Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 7/18/2023 – Hot Strike Summer

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Tonight it’s all about one of our favorite subjects: the power of Labor. It’s a Hot Strike Summer, y’all, so let’s talk about it. Plus some abject lunacy from RFK Jr and other fun stuff along the way. Join us.Support the show

what's up everybody welcome back happy skews day to you it's july 18th 2023 i'm try crowder that's mark aji what's up mark yeah doing good man uh got a fun show it feels like uh everybody and their mom's on strike right now uh some money hungry wolves down the rich uh so we're gonna talk about various people and what they're fighting for. I'm talking about, among others, hotel workers, SAG, UPS drivers, and a little scrappy waffle house that could,

which is tugged in my heartstrings. Before we get to that, a couple things where we get to the show, big legal news. And by that I'm referring to, of course, Las Vegas PD served a search warrant related to Tupac's murder. If I only getting around to that, 30 years later.

A chick from that CBS show. on it a cold case you know what called that one something like that but it's it's always been a weird one because like everybody knows who killed Tupac and that guy's dead he was accused killed like here later

in retaliation for it's a guy with a name Orlando baby lane Anderson so maybe I don't know somebody snitched and trying to get a lighter charge for an accessory by turning an accessory or something I don't know no but of course the big legal news

for today I guess is Trump's now sees received a target letter from the special counsel Jack Smith related to the January 6th probe um nothing really to make of it yet because the charging documents aren't released just everybody's reaction to it's a little weird uh jack smith went to lunch at subway and uh c n did like uh half an hour on it about analyzing his body language how he was showing strength by getting lunch at subway like it was a regular day uh just everybody i don't know i don't know if that maybe that's a man of the people type move or what but it kind of makes me question his taste a little bit uh frankly And I mean, the food taste, I mean, not a, not a subway fan. You a subway fan? I mean, yeah, I dig it.

If I have to get fast food, it's usually going to be a subway. Can't do it. There's other, you can get other better sandwiches, but you actually, like, you know, a little more help. Like, I go to, like, Jersey mics, get the big cahoon, you know, with double meat or whatever. Like, that's, yeah, I guess if I have a choice between, like, a Jersey mics or subway and a Panera bread, I'd probably go Panera and that's, you know, a Jersey

Mike's second. But yeah, it was sort of like maybe he just went to lunch. Like maybe it wasn't signaling anything. But like cable news is so fucking obsessed with Trump that like everything he does is just fascinated at them. I mean, I get like a president maybe being indicted for him turned over to the government is a big deal. But like, you don't know anything yet. And he's not indicted yet. So you could just like, you know, spend two minutes on it, move on.

There's still the, there's a Georgia one pending still, right? So then and after this. one and then that one. It's funny, Kevin, like, count on your fingers the number of, you know, presidential felony indictments or whatever. But is that, uh, is that expected to be the last one whenever that comes down or if it comes down? And well, many things are spiraling, like another story from today. Uh, the Michigan attorney general charged, uh, fake electors, uh, and effort started to turn the 2020 elections. So that could in theory touch Trump, but who knows? Um, that was a really interesting one actually because it charged 16 people. These

are all big-time Republicans. Some pretty big names, including, let me find their names here. Right. All right. See, an RNC committee woman named Kathy Burden, a former state party co-chair named Mishon and Maddock, and I got him to stand growth. These are like 60, 70, 80-year-old white people, so their day in court is going to be fun.

It's not something you see very often in this country. So they're charged with eight felony counts each, including forgery and conspiracy and conspiracy to commit uttering, which I didn't know as a thing, but apparently that's what it called when you produce a false document that's called uttering, some I'll learn today.

Each of these counts can carry like 14 years each. They won't get that much. If they get convicted, I imagine they'll get like, you know, some sort of slap on their wrist unless they flip on somebody bigger, in which case, that's getting, then it gets interesting.

But what they said happened was these people met in the basement of the Republican Party headquarters and signed multiple certificates claiming they were duly elected and qualified electors for the president, vice president of the United States.

uh for michigan um the basement part's important but like you've got to know you're up to something shitty when you're meeting at a secret basement but like yeah could be a day and day game or something but probably not with these people uh probably something slightly more nefarious uh anyway go ahead i have some questions but go ahead so uh michigan law requires that you meet in the state capital to be official electors the fact they met in the basement proves they when they sign the documents saying they had submitted, they were the duly elected electors meant they had,

they knew they were supposed to be in the capital to do that, so they're automatically, like, they're black and black letter law guilty, right? They knew they were lying. And we know they knew they were lying because according to other people's testimony, they planned to hide in the capital building overnight. That was the first plan to be in the capital

so they wouldn't be lying. And then when they had to resort to the Republican Party basement, they told each other not to bring their cell phones so they couldn't track their location. so uh yeah yeah it seems a little shady so all right they all right they signed these documents falsely alleging to be qualified electors for president because they were going to uh vote or whatever elect trump even though he had not won the right actual stuff okay but then that that didn't happen well they did well they did everything they could they submitted it to the

National Archive. Okay. But the fatal flow in their problem and their plan was to follow through to having to be successful, their criminal conspiracy

hinged upon Mike Pence's bravery. Yeah. So, or if you want to look at it, lack of intake. Like they wanted Mike Prince to be as crooked as they were.

And it didn't, you can spin it whichever way you want, but I didn't, Mike Pence, I think he knows he wouldn't do well in prison. So I don't think he was ever going to hang tough

with the rest of you. Yeah. So it's possible like I can touch Trump. Yeah, but the Georgia case, Trump tried to go straight to the Supreme, Georgia Supreme Court to stop Fannie Willis in Atlanta from being able to indict him. And it was like a unanimous decision saying,

no, we can't do this. But their logic was basically like, you can't skip straight to the Supreme Court. You've got to go through the process. And you haven't demonstrated any reason where you can't go through the process. So he was trying to get special treatment and then didn't get it.

But another January 6-related story that just like stuck in my brain as it kind of defines our fucking weird times living in a techno dystopia with all these baby boomers also at the same time. A TikTok account dedicated to worshipping Judy Hopps, who is the bunny cop from Zootopia, successfully identified a January 6th protester on a conservative dating app who admitted to bringing a hacksaw to murder AOC and Joe Biden. So Zootopia and the bunny cop named Judy Hopps. This furry, this furry who devotes their online presence. to worshipping the cop from Zootopia was on a conservative dating app

and met a guy that was like, or I'm assuming it's a guy, met a guy that was like, yeah, like, oh, this is, this is a bit much.

