 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and Paypal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanist report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast, my name is Mike Figueredo and this is episode 267 of the program. Today is Friday, November 20th and before we get started I want to take some time to thank all of the individuals who make this show possible. Our Patreon, Paypal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving us. And that includes Cheryl Yee, Claudia McIntyre, Daniel Rotas, Kevin Rath, Ravi Yajnik, T-Bone and Travis Wehrman. So thank you so much to all of these kind souls, if you'd also like to support the program and join the independent progressive media revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanist report or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. So this week we've got quite a large episode for you. Trump still refuses to concede and is denying reality, but it is getting a little bit more difficult for him to pretend that Joe Biden didn't beat him in the selection. So we'll talk about that. So he almost bombed Iran last week. Yeah. Additionally, right-wingers got triggered by the sight of a man in a dress, and they're also calling out the left's supposed war on Thanksgiving. A nurse from South Dakota explains what it's like to care for pro-Trump patients dying from COVID-19. QAnon congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor-Green shames her new colleagues for wearing masks. Republicans don't know who Breonna Taylor is, Fox News fearmongers about student debt cancellation, and Charles Koch wants you to know that he's sorry for ruining the country and the planet. Also in this episode, Lindsey Graham tried to invalidate votes to help Donald Trump steal this election, and the hosts at the view had some surprisingly reasonable takeaways from the 2020 election. And finally, Joe Biden is already proving that leftists who were skeptical about him were right all along. So Democrats demonstrate that they haven't learned a single thing over the last few years. We'll talk about all of that. Hopefully you will enjoy the program. Let's go ahead and get right to it. It is now November 17th. It has been more than a week since Joe Biden was projected to be the winner. Joe Biden will become the next president. But still, Donald Trump has not acknowledged that Joe Biden has won. And it's remarkable. Honestly, like this is, this is shocking. And I get that he has to maintain this facade that there's still a chance and that maybe he can get the results of returned because he wants his supporters to donate to his legal fund, which in turn is actually going to Donald Trump's super PAC and to pay down his campaign's debt. So I get why he wants to do this. It is a grift. But you can only maintain this facade for so long until cracks start to appear, until you end up slipping up. And that he did because in his first public appearance since losing the election, he was talking about COVID-19 and he commented on whether or not we should lock down the country again to mitigate the spread of the virus. And he almost admitted that Joe Biden won. Ideally, we won't go to a lockdown. I will not go. This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully the whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration will be. I guess time will tell. But I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown. He became this close to saying it. He's going to slip up at this rate. Now on Twitter, he actually did inadvertently admit that Joe Biden beat him because he tweeted out he won because the election was rigged. No vote watchers or observers allowed. Not true. Vote tabulated by a radical left privately owned company Dominion with a bad reputation and bomb equipment that couldn't even qualify for Texas, which I won by a lot. The fake and silent media and more. So you admit that Joe Biden won. Well, there we have it. You just admitted you lost. So now your supporters have to ask themselves, well, if Joe Biden won, why am I giving my harder and money to the president if it's a lost cause? So knowing that his supporters might be less inclined to donate to his legal defense fund, his legal defense fund, he had to walk that back and he tweeted out Joe Biden didn't actually win because, quote, he only one in the eyes of the fake news media. I concede nothing. We have a long way to go. This was a rigged election. And he later tweeted out, I won the election in all caps. You know, it's almost impressive that he has gone on this long pretending as if Joe Biden hasn't won, hasn't beat him. And it's like, this isn't some random individual. This is the president of the United States. We're not talking about like a softball team denying the results of a game. We're not talking about some random individual. This is the president of the United States. And even if we're used to his shenanigans, this is still honestly remarkable. Like all of this will be written about in the history books. That's how bizarre it is. And really what he's doing here, even if it is funny, the hysteria is damaging to democracy. You know, to delegitimize the election this much, that is damaging. But he knows that his time is limited. Like you can only pretend as if you're not the winner for so long. And then you have to let it go. So what is he going to do to try to perpetuate, you know, or prolong, I should say, this grift? Well, apparently we're getting some reports that after states officially certified the election results and he can't deny that Joe Biden will become the next president. Well, he's going to announce that he's running for 2024 since this one was rigged. Now there has been inklings that he will run for president again. That was basically immediate after he lost when, you know, it wasn't projected that Joe Biden would win, but when it looked like he would win. So I mean, this isn't necessarily something that I find is too shocking, but it is his way to kind of soft deny the results of this election, right? Since he kind of won, well, he owes it to his supporters in his view to run again because that's his way of saving face. I mean, it's just embarrassing because we know that he doesn't want to be president. He likes the rallies, I think, but he doesn't actually want to be president. Governance is not something that interests him at all. He's proven that. But it's, you know, his way of just keeping this grift going rather than starting Trump TV or whatever his next venture will be. He just wants to run for president again. Now, you know, it doesn't really make sense for him to do this because assuming he's going to even try to follow the law, you can't legally coordinate with your super PACs once you announce that you're running for president. You have to cease all communications once you make it official, right? So this is why so many presidential candidates wait to announce that they're running because they want to raise as much money as possible with their super PACs before ceasing ties officially anyways. I mean, we know that they basically communicate indirectly. But still, if he does this, he's making it so that way he can't communicate with his super PAC. No, I don't necessarily know the specifics about election laws. Like his is his super PAC that he's creating. Will that be associated with his 2024 campaign? Or is it just his way of raising money for other Republicans? And can he still coordinate with that one? You know, I don't know. But this is all just it's very bizarre. And the thought of Donald Trump not going away, it is deeply unsettling, but it's not surprising. I mean, we knew that if he lost, he wouldn't just go away. Like, even though Trump isn't going to be president anymore, I don't necessarily believe that this is the end of the Trump era, so to speak, because you are going to have Republicans that are going to see how popular he is with the base, even though he lost the selection and they're going to emulate his policies or I should say emulate his politics, because I don't necessarily think that Trump's policies diverged that much with traditional Republicans. But when it comes to the rhetoric, you know, the open white supremacy, the xenophobia, the nationalism, I think that other Republicans are going to be exactly the way that Trump is, you know, and not just do dog whistle racism, be pretty explicit and overt. So, you know, the thing that we have to look out for is whether or not other Republicans are going to allow him to run again and he can run. I mean, he's free to do that. But will they fight him or where they kind of like step aside and allow him to run again? Because we know that individuals like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, they don't want to wait for Donald Trump to run again, because if he did run, I think he'd automatically be the favorite in a Republican primary in 2024. They don't want that. But if they go against Donald Trump and challenge the daddy of the Republican Party, then that will end up hurting their own chances because the base loves Donald Trump. So we're going to see this interesting dynamic play out and I don't know what the implications of it are ultimately for the Republican Party. I hope it will facilitate for actors. But who knows? It's just, again, going back to Donald Trump still refusing to concede. It's embarrassing. Like I feel embarrassed for him. Like this is real cringe right here. And there are a large