 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo and this is episode 298 of the program. Today is Friday, July 9th and before we get started, we're going to take some time as we usually do to thank all of the folks who make the show possible. All of our newest Patreon, PayPal, YouTube and Twitch subs who signed up to support us just this last week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Aaron Washington, Alex J. Brady, Avo Biccato, Crazy Hawaiian and PA, Femininely Dragon, G. Watkins 19, Hector Rivera, Imagine Reason, Larry Miguel, Mad City Miss Kitty, Miquel Sad, Sandra Tihi, Tara Chapman and Wanda Meadows. So thank you so much to all of these kind souls. If you'd also like to support the show, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. This week on the program, we've got a great show planned for you. We'll talk about how India Walton's opponent went full Trump in an attempt to undermine her victory with pathetic attacks and an embarrassing writing campaign. Also, Nina Turner is inadvertently getting the Democratic Party to show their cards. Dennis Prager argues that global warming is good actually and we'll talk about that hot take. And speaking of hot takes, my pillow CEO, Mike Lindell, claims that Trump will be reinstated in August. And Trump supporters were hilariously trolled at a recent rally for the former president held in Ohio. The Supreme Court added another nail to the coffin of the Voting Rights Act and not many people seem to notice. So we'll talk about that. And finally, Iceland tested out a four day work week and we will discuss the results. That's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. Let's waste no time and get right to it, folks. Hope you enjoy the show. I wanna give you an update on Nina Turner's campaign. Early voting is coming up very soon. So if you live in the 11th congressional district of Ohio, make sure you are keeping track of dates and whatnot. But there's some good news and there's some bad news with regard to Nina Turner's campaign. The good news is that she continues to rack up endorsements, both locally and nationally. She was just endorsed by Ed Marquis. He tweeted out, there's only one climate champion in the race to represent Ohio's 11th congressional district. And it's Nina Turner. Our intersecting crises must be met with ambitious solutions. Nina Turner is the kind of progressive we need in Congress to get things done. Now that's the good news but the bad news is something that you're probably already aware of. Lobbyists, corporate lobbyists to be specific have declared an all out war on Nina Turner. And also the Democratic Party establishment is pulling out all the tricks to stop Nina Turner. Now, unfortunately for them, they're kind of backed into a corner because whenever the establishment takes really large steps to try to stop Nina Turner, they bring out someone like Hillary Clinton to endorse Nina Turner's opponent that backfires on them, right? Nina Turner ends up having a record breaking fundraising day. So on one hand, if they just sit back, then Nina Turner is going to cruise to victory. But on another hand, if they speak out and try to defeat Nina Turner, well, that is also going to help Nina Turner. But all of this, it really tells you what the Democratic Party prioritizes. Right now, there was a really limited window for Democrats nationally speaking to act and prove to everyone that they have what it takes and more specifically, prove to everyone that being more moderate, more incrementalist in your approach to politics is actually more feasible. But they're blowing all of that to focus on defeating Nina Turner. And I say that because they tried it out Hillary Clinton. That didn't work. And then they bring out another very big figure in the Democratic Party establishment politics who is usually the kingmaker. I'm of course talking about Jim Clyburn. And there's a really great article from Luke Savage of Jacobin who explains how this is Democrats, essentially inadvertently in a very roundabout way going mask off because they're telling you that they care more about defeating Nina Turner than actually accomplishing things in Congress right now as their window to act closes. So before we go any further, let's read what he has to say. Last week, Brown, Nina Turner's opponent, secured another high-profile endorsement from none other than Jim Clyburn, the third ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, a development that is striking for a number of reasons. As The New York Times noted in its reporting on the race, the congressman rarely intervenes in primary contests. In publicly justifying the move, Clyburn invoked his now familiar opposition to what he called the slogan nearing of the Democratic Party's left wing, citing as an example, among other things, the issue of Medicare for All. As Julia Rock and David Sorota of The Daily Post have observed, Clyburn actually cosponsored Medicare for All legislation when it was first introduced in 2017 before ultimately coming to vilify it a few years later. His stated reason was that the issue would hurt Democrats electorally, though it's hard not to think that the more than $1 million he's received in donations from Big Pharma, an amount that as of last year put him firmly ahead of other members of Congress, may have had something to do with it. As Rock and Sorota have pointed out, Medicare for All is incredibly popular in the district, which for almost 30 years, has elected lawmakers supportive of single-payer legislation. It's also become a hot button issue in the election courtesy of Turner herself, who has campaigned vigorously on the idea and run television spots in support of Medicare for All. For her part, Brown has been attending fundraisers put on by corporate interests, one of which was quite literally headlined by a registered lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which is part of a powerful alliance of special interests pouring money into a national effort to defeat Medicare for All. Following Hillary Clinton's endorsement of Sean Selle Brown, Turner's campaign raised an astonishing $100,000 in 24 hours, its best single-day haul to date, and a figure it reportedly matched more recently after Clyburn's intervention. It seems probable that Turner's momentum will carry her to victory on August 3rd in spite of the recent rearguard action undertaken by the Democratic establishment that such an effort is even happening in the first place, however, says a great deal about what tends to preoccupy the minds of those in the party leadership, absolutely none of which is good. So the Democratic Party establishment in short has dedicated a lot of time, energy, and resources into stopping Nina Turner. And they're doing this because they've long maintained that if you wanna be successful in politics, you can't be this sort of utopian who believes in unicorns and these pie-in-the-sky ideas. Sure, you want Medicare for All, but guess what? We want that long-term as well, but you can't just run on Medicare for All. You have to start more incrementally and slowly, but surely build up the momentum for Medicare for All. This is what they've argued, and they've used this as justification to elect more moderate Democrats because these moderates, they're actually pragmatic, they're more realistic, they're actually going to move us closer towards Medicare for All than these loud progressives who obnoxiously huff and puff about the need for Medicare for All, except this whole primary campaign is proving that this is all bullshit. They care more about defeating progressives than actually moving us closer to the goals that they purport