 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 311 of the program. Today is Friday, October 22nd and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of the folks who make the show possible. All of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Jan Weisbart, Christy Dano, Christopher A. Butler, Katz, Papa Doc and Tyler Poe. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals if you would also like to support the show and join the independent progressive media revolution. 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, we've got another jam-packed episode for you today. We will talk about how Joe Manchin got humiliated by an op-ed written by Bernie Sanders that was published by a West Virginian news outlet. Also, Ed Markey fires a warning shot at Joe Manchin letting him note that removing climate change from the Build Back Better Act will not be acceptable. Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman dismantle the media's framing around the reconciliation negotiations and will also look at a video about Joe Manchin that the people of West Virginia desperately need to see. Jon Stewart gives mainstream media a reality check when it comes to Donald Trump and democracy. Dennis Prager announces that he has COVID-19 and that he wanted to get it and actively tried to get infected with the virus. Yeah. And speaking of COVID, it's Kyrie Irving gets dunked on by Howard Stern and a Florida school is so anti-vax that they're requiring vaccinated students to quarantine for 30 days. Also in this episode, India Walton gets attacked by a Democrat again, and this time she's being compared to David Duke. Madison Cawthorne tells moms to raise their boys to be monsters. I wish that was hyperbole, but it's not. Timple thinks Squid Games is a critique of communism, even when it's very clearly not. And finally, we'll close the show by talking to 2022 congressional candidate from California's 26th congressional district, Daniel Wilson. He'll tell us about his campaign and why you should support him. That's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. Hopefully you enjoy what I have in store for you. Let's waste no time and get right to it. The Charleston Gazette Mail is a West Virginia news outlet that decided to publish an op-ed from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders titled Let's Stand Together to Protect Working Families. Now they also promoted said article via Twitter saying Senator Sanders says, we need every Democrat calls for Manchin to support the Build Back Better Build. So let me just pause for a moment and reflect on how awesome this is. Bernie Sanders had an op-ed published in Manchin's state. He's going into Manchin's home turf and he's calling out Joe Manchin. He's telling Joe Manchin's constituents about how he's not representing their interests. That is exactly what you need to do. This is perfect. Now in this op-ed, Bernie Sanders, he goes through and he explains specifically what is in the Build Back Better Act, why people need it, how this will benefit people in West Virginia. And he ends by saying this, we're going to read a couple of paragraphs. This reconciliation bill is being opposed by every Republican in Congress as well as the drug companies, the insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry and the billionaire class. This bill contains the status quo in which the very rich get richer while ordinary Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet. I believe that now is the time finally for Congress to stand up for working families and have the courage to take on the big money interests and wealthy campaign contributors who have so much power over the economic and political life of our country. Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for this legislation, yet the political problem we face is that in a 50-50 Senate, we need every Democratic Senator to vote yes. We now only have 48. Two Democratic Senators remain in opposition, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. In other words, dear people of West Virginia, this is your Senator. These are the policies that he is denying you. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to keep electing someone like this who very clearly is aligning with the wealthy campaign contributors? Because this is what Bernie Sanders is saying. He's calling out their corruption here. The people who are against this, they're doing so at the behest of their donors in the pharmaceutical industry and the fossil fuel industry. So Joe Manchin is very clearly taking a stand against you. These policies benefit you, a Medicare expansion, paid family leave, maternity leave. These are things that I know you want, but your Senator is denying you of these things. That's what Bernie Sanders is doing, and it's powerful. And you know it's powerful because Joe Manchin was absolutely furious. So he actually decided to quote, tweet the promotional post for the op-ed, which featured the quote from Bernie Sanders, and he attached his own statement, which reads, This isn't the first time an out-of-stater has tried to tell West Virginians what is best for them despite having no relationship to our state. Millions of jobs are open, supply chains are strained, and unavoidable inflation taxes are draining workers' hard-earned wages as the price of gasoline and groceries continues to climb. Oh, he's so concerned about workers. Senator Sanders' answer is to throw more money on an already overheated economy while 52 other senators have grave concerns about this approach. To be clear, again, Congress should proceed with caution on any additional spending, and I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs. No op-ed from a self-declared independent socialist is going to change that. He's coping so hard right now, and you love to see it. I mean, if you have to cite your agreement with Republicans, the anti-vax stopped the steel party to try to prove a point to your constituents after you've been embarrassed by someone who actually is fighting for them, you kind of know that you're on the losing side of the argument they're mansion. But Joe Manchin, he can't really respond to the substance of what Bernie Sanders is saying. If you read the op-ed, I'll link to it down below, it is mostly consisting of an explanation of what these policies are and how they will help Americans and the people of West Virginia. Joe Manchin isn't going line by line and trying to debunk what Bernie Sanders is saying. He's not saying, no, you don't actually need this Medicare expansion. No, you don't need this or that. He's just saying, oh, well, you're an out-of-state, or you don't know what we're dealing with. But that's not very persuasive. And Bernie Sanders is speaking to the substance here, and it's really hard to reason against Bernie's argument, considering that these policies are all extremely popular, as illustrated by the CBS News and You Gov poll. So he told Joe Manchin's constituents what's in the bill. It includes all of these things. They're incredibly popular. And now he put Joe Manchin in a position to where he has to say, yeah, I am actually denying you all of these wonderful things. It's great because Bernie Sanders, effectively, has backed Joe Manchin into a corner. And Joe Manchin can try to feign concern for his constituents. Oh, well, gasoline prices are up. But at the end of the day, these are things that they need. This isn't reckless spending. These are things that are vital. And they would help your constituents. And you are the one, single-handedly, who's denying it to them, along with Kirsten Sinema. So not single-handedly, but you're one of the two people who need to get on board. Bernie Sanders just called you out on your home turf. And no matter what you do, you can't look better after this situation. So I mean, you're not going to come out on top. The best thing that we can hope for is that the people of West Virginia acknowledge that they have a senator who's not looking out for them. They have two senators who couldn't care less about them. They're only representing their donors. And Bernie Sanders is educating them, showing them this is the reality of the situation. Joe Manchin isn't fighting for you. He's saying you can't have all of these things. It's not because he cares about the budget or the deficit or reckless spending. He's representing his donors. Bernie Sanders made that very clear. And now Joe Manchin is trying to save face, but he looks terrible and he should look terrible. His constituents should know that a corporate shill is their senator and he doesn't care about them. He cares about his donors. He cares about corporate America. On October 15th, the New York Times reported that the climate change provisions included in Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act would likely be removed in order to appease West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Now, if you're wondering what's the likelihood that this will actually happen, what's the likelihood that the White House would gut one of the core provisions from its own agenda? Well, very likely considering that White House staffers have already begun rewriting this legislation to exclude climate change. Now, it's worth noting that this isn't a panacea. It's not a Green New Deal. It's not the end all be all. In fact, I would argue that the climate change provisions in the Build Back Better Act are woefully inadequate. But it's better than nothing. It's the bare minimum. And if you can't even do that, then I don't even think this legislation is worth supporting. I mean, this is the one chance that we'll have, the last chance that we'll have, I should say, in a very long time to actually do anything meaningful as it relates to climate change. And if the White House is willing to bend over backwards to appease a modern day coal baron who rakes in $500,000 per year from the coal industry, then there's really no point to any of this. If you can't do the bare minimum, then if I'm a progressive in Congress, I'm gonna torpedo everything at this point. That's how mad I am about this. So thankfully, I'm not alone in my feelings because one senator has spoken out loudly about this at Marquis and he made it very clear. If this is in fact the case, I'm not gonna support it. No climate, no deal. So he wrote an op-ed in Common Dreams saying that he's gonna hold strong. And yes, him as well as other progressives will torpedo the entire proposal if climate change is not addressed. He writes, Four and five think these kinds of clean energy investments are important, especially in low income communities, communities of color and other communities that have borne the worst impacts of our climate crisis. Voters also support establishing a civilian climate core included in the Build Back Better Plan, a new transformational national service program that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and help communities across the nation respond to climate change and transition to a clean energy economy. Voters and younger voters in particular are calling on their leaders to support popular provisions of the Build Back Better Plan. The time is now for Congress to deliver on climate action with equity and justice at the center. We must prove to the American people and to the rest of the world that we are serious about climate action. This is the promise we make to the young people demanding such action and to our nation's workers whom we cannot and must not leave behind. No climate, no deal. Perfectly said. Now he also included a lot of figures and polls showing just how popular these policies are. These are all from data for progress. And I mean, this is what the American people want. So when you see all of this, why is it that the overwhelming majority of the American people don't get what they want? But in oligarch, like Joe Manchin, who's just operating on behalf of his donors, he gets what he wants. I mean, it's him versus the overwhelming majority of Americans. It shouldn't even be a question. Of course, he should bend to the will of the people and to the will of his party, quite frankly. And I've got to say, I really appreciate what Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders are doing in calling out Joe Manchin. But the thing is that it really would be nice if the president of the United States would come out for once and actually forcefully advocate for his own agenda. These are the things that Joe Biden ran on. So to just sit back and let everyone else do your work for you when you have the power of the presidency, you have your bully pulpit and you're not using it, it's frustrating because the president actually can make a difference. You can do a lot to persuade Joe Manchin, but Joe Biden has basically done next to nothing that's meaningful to actually persuade people in his party who are holdouts, Kirsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, this is his legacy. And it seems like Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey care more about this than Joe Biden does. So it's really frustrating because at this rate, nothing is going to get done because Manchin and Sinema, they're continuing to water it down more and more and more and more. And they're also delaying, which in and of itself is a tactic. Manchin just said that there's no way this is going to be finished by Halloween. It's just, it's going to take a lot more time. Why? Well, because people like him refuse to support it. They want to make changes to it. They want to water it down. So at first this was supposed to be done by the end of summer and then September and now it probably won't get done in October because of Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema when we don't have to keep doing what they want. You don't have to keep going along with these two folks in your party who is holding everyone back and holding the country back. In fact, there's multiple strategies that you can use to bring them onto your side and get them to support this legislation without actually giving them every single thing that they want. In fact, David Serota in an op-ed for Jacobin explained that there's one really powerful thing that Democrats can do to call their bluff. He writes, it's time for Democratic leaders to make Joe Manchin, Kirsten Sinema and every other senator vote and not on some gutted half measure but on a real $3.5 trillion bill. So what David Serota is arguing here is to have Democratic Party leadership call Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema's bluff, force them to go on the record and deny all of these things to their constituents. I mean, you don't want this on your record. You don't want to have to explain to a Democratic Party primary opponent why you voted against Universal Pre-K and an expansion of Medicaid and climate change legislation. You don't want to have to explain that. So if Democratic Party leadership really wanted to play hardball, there are several things that they can do. Namely, holding a vote on this to make Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin prove that they're really going to deny these things to their constituents, prove that they're that brazen. So David Serota lays out this argument and what he's saying makes sense. He argues the interminable delay of an up or down Senate vote on President Joe Biden's agenda serves no one other than Sinema, Manchin and their corporate donors who want the bill gutted or killed. Every day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stalls a vote on an already-scaled back $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Senate Democrats become more complicit in the betrayal of their party's campaign promises, the evisceration of the working class, and the destruction of the climate. If this is a grand game of poker, both Manchin and Sinema have so far played their hands masterfully, bluffing a $6 trillion proposal down to $4 trillion, then to $3.5 trillion, then down to $1.9 trillion and potentially on its way to two bucks and a used Casio wristwatch. Now they're doubling down on their strategies, expecting nobody in power to call and make them show their cards. But if Schumer and Biden and their party actually wants to pass a real reconciliation bill that isn't gutted, granted that's a big if, then they should remember that old adage about rigged games. The only winning move is not to play. One way to stop playing the game, Manchin, Sinema and their corporate sponsors are playing is to schedule a vote on a bill and to really up the ante, Democratic leaders should add a bunch of programs that will target aid and investment to West Virginia and Arizona. So this is what I think would actually make a difference. It's not a guarantee that this strategy will work, but simply giving Joe Manchin every single thing that he wants, that's not working out in your favor as well. Joe Manchin is not the president. So Joe Biden actually needs to do what David Sarota's recommending here, call his bluff, put in a lot of pork barrel projects for West Virginia and Arizona, provide a lot of things that people in Arizona and West Virginia specifically would want, and then brag about it, and then say, your own senator just voted against this. I mean, they're not gonna wanna be put in that predicament. I mean, Kirsten Sinema, she's basically, in my opinion, a sociopath, but even she wouldn't want to deal with that much wrath from her constituents because the blowback would be huge. So if Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer actually played hardball to this extent, I mean, again, it's not a guarantee that it's gonna work, but it's better than what they're doing now, which is basically capitulate, capitulate, capitulate. That's not working. And to the extent that it does work, it's not working out in your favor. It's working out in his favor. Now, there is a caveat. There actually needs to be a robust messaging campaign behind this effort. So every single Democrat needs to go on television and say, listen, this is what we're gonna do. We wanna hold a vote on this particular reconciliation package before the end of October. And there are provisions for people in West Virginia and Arizona and all over the country. Here's what the people of West Virginia are getting. Here's what the people of Arizona are getting. And here's what the people in America are getting. Everyone has to be consistent and unified in their messaging. And on top of that, Biden has to utilize a strategy that has worked before for presidents. It's called bullying and specifically using your bully pulpit to bully these senators into submission. Sorota continues, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson are still rightly celebrated for bullying, intimidating, and cajoling conservative Democrats into supporting the New Deal and Medicare. But today's Democratic politicians, Democratic voters and Democratic-aligned media voices have been inculcated to get the vapors and have fainting spells any time one Democrat pressures another Democrat. The 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, a historical aversion to any robust conflict proved that. And the legislative debate is so far proving it as well with potentially horrific consequences for the economy and the environment. Those consequences are not preordained, at least not yet. There is still time to avert a disaster, but only if the party that controls the lawmaking process is willing to use hardball tactics and have a long overdue fight with itself right now. And he is exactly right. So again, I wanna reiterate that I really appreciate what Ed Marquis is doing here in penning this op-ed saying, we're gonna torpedo this legislation. I appreciate Bernie Sanders penning an op-ed in a West Virginian news outlet, calling on Joe Manchin, explaining to his constituents what they are denied if Joe Manchin doesn't support this. But ultimately, nothing is going to matter if the president himself doesn't come out and forcefully advocate for this policy. I mean, right now Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, they make a demand and Joe Biden gives them what they want. At what point is Joe Biden gonna make a demand and Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are forced to give a little bit as well? Because right now it really seems like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, they're dictating all of the terms, they're holding everyone back in their party and the country. And this is only happening because Democratic Party leadership are letting it happen. Again, maybe there's nothing you can do to win over Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Maybe they're just lost causes. I don't believe that's the case with Manchin. Sinema, who knows? But you've gotta do more. What Joe Biden is doing with Joe Manchin in continuously capitulating and even removing climate change out of this human infrastructure bill, it's unacceptable. And in the event, nothing changes and Manchin really does get everything he wants and climate change is removed along with more means testing for other policies, progressives, they absolutely should vote against everything torpedo infrastructure torpedo this because it's not worth it to have that bipartisan infrastructure which is basically a corporate giveaway