enough number of people who support him, who still believe that he did, in fact, win or could still win. It's just shocking. That was the point of the Million Magamarch, which was more like 10, 11,000 people. But still that much people who are this diluted into thinking that the president. Who just lost is still going to be the president. It's just it's honestly it's sad because there's there's no there's no objective truth anymore that everyone agrees upon. Like we live in this era where facts aren't actually facts. They're disputable, depending on your political ideology. And that's extremely dangerous. That doesn't bode well for the health and longevity of society and democracy. So if we don't even believe or agree on baseline facts about empirical reality, I mean, how do we go forward? And the answer is we can't. These people just have to be defeated. The loony tunes, the psychopaths who still believe that Trump has a chance of winning this election that he clearly lost. He's presented zero evidence that widespread voter fraud has led to his defeat, zero. So to be in denial at this stage, this late in the game, I mean, I get that Trump is in denial because I don't believe he believes that there's a chance. I think he knows he lost. But for his supporters to still deny this, I mean, that's that's deeply disturbing. So we have another story where the right proves yet again that it is them and not the left who are the snowflakes who are part of outrage culture and cancel culture because they reacted to a photograph of a pop star in a way that is just genuinely baffling to me because any serious person will see this and does not care. But to conservatives, actually high profile conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Candice Elmans, apparently this is a really big deal. So the photograph in question is this picture of British pop star Harry Styles wearing a dress and Vogue magazine tweeted out this quote from him where he says there's so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I've never thought too much about what it means. It just becomes this extended part of creating something. OK, so you see that. And then apparently you are supposed to react to it in some way, if you're a conservative. For me, my default position is that I just don't care. It's difficult for me to muster up any feelings of positivity or negativity to this. I see this and I think, OK, I just I don't care. I couldn't care less. It's difficult for me to try to find emotions with regard to this photo. But if you forced me to think of something to express the way that I feel, I'd probably say, OK, great, you know, I don't care what pop stars do, generally speaking, but I guess this could have a positive impact if he's trying to break down these traditional binary gender roles. Sure, that's great. But again, it's not that big of a deal. It doesn't really matter. There are more pressing matters that I'm concerned with currently and what a pop star chooses to wear, like the type of cloth that he puts on his body. That's not that's not relevant to the things that I care about at all. Like it doesn't matter. However, Candice Owens tweeted this out. There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this in the West, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. This is an outright attack. Now, I laugh because she like is generally outraged by this. Why? Why do you care? He's wearing a dress like she's literally saying that this is like facilitating the end of our species because society can't survive without strong men. And if he wears a dress, then other men might want to wear a dress. And because men wear dresses now, that's bad. Come on. I mean, how can you not see this tweet from her, this outrage and think you are being a snowflake? This is very snowflake. You like the response, the outrage that you're feeling. No serious person cares this deeply about this issue. No serious person should care at all this deeply about the clothing that somebody else wears. Who cares? If you don't want men to wear dresses, then like don't associate with men who wear dresses, have your husband not wear dresses. I mean, what do you want? Who gives a shit? I don't care about this. Why do you care about this Candace Owens? Aren't you supposed to be a serious political commentator and you're freaking out about a dude taking a picture in a fucking dress? No, you're not wearing the correct piece of cloth that human beings with dicks are supposed to wear. So I'm going to explain how this might lead to the end of our our society. I mean, Jesus Christ, get a fucking grip, lady. You sound like a stupid person. You sound like a deranged, unhinged, stupid person. But she's not alone because Ben Shapiro, who I, you know, definitely associate with masculinity, decided to also comment on this by creating an entire fucking thread. So he says this is perfectly obvious. Anyone who pretends that it is not a referendum on masculinity for men to don fluffy dresses is treating you as a full on idiot. Masculinity and femininity exist. Outward indicators of masculinity and femininity exist in nearly every human culture. Boys are tied to be more masculine in virtually every human culture because the role of men is not always the same as the role of women. The left knows this, of course. The point of styles doing this photo shoot is to feminize masculinity. Otherwise, why would it be headline worthy for styles to don address? The left knows this. They openly say that gender is both important and socially constructed, which is why they tell you that a man can be a woman, e.g., despite no biological underpinning. OK, so first of all, the fact that he wrote an entire thread about one photograph, it shows you that he has a little bit too much time on his hands. He's thought a little bit too much about something that is insignificant. Now, he correctly points out that the left believes that gender is a social construct, but that's because it is there's a difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to biology. Gender refers to how we express ourselves, how society views us. So the reason why there are differences between what is considered masculine and feminine is because we ascribe masculine traits to men and feminine traits to women. So if we say that like wearing a dress is associated with femininity, then it's that way because society dictates that it's that way. There's no like natural laws or anything that dictates in a concrete objective way that dresses should be associated with women. Society can change and make it so that way, you know, dresses are associated with masculinity and only real men wear dresses. I mean, we we attach stupid things to genders. I mean, think about this, like we attach a blue to boys and you see these gender reveal parties with blue and pink to girls. Why is it that like a color is associated with somebody's gender? It doesn't really make sense because these are things that we say they are. So he has that right, but he just he rejects that and he doesn't like that this photo shoot is intended to feminize masculinity, except gender isn't as black and white as he wants to believe. And I mean, he says, well, the whole point of this shoot, you know, getting headlines is because, you know, everyone is trying to feminize masculinity, except everything that celebrities do is a headline like they're dating someone new and it's a headline. They eat at a restaurant and it's a headline. Oh, they're just like us. They eat at McDonald's and take a shit. Yeah. So, you know, the fact that he is really making this big of a deal about this, it's just honestly, these people are not serious. It shows you that conservatives are not serious people. But, you know, to him speaking about masculinity, one thing that is definitely associated with masculinity is, you know, loving women in a sexual way. So I have to ask, Ben, if you subscribe to these traditional gender norms and traditions, then this shoe came and now get your boots and your coat for this wet ass P word. Pay my tuition just to kiss me on this wet ass. Right. So this is deep, guys. This is what feminists fought for. I don't know about you, but I was taught that masculine men are supposed to like wet ass P words and not be turned off by wet ass P words. Also, this your friend. Interesting. It looks like you have your friend, Steven Crowder, another right wing YouTuber and political commentator wearing what seems to be feminine attire. Interesting, interesting. Look, I think that Hassan Piker, his response to Ben Shapiro was the best I've seen hands down. He says, Ben, your five three can't grow facial hair and weigh one hundred pounds soaking wet. If we can both be considered men, you should probably be a bit more open minded about gender expressions. It's clearly not as rigid or binary as you try to imply it is. And he's right. I mean, when you see Ben Shapiro, this nasally little dweeb, like arguing about what is masculinity, like you have to pause for a moment and think, should you really be making this argument? Are you like the best representative of this argument? Like, I mean, look, again, at the end of the day, none of this matters. But I think that it's important that the left and political commentators such as myself point out how ridiculous they are being because we have to discredit and delegitimize these people and we don't really have to do much. They do that themselves. We just have to have to show