to support. So I wanna share with you most of a paragraph from the same article because it is fascinating to me. So progressive policies, or so the line goes, might be all well and good, but will never attract the support or secure the votes in Congress necessary to become law. Ergo, it's better to support smaller, more incremental reforms over big and ambitious ones, and presumably, Democratic candidates synonymous with the former rather than the latter. There's a remarkably circular logic at work here. Progressive policies, we are ceaselessly told, will never pass because they lack the required support in Congress. A major reason they lack said support is that the Democratic establishment almost invariably defends right-leaning incumbents from progressive primary challenges and actively works to elect more conservative lawmakers, even in districts like Ohio's 11th, among the most solidly blue in the entire country. So what Luke Savage is getting at here, and there's a couple of tweets that I wanna share with you that he references in this article that really highlight this, is that for all of the screaming about why we need to elect moderates because they're more effective. They know how to legislate more effectively and they get things done. They're not doing that right now, and it seems as if one could argue, they're putting more energy into stopping insurgent campaigns like Nina Turner's from the left. And in a district like Ohio's 11th, that is very solidly Democratic Party-leaning, they don't have the usual excuse that they trot out in purple districts about how, well, you know what, in this district, you've gotta be more moderate because if you're not too moderate, then you're gonna turn off voters and the Republican is gonna win. That's not something that you have to really consider here. Once the primary is over for all intents and purposes, this election is over in the 11th Congressional District of Ohio, but now since they can't use Republicans as like this boogeyman, now they're just saying, well, look, it's the case that progressives, they're not as effective. People like Sean Tell Brown actually know how to legislate in a realistic way. But this tweet that Luke Savage shares, I think really puts everything into perspective in a perfect way. Democrats are almost certainly going to lose their house majority. Their top legislative priority, lowering prescription drug prices, which they've run on for six years, is on life support and party leadership is busy trying to big foot a special election in deep blue Ohio's 11th. Leadership successors, meanwhile, are busy launching a PAC to protect conservative and moderate incumbent Democrats, not from Republican challengers, but from progressive primary challengers. This is what the party is doing with its mandate to govern. And that last tweet references something that we talked about last week on the program, and that is Hakim Jeffries, who was in line to be the next Speaker of the House for Democrats, he launched a super PAC not to help Democrats who are running against Republicans, but to shield incumbent Democrats from progressive primary challengers. So Nina Turner's election, inadvertently, is forcing the Democratic Party establishment to go mask off and confirm what progressives have long suspected, progressives such as myself, that they care more about defeating progressives than they do Republicans. Because if you are in a position of leadership for you to launch a super PAC to stop Democrats from Democrats, that kind of gives away the game, does it not? Your number one priority, if you are in a position of leadership in theory should be to make sure that Democrats beat Republicans. This is what party leadership is literally supposed to do. That's their whole goal, right? That's the purpose of these individuals and the positions that they hold, but they're not doing that. They're worried about incumbent Democrats. So, you know, rather than proving that their theory of change has been correct by lowering prescription drug prices, not that all Democrats haven't tried, but most people see that these goals aren't likely going to pass. I mean, if they don't lower prescription drug prices, if they can't even lower the age of Medicare, then their whole reasoning for electing moderates over progressives is being undermined. But they don't care how bad it looks. The goal of many members of the Democratic Party's leadership is not to beat Republicans, but instead to be progressives. And they're showing their cards right here and people need to remember this. Because if you have a party that cares more about the next generation taking over than Republicans and the threat that they pose as a party, then that really says a lot. And it really gives people even more incentive to get active and take over this party before it's too late, before they drive it further into the ground. So last week on the show, we talked about India Walton's former Democratic Party primary opponent and how he was launching a sore loser right in campaign. I want to play a clip that is circulating and left the circles online because it shows him speaking about India Walton. And I'm of course referring to Byron Brown, her former opponent. And he's going to speak about her in a way that is very, we'll call it Trumpian. See for yourself. We are going on to the general election as a candidate for mayor and what people have been saying is right down Byron Brown. You know, we know the difference between socialism and democracy. We are going to fight for democracy in the city of Buffalo. The voters have said that they don't want an unqualified, inexperienced, radical socialist trying to learn on the job, on the backs of the residents of this community. We will not let it happen. I am a Democratic socialist. The first word in that is Democrat. Unqualified, inexperienced, radical socialist. Where have I heard that before? It's almost indistinguishable from the way that Donald Trump used to talk about the squad. But this is someone who is a member of the Democratic Party and he's talking about a Democratic socialist in that way. And as Benjamin Dixon points out via Twitter, how is this language any different than Trump talking about Obama? Dismissing India Walton as an inexperienced radical socialist. Mayor Byron Brown is literally his own version of the big lie, mounting a writing campaign against Sister Walton. And that's exactly it. The reason why he lost is twofold. First of all, India Walton mounted a very serious primary campaign against him and she just got out the vote more. She absolutely went to work canvassing, rallying people in Buffalo. And second of all, Byron didn't really run a campaign. He saw India Walton and he thought, hmm, I'm not gonna really run a primary challenge or primary campaign against my primary challenger because I don't view her as a threat. This isn't him saying this, but this is what happened. He did not really do much to campaign. He was a little bit too arrogant and now he's angry at the results that an insurgent candidate will be taking his job. And there's a reason why India Walton was victorious. Like, look at her platform. Let's look at just a couple of elements from her platform. So when it comes to public housing, she has a clear, concrete message with clear goals. She wants to sign a tenants bill of rights within the first 100 days and over the next couple of years, she's going to repair and redress the harm done to public housing and for the democratize the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. And yet he's saying that she's not democratic and that socialism isn't democratic. When it comes to climate