pass. If what you're getting isn't even crumbs, I mean, this is the bare minimum for climate change. So if you can't even expect that, the party is useless and it's really incumbent on Democratic Party leadership to make sure that the bare minimum that they ran on gets accomplished, gets passed. So, I don't think that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party's leadership anytime soon is gonna be playing hardball, but if they truly wanted this agenda to get passed, they try something different other than bending over backwards to appease Joe Manchin and every single demand that he puts forward. Jon Stewart sat down for an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN and the interview was pretty lengthy. It was more than 20 minutes long. I'll link to it down below if you just wanna watch the full thing. But what I wanted to do was talk about one particular portion of this interview that was really, really insightful. Jon Stewart, he is bringing nuance into American discourse that was severely lacking, especially as it relates to the decline in democracy. So, I don't think it's a secret or a surprise to anyone that democracy and sentiment towards democracy has changed over the last couple of years. People more and more are losing faith in democracy and now you see this palpable shift towards authoritarianism. I mean, you have a portion of the country, Trump's base, essentially outright advocating for a military coup because the election didn't go the way that they wanted it to go. So, a lot of this kind of goes to Donald Trump. But what Jon Stewart does is he explains there were root causes that existed before Donald Trump that led to this moment. It's not as if Donald Trump is the bringer of doom to American democracy. He kind of took issues with our country and exploited them for personal gain and it worked out in his favor, but it couldn't have worked out in his favor had America not had these problems to begin with. I mean, a healthy functioning democracy is never going to allow someone like Donald Trump who's openly racist and misogynistic and stupid as well to get elected. The fact that Donald Trump was able to get elected in the first place, that is a sign that our democracy was already in decline before Donald Trump. But take a look at what Jon Stewart says and why democracy itself has to be robust and constantly expanded. People generally want prosperity and security and if a democratic system is having difficulty providing that or if it's being subverted by those who want to create chaos so that they can make a more authoritarian government, that's part of it too. Listen, it's nothing's guaranteed like that. And the encouraging thing is watching on a grassroots level, people that are really viewing it as something that they wanna protect and that they wanna strengthen. And working on those things on the ground. As somebody who worries about democracy every day, I do appreciate your conveying of optimism right now. But we have a majority of the Republican voters out there who think that falsely that the election was stolen and who think it is an integral part of defining themselves as a Republican to say that Donald Trump had the election stolen from him. I mean, this is not only not going away this misinformation, big lie, you know, flirtation with autocracy, it's getting worse, I think. That's the worst bedtime story I've ever heard of. It's, you can fret about it or you can go about strengthening those areas. And I think that's the call to action here is, you know, action is the antithesis of anxiety. So if we've identified the pressure points where the guardrails look most vulnerable, that's where we should be focusing so much of our efforts in terms of strengthening. We're adjusting to a new information and political ecosystem. And it's gonna be rocky. So what he's saying here is really interesting to me. He is speaking to the root causes that lead to democratic decline. If millions of people believe a big lie, hell, if millions of people get duped by Donald Trump in the first place, there's something really seriously wrong with democracy. So what he's calling for is nuance here and evaluating the root causes of this. I mean, is it a lack of education? Is it a lack of media literacy? Is it a penchant for conspiracy theories? These are things that we can all change. And sure, you can say that Donald Trump absolutely exacerbated this issue. He took all of the conspiratorial minds and he took people's skepticism of government and American institutions and he used it in a really nefarious way that ended up hurting our democracy and still is hurting democracy. But there's a reason why he was able to do that. He is to blame, yes. But it's deeper than just saying, well, it's because of Donald Trump. Because if you could have one demagogue rise up and undermine hundreds of years worth of American democracy in the first place, that system really wasn't the best system. Now, was it? If it can be easily undermined in that way. Now, institutions, for the most part, they held up and they kept Donald Trump from being too authoritarian, even if he really pushed the limits of what was constitutionally permissible, passing it sometimes. But ultimately, in this next clip here, John Stuart is gonna make a really important point because Jake Tapper is going to be seemingly skeptical to that point that John Stuart is making, that it goes deeper than Donald Trump and he's gonna say, look, I mean, Donald Trump, he's identifying these pressure points, the weak spots in democracy and he's exploding it for his own gain. He's endorsing secretaries of state and other elected officials or people running for public office who believe in the big lie. So in this instance, can we really not scapegoat Donald Trump? It seems like it's a pretty easy explanation here. Occam's razor, right? Or Murphy's law, if you're Dave Rubin. But John Stuart is gonna explain, no, it goes deeper than that. I think we make a mistake focusing this all on Donald Trump as though he's, I don't know, Magneto and some incredible supervillain that has changed the very nature and temperature of the United States. Like, he's just been an effective vessel. But again, like, he's not singing new songs. This is something, he's maybe singing them a little better than, you know, Goldwater, but I think it's a mistake to focus it all on this one individual and not to focus it more on, you know, the idea that power is its own reward, whether it be in the financial industry or in government, like power doesn't seed itself. And unless we can figure out a better way to balance that power for, you know, for workers and voters and different groups, we'll be vulnerable. You know, I don't know that autocracy is purely the domain of Donald Trump. I think that we all have a bit of a tendency to be like, to grant amnesty to people that are doing things that we would prefer, even if that means that they're slightly undemocratic. There's many times where I think to myself like, just do an executive order for God's sake, just get it done. So I think our focus unhealthily on this one individual comes at the price of systems and dynamics that have been in place long before this cat ever learned how to surf those waves. We've elevated money and corporate power to this one level. We've diminished sort of pure democratic power to another level and we're wildly out of balance. That's an awfully Oprah-esque way of putting the threat to the Republic. But I just, Jake, we're irregular. I think we're irregular right now. We need democratic fiber to help ourselves. So, but that's not to say that you are not worried about what's gonna happen in 2024. I'm worried about everything. Right. Of course, I'm a human being. I try to maintain a certain level of optimism, which I do, I think. But yeah, when you can see a train coming at you this far away, yeah, you keep thinking, is anybody gonna, are we gonna put, so is anybody, are we putting a thing up or we're just gonna let it, just gonna hit? That's gonna be the end of it. But boy, power doesn't ever seat itself and it's a difficult thing to balance. So I get the sense that Jake Tapper didn't really believe John Stuart or he was skeptical to the point that John Stuart was making there. And I feel like this is the case with a lot of people. If you're a privileged, wealthy elite, it's easy to believe that 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump, that was the start of all of our issues. But that's not actually the case. There's a reason why people elected Donald Trump. And yes, many of them were really excited that he basically popularized overt racism again. But even going before Donald Trump, I mean, why was it that Barack Obama was able to rise out of nowhere because he was promising change? People have been yearning for change because income and wealth inequality, it's worse than it's ever been. People are working longer hours for lower wages. Unionization has declined. We have, who knows how many years left before climate change gets measurably worse. So people want to see a change. That desperation sometimes makes people more susceptible to believing in crazy things. Desperation can lead to radicalization. So it's not just Donald Trump. That's the point. And I think that John Stuart makes a really good case as to why it goes deeper than Donald Trump. There are root causes that are not being addressed. And I don't know if Jake Tapper believes it or agrees with him, but I want to restate John Stuart's points here because I think that what he said is really important. So he says that Trump's been an effective vessel, but he's not singing new songs. He's maybe singing them a little bit better than Goldwater, but I think it's a mistake to focus it all on this one individual and not to focus it more on the idea that power is its own reward. Now he elaborates on that point a little bit more later on. He says power doesn't seat itself. And unless we can figure out a better way to balance that power for workers and voters and different groups will be vulnerable. So if you remove Donald Trump from the equation, sure. Maybe we're not in as bad of a state as we're in currently. But the root causes that predated Donald Trump will still be there. And over time, gradually things will get worse and worse and worse. People will lose say and power. And it's to the point where people don't feel as if their voices are being heard. They feel like they're not being represented in Congress. And that's because they're not. A 2014 Princeton University study found that when it comes to what policies get codified into law, normal Americans, they have no say. They have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes. But when you compare that with the preferences of elites and what they want, well, would you look at that? It always ends up becoming law. There's a reason for that. It's because our system has been corrupted. Late stage capitalism, it starts going after every aspect of society. And then once everything has become a commodity, democracy itself becomes commodified. Elections become commodified. So when people feel as if they can't affect political change through democracy, they lose faith in democracy. And they begin to opt for non-democratic ways to affect political change. And that's kind of what we're seeing. And yes, you can attribute culpability to Donald Trump and you should. But that doesn't mean that we wouldn't have issues without Donald Trump and that we wouldn't get to this point without Donald Trump. It just maybe would take a little bit longer, but we were still headed in the same direction. And that's the point, ultimately, that I think John Stuart is trying to make here. He adds, I think our focus unhealthily on this one individual comes at the price of systems and dynamics that have been in place long before this cat ever learned how to surf those waves. Such a good point. And finally, he says, we've elevated money and corporate power to this one level. We've diminished pure democratic power to another level and we're wild out of balance. So it's natural. When you acknowledge this, that people are going to start losing hope in democracy. And if somebody comes along that is wildly different, that's saying, I'm gonna break up this establishment that you hate. Well, you can't just blame the one person who saw an opportunity and exploited it. That was bound to happen at some point by another demagogue. But again, a healthy society would never allow this complete clown to get elected in the first place. Now, I don't wanna oversimplify the situation because yes, there are a lot of privileged people like the people on January 6th who stormed the capital. A lot of those people were actually wealthy. They were petite bourgeoisie people, people who were business owners. So it's a little bit reductionist to just say that if we had a socialist utopia, all of our problems would go away, racism would suddenly vanish. No, that's not what I'm saying here. But what I'm saying is the system, the situation, it was already bad before Donald Trump and it's gonna continue to get worse regardless if Trump is or isn't in that picture so long as we don't address these root causes. And that's ultimately the point that John Stuart is making and it's a really, really valuable point because you don't ever hear mainstream media have this nuance to take when it comes to democracy and Donald Trump. And so to have CNN's viewers learn about the issues, maybe this encourages them to evaluate why democracy in America isn't declined. Maybe it's deeper than Donald Trump. Is he part of the problem? Sure, but maybe it goes deeper than him. Maybe there's more things that I'm not being told about. Maybe there's more things that I need to educate myself on and it just starts with that. So I really like John Stuart's message here. I think what he's saying is absolutely correct. Over-focusing on Donald Trump. I mean, look, odds are he's gonna run in 2024. So I wanna give myself a bit of a mental break already but I mean to say that all of our problems, all of them is the result of Donald Trump. I do think that that is really, it's incorrect. Again, he gets a lot of the blame, the lion's share of the blame, but you can't just be that reductionist. You have to be more nuanced and that's exactly the point that John Stuart was trying to make here and I really appreciate it. Dennis Prager who is the founder of Prager U, not a real university by the way, he announced that he has COVID-19. Now in this video where he explains that he was diagnosed with COVID-19, you're going to hear him talk about how stoked he is that he got COVID-19. In fact, he went out of his way to try to get infected with COVID-19. I'm not memeing, I'm not making this up. You are going to hear a grown adult say why he's actually glad that he has COVID-19 and why he wanted COVID-19. I'm broadcasting from my home. Because I'm not going into the station as I have COVID, I came, I was tested positive last week and I have been steadily improving. At no point was I in danger of hospitalization. I have received monoclonal antibodies that's Regeneron. That's Regeneron. I have, of course, for years, a year and a half, not years, been taking hydroxychloroquine from the beginning with zinc. I've taken Z-PAC, the erythromycin, as the Zelenco protocol would have it. I have taken ivermectin. I have done what a person should do if one is not going to get vaccinated. It is infinitely preferable to have natural immunity than vaccine immunity. And that is what I hoped for the entire time. Hence, I so engaged with strangers, constantly hugging them, taking photos with them, knowing that I was making myself very susceptible to getting COVID, which is indeed as bizarre as it sounded, what I wanted in the hope that I would achieve natural immunity and be taken care of by therapeutics. That is exactly what has happened. It should have happened to the great majority of Americans. The number of deaths in this country owing to COVID is a scandal, which one day will be clear to Americans. This man is 73 years old, he's unvaccinated, and you just heard him say he tried to get COVID-19. Okay, I mean, it's certainly a gamble. Nonetheless, if this is what you wanted, you do have the freedom to give yourself COVID-19. Now, his reasoning is incorrect. He claims that the natural immunity is infinitely preferable than vaccine immunity, except he's factually incorrect about that. In fact, a study from Kentucky found that people who previously had COVID-19 were actually twice as likely to be reinfected compared with those who were fully vaccinated. Also, the vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity. So even if you previously had COVID-19, yes, you should still get vaccinated. Now, even if he's correct that natural immunity was better, like it gave you more protection from the virus than the vaccines, it's still more preferable to get vaccinated because in order to get said natural immunity, you still have to get infected with COVID-19. You risk dying, you risk living with health complications for years. So vaccine deniers their logic. So if you have people who are vaccine hesitant anti-vaxxers, it doesn't make sense and come to find out there was a study, I can't remember who conducted the study that showed that conspiracy theorists actually lack critical thinking skills. So that's the least surprising outcome ever, but it's true when you see that this dude is saying he literally wanted to get COVID-19 so he can get natural immunity and be protected from COVID-19. It just, it doesn't make sense to me. Now, part of it is me thinking that he's lying. He doesn't actually want this. He didn't try to get it, but he doesn't want the libs to kind of laugh at him and say, well, you should have got the vaccine. You were an anti-vaxxer. In fact, he once proclaimed that he knows more than doctors. So he doesn't want liberals to be proven correct. He doesn't want them to say, see, you should have gotten the vaccine. Maybe this could have been prevented. So I think that he's just saying this as a means of coping. Who would want to get COVID-19? That doesn't make sense. It's like saying, well, I want to get the black plague so I don't get the black plague. So I get that natural immunity. I mean, it's mind-bending, right? It's stupid. But this is political discourse in 2021 in America. Now, there's a couple of other things that he says here that is absolutely incorrect. He says, I've received monocletal antibodies. That's Regeneron. That's one thing that he should be doing. But on top of that, he says, I have taken Ivermectin. I've done what a person should do if one is not going to get vaccinated, except Ivermectin has not been proven to be effective in treating COVID-19. There is no evidence that this is the case. So no, you haven't done what a person should do if one is not going to get vaccinated. And the point is that you should get vaccinated, especially if you're 73 years old like Dennis Prager. I mean, you're really rolling the dice here, my man, but this is what he wanted to do. Now, there's a chance that he is actually vaccinated. I don't know. You know, there's these Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson, Lori Ingram, where they will spread vaccine misinformation and fear monger by the vaccines, but yet they themselves are vaccinated. But then again, there's a lot of right-wingers, right-wing radio hosts, who they actually drank the Kool-Aid that they were giving to other people and they did actually contract COVID-19 and died because they weren't vaccinated. So I don't know which camp Dennis Prager is in, but as one person on Twitter put it, I wish I could give them credit, but they said, look, we're gonna find out if he's telling the truth because this virus, especially the Delta variant, is absolutely more severe. So I don't know what to say. Dennis Prager, at least he has some level of self-awareness to acknowledge that what he's saying is bizarre. So he says here that I have engaged with strangers constantly hugging them, taking photos with them knowing that I was making myself very susceptible to getting COVID, which is indeed as bizarre as it sounded, what I wanted in hope I would achieve natural immunity. It's just, it's, this logic is so insane to me. If you want a level of protection against this virus, get the fucking vaccine, but he doesn't want to do that. So he's doing everything he can to avoid getting the vaccine. But I mean, again, he knows if he actually did or did not take it, but certainly what he says is dangerous because he's discouraging his listeners from getting the vaccine. Listeners who are probably pretty old, who if they actually took his advice, they would be putting their lives in danger. So I mean, there you have it. Dennis Prager has COVID-19 and he is totally excited about it. He's ecstatic. You can, you can hear the excitement in his voice. Definitely not coping. He's really happy that he got COVID-19 because now he's going to have that sweet, sweet natural immunity, except you still need to get the vaccine if you want to be protected, if you're lucky enough to survive this. But odds are he will be okay because he is very, very wealthy. He has an estimated net worth of I think $10 million. So he's going to get the best medical