 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueroaido. 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 Figueroaido and this is episode 255 of the program. Today is Friday, August 21st and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, Paypal and YouTube members, all of which signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increase the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes AC Slater, Asha Norman, Brayden Lee Hall, Christopher Alvarez, Daryl Slaten, Jacqueline Richards, John Constantine, Peggy Maloof, Rhonda Bonecutter, Wyatt Sheets, Xavier Noon, Yvonne Jones, Zach Bender and Zoe Kelman. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals if you'd also like to support the show by joining the independent progressive media revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. So this week we don't have as long of an episode as we did last week, nonetheless, I still think we have a pretty great show planned for you. We'll discuss the new brother movement against Kamala Harris. We'll also talk about Joe Biden's interview with Cardi B, as well as the likelihood that he may back away from even a public option in the event he's elected. And when health care reform comes up, of course, on the subject of Joe Biden's policies, we'll talk about the progressive lawmakers voting against Democratic Party's official platform, John Kasich's attack on Ocasio-Cortez. And I'll give you an update on the race taking place in the first congressional district of Massachusetts between Alex Morse and Richard Neal. So we'll talk about those stories, as well as some other stories on this episode. I hope you all enjoy what we've got in store for you. Let's go ahead and get right to it. The Democratic National Convention is taking place this week. And I probably shouldn't admit this, but I do not intend on watching. I mean, I'll look for clips online to see if there's anything interesting. But I just don't have the mental bandwidth to withstand that much bullshit and platitudes and propaganda that we will inevitably see. I don't want to see people who I dislike, say nice things about someone who is the Democratic Party nominee, who I also don't like and how we're all coalescing around the party. And I don't want to hear from people who I do like, say nice things and lie to themselves about how wonderful Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be. I just I can't take it. So I'm going to I'm going to step back, not watch that. The Republican National Convention, however, I will be tuning in because that is a shit show that I am definitely not going to miss. You know, it's like a train wreck. You don't want to look away from it. But, you know, this week we have the Democratic National Convention. And as you see here, we have John Kasich up on the screen because by the time you see this video, he may have already spoken at this convention because, yes, Democrats invited him to speak. An anti-abortion union busting Republican governor is speaking at the Democratic Party's convention. And as Dan America points out here, he's not the only Republican who will be speaking because other Republicans are also speaking. Now, I don't know who specifically the Democratic Party is trying to appeal to here and inviting Republicans because Republicans will be voting for Donald Trump. So who are you trying to get votes from with this? Like, it doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't make sense to me. It seems like maybe like Hillary in 2016, they assumed that the left is going to be there. And I mean, most of the left did fall in line to be fair to them. Back in 2016, but they're trying to get Republican Party votes, peel that off from Donald Trump. Maybe that's going to work, but it didn't work in 2016. And I think that by doing things like this, it just it turns off your own base, who you need to be excited to vote for you. And there's not much enthusiasm for Joe Biden among younger voters, younger black voters. So it doesn't make sense to me that they do things like this. They're painfully out of touch. But that's why I'm not watching, right? But ahead of the speech that he's going to be giving, John Kasich took a shot at another fellow speaker, AOC. Now, AOC, she was lucky enough to receive 60 seconds to speak. The rest of the squad was a sideline, but she's going to get 60 seconds. How merciful of the Democratic Party. They're so inclusive of other voices, you know, of left wing voices within their quote unquote, big 10. Now, Andrew Yang didn't even get a speaking slot. He said, I was expecting to speak, if I'm being honest. And you'd think that he would be expected to speak, because even if he didn't go very far in the Democratic Party primary, he still was incredibly popular and brought this issue of UBI to the forefront of everyone's mind. So you would expect them to try to embrace like newer voices. But no, they invite Republicans like John Kasich, who's taking shots at the left, who the Democratic Party should be embracing. Now, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, this is what John Kasich said specifically about AOC. I think both parties have to have new ideas. And I think this country is moderate, said Kasich, winding up to a gentle criticism of Ocasio-Cortez. People on the extreme, whether they're on the left or on the right, they get outsized publicity that tends to define their party. You know, I listen to people all the time make these statements. And because AOC gets outsized publicity doesn't mean she represents the Democratic Party. She's just a part, just some member of it. And it's on both sides, whether it's the Republicans or whether it's the Democrats. Yes, because we all know that someone like AOC is the equal and opposite extreme of someone like Marjorie Green. Marjorie Green wants protesters extra judicially murdered, anyone who she deems Antifa, whereas AOC wants health care. Same coin, just different sides, equal and opposite extremes, according to John Kasich, a Republican. Now, he's wrong because AOC is actually the individual who is more moderate than him, because he's out of step with what American voters want. Americans want Medicare for all. Americans want to legalize pot, American support unions. Americans want a Green New Deal. Americans want to increase the minimum wage. They are not against abortion, contrary to popular belief. So because AOC is supporting policies that most Americans want, she's not the radical, you are. You're the one who's radical. You're the one who's against the American people. Just because ideologically, you may be in between where AOC is on the spectrum and the Republican Party. That doesn't necessarily mean that she's the radical because she's on the fringes of what's deemed respectable in DC. No, look at her policies and check the public polls. See who Americans are with war, you or her. He probably doesn't realize that more Americans agree with her than him. And maybe that's why she's getting so much publicity because she's popular. Now, a reporter named Melissa Ryan actually tweeted out this quote from John Kasich and AOC saw that and responded, saying, it's great that Kasich has woken up and realized the importance of supporting a Biden-Harris ticket. I hope he gets through to GOP voters. Yet also, something tells me a Republican who fights against women's rights doesn't get to say who is or isn't representative of the Democratic Party. We can build bridges and not lose sight of our values. It's important to remember that Kasich is an anti-choice extremist. He 100 percent will and has signed away our reproductive rights the moment he has the opportunity to do so. He is not a friend to workers. So she's 100 percent correct here in calling him an extremist, because he is the one who is the extremist in this context, right? If you are out of step with Americans and all of the things that you've done as a lawmaker has been against what the people want, then you are the radical because everyone disagrees with you and agrees with AOC. Again, we want Medicare for all, agree a new deal, legal weed, $15 minimum wage, that's what we want. You don't support those things, so you're the radical here. Although, I will say that AOC and I kind of diverge because she gives Joe Biden and Kamala Harris too much credit. Like the only importance of them getting elected is that Trump will be gone. That's it, though. I mean, maybe they'll get in and handle COVID-19 like adults. I'm expecting them to, right? At least do a national mask mandate. But other than that, they're going to do fuck all for people. They're not going to give us Medicare for all. They're already backing down from a public option. Like they're not important, right? They're just conveniently currently the one thing that stands between Donald Trump and another four years in the White House. So that's why they're important. But their importance stops there, right? After this election, once Trump is out, they're no longer important and you have to fight them like, hell, now I expect AOC to do that. I hope she will, right? But, you know, it just it's really it's frustrating because we're already kind of seeing what to expect, right? If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are elected, I mean, they're inviting Republicans to the Democratic National Convention. So who do you think they're going to listen to more? People like AOC, who they gave 60 seconds to or John Kasich and the other Republicans who they're listening to or their donors. I mean, so the entire situation is very frustrating. The situation is grim. I hope that they can defeat Donald Trump. But if they manage to get him out of power, it's not going to be P.G. King and I think that a lot of liberals right now, even some lefties are under this delusion that that will be the case when, you know, if they are able to get in and stop COVID-19 from spreading, actually give people a little bit more support during this pandemic. That's great. But they're not going to address the underlying issues that led to the rise of Donald Trump in the first place. And that's why we have to fight them. That's why we have to fight the Democratic Party because they very clearly do not understand that because they don't want to because they don't really disagree with Donald Trump that much. Why? Because they have the same donors. But yeah, that's that's all I have to say for now about the Democratic National Convention. It just looks like an uninspiring snooze fest. And I'm not really particularly interested in hearing the same platitudes. We've heard, you know, for the past four years over again. No, not interested. I'll pass. America is at a crossroads. Sometimes elections represent a real choice, a choice we make as individuals and as a nation. About which path we want to take when we've come to challenging times. America is at that crossroads today. I'm proud of my Republican heritage. I'm sure there are Republicans and independents who couldn't imagine crossing over to support a Democrat. They fear Joe may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I don't believe that. No one pushes Joe around. So I've said this before, but I think it's worth restating that I don't believe that the Democratic Party's national platform is very important. Like, if they say they support policy X, they're not legally bound to fight for said policy if they do, in fact, get elected. This is basically them stating their intent to advocate for this policy in the short term or the long term. But it's not a guarantee that if they endorse a particular policy, we get that policy, right? So it's symbolic. So having said that, they couldn't even give the left symbolic victories that would have made the left more enthusiastic to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harrison theory. I mean, they voted down legalized weed. Medicare for all overwhelmingly couldn't even give us a symbolic victory. They could say, look, we are at a national level we're endorsing public legalization and Medicare for all. We can't promise that you're going to get these things in the short term, but long term, this is where we're headed. This is what we want. This is the goal of the party couldn't even give us that. So if they can't even give us that symbolic victory, then I think that the bare minimum that we should expect from progressive lawmakers is to also deny them a progressive victory. Vote against this platform if it doesn't contain what you want. Because believe it or not, you don't have to go along with every single thing the Democratic Party does, right? If you are a progressive lawmaker and you're in the Democratic Party, you can vote against this platform if it isn't to your liking. And luckily, we have some progressive lawmakers who are