wellRED podcast - ICE ICE baby and the freedom Flotilla

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

      Today Drew is joined by the incomparable Mark Agee (co-host of our sister podcast weekly Skews) and the fellers get just a tad political. Mark shares his “experience” living through the “war zone” known as Los Angeles during the ICE protests and you’ll have to listen to hear what exactly it is about Trump the boys completely disagree  on. Then we venture abroad to discuss Greta Thunberg, the freedom flotilla, and the role of PR stunts in stopping a genocide. Like Mexicans at a protest, this episode has fireworks.  See Corey in Sunnyvale, Fort Worth, Lexington, get a Cameo, etc We are thrilled to be sponsored today by Magic Mind.  Get 60% off the Magic Mind offer with our link anc code https://www.magicmind.com/wellred60 Promo code WELLRED60 #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion, because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

It's just like you can just, it makes it easier to lose count of, well, your count, the count every month, how much you're spending. A lot of people don't even know how much they spend on a per month basis. I'm not going to lie. I can be one of those people. Like, let me ask you right now. Skewers out, whatnot, sorry, well-read people. People across the ske universe, I should say.

Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year? Do you even know? Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery? Getting a paid chauffeur for your chicken low main? Because that's a thing that we do in this society. Do you know how much you spend on that? It's probably more than you think. But now there's an app designed to help you manage your money better.

And it's called Rocket. money. Rocket money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket money shows all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you already forgot about. If you see a subscription, you don't want any more, Rocket Money will help you cancel it. Their dashboard lays out your whole financial picture, including the due dates for all your bills and the pay days. In a way that's easier for you to digest, you can even automatically create custom budgets based on your past spending.

Rocket money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscription with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps. Premium features. I used Rocket Money and realized that I had apparently been paying for two different language learning services that I just wasn't using. So I was probably like, I should know Spanish. I'll learn Spanish. And I've just been paying to learn Spanish without practice.

practicing any Spanish for, you know, pertinent two years now or something like that. Also, a fun one I'd said it before, but I had a, I got an app, lovely little app where you could, you know, put your friends' faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that. So obviously I got, I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies, you know, those weren't a little like the cue ball looking twin fellas. Yeah. So that was that in response to? What was that reply I give for just when I did something stupid. Something fat and stupid. Something both fat and stupid. But anyway, that was money well spent at first, but then I quit using it and was still paying for

it and forgotten. If it wasn't for Rocket Money, I never would have even figured it out. So shout out to them. They help. If you're money dumb like me, Rocket Money can help. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com slash well read today that's rocket money.com slash well r e d rocketmoney.com slash well read and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. They're the. Hello everyone.

Welcome to the well red podcast. We don't have the show today. We don't have trade today. We have a very special guest. We'll get to that. But first, I don't think we have an intro song. So here's the intro song. We're the liberal red.

We like cornbread but sick We care too much But don't give a fuck We're the liberal rednecks That makes some people upset We got three big old dicks That you can suck Man

That's a great theme song That's fantastic buddy I love it Welcome to the web podcast Smart Mark Welcome also to Petty and Cash Studios Where I'm usually recording Gravy Baby

We have quite the well-read universe crossover for you guys today. We are down a show. We are down a tray. We are in the podcast home of Gravy Baby, my other podcast. And as a guest, we have Smart Mark from Trey's other, I guess we'll call it a video cast. Yeah, it's not a stream anymore if you don't do it live. But I finally got Trey to stop using that stupid nickname.

I'm going to beg you to stop using it too, please. Well, part of the reason I have to use it is It's funny, we are joined with Alex today Helping us from the studio and we appreciate him I'm usually here with Mark My quote-unquote regular producer And he is very jealous He genuinely gets a little upset

He's like, wait a minute, who? What? So I'll stop using it He can have it. He can have it Well, I've been calling him smarter, Mark, actually There you go, there you go, it's better I didn't think, I didn't really believe it until I found out how much money he made on his, quote-unquote, side hustle. He's way smarter than us, dude.

Welcome to the well-read show, Mark, just so you know, me and the boys. Generally speaking, I haven't done, I guess, the news in a while, honestly since Trey started skews with you. But I am foaming out the mouth to talk to you about it. I'm sorry if that brings you down. I thought about trying to be more like Trey and just ripping whatever, like, the top thing on Reddit was and asking you over. about it but the top thing on Reddit is what I'm gonna ask you about I have two things on

my heart and one of them let's start you're in LA right you are in the valley but you're in Los Angeles yeah yeah but I'm I mean I'm sort of lost track last time I was able to figure out what was going on that protests were confined to a few blocks downtown around the federal courthouse and the intersection of like the 101 and I and and the 10 it spread a little Tokyo a little bit, but it's still like, it's 15 miles away from me. All right. This is like, this is sort of like, I got people expressing concern for me,

like yesterday and yesterday and over the weekend, like texting me and stuff. And it's like, I don't know how to explain to you. Like when the wildfire, I did say the same thing than when the wildfires. Right. In order for the fire, the closest fire to get to me, it'd have to go through like a gallery of mall. So if it gets to me to see. society has fallen.

Do you know what I'm saying? So I think it's like it's like it's like don't you not be concerned with me like it's like yeah in the movie this would be part of the montage at the very beginning of the movie and then they would cut to three weeks later and you'd be like pouring blood out of your eyes full zombie mode on top of the gallery of mall roof with a rocket launcher. Yeah. Yeah I mean like I guess you're playing I don't know like a fighting house to house urban combat like Mosul style. I'll only take the 700 Marines to get to,

uh, get to, uh, get to Ocora Hills where I'm at, you think. Well, since they're all really tired because they don't have decent quarters, decent merits to sleep in,

I think it's going to take them a while. Um, for people who don't know, uh, Mark is a writer and a comedian. He's also a former journalist. And as such, I always appreciate this.

He is a fact checking and fact giving machine. But sometimes, like if you're bullshit on a podcast, it can't get in the way of me trying to just ask him how the vibe is. And he's like, literally, I can't tell you. I don't know. Like, existentially, I'm no closer than you are, Drew. I might as well be into the name.