change, she wants to create a comprehensive climate action plan in the first 100 days and convert Buffalo into a more sustainable community over the next couple of years and develop what I think looks like a small scale version of the Green New Deal, which is incredible. I wish that every single mayor across the country would do this. And those are just two of many highly detailed policies that she offered to voters. That's why they supported her. And look, in the event, the shoe were on the other foot and India Walton lost and then she mounted a writing campaign. We all know exactly what Byron would be saying. He'd be saying, well, look, this is really damaging to unity. We need to come together. Let's help the people of Buffalo help me win. But now he's not choosing to do that. He is launching an incredibly divisive writing campaign after he lost a Democratic Party primary that he took for granted because he thought that he was owed the votes of his constituents. He felt entitled to that scene and it caught up with him. So Byron, if you actually care about the people of Buffalo, like you say you do, you would stop with this incredibly embarrassing attempt to still win, you lost. And the writing campaign, support India Walton. If you're truly worried that she lacks experience and that she's not good for Buffalo, help her. You can get on board, help her campaign, help her win, be an advisor to her, although I don't think she'd want that given how poor of a sport you've been. But what you're doing is incredibly damaging and this is all about self-aggrandizement. You don't actually care about the people of Buffalo. If you did, you would have actually done things to help them and because you failed, they went with someone else. So listen, folks, this gives you all the more reason if you haven't already to support India Walton, you can go to indiewalton.com and send her a couple of bucks. If you live in Buffalo, sign up to support her campaign, phone bank and canvas for her. This is a heavily Democratic Party-leaning district so I'm not necessarily worried about the threat posed to her by the Republican but in the event Byron does go through with this writing campaign and it seems as if that is the case, you know, is he gonna split votes with her to the point where it leads the Republicans to win as an incumbent mayor? Can he actually mount a successful writing campaign? I'm inclined to say no, but we can't take this victory for granted. We absolutely have to put in the work if we want to see India Walton become elected and it's important for everyone across the country, even if you don't live in Buffalo to want to get her elected because her successes can create a blueprint for future socialists. So look, it's incredibly frustrating to see Democrats preach about unity for years and years and years and then the minute it becomes convenient, turn on that message and launch these writing campaigns that are just incredibly embarrassing. So we've got to support India Walton, we've got to have her back and let her know that the movement is there for her because she very clearly is someone who's helping us in the fight to change America. And you know, it starts in Buffalo, but what she does here can grow. So we've got to support India Walton, IndiaWalton.com. Back in 2013, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and I don't even think a lot of people realized what happened, but they did this again last week. They landed another nail in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act. And this time with a larger conservative majority. And now what's left is a husk of a piece of legislation that was one of the most important civil rights bills to ever be passed in our nation's history. And that's really worrying because the answer to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the For the People Act, all the momentum for that seems to have dissipated and now it just looks like millions of Americans have been disenfranchised and the Supreme Court is saying that's a-okay. So for more on this, we go to NPR's Nina Totenberg who explains, the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday gutted most of what remains of the Landmark Voting Rights Act. The court's decision while leaving some protections involving redistricting in place left close to a dead letter the law once hailed as the most effective civil rights legislation in the nation's history. The 6-3 vote was along ideological lines with just Samuel Alito writing the decision for the court's conservative majority and the liberals in angry dissent. At issue in the case were two Arizona laws, one banned the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a relative or caregiver and the other threw out any ballots cast in the wrong precinct. A federal appeals court struck down both provisions ruling that they had an unequal impact on minority voters and that there was no evidence of fraud that would have justified their use. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court reinstated the state laws declaring that unequal impact on minorities in this context was relatively minor that other states have similar laws and that states don't have to wait for fraud to occur before enacting laws to prevent it. Just because voting may be inconvenient for some, Alito wrote, doesn't mean that access to voting is unequal. In evaluating what the Voting Rights Act requires, said Alito, court should look to what the voting rules were in 1982 when the relevant provision of the law was enacted. Back then, he observed almost all voting was in person and on election day and the mere fact that there was some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote. So this is absolutely outrageous because in the majority opinion, Samuel Alito admits that these laws are inconvenient for some. And yes, they note that this specifically disadvantages voters of color, still doesn't disadvantage them enough and these states have a right to enact protections to prohibit fraud even if fraud isn't taking place because stopping potential fraud is more important than disadvantageing people, making it harder to vote. This is a joke. I mean, we need to shut down the Supreme Court until we can figure out what the hell is going on. This is judicial activism. Like, this is what conservatives have been screaming about. Remember when a birch fell, the Hodges was announced and you had individuals like Ted Cruz screaming about judicial activist judges. This is judicial activism. This is not something that they're arguing for based on, you know, the constitutional merit of this law. Like, this is literally just them being ideologs. That's all that this is. And I'm so sick of pretending like the Supreme Court is anything but that. It's a bunch of fucking ideologs. And it's unbelievable. I mean, I shouldn't say it's unbelievable because it is believable, but it's just, it's outrageous that we allow this to take place. Now, for a brief history on the Voting Rights Act and how it was gutted and what's left, because believe it or not, there still is an important provision within the Voting Rights Act that is necessary. It's section two, but I'll tell you why just that remaining in place isn't enough if, you know, what we're gonna read doesn't make that clear enough on its face. So the landmark law widely hailed as the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in the nation's history was reauthorized five times after its original passage in 1965. But for all practical purposes, all that is left of it now is the section banning vote dilution in redistricting based on race and the ban on intentional discrimination which generally applies