doing just that. So Ro Khanna, progressive lawmaker from California announced on Twitter, he will not be supporting the Democratic Party's platform tweeting out universal health care was part of the Democratic Party platform until 1980. The 2020 platform proposes lowering the Medicare age to 60. Worse than 2016, moving away from a profit based health care system is the moral issue of our time. I'm voting no. Now, additionally, Rashida Tlaib also stated she'll be voting no, saying today I cast my DNC ballot and voted no on the proposed platform. I constantly hear from constituents demanding we push for a single pair system and away from this for profit system that is leading people to suffer and die just because they cannot afford health care. As a party, we must push for a future where every resident has the ability to thrive. That means we need a platform that works to rid our society of oppression and greed. Unfortunately, in my view, this platform does not do enough. Now, Corey Bush, who will be going to Congress in 2021, stated I cast my DNC ballot this week. I'm proud to have voted for Bernie Sanders, but I had to vote against the platform. My people are dying and I cannot support a platform that does not include Medicare for All, which would save lives, tens of thousands of lives. Literally, she then followed up saying I am a Sanders delegate. I followed the DNC rules. Period. Now, to my knowledge, no other progressives had actually stated their intent to vote against the party platform. I could be missing them, but it seems like these are the only people who are saying unequivocally I can't support this platform if it doesn't have Medicare for All. Now, Pramila Jayapal and AOC, I get that they're in a bit more of an awkward position because they were appointed by Bernie Sanders to be on the Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders unity task forces, and so they came up with policy position. So maybe they feel as if they're making some headway or some progress with Joe Biden, except the actual process where they crafted the platform and voted on it, that took place separately, right? That was a different process than the unity task force. So it's not weird for them. It's not like they're voting against the platform that they helped craft. So it would be nice to have all progressives just be unified here and say, we can't support this platform because it doesn't support Medicare for All. And again, I don't want to overstate the importance of this because at the end of the day, the platform itself isn't very important. Like it's not the most important battle that we should be having. But as I said, it's the bare minimum that we should expect from progressives, right? If you get elected to Congress by the left, then we should expect that you're not going to go along with this platform that doesn't include Medicare for All. I mean, before the pandemic, 68,000 people were dying every single year due to a lack of health care. And now after the pandemic, people are getting hundreds of thousands worth of bills if they get COVID-19. So are we just going to go along with a party that says we're not going to help those people out? We shouldn't. We can vote against it. We can send a message to the party if we're lawmakers and say, I'm not going to go along with that. If you don't support Medicare for All, I don't support your platform. There's really no risk. Again, it's symbolic. The party knows it's symbolic. It doesn't matter at the end of the day. So I'm not mad at anyone who didn't vote against the platform. And I don't know maybe the list is, you know, bigger than this. These are the only people that I found that spoke out. But I mean, we shouldn't expect that everything the party does will be tacitly endorsed by progressive lawmakers. We need people like Jamal Bowman and Ilhan Omar all to say unequivocally, we have to have Medicare for All. And if the party doesn't give us this, we will fight them. We will resist the party, right? And everyone is kind of on edge within the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders included. They don't want to say anything negative towards Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. They're tap dancing around the inconvenient fact that he doesn't support Medicare for All because I get it. Trump needs to be defeated. OK, but we can't lie to ourselves. We can't pretend as if everything is going to be PT keen if we oust Donald Trump. The party is nowhere near where the American people are. They're nowhere near where they should be. Maybe they've made progress in some areas with regard to the minimum wage. It seems as if the National Party is on board with 15. Great. But guess what? We've got to push them further because now 15. We've been fighting for that for what, five years now, 10 years now. So now we need to ask for 20. We should never, ever, ever just tell them that the work is done on any issue, even on areas where they've made progress, because there's so much that needs to be done that if we do not address the underlying issues that led to the rise of Donald Trump, if we don't stop the hemorrhaging the deaths that's happening in this country, then I mean. The situation isn't going to improve. So at a minimum, I want more progressives to be vocal and stand up against the Democratic Party, especially if it's something that really is it's low cost, right? You're making a statement. You're saying, I don't support this platform. But I mean, that's not going to lead to you not getting a committee assignment. And again, who knows, you know, how many others actually voted against the platform. But I would like to see all of them really in unison come together as progressive lawmakers and say we're all, you know, standing by one another and we're rejecting this platform because we unequivocally support Medicare for all and believe it's a necessity. So it'd be nice to see that. But at least, you know, these lawmakers, they really they did a great job at speaking out because this is really important. Like this is, as Ro Khanna put it, the moral question of our time. If you're OK with thousands of Americans dying every single year because they don't have health care, then I don't know what to say. Like if you're OK with that, if that sits well with you, you're just a bad person. So if you've watched this program now for a while, particularly through the 2019 Democratic Party primaries, you would know that I am hypersensitive to the issue of Medicare for all. And whenever a politician uses talking points that indicate at all that they're starting to diverge from that path of full Medicare for all where we get rid of private insurance, I am the first person to call out their bullshit because understand the health insurance industry is very, very powerful. They have virtually unlimited resources and they have a lot of politicians in their back pocket. So if you are a politician who is saying you support Medicare for all, then you have to know the expectation that comes with that policy position. Not only will you be fighting the health insurance industry, you have to fight your own party. So if you say I support Medicare for all, but maybe there's going to be a little bit of room for private insurance companies, you are not serious about Medicare for all. If you say I support Medicare for all and I want to get rid of private insurance companies, but maybe there's some room for a broader discussion within the Democratic Party about this, you don't support Medicare for all because you have stuges of the health insurance industry who are going to give their input when that's just the input of the health insurance industry. They're just the proxy. So you have to be aware of the double speak and the terminology that they use because if they can find some way to not support Medicare for all but get you to think that they do, then that to them is a political victory. So I've been accused of misrepresenting Kamala Harris's position on Medicare for all in saying that she does not support Medicare for all because she doesn't. But for those of you who still think she supports Medicare for all, you haven't been keeping up because back in 2019 she actually admitted, I don't support Medicare for all because as Nicole Good kind of Newsweek explains, California Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris is backing away from Medicare for all just two years after she co-sponsored the bill in the Senate speaking at a Hamptons fundraiser to corporate executives and one percenters. Harris explained that she has not been comfortable with the health care plan written by her 2020 competitor for Mont Senator Bernie Sanders. I think almost every member of the United States Senate who's running for president and many others has signed on to a variety of plans in the Senate. And I've done the same. She said at the fundraiser, according to her campaign, all of them are good ideas, which is why I support them. And I support Medicare for all. But as you may have noticed over the course of many months, I've not been comfortable with Bernie's plan, the Medicare for all plan. So she's not comfortable with Medicare for all. But what she is comfortable with is more than 68000 Americans dying every single year because they don't have health care. Yeah. So when I say that a politician is getting cold feet when it comes to Medicare for all, Elizabeth Warren being another example, I'm not just saying that because, you know, I'm biased and I don't like their version of Medicare for all. I'm saying that because I know when to call out their bullshit. I know when they're trying to gaslight us, right? And the fact that like, I think progressives kind of messed up when we opted for Medicare for all, like we should have just started with the National Health Program because we're already kind of pre negotiating. So really, by arriving at this decision to support Medicare for all itself, just basically socialized insurance, that is, you know, we're setting ourselves up for just like being on the very tip. And if we move at all, we're going to fall off the cliff and not get Medicare for all. So like it was it was kind of a difficult position to support to begin with when we really should have asked for a national health system. But the fact that we see any sort of wavering on Medicare for all, you have to call it out immediately. So if Elizabeth Warren says, you know, I support a public option first. And then in my second term, I'm going to push for Medicare for all. Or in the third year of my first term, excuse me, then I'm going to push for a second bill, which would be Medicare for all. You have to understand what that is. That is an equivocation. So forgive me for misrepresenting Kamala Harris's position on Medicare for all and forgive me for not being naive enough to think that the person who doesn't feel comfortable with Medicare for all would drag the guy who the health insurance industry saw as their savior to the left. I mean, if you believe this, you are terribly naive. But hey, I mean, at least the people who are going to die over the next couple of years because they don't have health care is at least going to take a little bit of comfort, you know, knowing that at least the person whose vice president now who doesn't give a shit about them is a woman. Great. It's not a male victory. Look, this is very, very frustrating to me because exactly what we all expected to happen is already coming to fruition and Joe Biden hasn't even won yet. So basically my worry about the public option is that it is a Trojan horse to never get Medicare for all. And maybe a Trojan horse isn't necessarily the correct term that I'm looking for here, but basically, you know, it's going to put us on a path against government run healthcare because eventually it will be underfunded and overburdened and Republicans will point to it as an example as to why government run healthcare will never work out. But look, we don't even have to worry about that because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris they're already starting to waver on a public option. Like the one thing that they said they wanted to do with regard to healthcare that would have been bold, even if there's a lot of issues with the public option. They're already saying, well, maybe we don't start with a public option. It's going to be 2009 all over again if he's elected. So Peter Sullivan of the Hill reports in the primary earlier this year, Biden's plan for a government run public option for health insurance was seen as the moderate choice compared with Senator Bernie Sanders, Medicare for all. But once the arena shifts away from the campaign trail to Congress, where the proposal would have to pass via a narrow margin in the Senate. And despite fierce opposition from well funded industry groups, Biden's plan would become a daunting challenge to enact surveying this landscape. Some Democratic congressional aides and outside health care advisors who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they expected the party would start next year with a more modest package of fixes to Obamacare that did not include a public option in an effort to get some early points on the board. In fact, House Democrats already passed such a bill in June, increasing financial assistance under the health law and undoing some of President Trump's actions, but without a public option. That measure is already written and ready to go. And it also includes provisions to lower drug prices, a top democratic priority. But progressives who already think a public option does not go far enough reject that approach and say the party needs to be bold out of the gate next year, especially given the economic devastation from the coronavirus crisis, setting up a clash among Democrats. It's definitely too small because it's not regular time. It's COVID time. Representative Pramila Jayapal, a top progressive in the House, said when asked about a more modest approach of fixes to Obamacare, a Senate Democratic aide, though, noted that if Democrats win back the Senate, it will be through red or purple states and there will be plenty more moderate members in the caucus. Now, let me remind you that we are in the middle of a pandemic. We will still likely be in the middle of a pandemic. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take power and Democrats take back the Senate and what they're proposing is the opposite of the common sense thing that we should be doing currently. They're saying we're not even going to opt for a public option. We just have all of these executive actions lined up. Now, look, I don't think that the executive actions are a bad idea. Like if Bernie Sanders were to be elected president, he should immediately have taken executive action to undo all of the harmful things that Obama that Trump did to undermine Obamacare. But that's what you do in the short term. But you immediately after you sign those executive orders, tell Congress, give me Medicare for all, put that on my desk and I want to sign it into law, but that is going to be where they stop, right? He signs those executive actions and maybe they make a tweak to the ACA. And that's that. That's what they view as a victory. And you can already see a democratic aid is saying, well, look, if they take back the Senate, it's going to be from a purple state. So we can't do anything too radical. It's just it is a never ending fight. And this is exactly what everyone should expect the moment Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get elected if we are lucky enough to defeat Donald Trump is going to be a fight like we have never seen before. And we have to fight even harder because if Bernie Sanders in a perfect world were elected and he wanted Medicare for all, that still means we have to work our asses off to get him to hold strong because Lord knows all the pressure he would feel would be overwhelming, right? So you have to have the grassroots be there to fight with him. But now we're fighting against the White House and a Democratic Party. We're fighting two parties to get to the correct policy position. And if you truly believe in a public option, then you have to fight them even on this. So it's like the battle that we have, it's almost seems like insurmountable. Like there's no way we can ever get to where Canada is. Because lawmakers are just fucking scumbags. They don't give a fuck. I have health care, so I don't care. I'm rich, so it doesn't matter if I don't have health care, if I have shitty health care, I can pay for out of pocket expenses. So we're just going to say, fuck it, it's a pandemic, but let's do what we did in 2009, even if we see now how that failed. It's deeply frustrating. Now, basically what this article that I read to you points out is that, you know, there's going to be a fight, right? If Democrats take back the Senate and they are in control of government, it's going to be a battle between the progressive wing and the right wing wing of the party. And they are already trying to propose something less than what they were initially expecting. So we'll see if Joe Biden actually follows through through on the public option, as he's been saying. But, you know, I mean, he said before he supports a public option, him and Obama, and they didn't even propose it. So why would we expect him to propose a public option when he's in power? If like before he pivoted away when it came time to actually do lawmaking? I mean, it's just so frustrating. It's so deeply frustrating because on one hand, you have a party in Republicans who are just psychopathic, they don't even want protections for patients with preexisting conditions. And then you have a Democratic Party who isn't fighting the Republican Party sufficiently and when it comes time for them to have a chance at actually doing health care reform, I mean, even before they take power, they're already giving us an indication that we're not even going to get what they are proposing, which we already thought didn't go far enough. It's like we live in a nightmare situation and I'm ready to wake up now because this is fucking shitty and I hate it. Like this never used to be something that's controversial within the Democratic Party as Ro Khanna pointed out before. You know, this was part of the Democratic Party's platform back in the 1980s until 1980, in fact, but only recently the party moved away from single payer Medicare for all once they started taking money from private interests. So until we get money out of politics or break that a hold that the health insurance industry has on the Democratic Party, I mean, the fight is going to be just I'm exhausted thinking about it. But seeing this is infuriating and it does have me fired up because if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris think they're going to get away with just proposing some shitty half measure that isn't even a public option. No, we're just not going to fucking take that. Absolutely not. L magazine sat down for an interview with Joe Biden and the journalist who conducted the interview on their behalf was none other than Wapk Rapper Cardi B, who I admire because she is a radical. She is an aficionado of US history. She supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. She supports Medicare for all. So I think that if anyone should be interviewing Joe Biden, it should be someone who is going to ask him about policy specific questions. And Cardi B is someone who cares about these things. Now, I can't actually play the video of the interview for you because I'm not entirely sure if there's going to be any copyright issues with that. So I have the transcript. Having said that, though, I do want to play a really, really quick clip that I found because she was explaining like what she wants. She wants Medicare for all. She wants there to be accountability for police officers. So if they kill someone, they go to jail as a normal citizen would go to jail for killing someone. And that led to a really bizarre moment. And I'm not going to try to explain it. Just take a look. You know what? If I kill somebody, I got to go to jail. You got to go to jail, too. That's all I want. What the fuck was that? So we're going to watch her back one more time this time in slow motion. You know what? If I kill somebody, I got to go to jail. You got to go to jail, too. Now, for context, like I'm going to read to you, as I stated earlier, what she said specifically there. But there's that weird moment where she I'm assuming is done talking and she's waiting for him to respond, but he wasn't paying attention. So she did a little to get his attention. The fact that this happened, I just. I love it warms my heart. So I think that that really is what was going on in Joe Biden's head. Just, you know, crickets. And she had to do a little to get him to pay attention. I did it wrong. It's a more than a. But anyways, here's the part of the interview that stood out to me because she asks him about all these wonderful things that the left wants. And she ends up getting him to admit that there's really no good reason why we can't have the things she talks about, including Medicare for all. So she asks, and also what I want is free Medicare. It's important to have free health care because look what is happening right now. Of course, I think we need free college and I want black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it. I'm tired of it. I'm sick of it. I just want laws that are fair to black citizens and that are fair to cops, too. If you kill somebody who doesn't have a weapon on them, you go to jail. You know what? If I kill somebody, I've got to go to jail. You've got to go to jail, too. That's what I want. Joe Biden then responded, saying there's no reason why we can't have all of that. Presidents have to take responsibility. I understand one of your favorite presidents is Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt said the American people can take anything if you tell them the truth. Sometimes the truth is hard, but right now we're in a position where we have an opportunity to make so much progress. The American public has had the blinders taken off. So I think it's interesting because she actually got him to admit that there's no good reason why we can't have all of these things, free college, Medicare for all. So the question is if there's no good reason for us to have these things or not have these things, why don't you support them, Joe Biden? Why don't you support Medicare for all and free college? Why, when we are calling on the police to be defunded, are you saying actually I'm going to do the opposite and increase funding for police officers because they need more money? For what? For more implicit, biased training? Like that's not helping. So, you know, it's bizarre to me that he says this. Oh, the American people, they've taken the blinders off. Except no, they didn't. No, they didn't because they supported you over Bernie Sanders in the primary in spite of the fact that they support Medicare for all because they believe the lies in the mainstream media about you being more electable. But if you concede that there's no good reason for us to not have these things, why the fuck don't we get these things? If you're president, why are you saying you'd veto Medicare for all if you were president and it arrived at your desk? Why would you not support these things if you admit that there's no good reason for us to not be supporting these things or were you just not paying attention, hence the need for the. I can't stand Joe Biden. I absolutely cannot stand him because he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Like, he'll put out a tweet saying, I believe that health care is a right and not a privilege, but then he doesn't support Medicare for all. In fact, he will argue against it. And all that we get is him saying he supports a public option, although even now he's starting to backtrack on that. So I just I don't understand if you think that there's no good reason why we shouldn't have Medicare for all and free college greater accountability for police officers. Why aren't you advocating for these things? Why wouldn't you give this to us? Thousands of people are dying every single year because they don't have health care, more are now dying because of COVID-19 and lack of adequate health care, even if they have health insurance, they still might get really large medical bills. Why don't you support the solution that would stop all of this? It just is infuriating. It's infuriating. Americans have not taken the blinders off. You can say that they're waking up. They have some sense that urgent action is needed if we want to stop the trajectory that we're headed on, but they still elect the same fucking politicians who keep fucking them over. They keep voting against their own self-interest, so I don't buy it. If Americans would have actually taken the blinders off, they would have voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders. And they did it first, but then there was that, you know, a Hail Mary by the establishment. So, you know, it's just it's irritating. Like it's funny, I appreciate Cardi B asking this question. You know, I think that he wasn't necessarily prepared to get any questions about policy, having this interview with a celebrity. But I mean, he ended up admitting, yeah, there's no good reason for me to not give you these policies, but I'm still not going to do it because my donors don't want you to do it. That's really what this is all about. So if you