Comes to the quote-unquote L.A. right. So if you go, like, so there are like live feeds of the protest you can go watch on YouTube where mostly nothing is happening. Right? It's people standing around singing songs. There's literally a hot dog vendors at the protest, right? guys like America right and then when you see edited clips you see

Waymo's burning and people throwing rocks and shooting fireworks to the cops right and then you look at the news and like fuck dude I saw a couple of CNN earlier where Aaron Burnett like I'm not accusing her of like

of doing this on purpose I think she's just stupid and credulous okay but man I think I'd rather you can accuse me to doing something on purpose. Go ahead, though. She's holding 40mm rubber bullet rounds. As she looks in the camera and says

the protesters are firing these at cops, where would a civilian get rubber... I don't even know where you get rubber bullets. The cops are shooting at those of the protesters, which you might think that's good or bad or whatever. I personally think it's bad, but it's definitely not true that the protesters have access to fucking rubber bullets. That's so infuriating to me.

And I'd like not to just, like, do it this way, but during the BLM stuff, we got fired upon, Andy got hit with one of those. I mean, and it bumped her leg up, and it honestly like, it caused a lot of problems outside of that because that was the moment where her and her family had to really like have like a, oh, like, you, you're so on that side, you don't care that I got shot with a rubber bullet, you know?

Anyway, and I'll never forget for that as long as we're all alive. But it's so important to lie or to be that wrong. Right. And like you shouldn't send somebody to essentially be a war correspondent with the way they're treating her. She doesn't know what ammunition looks like. You know, like it's like this is where like people talk about the media is being liberal. It's like what you mean it's like closely a fat?

And that's different from being like progressive in any way to perform. She just doesn't know how guns work. Right. So. Yeah, man. I don't know. Like, it's like the people there was, you know, the out of context

clips of people shooting more, but I say more is, I mean the firewood mortars at, like, riot police. And I'm not sure, like, America's so big and so different culturally in different pockets. Like, other than most people speak English, Vermont and Southern California don't really have any

fucking thing in common, right? A thing I'm sure people realize here is that in Southern California, everyone has fireworks. constantly. I've only lived five places in my life, Buckingham, Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia, I went to college, Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, New York. So I don't have a framework of everywhere, but LA is the only place I've lived where fireworks get set off regularly for every occasion. I'm not just talking about July 4th or New Year's.

I mean, like the Dodgers win a big game. I'll throw it in there. Miami's the other place. We can talk about what the cultural overlap may be, but continue. Yeah, yeah. Certainly people fly in Mexican flags of protests. like, it's like, where is that's the one flag? You told you about Miami, every time I see any event in Miami, there's Puerto Rican pride flags and Cuban flags, right? Yeah, but apparently, if you apparently fly to a Mexican flag in Los Angeles and act before,

dude, I've seen so many fucking insane takes. The amount of people that think the history started like three weeks ago, like some fucking racist mega dip shit was like, you don't see the Irish and the Italians rioting. I'm like, well, not since like 2006, maybe, but are you seriously sitting here? like the Irish have never engaged in violent political resistance? Is that really the position?

It's the greatest thing about them. Right. And not even just there. The draft riots and civil war is burned down New York. And if you look at their food, you look how they dance, much to my chagrin, if you listen to their rap music, they're not great at stuff. But man, the Irish, my people are really, really, really good

at violence, aimed at the people who deserve it, in my opinion. Yeah, nice side swapping kneecap here. And so this, Drew is alluding to a conversation we had about who wished kneecap were better rapping because he really supports everything else about them. Oh, they know about it, dude.

I've been bringing it up. They're well over here. I've been trying to do it in just a bit. Most people don't even know who kneecap is. Except for the kids and the kids, they're like, what's this old guy even talking about? It's really great. I love it.

Well, yeah, everything about this is and will just remain, I think, mostly infuriating in terms of, how the media portrays it, how the public receive it. One thing that I think is interesting, I don't, I'm not saying immediately, and I'm not saying my parents' generation. You cannot convince me that over time,

if dudes with abs, a lot of them have abs, and that helps, it comes to what I'm about to say, if dudes with abs are on top of cop cars shooting at riot police with fireworks, eventually the youth are going to be like, ah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty, it's pretty, those dudes are pretty rad. Yeah, like, I can't figure out, like, something I've realized is, like,

I just fundamentally don't, when they don't, fundamentally don't get about, like, the average person, or everybody just works differently at them, is I'm not as offended or thrown off by chaos as they seem to be. I like, at all. Like, yeah, like, they see pictures of, like, got people running around in the streets waving flags, The average person is like,

somebody ought to stop that. I'm like, what? I don't understand. Like, what are you? What does it bother you? Especially if you are much more than 15 miles away. I mean, that's the other thing about this too. And, you know, I have a bit about this when it comes to Portland. That is, you know,

that went viral a few years ago. Trey has a similar concept on his new special. it's like are we pussies out here on the coast or is it the most dangerous place in America you have to pick one Fox News and my father-in-law and everyone

like it literally can't be both it can't be just full of the biggest most defeat afraid of their own shadow gluten intolerant complaining about the son whatever liberal you want to describe and then also a war zone full of anarchists

who have one of the other dude it's got to be I think the way they'd frame it is that the the coastal Caucasian libs in charge of soft pussies and therefore the streets have been taken over by Mexican gangs

right but even then like which which group are the cops trampling people with horses yeah and also if that were true how would it last this long in terms of they're not being a tip in the balance one way or the other?

I could see that dynamic playing out for like a year, but eventually if the people in charge didn't get the people in the streets who you're saying are chaotic and out of control to heal, they would take over. It's just

it's just, it's funked out our worded. How is a state full of farmers markets that has the, if it was its own country, would it be the eighth largest economy in the world? I thought it was seventh. Who passed us?

I don't, maybe just say, it's one of those. It's the top eight. Bigger than France last time I saw, right? Also, is a hellhole where nothing functions. It's very weird to me. Like, I'm not saying California's perfect. Like, if I had a magic wand,

I could, there's like 10 things that could fix it off the top of my head. But what it's not is like, it's not some fucking, it's not like, you know, whatever people's mental, image of like Haiti is or whatever. It's not that.