Like if you, I don't know, if you're going to be put off by somebody wanting to murder AOC, I maybe don't even be on a conservative dating app in the first place. You know what I mean? Because I feel like, I really got some slim pickings over there. But,

you know, if the standard is, uh, cartoon. and bunny rabbits. I think this person's not a... Wait, are these two guys? Yeah, one was a guy.

The Judy Hopps person was a guy pretending to be a woman who catfished a guy who had to serve a day again. But it was the quickest catfishing in history because the messages go like this. Oh, it was like the first message. Oh, hey, I see we're at the January 6th coup.

Is that right? And the guy goes, oh, it wasn't a coup. It was a glorious day. And I was there with a hack saw. It was over to the government and kill OSC. That's so funny. Like, it didn't ring any bells. in his head at all like someone start with that line so uh random question here apropos of

nothing is it true you were at january 6th and then he just yeah let me elaborate on the details of the nefarious criminal plot that i hatch before i left and the murder weapon i brought with me uh i think i could say like this i mean i'm a pretty terrible liar and i can't act for shit when it comes to these dipshits i think it could be a great undercover cop because they just voluntarily confessed to everything right um they think like not taking their cell phone with him, is going to let him get away with the crime. So as far as Trump's being a random fucking shitty criminal, this story was also from the day. Trump is hoarding Israeli antiquities at Moralago.

So Israel loaned some relics for display at the White House four years ago, including like ancient ceramic candles, and they're only supposed to keep them for like a week or two. And Trump White House never gave them back, and now they're just at Mar-a-Lago. It's like shoplifted Israeli, ancient Israeli candles. He just kept everything from the White House. It's like, if it entered the White House while he was president, he was like, that's mine now.

I'm taking that with me. Yeah. You know, sir, that's on loan from the Louvre. It's like, no, they gave it to me. They said I was tremendous. Best president ever. They wanted me to have it. Put it by the toilet.

Yeah. Like, has anybody checked to see if he, like, took the, uh, what did the, what's the desk? The fucking fancy desk made from the shipwreckage or whatever. He probably just took fucking everything. It wasn't mailed down. I just like, just like, you at least get him for shoplifting?

Like, what are you guys waiting for? He stole stuff. He stole his rarely artifacts from the white house. Yeah. So are they going to like, are they going to get them back? They're going to get their candles back?

Nobody knows. Nobody. What do you, what do you like, they're so dumbfounded what to do. It's like if you, if you're a poor person who steals a bag of, a box of diapers from fucking CVS,

everybody knows exactly what to do. Right. If you're a rich guy, this steals ancient candles. From the White House. Yeah, from the White House is like, give him, give them back. And he goes, no. And you're like, fuck, we're out of ideas. Right, yeah.

What do we do? Start a war? He's not even the president anymore. Yeah. God damn. He's something else. But, uh, all right. Let's get into it.

Uh, with us as always as producer, Matt. This is weekly skews. Before we continue, I, of course, want to remind you all of a few things. Number one, if you'd like to see me perform live and you should go to Trey Crowder.com. Check out my upcoming tour dates. I'm going to be near my old stomping grounds in Kentucky this weekend, Bowling Green on Friday, Lexington, Saturday, Louisville on Sunday, Bowling Green, not an hour away from where I grew up in Clay County, Tennessee. So I'm looking forward to that. And I've got a bunch of other cities coming up as we go through

the rest of the year, Trey Crowder.com. Also, number two, if you from Trey stand-up terms in the world of whatever, you can watch my shut up, Mark. you watch my special damn boy i'm good taught me taught words good me taught words good on stage microphone uh youtube channel watch it if you want to i hope you would number three if you enjoy this program and would like to show your support you could do somebody signing up on patreon you can go to weekly skews dot com slash more or you can go on patreon and let me up either way it works five dollars a month gets you access to full link bonus episodes we're going to do one later this week we cover things uh we don't get to her that comes up in

between skews days or just whatever we'd like to talk about. We also do skew and aes on there. It's a lot of fun, so we hope you'll check it out and support the show in the process. Sign up on Patreon and get some more skews in your life. Now, as for the show tonight, as Mark mentioned up top, it is a hot strike summer. That's right. Record-breaking numbers in both temperature and employees striking and demanding they be paid what they're worth.

Mark and I are involved. We're out here in Hollywood. That's a part of it, but it's not just Hollywood. Many, many other industries and employees are. being affected as well, and we're going to talk about it because we're a power to the people pro-labor type of program. But first, we begin with the Daily Dumbass. My act graphic, please.

Tonight's D.D., any Asians or Jews who died of COVID without realizing that actually they were immune to it the whole time, this according to who else, RFK Jr. And we need to talk about bio-weapons. The level I know a lot now about bio-weapons because I've been doing a book on it for the past two and a half years. And, you know, the technology that we now have to develop these microbes, we've put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes. The Chinese have done the same thing.

In fact, COVID-19, there's an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to COVID-19 are because of the structure, the genetic structure, genetic differentials among different races, of the receptors, of the H-2 receptor. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. All right. The people who are most immune are.

So he's taking, this guy has such a poor communicator. I know, dude. That's what I was, I was about to say. His voice is like a medical condition, but his brain works fine. He just can't string a sentence.

Right. I was going to say the same thing. It's like, dude, it's like pulling teethless in this guy talk. I swear to God. It's like, what a gifted orator. and like you said his way his voice say that's not even what I mean I don't even mean that that's its own like separate issue like you said that's a medical thing I'm not even ragging on that I mean like the words he chooses and the way he strings them together and everything is pretty brutal but anyways it 2019 affects black people and white people predominantly and the people most immune to it Asians and Jews according to him I this like world he lives in one he says the like I'm an expert on bio web I've been studying it closely for two and a half years.