care that is offered in this country. So I think that he's probably going to be okay, but either way, he's not going to have a fun time. This is no fun ride that he's going to experience, even if he's going to try to downplay it. But either way, he claims this is what he wanted. So okay, man, have fun. I feel like every single story that I do where I talk about anti-vaxxers, they're all stupid. You could throw them all into that same category, but there are some anti-vaxx stories that are measurably dumber than others. And this is probably at the tippy top of idiotic anti-vaxx stories because there was a private school in Miami, Florida and they are putting in requirements so that way if students get vaccinated, they're the ones who have to quarantine for 30 days, not if you're unvaccinated or you've been exposed to COVID. No, if you've been vaccinated, they are requiring that you quarantine for 30 days. It is not based on scientific fact. It is very clearly based on stupidity and delusions. Nevertheless, let's read about why they're requiring this. As best leaven of Vanity Fair explains, back in April, a Florida private school made headlines for demonstrating that its founders who charge up to $30,000 a year in tuition didn't understand basic science. Since Neurocademy did so by sending faculty and staff a letter informing them that if they chose to get vaccinated against COVID-19, they would have to stay away from students, falsely claiming that non-vaccinated people have been negatively impacted by interacting with people who had been vaccinated and also that it knew of at least three women with menstrual cycles impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person, holy shit. Obviously, none of what Lila Centner, who started the school with her husband, David, wrote was true, but that didn't stop her from telling employees that anyone who planned to get vaccinated would not be allowed to be near our students until more information is known and that if they chose to get vaccinated over the summer, they wouldn't be allowed to return until clinical trials were completed and only if a position is still available at that time. For many parents, news of such a policy would be a reason to immediately pull their kid from Centner Academy, not just for safety reasons, but also because Lila and David are clearly morons. None of the vaccines available in the US include the live virus, so it is impossible for an inoculated person to negatively impact an unvaccinated person with the vaccine's components as people who don't know what they're talking about claim. In fact, as the Centner's apparently don't understand, it's biologically impossible, but for the parents who have kept their kids enrolled in the school, the founders have a new message. If you vaccinate your kid, they'll have to stay home for 30 days following each shot. Okay, so I've got to ask the obvious question. Why are these morons allowed to have a school? I feel like the standards that are put into place, state, federal standards, they're not good enough if people like this are allowed to have a school. I mean, do they have a science class in this school who teaches it? I need more details because this isn't just insane. It is almost a parody. Like it borders on parody. This is something that you'd expect from the people in Idiocracy in the event, you know, that movie or now documentary rather, kind of documented a play. It's clearly bizarre. And in the email, they kind of go through their logic. And here's what they say. So this is no surprise. They say that the vaccines are experimental. No, they're not experimental. That's factually incorrect because they are out of clinical trials. So no, they're not experimental. They claim that vaccinated people are shedding the virus to unvaccinated people. Let me repeat that. If you got vaccinated, they believe that you are shedding the virus and infecting other people who are unvaccinated with COVID-19. Now, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But let's assume that this bat-shit-insane theory is correct. Okay, well, if there are so many vaccinated people now shedding the virus, wouldn't you want to get vaccinated yourself so that way it won't affect you since the vaccines are safe and effective? I mean, it's not happening, but even in their bizarre world view, okay, sure, you're gonna shed the virus to others according to them, but at least you'll be protected, self-preservation. I mean, this is, folks, this is not okay. These beliefs are stupid. This is QAnon level of dumb. This is flat earth or level of stupid. They've also discouraged teachers and students, no surprise, from wearing masks. I'm assuming because maybe they buy into Louis Gomert's theory that if you wear the mask, you breathe in your own CO2 and that gives you the virus and somehow it materializes on the mask. I mean, I can't really try to psychoanalyze them and try to explain their logic because there is no logic to this. It's the absence of logic. And I just, I don't know what to say. This is an actual school and parents are paying $30,000 a year to have dipshits teach their kids. I mean, you should really get a refund if you're sending your kid to the school. You're not gonna go to the school or you're not gonna send your kid to the school unless you are very, very wealthy. And there's always this idea that charter schools are preferable because they have better standards, better opportunities for your children. The teachers have more expertise. It's better than public schools. I mean, this kind of alone, this proves that, right? So I don't know what to say. This story, it almost made my head explode reading the details. And I read this earlier in preparation for this segment, but as I read it again, it's still shocking to me because this is really fucking stupid stuff, particularly the idea that vaccinated people can shed the virus. If you honestly believe that vaccinated people are shedding the virus, I genuinely don't know how you can be alive to reach adulthood. You've got to, at some point, just spontaneously forget how to breathe and die. You've got to crack your head open and get a concussion from tying your own shoelaces together. This is really low IQ shed. And I mean, it's shocking that they're so confident in their stupidity. I mean, this is done in Kruger in action, but yeah, there you have it. They're making people or children who get vaccinated quarantine for 30 days. Jesus Christ. This is the dumb fuckery that you can expect from anti-vaxxers. So I usually don't get to talk about fun things on the show very often, like video games, movies, and television. So I should probably preface this conversation by saying, spoiler warning, if you have not seen Squid Games, I will be discussing spoilers that are pretty crucial to the show's plot. So if you plan on watching it, definitely don't watch this video or come back to this video after you've seen the series. Having said that, though, I want to talk about Squid Games because of somebody on the right's interpretation of the series. Now, when it comes to art, some artists will leave their art open to interpretation. They'll make it more abstract, leave it purposefully vague. Squid Games is not that. It's not one of those shows where you can kind of extract your own meaning from it. It's very explicit in its message. It is a critique of capitalism. I think that's pretty obvious if you watch the show and the creator of the show, Hwang Dong-hyuk confirmed this saying, I wanted to read a story that was an allegory or fable about a modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life. But I wanted it to use the kind of characters we've all met in real life. Now, Tim Poole, however, after watching the show said, you know what? I think the message actually is that it's about communism and specifically the message is communism bad. Now, it's not like he didn't know what the creator of the show said. He knows that the creator explicitly is criticizing capitalism, but Tim Poole is gonna have the audacity to say, actually, he's wrong. This is really about communism. When I think if you watch it, it's very obvious critique of capitalism. Nevertheless, let's watch and see what he has to say and then I will break it down after we hear from Tim Poole. So I think Squid Game is, I don't think it's overtly political. Apparently, you were telling me, Gary, that it was like a political message in Squid Game. Yeah, the writer, at least that's what he said. My takeaway from it was communism bad. That was my takeaway from it. Okay, so now I'm gonna say this. For those that are listening, spoiler alert, if you haven't finished Squid Game, it's an awesome show. I prefer watching it in the original Korean with subtitles. I think it's fantastic. With the dub, you lose a lot of that reverb and natural sound. It's kind of weird. So spoiler alert, I'm gonna say it again. We are going to spoil this show to the... To Kingdom Come. To Kingdom Come. There we go, spoiler alert. So what was it about, you mentioned that the creator had said something and it was like... The creator called it a fable for modern day capitalism, but also for life and the competitiveness of life. That message, it's not subtle at the end, which I won't ruin for anybody, but it's not subtle at the end. And that messaging was there and some people can't get past it. And I understand that, but I thought it was a damn good story. What was the messaging? Like, what do you think the message is conveying? Well, basically it's a cold and cruel system. In that fable, there is no resolution except for at the end, they create their own enemy quote unquote, but that's what I get out of it. All right, all right. Just for context, okay, because those of you that are sticking around, even though we told you spoilers are here, I'm gonna give you the quick breakdown of the show. It's a bunch of desperate people in debt. And then all of a sudden, they get an opportunity to play in a game, but the game is brutal and you die in it. But if you don't, you win. I think it's like equivalent of US, like 35 to 40 million dollars is a translation. So it's like 45 billion Korean won or something. Now we're gonna get into, again, I warned you spoilers. I think the whole thing is the perfect example of somebody who thinks they're opposing capitalism, but just makes communism and wokeness look really, really dumb. And the show ends up being, in my opinion, more anti-communist than anything. So one of the big themes in the show is that everyone is equal. They all enter the game as equals and they're allowed to play as equals. And there's an arc in the show where it's like somebody violates the equality and so they kill him. And they were like, that's the worst thing you could have done is strip the equality. But now, here's how the show ends. You've been warned. In this equal system, everyone dies but one person who gets all of the money. Okay, so that doesn't sound to me like capitalism. In capitalism, we recognize not everybody is equal. Not everybody does have an equal chance. We do want equal opportunity, but some people are poor and some people are rich. In this system, everyone is wearing the same clothes in the same room being brutalized by the powers that ultimately results in one person having all the wealth and everyone dying. That is not capitalism. In capitalism, there's too much food. People are morbidly obese and there are homeless people who are fat. In communism, everybody wears the same clothes. They have limited access to anything. They get garbage food every day. They're like, okay, the game's over. Here's the food you get and they get trash. And they're fighting each other because they're starving. That to me is an indictment of communism. And if this guy who made the show is actually like, it's actually capitalism, that's bad. I'm like, it just goes to show. This is a person who made a great show but was really dumb and didn't understand they were actually critiquing communism. I don't think that the creator of the show is the dumb one here, Tim. I think that the dumb one is the person who refuses to accept that a popular television show that he likes has a political message that he doesn't like. And look, I kind of understand as a political commentator, if I was watching a movie that was very explicitly anti-socialist and pro-capitalism, I wouldn't enjoy it. I don't like television shows that I view as basically propaganda for the military-industrial complex. So I understand where he's coming from. It kind of detracts from the enjoyment if you're a really political person. Having said that though, I don't twist myself into a pretzel trying to make it fit my worldview. This show just doesn't fit his worldview and rather than accepting it, what we see here is cognitive dissonance where he says, I actually think that communism bad is the message. No, communism bad was not the message and even his co-host disagreed and said the message at the end, it wasn't subtle at all but yet Tim Poole says, I don't really think it was overtly political. How? How do you not view squid games as overtly political and as an explicit criticism of capitalism? I just don't understand how you can be somebody who is savvy enough to have a political podcast that is incredibly popular but not really be able to extract very obvious themes from a television show that's kind of really throwing it in your face. So part of the reason why he thinks that it is a critique of communism is because of the conditions of the game itself. He says that they're all wearing the same clothing and they're giving shitty food and he says they're fighting each other and they're starving. Right, but why are they fighting each other? Why are they starving? Why are they there in the first place? Because in the second episode, basically what happens is they all vote to leave because one of the rules of the game is that if a majority of players vote to leave the game, they get to leave the game but even after leaving the game, they come back because the conditions outside in a modern capitalist society are so brutal that they realize they're no better off outside of the game than they are in the game and at least in the game, even if certain death is going to be the outcome, well, at least they have a small chance of making it, getting a lot of money so that way they can live a happy normal life. That is not a message that is saying communism is bad. That is speaking to the ruthlessness of capitalism and late-stage capitalism where these folks are so desperate, where they have so much debt, where they're so impoverished that they willingly and knowingly go back to a game after escaping so they can play it. I mean, I just, I feel like there's no way you can spin this. There's not even a little bit of room for interpretation here. It's very deliberately a criticism of capitalism but he talks about how the condition of equality being emphasized, that really says something, right? Because in a communist society, you know, it's classless, it's moneyless, equality is the outcome. So my response to that, I don't necessarily know for sure what the intent of that was but you have to think of it from the perspective of the rich people in the game. There's a lot of rich people who are betting on certain poor people in this game. So if the conditions are unfair, then these rich people are gonna get incredibly pissed if they fail as if another player has a leg up on someone that maybe they bet it on. But he kind of latched on to that element of equality within the game and he said, that's it, right there. That's communism. I just, I feel like it says something about you as a political commentator, if you watch squid games and you don't view it as a criticism of capitalism. It tells me that you either A, fundamentally misunderstand communism and capitalism or B, you actually do understand the differences between these two systems but you feel cognitive dissonance and you just, you can't enjoy art unless it fits your worldview. And so you try to twist it and that's kind of what I'm leaning towards because look, Tim Poole, all the things that you'll say about him, he's a grifter, he's disingenuous, sure. But I think he's far more intelligent than the other right-wing grifters and I think that he does know a little bit more about these political systems. So him saying that this is really a critique of communism isn't actually compelling. It just kind of makes him look foolish, especially if you've seen the show because again, this is not a subtle message as this co-host said. It's very explicit. I mean, if you watch this and the takeaway is, oh, wow, this convinces me. I don't ever want to live in a communist society. Then you're kind of weird. You're taking away the wrong message. It's a critique of modern day late-stage capitalism. Capitalism and the way it leads people to kind of compete and fight against each other just to make sure that they have crumbs that's kind of represented in the scenes where they are given portions of food that are limited. It's just everything about the show. Screams, capitalism bad, but yet Tim Poole says, oh, it means communism bad. Okay, whatever. I mean, you're free to think whatever you want, but that's not the case. And you're objectively wrong in this instance. So whatever, if you haven't seen the show, watch it and you will see why Tim Poole's criticism here is just so bizarre and off base. Author Don Winslow put together a short film about Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. And this is probably one of the most effective things I've ever seen. If you made it into an ad, cut it by about 30 seconds, this could really do some damage to Joe Manchin's career as a politician. And what you're gonna see here is something that if it were played on every single television station in West Virginia repeatedly, I think that Joe Manchin, his career would be over. He'd never get elected to public office again. So without further ado, I'm gonna play you the clip and I think you're gonna see why this is so effective. What was your salary last year? About 18 million. It pays to be a member of Joe Manchin's family. Joe Manchin has represented West Virginia for 40 years. Delegate, state senator, secretary of state, governor, US senator, 40 years and West Virginia is still the second poorest state in the country. Economy, West Virginia ranks 48 out of 50 states. Thank you, Joe Manchin. Healthcare, 47 out of 50 states. Thank you, Joe Manchin. Education, 45 out of 50 states. Thank you, Joe Manchin. Infrastructure, wait for it. 50 out of 50 states. Manchin has an estimated net worth of eight million while the average annual income of West Virginia is just 26,000. Manchin receives a taxpayer-paid salary as a US senator of $184,500. So he didn't get his eight million there. Nice, yeah, Joe. So where does all the money come from? Manchin receives $491,000 annually from his son's coal brokerage company, Enersystems. His wife, Gail Manchin, received $613,000 from Enersystems. That's 1.1 million to Manchin and his wife from his family's energy company. Manchin makes five times more from his family's energy company than he does as a US senator. Joe Manchin has blocked President Biden's infrastructure plan from moving forward because he wants to kill legislation to replace coal-fired plants with clean energy. Manchin is selling out his own country to protect big coal and big oil who own him. Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week. He is the kingmaker and he's not shy about sort of staking his claim early. The chairman of the committee that regulates coal shouldn't be a part owner of a coal company. This is Heather Manchin, Joe Manchin's daughter. After lying about having an MBA, she was named CEO of Mylan Industries. She artificially jacked up the price of EpiPens by 461% and was awarded with a 671% salary increase. West Virginia is poor, poorly educated and broken but Joe Manchin and his entire family have become multi-millionaires. West Virginia abused and suckered for 40 years by Joe Manchin. That was absolutely brutal. It thoroughly detailed his career as a self-serving politician and that last line there was particularly powerful. I mean, West Virginia is poor, poorly educated and broken but Joe Manchin and his entire family have become multi-millionaires. This is what's taken place after 40 years of public service in West Virginia. I mean, if people saw this ad, they would know that this man is not representing you. He pays lip service from time to time to your needs but in actuality, he's not fighting for you. He's fighting for himself. He's fighting to enrich his donors and what's especially infuriating is that out of all people, he's the last person who should be bemoaning entitlement mentality but yet here he is talking about how, oh, well, you know what? I don't wanna pass too many goodies for voters because I don't wanna cultivate this entitlement mentality where people just expect handouts from the government. See for him, it's handouts from me but not the because he's gotten a lot of handouts and there's a really fantastic article that was just written by David Serota, Julia Rock and Andrew Perez that was published in Jacobin and The Daily Poster and what they explained is just how egregious and hypocritical it is for someone like Joe Manchin to bemoan other people's entitlement. So they write, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is reportedly demanding new work requirements for families to qualify for the child tax credit. At the same time, Manchin may be enjoying a windfall from loopholes that provide the idol rich special tax preferences for passive income reaped without doing any work. Manchin has publicly boasted of doing zero labor for his family's coal company that has nonetheless been paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and may be providing him preferential tax breaks on that passive work-free income. Manchin has also previously supported the legislation to expand tax breaks for heirs to vast family fortunes and those benefits would flow to wealthy scions even if they are not working and they refuse to get a job. The situation spotlights a hypocrisy now baked into America's oligarchic politics. Politicians frequently demand draconian work requirements for programs that benefit working class families while those same politicians rarely apply such restrictions to tax preferences that enrich themselves, their families and their donors. As nearly one in five families have seen their life savings eliminated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the child tax credit battle makes the elitism explicit. Manchin is pressing for restrictions that could deny the benefit to 190,000 West Virginians even as he's expressed no concern about and may be personally benefiting from tax breaks, rewarding income, glean from doing no labor at all. So talk about entitlement mentality. He is the most entitled person in his entire state and they also talk about how he supported a repeal of the estate tax. So he likes to portray himself as a fiscal conservative, fiscally responsible, a deficit hawk but yet how much would repeal the state tax cost? A quarter of a trillion dollars, more than a quarter of a trillion dollars. So the man is a hypocrite to the highest order. He's a fraud and the faster that more people know about the fraudulence and hypocrisy of politicians like this, the better off we'll be as a country. That ad has got to be shown. So if you live in West Virginia and you know someone who voted for Joe Manchin, share this ad with them. Either they don't know about this or they don't wanna believe it but I mean, I think that if voters were educated no one with common sense would vote for a smug self-serving aristocrat like Joe Manchin after knowing how he's enriched himself after being a public servant. And I use that word very charitably because he's not a servant. He's serving himself and the interests of his donors and not his constituents. We're gonna look at a CNN clip. This is an interview with Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman by CNN's John Berman. And this is probably one of the best interviews I think I've ever seen from leftist lawmakers and that's not a hyperbole. Basically what they do here is they thoroughly deconstruct the mainstream media's bias against leftist lawmakers. They kind of take that narrative that is usually pushed and they challenge it. Usually if we see this dispute between leftist lawmakers, progressives and centrist Democrats, then I mean nine times out of 10 it's the progressives who are framed to be the bad guys and the obstructionists and they're the ones who are being unreasonable. And you kind of get that sense in this clip that John Berman is siding with Joe Manchin. Now he may be playing devil's advocate, but either way, the narrative here that Joe Manchin is the reasonable one and leftist lawmakers are the ones who are being unreasonable. That is challenge and I think thoroughly dismantled here by Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman. And every single person needs to see this, especially members of Congress because if everyone got on the same page and said these things, I think that finally we'd be able to break through and people who tune into mainstream media wouldn't always have the same takeaway that progressives bad, centrists and moderates reasonable. So take a look at this first clip here. You talk about the people in your districts and what they're asking for. How do you tell them that the possibility of nothing is better than the possibility of everything? But why is that the possibility? I'm sorry, Corey, go ahead. No, but that's- Well, if it's a $1.5 trillion plan that gets to the floor, will you vote against it? But that's the expectation. The expectation is we will give you crumbs and expect you to be happy. What we're saying is I didn't come to Congress to continue to give crumbs to my community. St. Louis continues to get crumbs and we keep being number one for homicide, number one or number two for homicide, number one for police murder, number one for the murder of children. We keep having those issues. We keep having issues with black children being 10 times as likely to go to the hospital to an emergency room for asthma than white children. How do we fix those things? You have to put the money there. And so I didn't come to Congress to sit back and accept those crumbs, give my folks the meal. And that is why we're here to push that. Don't ask us why aren't we willing to compromise. Ask Joe Manchin, is he okay with violence in our communities continuing, public housing falling apart, black and brown people disproportionately dying from COVID, the climate crisis, ask him to go bigger instead of asking us to go smaller. To be clear, we're asking every member, you know, where they're going to go and where the possible agreements can be reached. Paul Begala was on earlier today and talked about progress versus perfection. Well, perfect, that's not even, but we're talking about a package that is not even perfection. 3.5 trillion was the compromise. Right, that was a compromise. This is not perfection. President Biden came in at 6 trillion. Again, and I'm making the argument that Joe Manchin is making here because he's not sitting here, but he would say 1.5 trillion isn't crumbs. We're paying for 1.5, first of all. So we have the offsets. This is key. Tell Joe Manchin to come to my district. That's right. Tell him to come to my district. Tell him to meet with me and I'll take him to see what happens when you give a little of something and you expect people to live off of that because what'll happen is that 1.5 trillion or whatever it turns out to be that he wants, we can't expect anything. We can't expect other investments, other big investments to come right after that. It'll be, oh, we did something for you. We spend 7.6 trillion on the military alone every 10 years. And it's okay for us to spend that money. No one back tonight, but we're looking to spend 3.5 over 10 years that most of it is paid for on a bottom-up economy to target those most vulnerable and we have a problem with that. Black, brown, black and brown people, black and brown women, indigenous people, poor people, we always have to wait. You always ask, not you, the government always asks us to keep the can down the road for the most vulnerable and people to me, that's unacceptable. So I don't say this very often, but I think that everything that they said was virtually perfect. I wouldn't change a single thing. In fact, I don't really have much commentary to supplement what they said, but I just wanna highlight what they said because it's that good. So the one criticism that I could anticipate is that, well, you could say maybe they were being a little bit too harsh on John Berman. He's just playing devil's advocate. Not all CNN anchors are gonna say the same thing, but I think that the questions that he asked were so silly even if he's playing devil's advocate here that it's worthwhile to laugh in his face at that question because that's how silly that narrative is. So for example, he cites Paul Begala of all people. Who gives a fuck what Paul Begala thinks? But he says, you know, Paul Begala was on today and he talked about progress versus perfection and Corbush just laughed at that. And the reason why that's so laughable, well, I mean, she laid it out. We're talking about a package that isn't even perfection and Jamal Bowman brought up the point. We already compromised. So if you're talking about us as if we're the individuals who are not willing to compromise, we already did. We came down from 6 trillion to 3.5 trillion and now we're being asked to come down again. So you're pretending as if this is a perfect package when it's not and we're not getting everything that we want, but at what point do we draw the line and say you've watered this down enough and now it's to the point where it's just, it's not worth voting for especially considering all of the harmful things that's in the bipartisan infrastructure proposal, corporate giveaways. So it's really important that they fundamentally dismantle this talking point. Oh, well, don't let progress be the enemy of, or the perfect be the enemy of the good is the usual saying. If we keep doing more incrementalism and more incrementalism and we don't actually go big, it's not gonna be enough. We've been doing neoliberal, centrist, incrementalist policies for decades now and what has gotten us? It's not gonna save the planet. It's not gonna fix the economy. It's not gonna help the working class. It's just more of the same. It's crumbs as Corey Bush laid out. And he made the point, John Berman made the point that Manchin wouldn't say that 1.5 trillion is crumbs except it is crumbs compared to all the other things that we spend money on. I mean, Jamal Bowman made the excellent point that we spend 7.6 trillion on the military alone every 10 years and nobody bats an eye, it's fine. But when it comes to helping people, that's where we're really having serious conversations about fiscal responsibility and the deficit. And it's a double standard. It shows you that the priorities of the media to even think about it in this way, they're flawed. They're biased in favor of the establishment and centrists. And what they do here is they try to change that entire narrative, flip it on its head. No, we're not the obstructionists. It's Joe Manchin and they said that very clearly and Corey Bush made a point about how, if we accept crumbs, if we accept this watered down bill, then all the issues that are unaddressed, there's this expectation that, well, we already did all of this so we can't do more in the future. So it's kind of like you have this one opportunity and this is it. So you have to go as big as possible because who knows when Democrats are gonna hold control of all of Congress next. And also, when it comes to compromise, Jamal Bowman made the great point that don't ask us why we're not willing to compromise because it's Joe Manchin who's not willing to compromise. It's Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema who half the time refused to negotiate. I mean, when there were negotiations for the Build Back Better Act, Kirsten Sinema left and she literally went to a private donor retreat. They're the ones, Jamal Bowman, Corey Bush, progressives. They're the ones who are doing the work. They're the ones who are trying to hash out a deal. It's the centrists, the so-called centrists, I should say, the right wing Democrats who are refusing to even be reasonable here. So Corey Bush was asked, or they were both asked and Corey Bush responded to this question of, okay, so if it's two trillion, what do you do? Do you vote against it? Are you really going to go back to your constituents with nothing because you have a bunch of these proposals cut and her answer was perfect. And on top of that, Jamal Bowman ended with a really important note. Again, the prospect of getting nothing. If it's an issue of what you think should happen versus what can happen, you would vote no on two trillion dollars. Because what we've been saying is if we, if we don't want any programs cut, period, no programs cut. No cuts on anything of the 3.5 trillion. No cuts of programs, but we are willing to say if we have to cut years on some of the programs to make this work, then okay, there may be some areas that can instead of being a 10 year investment can be five years or can be seven years or eight years. So we're willing to do that, but don't cut our programs. How do you tell that person working in the childcare center that, you know, that, no, we, you know, not you, you wait, you wait till whenever, because we don't even know when this will come back around. But we wanna make sure that the money is there to be able to pay for the folks that are fixing our roads and bridges. Do we need that? Absolutely. And I wanna make sure that they know that, that we want that investment for them, but we also need our investment in housing. We also need investments in our schools. We also need those investments in that climate action. We need that clean electricity. And the majority of the American people are with us. The majority of Democrats are with us. There are just a few who are holding it up and it's not us. The majority of the American people are living paycheck to paycheck. The child tax credit, the temporary one, lifted 50% of children out of poverty. We're looking to extend that to make it permanent. More money in people's pockets, more spending, better economy, more job. So great, such great points there. Yes, the American people are with them. So it shouldn't be that progressives are brought on these shows and it's implied that they're the ones who are being unreasonable. They're the ones who are willing to, or refusing rather to compromise because they've already compromised. And whenever they do compromise, it's never enough. Well, okay, you go down to two trillion. Why won't you get on to 1.5 trillion? Why won't you get on to 1 trillion? And that's so unacceptable. What every single mainstream news host should be doing is bringing on Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and confronting them. Why are you not delivering for the American people? These policies are overwhelmingly popular. Why are you not delivering on the agenda that the president of the United States wants? There are two senators who are standing in the way of this entire agenda. Why do you get to be roadblocks for something that your entire party wants? 98% of elected Democrats want this passed, but yet because of Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, it's not being through. So to suggest that it's the progressives who are the ones who are holding up talks here and being obstructionists, it's absurd. And that's why it's really important that Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman have the opportunity to go on these programs and make their case. Now, another thing that's important to note is that these are not good faith negotiations. Progressives like Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush, they're negotiating in good faith, but Joe Manchin is not. When they even choose to negotiate, they don't care about the constituents. They're operating at the behest of their donors and what their donors want. And Jamal Bowman hinted at this. Joe Manchin and others like him have a certain perspective that I think is incorrect. He thinks investing in a bottom-up economy is entitlement. He claims he's worried about inflation, but I think we need to have a conversation about the special interests that support Joe Manchin and many others. And we need to understand that when we invest this way, it's better for the GDP and the economy going forward, but it's also better for our well-being. When you put money in people's pockets, they spend that money. It creates demand, which creates supply, which creates jobs. We have to make sure we're putting money in people's pockets and lifting them out of a global pandemic. Look at what we've gone through over the last 18 months. And again, he's right. So you have someone like Joe Manchin who doesn't actually care about the specifics. He doesn't care about fiscal responsibility. This is someone who's just doing the bidding of his donors. And guess what? His worldview, his pro-austerity worldview has been debunked again and again and again. We're dealing with a global pandemic. If we're not choosing to invest in Americans now, when will we ever? If we can't do it now, will there ever be a time? So this interview was absolutely just perfect. Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman, I take it they won't be invited back on mainstream media if these are the points that they make, just totally taking that narrative and crushing it and flipping it and actually shedding light on the situation for CNN's viewers who might think that it's the progressives who are the obstructionists. This was just great. In this instance, it is not progressives who are being obstructionist or unreasonable. It's the conservative Democrats. And I hate to break it to you all, but they always have been the obstructionists. We've talked at length about the mayoral race in Buffalo, New York, between India Walton and Byron Brown. She won. She defeated him, an incumbent Democratic mayor, and he is not only refusing to concede, but after being beaten in a Democratic Party primary, he's running a sore loser red in campaign. Imagine if a progressive did this. Imagine it would never be tolerated. They'd be lambasted for spreading this unity in the party. But yet when a corporate Democrat does it, then it's perfectly acceptable. And what's frustrating is that you have members of the Democratic Party establishment. They're not saying anything about this. They're just remaining silent. They aren't endorsing India Walton when she very clearly emerged victorious from the Democratic Party primary. They're kind of just letting Byron Brown run this sore loser red in campaign and they hope that he wins. And that's gross. Even Chuck Schumer, who is pretending to be a progressive because he doesn't want a 2022 primary challenger, he is refusing to explicitly endorse the winner of a Democratic Party primary. Take a look. Senator, why haven't you endorsed anyone in the Buffalo Mayoral primary or mayoral race yet? Your colleagues, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all endorsed India Walton, who won the Democratic primary. And do you believe that whoever wins the Democratic primary is a Democratic nominee? Today's a day to talk about what's going on in Washington. It's not a day for politics. Have you decided then that you're going to... It's not a day for politics. I'm talking about what's going on in Washington. Other questions? Any on that subject? Yes. Other's next subject. Yeah, so this is the kind of unity that you can expect when a progressive beats a corporate Democrat. No unity whatsoever. But make sure you always fall in line if the corporate Democrat, if the conservative Democrat beats a left-wing Democrat. Now, what's really despicable is the kind of attacks that India Walton has been subjected to. So a Democrat, a prominent Democrat in her state has come out and said something that is laughable, but this is really not... It's not that surprising, given the state of the race in Buffalo. So John Keely of Common Dreams explains the chair of the New York State Democratic Party sparked anger, rebuke, and calls for his resignation Monday after comparing India Walton winner of the party's nomination for Buffalo Mayor and a black woman to notorious racist and white supremacist, David Duke. Party chair Jay Jacobs made the remarks during an interview with Spectrum News in which he was asked to explain why he and other top Democrats in the state have refused to endorse or support Walton's candidacy in the general election after she won a surprise victory over longtime incumbent Mayor Byron Brown in the primary earlier this year. Let's take a scenario very different where David Duke, you remember him, the grand wizard of the KKK, he moves to New York, he becomes a Democrat, he runs for mayor in the city of Rochester, which is a low primary turnout and he wins the Democratic line, Jacob said. I have to endorse David Duke? I don't think so. While Jacobs acknowledged that Walton and Duke were not in the same category and later apologized for the comparison, the reaction from more progressive Democrats in New York was swift. And we'll talk about that reaction, but let's just take a moment and let these comments sink in. This is the chair of the New York State Democratic Party comparing a left-wing candidate to David Duke. Well, you know, if someone that horrible won, then you know, we wouldn't seem unreasonable for refusing to endorse him, except she's nothing like David Duke. She cares about her constituents. She won because she ran a better campaign and Byron Brown thought that he was entitled to win again and didn't even run a campaign. So constituents chose to go with the person who actually seemed to care. And yet you're saying, well, that's, that's, you know, basically you wouldn't expect me to endorse David Duke. I mean, what a clown. Now, some reactions here. Jamal Bowman writes via Twitter, it's insane to equate India Walton, a black woman with David Duke, someone who supports the legacy of lynching black people and the rape of black women. This is the malignant narcissism of far too many white men. J Jacobs needs to resign or be removed. AOC chimed in saying J Jacobs absolutely should resign over his disgusting comments comparing a black single mother who won a historic election to David Duke. India Walton is the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo. No amount of racist misogyny from the old boys club is going to change that. As a federally elected official in the New York Democratic Party, I have zero confidence in J Jacobs' ability to lead an NYDEM party that is inclusive and respectful of all. This is just his latest incident. Jacobs is a toxic presence in the party and his continued post as chair is shameful. To have a strong Democratic Party, we must have state parties that are truly Democratic and operate with integrity. It's not just his pattern of attacks. Jacobs as chair is undermining the Democratic Party practice of uniting behind the nominee to protect his predecessor. 