It's such a weird place in time to be alive. Yeah. It's so, it's been a weird place in time to be alive since at least 2020, probably 2019. A, you know, before that,

but like, that's really, it's been insane. We all, like, if we found out this was, this is a simulation, I'm going to be so furious.

Like, there's a real dickhead fucking with me right now. We can sort of move on to another political topic if you want, if you don't mind.

I guess before we do, let me say this and I'll get your response to I don't want to like say my big opinion and then move on. I know that a lot of folks listening have listened to Well Red for a long time

and a lot of you kind of miss that we don't do politics as much. This is me. I'm not speaking for Tray and Corey and I'm certainly not speaking for my guest. I'll let him do. that. I think one takeaway for the people

listening right now here. Obviously, Donald Trump is I mean, he's not just flirting with fascism. I mean, this guy is trying everything he can in his power to do it without being called out in a major way. And I think you're all

aware of that. But please stop. If nothing else for me, just don't do it publicly anymore. Please stop talking about what he can and can't do. Because the whole point of raising the F word, fascism. The whole point of like sounding the alarm

that it's scary and we need to actually do something. What you're saying when you say that is hey, there's a guy who doesn't care about the rules. So when all of you are gathered around your keyboard saying I looked it up, he's not allowed to do this. Okay, but

literally the whole point of the conversation we're trying to have right now is he doesn't care. So stop saying. Stop fucking saying it was a foul. ref. The ref is on the take. He plays for the other team. He does not give a fuck.

Move on to whatever your next move is, whether that be, protect your family, or get in the street yourself, or fucking do drugs and ignore what's going on. But stop telling me this guy's breaking the rules. That is why

we're talking about it. We know. It's why we're in the room right now together. Sorry, go ahead, Mark. Well, I mean, if you think, like, I'm not like, I won't totally let go of that critique because, uh, like,

maybe it's just one. Like, one, he has been, he's lost like 73% of his court cases and they are abiding by most of the ruling. Not because Trump gives a shit. Because there are people who work for him

are going to be alive after he's gone. You don't want to fucking, when the court comes back and says, actually you can't do that. They go to him and be like, ah, court ruled against us. We probably shouldn't do that.

And he probably loses, but they don't want to, like, You ever seen, there's a TV series a couple years ago, Julia Roberts was in it called Gaslit. You ever seen it? You know what I'm talking about? It's about Watergate.

And at the end, the White House attorney who flipped on Nixon camera's name. But anyway, they're all standing around in prison. Caden Oswald's in two, plays one of them, about Nixon's henchmen, and they're sitting around a white-collar prison. They look up in a billboard with Richard Nixon's face. and had an Oswald's character

he's like oh he's gonna get him you know tricky dick he's got that one up his sleeve and uh the main guy he's like do you guys not get it we're Nixon fucking idiots it was us we did the shit he's just the guy on the billboard and like I think about that like those guys do have to worry about going to prison even if Donald Trump's going to die a super corrupt billionaire at all you know what I'm saying

I do yeah I do I just um all right everyone, Mark's wrong. Let's go. No, I think it's I might have I think it's a little

dangerous when you're fighting so underhanded as we are right now to wrap yourself in the Constitution because the reason we're having

this conversation is that he's trying everything he can to get around it. Now, I respect what you're saying truly let's not stop with those critiques. That I get, I guess for me, I'm really saying, let's let go with the fact that it's enough to point it out.

Let's let go of the notion that there's somebody going to do something. Well, not if we don't win the next election. Well, not it, you know what I mean? No one's going to do anything about it unless, you know, we make them. In my opinion. If you're saying, like, open your mind, shift your personal over to the window to be a little more tolerant of violent

resistance, I'm with you there. Right. But I, like, that's why I'll be like, I don't really care that in the middle of a mass protest about four-year-olds being kidnapped off school playgrounds, I don't really care if somebody throws a rock in the middle of it.

You know what I'm saying? No, I do. You should be doing it if you're out there. And if you can't, you know, You can't do that because of like, you can't go to jail because you've got a kid or whatever. That's fine.

But like, no. I think in some sense we're on the same page, except maybe there's a slight difference. I genuinely think it's dangerous to assume that those guys are worried about that. Those guys you're talking about. Now, I'm not saying those guys shouldn't be worried about that. I'm not saying those guys won't potentially face the consequences of what's going on right now. I'm saying I don't think they currently believe it. and we're in a scary situation because of it.

Could I point out one specific thing that happened? Oh, sorry, we're out of time. We're here. I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. There's a, so when Trump deployed the 200 National Guard guys on Sunday or whatever, he did not use the Intersection Act. He used some sort of some other different federal law that allows the president to federalize the national guards

specifically to guard federal buildings. And that's what they did. Like I'm saying, I'm saying they're not, they're trying to find. loopholes and a lot of laws. But what they're not doing is, in some respects, is completely violated. Like, it's a little bit clever by half. I'm sure they were hoping

somebody would shoot at the National Guard people, whether it on federal grounds, then they'd violate the law and leave the federal building and fight back or whatever. But it didn't happen. I don't, I'm not sure what, to assume Trump has the other plan other than looking tough for the next 10 minutes, this is always a little bit, you know.

I agree with that. I do think, though, that the people you were talking about have a plan. I also want to remind everyone that up top I pointed out how paradoxically great and painful it is that Mark sticks to facts just so intense. It's really, really elucidates every situation to the point where by the end you're like, I don't even know what we were talking about. I agree with him. And I appreciate that as an attorney and a guy who loves facts.

We are going to move on, but we've come so close. to the halfway mark, I'm going to keep this going just a little bit. I know that you're not down there, you're not around, but I also know that you have friends, you got texts and all that. What is the vibe?

What are, like, compare it to when the Black Lives Matter protests were going on and cop cars are being set on fire in 2021? That was a, that was pure chaos. This is like TV telling me there's chaos

and there's not a lot. You know, like, like, it's like, I'm not sure how many people are in the streets around the federal building right now. I've seen pictures that look like maybe like 500.

I've seen pictures of like maybe like 50. So I don't fucking know. But those protests were all over. Let me give you, let me give an example of like what, of what fucking chaos 2020 was. Okay. I flipped past local news one time.