No scientific training or anything. He's just been studying bio weapons. I'm not familiar with there being a targeted racial bioweapon. I don't even know how that will work because there aren't really genetic differences significantly between the races like that. Like there's some more common medical conditions like, you know, Jewish people have a hard time digesting milk. And you have sickle cell in like black America and black populations. But like overall, like doing that would be difficult. Plus a lot of Jewish people like China and Israel for all their other problems,

did hardcore fucking shit to say to protect their people from COVID. And the idea that Chinese people weren't down to COVID is ridiculous. They agreed that they had a lower fatality rate because they were on like stringent lockdowns for months at a time. But they were absolutely panicked about it. People like there were stories about people throwing their dogs out fucking balconies because there were rumors that they got spread by dogs. So like the idea that like Asian, Jewish people and Chinese people,

the only thing I know about the only thing I think of them teaming up on is both going out for Chinese food on Christmas. But like, this is such a weird conspiracy theory. It doesn't make any sense. Well, I thought, okay, listen, let me, so I think in this world of lunatics, the explanation is actually pretty simple, or at least the origin of how this would work in their brains is that, like, we know it was invented in China, right? They think it was invented in China, COVID, right? So obviously the Chinese would want to make it impact. the other Chinese less, right?

And also Jews control everything, including anything up to the level of like a global pandemic. Obviously, there's going to be some Jews behind that because, you know, that's what they do. It's never the good stuff, though. If Jews control everything, why don't you give them credit for the good shit? Well, I don't know. They say they control the weather.

And if you live in Southern California, a lot of times, you're like, thanks, Jews, this is great. You know, and I'm saying coincidence a lot of Jews live in Southern California and the weather just happens to be great here. I'm just saying, open your eyes, sheep, that's just a joke. Also, it's hot as hell right now. But, um, yes. Yeah, I think it's, you know, that's, that's about it. I think, like, it came from China.

Jews do everything. So Chinese and Jews, whatever, equals COVID. It's amazing on every conspiracy theory, right wing, left wing, or whatever, always ends up back blaming it on Jewish people. I don't understand that particular brain disease. But the only thing that all that's up to say about RFK, forget this funny story about him is like, I'll never forgive like CNN doing these soft focus features about how Jackty is a couple weeks ago.

Like the 30% of Democrats who like just see his name and see Kennedy and are like, I might vote for that guy. Yeah. But CNN knows what the fuck he's about. He's been the public eyes and anti-vexer for like 20 years. So like, you know, he's always been a lunatic. His family doesn't like him in respect. them and CNN knew that and still was like

hey there's a cool new shiny thing because we want to pretend that politics is more interesting than it is but that same dinner he was at where he did that shit and he did he did a long rant about COVID being a Jewish conspiracy or whatever and then he goes by the way this is off the record

there's all reporters sitting around him also recording him that's not how it works buddy sorry yeah so I'll just read this RF Kennedy Jr. Press dinner explodes and war of words and farting. So I'm not sure if the conspiracy theory video came before or after the farting.

But I want to read this. I think it was after the farting, I think. Oh, really? So they kept having the dinner after the far? Okay. When you say farting, it was a planned disruptive fart. Yes. It was a fart of protest.

So page six regrets, this is from New York Post. Paid six regrets to report that a press dinner to boost Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign descended into a full bout of screaming and polemic farting Tuesday night. This is at a place called Tony who's in the upper east side of Manhattan. It was a shouting match over climate change between two old guys.

The two old guys were... Hold on. This was in Manhattan? I thought this was in London. I thought this was in the UK this whole time. Oh, was it? Maybe it was maybe it was upper east side of London. Sorry, I just saw Upper East Side and assumed... I think because I first saw it reported in like

not the Daily Mail, but some other British thing. And also like, I know the people involved the players involved i believe are uh are brits i the only reason i even remember that is because it felt so like i sent to you guys in the text thread and drew was like smartest country in the world baby talking about it because it feels very american a story it's like you know political fundraiser erupts into fart match and uh i thought the same thing i remember being surprised to find that it was in the uk but maybe i misread it maybe i was wrong about that i don't know i'm not sure let's just let's just ignore that for a second because i don't think it matters much

what's important to me that the stuff that's this dumb also happens in the you not that that's surprising anybody I guess people know they're dumb too nowadays but you know what I mean no this story says in New York in New York sorry well never mind so the two guys involved are a guy named Doug Decker who was host to the event and Anthony Hayden guest who yes happens to be Christopher guest's brother yes so somebody asked RFK Jr. a question about climate change so Decker just screams out, interrupts the question. The climate hoax, all right? So, and then Anthony Hayden Guest, who, according to page six,

appeared to have been sleeping happily for most of the dinner. It was roused by the abrupt rumpus. This definitely sounds like it was written by a British guy. Although Hayden guest tells us he was not asleep, I was just thinking, he told us. Decker continued to scream loudly about the climate change scam, while Hayden guest peppered him with verbal volumes from across the table, calling him a variously fucking insane and insignificant.

Here it seems, Deckerrots sends the need for a new, rhetorical attack and let rip a loud, prolonged fart while yelling as if to underscore his point, I'm farting. It's a little redundant, you know, if it really was a loud, prolonged fart, there's no reason. Really, you lessen the impact of the fart, I would say, by yelling over your own fart. Let your butt do the talking, you know, if that's what you're, if that's your attempt here, if that's the bright idea, I mean, look, this dude was screaming and rage and, and I think a

fart just he realized I could fart right now and so he did because fuck these people I don't respect them I'm gonna you know literally fart in all their faces um I'm just saying that because I don't think he summoned a fart in in a show of protests oh I think it was like a by the power grace goal thing maybe yeah yeah right I like I just I don't want to give him that credit is what I'm saying like they're like they're talking about it's like oh he needed a new rhetorical tag I don't think he was like you know what'll really play here is if I fart. I think he was just pissed off and yelling. He was like, I need to fart. I'm going to fart in front of everybody. Oh, no. I think he, no, no, no. It reads to me, like,

he definitely was like, this will make underscore my point and let Riptor loud one on purpose. I know, but, but you can't, Mark, you think he, like, he farted at will, like, meaning like, like, he brought forth a fart is what you think happened. That's what you think happened. I mean, no, I mean, I think he had to do it and used it as to make his point. Right, because he, but because he got loved because he's already mad he's in an argue with somebody and he's like he feels a fart in there and he's like i know what i'll do i'll fart Yeah, I think that's what he did Let me read this to you Terry Everyone else in the room understood what was happening

The room was stunned and seemingly unsure About whether Decker was farting at a Hayden guest personally Or at the very notion of global warming Right Everyone there knew it was a purposeful fart I know it was a purposeful fart I don't think yeah I just are you saying that he

Like if you decide like I want to fart on these people right now You can't do it unless you need to fart Right What we can do is not do what a normal person would do is try to let it out slowly and sign on. I know, but he happened to have a fart on him. I don't know what we're fucking arguing about right now, Trey, I don't know. Or are you lost?