you how stupid they are, how they're not serious. If you are listening to someone and getting your political news and advice from individuals who freak out this much about some dude wearing a dress, then you have to consider whether or not these people should be taken seriously on other issues because anyone who cares this much about a particular piece of clothing that someone wears, they're just not to be taken seriously. I don't care. I mean, if you have some reaction to this, that's fine. But I mean, to get this outraged over this, to actually melt down over this and pontificate about how this is ruining society, you're not serious. So, I mean, we'll leave that there. There's nothing left to say about this. Candice Owens and Ben Shapiro are fucking snowflakes and they are part of the outraged culture that they oftentimes denounce. Covid-19 is surging around the country, but in states like South Dakota, the numbers are genuinely startling. So the CDC recommends that if your positivity rate is above five percent, that means you shouldn't be reopening your state's economy. Anything above five percent means that's too high. Once you get below five percent in terms of positivity rate, you can start to reopen the economy gradually if you want to do it safely. However, the positivity rate in South Dakota is 58 percent, 58 percent, nearly 60 percent, meaning the majority of people who take a Covid-19 test, test positive. And this is a small state. So it is very, very serious in this state, but their state's Republican governor has deliberately not taken any action as pretending as if Covid-19 isn't a thing because she's a Republican and she thinks that this makes her a better politician because she is giving people in her state liberty. And because she's not doing anything, you know, the people in her state are happy, this is according to her. It's just it's honestly puzzling that this is happening. Like you'd think that a global pandemic would not be a partisan issue. But in 2020 America, of course, it's a partisan issue. And it's one of the most divisive issues of our time. Right. So there was a thread on Twitter by a nurse who is in South Dakota, who's working on the front lines with Covid-19 cases and patients. And what she said here. It honestly was was shocking. So she tweeted this out. I have a night off from the hospital as I'm on my couch with my dog. I can't help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don't believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA, all while gasping for breath on 100 percent vable term. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that stuff because they don't have covid because it's not real. Yes, this really happens and I can't stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn't going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It's like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There's no credits that role. You just go back and do it all over again, which is what I will do for the next three nights. But tonight it's me and Cliff and Oreo ice cream and how ironic I have on my home hoodie, the South Dakota I love seems far away right now. Now, when I read this, this this shocked me and what she said stood with me like it was on my mind for days after I read it, because this is just shocking. You would think that the denial ends once you're personally affected with something like Covid-19, but they still deny it even when they get it. And they literally are dying from it. I mean, what do you even say? There's no words that capture how sad this is and this is sad. Like these are human beings that probably, you know, didn't believe this was a thing. They didn't take any precautions. They ended up getting it and they still they still, you know, denied it as they're in the hospital dying from it. I mean, I don't even know what to say about that. Like this is horrifying. Now, this thread went viral and she went on to CNN and she explained a little bit more about her experience and it's this is unreal to me. Like I wouldn't expect this to be a thing that happens even with how delusional Trump supporters are and how cult like they are. Like, again, you think that there is a point where, you know, you you stop believing in all of these weird things when you can see it, when it affects you on a personal concrete level. But according to her, that's not the case with all of them. Nurse Storing, thank you so much for being here. When I read some of your tweets, my jaw dropped. You said that even now that the hospital is being overrun with Covid patients, they come in, they're horribly ill, they're gasping for breath. And yet they don't believe they have Covid. Yeah, I think the hardest thing to watch is that people are still looking for something else and they want a magic answer and they don't want to believe that Covid is real. And the reason I tweeted what I did is it wasn't one particular patient. It's just a culmination of so many people. And their last dying words are this can't be happening. It's not real. And when they should be spending time facetiming their families, they're filled with anger and hatred and it just made me really sad the other night. And I just can't believe that those are going to be their last thoughts and words. Anger and hatred towards you. Um, you know, I think it's just a belief that it's not real and nursing happens to be on the receiving end of that. And that's OK. We can take that. That's what you're there for. It's just in the bigger picture when you try to reason with people of can I call your family, your kids, your wife, your friend, your brother? And they say, no, because I'm going to be fine. And you're watching their oxygen levels, you know, maxed out on what we call Vapotherm at 100 percent and their oxygen level might be seventy five. That's not really that compatible with life. And we know where that's going to head. And it just makes you sad and mad and frustrated. And then you know that you're just going to come back and do it all over again. And so, yeah, that's kind of where that stemmed from. How could it not make your own head explode? They're gasping for breath. Their oxygen levels are dropping. What do they think is wrong with them? You know, I think people look for anything. People want it to be influenza. They want it to be pneumonia. They want it to be, I mean, we've even had people say, well, I think maybe it might be lung cancer. I mean, something so far fetched. And the reality is since day one, when covid started in this area in March, you've kind of been able to say if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Like I hate to tell you that you have covid, but that's what you have. You know, even after positive results come back, some people just don't believe it. Now, that's not everybody. We have a lot of patients who are very, very grateful for their care and very thankful for what you do. But unfortunately, that's not what I'm remembering right now. And as my nursing career, that that's not what I want to be remembered, be remembering poor. I want to remember the saves and the happy situations and what I was remembering chilling on the couch the other night with my dog was not that. Of course not. I mean, of course not. And it's just so mind blowing to think that they would rather have lung cancer than rather a diagnosis of lung cancer than of coronavirus. And so, I mean, you've said that it just, I mean, if I quote you from Morning Television, it's an effing horror movie that you live every day. And so what toll is this taking on you? Yeah, hindsight. I didn't realize that this was going to go viral. I probably could have left the F bomb out of there. But the reality is that's how you feel. And so it is like it's just a movie where the credits never roll. You just do it all over again. And it's hard and sad because every hospital, every nurse, every doctor in the state is seeing the same things. Now, the part of that that really, really hit me was when she basically explained how these folks are instructed to call their families to say goodbye. And they refuse to do so because they don't believe they have COVID-19. That, to me, it's astonishing as they're dying. They feel as if they are dying most likely and they still deny that they have COVID-19 and they don't call their loved ones. Don't even say goodbye because it's not possible that something like this could happen to them. I mean, you know, part of me thinks. You know, they don't take it seriously and they kind of brought this upon themselves, but at the same time, these are human beings suffering right now. They're in agony and they still can't admit. That what's happening to them is real. I don't know if their denial is, you know, exclusively partisan. Maybe it's the case that this is like a coping mechanism for them. I'm not sure, but this is heartbreaking. I don't see these people as, you know, Trump supporters, Trump cultists. I see them as very, very sad human beings. Who their last bit of life is, you know, they're consumed with rage and they're taking it out on people who are trying to save their lives. This is, this is heartbreaking. Now, I've heard shocking stories from people who I know that work in health care, that work directly with COVID patients. And what I hear from them is alarming, right? Especially the folks who are asymptomatic. They test positive and they just, they don't take any precautions. They don't want to wear masks. They