can see that there's no good reason for us, you know, why we can't have Medicare for all and free college, then you are admitting that you're a bad person because you would be doing it if you thought that there was no good reason to not have these things. He knows this is about, you know, greasing the wheels of capitalism, making sure that we still have a health care industry that's a commodified thing. Health care itself isn't a public good. It's a commodity. Education is a commodity. Like this is what neoliberalism is. It's why the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the right because they've all embraced the Republican Party's neoliberal economic agenda. And it's just it's frustrating because we need someone who is not Joe Biden at this time, like we needed Bernie Sanders and even he would have been a compromise. But now we get Joe Biden and he admits there's no good reason why we can't have these things, but I'm still not going to give it to you because fuck you. That's why fuck you vote for me. Otherwise you like Donald Trump. I just. This is exhausting. It's tiring. But I do love Cardi B. At least she's the light in this world. I stand her. So last week, we learned that the college Democrats of Massachusetts were planting a fake story about Alex Morse and an attempt to smear him at the behest of Richard Neal, the incumbent Democrat who Alex Morse is challenging. Now we're getting some polling data that tells us a little bit more about this story. It tells us that if Richard Neal's internal polling data reflected the same thing, then we know exactly why people were willing to play dirty on his behalf. Because Alex Morse poses a very serious threat to Richard Neal because his campaign tweeted out this poll showing him just five points behind Richard Neal and 13 percent of voters currently undecided. Now, this means that he's basically in a better position to unseat Richard Neal than Corey Bush was in the lead up to her election where she actually beat Lacey Clay. So it looks as if this could be another upset where a progressive lawmaker or a progressive insurgent unseats a Democratic Party lawmaker. And this would be huge and they're afraid they don't want that to happen. So, you know, people around Neal, who were close with him, decided to plant this smear campaign just a couple of weeks before the election takes place. Interesting. Now, since we talked about that story, the plot has thickened quite a bit because college Democrats, after learning that they're politically motivated, well, they didn't act alone because apparently the State Democratic Party in Massachusetts was helping them here, not just to smear Alex Morse, but helping them with the subsequent cover up as well, because we got these two new stories from the Intercept, which read party leaders investigating origin of anti Morse campaign helped orchestrate it. Documents reveal. Now, this was published on August 14th, but just three days later, the Intercept learned this. Massachusetts State Party leader told college Democrats to destroy communication records. Veronica Martinez had coordinated with the students prior to the release of the allegations of sexual impropriety against Alex Morse. So within the span of a week, the State Democratic Party of Massachusetts, unbeknownst to all of us, tried to help the college Democrats of Massachusetts plant this story about Alex Morse. And we know that they're doing this presumably, presumably because Alex Morse is catching up to Richard Neil. Now, depending on when that poll was taken, like the more we learn about the story, the more of a bomb shell this actually turns out to be, the more that the numbers could tip in Alex Morse's favor, which is ironic if that does actually play out because they planted this story in an attempt to help Neil and ultimately they may end up hurting Neil. Now, we still don't know if Richard Neil himself had any involvement, but I mean, regardless, this is really, really bad. It looks bad for the campaign of Richard Neil and it certainly looks bad for the Democratic Party establishment in Massachusetts. Now, authors Owen Higgins, Ryan Grim and Daniel Bogues law report as the primary in Massachusetts first congressional district turned into a national story following allegations of misconduct against Holy Oak mayor Alex Morse, the State Democratic Party declined to weigh in, citing its policy to remain neutral in contested primaries. But behind the scenes, the State Party had been coordinating with the College Democrats of Massachusetts to launch these very allegations according to five sources within the State Party and connected to the College Democrats of Massachusetts, a review of messages between party leadership and CDMA leadership and call records obtained by the Intercept. The documents show that Massachusetts Democratic Party's executive director Veronica Martinez and chair Gus Bickford connected the students with attorneys. Among them was the powerful State Party figure and attorney Jim Roosevelt, who worked with the college group on a letter alleging Morse behaved inappropriately. They turned to the State Party to help them. They thought they'd protect them. But instead, the State Party is trying to destroy them. One member of the Democratic State Committee or DSC told the Intercept. Martinez reached out to CDMA members repeatedly by phone and text from at least late July up to and including Thursday record show and text messages reviewed by the Intercept. Martinez takes an active role in directing the group on the strategy behind the letter before and after its release, including coaching on how to interact with the press. On Thursday, the College Democrats posted a statement that apologized to Morse, adding, we wrote the letter to Alex Morse's campaign on the advice of legal counsel, but did not specify who that counsel was. Now, it's interesting because, you know, even in their apology to Alex Morse, they're leaving out some really key details here. Now, I want to fill you in on some additional context because the lawyer who the State Democratic Party recommended the college students to who helped orchestrate this by helping them pen that letter. This individual, his name is Jim Roosevelt. The article mentioned him and he is viewed as someone who's kind of a key player in Democratic Party politics in the state of Massachusetts. And he also happens to be the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And he is helping the State Democratic Party and College Democrats of Massachusetts sabotage the candidate who is trying to help fulfill his grandfather's vision. I mean, FDR is rolling in his grave currently. Unbelievable. Now, Jim Roosevelt is also a notorious Bernie Sanders hater. I mean, all of these people are ghouls and it's like one big club, one big circle jerk, and they desperately want to make sure that they keep out the left, marginalize the left, smear and attack them whenever they have an opportunity to do so. But sometimes that doesn't always play out. Like in 2016, the same thing was happening with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was a friend and former co-chair of Hillary Clinton. She was sabotaging Bernie Sanders behind the scenes while maintaining that she's neutral and then WikiLeaks emails confirmed that she was in fact trying to rig the primary against Bernie Sanders at the behest of Hillary Clinton. She got busted. She had to resign in disgrace from the DNC. Now, they got busted here and it gets worse for them because after they were able to at the intercept confirmed that the State Democratic Party is working with College Democrats of Massachusetts to smear Alex Morris, well, they got busted trying to cover up the crime that they committed. I don't mean crime in like a legal sense. I mean, what they tried to do, the dirty deed that they were doing. So the intercept continues. The executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party as a scandal around congressional candidate, Alex Morris, began to implode, told student leaders to delete records of communications between themselves and the state party according to five sources with knowledge of the matter. The executive director Veronica Martinez had personally coordinated with College Democrats ahead of the release of allegations of sexual impropriety against the Holy Oak mayor. Martinez, one of at least three senior members of the party who spoke with the College Democrats of Massachusetts about the Morse allegations, made the demand after reporting from the intercept early last week, revealed the existence of a long running scheme by some members of CDMA and the organization's UMass Amherst chapter to undermine Morse according to two people involved with College Democrats of Massachusetts leadership and three members of the Commonwealth's Democratic State Committee, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The College Democrats have also been advised not to put anything additional in writing. On Friday, Martinez flatly denied the suggestion that she demanded records of her communications with CDMA members be destroyed, saying simply, that's completely false. The instructions were delivered verbally, but call records obtained by the intercept line up with timing. And other statements from Martinez on the timeline and her involvement have also been proven wrong by documents reviewed by the intercept. Multiple attempts throughout the weekend to reach Martinez for follow up comments were unsuccessful. I wonder why. Evidence of the communications was not successfully destroyed and along with multiple sources formed the basis of an intercept report Friday that Mass Dem's leadership was in communication with the College Democrats about the concerns they raised regarding Morse, including offering coaching on how to deal with the press. Martinez on Thursday told the intercept that her involvement with the CDMA letter ended when she and Mass Dem's chair, Gus Bickford, referred members of the student organization's board to legal counsel, a lawyer who turned out to be Jim Roosevelt, a powerful attorney with ties to players in state and national democratic politics. Now, what is astonishing to me is how they keep lying even after they've been busted. I mean, it's been proven that you did this. You tried to plant this spear ballax more. She then tried to cover it up. And now they're trying to cover up the cover up by just lying. But you've been caught. The intercept proved that you were lying. So to only lie further, that makes matters worse for you. It makes you look worse. So what we should be seeing now is mass resignations. Victoria Martinez should be resigning immediately. She should be embarrassed, should never show her face in party politics again. We should see the State Democratic Party sever the relationship that they have with Jim Roosevelt, because that's a conflict right there that is leading to this type of smear, hit piece, right? They recommended him. He's kind of like their fixer in a way. So sever that relationship. Prove to us that you're trustworthy on top of that. We should see individuals like Timothy Ennis, who was the college student who tried to get this into a national story. He should be resigning. I mean, there should be consequences. There should be accountability, but we likely won't get that. But at a minimum, it seems as if there may be justice in the form of Alex Morris defeating Richard Neal, because it's very clear that the reason why they did all of this is because they are terrified, because he kept inching up closer and closer to Richard Neal. And had they not attempted to do this and smear Alex Morris, I mean, who knows if he would have won. But now this is a national story. They have propelled this into the national spotlight. Alex Morris now has a national name recognition. People who weren't paying attention to the story, they are now paying attention and they did this to themselves. Like you reap what you sow, you made your bed, line it. So now we should see some resignations. We should see apologies. And again, if I'm Alex Morris, potentially a slander lawsuit, because what they did to him is unforgivable, it's homophobic, it's unethical. And the fact that, you know, they're basically going to get away with this, even if they've been embarrassed, that's not enough. Like they should be resigning. There should be pressure from the national party to get the individuals involved with this at the state level to resign. But I mean, this is politics and sometimes it gets dirty. And that's just part of the game, apparently. They don't care about ethics or morals. But, you know, if he ends up winning, that will make this a really, really happy ending to a really disturbing story about Democrats trying to smear a gay man. So I'm