The guy farted, the guy farted, and this is what RFK Jr. deserves. So that's the end of it. Let this guy's fucking campaign die. Yeah, I agree. I just thought, I just thought, do you know who Lepetomaine is? No. He was a French fartiste in the, in the 19th century. And he could like, he could fart however he wanted to fart at any given time.

He could always, you could fart on command always and was famous, world renowned for it. Right. And I thought for a second, you were saying that this dude had those powers and I was just saying, no. I don't know. I was never saying that. Okay. He would not be at this dinner. He'd be on Broadway.

Yeah. Oh, anyway, good Lord. Well, that was fun. So, yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. Our first honorable mention for Daily Dumbass is anybody who thought politicians couldn't fuck women the right way for a change. This shit was, this shit's wild. It's a crazy-ass political ad.

Yeah. Do you have a condom? Yeah. Sorry, you can't use those. What are you talking about? Who are you? I'm your Republican congressman. Now that we're in charge, we're banning.

birth control. This is our decision. Not yours. Get out of our bedroom. I won the last election. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to watch and make sure you don't do anything illegal. All right. So this is a complicated ballot referendum in Ohio that this has attempted to make really, really simple. So there's a proposition of the ballot in this August special election, that if you vote yes, if 51% of the people vote yes, it changes the state law to where it requires 60% of people to change the Constitution. Right now, if you get a constitutional amendment, it's 51, it's 51, a majority, so 50.1%, 50% plus 1. Pro-choice advocates, activists have successfully or almost successfully gotten through the process

of getting a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. to make abortion a constitutional right in Ohio. Right. So Republican ratfuckers rushed through an earlier amendment. It would make it harder to pass a constitutional amendment. All right. And this is all very typical like terms of service type legislation that Republicans used to be very confusing when it's very straightforward.

If they raise the threshold to get a constitutional amendment to protect your reproductive rights, Republicans are coming for your fucking, not just. abortion, but you're at birth control. Now, there's a lot of, like, people have tried to spin this and say that this has nothing to do with the other. But let me read a quote here from the Republican Secretary of State named Frank LaRose. He admitted last month, quote, this is 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our Constitution. But this is all pretty perverse. The idea that 50.1% of the people will be able to vote to make it so 60% of the people can't make a law. Do you know what I'm saying? It's inherently anti-democratic, small

D Democratic. The fact they're doing this in a hurry and doing in a special election that's going to have much lower turnout or in theory would have much lower turnout is fucking shady as shit. Also, a major reporter of this is a guy who talked about before, Richard Weillin and Illinois resident, the guy who inherited the Slits Bruin Fortune and he doesn't even live in fucking Ohio. He's just doing this shit to screw with the women of Ohio because he's a fucking asshole. The good news is that people are already voting on this.

turnout for this special election is way higher than anticipated. So people understand it and they're voting. And Matt said, coincidentally, I know this will be logged on to do the show, but his organization is working on this on this. And they're seeing a overwhelming amount of yard signs to vote no on this, which is the correct side on this.

So if you live in Ohio, make sure you vote before August 8th, I think it is, and vote no on Proposition 1. It's also like, like you said, it's anti-democratic and everything. And it's like,

it's kind of just, inherently acknowledging it's them acknowledging like so we know for sure that the majority of people who live in this state that we represent are going to want to you know codify abortion rights or whatever like we know that we know that that's popular in the majority so we've got to do something to make it to where it requires more than just a simple majority because you know the minority should rule because in this case we're morally right on the matter and the Bible says and whatever else.

But it's like they're supposed to reflect the will of the people and they seem to know what the will of the people is and are actively working to subvert it or to fuck it over. Also, this, I've got to say that ad, I mean, that's pretty good shit in my opinion. That's like I said, makes it simple.

It's very memorable. Also, I've seen it pop up and it's like gone viral and stuff. Like whoever came up with that ad really knocked it out of the park in my Yeah. People like seeing hot, half-naked people who knew. And also, it's like, you know, it's not unfair. You know what I mean? Like, Right. It's not an unfair. It's fair. A lot of Republicans have publicly announced they're against contraception now. Like, it's like, so yeah, condoms are could be next in Ohio.

And it's like, it's not, it might be rhetorically strong, but it's not even approaching bullshit or a lie. Right. But there's, there's something like perverse, like, weird to this. Because like, we live in like a liberal democracy. There is a, balance between like majority decides and individual rights right but like the classic way to be do that like on the 60s in the civil rights movement is okay majority of people would vote to be racist if we let them but black people have the individual right to like lives and liberty and be able to eat at your lunch counter all right so this is like the opposite where it's like even though the majority wants abortion rights they're like but no we have the we have the individual

liberty to take away your rights we have the opposite of rights it's like it's so it's fucking we get it yeah well let's get into it yeah hot strike summer hey we've been talking about we talk about i feel like we talk about pretty much any major track that comes up but there's a lot of them going on right now and like i said earlier it's not just in hollywood either last week sag after the actors union joined the writers guild which has been on strike since may uh and striking against the big studios but there's a lot of other stuff in the works for labor right now as Well, yeah, I tried to add up all the different labor actions right now, just in America. There's other ones happening in Canada, Italy, and the UK as well.

But just in America, I try to figure there's at least something like 600,000 people on strike or about to be on strike. This is compared to like in 2022, there were 23 major strikes that included 120,000 workers. So we're already like five times last year. And if you're wondering, there's about 165 million people in the American workforce. So 600,000 is not like, it's not a 1% but it's like half of a percent or something like it. It's a significant amount of workers. It feels like we're something like a slow rolling general strike that everyone's going to get around to. Yeah.