100% is qualifying. The New York Working Families Party said, while J Jacobs was attacking India Walton in India was on the picket line at Mercy Hospital standing with CWA District 1 nurses and hospital workers. That's the kind of person India is. So I'm glad that so many Democrats from New York are coming out to denounce it and they're also specifically calling for his resignation because this is the chair of the state Democratic Party. He should be the one that is uniting all factions of the party. You're trying to do that as difficult as that may be but he has a vested interest in making sure that Democrats get elected but here he is basically endorsing a right in candidate over the rightful winner of a Democratic Party primary. I mean, it's just, we hear all the time that the Democratic Party is a big 10 party but it's very clear that that tent excludes leftists and Democratic socialists like India Walton but it definitely includes Republicans like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. It's just, it's really, really infuriating. It's infuriating. So absolutely he should resign and face pressure to resign until he does. Now, India Walton addressed his comments in a fundraising email saying, I should not have to defend why I am not in any way comparable to David Duke, a militant white supremacist and anti-Semite, a man who would celebrate my death. It is mind-boggling that any Democratic Party leader would see fit to make such an offensive analogy. Jacobs and many corporate Democrats like him are still refusing to endorse our campaign despite our primary victory among Democratic voters they're allegedly accountable to. It is clearer than ever that they'd rather uphold the status quo than fight for a bold progressive vision that works for all Buffalonians. Yeah, and she's exactly right. So I mean, there's not really much left to say about this. I'm sure that this won't be the last attack on India Walton and the actual election is coming up very soon. So please feel free to support India Walton if you can spare a couple of bucks or if you can canvas for her because her victory is not a foregone conclusion because even though this is a right in campaign and a heavily Democratic Party-leaning district, Byron Brown is the four-term incumbent mayor with a lot of name recognition and a lot of money. So he could still potentially win. But if she does win, I'm sure that the attacks will continue. I'm sure that the Democratic Party in Buffalo City Council will be obstructionist. Either way, they're gonna fight her to the nail but this is what we expect from a Democratic Party where leftists just aren't welcome. So that's why we have to get in there, kick them all out, kick them to the curb, take over and just do what the people need. And that's deliver, actually fight for housing and justice and stop letting these corporate Democrats dictate the Democratic Party's politics. This is supposed to be the working class party. So it's time that it becomes the working class party again and not this party of wealthy donors. It's just, it's insufferable. But again, I'm not surprised at all. I have followed the corruption of the Democratic Party establishment for years now and this is exactly what you'd expect anytime you see an insurgent leftist candidate defeat an incumbent corporate Democrat. NBA superstar Kyrie Irving is becoming a bit of an all star in the anti-vax movement, I guess we'll call it. I mean, I'm using the word movement very charitably here but anti-vaxers love him because he's not just talking the talk, he's walking the walk too and he's kind of putting it all on the line. He's so vehemently anti-vax that he's willing to lose his position in the NBA, he's willing to jeopardize millions of dollars every single year all so he can remain unvaccinated. So the Hill reports Irving an NBA champion and seven time all star was suspended by the Brooklyn Nets over his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The decision has rendered him ineligible to play or practice in the team's arena due to New York City's requirement for proof of vaccination to attend large indoor events. I'm standing with all those that believe what is right. Irving said while speaking on Instagram Live earlier this month, everybody is entitled to do what they feel is what's best for themselves. Seeing the way this is dividing our world up, it's sad to see people are losing jobs to mandates. Irving added that he didn't foresee vaccines being an issue ahead of this NBA season, which begins on Tuesday. So I mean, you can see why anti-vaxers love him but he's wrong about a couple of things here. First of all, you're not entitled to do something that puts everyone else in your community at risk. If enough people don't get vaccinated then this virus will continue to spread and it may mutate and a new mutation that can bypass the effectiveness of vaccines is basically inevitable. Furthermore, people who are unvaccinated are more likely to spread COVID-19. So it's not just about you when it comes to a public health crisis. This is about everyone. And I'm sorry, I have no sympathy for people who are losing their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated once these mandates go into effect because these people are selfish, right? These are people who are putting everyone else in danger because they've been misinformed. They refuse to take a safe and effective vaccine that is widely available. So I don't care if you're losing your job. There's a simple way to keep your job. Get the fucking vaccine and stop being a goddamn moron. So I mean, I have no love for these folks but what's funny is that Kyrie Irving after learning about him, I've got to say he's the perfect representative for the anti-vax movement because he's also shockingly a conspiracy theorist about other things as well. He's also a flat earther. Or should I say he's just asking some questions about the shape of the earth. He's not an explicit flat earther, but you know, he doesn't know. So in a 2018 interview with the New York Times, he said like, I don't know. I was never trying to convince anyone that the world is flat. I'm not being an advocate for the world being completely flat. No, I don't know. I really don't. It's fun to think about though. It's fun to have that conversation. Is it though? It is absolutely fun because people get so agitated and mad. I wonder why. They're like, hey man, you can't believe that, man. It's religious, man. It's just science. You can't believe anything else, okay? Cool, well explain to me. I mean, he sounds so fucking smart but this is the martyr of the anti-vax movement. This is the symbol and superstar of the anti-vax movement. And I've got to say he is the perfect representative for this group's dumb fuck beliefs. It is science. It is a fact and you're just wrong. And I don't find conversations about the shape of the earth intellectually stimulating. I think that you'd be a stupid person if you question this and ensure you're free to think that, absolutely. Nobody's stopping you from believing that the world is shaped like a fucking pyramid. But will people make fun of you if you express that idiotic and delusional belief? Yeah, they will. And you should expect that because it's silly. I mean, it's like saying every single human being has 20 fingers and 20 toes. Well, that's factually incorrect and it's verifiably untrue. So if you say something like that, sure, you can believe it but is your belief wrong? Absolutely, there's a difference between fact and opinion. And because you want to be a little snowflake and believe that the world is flat or ask questions about the shape of the earth, that doesn't mean that we have to buy into your delusions. Now, the things that he said here, it sounds very similar to the things that we'll hear right wingers say, right? So I'm waiting for a Tucker Carlson segment where he says, I mean, liberals, they want to be the thought police. They're trying to convince you that you can't have your own beliefs and they won't let Kyrie Irvin believe that the earth is flat. Like this is the kind of thing that we see all the time, right? They've been saying this about vaccines. Oh, you can't even question it. You have to be this hive mind except there are facts and there are opinions. Nobody's saying that you can't state your opinion and you're still allowed to say what you want to. But there is going to be criticism and pushback. That doesn't mean that your free speech has been impeded. It just means that people are calling you stupid because what you're saying is wrong. Now, Howard Stern, he addressed Kyrie Irving and what he said was incredibly satisfying and dare I say cathartic to hear because I've been really fresh-fated with anti-vaxxers. There's a lot of anti-vaxxers in my family. People I know who refused to take the vaccine in real life and these people will not listen to reason. It doesn't matter how much evidence you supply them with. So to hear this rant from Howard Stern, it was great. So here's what he said. Radio host Howard Stern tore into NBA superstar Kyrie Irving over the guard's refusal to receive a coronavirus vaccination, calling him the biggest idiot in the country right now. Talk about stupid. There are some people who are willing to walk away from millions of dollars and not get vaccinated. Stern said on his nationally syndicated radio program on Tuesday. They're so stupid they're putting their mouth where their money is. In terms of idiots, he's gotta be the top idiot in the country right now, Stern, instead of Irving. Guys got a chance as a young man to make millions of dollars. All he's gotta do is get vaccinated, but he doesn't want to get vaccinated. Stern also noted previous comments Irving has made about conspiracy theories. He's got a history of being stupid, Stern said. He's one of these guys, he's a flat earth or two. His mind works in very strange ways. Stern has been sharply critical of Americans who refuse to take a coronavirus vaccine at one point calling them nutjobs who are putting others in danger. The serious XM host ripped Joe Rogan for pushing Ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19. When are we going to stop putting up with these idiots in this country and just say it's mandatory to get vaccinated? Stern said during a fiery segment on his show last month, fuck them, fuck their freedom. I want my freedom to live. I want to get out of the house. I want to go next door and play chess. I want to take some pictures. This is bullshit. What are you saying here? This is based to hear him rip into idiots like Joe Rogan who will cry and melt down because CNN dared to say that he's taking horse to warmer when he spreads misinformation all the time and all of a sudden he's really worried about being straight and narrow in your interpretation of facts and making sure you don't spread lies. I mean, you do this all the time. Shut the fuck up. I'm just so sick of anti-vaxxers. We're at a point in the pandemic to where I'm out of patience. I have nothing left to say, no love to give to these people. We know we've seen the evidence, the vaccines are safe and effective, and yet people are still choosing to be incredibly idiotic. But I will say this about Kyrie Irving. I don't have much nice things, many nice things to say about him. But what I will say is that I at least have more respect for him because he's walking the walk and he's putting himself in danger. But people who I have zero respect for are the people who are vaccinated and tell others, maybe you shouldn't get vaccinated and perhaps they don't say this explicitly. Maybe they just heavily imply it. Maybe they push vaccine hesitancy. These are the people who are the worst of the worst. I'm talking about the Tucker Carlson's and the Jimmy Doors of the world because they're telling others that maybe this vaccine isn't safe and effective while they themselves are protected. It's truly gross and nefarious at least. Kyrie Irving is putting himself in jeopardy, endangering himself by being an idiot. But other people who didn't drink the Koolay that they're giving to other people, those are the people who I think are the worst when it comes to anti-vaxxers. But having said that though, I mean, they're all bad. It really speaks to the lack of education in the United States. It speaks to a lack of media literacy among people who can't differentiate between fact and fiction and they get their news from Facebook and see these weird boomerangs about the vaccines. And that's where they come to this conclusion that the vaccine is bad when, I mean, you've got to look at the real facts, the studies from reputable sources and not some weird boomer who's ranting at his computer for 45 minutes about how the vaccines are causing people to be possessed by the devil or some shit. I mean, we're at a point where we shouldn't have to have this conversation. And the fact that we are is frustrating. Hence the reason why I'm finding rants from Howard Stern great and cathartic because I'm sick of this shit. Fuck Kyrie Irving. And if he wants to be an idiot and not get vaccinated, okay, throw away millions of dollars every single year, but don't convince other people to do what you did because you're misinformed. Stop being stupid. You're not a martyr. You're not an activist. You're just uninformed. And your stupidity is endangering others if it is the case that they believe what you're saying is true. So we have talked about Madison Cawthorne on this program before and this is someone who I feel like is very obviously a sociopathic lawmaker. He is clueless. He's kind of just an ideologue and he happened to win by chance. Having said that though, he is in a position of power and the things that he says, it actually has an impact on American society. So he's gonna say something in this video that we're about to watch and it is kind of a mask off moment. It's a moment where another GOP lawmaker says the quiet part out loud, but I genuinely am conflicted because I don't know if I'm more disturbed by the comment that he makes or more disturbed by the audience reaction who loves what he has to say. Take a look. Our culture today is trying to completely demasculate all of the young men in our culture. I mean, you can look at the testosterone levels in young men today and they are lower than throughout all of history. And there's a lot of reasons for this that we can get into later. But my friends, they're trying to demasculate the young men in this country because they don't want people who are gonna stand up. And so I'm telling you all of you moms here, the people who I said were the most vicious in our movement. If you were raising a young man, please raise them to be a monster. Raise. He's telling moms to raise your boys to be monsters and they love that. I just, I don't understand people. I don't understand Republicans. I don't understand the way they think. I don't understand this logic. Why would you want to raise someone to knowingly be a monster? What kind of values would you instill in someone if you want them to be a monster? I just, this is disgusting. And again, I don't know if I'm more grossed out by his comments or the reaction from the audience. I mean, it's one thing. If a GOP lawmaker says something horrible, but it's another thing. If the audience doesn't think, maybe rethink that. Maybe I don't agree with that. They just go along with everything. They clap like seals at every dumb thing a Republican lawmaker says. And that's an issue. He also says they're trying to demasculate young men in this country because they don't want people who are gonna stand up. First of all, who's they? Second of all, what does stand up mean? I don't know what that means. Does that mean stand up and participate in capital insurrections? Does that mean fucking be disrespectful towards women and be toxic in your masculinity? I genuinely don't know what he's saying. It's incoherent. But if you just throw in a bunch of buzzwords, masculinity, liberalism, communism, it doesn't matter what it is. It could be as incoherent. It could be as bad as fucking insane as you try to make it be. Republicans will applaud and they will love it. They'll eat that shit up because they don't know what they want. They just know Democrats and liberals bad. And that's the totality of their politics. So by saying, oh, well, you know, they're trying to demasculate young men and they don't want people to stand up. They don't really know what he means, but they kind of fill in the blanks in their head. It's why Make America Great Again was such a great slogan because it's super vague. And that kind of a slogan allows someone to kind of extract whatever message that they want out of that slogan. And of course, what they take away from it is going to match their worldview. But Madison Cawthorne, when he says, raise young men to be monsters, I don't think that he's bluffing. He actually wants young men to be monsters. And it's because he himself is a monster. This man is a predator. So as Addie Baird and Breanna Sacks of BuzzFeed News explain, BuzzFeed News spoke with more than three dozen people, including more than two dozen former students, their friends and their relatives who described or corroborated instances of sexual harassment and misconduct on campus in Cawthorne's car and at his house near campus. Four women told BuzzFeed News that Cawthorne, now a rising Republican star, was aggressive, misogynistic or predatory toward them. Their allegations include calling them derogatory names in public in front of their peers, including calling one woman slutty, asking them inappropriate questions about their sex lives, grabbing their thighs, forcing them to sit in his lap and kissing and touching them without their consent. One of these women now works as an intern for another Republican member of Congress and passes Cawthorne in the corridors of the Capitol. According to more than a dozen people, including three women who had firsthand experience and seven people who heard about these incidents from them at the time, Cawthorne often used his car as a way to entrap and harass women classmates, taking them on what he could call fun drives off campus. Two said he would drive recklessly and ask them about their virginity and sexual experiences while they were locked in the moving vehicle. I mean, this man was a monster. He still is a monster. And this isn't just something that was this little secret among his college classmates. There were three RAs that confirmed that women were warned to avoid him because he was a predator. He might prey on them. He might take them into his car, drive around recklessly and when they have nowhere to escape, ask them all of these questions about their sexuality. It's truly manipulative. It's gross. It's predatory. And dare I say, it's monstrous. So Madison Cawthorne is a fucking monster, not just a monster in his personal life, but a monster politically as well. He's promoted lies about the 2020 election being stolen. As a lawmaker, he's explicitly homophobic and transphobic. In fact, trans activist Claire Clark actually confronted him recently at a Republican Party fundraiser. And I'll link you to the video on Lauren Steiner's channel if you want to watch that. I'd highly recommend it. But the point is this man is a fucking monster. And now it's up to Republican Party voters. Are they going to support these politicians as they continue to go mask off? I mean, Donald Trump was very overt in his racism and xenophobia and misogyny. And now you have folks like Madison Cawthorne just saying, yeah, I think that women should raise young boys to be monsters. So if you still support politicians like this when they tell you who they are, maybe you deserve to suffer from the policies that they pass or don't pass. The policies that are demonstrably harmful to the working class. I mean, if you support them, if you're stupid enough to vote for someone like Madison Cawthorne, I don't know what to say. I mean, you have the information. He's not hiding it. He's telling you very clearly he supports monsters and he wants women to raise monsters. So if you're going to cheer for this, then don't complain about Congress being broken because you're part of the problem if you're electing imbeciles and monsters like Madison Cawthorne. This man should not be anywhere near a Congress. He's not qualified to work at any job, let alone be a lawmaker in a position of power. So Madison