sure that my audience is going to be totally shocked to learn that Republicans are already trying to resurrect the birther movement when Kamala Harris hasn't even been Joe Biden's running mate for a single week. They are so predictable. Now, for those of you who don't remember what the birther movement is, this was actually a movement spearheaded by Donald Trump. He concerned, trolled and fear mongered about how maybe Obama isn't actually eligible to be the president of the United States constitutionally because he wasn't born in the United States. Now, he had no evidence for this claim, nonetheless. He kept chugging ahead with that smear against Obama. Even when Obama presented his birth certificate, Donald Trump and other birthers were not satisfied. And the reason why, like let's get down to it, the reason why there was a birther movement wasn't because they cared about the Constitution or evidence, it's because Obama didn't look like the other presidents that we had before. He was black. And the reason why there's a birther movement against Kamala Harris by Republicans is because, of course, she doesn't look like the other vice presidents that we've had before because they're racist. They're racist. That's why they're fear mongering about whether or not Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are eligible to serve. Now, Newsweek published an op-ed by a law professor who raised some questions about Kamala Harris's eligibility and states that his concern really is about, quote, significant challenge to Harris's constitutional eligibility. So, you know, he's making a birther argument against Kamala Harris. And he's not necessarily saying that maybe she's not eligible because she has a different skin color than the other vice presidents. It's because of the Constitution. You see, I'm not racist if I'm citing the Constitution as my main concern, except you don't have any evidence. Again, she was born in California. So, of course, she's eligible to serve as vice president and president. But he said this and Newsweek, for whatever reason, chose to publish this racist garbage. And, of course, Donald Trump saw that article and he decided to echo the same concern of this law professor. Now, just because someone has the title of law professor in front of their name, doesn't necessarily mean that they should automatically be taken seriously because this individual is a clown. He not only tries to make a legal justification for theocracy, literally, he is to the right of Scalia. Can you imagine that someone being to the right of Scalia, a legal scholar being to the right of Scalia, so this idiot made a birther argument against Kamala Harris, Newsweek published it and Trump is now running with it. But before we get to Trump's comments, let's learn a little bit more about this law professor, because as Peter Montgomery of Brightwing Watch explains, Eastman has been one of the most vocal advocates for eliminating the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of birthright citizenship. He has argued that it would not take a constitutional amendment, just a court decision or act of Congress to change what he believes to be an erroneous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. These ideas put him on the fringes of the right wing legal movement. Citizenship and immigration are not the only issues on which Eastman pushes hard-right positions. Eastman chairs the board of the anti LGBTQ equality national organization for marriage and has called homosexuality an indicator of quote unquote barbarism. He described the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence ruling, which overturned state laws criminalizing consensual gay sex as a despotic decision. He attacked the 2015 marriage equality ruling as illegitimate and encouraged state officials to resist it. Eastman even supported Uganda's notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act, which would impose life imprisonment in some cases. He has aligned himself with anti-equality and anti-choice efforts globally speaking at the World Congress of Family Summit in 2019. At a Senate hearing convened by Senator Ted Cruz after the marriage equality ruling in 2015, Eastman argued that a simple majority of states should be allowed to override egregiously wrong Supreme Court decisions. He urged Congress to advance some of the proposals to restrict the court before citizens patients runs out and they assert the right expressed in the Declaration of Independence to abolish the government that is oppressing them. Eastman's support for the Supreme Court's infamous 1905 Lochner decision, which ushered in an era in which the court rejected economic and labor regulations, puts him in opposition to the late Antonin Scalia, who opposed the Lochner ruling. Eastman has also taken a fringe position, one taken by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for whom Eastman clerked that the first amendment ban on the establishment of religion does not apply to the states and has argued that a state taxing people to support an official church as some states did early in the nation's history was not all that coercive. So obviously that's all you need to know. And you will learn that this is an individual who definitely should not be taken seriously. But if you're Donald Trump, of course, he's not some fringe lunatic with bizarre ideas. He's a great lawyer because as CNN's Daniel Dale reports, Trump says he just heard today from a highly qualified lawyer that Kamala Harris doesn't qualify to serve as VP is not sure if that's true or not. That article was absolute nonsense. Harris, born in California, indisputably qualifies. So, of course, Donald Trump, the original birther, the founder of the birther movement against Obama is going to latch on to the next birther movement. Of course, why wouldn't he do that? He doesn't know how to not be racist. He can't even pretend properly to not be racist. So, of course, he's going to do just that. Now, at a recent White House press briefing, he was asked about this and he got a little bit pissed off because the reporter was trying to hold his feet to the fire and his response was very telling. But you say now that Kamala Harris is eligible to run and be vice president or president based on being born in open California. So I have nothing to do with that. I read something about it. And I will say that he is a brilliant lawyer, that I guess he wrote an article about it. So I know nothing about it, but it's not something that bothers me. But sir, when you do that, it creates... Why do you say that? I just don't know about it. But it's not something that we will be pursuing. Let me put it differently. Let me put it differently. Don't tell me what I know. Let me put it differently. Let me put it differently. To me, it doesn't bother me at all. I don't know about it. I read one quick article. The lawyer happens to be a brilliant lawyer, as you probably know. He wrote an article saying there could be a problem. It's not something that I'm going to be pursuing. Is she eligible, sir? I just told you I have not gone into it in great detail. If she's got a problem, you would have thought that she would have been vetted. You would have thought that she would have been vetted by Sleepy Joe. Yeah, go ahead. Unreal. Now, again, Kamala Harris has not even been Joe Biden's running mate for an entire week. At the time I record this, an entire week, and there's already a Berther 2.0 movement. The GOP cannot help themselves. They can't help themselves. In fact, there is an article where Diamond and Silk is alleging that Fox News might actually be racist. Shocker. Fox News Republicans. Racist doing things that demonstrably hurt communities of color. Them. Racist. What? Who would have saw this coming? I mean, yeah, you play with fire, you're going to get burned. The Republican Party is overtly racist. They used to be the party of racist dog whistles, but with Donald Trump's electoral victory, they are now the party of racist bull horns because they're not really hiding it anymore. And I think that part of the appeal of Donald Trump among the GOP base is that he says the quiet part out loud. People don't have to pretend to be not racist anymore or anti-racist. Like they can just be racist and that's socially acceptable, because Donald Trump, the sitting president, made it that way. So the fact that there is this new Berther movement against Kamala is despicable. It is despicable. Like for all the issues that I have with Kamala, all the policy disagreements I have, like she doesn't deserve this. It's morally reprehensible. And you can already see that like the next people of color who are trying to be elected to the White House, they're going to have to deal with this as well. Decades may pass and there still may be, Berther, 3.0 and 4.0 movements because the GOP can't help themselves. One idiot writes this column that Newsweek for some reason decides to publish and, of course, the sitting Republican president is going to latch on to it and promote it and then get pissed when you ask him about it. After he spent years concerned trolling about whether or not Obama is eligible to be president. Despicable. So I was originally not planning on watching the DNC convention, but for whatever reason, because I'm a sucker for punishment, apparently, I decided to tune in and I should have followed my initial instinct and avoided the DNC convention like the plague because I came away from this event after just night two feeling incredibly demoralized, depressed and hopeless. And this is kind of the sentiment that I saw as well, because it's clear that like all of the fighting that we've been doing over the course of the last four years, it seemingly hasn't amounted to anything because the DNC is pretty overt in courting Republican voters and not the left. I mean, they invite John Kasich on to assure all of us that Joe Biden definitely won't turn to the left shocker. You know, we see these beautiful stories about how Joe Biden and John McCain were phenomenally close. You know, they had this great really touching relationship. We see Colin Powell, a war criminal who should be in prison endorsing Joe Biden. And we see AOC kind of just sideline. She gets 60 seconds. Everyone else, you know, Ilhan Omar, Rokhan of the future of the party. They don't get any speaking time. It's it's frustrating like they're very clearly trying to appeal to suburban Republican voters when that strategy is a proven failure, because suburban Republican voters will be voting with the Republican Party with Donald Trump. So, you know, you see this strategy and, you know, a lot of people just feel hopeless, right? You see them trying to court over them, the other team and not us. We see the Democratic Party transitioning into the Republican Party of the 2000s and it's sickening like it goes beyond the cringe that we would have expected or did expect from the DNC and it just feels nauseating, right? Because it feels like no matter what we do, we we can't catch a break and there's no policy substance, there's just platitudes. And I think that Marianne Williamson basically had the best take about this. Brianna Joy Gray tweeted out, truly would love to hear about policy. Did I miss it? And then Marianne Williamson responded saying you didn't miss anything. Beautiful pictures of people of color and reference the Black Lives Matter, but no actual policy on how to end systemic racism, touching homage to covid victims and responders, but no actual policy in providing universal health care, no policy period, except for Bernie. And then Mark Ruffalo tweeted out, watching the damn convention. It's so good to see so many diverse people coming together addressing racism and the promise of America. There is a sweetness and kindness about this production to which Marianne Williamson responded saying, no, I'm sorry. They did not address racism. They showed a lot of beautiful pictures of people of color and made references to Black Lives Matter. But there was not one mention of an actual policy to help end systemic racism. It's like binge watching a Marriott commercial. And to that I say, she is absolutely 100 percent correct. This is a disaster. Like this is supposed to get their base excited. There's no enthusiasm for Joe Biden with younger voters. So this is supposed to be their attempt to show everyone why they should not just vote for Joe Biden, but be enthusiastic about doing so. And they failed. They failed. And Marianne Williamson's, you know, analysis here is so correct. That's exactly what this was like. And it shouldn't be this way. And, you know, because of that, I see a lot of people on the left feel demoralized, depressed, straight up. Now, I've seen one of two responses and it leads me to believe that