What do you think about the idea of a general strike or whatever? I don't think we've ever talked about that. It'd be hard to pull off in America. Mainly because people are too, a lot of people are like, when you're gearing up for a strike, it takes a while and you prepare your membership for it by having them save their money and figure out where people are going to get food and how people are going to like keep their houses and stuff. to have everybody do it at once probably isn't feasible

and usually you do that to stop mass mobilization for a war or something so I don't know if we could do it just for like wage increases I mean I would happily encourage anybody who try to organize it but I don't think Americans can be on the same page to wear a master in a pandemic

so I don't see right us getting and plus like the rhetoric around these one of the reasons I like try to talk about them every time is because like all media coverage of strikes is so fucking through the lens of like people with money

you're just don't want to upset the apple cart. And if you're being charitable, if you're not being charitable, it's like they're being mouthpieces for corporate overlords. But either way, it's not typically fair in my mind. So it's one reason I like to talk about them. But so numbers, who's on strike right now? By my count, 165,000 actors, 12,000 writers, hotel employees are on strike, grad students, health care workers.

And the big one, maybe starting at the end of the month, 340,000 UPS workers, organized under the Teamsters might be walking out if they don't get a better deal. And that would be the largest strike against a single employer in U.S. history. And this doesn't count the people are going to be put out of work by the after effects of the strike, which that's bad. But that doesn't mean people should strike. It means corporations come to the table sooner so it has less effects on everybody, including their bottom line and the people affected by these labor actions.

because nothing people are asking for is unreasonable. Like UPS drivers want air conditioning in their trucks. Right. There's 140 degrees in the back of those motherfuckers and some of them pass out and die, right? This is not like unreasonable shit. This is reasonable stuff from profitable companies. But I was thinking like big picture, like while this stuff is happening right now, like the economy is restructuring itself because coming out of COVID, people are just sort of fed up with how things have been going and how they got treated by their employers. is it feels like to me as part of it.

And the only way to progress is always another side of pain. It feels like in every instance. And I saw like a bunch of economists arguing on line this weekend about, about how the American economy is actually really good in I right now. Why don't employ, why don't the general people, people generally understand that? And there's lots of reasons because like for most people it is, it's always plenty fine, but they see consumer costs throughout. And if you're among the 90% of people who were always employed, unemployment going from

10% to 4% because 6% people got jobs doesn't feel any different to you. You just see the prices go up, right? Yeah, dude. I mean, yeah, everything's more expensive. The cost of living is outrageous or whatever. It's like, okay, many people are working, but people aren't getting, you know, paid enough still. And, you know, in a lot of places, like, in fucking Los Angeles, you know, people can't afford to live or whatever. So, like, of course, they're not all going to be, like, you know, popping bottles because the Dow's been up or whatever or any of that shit.

you know, my only concern from a national political perspective is people will blame the wrong people for it. But strike means you're pointing your anger in the right direction. It's like the economy is rolling. I can look at the numbers. I can look at your profit statements. I know you're making fucking money, but I'm making less than I used to compared to my rent increases. You've got to give me some of that. All right? It's pretty straightforward. But like, Humaneity's been to this moment before and people kind of reacted the same way. I found this article from a couple of years ago, what the black desk labor shortage can tell us about our own. So basically, after the black plague,

the people who survived it demanded huge wage increases. I didn't even know that was that from like from one gooseneck to two goosenecks a week? They had money back then, but like, you know, people doing like hard or, you know, like labor, like day-to-day workers, whatever. I didn't know. I didn't know they even got, you know, giving them a half a six pants or whatever. might even if you're paying potatoes double my potato ration yeah right yeah for sure so about the plague wiped about 30 to 50 percent of europe's population so the peasants who survived uh realized they had more power

and so they demanded like double or triple whatever they'd earn before the plague all right so nobody here is asking for double or triple they're asking for like a few dollars an hour a raise or a a few percentage points but the people i wanted to talk about first uh the 600 000 people in strike includes five Waffle House workers who walked out in a three-day strike over the weekend. This is in Columbia, South Carolina. I just want to say, these people have way more fucking moxie than I do.

And I just admire the gumption here. And I hope they get everything they want. But so the same day, part of what they're striking for, everybody knows the memes and stuff of the stories about like crazy fights you see at the Walden House. One of the things they're asking for is to have a security guard there, not just on weekend nights and the woman

organized the strike said the same day she delivered the letter of demands to management a belligerent customers poured salt and sugar into go cups

and threw them at her across the restaurant so yeah dude it gets wild in a Waffle House man people are working Waffle Houses they see some shit

that's like they often don't take no shit either though for the record usually like most people don't want to fuck with a Waffle House employee I mean I don't know

that's what I was about to say is like, you know, she knows how not to fuck with people that work at a Waffle House is the people that run Waffle House. Right. So, but they're not just complaining about violent customers. It's also understaffing, unwanted charges taken out of their paychecks and working conditions that employees blame for landing them in the emergency room. We're talking like the kitchen being too hot and shit, but also the understaffing stuff, one woman said she worked a 10-hour shift as the only server on the floor with no bricks and she got a bladder infection because she can go to the bathroom.

One of the things they're complaining about is like Waffle House charges them out of their paycheck for meals, even if they don't eat the meals or take their meal breaks. So what they want to do is stop being charged for meals they're not eating. What they're asking to do because they're so broke is to be allowed to be not be financially penalized for skipping meals and bringing lunch from home. This is also fucking dystopian. This one woman, she said one of the reasons she was striking is like a guy with a gun threatened her over an order of hash brown.

And she was like, dang, I'm fin to die over some hash browns. And I just want to congratulate this woman, not only straight, we're getting Finna in a major newspaper. I love this lady. But one of the things you always come back up against the strike is like the reporter was asking people that were coming to eat at the restaurant where they thought about it. And some old guy was smoking a cigarette watching the commotion and reported that the workers

on, and you said told the reporter that the workers on strike were quote ungrateful. They don't look at the big picture for the company. This fucking guy said, you know what? Don't fuck this guy. These are people who were talking about having to be on food stamps despite working full time jobs or people pull a gun on them and they can't go to the bathroom. This guy tells them to be grateful to the company.

