.

That's what they do, baby. Well, look, from someone who's worked on talk shows and worked on political talk shows, like they start from the wrong premise. They watch a show like John Oliver and think that they're starting with a liberal point of view and working backwards and they're absolutely not.

If you can't make more something that's shit funny, they won't do it. They've got a bunch of episodes in the can. They're doing the funniest and like Oliver will do a whole segments

where he just makes fun of mascots. He's not just doing political shit. So like they're already shooting themselves in the foot by thinking that's how this stuff works. They don't even understand how a TV show normally works. So it's just it's a bad. Yeah.

Yeah. Annette Williams says conservative comedy is an oxymoron. The bat shit crazy beliefs of conservatives are more hilarious than any joke they could write. Yeah, they definitely have a whole lot of self-parity going on. Well, I'll say this. I know that's a general tale. I don't think it's necessarily true. The bulk of stand-up comedy is inherently kind of conservative in some.

Like, the most common joke in stand-up is these kids today are soft and suck, right? That's the core essence of most stand-up comedy. And it works. A lot of guys are really, really good at it. And it makes me laugh a lot of the times. I watch Bill Byrd do a five-minute bit about how vegans are pussies. I'll watch it. It's funny as shit to me.

It doesn't sway my politics. But the idea that conservatives are, there are a lot of funny conservatives. They just don't make the whole life about being conservatives. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's the whole act. There's definitely plenty of, yeah, there's definitely funny conservatives out there. And what you just said is 100% true. But I think that, like, when you try to make these sort of like conservative version of the daily show or a,

of Bill Maher or something or whatever it's you run into that like I don't know it I feel like it's hard for them to do it without just being racist or homophobic or whatever in a lot of regard you know what I mean and like that's just you get into punching down when you're doing that you know what I mean it's like it just doesn't I don't know it just don't work the same way like we like you know we've like well I think we showed any on the show and don't need to but you know my cousin. He's not my actual cousin. Stephen Crowder. We've shared clips of his in our group chat recently because he does like, he does comedy bits on his show. And they're like, it's just, I mean, it's just saying racist things. Like, that's pretty much what it amounts to. It's just like

saying racist stereotypes about black people or Mexicans or whatever. And that's like, that's what the joke ends up being, you know, and it's just that ain't. But even that, dude, there's you know what I'm even that even that's not an excuse because there's plenty of like quote racist jokes that are hilarious that other comedians have done okay sir no no no I mean bits I'm talking about like Dave you know Dave Chappelle or Tom Segura or whoever have done they've all like there's humor you could do about race that is stereotypical but hilarious because it's just better it's done better but when you just get into just saying you know like oh is it time to play basketball now you know you know in a, this is what black person, Sesame Street would be like sketch. That's a real thing from Stephen Carter. That Sesame Street sketch was horrifying. Like what,

they introduced the first two Black Muppets, and he dubbed over the audio, and it was like, just like stereotypes from like 1973. It doesn't even hang together. It doesn't hang together as a bit. It's basketball time. It's fucking, you know, whatever.

Like literally just that type of shit. And those were like the jokes. So, yeah, not a lot of redeeming qualities to it. M.A. Ross says, because punching down isn't funny. that is one of the generally agreed upon principles of comedy. Yeah, that's one of the rules. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, again, I don't think there are any hard, yes, there aren't

any hard and fast rules. You can always find something that breaks them, because if it's funny enough, it's fine, but that's the problem they run into is they just ain't funny enough. They're not funny enough to do the things they're trying to do. That is the essence of it is if Greg Gutfellow is actually funny, he wouldn't be on Fox. He'd be playing a massive square garden to a mainstream audience. And he's not funny enough to survive outside that bubble.

with a crutch of people that think six-year-old Brian Williams' jokes are funny. That's really really funny. Well, there you have it. You heard it here last, everybody, conservative. Struggle with comedy. Thank you for joining us. On this week's edition of Weekly Skews, we'll be back in seven days. It'll be a good time.

See, you love you, bye.