Cawthorne is absolute garbage. He's a shit person. He's a monster. And this person should not be serving in Congress, but I feel like that's obvious if you're a reasonable person with a shred of common sense and common decency. So there were rumors about Joe Manchin supposedly threatening to leave the Democratic Party and he's kind of using his status in the party as a bargaining chip reportedly when it comes to negotiations regarding the Build Back Better Act. Now he denies this and I'll tell you what he said in response to this, but first I wanna get to the article. This is from Mother Jones who broke the story and David Corn writes, in recent days Senator Joe Manchin has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from 3.5 trillion to 1.75 trillion according to people who have heard Manchin discuss this. Manchin has said that if this were to happen he would declare himself an American independent and he has devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure. He told associates that he has a two-step plan for exiting the party. First, he would send a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. He is vice chair of the Senate Democrats Policy and Communications Committee. Manchin hopes that would send a signal. He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on negotiations. After about a week he said he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent. It is unclear whether in this scenario Manchin would end up caucusing with the Democrats which would allow them to continue to control the Senate or side with the Republicans and place the Senate in GOP hands. In either event he would hold great sway over this half of Congress. So if this is actually true and again he says it's not I think that this is an interesting tactic but it really depends on the details. If he's threatening to become an independent and leave the party but still caucus with Democrats that doesn't really change anything. Okay bye we don't want you. But if he chooses to caucus with Republicans and he gives control of the Senate over to the GOP and makes Mitch McConnell the Senate majority leader again that's kind of different. So it really depends on the details and I think how but hurt he is would determine the route that he takes here but none of this may matter because he says this isn't the case. So NBC News reporter Frank Thorpe says Manchin to Bergus Everett and me on the report he is threatening to leave the Democratic Party if his demands are not met on infrastructure. I can't control rumors and it's bullshit. Bullshit spelled with a B U L L capital B. And here's the video. I can't control rumors and it's bullshit. Bullshit spelled with a B U L L capital B. Okay so we've seen the video. We've read the story. So what do I think? I don't believe him. I think he's lying. I think that this article is too detailed. The specifics there were if this were just completely fabricated there wouldn't be that much information. There'd be rumblings but it doesn't seem like they're just going off a little bit of inklings of here and there. Maybe he'll leave the party. It seems like there was a detailed plan that they got access to. I mean, this is all speculative. I don't know for sure but I think that he's probably trying to hold his cards close to his chest and he doesn't want to reveal that yet because they're still negotiating the Build Back Better Act or maybe he was planning this but he kind of did get what he wants. So now there's really no need to leave the Democratic Party. So he's denying these rumors because he doesn't want to hurt negotiations. I mean, there's also an article from Truthout on the same day where Biden announced that the new reconciliation bill that he's proposing is slashed nearly in half. So the number is between 1.75 to 1.9 trillion and this range is exactly what Joe Manchin allegedly demanded that would stop him from leaving the Democratic Party. So I mean, if he really did threaten to leave the Democratic Party then it seems like the strategy worked and now he doesn't have to. So of course he's gonna shoot down these rumors. But I mean, it's just overall it goes to show you what a piece of shit he is if this is indeed true. Now the article, he's denying it. Joe Manchin has lied many times throughout the course of his career so I genuinely don't think he's telling the truth about this. I actually do think that the reporting from Mother Jones is probably accurate. It seems legitimate. This is something that many people speculated that Joe Manchin could do if negotiations didn't go his way throughout the tenure of the Democratic Party controlling the Senate. So it's not that shocking. So for him to say, oh, well, this is bullshit, it's rumors, I really doubt that but nobody can know for sure. Either way, Joe Manchin is still a piece of shit regardless if he chooses to leave the Democratic Party or not. But honestly, if he would leave the Party, identify as an independent and still caucus with Democrats that is inconsequential, as I said. But if he truly wants to fuck them over he would caucus with the GOP. And then that is kind of, that's a really low blow handing control to Mitch McConnell because you don't get what you want after you got everything you wanted in the bipartisan infrastructure proposal. That's incredibly fucked up but it's not below Joe Manchin. He is someone who's scummy enough to do something like this. And it's just all around not shocking. In fact, it's pretty predictable for someone like Joe Manchin. So last week on the show we talked about Dave Chappelle's transphobic Netflix special and the conversation that ensued afterwards transpired exactly as I expected it to. You had a lot of right-wingers like Ben Shapiro, Laura Ingram, Steven Crowder, all rallying around Dave Chappelle. I wonder why. And on top of that, trans people who dared to speak up were accused of being sensorians who were supporting cancel culture. But I think it's pretty clear that if cancel culture had any power wouldn't this instance where they're supposedly so much outraged lead to the cancellation of Dave Chappelle? No, you can't cancel Dave Chappelle. In fact, he commented that if this is what cancel culture is, then it's not so bad. He likes it. Now, transgender Netflix employees staged a walkout but before I show you what happened, I do wanna share their demands because contrary to popular belief, the official trans employee resource group from Netflix, they weren't calling for the special to be removed. There are some individual employees who are calling for it to be removed and that was the most controversial ask people thought that trans people were making but not all trans people agreed that it should be removed but the demands made by the trans Netflix employees who staged a walkout, they were actually just asking for better representation and respect within their company from their employer. So Zoe Schiffer of The Verge explains the trans employee resource group at Netflix has released a list of demands for the company ahead of Wednesday's walkout. We want the company to adopt measures in the areas of content investment, employee relations and safety and harm reduction, all of which are necessary to avoid future instances of platforming transphobia and hate speech. Employees wrote in a press release which has not yet been made public but it was supplied to The Verge. The news comes after weeks of controversy due to Netflix executives continuing to support Dave Chappelle and his company, Special The Closer, which many LGBTQ people and allies have criticized as transphobic. Last week, Netflix fired a leader of the trans ERG that's the employee resource group who was helping to organize the walkout. The company said this worker had leaked confidential information. Internally, that reasoning has been disputed. While the conversation has become mired in a culture wars dispute over censorship and hate speech, none of the demands involved taking down the comedy special. Employees want Netflix to allow the trans ERG to take on a bigger role in internal conversations surrounding potentially harmful content, hire trans and non-binary executives and eliminate imagery of transphobic content in the office. Now, I feel like all of these demands here are totally reasonable. If you are an employee, you should demand respect from your employer. That employer-employee relationship is inherently exploitative. So I think that them stating that we demand better from our employer, I think that that's absolutely expected. I mean, I support worker rights and this is a worker rights issue and trans rights, that's also a worker rights issue. You can't feel protected and safe in your workspace if you don't feel as if your employer values who you are, your identity, your contribution to the company, you have to feel as if you're listened to. And that's not the case for a lot of workers around the country. But I absolutely support these workers saying we demand to actually be heard by our employer. Listen, LGBTQ people, when they work oftentimes, even if you're in a state where you are protected from getting fired because you're gay, that doesn't necessarily protect you. I mean, you could be in a situation where you have homophobic bosses who are explicitly creating a hostile work environment and if you come out, if you tell them that you're gay, well, what happens? They could fire you. Now, they won't say that they're firing you because you're gay or trans. They'll come up with some bullshit reason, but this is something that trans people, gay people, non-binary people have to deal with. So worker rights also includes LGBTQ plus rights. So I think that what they're asking for here is incredibly reasonable. Now, the walkout did in fact occur and people decided to show up and protest the worker walkout. So as the Hill reports, signs from the protesters reading transphobia is not a joke and trans lives matter were met with others on the opposite side saying Netflix don't cancel free speech and jokes are funny. Now, I don't know if non-Netflix employees showed up to stand in solidarity with trans-Netflix workers, but it feels kind of odd if it's not the case, if that's not the case, that you would call employees staging a walkout requesting demands from their employer, protesters, when this is very clearly a worker rights issue. It's akin to a strike. But either way, it's bizarre that you have workers making a demand from their employer and then people protesting them. I mean, imagine if there was a Nabisco strike and Nabisco factory workers were making specific demands and you had protesters show up and say, well, we love Oreos. Okay, great. You can still love that, but we're talking about us and our employment with this company in particular. So you're kind of being an attention whore by trying to distract from the real issue that we're getting at here. But having said that, though, there was a viral video from what is perceived as a clash between these pro-Dave Chappelle protesters and Netflix employees. And there's one moment in particular that's going viral that the right is using to further demonize trans people because, of course, they're going to be portrayed as the bad guys in this situation because Dave Chappelle, he's incredibly famous. He has millions of fans. So people just, they don't care about trans rights. They just want their comedian to not be, quote, unquote, canceled. But you're going to see why this particular video is making the rounds online, getting so many clicks. So that was difficult to watch. It was cringe all around. The guy who was yelling, I like Dave. I like jokes. He was cringe-worthy. The lady who was screaming at him was cringe-worthy. It was really uncomfortable to watch. But right-wingers are using that clip as evidence that trans people who are making these demands from Netflix, their employer, they're just overly sensitive. They're SJW sensorians, and they don't support free speech. And look, I'll say, I don't think that that guy should have taken that sign away from that guy. I think that that was the wrong move. I mean, he's clearly there to stir the pot. He just, he is stupid, right? He's just trying to make a mockery of what these workers are trying to do. But when you take the sign away from him, then you're kind of giving him what he wants, because then you saw he cried out, oh, they don't support my free speech. They want to censor me or some shit like that. When that's not what this is about. Again, this is a worker rights issue. And for the particular employees at Netflix who spoke out and said that they want the special removed, you can disagree with that. That's fine. But that's not the purpose of the walkouts. The actual group who created this walkout in Netflix, they said that they want these specific demands and removing the closer was not one of them. But I mean, this entire conversation, it really just shows how trans people are not respected in the United States, because all it takes is one celebrity to say something bad about trans people. And then everyone rallies around that celebrity to defend them when they receive criticism. It's the same thing that happened with Tulsi Gabbard when she basically came out as a turf. A lot of people criticized Tulsi Gabbard. And then what happened? Well, trans people dealt with the brunt of that. People were calling them idiots. They were saying that they were unreasonable to challenge Tulsi Gabbard. And now the same thing is happening with Dave Chappelle. People who are criticizing him, they're the ones receiving backlash. Rayvana, she is a great leftist Twitch streamer. She criticized Dave Chappelle. And what happened? Well, you had people who were fans of Dave Chappelle reaching out saying, oh, well, you're just mad because you'll never be a real woman, except she's a cis woman. She's defending trans people because she's an ally. And that's not representative of the totality of the Dave Chappelle supporters, but it just goes to show you that anytime there's this conversation that takes place, it doesn't take place equally. There's one side who has an advantage, the celebrity, the wealthy person, and the marginalized people, they have the disadvantage. And if they dare to speak up, it's lose, lose for them. They look like they are SJWs who are in support of cancel culture. And then on top of that, they get dogpiled and they get a bunch of people sending them messages saying, you're not a real woman. We don't respect your identity. Just transphobic harassment and bullying. And it's it's just really discouraging to see. Now, a lot of folks who defended Dave Chappelle, they'll say, well, look, you just haven't, you haven't seen the full special. But after I watched most of the special, that part in particular about trans issues, I watched like 55 to 60 percent of the special, it's even worse than the article that I read portrayed it as saying, I'm team turf is absolutely bad. But what he did that was so nefarious is he not only tried to pit marginalized groups against each other, but on top of that, he tried to hide behind his transphobia by shielding himself with his trans friend. And that's incredibly gross. First of all, putting marginalized groups against each other. That's what bigots do. That's exactly what they want to do. They utilize this divisive tactic all the time. And to try to hide behind his transphobia by saying, I have a trans friend, it's not very compelling. Second of all, when you talk about how much you love and value your trans friend and you end by misgendering her, it's just it feels really slimy. It feels really disingenuous. And also implying that the people, the trans people specifically who criticized Daphne because she stood up for him after his last transphobic special that they're the reasons why she killed herself, which is horrible. I mean, understand what Dave Chappelle is doing here. It's basically a propaganda tactic. He's trying to make it seem as if any and all criticism of him is unreasonable and illegitimate. And if you criticize me for this transphobia that I'm espousing right now, then you're as bad as the people who convinced my friend to kill herself. That's extremely gross and disingenuous. And all around the special was just bad. It wasn't funny. Just putting aside his issue with the LGBTQ plus community, which he clearly has, it wasn't a good special. It was dad jokes. It was a really bad boomer memes. And the shit that he talked about was stale. I mean, making jokes about Mike Pence being gay. That was funny in 2016, 2017. But in 2021, we've all kind of moved on and we're making different jokes about Mike Pence and Donald Trump now. So he's just out of touch, but he didn't really have to try because I'm pretty sure that with the contract that he had with Netflix, he was already getting paid millions of dollars. So he didn't even do the bare minimum. And he just did what right wingers wanted him to do. So it's no surprise that they're defending him now after the shitty transphobic special. But hopefully when the dust settles, people can look back at this moment with a clearer mind and realize that ultimately the outcome, even if you don't believe Dave Chappelle was transphobic, which you're just you're you're fooling yourself if you believe that's the case. But ultimately, I think people are going to realize that this led to transphobia because anyone who dares to speak up who's trans and say, listen, this hurts me. They're the ones who are getting attacked immediately. Shut the fuck up. You're too easily offended. You support cancel culture. It's just it's sickening. And Dave Chappelle did all of this and now he has to live with that. And he might think that it's OK right now. But long term, if he is as smart as we all thought it was, which I believe that's the case or I hope that's the case, he'll soon realize that this was horrible and this isn't going to age well because it already has not aged well. So, you know, that's pretty much all that I have to say about this. Fuck Dave Chappelle. I support trans people. And if you don't like what I'm saying about Dave Chappelle, one, stop being so easily offended. Two, stop trying to cancel me. I thought you were against cancel culture. And three, I don't care. Dislike the video unsubscribe. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to share my opinion. And I absolutely side with trans people over Dave Chappelle and over you. And if you don't like that, that's fine. So dislike a way that actually helps the channel in terms of giving me engagement and helping with the algorithm. I don't care. I'm not going to censor myself because I'm afraid of pushback. If I'm getting this much pushback or people are getting this much pushback for daring to challenge what is explicitly transphobic, then that tells us that we have to push back even harder because we just have a lot further away to go. When it comes to trans rights, then I initially thought and that's sad. But I'm going to just ramp up and advocate for them harder because they're human beings and they deserve respect and equality. Hi, everyone. I am here with a congressional candidate running to represent California's 26th district. His name is Daniel Wilson and he is running as a nonpartisan individual but a progressive leftist. And he's here to talk about his campaign. Daniel, thank you so much for coming on the program. Thank you so much for having me, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. So what made you want to run for Congress? Because this is out of all the candidates that I've spoken with, it's very, very tiring. It's grueling. And on top of that, you know, you... This is self-sacrifice, right? So what made you want to run and what kind of influenced your decision to run as nonpartisan? So there's a lot that kind of goes into that. So the final... I would say the final straw for me deciding to run was just the 2020 pandemic. The entire year of 2020 just blew the doors wide open and, you know, we knew that there were some corruption and we knew that there was these problems but it kind of all just got laid wide open. And so I just... I kept watching and, you know, we protested at my member of Congress's house last summer with the People's Party demanding, you know, the People's Stimulus, cancel rents, mortgages, Medicare for All, these things. I've since pulled away from the People's Party and I'm running completely nonpartisan. And the reason for that is because in my conversations with people, whether it was... I worked at my county elections office, I volunteered at the polls for a number of years, and then also just in my political act, you know, being engaged with politics, when you have conversations with people, one of the first things they want to say is, well, you know, oh, you're a stupid Democrat or you're a dirty Republican. And I would say, well, actually, no, I'm neither. And like, you would see them physically relax. And then we go, oh, what does that mean? Or tell me about that. And so instead of them, you know, instead of things going tribal and everybody like hunkering down on their sides and just they... We actually have a conversation. And we're able to create dialogue and find that we agree on more things than we disagree on. And so that's plus, you know, what we watched happen with Bernie Sanders in 2020 and 2016 and 2020 and what the DNC did to him, the complete coalescing of the establishment candidates, right, to trounce somebody. And then we just continue watching it. And I mean, Nina Turner was one of the final blows where we see the DNC, the GOP, and, you know, Israeli lobbyists coalescing behind the establishment candidate that they know that they can control to silence somebody who they know is going to go in there and change things. And there's a lot of conversations to be had about what Nina has been doing since then. But I know that she would have gone in there and been a fighter for us. And I know that she would have been one of the best things that we'd ever had seen in Congress yet. I think that she really would have bolstered the squad and kind of reinvigorated them. But all of the hamstring, all of the dirty dealings, all of the back door stuff, all of the putting their finger on the scale, just, I just didn't want to... I just absolutely didn't want to be a part of it. And so my, the incumbent that I'm running against is a establishment corporate dem. She won't co-sign Medicare for All. She won't co-sponsor the Green New Deal while sending letters to the constituents saying, I support Medicare for All and I'm a climate advocate. But you won't co-sponsor the legislation. It's going to make it happen. So, but she's, she's, she's not, she's not, you know, a party star, but she toes the party line every time. She's a good soldier. She gives money when she's told. She supports the people. She showed up to back Newsom in the recall. You know, she does what she's told. She follows, she follows orders. And so she votes party line 98, 99% of the time. And they're never, they were never going to support me anyway. So, you know, I've had a lot of pushback. A lot of people who, you know, are leftists or still like, ah, you got to run Democrat or you're never going to make it. You got to run Democrat or you're never going to make it. I'm so tired of hearing that. And that is exactly why I'm determined to make it. Because until somebody like me makes it through, I mean, Bernie did it. Bernie got into Congress as an independent. So this isn't even completely breaking the mold here. This has been done. We've had independent members of Congress. People just don't like it. So they continue to tell you that it can't be done. And for a variety of reasons, their conflict is either they don't want it to change or they truly don't believe it's possible. Either way, we need to make a change. And so, yeah, all of that is kind of why I decided to run, why I decided to throw my hat in the ring. I knew that our community and our district needed better and that also having a fighter in Congress here and there would also make huge differences, not only in our local community, but nationally as well. Yeah. I think that's really interesting. I'm of the belief that basically 99 times out of 100, Duverger's law will hold. And unless you run in one of the two parties in most districts, you don't have a chance. But in California, it's interesting because you all have this jungle type primary. I'm not sure what it's called. And I've kind of warmed up to it because we have it in California and Washington, but Oregon out of the West Coast is the only state that doesn't have it. And we all voted it down. And I think it was 2014. And now I kind of regret that because it does open the door to socialist candidates, non-partisan candidates, which is really interesting because I think that you're right about this idea that so many people see that party label as a non-starter, but at the same time, you also see a lot of people, normie Democrats, who I think that leftists should probably try to win over somehow. They're also loyal to the party. So as leftists, we have the most difficult job. Like we have to walk that fine line of trying to make sure that we don't scare away the normies because we don't want them to think we're these like extremists who are going to, I don't know, take away their private property. And we also have to work to an extent with people who we don't like. So I like that you're kind of using this unique opportunity to run as a non-partisan because in a way it gives you an advantage. I mean, there are pros and cons, I'm sure, right? Like you don't get access to the infrastructure that the Democratic Party has, but at the same time as a marketing standpoint, you really can appeal to people who I think are non-voters who are dissatisfied with the status quo, more independent minded. And I think that even if you change the way that you explain some policies, you might be able to appeal to some open-minded right-wingers, not all of them. And it depends on how you sell certain policies. But I think that you have that opportunity. What is the reception that you've received? Because I'm sure that you've held events. I'm not sure if you're doing in-person events and whatnot. What's the reception that you've received from someone that you kind of talked about? How they were immediately like their guards were up when you said, I'm running for Congress. But when you told them you weren't a Democrat or a Republican, can you recall a single person who was like either conservative leaning? Like did that actually change and make them more open to left-wing ideas? Because I think this is really important to learn about. Yeah. And so I think that, yes, so specific conversations. I actually had one, one of the local community members here does a pop-up in the, it's basically just a lot, but she does a pop-up where she lets local merchants and vendors and food people come and do stuff, and she's raising money to turn that into a sensory garden for our homeless community. Because that's some of the best things that we can do is just try and give them a safe place to be where they aren't going to be hassled and harangued by the police or the authorities. So at this pop-up event, I was talking to this gentleman, and he's a veteran like myself, much, much older veteran. And he even told me, he said, I'm conservative. I vote Republican every time. And not only did this gentleman end up spending the two hours in the cold talking to me, because I can see him start to shiver, and he still kept talking to me. He still was fully engaged. And not only that, he came back the next week, and he has called me, and we are now going to go out to lunch one day this week. So there's him specifically, but then also there's another gentleman who I've connected with online. We did a live stream on his thing, and he considers himself, he voted for Bernie in 2016, the primary, but he says he took a hard right where the rest of us went left. He voted for Trump. In our recall, he was supporting Larry Elder. And just on the face of those facts, right, just on the face of those facts, him and I would not get along. We would have nothing to conversate about. Him and I did a live stream on one of his IG live streams that he does, and we talked for four hours. Not once were we rude or disrespectful, not once did we get into any type of screaming match, and we disagreed on a handful of things, but we actually agreed on more than we disagree. He considers himself more of libertarian, more of a moderate, and so he's for Medicare for All, but we disagree on how to do it. And so that's what I've really found, is that it's the slogans, it's the misinformation, and it really boils down to all of it, it's just information. With Medicare for All, with Deep on the Police, with Climate Change, Green New Deal, all of that, I mean, even how long did it take us to shift from global warming to climate change, because we couldn't get anybody to believe in global warming while there was snow on the ground. Right. It's messaging, and it's what I've found, and especially so I guess the best example I could give you, rather than a specific person, is a specific policy. So Deep on the Police, my father is a police officer, my uncle is a police officer, my cousin is a police officer. They've also served in the military, and a variety of things. And so both my parents voted for Trump in 2016. I am kind of the unicorn. They didn't in 2020, and I'd like to take a little bit of credit for that. My mom is even yelling about Medicare for All now, because she had to pay for her rehab. She had to stop going to rehab after her breast cancer surgery, because it was $60 a time, and she couldn't afford to it. Anyway, I'm not going to answer your question anymore. Let's go back to the specifics. So we're talking about Deep on the Police. When you say that immediately, the conservatives, Republicans, even a lot of Democrats shut down. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to talk about it. They love their police, support the blue, all of that. And it takes someone who is in a police family, who has been and involved in, for me to kind of break through. And so there's a lot of unique traits about myself where I don't fit into any one thing. I'm a veteran, but I'm trans. You know, I was raised by conservative Republicans, but I'm very much an extreme leftist. I'm not a politician. I think that's one of the best things about me. So those things kind of give me a little bit of an edge and a little bit of an advantage or a way to speak to somebody that wouldn't hear something else. And it's giving me a unique opportunity. And so with Deep on the Police, so I say, look, you might not like that slogan. You know why, you know, you bristle against it. Let's talk about the facts and the ideas instead. Let's remove, let's get rid of the slogan. Let's look at the amount of police funding, the amount of police responsibility. If you love and support your police, then you should actually want us to pull back these things. And because I know personally, I don't want my dad going to deal with people who are on a 5150, who are psych, you know, having suicidal issues or any type of other mental thing. He's not trained for that. He's a good dude. And I don't believe that he would shoot them, but he's not a trained mental health professional. And he should not be sent to handle things like that. And so when you bring it from the perspective of, look, these police officers over decades have been given more and more social societal responsibilities without any training or handling on how to do such. You know, they're given a spit smock, right? Like police have a thing to put over somebody's head so they can't spit on you. Like this stuff is insane. And that's, that's their, that's their training, right? They're trained to contain and bring things down and to stop and even, even our de-escalation training to go better. But I won't go so, so, so short-sighted as to say that all we need is police reform. I think we need police reform. I think we absolutely need to, the way I've been stating it is we need to divest from police services and reinvest into our community. So instead of just shutting down the police department, what I'm saying is, is remove some of their responsibilities. Let's create a mental health rapid response team and train our dispatchers to know when somebody's calling in, do they need a police officer? Is there a violent armed situation that they are encountering? Are they somebody on the side of the road who just needs maybe something like a transit support or something like transportation support? You got a flat tire, you've been in a car accident. Somebody with a gun doesn't need to be at a scene for a car accident. Somebody with a gun doesn't need to be handling somebody who wants to kill themselves, especially when we have now seen repeatedly, people use that to kill themselves because they know that they point a gun at a police officer, they're going to get shot. Well, maybe if we stop sending police officers to deal with people who are suicidal, that will stop happening. And to save the police officer too, because if they had to take down somebody, that sticks with them, right? And I know that there's a lot of things that can be said about that. But we don't put them in that situation who remove the opportunity for it to go back. And so when I talk about that and when I talk about it from a perspective of helping the police, helping the community, providing more resources instead of just the police are bad, we need to destroy them, then people will start to hear you. And so I really think it's messaging and it's how we come about it. But I also don't think we need to kowtow and bow and acquiesce to anything either. We still need to push hard for these things, but we can adjust the way we discuss it and focus on more reparative than destructive focus. That's really interesting. The way that you're describing it is it seems like they're really receptive to your message and you're kind of demystifying all of these ideas that are seen as, oh, this is the boogeyman, right? And that's interesting because if you hear about a candidate who's trying to win over everyone, trying to appeal to conservatives, you would expect, okay, well, what's getting cut? What's on the chopping block? What are you sacrificing to appeal to them? But that is not the case. Looking at your platform, it's amazing you are running with reparations, front and center, Medicare for all. And so to have that message and to not water it down, but rather explain it, I think that really can go a long way. It just is a matter of reaching out to enough people to win this election or make it into the runoff. That's when you really, that's when you have a huge opportunity. I wanted to ask you about your history in this particular district. And if you were an activist in the district, if you lived in the district, what is your relationship to the district and how do you feel like you can meet the specific needs of the people in that district? Because I think that nationally speaking, your politics are really, really popular. But what do you think is the main issue that is really going to galvanize voters in this district to vote against that incumbent? Sure. So a couple of things. And actually something that we went through last night is a perfect example. We were on a five-hour city council call last night. There was over 80 of us that showed up to speak on one agenda item. We were proposing rent control measures for Ventura County of Oxnard City specifically. And I was so proud and so moved that so many people showed up. Like I said, 80. And there's a wonderful new law that has been passed where they have to give us three minutes each for public comment. No questions. They cannot remove or do anything about that no matter what you're saying. And you know, there's good and bad. I've seen some of the viral videos. Sometimes they get a little abuse. But I think that it's time. I think that that is exactly how we put pressure on these people. And that's exactly how we hold their feet to the fire showing up at these things and letting our voice be heard. So specifically, so Ventura County, so I'm actually a transplant here. I was born and raised on the East Coast of Maryland. I lived there until I was about 24. And I joined the Navy. I went to Chicago for my training, went to Florida for my training. And then I got order station to Point Magoo here in California, Ventura County. I got off of the plane in November and it was 70 degrees. And I said, I'm never going back. What is this amazing place? So I've never liked the cold. Maryland doesn't get enough snow to make it worth it anyway. So I love it here. So I've been here since 2009. I've lived in Port Winimi, a small state, a small military city here. There's two bases in my county, which is really interesting. One is the CB base. It's the major base. It's the actual Naval port as well. And then there's a smaller base, Point Magoo that I was stationed at, which is more aviation. So I was aviation structural mechanic here at Point Magoo. I got out in 2013 and I started going to college. I used my GI Bill. So I've gone to our local community college. I used the transfer program to get into our university here. I graduated with my bachelor's. And as most of us know, you can basically wipe your butt with bachelor's today. I was lucky enough. Unfortunately, yeah. Right. When I graduated with my bachelor's, I was so thankful to get a job at Starbucks as a shift supervisor for $16 an hour. And it was the most money I'd ever made in my life, too. So I was happy, but that was great. But so that was kind of my first. So while I was in the military, kind of in and out, not really involved. To be honest, going to school was really my first, getting to know my community and getting engaged and involved in local events. Nothing activist-wise. I'm not going to give myself that much credit. But then, you know, going forward, when I was working at Starbucks in 2017, 2018, that was when we had some of the worst fires that we had ever seen in California. And the community response was amazing. Like I'm getting chills just thinking about it. It was amazing. We would have people, we had firefighters coming in when I was working at Starbucks and people would say, I'm buying their coffee and do little things like that. Right. And that's how it started. And then we had people start coming in, buying whole buckets of coffee and scones and pastries and stuff and taking it to the lines, taking it out to the firefighters on the line or to the department, to the fire station, and they were taking it out. And so we, as some of the shift managers there, we decided to do that same thing. At the end of our shift, we took a whole bunch of coffee. We got some food and a bunch of different things, masks. And we went and we went fire department by fire department. We went volunteer station by volunteer station. And they kept turning us away because so many people had donated and brought them things that they weren't going to be able to use it. And so it took us probably about an hour or two to just find a place that still had need. And I was just so blown away at the community response showing up because this isn't just food. People were bringing clothes to, people's houses were being burned down. People were being not evicted but evacuated from their homes. And so running with just the clothes on your backs, even if you might have your belongings to go back to, people were getting put up in hotels. The city paid for things like that to happen. That was really when a lot of stuff, community-wise, started changing for me. And I saw the beautiful place that I lived in. And it has not stopped. It just keeps going. And through the pandemic as well, there's a bittersweet specific thing that happens here in our community that I wish didn't have to happen but is so beautiful still when I see it. I didn't understand it at first when I saw it. I saw people on the street doing car washes to raise money, which you see boys and girls clubs and cheerleaders and sports teams do that. But these were different. And I pulled into a couple, come to find out they were raising money to be able to bury their loved ones. And so it is actually a regular thing here, maybe not once a month but several times at least throughout the year just in our city. So I can only imagine throughout the state or throughout the country if this exists where they are doing car washes and selling sweets. And they have, you know, what's awesome is some of the food truck vendors show up and give any of the funds they give, they give to the family and stuff like that. And so yeah, but people have to do car washes to bury their loved ones. But our community shows up and shows out to make sure that they have what they need to do so. Yeah. And so all of that has really just made me fall in love with Oxard more and more. Oxard Ventura, the entire community here in Ventura County. I specifically am really close to Oxard so that is where I see a lot of this stuff happening. And it's also the community that needs the support the most. And to go into your, so Bernie Sanders 2016 was what awoke me to any type of politics. For most of my life I was a non-voter, to be honest. I didn't even vote when Barack Obama was being elected. Part of that was I was in the military and I didn't believe in the absentee voting. Because in Maryland at the time they just stuffed them in a basement and it didn't ever get counted unless there was a tie. And those are very electoral things. It absolutely needs to be changed. Yeah, there's some states where the absentee ballots the absentee ballots are only counted. I don't know all of the states, but there are some states where the absentee ballots are only counted if there is a tie. That seems weird. Yeah. Interesting. This also was over a decade ago. So I do not know what current legislation is on the books, especially in Maryland. I have not been there for over a decade. And I might have been misinformed at the time, truly, because that is also another part of it. Yeah, I was going to say that sounds like a big scandal. So I would imagine that's not the case. And I definitely should maybe do some background research on that. But that was my belief. Let me start saying that. It was my belief that my vote didn't matter anyway. So I didn't vote. And that is the point. That's what they want us to believe. So 2016 Bernie Sanders woke me up, started volunteering at the polls. So from 2016, 2017, working with Bernie Sanders