I can't grab my mind around that. But another bystander, chanted in support, told him to stand their ground to be the second old guy, not the first old guy. So yeah, I, that was the, that's a little strike that could I wanted to talk about. And I wish it was like, I don't think a lot of people heard about it. I saw other Waffle House workers saying they hadn't heard about it. So I saw a video and I don't, I don't know if it was from this. were there multiple

is there any kind of larger Waffle House thing going on or is it just this one store? I saw a video of an older lady that worked at Waffle House then I assume it was from the strike was getting shared around it was her talking about how like she'd worked for him for so long and all the shit

she'd seen all this stuff it was a you know moving she did a good job but yeah it's a southern institution man pay these people I don't look at Waffle House's profit statements but I bet you they're doing fine they keep opening more stores

they never close early, unless it's a hurricane. So, I wonder the UPS strike. So I don't think this strike's going to last long. Everyone sort of agrees that there's going to be a deal. It might not even be a strike. The deal's up the 31st, I think, the contract. One of the things are fighting over is, and they basically have agreed already. The union wants to get rid of a two-tier wage system and that pays people less to work on weekends somehow.

It sounds backwards to me. and getting the air conditioning of vehicles UPS to their credit has agreed finally to put air conditioning in the back of those trucks again it gets to be 140 degrees back there sometimes and this woman said that it was talking about how one of her coworkers died of heat stroke and a delivery truck after delivering

his last parcel and that fucking depressed me if I'm going to die please let it be at the beginning in my UPS ship yeah but here's another headline on this which sort of frames how the media just sort of things strikes are annoying as a Vox headline A UPS strike would be worse than you think.

A 10-day UPS strike would cost the economy more than $7 billion. It would be the costliest work stopaging at least a century, according to a new study by Anderson Economic Group. Yeah, I don't fucking care about the economy if people are dying in the back of their trucks. It's also like, and I said this in the, I made a video about all this strikes up earlier today, and I said this in that, because I saw this headline, too, about it costing the economy, $7 billion. And it's like, oh, wow, well, Sam.

to me like those UPS employees are pretty important then. Like if only there was some way we could put a number on the type of value that these people have to, you know, the company in the country at large, right? But how many dollars do you think the economy would lose total if the entire C-suite at UPS took 10 days off, Dre? Yeah, I know. I said that too. I said that too.

I said, I didn't say the whole C-suite, but I said, not for nothing. I think if all of those employees kept doing their jobs. but the CEO of UPS effed off for a month, pretty sure the trucks would still run on time and nobody would fucking notice, right? Yeah. And I get that like, look, somebody has to be in charge, right?

I get that. That person is going to know something that the market has decided should be rewarded and, you know, yada, yada, yada. They work too, whatever. Now, I'm not saying, but they're getting super fucking rich.

I'm just saying like, like, like, I just thinking about like, you've been a boss, were your supervisor at DOE? uh no i not really i was more i was like a team lead kind of but i didn't officially had people underneath me you know um i mean i had to shepherd corey and drew's asses around for a few years but uh no besides that no i was like when i first started being put in charge of people been a head writer in a few writer's rooms and it's like i think the most employees

ever had at once was eight but like i always thought of leadership as like an act of service kind we're like, I'm going to these boring meetings so you guys don't have to. When the boss asks where this work is, I'm going to take the hit for you, right? I always thought that was what part of being a boss was. Like in the fucking, in the military,

you leave from the front. Because if we're all going to die, you've got to go first, motherfucker if you want to get us into this jam, right? But these people, it's the exact opposite. They just extract from the workers and don't want to give anything back.

Right. Yeah, it's like you said, it's not that I get that, like you, right. I know, there can be good CEOs and they do shit and they bring value to the company too, but not to the,

the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and exponentially more than the, you know, the people who are doing the actual day-to-day work of whatever that company is, whatever industry they're in, like, that is fucking ridiculous. And that's the truth. That's the reality of like all of corporate America right now. So I don't, I don't begrudge you having a big boat. I begrudge you buying the boat before you give your workers health insurance. Right.

Yeah. Him health returns first, then see if you can afford to fucking boat. That's the complaint here. Right. So I saw this UPS driver video, this guy. He was responding to like a TikTok. I guess he's a UPS influencer on TikTok, which I didn't know that was a thing, but shout to this guy.

He was a good looking guy. But he was responding to like some comment. There was like, I can't believe you guys. I mean, it's going to strike when you make $42 an hour to deliver boxes. And he was like, well, we're not striking to get more than 42. We're going to get more than 42, but that's not why. But $42 an hour is about $85 grand a year, if you're wondering. But his point was like, I'm not going to argue with you about that.

No one argues up what the CEOs fucking deserve. Right. Not doing that. But he was like, he's making the point that I'm not, we're not actually striking for me. I'm striking for my union brothers who are part-time. He's only getting $16 an hour. And we're going to get them up. And if I have to lose two weeks of work so they can afford to like live a decent life,

that's what we're going to do. And I was like, solidarity. Why do Americans need to have solidarity? Like I'm suffering to someone else for a little bit so we, so someone else can be as successful as I am or close to it. Why is that such a fucking foreign concept? I don't know. In fact, for a lot of people in this country, unfortunately, it goes the exact opposite direction. For a lot of people, it's like, if, you know, if I'm suffering

or if I've been railroaded or fucked over, then everyone else should be too, or else it's not fair, you know? Yeah, it's really discouraging. By the way, UPS posted an adjusted profit of the $14 billion in 2022, and this guy was like, their profits are going up, my pay's going to go up. That's the end of the conversation. like it's like we're not talking about stealing from the company here profits by the way are after the CEOs pay themselves the bonuses those are labor expenses also so like the shareholders are making money the executives are making money too that's how it's supposed to work and by the way uPS is the CEOs and the lady named are carol tommy i think is how you is pronouncing um i'm glad this is this type of shit's happening under Biden because of this many workers are striking under under like trump or some other desantis and some other republican ghoul they call up the national guard to shoot at fucking picketers um Biden UPS Union has asked him to stay out of the strike and not step in and, you know, try to mediate. Because he'd think, like, we can handle this. Don't worry about it.

I'm hoping he'll do that. But at a minimum, he won't, you know, send in Pinkertons in the National Guard. This lady named Carol Tomay, talking about leadership as an active service. She said all the right things in this 2020 interview with the New York Times. She said, for a long time, I was sort of a Milton Friedman person. Milton Frieden's a famous, like, right-wing psycho economist. She's trying to do with me a culprit here. The purpose of the corporation is to create value for the shareholder.