Even though I usually avoided. Local news is a fucking nightmares, especially here. And this lady is standing in front of a liquor store reporter. While the liquor store owner or a guy who works there is holding like a 22 target rifle in his left hand, his left hand, right hand over and near the trigger or anything. He's arguing with the guy who's trying to come in his store and he's telling him he can't come in. The news lady is yelling about this breathlessly. And inside it's not a great situation.

I meant that. Apparently what had happened was the store I thought the guy had been part of a group that like run into a boost mobile and jacked him on a bunch of. the cell phones. He thought they were coming to, like, grab liquor to store and run out. It's like, weird. What are you supposed to do for boost mobile? It's in the name. You're supposed to steal it and then go mobile. Run away. The report, because TV news reporters think they're deputy cops, right? There's a cop zoom in pass with lights and sirens on. And she flags him down.

The cop, whirts, creases up behind, jumps out the car. The guy was trying to go in the store. The customer runs away. The cop runs up and tackles the fucking store because he has a gun. while the reporter is yelling, no, no, you're getting the wrong guy because she's a deputy cop. And I'm like, what the fuck do any of you think you're doing?

The store is the only one of any self-control the situation. He's holding a gun. I would argue the customer was in control of his situation because he recognized his time for me to leave and then he got out of there. That's such a great story. Trying to piece together

what had happened. Yeah. It's like some influencer, this is happened in Van Nuys like where a place I live at a time with like a city and a half over, okay? So like a little, like a little suburban city over. For people who'd give a shit, I lived one city over from that and then Trey lived one

city over from that. And so some influencer in Van Nuys that announced on their Instagram there was going to be a BLM protest. Right. So the cops got their fucking dicks up, their blood up. the people who do you use the cover of like protests to do stuff like

Jack Boost Mobile. There's those people were already set in motion. So was the anxiety of the store owner with the gun. But somebody got a hold of an actual BLM organizer for which these protests don't have much organization, but that's another whole issue. But she was like, no, there's no protest in Van Nuys. What are you guys talking about?

The influencer's just doing it for clout. So no protest actually happened, but the cops zoomed around the streets. The reporter standing there and a guy's Jack and Boost Mobile. And there is nothing associated with BLM going on at all. Were they arresting the guys Jack and Boosting the Boostin Mobels? or were they letting it happen because they were afraid they needed to focus on the riot later?

They were on the hunt for the secret riot nobody could find while the guy was Jack and Boos Moe. God, I love that, dude. I love that. The day Andy got shot, and this was in the same time period in Venice, we walked through an area where a lot of looting was going on by people who had nothing to do with the protest.

And there were police there just kind of watching. And I saw that first, and I naively even cop-haged. you know super communist me was like god damn i don't know what we're about to get into but if they're just letting these guys these kids still all these shoes it must be gnarly over here and then you get over there and it was kind of like you said at least at first there was a lot of people

holding hands and singing songs and yeah the cops the cops want to looting that's i guess i think nobody like yeah between the la lapd and lea sheriffs department they have like some close to 100 people working public relations right they know out of control the media narrative they know the local news is going to be on their side they want you to get photos of the video of looting they'll stand there watch it happen they like they got caught in 2020 LAPD parking old cop cars that didn't run on the streets that were going to abandon so people would burn them and you would the newspaper yeah and speaking to that I know those self-driving cars got burned out there let me tell you guys right now let me tell you what's happening right now I you can you can tinfoil at me you mark or the audience, whoever, planets are, or whatever the fuck, however you pronounce this AI company that very much to, like, give them permission to read all of our information,

is chomping at the bit right now. And I, I 100% believe they're trying their best in any way that they can to make this worse and look worse than it is. And this fucking worm Gavin Newsom, who I know is right now, a big hero, because he got on TV instead of arrest me, like a big brave boy, That fucking worm is going to be in on it. You got two minutes to respond to that if you want to, Mark. Well, I hadn't thought about it.

We talked about, we recorded skews. The skews is dropping later. When is this going to drop? Who knows, brother. Okay. So we talked about the Waymo stuff. And the point people are freaking out about it. You've got to understand, like, the mainstream centrist,

damn pundits, who are a lot of whom, who worked for, like, the Obama administration, but now on the payroll of Silicon Valley companies, are really offended by the burning of the Waymo's, which is Google's Robotaxis, okay? You're going to see a speed run through the California State Legislature to give Waymo's like, like, there's going to be a Waymo person for an amendment. Oh, yeah.

They'll be voted to say. They'll deputize him, and now you've killed a cop. Well, the funny thing you thought, like, this is the part I hadn't thought about. So Waymo, like, they use cameras for a lot of their navigation. They've been called turning over footage from Waymo's. They're volunteering. footage to cops without warranted or whatever. Oh yeah. If the protest is burned him, it's because

they knew that, hey, those are going right to the cops, guys. Well, they summoned them to burn. The LAPD had asked them to turn off the app because they kept, the robots kept getting to show it up to be destroyed. I like, try me at his point, but I'm on a

stealing from him. Like, there is no more victimless of a crime, even a property crime, than burning a car that belongs to nobody except Google. Yeah. It is in every sense the right thing to do. Well, I think it's probably a nothing thing to do, but I can't only get mad about it. 100% it's morally correct, Mark. I'm going to tell my little Waymo story. This is my only personal Waymo story. And then we're going to go to break. And it's 100% the morally correct thing to do. And I stand by that. That is a pure evil company doing a pure evil thing. At best, at best, they're at best, they're going to repeat. placed all our taxi drivers and make them homeless. But I was in San Francisco, party with my buddy Pierre.

And at some point, we were at this DJ or whatever. And Pierre just starts like railing what I thought was Coke beside me. And I was like, what that? What's that? You know? And he goes, oh, it's ketamine. I was like, fuck, I like ketamine. So that took me a little bump, right?

I was like, who's your buddy? He goes, I don't know. I just met this guy. I was like, what the fuck? And by the way, that is what it's like when you party with super smart, rich, like San Francisco tech people who are not on like the policy, make the business. It's like, I don't know, I make robots. They are highly functional and sane people and try not to party with them unless you want to have two grade of a night. So now we're blessed on ketamine and we've been drinking.