the left really needs a pep talk currently. I need a pep talk currently. But let me tell you what I've seen. I've seen people just say, look, fuck it, I'm checking out of politics. Electoral politics has been a dead end for us. And I kind of felt that instinct as well. And then on the other side, you have people just saying, look, I'm done with the Democratic Party. This is evidence that no matter what we do, they don't care about us. They don't want to win us over. We are not their base. It is moderate Republicans who they are now trying to court. We're no longer the swing voters like in their views. They think that they got us or they don't care about us or that we don't come out to vote enough, so fuck it, I'm done. And both of these instincts, like it makes sense. Like I think this is the rational thing that you feel when you watch this painful event take place. And let me just respond quickly to the people who feel the instinct to check out of electoral politics. Don't do that because it's like you're waving the white flag and you're surrendering. This is exactly what they want you to do. They want to beat you down until you just check out of politics entirely. That's a victory for them. You're handing them a win. So regardless of what you do, you have to continue to press on. You have to continue to agitate because part of being a leftist entails that we're always going to be sidelined. We're always going to be marginalized. We're always going to be outside of the mainstream. This isn't new to left-wing politics. It's just part of the process, like it's baked into the process. It's an expectation that we should all have as leftists, because what we're going up against is an entire system that commodifies everything. Very powerful, well-funded interests that stand for everything that we stand against. So of course it's not going to be easy and there's never going to be a day where we sit back with a margarita and we just relax and we throw our hands up and we say we did it. We have the utopia that we wanted that will never happen. The fight will always be a thing that the left has to do. We will never see our visions fulfilled in our lifetime. It's a constant struggle, a constant need to agitate and provoke the Democratic Party establishment and the establishment and capitalism in general and capitalists, because that's what being a leftist is about, right? So we just have to push for as much progress as we possibly can within our lifetimes. So this leads me to the other response that I saw from people. I'm just done with the Democratic Party. You know, it's time to go third party route. And look, I was someone who was very much, let's just say, fuck it to the Democratic Party and go third party route. You know, du rege's law is a thing, but maybe we could subvert that if enough people just move away from the Democratic Party. But you can't just pick one strategy and say, this is what I'm going to do. Because you have to understand that the Democrats don't want you to be part of their coalition. They say it's a big tent. But what that means is Republicans are included in that tent, not necessarily you. So you can't just have one approach and say, this is the approach that I'm going to pursue going forward. And that's that we have to have a multi-pronged approach because we're really we're not sure what is specifically going to get us victories. I mean, left-wing movements around the world currently are suffering, right? I mean, look at what happened in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn. Their own party sabotaged him. They were fighting to have Boris Johnson win over Jeremy Corbyn and his party. So you've got to understand that what we're dealing with here, it's going to take more than just getting a third party. And even when we get what we think is going to make us successful, the fight still continues, right? Because I think a lot of people they they create this goal in their head, either short term or long term. And they say, once I reach that goal, once I get to that position, then we're good, I could let off the gas a little bit. But I want you to understand that that's not really the way that things work. The fight will never be done, right? So feeling demoralized is just a natural part of the process. If we're fighting for justice, if we are a part of the left. So let me explain what I mean by that. So I was someone who was basically very, very high on third parties, because even if we live in a first pass, the post system, even if Duverger's law typically tends to hold, you know, in 2016, what I saw was mass frustration from the left. So if there was ever going to be a time where we got the Green Party and Jill Stein, one of the most influential Green Party candidates ever to five percent, where they get federal funding, then it would have been 2016, but she got one percent, which tells us that there is this embedded cultural expectation that it's not just, you know, reasonable to vote for either the Democratic or Republican Party, because that's how I stop the party who I dislike the most from winning, but that we have to morally only support one of the two parties. It's embedded within our culture. So what that tells us is you can't just create a third party because that third party is going to be marginalized. It's going to be an outsider. What you have to do to make that third party actually win and become viable if you truly want to pursue this path is to get electoral reform. That's step one. If you want a third party, step one is electoral reform. And there are things that we can do easy steps we can take to make that a larger possibility, right? I've been talking on the show for years about HR4000, which ends gerrymandering. It makes us a proportionally representative system, right? It gets rid of first pass the post and it institutes nationwide ranked choice voting. This is important. On top of that, you can be fighting to make ranked choice voting a reality in your state by getting it on the ballot in your state if that is a possibility for you. But let's say, hypothetically speaking, we actually get proportional representation and we have like five or six parties and finally there's some ideological diversity and we don't just have to vote for Democrats and Republicans. Well, there are some countries with a lot of parties and they still have quite a bit of problems. Brazil is an example of that. They have, I think, an effective number of political parties. That's about 20 to 22. And you might think that that seems ideal, but it's not because when you have that much parties, you know, there is a lack of ideological coherency to these parties. People just leave and create their own parties on a whim and it gets a little bit muddy. So like having as much parties as possible isn't the only thing that we want. Like we want these parties to function and do what they are intended to do. But let's just say for argument's sake that we actually get that people's party that we want, that we're fighting for, that we all believe needs to happen. Well, over time, that party, that institution, as all institutions, do in a capitalist system will inevitably become corrupted. It will turn away from its working party roots as the Democratic Party did. So you don't just stop when you get to that goal of having a viable third party once you get electoral reform. Then what you have to do is make sure that we decommodify elections, get money out of politics, so that way the same thing that happened to that party that we created, you know, the same thing that happened to the Democratic Party doesn't happen to the new party that we created. That's what you have to do. But even if you're able to make that much progress, right? Not only do you create a third party, but you get electoral reform. So that party is viable and actually gets seats in Congress. But then you get money out of politics, so we decommodify elections. And that party isn't susceptible to the same corruption that the Democrats are. Well, then what happens? Well, then those gains are automatically vulnerable so long as we live in a capitalist system, because the capitalist system, like it functions in one way only, that is to maximize profits. So if it has this barrier, this new political party that's stopping it from increasing profits, it's going to attack that it's a virus. It always attacks what is going to, you know, hurt its profits, right? So if you want to protect the gains that you've made, then you have to go a step further and capitalism entirely. So, you know, when I tell people this, they think, wow, this is just it's a lost cause, no matter what we do. It's never going to amount to anything, except the whole point is we have to fight and keep fighting because our work is never done as leftists. So as we all feel demoralized, like understand that we're never going to reach a point in our society where we just think it's over, we did it. That's not realistic, right? And the people who checked out to go back to them for a moment who says, you know, I'm just done with electoral politics. I'm ready for a revolution. I get that inclination, but you have to understand that in our system, even if we get some kind of revolution, we are currently closer to a fascist revolution than we are to a socialist revolution. So checking out if you are a leftist is just not an option. You have to continue to agitate and fight. Otherwise, that side who we're going up against, the neoliberal Democrats and the fascistic Republicans, they get an automatic victory. But they are denied that victory so long as we keep fighting, right? And it's not just a matter of you not checking out. It's understanding that this anger and discontent that we're feeling currently, that is important, like it's not just for nothing, right? We're not just tweeting into the ether and this anger is just going to evaporate. But it can if we don't do something about it. We take that anger that we're feeling and we harness it. Now, I don't know how to harness it. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to channel it currently. And that's why I think that the left is currently disorganized and needs to do something about that. We have to figure out how as a movement, we become a lot more unified and we have a cohesive strategy going forward. Right? We have to make sure that we continuously stay engaged and we convert more and more and more people. Because, look, we are at an advantage in the sense that we've convinced the American people that our policies are the right approach, right? Our entire generation, millennials and the next generation, Gen Z, they are disproportionately more socialist than they are capitalist, at least according to some polls. So we have a lot going for us that previous left-wing movements throughout history did not have. They were just fighting and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Like, think of the civil rights movement. They had no idea that they would actually be successful to the degree that they were. They thought that all of this was just for nothing and they put their bodies in their lives in the line to do sit-ins and protest segregation. And they had no clue whether or not that would lead to anything. But we're in a better position in the sense that we actually do have a sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The next generation who takes power is actually going to be in favor of the things that we want. But the question for us is whether or not it will be too late when we have, you know, an incoming climate catastrophe on our hands. So that's really what we have to, you know, grapple with here. We know this success is coming. It's just a matter of how fast can we get it here? How quickly can we muscle our way into power? But, you know, I'm kind of rambling and this is probably incoherent. But I just want you to know that like this anger that we're feeling, it's all part of the process. And that's not necessarily comforting. It may not offer you relief. But the fact that you have that anger, it is potential. We can use that and harness it. Now, I don't know, like the left has to be introspective. Like we haven't been successful at getting power. Like we're making some progress with Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman getting elected, possibly Alex Morse. But we have to understand that, you know, we are dealing with so much currently. Our generation has the weight of the world on our shoulders, literally. So if we're not feeling angry and depressed, then something's wrong with us. But the fact that we have that anger there, the fact that these underlying material conditions will exist, you know, for the foreseeable future, regardless of who gets elected, we have to use that, right? So, but in