put up a fight when it comes to them being required to wear masks. You know, that to me was shocking because you'd think that there'd be some level of concern for, you know, their peers, people who they're around. But I mean, denial, it's not just them using a talking point as a Republican politician, but they believe this to their course. And then to take it a step further, what, you know, the nurse from South Dakota, Jody Dowering is saying is that this isn't just like denial. This is, this is a deep-seated belief that they have. They genuinely believe that they don't have COVID-19 as they die from it. And they believe in this so much or don't believe in it so much rather that they won't even call their families to say goodbye. I don't know what to say about this. This is why it's so important that politicians don't be so careless with the rhetoric that they use. It's why when Trump denies the severity of COVID-19 publicly under the guise of not causing a panic, that's an issue. People, they take their cues from leaders. I wish that they, you know, had a greater capacity to think for themselves. But unfortunately, the reality of this situation is that they take their cues from leaders. If someone that they trust says something, they believe it and nobody, you know, is going to prove that individual wrong. The only thing that will get them to change their minds is if the person who they trust that led them astray tries to do better and reverse course and, you know, undo the damage that they caused. If Trump said, look, this is a serious thing, we all need to wear masks. That's the only way I could see these folks actually turn it around and want to take it seriously. Leadership matters, who is in control matters, words and rhetoric matters. I mean, at the end of the day, this is just politics to Donald Trump. The things that he says about COVID-19, it hinges on political expediency always. But his political choice, how he chooses to talk about something, that affects people's lives in a real concrete way. Lives are at stake because of what Donald Trump says. People are dying because they believe that Donald Trump and Fox News and OAN, all these outlets who have downplayed it, you know, they trust these outlets. And even in, you know, in death, as they pass away, they still aren't going to divert from what they've been conditioned to believe. It's just it's sad, you know, it's really sad because it shows you how so many people in this country are so far gone that literally nothing is going to change their minds. I mean, how do you how do you deal with that going forward? As a society, we have to reckon with this fact that we have individuals in this country who are in a cult and nothing is going to shake their faith in this cult. They believe in it at a really, really deep level on an emotional level. And they're unwavering in their beliefs. And it's just so sad. And, you know, honestly, not just for them, but for the nurses who have to put up with this, they're putting their lives on the line, working with COVID-19 patients. And what do they get in return? They get yelled at. I mean, this story all around is just it's honestly heartbreaking. And it's almost a little bit too much. Like to process all of this information. Like, I'm so lucky that I'm not in the position of these nurses. I don't know that mentally and psychologically I would be strong enough to deal with this. I don't think many people are. I think that it takes a certain person to be able to deal with this. And, you know, it's tough. She's she's trying to like, you know, distract herself from it with ice cream and whatnot. But at the end of the day, we also have to consider the fact that nurses, first responders in this country, they're going to be having so much issues psychologically with PTSD, mental health. And another issue is we have a broken health care system. Are they going to be able to get the help that they need when this is all over? And they're forced to deal with all of the pain and suffering that they saw and the abuse that they put up with. I mean, it's just it's so much pain and suffering on a mass level in so many ways that it's difficult to fathom, but it's a reality. And I don't think that we should look away from it and try to pretend as if this isn't happening. I think that we have to come to grips with it and figure out how to fix it and find some way to get these folks who are this deep in denial. To, I don't know, to change again, how do you get them to change if they if they literally are dying and that doesn't change their mind? I don't I just don't know. Like things like this, it's difficult to even comment on because what do you say to this? It's just sad. That's all that I feel. I just I feel sadness when I when I see and hear things like this. So I'll leave that there. This is this was this was tough. I'm so sorry that I have to do this, but I have to remind you that in the one hundred and seventeenth Congress, we will have not one but two Q and on conspiracy theorists serving Laura Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green. Yeah, so Marjorie Taylor Green showed up to a new member orientation and she's already making a splash because she decided to lambast all of her future colleagues about wearing masks. She boldly declared that they shouldn't wear masks and effectively shamed them for wearing masks. And then she proceeded to tweet about shaming her future colleagues for wearing masks. She was proud of what she apparently said. So this is what she stated via Twitter. At her first session of new member orientation covered COVID in Congress. Masks, masks, masks. I proudly told my freshman class that masks are oppressive. In Georgia, we work out, shop, go to restaurants, go to work and school without masks. My body, my choice, hashtag free your face. Like. I don't know what to say. My head is about to explode like it's going to pop off of my fucking shoulders, roll around on the floor and then explode like a bomb. Like how do we even process this? This is a member of Congress now. One of the most powerful people in the country. Just put out that tweet. Where do we begin? I'm done. I'm canceling the humanist report. It's over. What's the point? I actually need my pen. No, OK, we have to just start off by talking about the irony of her using the term my body, my choice. This is someone who is anti-abortion. She is pro forced birther, meaning any woman who gets pregnant doesn't matter how far along that woman is in the pregnancy. They should be forced to have a baby. The moment that it's conceived, that's it, you have to have a baby. She doesn't believe in bodily autonomy. But yet she's saying, well, when it comes to me spreading my germs, that's my choice. If I don't wear a mask, that's my body, my choice. But what about my choice? Because my mask is meant to protect you. Your mask is meant to protect me. The masks are intended to prevent us from spreading our germs. So that's not applicable, right? When you say my body, my choice, there's this implication that what you're referring to exclusively affects you. But that's not the case with masks. If you don't wear a mask, you are making a choice for other people. You are exposing people potentially to COVID-19. And then she says, masks, masks, masks. Now, I don't necessarily know if she's shaming other members of Congress for wearing masks or if she doesn't like that. New member orientation goes over the necessity of masks, but she doesn't like it. And she says that she proudly told freshman class that masks are oppressive. A piece of cloth on your face is oppressive, according to a member of Congress. I mean, she officially is the dumbest member of Congress. She makes Louis Gohmert look like Albert Einstein. That's how bad she is. I just I don't understand. Like to be this arrogant and wrong at the same time, I just I don't know what to say. And it's difficult for me to collect my thoughts here because I'm stunned that this isn't like some crazy random comment that you see under a YouTube video or on Facebook from your psychopathic racist aunt. This is someone who is going to be writing legislation and voting on legislation. It's just what a sad state of affairs. And she proudly talks about how in Georgia, you know, they go to restaurants, they go to work and, you know, no masks. Right. And that's an issue. How poorly is Georgia doing when it comes to mitigating the spread of COVID-19? How is pretending like it's not a thing working out for you? I mean, people are dying because you don't want to wear a piece of cloth on your face because you think that it's oppressive and inconvenient. So dying is the better alternative or getting COVID-19 and then surviving, but still dealing with, you know, the long term health effects of COVID-19. That's better than just wearing a piece of cloth on your face because you think that it's oppressive because you have some bizarre, skewed idea about what it means to have liberty in America. No, that's stupid. It's entitlements that is completely unhinged. It's not even it's just nonsensical. I don't even know what to say. This imbecile is going to be a member of Congress. And I honestly, I don't know how she hasn't died already. How has she not eaten too much paint chips or forgotten to breathe randomly? How is someone this stupid, this old? You would think with this level of intellect, she would be fucking like, I don't know, walking into traffic randomly. Like, there's got to be like some baseline level of intelligence that we accept when it comes to elected members of Congress. Now, I'm not saying that everyone has to be big brain or whatever. I'm just saying that you can't be this stupid. Like, the bar is so fucking low that we are electing members of Congress who make Louis Gohmert look intelligent. The dumbest Republicans from 10 years ago, like Sarah Palin, look like brilliant people compared to the new wave of Republicans that are getting elected now. It's just it's so sad because we know that this isn't just like an isolated member of Congress. She's going to drag the entire party further and further, not just to the right, but into delusional conspiracy theory territory. So I mean, this is a member of Congress. Hashtag for your face, my body, my choice when it comes to wearing masks and spreading germs. Unreal. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. Corey Bush is now officially Congresswoman elect Corey Bush. And she showed up to new member orientation wearing this face mask. It says Breonna Taylor's name on it. And I don't have to explain to you why this is significant, why this is important. However, she tweeted this out and this week, it really crushed my spirits. It's depressing because what she says here, it really speaks to just how out of touch these people are in Congress. So she says it's day one. So I'm wearing my Breonna Taylor mask. A few of my Republican colleagues have called me Breonna, assuming that's my name. It hurts. I'm glad they'll come to know her name and story because of my presence here. Breonna must be central to our work in Congress. Yeah. So now before I comment further on this, I'm going to show you what she said about this further. She was interviewed and she had this to say. I didn't hear it once and I hear it twice. I heard it several times. I'm being called called, you know, Breonna Taylor today and, you know, but it's OK because we'll educate and we'll make sure that people know who she is, what she stood for, that she was an award winning EMT, you know, in her community, that she's someone who deserves justice right now. So she, you know, she's not taking this badly. You know, she's a great sport about this. However, when I see this, when I hear this from her, I mean, this just crushes my spirit. These people should not be in Congress if they're that out of touch. I mean, you have the largest civil rights movement in the history of this country. And one of the names that acted as a catalyst for this movement, you have people who are going to be in Congress, not even know that name. Think that that's her name. That really is is shocking. I mean, it should be shocking to everyone. And by now, I know that a lot of people have already reacted to this. This is kind of old news and people are seeing this and they're saying, man, Republicans are so stupid. But this is deeper than that. This really shows a fundamental disconnect with people in Congress and ordinary Americans, if you don't know who Breonna Taylor's name is, how can you represent Americans? Have you been living under a rock for the past six months? Do they know who George Floyd is? I mean, to not know Breonna Taylor's name. That is that's that's not OK. It shows that you're not listening to people, even when they take to the streets and protest for months at a time. If that doesn't get your attention, nothing will, you shouldn't be in Congress. I think it's that simple. I don't think that that's too extreme for me to say. Anyone who doesn't know Breonna Taylor's name, they're too out of touch to govern. I mean, it's like saying you don't know what the word health care means. It's like saying you don't know where the United States of America is on a map. If you're that out of touch, you can't be a member of Congress. Like there has to be a line somewhere. Like what are we doing? People at new member orientation who will be members of the United States Congress are completely oblivious, don't know about the name of an individual who catalyzed a gigantic civil rights movement. I mean, this is this is a problem to say the least. So I mean, I'm thankful that individuals like Corey Bush will be there to educate them. But they should come in with some base of knowledge about the Black Lives Matter movement, about who Breonna Taylor was and why her name is important, but the fact that they don't know who Breonna Taylor is. And I think that Corey Bush is wearing, you know, basically a name tag on her face mask. It's just it's it's deeply, deeply pathetic and sad. So last week on the program, we talked about how Donald Trump is going to be trying to cause as much chaos as possible before leaving office. The reason I don't know, to me, I view this as basically his middle finger to Americans for rejecting him, because even though publicly he refuses to admit that he lost the selection deep down, he knows the reality. He knows that his time is limited. So we discussed how he is trying to make Biden's time at renegotiating a nuclear deal with Iran more difficult by imposing sanctions on Iran. But this week we learned something much more startling that Donald Trump was literally talked out of bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. And if he actually followed through on this, the damage that this would have caused would have been unthinkable. So as the New York Times reports, President Trump asked senior advisers in an oval office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran's main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country's stockpile of nuclear material for current and former U.S. official set on Monday. A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with the military strike. The advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Christopher C. Miller, the acting Defense Secretary and General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that a strike against Iran's facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump's presidency. Any strike, whether by missile or cyber, would almost certainly be focused on Natanz, where the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Wednesday that Iran's uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr. Trump abandoned in 2018. The agency also noted that Iran had not allowed it access to another suspected site where there was evidence of past nuclear activity. Mr. Trump asked his top national security aides what options were available and how to respond, officials said. After Mr. Pompeo and General Milley described the potential risks of military escalation, officials left the meeting believing a missile attack inside Iran was off the table, thankfully. According to administration officials with knowledge of the meeting, Mr. Trump might still be looking at ways to strike Iranian assets and allies, including militias in Iraq, officials said. A smaller group of national security aides had met late Wednesday to discuss Iran the day before the meeting with the president. So this is terrifying. You have a lame duck president escalating tensions with Iran. And had he bombed that nuclear facility, that is an act of war. Make no mistake about it, that is an act of war. So what he's doing is characterized as attempting to start a war with Iran or at least trying to figure out if that's an option, something that's on the table. Now, thankfully, Mike Pence and Pompeo and individuals around him talked him out of that. But think about how crazy this is. When you have Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence be the grownups in the room, there's an issue with that. Now, in the same week that we learned about this, we also learned that Donald Trump is going to be drawing down some forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Hill reports President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to pull twenty five hundred U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq by mid January, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced Tuesday. The Defense Department will cut the number of troops in Afghanistan from four thousand five hundred to two thousand five hundred and the number of forces in Iraq from three thousand to two thousand five hundred by January fifteenth days before Trump is set to leave office. I am formally announcing that we will implement President Trump's orders to continue our repositioning of forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. Miller told reporters at the Pentagon. Miller also said that Trump's decision is based on continuous engagement with his national security cabinet for the past several months, including ongoing discussions with me and my colleagues across the United States government. So I hear this and I think he has no foreign policy. His foreign policy strategy, quote unquote, strategy is completely incoherent. When it comes to some countries like Iran, he is extremely neoconservative and hawkish. But when it comes to North Korea, for whatever reason, we thought that he would end up trying to go to war with him at the beginning of his presidency, but he tried to negotiate a peace deal with them, which ironically looked a lot like the deal that the Obama administration struck with Iran, which he didn't like. But I mean, this man is a maniac. This man is a maniac and he is driven by self-aggrandizement, not by national security or, you know, the country's interests. And to this, you know, you might think, well, Mike, shouldn't