I'm very much, that was Milton Freeman. But now I'm very much the belief that if you take care of the needs of all stakeholders, you actually create value for the share price. And taking care of the needs of all the stakeholders, includes your employees. So she said all the right things. Then she turned around and donated a bunch of money to nothing but Republicans. Still believe in the Milton Friedman bullshit. So, yeah, I hope the UPS strike, I would say the people I do feel bad for if UPS strikes

are like little mom and pop shops to sell stuff online. and people that rely on UPS for like to deliver their medicine and medical devices. All right. And the medical and medical devices, people are always going to have had to find a quick workaround. I always just say, like, if you order stuff from mom and pop and it gets there a three weeks late because there's a UPS strike, just be fine with it. That's like, that's how everybody can do solidarity is not by giving that mom and pop bad reviews because some workers of UPS were trying to get a fair deal. We talked about the Black Plague earlier, so I wanted to shut up that medieval times out here in Orange County is still on strike after months. And a couple days ago, IOTC members,

Ayatzi is a showbiz sister union for like a lot of the, you know, the electricians and editors and stuff. Yeah. Customers, et cetera, et cetera. They took a guillotine out at the medieval triumphs picket line, which is very on theme for medieval times. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's like, God bless Ayatzi, man.

If Iasi was striking right now in Hollywood, there'd be fatalities by now. The Teamsters, too. Like, they don't fall in a fuck with the Teamster strike, man. They bring bats and bricks. All this, the actors are doing is singing and dancing, which is his own type of violence, if you've watched any of the videos.

So, that's a joke. I support anything that gets the studios back to the table. So let's talk about the SAGA After Strike because it's probably the most visible so far because celebrities are involved and people like shooting videos of celebrities to put on the news. And I do want to say it seems like a pretty big fuck-up

for all the biggest media corporations in the world to take people who are valued for being good-looking and good at communication skills. and putting them in front of cameras to talk about labor. That might be a big mistake because it's the most visible strike. It's going to get the most news coverage, but also it's going to get the most, like, it's the one they're going to be the most determined to crush. Right.

That's part of what scares me about this. A couple weeks ago, an anonymous Apple executive gave an interview to a variety, I think, one of the trade magazines. He was talking about how they needed to brick the writers because if they didn't, it'd be a bad example, i.e. a good example, to workers in the other industries that Apple's invested in. They might want to unionize to get better lives. And by that, of course, he means like the workers in the Foxcon factories, they make iPhones in China that have suicide nets around the buildings because people jump off of them because they're required to sleep

at work and shit. And fuck that guy. Fuck it to death. Is that the same guy who said the thing about starving the riders out until they, I know there's an anonymous source, but was it the same article or a separate thing. Another studio exec said that their plan was to wait the writers out until people started losing their homes and getting evicted from their apartments and stuff because that would make them

more likely to negotiate. It was a different. It was a different article. The variety of one was like three weeks ago. The deadline article was from last Tuesday because I read it as soon as we got done taping. Yeah. So the fact it's ideological for them like it feels like larger stakes is about the whole

economy is what makes it feel so fucking dug in because it doesn't make any sense from a financial perspective like let me throw some numbers out you since the wGA strike began in early may disney's value is down 26 billion dollars paramount's down five and a half billion and warner brothers is down 2.24 billion now that that's a combined 34 billion dollars and all anyone's asking for is like a small percentage of that so it seems really fucking stupid unless there's some sort of bigger ideological purpose here that doesn't have anything to do with money um but first i want to talk about the old time dickensian money aspect before we get to the futuristic dystopia aspect which is artificial intelligence um a couple of things this isn't about rich folks which is very hard to

explain right like people seem to think they're only two categories of actors you got your rich famous superstars and you got your like loser people who still work as baristas right there's a huge middle class of like of actors um like there's a numbers for you it takes 20,000 a year to qualify for health insurance and SAG and 87% of members don't qualify. Yeah, it's just like I almost got into that in the video I made today, but I didn't have time, you know, whatever, but like,

because people, I feel like people think that, yeah, if you, like working in Hollywood to the level of being on one of these guilds or whatever, it's like, oh, they're fucking rich and famous and whatever anyway, but like the vast, vast majority of people and writers, too, uh, they're all, they're like

the middle class or working. class even or whatever like even the ones that do stuff you know like i know i got a good friend who's like a long-term character actor has been in all kinds of shit and you know he leads a very middle-class lifestyle he's not in a position where like he can just you know be without work for months and months and just be totally fine and all that type of shit you know what i mean like he's they're just regular people who are not you know fat with cash or whatever so right and then if you want to be an asshole about it could be like well you you should find another profession than something's more stable. It's like, okay, but then the studios need

actors like that. They need the murder of the week for an SVU. They need like the person who comes into like the hospital drama who's sick that week. Otherwise, the shows can't fucking function. So like if you don't want people to be around to be in your business, then like, I mean, if you want to be around to be in your business and be available, we've got to pay them. By the way, when people aren't working, they're not, it's not that they're not working. They're still auditioning running around town, doing acting classes, writing their scripts, doing whatever. There's just not being paid to work, which is the thing I don't think people understand you've got to work a lot more than you're paid to work in a lot of businesses

including ours whether you're doing a lot of different shit but like so but these are all again we talk about this the writer's strike too these are over the minimums the deal with the studios is over the minimums the rich actors you see are so far over scale nothing in this deal will affect them at all so a thing to remember when you see rich successful people on the fucking picket lines is they're there in solidarity right they're striking in solidarity to help broke people they remember being like when they were first starting out in the business. I don't understand why that's so hard. Like the idea of like, I saw some people like, I think it was a Hannah Montana. What's her name? Miley Cyrus.