campaign, volunteering at the polls, watching the fires devastate our community, the community outpouring. And I just haven't been able to stop since. I volunteered at the polls 2016, 2018, 2019. I got a job at my county elections office. I put on three elections for us in this county last year. Through the pandemic, there was some of the craziest stuff I've ever seen and been through in my life. Also the most rewarding and exhausting thing I've ever done in my life. And so, but it wasn't until probably last year, if I'm being fully honest, where I started being an activist and actively doing and calling for things. So while I was doing things in my community, and like I said, doing car washes and things like that, and supporting our community members, I didn't know how to do anything bigger. And to be honest, it was kind of overwhelming when even you go to look at all of these social justice programs and things like that, which one do I want to be a part of? Who's doing this? Who's doing what? And sometimes it's so overwhelming that people just, I'm just going to get involved when I can, right? A variety of things like that. So I would consider myself, at that point, a typical American, right? I'm just going about my business, working, and doing the best that I can. Until I saw what Bernie showed us was possible is that our representatives could stand for us. They could fight for us. They could speak to and actually care about us. And that when we showed up, we could actually make a change. And so in 2020, when the pandemic hit and just, they gave us what? One stimulus check of $600 and then said, they went on a three month vacation with nothing and no concern for any of us. So that was when I decided I need to get involved. I found out the DSA wasn't, I didn't have really any intention at the time to create a political party. So that's when I started working with the People's Party. I tried to form my own local chapter here. We helped them protest. I actually protested in front of my representative's house demanding that she fight for Medicare for all, do anything for us. Our homeless numbers were exploding. Every day I saw more and more people on the streets. Our food lines were miles long in every city, not just the poorest town, but the richest towns as well. We're also having food and security issues. And the silence from our leadership was absolutely deafening in their abdication of any responsibility to do anything. They're like, oh, now we've passed an eviction moratorium. So you're fine. Meanwhile, people are still being evicted or forced out of their homes for loopholes and other things that landlords are finding. And so kind of all of that. I don't know if I even necessarily answered the question. No, I think that this is really like, for you to talk at length, that's really important because what I want viewers to do is get to know you and get the opportunity to see who you are, what was the catalyst for your political awakening. And it seems like you have a pretty similar story as a lot of people. Bernie Sanders, on top of that, you have very clearly diagnosed the issues. One thing I will say, I did look it up for your state. So the absentee balance are counted. So I just want to correct that. Yeah, no bad record here. Yes, yes. Okay, so fact check in real time. Okay, but now I'm going to put you on the hot seat. So we know that you have all the answers, right? We know that if you're a viewer of the human support, you're going to like Daniel's platform. I guarantee it. But as a legislator, it's a little bit different. Sometimes you get put into these weird predicaments that are sometimes bad, sometimes morally gray. And I just want to know in hypothetical situations how you would deal with this just from your perspective. So let's say hypothetically speaking, you worked really hard. You introduced a bill and let's just say it's climate change related, right? It's not the Green New Deal, but it's a climate change bill. And you've got lots of co-sponsors. You've got committee hearings on it. And it's finally going to be put into a piece of our package. But even though this bill that you kind of worked really hard on, your constituents want it, you stake your career on it, is in this package, there's also a poison pill in that package. And that poison pill is, let's say, it's something to do with funding, I don't know, or defunding public education or police. It's a really bad poison pill. And it goes against everything you stand for. But in that package is kind of your pride and joy as a lawmaker. What do you do? Do you vote for that package, passing what you want and accept that poison pill? Or do you withdraw? I would say there'd be a variety of factors that would go into that. It would really depend where are the stakes. Is it that the Republicans or the holdouts will only vote for this bill with that poison pill in there? If we have exhausted all negotiations, and we've gotten to the point where these senators, let's use a perfect example, what we have going on right now, Kristen Sineman, Joe Manchin, who are holding out or saying that the leftists need to continue compromising and backpedaling. And we've already been talked down from 10 to 6 to 3.5, and now they want us to accept 1.5. And Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman absolutely slanted them on the radio on the other day. It was absolutely, you did a great episode on that as well. That's what we need, is that pushback. So I would do exactly what they're doing and more. And what Bernie is finally starting to do, not only do we go and have on every news show, every day, the problem is always education and information. And so where the major messaging failures are of the Democratic Party is they'll tote and they'll all retweet these same things, these same things, these same things about this garbage, about, oh, it's a gold star veteran day. But we cannot get them to unify on these messaging or on these images, on the platform of what we need. And they're always responding instead of being forward. So I would be on every news show, every day, every radio show, everything I could do, me and the people that would be supporting me and fighting for this. And then you hold rallies in those people's districts. You hold protests at their houses, you hold protests in their districts, and you inform their constituents about what they are doing and what they are costing and what they are trying to shove down America to vote. I would say that at the absolute end of the day, I would exhaust every absolute possible option rallying everybody, letters to the editor like Bernie just wrote. Good on him. Now all of a sudden Joe Manchin's like, hey, we're talking. It worked. And so those are the things that we need to do. I cannot say that there was never a poison pill that I would vote for. If it gets my people healthcare. If it gets my people housing and education. I cannot say that there is not a poison pill I will never vote for in Congress. There's probably some that I'm going to have to. I will do everything in my power and exhaust all option, including sitting with my own two feet in their front door asking them why they want to. I like that. I like that answer because you're being truthful and honest and you're thinking through. You're not willing to just accept it. You're willing to fight. But at the end of the day, you are telling us what you do as a lawmaker. And I think that that's really important. Another hypothetical situation. I love hypotheticals. So you'll have to bear with me. It's insufferable, but I love them. Let's say you are trying to get a committee hearing for another piece of legislation that you really care about. It's near and dear to your heart. But one of the co-sponsors who you think is gettable is not really willing to support you because it looks likely that you're going to endorse their primary opponent. And they don't like that. They don't want you to do that. So in this situation, what do you do? Do you endorse their primary opponent and say, okay, I'll try to find the support somewhere else? Or do you realize this is pretty crucial? And I kind of need his support. Maybe my endorsement won't do much. Tell me what your thinking process would be in that scenario because it's really tough. I don't know what I would do, but I want to know what you would do as a lawmaker. Sure, absolutely. So I think that in the question is kind of the answer because that's another thing. That's another tool in the toolkit that our legislators aren't using often enough when they get to a point where the roadblock will not move. Joe Manchin won't budge. Kristen Sinema won't budge. Then you go primary them. Like that's the point. That's exactly what you should do. And so that would be the leverage. I would tell the Congressperson, you're going to vote for this or I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that you're primaried and that you're no longer supporting you, that you're no longer serving. I said that really weird, but I don't know how I would go and give them a good one too. I'd probably say it better. But basically set down the line that we need your vote on this. And if you are not willing to do what the people need, then I am going to make sure that you get replaced by somebody that will. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So use their primary challenger as the leverage instead of it being something that scares you away, lean into it. They're already concerned about it. Like maybe if you vote for this legislation, then I wouldn't think it. Okay, I like that. I like that. One more thing that I want to ask you, I like your tactics because they're very aggressive. Going to the houses of lawmakers is one of the most badass things you can do because that's the number one thing that they hate. Having said that, though, as a lawmaker yourself, odds are you'll face resistance. And let's say you get elected. You win. And then there's this Fox News segment from Tucker Carlson. And he's saying, look at this. Californians elected Daniel Wilson, who is a radical communist. Who's next? He wants to take away your housing. He wants to take away your health care. And there's this law, you know, there's this, it will happen if you get elected. And then there's the, you know, a bunch of Republicans that are really resisting you. They show up just from a personal standpoint. How do you deal with that pressure? Because it's one thing to anticipate it, but when it actually happens that it is inevitable if you get elected. How do you, how do you think you would handle that? I mean, you have life experience. You're a veteran. You've been in really unpredictable situations. How do you think you would deal with that? Because I think that normal people, it would bog them down. But how do you think you would hold up? And it's impossible to say not having experienced that, but talk through your life experiences that you think kind of thickened your skin because I think that's really necessary if you're a member of Congress. Yeah, absolutely. I would say, you know, growing up in my household did a little bit of it. And then anything that I wasn't hardened on, the military definitely helped in that. And, you know, there's some good and bad to that. But I said this on a podcast I was on last time, you know, with what we had, the AOC being yelled at on the floor by Nancy Pelosi and changing her quote. I said, that would never happen to me because there's nobody in Congress that's going to say or do anything worse to me than my RDCs and drill instructors did. Like, you can't, it doesn't matter. I literally face down some of the craziest stuff I've ever seen in my life. There's nothing that you screaming at me is going to do. I would say as far as, you know, I have a purple district here. It's mislabeled as a D plus 20 because the Democrats do have a slight majority numerically. But the Republicans show up in strength and they, the Democrats' foothold isn't as strong as they would like to believe it is. So we're more purple. Do you know the results from the last election in 2020? I have all of that, very much memorized. So let me, let me answer this and then I can nail down all of that for you. Okay, yeah. It's actually, all of that is why, is another reason why I know that this can happen. So, so I've got, say I got Republicans in my district, which there are a lot of, there are a lot of conservative Republicans in my district, even if we weren't a military town, that, you know, definitely adds to it. But all of that, I'm not gun shy. I'm not afraid to go out and take some heat. I'm not afraid to deal with things. What was interesting when I went and protested in front of Julia Brownlee's house was my incumbent. She sat in her car the entire time. I didn't realize it at the time, but later I realized in footage and stuff that we watched this, this SUV idled. It was either her or her secret service. It was idled, this car idled outside for three hours. Do you care about the climate? It idled outside for three hours while we were outside protesting. And so what I would have done in that situation is wanted to talk to people. Yeah. People are allowed to be upset. There are a lot of things happening in this country that everybody has the right to be upset about. They're very valid criticism. And the problem is they don't have a place to put that anger or a way to direct it. And so when they show up at your houses, when they've been pushed to such extremes that they're willing to go to your member of Congress's house, they've got something that they need to say to you. Here's that. Here's that. There wasn't a thousand of us. There were maybe 10 people that showed up to that first protest. Okay. So there was in no way, any way, shape, or form. And I guess you could say that maybe you felt your life was in danger. But we said loudly that we come in peace. We played music. We wanted to do things. We had no intention of doing anything harmful at any. We took, we had chalk, we drew pictures on the sidewalk. There was no, there was no threat in any way, shape, or form. And so unless somebody's on my lawn with an AK-47, if they're just out there with signs screaming, I'm going to go talk to them. And so that, that is how you meet your constituents where you, where they are. That is how you handle the unrest and the upset that these people are rightly feeling is you talk to them because our biggest concern is not being heard. And not that it's that we just need to be heard. Having things happen after we're heard. Having our concerns, needs, and abuses heard. Things that are happening and going wrong. They're coming to you crying and begging for help. You close the door. And that's what's happening all across the country. From what's been happening for decades, all they care about is getting re-elected. And you know, I've even had people push back on me, even though you're running non-partisan, even though you're not going to do this, once you get in, you're only just going to be concerned about re-election. And I want to put things in place so that we don't have to do that. And I personally, I don't want to be a politician. I don't have a career goal to do this. So I don't, I don't see that as, as a thing. Yes, I would do my job for the best of my ability as long as my constituents continue to vote me in and said that they wanted me there for them. But I also am not going to, even if, even if I would never do 10 years. But that's too much. It gets too long. I think that, I think that, you know, a good, a good eight years is maybe, maybe, maybe as long as anybody should do. There's some conversations we can have about terms like that. Well, I feel like it would melt your brain if you were in there longer than a decade. I mean, how could it not? Exactly. And you're, you're, you're so out of touch from the people, the time going on around you. How can you, in good faith, legislate for people that die in fine sign, has two $40 million hole? How do you have any concept of what somebody literally counting pennies to go put gas in their cars going? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's just that. I don't think that you, you do. I think, you know, if you live a completely different life than your constituents, you're just incapable of representing them adequately. So Daniel, I think that you've given us enough to get to know you now. We know your policy platform and your personality, how you would govern as a lawmaker. But now is the most important part of the interview. Your last pitch to my viewers, folks, if you like Daniel, he's going to give us the pitch. So let us know how we can support you and what you need most. Is it, is it donations, is it canvassers? Help us help you. Absolutely. So first and foremost, money. Absolutely. Donations are the most important thing for any grassroots candidate, whether they're running in the Democratic Party or not. If they are running grassroots, if they have sworn off any type of, I've sworn off lobbyist pack money, corporate pack money. And I'm specifying that because like, say, if I were to work with the sunrise movement, they have a pack. I would take money from that pack. Right. So I don't want to say just a blanket. I won't take any pack money. I will not take lobbyist pack money. I will not take fossil fuel pack money. I will not take corporate pack money. I will not take any fossil fuel industry, any donor money, any insurance company money. Only from the people, grassroots, I'm asking people from 5, 10, 15, my standard donation right now is $22. If you're running in 2022. So Bernie did his $27, right? So I've got the $22. So $22 is my standard small ask for anybody that can. There's also the, if you go to my donation page, which I believe Mike will have in the information below. Also, if you go to voteforganu.com, it's at the top right corner of my website, the contribute button, right yellow. There's also the option where you can put in as little as a dollar. So anything that anybody can give me, I greatly appreciate. And it's absolutely the most important thing that you could do. Because those dollars turn into the postcards that I can print. Those dollars turn into being able to do a campaign ad. Those dollars turn into being able to expand our email and our canvassing program. So first and foremost, absolutely any contributions that any of your viewers would be so kind at to support us with, we would greatly appreciate. You can also go to my website, at voteforganu.com, to sign up for our email list. We're adding a volunteer sign up thing very soon. Because we are going to be hitting the ground running, if not before then, but by December for our canvassing program. So donations, canvassers, anybody in the local Ventura County or LA or Santa Barbara area, we would love to have your support. Anybody who is outside of the state, we are also going to be doing calling and phone banking and text banking so we can support that way as well. And I would just encourage you to go sign up for my email on my website, and then we will send you information and updates with the volunteer. Well, thank you so much, Daniel. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. We will continue to follow your campaign on this channel. I always try to follow and keep in touch with all the candidates that I bring on. Hopefully, we'll be back in touch again, but we'll certainly be wishing you luck here. Awesome. I thank you so much. Oh, and all social medias, all social medias, Daniel for VC, Daniel for VC, Twitter, social media, all the Instagrams, everything of that. Thank you so much for your time. I'm so thankful for this opportunity to be here and to speak with you and all of your viewers. Viewers, I've been a long time, viewers, three years, following Mike at least. He's amazing. Anybody that's new, definitely subscribe. Hit the like, hit the bell, and then go check out my website as well. I appreciate you all. Well, thank you. Well, OK, now you've got to support Daniel, folks. Plug in the human support. I mean, come on. Thank you so much, Daniel. All right, Mike, you have a good one. Well, folks, that is everything. Thank you all so much for watching. If you've made it this far in the program, as usual, we're not going to end the show without thanking all of the people who make the show possible. All of our newest Patreon, Paypal, and YouTube members, as well as our existing Patreon, Paypal, and YouTube members who don't just help the show to exist, but you help us to thrive and grow and expand. And I really appreciate all of your patronage. So yeah, that's all that I have for you. If you want more human support, you can find me sometimes at Twitch. Over on Twitch, I should say, at twitch.tv slash humanistreport. I really want to have a more consistent streaming schedule. It's supposed to be Thursdays at 7 p.m. PST. Hasn't really worked out lately. I did one show, missed the next one, and I'm probably going to miss this week's show as well. But I'll try to be more consistent. But for the time being, definitely make sure that you follow me over on Twitch so that way, when I do go live, you are notified. But I'll stop rambling. That's everything, folks. I will see you all next week. My name is Mike Fragerado. This has been the Humanist Report. Take care, everyone.