to only the most egregious forms of discrimination. Eight years ago, the court, by a five to four majority gutted the law's key provision which until then required state and local governments with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get federal approval prior to making any changes in voting procedures. When that provision was struck down by the court in 2013, the only protections for voting rights that remained in the law were in section two. Though section two has largely been used to prevent minority vote dilution in redistricting, importantly, it does bar voting procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote. Though section two has largely been used to prevent minority vote dilution in redistricting, importantly, it does bar voting procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color. So the Arizona case was viewed as particularly important because it was the first time the court dealt with the claim of vote denial under section two and how to evaluate it. So section two remains, which is important. But since the Republican-led voter suppression efforts, irrespective of racialized outcomes, aren't explicitly racist in the text of the laws that they pass, well, doesn't apply. No section two protections here. It's just, it's so purposefully obtuse that it's offensive to me. So in order for a law to be unconstitutional, according to the Supreme Court, using their logic, it would have to specifically say we do not want black people to vote. But they're not going to say that in the text, but you can design a piece of legislation that will produce that outcome without explicitly saying it. That's what voter ID laws do. That's what reducing the number of polling stations in poor, disproportionately communities of color does. But the court is basically pretending to be oblivious to that. And I shouldn't even say that because they acknowledged that it makes voting inconvenient for some. But I mean, you know, not enough minority voters are affected by this. And again, the text doesn't say we don't want black people to vote. It doesn't matter that that's the outcome and that specifically like these laws are being designed to criminalize things that specifically drove turnout in 2020, it doesn't matter. They're just trying to prevent fraud and states have a right to do that. Voting Rights Act doesn't apply. Look, this is an attack on democracy and justices on the highest court in the land are complicit in that attack on democracy. If we don't pack the courts, which is not likely, then I don't know how democracy survives. And I'm not trying to be purposefully hyperbolic here, but that's literally my thinking. I don't know how democracy survives when the highest court in the land, green lights, voter suppression, that they know inconveniences, people of color in communities of color. How does democracy advance? I mean, democracy itself is a project. You're always supposed to be further consolidating democracy, making society more free and equitable and franchising more people every single election cycle. That's not what's happening. And the Supreme Court is saying, oh well, the states have a right to legislate against fraud, even if there is no fraud, even if what they're doing is hurting people of color. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Section two doesn't apply unless there's a law that says that they don't want black people and brown people to vote. Don't come back to us with this bullshit. It's explicitly anti-democratic. And these folks on the Supreme Court are nothing but ideologues and anybody who reads this should be furious. And if you read the dissenting opinion from Justice Elena Kagan, she's laying out a very, very clear case as to how these are unconstitutional. These laws, especially the one cited with Arizona, it's unconstitutional. And yet it doesn't matter. I mean, look at the things here that they're trying to ban. If you turn in your ballot in the wrong precinct, doesn't count. The obvious goal is to diminish voting power of minorities in this country. And the Supreme Court is pretending to not know the extent to which these voter suppression laws hurt communities of color and disenfranchise communities of color. And also they just don't care because the means justify the ends and they just want more Republicans in power. So this is what we can expect more of if Joe Biden doesn't have the spine to at least consider for a second stacking the Supreme Court, at least adding two more seats to make up for the two that Donald from Stoll and Republicans Stoll. Just fucking ridiculous. Like I'm exasperated reading this story. Because it's bullshit. So we've got a new study coming out of Iceland that confirms what I thought was pretty obvious already. And it basically concludes that there are a plethora of benefits to having a four-day work week. And to that I say, yeah, makes sense. Because if you allow people to have more time to live their lives, to travel, to spend time with their family, of course, if they have a better homework balance, their lives are going to be better and more fulfilling. So I love this study because I think that it further confirms that in the fight for worker rights, in the fight for unionization, we have to make a four-day work week equally important. Like we have to elevate the salience of this issue because it's not enough to have a living wage. It's also important to make sure that you're not being worked to death. You still have to be able to embrace the human part of life where you aren't waking up most days and going to a place that you usually hate. But let's get to the study. So as Mary Popinfuss of HuffPost reports, four-day work week trials in Iceland were deemed an overwhelming success by researchers in a new report. Worker well-being dramatically increased across a range of indicators from perceived stress and burnout to health and work-life balance, the report released Sunday stated. At the same time, productivity and service provision remained the same or improved across the majority of trial workplaces. Trials have shown that shortening working hours can have a powerful positive effect, the report concluded. The study conducted by the Association for Sustainable Democracy in Iceland and the UK-based Think Tank Autonomy studied 2,500 workers, about 1% of Iceland's working population in two major trials between 2015 and 2019. The trials not only aimed to improve work-life balance but also to maintain or increase productivity noted the report. There was no cut in pay for the reduced weeks of 35 to 36 hours a week. The trials included a variety of workplaces from traditional offices to preschools and hospitals in nine to five jobs as well as in non-traditional shifts. They were launched by Reykjavík City Council and the Icelandic national government in response to shorter workweek campaigns by unions and social organizations. The report also noted that 86% of Iceland's workers were now either working fewer hours or gaining the right to shorten their hours. The study could function as a blueprint for future trials in other countries the researchers noted. Yeah, so I mean, this is huge and it's not the first study to come to this conclusion. There was also a study out of Japan with a Microsoft facility, I believe, and it basically also stated that, yeah, there were a lot of benefits to decreasing the amount of workdays from five to four. Listen, we live in a society that is... We live in a society, folks. No, we live in a society where the culture encourages us to basically work ourselves to death. I mean, I'm sure you've had a conversation with someone who bragged about how hard of a