We're getting this Tesla. and he's like, don't worry about it. And he puts self-driving mode on. Now, you've got to understand, I'm out of my mind this time. I'm already like, what the fuck have I gotten it? What is Appalachian Drew doing right now? I'm about to go from San Francisco to Oakland. It's a 30-minute drive at night without traffic.

And this cell driving Tesla is what I'm trusting. Now, this is pre-Earman A. Elon Musk, but I already hated it. I've hated him from a jump. You can go back. I've already hated him. I'm like, this is, fuck this. And then fast forward five minutes,

I guess the alcohol took over. My ass fall asleep. I'm just sleeping in this self-driving car, which is in and of itself some sort of dystopian nightmare. And I guess Pierre got lonely or whatever. He just smacks me on my chest. And I come up, and I'm like, what? He goes, look, and I turn,

and there's three Waymo cars following each other, doing some sort of training, where the lead car is driving with this camera and the bat two are literally mocking its moves. Nothing has ever scared me more in my lives than to wake up from a ketamine-induced coma, not really be sure where we are. My drug friend say, look over here

and there's three self-driving, there's driverless cars next to me. It really looked like I'd conjured something up in the minority report sense. I almost vomited into the car. They don't have a self-grain. Yeah.

I'm not really... I get the idea behind like, in theory, if every car was a robot car, it would pretty much load a car accident, right? I get the idea. If they work.

They don't really work that great. So instead, what you have, what you have them do is be confused by human drivers and then crashing into shit. And giving ketamine people nightmares.

I mean, if Pierre had been in the state I was in, he had to woke up and swerved, just Tesla into it. And then we both died. We're going to go to break on that very, very positive note.

We will be right back after you hear from me, letting you hear from our sponsors. What's up, everybody? It is springtime, fresh air, sunshine, allergies if you got them, and you live in the South like me, but also, it's good food time. That's what springtime is all about. As we go into summer, even better time for cookouts. Well, we're here to tell you today about Hello Fresh, making it. easier to fit quick, home-cooked meals into your schedule every week by curating delicious

recipes like pasta primavera or chicken d'ijon or pecan-crusted trout, as well as over 100 seasonal snacks, sides, and treats. Every hello-fresh meal uses high-quality ingredients, including seasonal fresh produce and proteins that travel from the farm to your doorstep. We have flexible delivery times. You can pause or skip when you need. It is very affordable, but more important, I think, than that, it is convenient without compromising on taste, health, or homemade quality. The new ready meals offer chef-crafted flavorful dishes that are ready in just three minutes so you can dig in and then get outside and get your work done or just have some meat time.

As you guys know, Trey usually does the Hello Fresh spots because he and Katie have been fans and customers for many years. But what you may or may not know or remember that I like to do Hello Fresh and I like to variant i like to do their other meal plans their alternative ones they got one that's high protein when your boy's bulking i like to get in on that uh they also have a vegetarian one am i a vegetarian no but i like to pretend i am one for a week sometimes i want to know what it feels like to be the man my father accuses me of being so i eat nothing but vegetables for a week and i pray to the buddha anyway point is it's time for you to feel great with meals that fit your spring

schedule and make this season even more delicious you can go to Hellofresh.com slash well-read 10 FM. That's W-E-L-L-R-E-D, the number one-zero F-M-M, stands for free meals, to get 10 free meals with a free item for life. One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as a discount on first box to new subscribers only, and it varies by plan. Today we are also sponsored, and I'm actually genuinely excited to tell you all about

this, by Maddo. Magic Mind. You can get a 60% off discount with Magic Mine with our link. I will put it in the description. That is at magicmind.com slash well-read 60. You can use the code well-read 60. Now, what is Magic Mind? You may be asking yourself, how much do you rely on caffeine? If you're like me, all the time. If you're like my wife, it's kind of a joke at this point. I mean, I know everyone hates those. Don't talk to me until I've had my coffee, but I literally can't stand her until she gets it into her body. I know all of you out there probably somewhere in between, whether you're going to work, you've got the kids, I got my podcast, whatever you're doing.

I probably tried every energy booster out there. I've definitely done energy drinks. I've done green tea with my hippie wife. It claims to give you focus, and I guess some of them do. But recently, I tried magic mine because they set us a bunch of it, and I got to tell you, whatever they're telling you on that bottle, it's true. It's giving you focus. You're not crashing.

I guess I just always thought caffeine was caffeine. Like you spike and you crash, but I guess they figured it out. They put new tech into it. They've set two different types to us. They've sent it with caffeine and a lot of other nutrients and vitamins. You don't crash. It is an energy boost.

And then they also sent me one that was focused, and it said caffeine free on it. I got an energy boost out of that. The brand is called Magic Mine. They reached out a few weeks ago. They said, hey, if you try our shots, I think you're going to like them. And I said, listen, give me one with caffeine and one with that.

I want to do both. Because sometimes it's like three in the afternoon, and I need something without caffeine in it. They gave us both. I loved it. Generally. I tried every shot they have over the last week, and I got to tell you guys,

I like them all. My favorite one, though, is the caffeine-free one. So I think you guys should try it. Point being, oh, sorry, they wanted me to read this. Max has 160 milligrams of caffeine. Your boy only did that one once. I'm going to be honest with you. I heard colors talk, but Andy loves it.

If you're a caffeine freak, get on that. Okay? They got the regular one, and then they got the free, and I like that one in the afternoon. So right now you can get any and all that. Magic Mine is doing a limited time launch offer. You get 60% off your subscription with our link or QR code. That's a lot.

Okay, there's zero risk because they do offer a 100% percent money back guarantee no questions asked so if you're out there and you're drowning in your to-dos or whatever and you're running on fumes and coffee's either giving you a headache or making you crash this is the time to try something different try magic mine you can cancel any time full refund if it's not your vibe you better act fast because this will not last very long and to get 60% off i wanted to read it again that is magicmind dot com slash well-read 60 and or use the well-read 60 code at checkout. Thank you, Magic Mom, for sponsoring the podcast.