the meanwhile, I think it's therapeutic. If you do want to make fun of the DNC for being cringeworthy and Democrats were being hollow and vapid, because, you know, whatever we can do to get past this time and keep ourselves motivated is what we have to do. And the most important thing that I want you to take away from this is that the fight will never end for the left. But so long as we are unified and we're not, you know, factionalizing and we're checking out entirely, then we're going to be OK. We just have to remember that there's going to be some rough patches where we feel more demoralized than we usually are. But as long as we know that that's part of the process, then we can go forward and still be relatively successful with what limited tools that we have. And I think I'll leave that there because I don't even know if that made sense. But I think that, you know, I'm trying to talk through this myself, you know, because I feel like I feel the same way that you all are feeling. I just feel super depressed watching these ghouls all do this big circle jerk in front of us and kind of like exclude us from the conversation as they embrace their Republican friends and become the Republican Party of the 2000s and it sucks to watch, I'll admit, like I felt super depressed watching this. But again, it's part of the process. Like we're the ones who are correct. Like we are the ones who are on the right side of history, not the party who's strutting out Bill Clinton to give a speech after a literal photograph of one of Epstein's victims massaging his shoulders comes out and then he gives a speech like we are the ones who at the end of the day are credible and legitimate. So we have to just like try to keep that in mind and put everything in a perspective and just keep fighting at a minimum, just keep going. By now, we're all not surprised whenever Donald Trump jokes about consolidating power, whether that be him postponing the election or, you know, running until 2050 or remaining in power until 2050 because he does this like all the time. But it still should never be acceptable. Like as little as I care about norms, the one norm that we should all care about universally is the norm of democracy and respecting democracy because democracies, they can't function. They can't survive unless there is a buy-in among the populace. So once we all check out of democracy and we believe that authoritarianism is an acceptable option, that's what it actually does become an acceptable option because these types of regimes, democratic regimes, they don't exist. They can't survive if there's no legitimacy to them. But Donald Trump is joking once again about maybe running for president in 2024. Take a look. You're going to win four more years. And then after that, we'll go for another four years because, you know, if they spy to my campaign, we should get a redo of four years. So funny, so funny, we're all laughing hysterically. Now, again, he's trying to trigger the libs and troll, right? That's the excuse anyway. But it's not so funny when this president just recently floated postponing the election because of fraud due to mail-in voting. It's not so funny when he is deploying secret police to kidnap people on the streets of Portland, Oregon. It's not so funny when he is expanding executive power. Now, this isn't due to Donald Trump, but as we continue to allow the executive branch to grow with the amount of power that it has, it's not funny to see the sitting president joke about running for a third term and just brazenly disregarding the Constitution. Like, this is not something that we should ever allow to be normalized, right, but the fact that this is a joke to them and they're OK with it, it's a dangerous sign because even if Donald Trump might not be the one to become a dictator in the United States, even if he wants to be one, what this does is this kind of gets right wingers who are already susceptible to this type of demagoguery and authoritarianism to be a little bit more open-minded about the prospect of having a permanent president, as long as it's one that they like. Now, they'd call out a dictator if a Democrat wanted to become a dictator. In fact, we all remember when they freaked out when Obama said that if he were to theoretically run for a third term, he would win because he thinks he's a good president. Now, he was making a point about how it's important for presidents to step down and respect the Constitution, but they saw that as a threat to democracy. They were hypersensitive to the prospect of anyone staying in power past what the Constitution allows. And now look at them with Donald Trump. They freaked out about all of the executive orders that Obama was signing when he wasn't actually signing that much comparatively speaking. And now Trump signs lots of executive orders and they don't care about that. You know, even if conservatives are supposed to want to uphold traditions, we've seen them go further and further to the right to where now they're openly flirting with not just fascism, but authoritarianism with Donald Trump. And you had one supporter infamously admit back in what, 2018, 2019, that she never thought she would want to dictate her. But if there was ever going to be a dictator in the United States, she'd want it to be Donald Trump. And that might just seem like one outlier. Sure, it is anecdotal evidence, but you have to understand that this large to the right, it doesn't just signify an ideological shift for Republicans. You can only go so far right on policy to where enacting that agenda requires authoritarianism, it requires a decline in democracy. And that's what we're seeing like Donald Trump got the Republican Party's feet wet with regard to authoritarianism. He's testing the waters, you know, it's trolling right now. But in spite of whether or not he's being serious or not, they don't seem too mad about the prospect of him becoming a dictator. Now, again, I don't think that Republicans in a vacuum support authoritarianism, but what this proves to us or at least signals to us is that they're open to the idea if it's a dictator that they want, if it's someone who's on their team. And the problem with this is, again, for democracies to be able to function, you should reject, like you should have a population instinctively reject the prospect of authoritarianism and even be so touchy where they won't accept jokes about it, because that's how bad they think that would be. I mean, with dictatorships, you lose civil rights, civil liberties. Like, it's not fun. Like, I know that we oftentimes talk about the decline of democracy in America, but to actually live in an authoritarian regime is a very different thing. Like, ask any Tunisian who lived under the dictatorship of Ben Ali, how fun that was for them to where they actually had to be fearful of their own relatives that maybe they were working for the government and were selling them out if they espoused any anti-government rhetoric. Like, it's not fun. And I'm not saying that even if we were to become a dictatorship, it would immediately get that bad. But sometimes when you take one path, it's really difficult to reverse that momentum and get on a different path. So now before it's too late, we have to be very clear about rejecting authoritarianism, especially when we have a sitting president currently warming people up to the prospect of a dictator, because this dictatorship would be a fascistic dictatorship. Now, again, this is all like this is not something that's guaranteed. I'm not saying that Donald Trump is going to be a dictator, even though I know he wants to be a dictator, but just the mere fact that right now Republicans are open to it and they're not outraged with Donald Trump saying I might run for a third term because they chalk it up to him joking. Right now, you know, it's something we can all kind of brush aside. But in 10 years from now, 20 years from now, what will be the sentiment towards dictatorship if things continue on the same path? So that's why I say we have to take these things very seriously. It's not just trolling or triggering libs. Like democracy requires a buy-in to function, because if it doesn't have people accepting democracy, then that regime fails. And all democracies have a shelf life. They're not just going to last forever because we have an old democracy. Democracy is a project that is ongoing, right? I would argue that we're not even a full consolidated democracy. Like women didn't have the right to vote. Black people were slaves at the founding of our democracy. So democracy itself is a project and a healthy society always continues on that path towards consolidating democracy, making it more vibrant and healthy. And with everything that we've seen from Republicans with voter suppression, an attempt to sabotage the USPS ahead of an election. We're expected to see a record number of people vote by mail and have a president openly joking about running for a third term. This is a bad sign of what's to come. The US Postal Service has always been under attack by Republicans who want to privatize it and even some neoliberal Democrats who want to privatize it. Right. But it's especially troubling now ahead of an election where a record number of Americans are expected to vote by mail. So the question that we're asking ourselves is, will the US Postal Service under the leadership of Luisa Joy, appointed by Donald Trump, be able to function at full capacity to deliver all of the ballots on time? So those votes are counted. And that is currently an open question we don't know. Now, there are pictures online of mailboxes being carried away by trucks. So the question is how many of these mailboxes are being taken away? We don't necessarily know what's happening with regard to sorting machines that have been removed and are now being destroyed. According to this journalist, everyone had to walk away with TV. We're at the USPS Patterson location where behind me you can see a graveyard of mail sorting pieces. They're just large pieces of machinery that have been yanked out. You can see some of the cords are just they go they were just cut. In addition to that, there's also a dumpster right there. And according to an employee that works across the way, they tell me that that dumpster has been filled three times since last week with parts and pieces of what we're being told are the mail sorting machines. And all of this anecdotal evidence doesn't really amount to much unless the post office themselves are saying something is wrong here and they're saying something is wrong. So their warning states, they actually sent out a letter to states saying we might not be able to get the ballots to people on time. So as NBC News reports, numerous states have received letters from the US Postal Service in recent days, warning them that the agency that oversees mail in the United States will not be able to fulfill requests for mail-in ballots. The USPS said that there is not enough time for ballots to be requested, completed and returned before the November 3rd presidential election. A starling development as many states have expanded mail-in voting because of the pandemic, NBC News reached out to all 50 states to see whether they had received the USPS letter, warning of issues relating to mail-in ballots. 