we give him credit for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? I mean, it's not 100 percent withdrawal, but it's something, right? No, you get zero credit for this. You are literally doing this at the last minute of your presidency. And not to mention, you're not even bringing 100 percent of troops home. If you genuinely wanted credit for bringing home the troops, you do that immediately after you take office so that way you prove to people that we don't need to permanently occupy these countries and be there even longer than we already have. I mean, what has it been like 20 years now that we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan? There is no excuse, no valid reason why we should remain in these countries. At this point, it's a full blown occupation. It's a never ending war. And you bringing home some troops, you get no credit for that. Sorry, because after you increased the drone strikes by 400 plus percent by escalating continuously with Iran, putting us at the brink of war with Iran this January, when you assassinated one of their top military generals, you don't get credit. Like on one hand, he wants to be viewed like he wants his legacy to be non interventionist, you know, more intelligent when it comes to foreign policy than his predecessors who initiated new wars. But at the same time, he's been ramping up tensions with Iran. And even though he probably tore up the Iran nuclear agreement because of partisan reasons, because Obama did it and Obama bad. I mean, still, that is an escalation. So, you know, he wants to be a neoconservative and a libertarian non interventionist simultaneously. And what this looks like when you step back and look at his administration is it's all just incoherent. He doesn't really have a vision when it comes to foreign policy. You know, even if we believed him when he is, you know, talking about bringing the troops home and if he genuinely wanted to do that, his actions indicate that he doesn't want to do that. And, you know, it's why he said enough to where people who support him can justify either narrative, like if you are a neocon Republican, there's enough there there to where you can say, all right, this guy represents me. I mean, remember before he was elected, he was talking about assassinating the families of ISIS. And also, if you're a libertarian, there's enough there to where you could say, well, look, he is less interventionist than other, you know, people running for president. There's just nothing but an incoherent policy. And really what I'm more fixated on is the fact that he almost started a war with Iran last week, like it's insane. So how many more stories are we going to get with this lame duck president potentially being talked out of doing really horrible things? Like, what else is he going to do? We're getting two stories with regard to Iran. So what's next? What is he going to do to do damage and sabotage, you know, Biden's presidency before he even comes to power? What more can we expect? It's just unnerving. And this is what we are going to have to deal with until he's out of office. The Republican Party has become so authoritarian that they're no longer only trying to disenfranchise voters, they're actually trying to invalidate votes that have already legitimately been cast. And it's gotten so bad that even Republicans are speaking out against their own party. One Republican exposed Lindsey Graham for trying to invalidate ballots in Georgia. And what Lindsey Graham was trying to do was literally get votes canceled that had already been cast in an attempt, obviously, to steal the election for Donald Trump. And of course, there should be a thorough investigation into his actions and prosecution should be on the table if necessary. And there has to be at least some level of accountability. Now, thankfully, that's what some individuals are calling for. For example, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal called on him to resign, saying Lindsey Graham must resign. It has now been corroborated that he urged the Secretary of State in Georgia to find a way to throw out legally cast ballots. There must be accountability and justice for this dangerous attack on our democracy. And she's right. Authoritarians should not serve in a government that's supposed to represent the people. I know that the idea of Congress representing Americans and not large multinational corporations is almost comical now. But still, if you are authoritarian and you are anti-democracy, you shouldn't be in Congress. If you're trying to get votes invalidated, that's that's worse than voter suppression and voter disenfranchisement. This is authoritarian by definition. So he needs to resign. And the fact that there isn't more noise being made about this by Democrats, you know, more calls for him to resign, that to me is alarming, because when you have someone be openly authoritarian and there's no opposition that's calling that individual out, that's an issue. So I credit this Republican for coming forward and we'll talk about this. But the problem is that Democrats, they don't plan on holding Lindsey Graham accountable. In fact, Kamala Harris, when she interacted with Lindsey Graham for the first time after the election, after learning that he tried to steal this election from her by canceling votes, this is how she greeted him. Unfucking believable. I mean, at this point, Republicans could literally come out and self-identify as fascists, and we'd still hear Democrats preach about bipartisanship. There's no line that Republicans could cross to where Democrats would say, OK, we just have to defeat this party. This is asymmetric warfare. And, you know, I'm not one to king shame anyone, but Democrats have to have a humiliation fetish at this point. I mean, what was that? This man was busted trying to invalidate ballots. This would cost you the White House, Kamala. If he was successful in enough states and he wasn't successful, but even the fact that he tried shows that he's an authoritarian and he's your political enemy. But what do you do? You fist bump him like a fucking imbecile. Now, I want to dive a little bit deeper into Lindsey Graham and what he did, because this should honestly enrage anyone who cares about democracy, which should theoretically be everyone in this country, regardless of their political affiliation, but that's not the reality that we are living in. So Teen Vogue's Lucy Diavolo reports Representative Pramila Jayapal called on Senator Lindsey Graham to resign after Graham has reportedly been trying to pull shenanigans with election results, potentially bolstering President Trump's unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and rigging. Graham, once a Trump critic who has turned into a presidential lapdog, has reportedly been asking GOP officials election related questions about mail and ballots. One official came forward to say he felt Graham was trying to advocate for throwing out legal votes. The Washington Post was the first to report Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said he's been dealing with fellow GOP members attacking his work as he oversees the Georgia vote tallying. He told the Post he was shocked when Graham called him with a question about signature matching, which Raffensperger interpreted as a ploy to get legally cast mail and ballots thrown out in some counties. And I'm guessing those counties are mostly Democrat. During our discussion, he asked if the absentee ballots could be matched back to the envelope Raffensperger told CBS this morning, I explained our process after it went through two sets of signature match. At that point, they were separated. But then Senator Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and then throw out the ballots for counties who have the highest frequency error of signatures. I tried to help explain that because we did signature match, you couldn't tie the signatures back any more to those ballots. On Monday, Graham called Raffensperger's claim that the South Carolina Senator had asked him to toss out legally cast ballots. Ridiculous. The Post reported the main issue for me is how do you protect the integrity of mail and voting and how does signature verification work? Graham said Monday, if he feels threatened by that conversation, he's got a problem. According to the New York Times, Graham's office has also reached out to people handling votes in Nevada and Arizona, two other key states that decided the 2020 presidential election in Biden's favor. According to Politico, Graham said he was calling people in those states to ask about the verification process for mail and voting. Last week, Graham said on Fox News that he believes that mail and voting, which appears to have played a significant role in 2020's historically high voter turnout, would threaten Republicans' chances to ever win the presidency again. And look, Lindsey Graham isn't too far off with that assumption because whenever turnout is high, Democrats win and Republicans lose. But rather than trying to win over new voters, what Republicans do is try to disenfranchise voters and suppress the vote as much as possible. And now, apparently invalidate votes, I need you to understand how serious the ask was from Lindsey Graham. So basically, if there was a particular county, I'm assuming heavily leaning Democrat counties that had a higher rate of mismatched signatures. We don't just toss out those signatures that may