worker they are and that's great. Like, I mean, valuing good work, that's a good thing, right? But on top of that, I think that we also have to normalize being human beings. If we work less, that's good, too. In fact, that's something that we should strive to do more of. I mean, we're such an overworked society. Maybe that's why all of us Americans are fucking pricks. Like, we have to be able to indulge a little bit. If we want to have a day where we sit back and we just fucking watch, you know, nine-to-day fiance, that's not a bad thing. If we want to play video games, if we want to travel, if we want to just enjoy life, that is a good thing. Sure, of course, working hard is important for human beings. No society is going to be devoid of work, even if we have some sort of socialist utopia. Obviously, work is an integral part of the human experience, but we have to find the right balance, folks, and five days a week is too much. It's too much. And you almost become robotic. Like, as someone who was working two part-time jobs, so basically full-time, and going to school, you eventually become so accustomed to it that you don't even think about, like, a vacation. You just kind of go through the motions and you just keep going and going and going, and you don't even take the time to think about what it might be like to have a day off. And we all kind of have been there. We've all been conditioned to think that this is a good thing. The fact that I'm working myself so hard is a really great thing. It's valuable. It speaks to, you know, me as a human being. I'm a hard worker. I'm a good person, whatever the fuck. It's just we can't keep having this mentality, folks. We can't. We need to actually allow ourselves the ability to thrive and working five days a week so that way the overwhelming majority of the days that we wake up, we're gonna have to go to a job that we fucking loathe with people we despise. That's just not healthy. If we wanna do art, if we wanna take walks, we should have more time to do that. We should be able to explore our creativities because human beings are on this rock for such a small amount of time. Such a small amount of time. And how much of that time are we completely miserable? How much of that time are we thinking, oh my God, I just wanna find another job because this job is really terrible. It makes me depressed. It stresses me out. The people who I work with are terrible. I mean, and then you get to that new job because thank God you found a new job and it's just more misery. I mean, to work is essentially to be miserable. It's not like even if you find a job that you like, everything is gonna be PGQ. The point is that we haven't allowed ourselves of setting a good balance between work and home life. And it's just work, work, work, work. And on the weekends we take that time off and by the time Monday hits we're barely even recovered and we have to shift our thinking because I think it's also a value to be able to take time off. It's something that we should strive for not only to have three or four day work weeks but to take vacations each year because again, folks, life is short. So we're not that far into summer yet but already there's a lot of cause for concern. I mean, here in the Pacific Northwest we just got over a record breaking heat wave where power cables were melting and some roads were literally buckling under the heat. And I wanna share this photograph taken from my mom's backyard. So as you can see, there's this tree and the bushes. It looks like they were hit with a flamethrower. I mean, all of this is the aftermath of multiple days of triple digit heat in an area where this isn't very common and let me remind you that it was less than a year ago when the Pacific Northwest also experienced insane wildfires where our air quality was literally hazardous as a result of said wildfires for multiple days. And I remember being indoors and not wanting to open the door at all but still regardless if you stayed inside you could smell the smoke through your home. So all of this in the Pacific Northwest is climate related but that's just what's happening here. If you zoom out and see the broader impact of climate change abroad the picture gets a lot more grim. Climate change is now cited as a likely cause for animals shrinking. Yes, you heard that correctly. I said shrinking, which is very likely going to push certain species towards extinction. Scientists in British Columbia attribute the death of approximately one billion title creatures to a climate-induced heat wave, ocean acidification and marine heat waves are killing off coral reefs at alarming rates. And just last week the Gulf of Mexico was on fire as a result of an underwater pipeline bursting. Climate change is destroying our planet. And yes, it is anthropogenic. It is being accelerated by human activity and just a hundred global corporations account for the overwhelming majority of greenhouse gas emissions. And I really want to put this in the perspective for people. This is our only home. Earth is the only habitable planet that human beings have access to. We're not going to be able to terraform Mars fast enough to save ourselves. We're not going to terraform Venus before we terraform Earth. We're not going to be able to find a different planet in some distant solar system. This is what we have. If we lose this planet, we lose everything. It's over for humanity and a lot of other species. So the time to act is long overdue. But yet, as all of the evidence is right in front of us, as we see the impact of climate change in our own lives now, you have fossil fuel funded ideologues on the right who are actually claiming, you know what? All of this that we're seeing, it's not that big of a deal. In fact, global warming is good actually because it saves lives. This is what Dennis Prager, right wing propagandist, said with a straight face on his radio show. And let's take a look and see what he has to say because he actually does maintain that climate change, global warming specifically, is good. Hey, Dennis, great, great observations. Your question, are they serious about tiny houses or men and the women's room or degrowth or depopulation? I had a conversation with a guy this weekend, an atheist who believes the world is overpopulated and I asked him that same question. Are you serious? Are you sincere? What is your level of commitment? Because if you're committed to degrowth and depopulation, you need to off yourself to show me that you're truly committed. And he laughed at me. They just want everyone else to live by these standards and they themselves will fly in jet planes, live in large houses and reproduce while their centralized command and control by intellectuals continues to be a failure. Well, that's Al Gore. You just described Al Gore with his, and a lot of these leading environmentalists flying in private jets using far more energy than anybody else. I happen not to care. If there's one piece I'd like you to read from the year 2021, it's Bjorn Lomborg's piece that just came out in the LA Times amazingly. No, no, USA Today amazingly. And how so many fewer people are dying because of climate than ever before. Because the great killer is cold, not heat. So global warming has actually been saving lives, but the left doesn't care about saving lives. They care about disrupting civilization because of the deep boredom in their soul that comes from the religionless lives that they were raised with. That's what it is. Give me purpose. I was raised with none. I'm sorry, but who listens to this? Dennis Prager nearly put himself to sleep with this dry partisan drivel. And he's saying things just