18, including Arizona, Florida and Michigan, shared the letters they received. Vermont, Wisconsin and Kentucky said they did not receive a warning from USPS. The letter sent by the Postal Service's General Counsel, Thomas Marshall, say that state selection deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service's delivery standards. This mismatch creates a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail-in times to be counted under your laws as we understand them. The implication is serious as the ballots of tens of millions of American voters eligible to vote by mail could be discarded because of delays in mail delivery. It also comes as the agency founded by the US Constitution undergoes sweeping changes organizationally at the behest of the Trump organization and faces a grim financial outlook in a 10-page letter sent to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday, top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked for more information on the planned changes at hundreds of postal facilities across the country that risk jeopardizing the integrity of the election rather than strongly advocating for the Postal Service's request for emergency funding. It appears that you are now using funding shortfalls to justify sweeping operational changes that experts warn could degrade delivery standards and potentially impair the rights of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming November elections, the Democrats wrote. The USPS had also intended on removing a number of blue collection boxes around the country, but a spokesman said Friday that it would wait until after Election Day and reevaluate its needs. We are not going to be removing any boxes, said USPS spokesman Rod Spurgeon. After the election, we're going to take a look at operations and see what we need and don't need. So they were removing mailboxes. Those photos that we saw were taken recently, even though some of the photographs that people are taking and sharing online, they're not necessarily new photos, but they are, in fact, removing some mailboxes. And now that they've kind of been busted, they're saying, OK, we're going to step back and not actually do that. But here's the thing. People are downplaying this scandal, which it is a national scandal, because the Post Office has always been under attack. So they're using that as cover to suggest, you know, this isn't anything that's abnormal, but the Post Office, the Postal Workers Union is sounding the alarm and saying, we're telling you we're not going to be able to meet the deadlines. Like the mail-in ballots are not going to be delivered on time. So there is something to be seen here where there's smoke, there's fire, and there's an issue here. And thankfully, Democrats have ended their recess and they requested that Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, testify before Congress. Now, he is actually getting a pretty substantial amount of pushback. So activists over the weekend actually protested in front of his house. Now, this type of tactic is exactly what puts pressure on politicians. It's what arguably got the FCC in 2014 to reverse their then ordered to kill net neutrality. And on top of that, we're looking at lawsuits. States are speaking out and they're telling Louis DeJoy, this is unacceptable. And as a result, it seems as if he started to back off a little bit. But there's still a caveat, even if this is a good sign. So as the Olympian reports, as President Donald Trump continued to try to sow doubts about the election with his latest assault on mail-in balloting, the Postmaster General announced Tuesday that he would suspend cost-cutting initiatives at the US Postal Service until after November. The announcement by the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy came amid growing pressure from lawmakers, state attorneys general and civil rights groups who have warned that the changes made could disenfranchise Americans, casting ballots by mail to avoid long lines during the pandemic. And it came as several states moved forward Tuesday with plans to sue the Trump administration over the election year changes at the Postal Service. There are some longstanding operational initiatives, efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic, DeJoy said in a statement, to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail. I'm suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded. His announcement came as the Attorney General of Washington State. Bob Ferguson said he would lead a coalition of states filing a lawsuit in federal court, charging that the changes could undermine the general election in November. Other states, including California, Pennsylvania and New York, also said that they plan to file or join lawsuits. So at face value, this is a good sign, right? He is saying, I'm not going to do this until after the election, whatever we were doing, we don't even want there to be the appearance that we're trying to rig this election in Donald Trump's favor. Except the problem is that he might stop everything now, but just stopping now might not undo the damage. Like, do you understand they already removed sorting machines from post offices around the country? They have already collected mailboxes, so there are fewer drop off locations for ballots across the country. So the question is, is the damage already done? Can it be undone? Right. And that right now is an open question, because we know that they were limiting overtime, so maybe if they reinstate that, then that will actually make a difference. We just don't know. But what I do see here, which is troubling, is he's trying to hide behind the facade of, oh, well, we were already doing this. There were already changes before I came to power with the postal service. And that may be true to an extent, like sorting machines gradually have been removed because people are mailing less and less. But isn't it really convenient that we're currently seeing a surge of sorting machines be removed as the US Postal Service is going to need them like the most? Wouldn't you, with the position of power that you're in, want to halt that if you see what was put in place before you took office? Knowing that people are going to want to vote by mail in a pandemic. So we should absolutely not trust what he's saying here. It's a good sign that he's saying I'm not going to do this because I don't want to be sued, but at the end of the day, the damage that he did, it may already be too late. Right? We don't necessarily know. They've crippled the Postal Service. They've kneecapped it so they're going to be unable to operate. People are missing their medication. There are delays that we're all experiencing firsthand right now. So for those of you who think, oh, well, there's really nothing to be seen here. This is just a conspiracy theory. It's a sensationalist story drummed up by the mainstream media. No, because guess what? Voter suppression is not a new thing in the United States of America. Voter suppression has been happening forever, and Republicans are going to do whatever they can to win because they're ruthless. They don't care if they violate democracy. They don't care if they break the law. They don't care as long as they are able to maintain their power. That's what they are concerned with. Right? Make sure that the pressure on Louisa Joy is constant because the minute you let off the gas and stop protesting, well, then he's going to get back to what he was doing. Make sure that you listen to postal workers when they speak out and say, hey, we're behind. We've never been this behind before in all of the decades that I've worked here. Because if there's a way that Republicans can fix the election in their favor, they're going to try to pursue that. They're going to try to pursue that. Folks, the Republican Party is completely out of control. And as far as they've already shifted to the right, like as close to outright violent fascism as they already are, they continue to become even more and more unhinged, more crazy, because last week or the week before, I believe, we saw the electoral victory of Marjorie Green in Georgia's 14th Congressional District, who made an ad where she advocated for the extrajudicial killing of protesters who she deemed Antifa. She is also a QAnon conspiracy theorist. But guess what? Another crazy Republican just had an electoral victory because in the state of Florida, Laura Loomer, of all people, won a Republican primary. Now, the good news is that it doesn't seem like she's going to be successful because this is a heavily Democrat-leaning district. So I think that this is going to be the end of her campaign. Nonetheless, that doesn't necessarily mean that she won't have an influence within the Republican Party, because Donald Trump literally retweeted a picture of her with Marjorie Green, where they talk about being the future of the Republican Party or allude to it. And it's it's not incorrect. They're not wrong, right? Now, Laura Loomer, for those of you who don't know, she rose to prominence after she was banned from either Twitter or Facebook. And she then chained herself or handcuffed herself to the headquarters of said company to protest it and then live streamed. And then she went around pretending to be the victim or whatever. This is someone who is explicitly racist, like she doesn't use dog whistles, like she is very explicitly anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant. She wears it on her sleeves. And she is also asserting that the RNC chairwoman, Ronan McDaniel, actually called her and told her that she is the future of the Republican Party. So what we see is like a new squad emerging, albeit on the right. But thankfully, she won't get to Congress. But I mean, we see like these new rising stars in the Republican Party. And they are insane. It's like the squad on shrooms when you're having a bad trip. Like this is horrifying. If this is the future of the Republican Party, the Republican Party doesn't have a future. America doesn't have a future because they have gone so far to the right, so far out of the mainstream and into conspiratorial, fascistic territory that that type of party is incapable of governing. Like we saw what a disaster the Tea Party was where they shut down the government. And now the Tea Party is relatively mainstream, not necessarily because they have, you know, become more mainstream themselves, ideologically speaking, but because the Republican Party has shifted to the right to accommodate them and we can only anticipate them to shift to the right. Again, to accommodate people like Laura Loomer, who are insane. So the question is, at what point do they snap back to reality? The question is, is that a possibility given how far they've shifted to the right? Because looking back to a politician like Reagan, he seems sane in comparison with these new Republicans, Laura Loomer, Marjorie Green. In fact, you can look to Sarah Palin as a voice of reason, given how far they've fallen. And on this current trajectory that they're on, like within 10 years, we'll be looking back saying, remember when Marjorie Green and Laura Loomer were like the craziest Republicans, they keep changing at a rate that is alarming to all of us, that should be alarming to all of us. And yet we're talking about the radical left. The radical right should be on everyone's minds. The radical right should be a national news story that everyone talks about because of how alarming the shift to the right is for the Republican Party. I mean, Donald Trump is the standard bearer of the Republican Party. And he is explicitly racist. He's authoritarian. He's literally openly joking about running for a third term, which is unconstitutional. He's deploying secret police to cities like Portland. And it gets to a point where we're no longer talking about fascism as something that is coming soon to the United States or as a theory. Like this should scare people. Like I get that it's easy to make fun of them because they're cringeworthy and they're stupid and they're not serious people. Like they don't actually believe in any policies. But if they are gaining prominence and one of two major political parties that we have in the United States, like it doesn't matter how crazy we think they are, the fact that they're able to see electoral success shows you that the party continues rapidly to shift to the right. And, you know, as much gains as the left has made within the Democratic Party, which is not much admittedly, it's still like we're moving at this pace to the left, but Republicans are moving with that much speed to the right. And it's horrifying. So who's next? Ted Nuget? Is he going to be the next standard bearer? Is Roy Moore going to become a US Senator? Like with how badly things have become with this party, with how insane they've become, with how explicitly anti-worker they've become. Like I don't know what's next for them. We have people like Marjorie Green, who will be a member of Congress. Who makes Louis Gohmert look a little bit more intelligent. That should horrify everyone. Like there should be a media scandal, but we're only talking about the radical left. It's just. America is such a stupid place. Like if someone like Laura Loomer can be successful electorally, then we're just a stupid country. I'm sorry, but it's true. Well, that's all that I've got for you. Well, today, thank you so much for tuning in. If you've made it this far in the program before we leave, of course, as usual, I want to thank all of our Patreon, Patreon and YouTube members for helping the show not just to survive, but thrive as well. You all are truly the lifeblood of this program and we cannot do this show without you so genuinely like I want to thank you so much. So it's currently a heat wave in Oregon. I think it's a heat wave basically along the West Coast. And I am sitting in front of very, very hot lights that it kind of feels like I'm being cooked. It feels like my brain is melting a little bit and I can't take it anymore. And I'm done. So hopefully this the suffering from me was worthwhile to you and you enjoy the content. So that's everything I'll see you all next week. I can't take any more. Have a great week, everyone.