be invalid. We tossed out all of the ballots in that county. That's what he's asking. He is asking to disenfranchise thousands of voters. This is authoritarian. This is comparable to when we see authoritarian regimes just throw ballots in a dumpster and burn them. That's what Lindsey Graham wants. We shouldn't be fist bumping the motherfucker. He should be under investigation. This is unacceptable. Democrats for years cried about Russia interfering in the 2016 election. And this guy is trying to get votes literally canceled, something far worse than they ever alleged about Russia and their fist bumping them. They're OK with it. Unreal, if Democrats don't try to hold him accountable and hold Republicans accountable who are trying to invalidate thousands of ballots, they're going to do it. They're going to be increasingly authoritarian because they can get away with it. So there's no law that Republicans will stoop to that will, you know, cause Democrats to say, all right, we just can't work with you. We have to condemn you and defeat you. They still it's business as usual. And that's that doesn't bode well for the long term health of our democracy. When somebody is trying to cancel votes that were legally cast, you don't fist bump them. This is your enemy. You call him out to his face for trying to steal this election. But I mean, this is Democrats we're talking about and they have no spines and they're usually clueless politically. So I mean, of course, Republicans will continue to do this because they can get away with it. Yeah. Great. So this is an interesting story to me. The Koch brother who's not dead, he just released a book, an in said book. He apparently kind of had this coming to Jesus moment where he admits that maybe he did kind of play a little bit of a role in destroying the country and also making the planet less habitable for future generations, if at all. Now, he says this after he got everything that he wanted bought off our government, bought off an entire party, radicalized the Republican party, he is culpable for the situation that we are in right now. But yet now he's saying, hey, guys, I'm totally sorry, we should maybe all try to come together now after I fucked everything up for all of you. So as the Hill explains, GOP mega donor Charles Koch said he regrets his decades of partisanship and now wants to focus on bridging the political divide, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. That's hilarious. In an interview shortly before the election, the 85 year old libertarian tycoon told the newspaper that after funding conservative causes, he is turning his attention to issues like poverty, addiction, gang violence, homelessness and recidivism. In a new book co-authored by Koch, Believe in People, bottom up solutions for a top down world slated for publication Tuesday. He reflects on what he called the divisiveness of his partisan politics. Quote, boy, did we screw up. He writes in the book, what a mess. Despite Koch's call for unity, his political contributions largely favored GOP candidates in the 2020 election cycle with 2.8 million donated to Republicans and just 221,000 for Democratic candidates. The journal reported still congratulated President Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris on their victory, saying, I hope we all use this post election period to find a better way forward. OK, so let me get this straight. After you fought and won and created this dystopia that we are all living in currently after you remade an entire political party, one of two political parties that we have that are electorally viable in your image after leaving us with less than 10 years to take action on climate change in part because you prioritized your company's profits over the planet's habitability. Now you're saying, look, I know I won, but we really should consider coming together, guys. Let's hold hands and sing kumbaya after I fucked up the country. How about you eat, shouldn't die, literally, because you don't just get to do all of this, cause all of this damage. And say you're sorry, have this mea culpa. No, go fuck yourself, you absolute ghoul. What you have done, the damage that you've caused is irreparable. Saying sorry isn't going to fucking cut it. Just saying, oh, well, man, we kind of contributed to this hyper polarization that we're seeing because we literally bought an entire fucking political party that doesn't cut it. And the article implicitly criticizes him because, you know, he's so relatively partisan, he donated more to Republicans than Democrats. But the fact that you're donating to any politicians is scandalous. The fact that you are donating to any Democrats is scandalous. And any Democrat who took your money should be thoroughly delegitimized and discredited. Your money should be toxic. Politicians should not want to take your money because it should be, you know, political suicide. But the fact that you still have influence as you say sorry for everything that you've done, but yet still cause damage. I mean, the gull of this motherfucker, it's insane. Now, I want to share a clip from Bernie Sanders because he was asked about this in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. Bernie said something that was interesting to me, because on one hand I agree with Bernie that you can't really just say sorry. But on another hand, Bernie's recommendation for Coke, Charles Coke. I think this is Charles. Charles, David, it doesn't matter. The non-dead one, we'll call him. Bernie's recommendation here. I don't necessarily agree with it entirely. Take a look. I want to ask you something about an interesting quote I saw from Charles Coke, who, of course, is the very conservative billionaire donor who has spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, I don't know, over time. It's hard to tally up on political interventions, on setting up right wing think tanks in super PAC contributions and trying to keep Republicans in power. Giving an interview, I think it may be from a new book where he says he regrets his partisanship, which he says badly deep in divisions. And I'm going to read this quote for you. Boy, did we screw up. He writes in his new book. I'm just curious, as a frequent critic of Mr. Coke, your response to that. Look, the Koch brothers and their hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars help create the right wing extremism that we are seeing right now. I'm glad that Mr. Koch recognizes the error of his ways, but he is one of the wealthiest people in this country today. And I think rather than just talking the talk, if he really wants to make a difference, he could say, well, you know what, I'm going to start using my money. And I'm talking about a lot of money to bring about justice in this country. I made mistakes and I apologize for that. And I'm going to start funding groups who believe in economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice. That is an important way that he could undo the very, very serious damage that he did to this country, and I'll add something else to that. He is one of the people who took advantage of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. It would be very, very helpful to this country. If somebody like Mr. Koch came forward and said, you know what, I helped fund the effort to bring about Citizens United, that was a mistake. And I think we should rescind that decision. That would be a big help as well. So I think that most of what Bernie Sanders said is agreeable. You know, he's right that he basically helped create the right wing extremism that we're all dealing with today. Bernie also says that he should come out and publicly denounce Citizens United, which he's not going to do because he's still funding politicians. So Bernie's right about that, even if it's wishful thinking. However, I'm I'm against what Bernie says when, you know, you know, Bernie says, put your money where your mouth is effectively. Instead of just saying, I'm sorry, actually use your money to fund political causes that benefit marginalized communities that benefit the environment. But I don't necessarily agree with this. I mean, on one hand, objectively speaking, you can't deny that the money that he could be using would actually help a lot of great organizations would help marginalized communities. But on another hand, when billionaires do things like this and donate money, it helps them cultivate legitimacy and goodwill. It's why when we criticize the Koch brothers, one of the first things that Republicans will say is, yeah, but look at all of the cancer research that they funded. Right. It's like pennies to them, comparatively speaking. They do that so you feel less inclined to criticize them. And furthermore, we shouldn't have to rely on well-intentioned billionaires to fund social causes and economic causes. They shouldn't have that much wealth. The wealth that he is currently in possession of should be taken from him forcefully. We shouldn't have to ask him nicely. Hey, could you please fund these causes? It should just be funded because nobody should have billions of dollars. Billionaires should not exist. So I don't like this idea that he should put his money where his mouth is. I would just like him to not spend that money and for the money to be taken. I know like wishful thinking. But still, like trying to encourage him to do things like this would just help to rehabilitate his image when we should be demonizing him and all