nonchalantly that are deeply, deeply destructive. He's getting his viewers to think, oh, well, this global warming thing I keep hearing about actually it's good. So understand how conservatives keep moving the goalpost. At first they say climate change isn't real. Then they say it's real, but it's not man-made. Then they say, yeah, it's real, and it's probably man-made, but you know what, it's good. There's a reason why they keep moving the goalpost. It's because they're wrong. And what we saw there was not an argument. All Republicans do is they try to what aboutism everything, right? Or they try to hypocrisy burn people who are actually concerned with climate change or real issues. I mean, listen to what the caller said. He said he talked to an atheist who was concerned with overpopulation and he said that the atheist wasn't actually serious about overpopulation because he hadn't killed himself. Is this someone who we're supposed to take seriously? Dennis Prager didn't point out how idiotic that was. No, because Dennis Prager thinks that that's actually a really persuasive way to argue. What's this? You care about climate change? Oh, well, I see that you drive a car. I see that you ride in airplanes. Gotcha, you participate in society. Therefore you can critique society. Again, it's not like individual decision-making is what's going to change anything with regard to climate change when just a small handful of corporations are the ones who are driving this phenomenon. But still, the way that Republicans think about this and speak about this is incredibly, incredibly dangerous and irresponsible. And it's not because Dennis Prager actually believes that global warming is good because he would be a stupid person to believe that. He is funded by the fossil fuel industry. Therefore, his views have been corrupted by the fossil fuel industry. If you accept millions of dollars from fossil fuel oligarchs and oil barons, then yeah, that might have a little bit of an influence on your opinions as it relates to climate change. And then he adds in, the left doesn't care about saving lives. The person who thinks global warming is good says this. The left doesn't care about saving lives. They care about disrupting society because of the deep boredom in their soul. And notice the irony here. He talks about the boredom that the left feels as he's like almost asleep as he describes how global warming is good. What a fucking idiot. And he claims that the reason why we're bored and we have boredom in our souls is because we live religionless lives that we're raised with and to advocate for climate change and to want to basically disrupt society is our way of getting some sense of purpose. Okay, well, the same is true for you except substitute disrupting society with getting money because you're literally parroting the talking points of people who fund your program. So does the money give you purpose? I mean, I don't know what it is. I don't need to actually address motives. To me, that's a non sequitur here. The issue is that global warming is not good actually. Global warming is going to kill everyone. But old fucks like Dennis Prager, he's not gonna be around to see the worst of what climate change has to offer. His grandchildren, well, if he has any, all of the children who he's trying to indoctrinate now will and they'll realize once it's probably too late that everything that he's saying is a lie, but this is deeply harmful. To say that this destructive thing that we're desperately fighting against to save the species and many species, not just humans, is good, is so beyond the pale that nobody should take this lunatic seriously. You can tell he doesn't even take himself seriously because he almost put himself to sleep there. My pillow CEO, Mike Lindell, who is a close Trump ally and friend has previously stated that he believes or rather knows that Donald Trump will in fact be reinstated as president in the near future. And in a recent interview with some right wing news outlet, he purports to have more details about when Donald Trump will be reinstated. And he's also now claiming that many senators, Republican senators who lost will in fact be reinstated alongside Donald Trump. Take a look. By the time August 13th, the morning of August 13th, it'll be the talk of the world going, hurry up. Let's get this election pulled down. Let's write the right. Let's get these communists out that they're taking over that then you'll see. When I say that, and those people, what's gonna happen to all the people that were involved? I don't know right now. The biggest concern is getting this election pulled down. Donald Trump won? I mean, that's pretty simple. Okay, and there were many down ticket senators too that they did too and stuff, you'll find out. So not only will Donald Trump be president again come the morning of August 13th, but many Republican senators who lost illegitimately so because of the fraud will also be reinstated alongside Donald Trump. Now look, if we step back and we just watch that interview and assume it occurs in a vacuum, I think, man, I feel really bad for this individual. I hope that he seeks help because he's very clearly unwell. He's suffering from delusions of grandeur. The issue, however, is that Mike Lindell, the things that he says, they don't occur in a vacuum. These are things that are believed by the dominant faction within the Republican Party. So I can't just brush this aside and think, well, you know what, that's Mike Lindell being Mike Lindell. He sure is, you know, a crazy character, right? No, because these are lies that are believed by a substantial number of people in the Republican Party. Again, the dominant wing of the Republican Party and the individuals who propagate these delusions, they're also legitimized. It's not like, you know, this is some marginalized community within Trump circles. This is now becoming a common theme within Trump circles. If you look at any Trump rally and the interviews from them, CNN reporter, Donny O'Sullivan, attends them, it's basically widely believed by like 90 to 95% of Trump supporters that the election was stolen from him. And sure, it's not the best sample because people who attend Trump rallies in 2021, they're gonna be the biggest sick of fans, right? So maybe the average Trump supporter doesn't necessarily believe that he lost illegitimately so. But such a large portion of people believe this that now it's to the point where democracy is in danger because so many people have lost faith in the process. And there's a number of reasons why people can actually doubt American democracy for a number of reasons, right? Our electoral system, the electoral college, these are all valid reasons to argue that American democracy is weakened. But to just claim that Donald Trump lost on fraudulent grounds, that is something that is uniquely dangerous to democracy. And folks like Mike Lindell who propagate these lies are being propped up by Donald Trump, not necessarily because they're delusional but because they're loyal to Donald Trump. So in this faction within the Republican party, they don't gauge whether or not to promote someone based on how accurate they are in their reporting or the things that they say, it's all based on loyalty to Donald Trump. And so if you say batshit crazy things, if you perpetuate these lies about the election or you make false claims, then so long as you're loyal to Donald Trump, you're going to be propped up because that's what he's looking for. Now these lies peddled by Mike Lindell, they originate from the QAnon community. And an issue is that members of QAnon are being legitimized now. So as the Hill