Thank you for sponsoring my focused afternoons. Man, I'm on one right now. That's why I'm so wangy, Mark. I just went before you, as we prepare to move on, I guess this news alert from the LA Times, okay, and they're trying to, what a deep bunk called the conspiracy theory of horsesick going on, your article's headlines, like, no, L.A. is not a war zone.

Eli, who can give your vibe here. one of the fact checks is like they're like actually LA County's 5-100 square miles yeah but one of them was just to give you the vibe of the horseshit like the exaggerated worst shit that's going on okay so there's a protest outside of a hotel in

Pasadena because ice agents are staying there and the rumor that the ice agents were actually harassing and rounding up the employees of the hotel which is apparently not happening and the reason given is like basically whether there's at the hotel. Yeah, we gotta leave them alone.

They're gonna clean our shit. We gotta get our rooms clean, guys. We think we're idiots? Yeah, it's like, okay, so is there an immigration problem, but not? There's not, you're fucking moron. Yeah. Dude, we're out here kidnapping fourth graders because fourth graders legally aren't allowed to fold a sheet.

We're not stupid. Okay? This third grader don't even know how to make fucking pizza or Chinese food. What kind of shitty Mexican is he? We got him out here. All right, the next very political topic I wanted to talk to you about is the Freedom Flotilla. For those of you don't know, maybe you're living under Iraq. There is a genocide going on.

You can look it up if you disagree with me. Go read about it and you won't. Going on in Israel, Israel is not allowing aid in. So 12 individuals, diplomats, influencers, one of which is Greta Thunberg, which is how she pronounces it, Got on a ship with aid to go and break the siege and deliver aid to the Palestinians because Israel's not letting them have any. Now, Mark, that was a minefield. I just walked you through. I don't expect you to comment on all of it. My first question to you, and I'll answer it too when you're done, just so we can all play, do you think this accomplishes much? And if so, what? And for those of you who may not know, they were aborted, captured, taken to Israel,

we'll get into what happened when they got there and then some of them were deported a few of them I think were kept we'll get into that I guess too do you think this accomplished much for the Palestinians and if so what so I think

Greta I saw an interview she gave but she landed back in Charles de Gaul in Paris she got sent to Paris I'm not sure where she's done right by accomplished much like I'm not sure the point of this like my favorite critique of this

was like, oh, it's just a publicity start. Are you telling me the protest was an attempt to get attention? That's crazy. And yes, they're getting Instagram followers and stuff, but I hear that criticism from Congress people who have fucking podcasts. So, like, what the hell are you talking about?

You can't do anything in the world without Clouton, 2025. Oh, it's so, it's so hollow. If I can just chime in there on that real quick, and then I'll let you go on. That critique comes from two places. One, a really sinister, just darned, bullshit like let me throw any critique at people just to try and stop this or it's just utter projection there's people who i will call out by name there's comedians i like who i've heard a

similar thing or make jokes on stage jordan jensen is someone i respect very much she did a thing like this tim dillon does it all the time where it's like uh these people are just doing this for attention and it's like just because that's your pathology just because you've had to go into a career in which you get validated by strangers every 30 seconds doesn't mean everyone is built like that and i'm not saying there's no ego to Greta Thunberg or any of these other people. I'm not saying that that ego doesn't exist at all. I am saying that, like you pointed out, the idea that we're doing this for attention. Yeah, that's exactly what we need right now because we're not soldiers.

So attention, this is how we fight. Sorry, go ahead. No, yeah. It's like, I always say it's sort of like, if they're doing something just to get attention, that's a fair criticism. But like Greta has like devoted her life through different forms of activism. I know. Like, it's been a decade.

Right. So like, you can disagree with her causes or whatever if you want, but like to think like, oh, she's only caring about starving children for class. I seriously doubt that's the case, especially when here's the thing, guys, being on the other side pays so much better. Oh, my God. If you're just wanting attention, buddy, I got a way to get it for you. This reminds me of a debate I was having with a comic about Angel Reese and Kaelin Clark.

he was feeling like Angel Reese was constantly comparing herself to Kaylin Clark and saying she was her what's the word antithesis no not antithesis nemesis and all that and he was like she's just doing that for attention it's pathetic blah blah blah and I was like look I agree that she's not as good as Caitlin Clark but she's not saying that in interviews for clout she believes it because she is a top athlete and that is how their brains work No one would go on TV and say that just for cloud because it's too embarrassing. And also the cloud she's got is getting her death threats. And wildly, this is similar. And I say wildly because I can't believe Angel Rees is getting as many death threats as Greta Toonberg, but she almost is.

It's like, oh, she did it for attention. Death threats? Is she getting death threats? And you're telling me no part of her wanting this? The only thing I wanted to add about, oh, go ahead. I was going to say I saw somebody earlier this WMBA analyst she does the NBA too I can't think of her

think of her name right now but she was talking about what a weird broadway this is and the for the analyst making this argument was a was couching very carefully and for context she's a black woman because there's a racial element to all this and someone crowed tweeted as they let me to translate this is like if there was a robbery

in the NBA between Steph Curry and Clay Capella right it's like the like the kind of like the racism, like, fucking Caitlin didn't do anything to court this. Neither did Angel. They just have a robbery going back to college where they just don't like each other.

Because Angel's team beat Caitlin's team in the National Championship game, the Final Four, I forget what a couple years ago, and they talked a lot of shit to each other. All that's in bounds. It's perfectly fine. Caitlin just happens to be much better at the game of basketball than Angel, which is also perfectly fine,

because Caitlin is one of the best women's basketball players of all time. She's not already, right? Right. Right. That was my buddy's point But I said to him I was like yeah I just think Angel doesn't know that

She shouldn't be You're not supposed to like Let the other person win Just because the world tells you That says they're better than you They're just supposed to fucking have an ego That's all fine Exactly

It's a stupid barstool fans Who get into sports Just to battle them And are mad at Angel For not making their parlay yet And if we're turning it into a race sport I'm imagining Um

Fans of Well Red right now who have been just clamoring for some politics for so long and loving that first segment and finally we're talking about heavy-year topics and then we move to Israel Palestine which a lot of them wanted us to avoid and now we're doing sports and they're just fucking they're just fuming right now

they're like well at least it's women. Wrecked, okay, but at least it's woke great. But yeah, it's just like this is like this is part of like the culture of verification of everything is politics. Yes, and that sucks and that's very sad. And on that note, to answer my own question, to me the best thing that this is done, and I'm very frustrated with most of the media for not leading with this, although I got some theories as to why they may not. But even some people who I think have been right in the past have, I think, missed an opportunity here.