No, no, no, Lizzie McGuire. The girl played Lizzie McGuire. I can't think of her name right now. Hey, it's called Lizzie McGuire. Somebody quote tweeted a picture her like, these people are millionaires. Like, yes, she is. She's out there supporting other people. Right. It's like, why is it so foreign to people? Like Matt Damon, talking about the Hollywood media being so in the tank Hillary Duff was listening

Hillary Duff. There you go. So Deadline had to put up this correction because what they did was they had an interview with so the Offenheimer premiere in London was happening right when the strike

was called and the cast got up and walked out in the middle of the movie as soon as they found the strike was called because they're not supposed to do any promotional materials but they had an interview

with Matt Damon on the red carpet beforehand where he had a two-prong thought. The one was talking about how yes a strike would be disruptive his company he runs

of Ben Affleck has movies and production that's going to have to shut down. And he hopes it gets resolved quickly. Deadline cut it off there. It sounds like he's complaining about the strike. Then he goes on to say, if our leadership is saying that the deal isn't fair, that we've got to hold strong until we get a deal that's fair for working actors.

It's the difference between having health care and not for a lot of actors. We've got to do what's right by that. Solidarity. Like the studios have been on so much clown shit. I can't even describe to you. You walk through all the deal points, but like one of them It's just, was just funny to me. The Guild proposed replacing, like, their arbitrators put in,

that are voted on by the studios and the Guild to, like, resolved contract disputes. Some of them have died since the last ones were appointed. So SAG proposed replacing the dead arbitrators with alive ones, and the MTPT projected that proposal. They want to keep the dead people as arbitrators. Yeah. Like, so if you wonder why people are so,

fucking mad. It's like, and let's, we'll skip down a little bit, Matt, because we're running out of time. This headline, cartoonously evil Hollywood execs, they were missing an opportunity for bad PR. That's what the, the Lose Their Homes quote, Matt Trey was talking about. Some anonymous member of the AMPTP, which is the group that negotiates in behalf of the studios, told a reporter that movie executives plan on negotiation was to, quote, let it bleed out until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses. Mass evictions are a cruel but necessary evil. They think studios and streamers

think next to financially strapped writers would go to the WGA leadership and demand. They restart talks for what could be a very cold Christmas. Their PR strategies to remove Christmas. They backtracked on that. They came out, the AMPTP came out the next day with the statement saying this person doesn't speak for us because what they said was a violation of labor law.

You're required to negotiate in good faith. You can't walk away from the table because you want to bleed somebody out at a That's against the fucking law, which brings us to this beautiful video from Hellboy, Claymore, from Sons of Anarchy himself, Ron Perlman, if you got that, man. The one thing before I get off this, the motherfucker who said, we're going to keep this thing going until people start losing their houses and their apartments. Listen to me, motherfucker. there's a lot of ways to lose your house some of it is financial some of it is karma and some of it is just figuring out who the fuck said that and we know who said that and where he

fucking lives all right so i think he like uh i mean i've loved the energy uh i would not i'm not here i'm not on this thing telling anybody to firebomb anybody's house uh but there's a it sort of points out the asymmetry and like in like in like in like like economic violence. Like if you like force someone to be evicted by the depriving them of access to being able to work, that's just considered economics. Right. But if I build a killdozer and drive it through your house, that's a crime.

Yeah. Yeah. It's one of briefly touches on the AI thing, even though we've talked too long and ran out of time. One of the dystopian things we wanted to do was the studios were seeking the right to scan and use an actor's image quote for the rest of eternity in exchange for one day's pay. Right. That's so crazy, dude. I don't really know why.

These are background actors to start with, but they'll come for everybody else later. They scan people for video games already. Right. Yeah. So, like, yeah, they've scanned somebody to put for a background shot in a movie, and then after that, they can just put, digitally put that person into whatever scenario they want to forever after that.

It's why the latest season of Black Mirror had an episode in it that kind of predicted that, like shortly right before this came out, which is kind of classic Black Mirror, but yeah. Yeah, it's called Joan. is awful. It was great. My wife and I watched that because I saw people referencing it in regard to this shit. And it was really, really well done. But it also raised, it was a regular person who had a TV show made about them with their digital likeness. And I was like,

that'll be the next thing is we'll all, like, you click on your Netflix terms of service, you know, will be a soon render your life rates and body image and you won't have any control over it in case you later become involved in a true crime thing. But like, can you imagine, like, say you're young and hot and happy with your body and you see a casting call in New Jersey to come dance in the bottom of being on a soprano. right you do it for the 200 bucks you get scanned 40 years later you're watching a show with

your grandkids right become more conservative settle down you see your naked body 22 year old body dancing in the background of a thing it's like and you're like oh it's like the same thing people say about sending nudes or whatever well you shouldn't have done that yeah but people are 22 and they change their minds about shit later they also could like one of these background actors could eventually turn into matt damon or whatever whatever and now you've got an eight you own the digital likeness of a huge superstar so you could just put him into whatever project you want to and use that to sell tickets whatever and he has nothing to do with it you can make him fucking eat a poop sunday or whatever the hell you want

to do like that that's the uh that's the only thing that the only end game that sort of makes sense for them is because famously matt damon and ben affleck were both extras in field of dreams they would have had their body scans so 20 years later mad name is famous right he sees a movie coming out starring matt dam that he wasn't actually fucking in so like that he didn't get for. So, like, this it's fucking ridiculous. It's stupid. It's sick. I don't know how long it's going to go because it feels Sicilian, but I know that

all these strikes have to win. Because going back to the Apple exec saying people are setting a bad example, i.e. a good example for being able to change life through labor actions. Clearly, people are dying in fucking iPhone factories. These strikes have to win. Otherwise, the press would be sent that this type of shit loses and everybody loses money

and all over allows get more fucking miserable. Yeah. I'd like to think that we're at like a turning point finally. We're at Bruce, Bruce, on YouTube says stay strong my union brothers but yeah i think that like people you know everything with income inequality and all the horse shit and the worsening uh you know housing and cost of living and all that and how the dollar don't go as far as it used to and wages haven't gone up and all that shit that they've been doing trickle-down lie and everything for years and years and years it's just i'd like to think it's finally reached a point where and maybe covid

pushed it over that you know the edge too where people just aren't going to put up with that shit anymore going forward, I hope. Because it can't get because if it continues going the other way then you're fucked dude. It's going to get purely distaffed. All this is like. Or we're going to have to eat them all, you know. Yeah. This isn't like

revolutionary. Like if the, if the guild had given the actors everything they wanted, it would have taken their payback to what they made in 2020. Right. None of this is like communist revolution. It's just asking for something a little more. Right. Charmed chaos says, appreciate the vibe. Stream support staff and patrons for making this.

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