reports, Vice reports that two of the most influential QAnon figures, Jeffrey Peterson and his podcast co-host Shady Groove were approved for media credentials. This is at a Trump rally. We are the news now, Peterson wrote on his Telegram channel according to Vice. So these lies and people who spread these lies are being propped up as legitimate sources within the Trump community because they're saying things that Trump supporters who feel as if he did lose illegitimately or feel as if he won rather. However, they're phrasing this, you know, they're saying things that they want to hear. And so this is dangerous. So I don't think that you can just easily dismiss things like this, lies being spread by obviously crazy people like Mike Lindell as, you know, that just being one person because these things that are being said do not occur in a vacuum. When Mike Lindell communicates this message to thousands if not millions of people that actually lands, people believe him. People think after hearing him that, yes, it is the case that Trump will in fact be reinstated. It doesn't matter that Mike Lindell provided no evidence that this is the case and reinstating a president isn't a thing that you can find in the Constitution. But they hear him say something that they want to hear. And because of that, they're inclined to believe what he's saying because they can't fight through the cognitive dissonance that Donald Trump lost because he lost legitimately so because he mishandled a pandemic for a number of reasons. He lost, but they don't want to hear that. So they cling to people who tell them what they want to hear. And for that reason, this is how these types of lunatics get propped up in the Republican Party now. And when you have the dominant wing of an entire party in a two-party system, mind you, believe these things, you know, the entire party itself has to play in. And so, you know, there's a reason why, you know, Republican lawmakers, they really won't outright denounce the big lie. I mean, some do, right? But many of them will just brush it aside and it's deeply dangerous. Because now you have these folks clamoring for a coup thinking that that's the best way to restore democracy when in actuality, they're against democracy by definition because they want an authoritarian coup to take place. So look, these things are absolutely deeply dangerous. And I don't think that we should be so quick to just dismiss this as, you know, lunatics saying crazy things. You know, I've done this in the past with Alex Jones. I think, you know, what Alex Jones is crazy, nobody believes him. You know, it may be true that reasonable people don't believe him, but enough people believe him that it's dangerous and it affects democracy. It affects broader American politics. So these things have to be denounced. They should be, you know, on their face laughable. But that's not the climate that we're living in. And we have to deal with what's in front of us. And it is the case that we do absolutely have to denounce these lies. It's incumbent on us to tell people, no, Donald Trump is not going to be reinstated in August because I don't want them to get violent. I don't want them to, you know, believe the next lie that maybe he'll be reinstated in September because remember he was supposed to be reinstated back in March and that never happened. So inevitably when this date comes and goes, what are they gonna do? I mean, are these people finally going to acknowledge that they've been duped and people who are grifters are using them? I mean, maybe some will, right? But not all of them will. And we have to do everything in our power to bring these folks back to reality. If we have family members who have succumbed to this QAnon cult, we have to try to reason with them. It's really difficult because they're not going to trust me, you can't show them this video and say, look, this lie is stupid because this person on camera said it. That's not the way that it works. Like this is a trust-building process and it takes time to try to bring these people out of the delusions that they're feeling. And this is why we have to address this and continue to denounce it because it's not gonna go away anytime soon and it's not just that it's sad that these people are believing lies and delusions of grandeur. It's sad that this is impacting democracy. It doesn't just affect them. It affects all of America. TikTok star Walter Masterson attended a recent front rally in Ohio and I wanna share this with you one because it's incredibly entertaining because the way that he trolled them was just, it was flawless. It was effortless. But on top of that, I think it's important that we watch this because it serves as a really important lesson, particularly for people newly involved in politics. You have to at least try to ground your political beliefs in some political theory or if not that, then try to come up with some consistent set of standards and core principles that you try to abide by. Because if you don't, if the totality of your politics is all just reactionary, then you may end up looking foolish like this. They don't give Trump the credit for getting the vaccine out there and rushing it through the market, getting it in there and just like greasing the skids, right? Correct. Are you getting vaccinated? No. I have asthma. I'm at risk with that being said, it's my body, it's my choice. It's your body, your choice. But with that being said, my constitutional freedoms don't end where your political beliefs start, period, and end of story. What are you gonna do about this whole abortion thing? It needs to be abolished. Abortion needs to be abolished? Yes. So, on one hand, Donald Trump deserves credit for the COVID-19 vaccines, but on another hand, vaccines are bad and he's definitely not going to take the vaccine. Now, to me, at the beginning of the vaccine rollout, I thought it was actually important for Trump to get credit for the vaccine so that way vaccine-hazardant Republicans would be more likely to want to take it because if they think it came from Donald Trump, then they'll think that it's safer than what we already believe, right? But that's not necessarily the case. They seemingly hold contradictory views simultaneously because if you think that Donald Trump is a trustworthy figure, and nobody should believe this, but if you think Trump is trustworthy, then wouldn't you think that the vaccine that he's promoting is safe and Trump being the trustworthy figure that he is wouldn't intentionally promote something that he knew would harm his supporters? Well, it doesn't matter because in their mind, they're following just reactionary opinions that they have visceral responses that they have. Trump good, vaccine's bad. Now it's funny, the reason he cites as to why he won't get the vaccine is bodily autonomy. Look, bodily autonomy is integral to liberty in America, and so we have to make sure that people are able to make decisions about their own health. But when asked about abortion, you saw how he flipped on a dime. So it's really frustrating to watch this because this is someone who very obviously doesn't really subscribe to any consistent set of principles. It's all reactionary. It's all just, okay, this person is good, this person's bad, vaccines are bad, Trump's good, abortion bad, and that's it. It's scattershot. There's no underlying moral beliefs. There's no underlying policy prescriptions that he believes would help people. It's all just hot air. But he's not alone because there was this individual as well. Even socialized medicine? Fuck no, sorry for the language, but my philosophy is the government gets its hands on