Israel has been claiming for a long time that the reason aid is so slow is because of Hamas. Every, you know, at every turn, it's either Hamas intercepted it or we have to be really careful because Amas will do this and Hamas that. we cannot give food these people were starving because of Hamas one way or the other and then this free will go to the go out of all we'll give them food don't worry about it we'll take the risk

and then who stopped them Hamas right no wait sorry no Israel did and they kidnapped them and then they made them watch or they tried to make them watch a documentary about October 7th did you read about that no

so according to Greta when they got, you know, brought into Israel before they got deported. What they tried to do, and I think they even released that they did this, was they're like, all right, we're going to make you watch footage from October 7th. And the reason I'm laughing is Greta was like, no. And they didn't think of that. They didn't, they were like, oh, right, like, I can't torture her into, they didn't know what to do. So then they just said, she's refusing to.

you know, face the truth and all that stuff, which is hilarious to me because I'm like, well, I wish she would have watched it. So she could have come out and been like, and guess what? There were no babies, certainly not 40 of them. Yeah, I wanted to include, like, the Hannibal director of footage from the helicopters,

the machine gunning their own soldiers, so they couldn't be taken alive. So, real footage, everyone, look him up. Yeah. So, like, I just like, let's think my feelings about, like, I guess, it's all very complex until you start shooting children who are by themselves walking towards food. Right.

And like, to me, that's not very complicated situation at all. And my perspective, let's move morality for one for a second. Everybody, there are a bunch of people in power around the world who are behaving fairly self-destructively and stupidly, even for the merits of their own position out of a sense, out of a need to feel in charge. it's suspect my authority all the way down even if it damages your cause. If I'm in like the pitch meeting

where Shin Bet and Mossad or fucking talking to the prime minister or the defense minister or whatever, I'm like, guys, why are we picking a fight with a teen? Well, she's got in her 20s now. But like this young woman with millions of Instagram followers

whose goal if completed by our own, like the best thing in happen to us is we let her through and Hamas kills her. Right. What's the worst case? I guarantee you they talked about killing her and blaming it on Camas. Right. But like, they didn't even do that. They just boarded it. Did you see Trump's quote about it?

Marks. You don't even killing 20-year-olds and blaming your enemy anymore. Idiots? No, I'm saying like they, it's like they don't. What the hell happened to the massage? They used to be a respective institution who knew that. I'm saying like they're not even behaving. like they're like we're going to we're going to sink Greta Thunberg's boat. I'm like, why are you fucking saying

that out loud in the news, you stupid motherfuckers? But you can't do it now because you said you're going to do it. And also like, so the best case scenario if you're Israel, what happens is is Greta gets there and Hamas kills or to steal a food, right? Or

what's the worst case scenario for you? She delivers the amount of food that could be carried on that fucking half a yacht? What is the risk to do? I think what they were afraid of is she does that, and then she's called a hero, and she goes, everyone on there goes and says what they saw, and then other people will do it.

And then if they don't have a starved population, I mean, I think at some point or on some level, again, color me, whatever you want to color me, Tim Boyle or super left wing, at some point we have to understand there's a pathology to the Israeli leadership right now that is absolutely unhinged and divorced from anything reasonable when it comes to morality

and probably to some extent logic. And I think that explains the sort of thing. There are people in the Messiah right now who are you? And I don't mean you're like them, but I just mean they're going, what the fuck are we doing? But they're looking at a leadership who has some of the same goals as them, but is insane.

You know, this is like our version of this is Supreme Court justice with John Roberts being mad at Trump going like, dude, we're this fucking close to having everything we want. Why are you fucking this up for us? And weirdly, both here and there, that is our only hope at the moment,

in my opinion, is that there's just idiots. It's all the way down. They went to, like, they had, I actually read Project 2025 last year, and it's just truly frightening, but they had a well-corrigraphed plan laid out, destroy the regulatory state,

establish something approaching a permanent Republican majority, currently to control the courts, yada, yada, yada, outlaw abortion, give over the National Weather Service, all this shit. But it was like, later with the course of like to eight years.

Elon came in because he's born and high on drugs, tried to do it all like 15 minutes. Now they're trying to establish authoritarianism with federal police agencies that have like eight guys working there. And as he didn't know what he thought through any of this shit.

It's all like, it's like, that's why they're going to bring in the Marines is like we all we got rid of all the woke people at the FBI which turns out was most of them and now like we're trying to do we move the rest of the FBI people to ice now nobody works the FBI so who's going to investigate the people throwing rocks of the ice agency used to be FBI it's like it's not it's not a good plan well I mean the problem was that I share your joy in that they're incompetence but the issue is they're going to go yep and that's exactly why we had to get rid of habeas corpus We just can't try these people throwing rocks But we know they did it And so they're going to prison for 17 years And you guys just have to trust us And that takes you back to the point

I was making at the top of the hour Thank you for finally agree with me Mark Stop pointing at the rule book Because these people have a new book And but it took no I mean that's a joke but it is true to a certain extent That Project 2025 and Trump Like if you put them you know next to each other

You're like oh Trump's way better in a lot of ways than this because of his incompetence, because of his ego, because of all this stuff, but that, how much better should that make me feel, you know? Because eventually these people are ruthless,

don't you think they'll kill him? Yeah, I mean, in the early week, so did you follow, like, they arrested David Wyrte yesterday, who's the head of the service employees in the National Union, or one of the leaders of it? Yeah, we charge him with conspiracy, right?

Obstruction of federal law enforcement, I think it was a conspiracy to obstruct federal, which is, wilder. Yeah. So. For years, I think, is why they did it. But it, and also because they don't have to prove he did anything that day, just that he was planning to.

But it's much harder to prove. Sorry, go ahead. So I was trying to figure out, like, I saw different news reports saying he did vastly different things. One article said that he had parked his car in a way, they blocked like an ice vehicle. So this is, this is all in relation to an ice raids either at like a t-shirt, a clothing factory, a fast fashion factory or whatever where like immigrants are working

sewing t-shirts or whatever or the courthouse where they're rounding people up who were there for immigration hearings. The ice block in the car was one report I saw was at the fashion warehouse and the other one was like he was trying to interfering with ice trying to arrest people with the courthouse

or whatever but then like he got set free he got bailed pretty quickly like that right they charged him with that whatever the trades he knew up to six years in present where they charged him with But then the charging documents come out, the affidavit, and it says what he did was like bang on a fence. At the fact, that's what he's accused me. He was arrested for banging on a fence, which they said is an effort, which an effort to intimidate federal law enforcement, which sort of if you squint and are stupid.

But that definition, any sort of protest is an attempt to intimidate someone carrying out their official duties. Okay. But my point is like, he was already out and they're going to quietly drop the charges like that. They'll cost them money and lawyers, but the union will probably cover it. Unions all of the country were protesting yesterday. My point is, that's probably the best they can do for a while, but they're going to do a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah, they're going to intimidate and try to scare.

I mean, there's going to be a lot of people. We talked about this up top. I said some version of like, you know, unless you got like a kid like me, it's like, yeah, that's real shit. I mean, I don't know if that guy's got kids, but I know he has a life. and it is very scary to have the full weight and force of the government coming down upon you, even if you know in the back of your mind it's an incompetent buffoonery, because you could rot, as some people are right now, especially when it comes to ice, you can rot while you're waiting to prove all that.

I mean, that's a thing that people know, but don't really know emotionally or internalize about what I used to do. I used to tell this to people, like, part of the reason I had to get out of criminal law is there was never a good day. Ever. And you go, what do you mean? You never had a client who didn't do it and you get it not guilty? Absolutely.

But do you know how much his life was ruined? Now, we had a relief. Relieving day. We had some good tears. But like, do you know how many times the fucking wife lap? Do you know how many times the little boy stop talking because his dad was in jail and it scared him.

Also, if there was a victim of that crime and my guy didn't do it and I got him off, that means somebody got away with it. So my point is, to piggyback on yours, they are going to do that, and there's going to be an attempt to break people's spirits.

And it's true. It's true evil. And we can talk about them kidnapping fourth graders. We can talk about them rotting that father away. We can talk about all these things and people will just kind of go okay but that's you know it's not a lot right or it only happened

this one or well they're gonna that guy's got a day in court we're gonna try to get those fourth graders back right it's like even if we succeed we've already ruined these people's lives there's a person I think that I've heard among among lawyers it's called you can beat the rap

but you can't beat the ride right yep um so like I mean, the context of what you're talking about, ICE is purposely arresting, seizing people, they know they cannot legally deport, that have, like, no deportation orders, purely to hold them just because it ruins a chunk of their lives.

And it is quite literally what fascism is. And the fact of that part of this, like, there's a bunch of case law about this where the government has historically argued when it comes to immigration detention, that it's not for punishment. It sounds ridiculous, but the story makes a little bit of sense

because it's a process to do a thing. It's not about holding them to punish them because coming here undocumented is not against criminal law in most ways. It's a civil violation. It's like a trapping ticket. Right. And if people are wondering why the government

would argue that, it is because once you admit that you're doing something as punishment or for a criminal response, a set of rights kick in. even if you're not a citizen there are certain rights just by being accused that you have

and so it's really dark magic that frankly the very liberal government invented and now it's being used in the worst way possible man we've seen that play out too many times in my life yeah

yeah I mean it was a it was the Biden administration they gave Palantir the the way war contracts sorry the set of a contract another pedothio company Clearview AI that's using facial recognition for for immigration enforcement as already resulted in

people that are born in the United States being snatched up based on biometric data and facial recognition because the computer thinks all Mexicans look alike yeah the computer's racist dude yeah um yeah and then to piggyback off that I mean there's a lot of Bush era doctrine obviously when it comes to post 9-11 stuff but a lot of what Obama's administration did with that doctrine did provide the legal groundwork for what we're looking at now. And if it sounds like being esoteric, I'm not trying to be, I guess I can be a little bit more specific.

It's been a while since I've looked at this. But essentially, if Bush said, hey, we're doing Guantanamo Bay, fuck on. Obama said, hey, we're going to keep doing Guantanamo Bay, but don't worry, guys. It's just an administrative hearing that we got coming up. It's not crimes. This is, they don't look over here.

No, they don't have rights because habeas corpus only applies in a situation where you're accused of criminals. Again, it'll get convoluted and I'll fuck up. It's been a while since I looked at it. And now here we are. We are using that power. However you feel about it. That power that was created maybe in your mind to like get terrorists out of here or maybe to do something more. dark and racist and nefarious,

however you feel about it, that is now being used well, to kidnap line cooks and nine-year-olds. Yeah, because of the easiest to catch. You've got to get the numbers up. Yeah.

Yeah, because you're way behind Biden. I mean, and there's another thing, and I'm not even going to let Mark respond to this one if he has a counter-argument because fuck you, Mark. Another thing I want y'all to stop doing, liberals online,

is talking about how much better Biden was it deporting people. you fucking psychopaths. Mark, you got anything to plug? Nah, with the skews. Every Tuesdays. You know Mark on weekly skews

with our fearless leader, Trey Crowder. I finally have a show coming up to plug. I'm going to tappily get back on the road. More full force next year. But I will be at the Gypsy Circus Barrel House, which I know sounds like the chuckle fuck, Mark, but it is actually really cool brewery

with a huge back room. I'll be there in July 12th, 25th in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is my first headlining show in Knoxville in a few years. I expect you guys out. I have the link up on my Instagram profile. I'll be sharing it more and more over the next few weeks, making videos and posts and memes about it.

It's July 25th. Listen to Gravy Baby. Listen to putting on airs. I forgot the name of that show for a second. And thank you all for listening to The Well Red Show. I'm not going to sing the whole song. we gotta go that's it

bye everybody bye