it, it's gonna get screwed up. And if the Democrats are the ones who have their hands on it, guess what, it's probably gonna be worse. I think instead of the socialized medicine, we should build communities throughout our nation built on mutual cooperation, mutual aid. I mean, listen, I had a friend of ours in our community. He got sick, he got leukemia. We all pooled together and made sure he saw the best doctors. So what's wrong with pooling our money together within the community to make sure we all see the best doctors? They think that the private sector wants nothing to do with the general public, they don't wanna waste the dollar. I mean, we always have to keep putting pressure on the private sector to take over where the government is going to fail. Yeah, now to be fair, that person didn't explicitly say that the socialized approach to healthcare described in a roundabout way by Walter was preferable. But I mean, still, you can see the contrast there. When you explain socialized healthcare to them in a way where you don't explicitly invoke socialism, they're more open to it. There's not this visceral response of fuck that when socialism is brought up. And of course, this aversion to socialism from Republicans, it's fueled by ignorance and a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism is in the first place. Because I mean, there are a lot of programs in America already that can be characterized as socialism, Social Security being one of them and it's a beloved program. But this really, it speaks to how easy it is to manipulate these people here. Because all you have to do is invoke the correct buzzword at the right time and you could get them to believe anything, right? So if you wanted this individual, I would argue to support single-payer healthcare. Well, you could say, did you hear that Nancy Pelosi said that single-payer healthcare is bad? Can you believe this? Millions of people are gonna die because Nancy Pelosi said single-payer is bad. I'd argue that that person most likely would say, oh, well, that's terrible. Single-payer healthcare is great. Because in their mind, they're not necessarily weighing the pros and cons of a single-payer healthcare system. They're just thinking, well, Nancy Pelosi bad. And since Nancy Pelosi said something else is bad, that's a double negative, it must be a positive. So I support single-payer. And again, this is why I say that you have to have a coherent theory to change, subscribe to a consistent set of political beliefs. Otherwise, things like this can happen to you. You can be taken advantage of. You can create your entire political identity by buzzwords and that's obviously terrible. Now, the next video, this is probably my favorite because Walter takes it to the next level and he only got two people in this part, but it gets so ridiculous, but again, it further proves the point that I'm trying to make here because Animal Crossing is invoked. Take a look. What do you think about George Soros and Nancy Pelosi designing the banking system for Animal Crossing? It's ridiculous, it shouldn't be done. Exactly, thank you. What do you think about Nancy Pelosi and George Soros? How they created the banking system in Animal Crossing? Well, there's comebacks. Quite clearly, there's comebacks, 100% absolutely. What do you think about the story that Nancy Pelosi and George Soros designed the banking system in Animal Crossing? I would absolutely believe it. They've all been behind it, man. Animal Crossing needs to be liberated, I'm telling you. Liberate Animal Crossing. Liberate Animal Crossing, man! Liberate Animal Crossing! Come on! Okay, so that last person definitely knew what Animal Crossing was and probably knew that Walter was trolling, but overall, you see, you can ask them the most ridiculous things. They still answered the questions based on the visceral reaction that they felt. Nancy Pelosi, bad. And it just goes to show you again, if you wanted to manipulate these people, if you wanted to grift off of these folks as many right-wingers do, it's so simple. If you wanted them to support something like free college, all you have to do is use the correct buzzwords and I think that you can get a large portion, if not most conservatives, to believe it. So say, for example, I want to convince my conservative cousin, who is a moron, to support free public college. All I have to do is say, can you believe that these critical race theorists like Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders in the squad all think that publicly funded college is a bad thing? And I think that you can easily dupe them into believing that public college is good by invoking the correct buzzwords. Now, the issue is that long-term, this is not a good strategy because I want people to believe that publicly funded education is a good thing, not because they think that bad people are against it. I want them, or is it against it or for it? Or against it, yeah, yeah. Either way, I want them to believe that free college is good because objectively speaking, this is the policy that would yield the best outcomes. I want them to believe it in a single pair, not because they think it's good only if Nancy Pelosi doesn't like it, but because it is objectively the good policy that would save lives. So after watching all three of these TikToks, what came to mind was this whole facts over feeling meme that is shared by people like Ben Shapiro, I believe he still has that pinned to his Twitter profile page. I mean, you conservatives are like the last people to talk about facts over feelings. What we just saw is all feelings over facts. To be a conservative is to be inherently reactionary and put emotion above everything else. Like your entire politics is driven by emotional responses to things that trigger them. Nancy Pelosi, critical race, theory, socialism, and that's not good. So look, overall, the lesson is that Republicans, Trump supporters, they don't stand for anything. And I think that we have to capitalize on this weakness and educate them. And we need to bring them to our side because it's a beautiful thing if we could change these people's hearts and minds, but if there's not a lot to work with to begin with, if you're not having to debunk political theories that they subscribe to, then our job isn't going to be that difficult. It's just a matter of trying to find a way to market left-wing ideals to them to get them to want to take the bait and then we educate them. But I mean, either way, like, this is embarrassing. Well, that's all that I've got for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you've made it this far, as usual, we're not gonna end the show without thanking the people who make this show possible. All of our Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members, you help us not just to survive, but thrive as well. And I truly can never vocalize just how appreciative I am of your support and patronage. So that is everything, folks. I hope you all had a phenomenal 4th of July. I feel like I had a pretty good 4th of July hangout. I hung out with family. I, you know, got drunk. And yeah, I mean, what more could you ask for? So if you want more human support, I'm rambling at this point. You can go to twitch.tv slash human support and I'm there every Thursday at 7 p.m. PST. I'm hosting dystopian times every Wednesday at 6 p.m. PST right here on the Human Support YouTube channel. Or if you are listening to this on iTunes or Spotify, you can find the dystopian times on our YouTube channel and coming soon means TV as well. So that's it, folks. I will see you all next week. Take care. My name is Mike Ferriero. I'm in support. Bye.