billionaires at every step of the way, because billionaire should not be a thing. Having a billion dollars is inherently evil and immoral. And on top of that billionaire donations, it buys complicity. So I don't think that the trade off is worthwhile because if you fund some economic cause or environmental cause, then that environmental organization is going to be less inclined to speak up about all of the damage that your other political contributions to Republicans is causing. You fund politicians that deregulate and that leads to pollution of the planet. It makes it less habitable. But then if you donate to environmental organizations, they're not going to want to speak up because they're not going to want you to not donate to them. So I don't like that idea. But Bernie's heart is in the right place by saying, you know, you can't just say, sorry, you have to actually prove it. But to me, him proving that he's sorry would be just stop spending money, stop buying fucking politicians, but he's not going to do that. And he's not sorry. He knows that his legacy is bad. I'm sure that he, you know, the response that he saw after his brother died, that scared him and he is probably thinking more about his last thing legacy, because let's face it, he's old. But you don't get to just say the right words after a lifetime of actions that have been just incredibly damaging to the country and the planet. You don't just get to say sorry. So fuck you. I hope that you truly feel guilty about everything that you've done, the damage that you've caused, but most likely that's not the case. He doesn't necessarily care about the damage that he's caused. He just cares about his public image. So fuck off. Surprisingly, President-elect Joe Biden is facing pressure from his own party to cancel student debt. And not only that, cancel it via executive order so you're not relying on Congress to do the right thing when we know that Mitch McConnell will just block it, assuming Democrats aren't able to take back the Senate. So this is really encouraging to see. I think that part of this is Chuck Schumer understanding that if he doesn't take action and try to be more populist, he may lose a primary that's coming up to AOC possibly. But either way, like this is all reignited. Night of this discussion about student debt cancellation. And I think that this is really, really important. We need to be talking about this as an actual solution, because when you have one point seven trillion dollars of debt, you are stopping an entire generation from purchasing houses, buying cars. So if you want to stimulate the economy, you have to untether people from the shackles of this debt. They got an education and they were forced to take out student loans to get that education because they were told there was this expectation that that education would lead to them having a better life that hasn't been the case. Former generations, boomers, they have not been burdened with student debt. They were able to probably put themselves through college and by a house while working part time at Taco Bell, but the economy has changed. The government doesn't subsidize as much education as it used to and costs keep increasing and debt is also rising. So the solution is to cancel student debt. However, I'm not very optimistic about Joe Biden doing this because he was asked whether or not this is on his agenda. And what he said is it rained on anyone's parade who was hopeful that maybe there was a chance he'd do the right thing. The student loan forgiveness figure in your plan. Would you take executive action to achieve it? It does figure in my plan. I've laid out in detail, for example, the the legislation passed by the Democratic House calls for immediate ten thousand dollar forgiveness of student loans. It's holding people up. They're in real trouble. They're having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying a rent, those kinds of decisions. It should be done immediately. In addition to that, if you know, I think that everything from community college straight through doing doubling Pell grants to making sure that we have access free education for anyone making under one hundred twenty five thousand dollars for four years of college. And there is a program that exists now under the law that forgives student loans for being able to engage in their engagement in public service. I'm going to institute that fundamental change in that. So it is able to be available to everyone that, in fact, is engaged. It's not being very well managed right now. So I'm going to do all of those things. So he's definitely considering canceling student debt, but only ten thousand legislatively. So is canceling fifty thousand via executive order? Is that just not on the table? I'm not getting my hopes up. Not at all. But even this mealy mouthed approach to, you know, tackling the student debt crisis, that ten thousand dollar cancellation, even that is too much for some individuals, specifically the far right in this country, because on Fox News, they literally fear mongered about how bad it would be if Joe Biden canceled just ten thousand of student debt for each individual. So let's see the mental gymnastics they do to try to convince people that this is a bad thing. What do you think would be the impact if Joe Biden could get this plan through somehow or other and knock ten thousand bucks off all student loans outstanding? If he could do that, what do you think the impact would be? Well, it would work great if we lived in fantasy land, which the Democrats think we do. They they subscribe to the Harry Potter School of Economics where you wave a wand and just make billions of dollars in debt disappear and you don't take into account who's going to pay for it. This is an idea that has been considered radical for decades. But in the modern day Democrat party, the radical is now the new normal. So president or president like Biden is going to face a huge challenge right now because the left is going to the far left is going to hold him to this. They're going to say you have to do this because it's the compassionate thing and all these students, never mind not taking into account all the students who actually have been faithfully paying off their debt and weren't relying on other people to do so. But the Biden camp is going to face that pressure from the progressive movement. We've already seen Chuck Schumer come out the day after the election and say vice president president like Biden is one of his first things in office should be to snap his fingers and take away up to fifty thousand dollars of student loan debt for all students, even if he doesn't win the Senate. So this just shows how important that Senate race is because without it, he's going to have to nibble at the edges with executive orders. If he does win, the Democrats win those two races in Georgia, there's going to be wholesale change. It's going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And this is the type of thing that will have a long lasting economic impact and will do nothing to actually help the future of our country. OK. I mean, how are we supposed to work with people like this? Whenever a Democrat talks about bipartisanship, how do you work with people like this who think that cancelling ten thousand dollars of each individual student debt is too radical? He said that it would be great if we lived in a fantasy land. It's ten thousand dollars that would do fuck all the actually ameliorate the crisis. But that's too much. I mean, their heads would explode if Joe Biden actually said, let's cancel all of it, but ten thousand dollars, that's that's too much. And the reason that they give is it's just embarrassing. Well, what about the people who worked really hard to pay out their student debt? That's not an argument. That's not an argument at all. Should we not have a vaccine for COVID-19 because we had almost a quarter million Americans die from COVID-19? Isn't it not fair that there wasn't a vaccine available for them? I mean, this isn't an argument. And really, if we want to talk about what's fair, Stuart Varni's generation, boomers, they didn't have to take out student loans to pay for college. And if they did, it wasn't very much. They were able to pay them off quickly. It was manageable. So isn't it unfair to millennials and zoomers that we have to be saddled with student debt when the previous generations were able to go through college easily? I mean, these people are just their clowns. Now, another reason why it would be terrible to cancel any student debt is because we're going to pay for it. A question that's always asked when we proposed a policy solutions that help normal Americans, but when we're talking about expanding the military industrial complex, never ending wars, a bailout for large multinational corporations, we always find money to pay for that. And the US Department of Education, they hold more than 90 percent of all of these loans. So you want to know who's going to pay for it? Nobody. You hit delete and they go away. It's that simple, literally. You're going to say, Mike, you don't understand this, but listen, that is 1.7 trillion in revenue that the government is not getting. Sure, people are getting they're making their monthly payments to the government, but it's not like it's losing that much revenue. So if you just stop asking for that revenue and forgive it, it's not like you have to make up that amount. So it's not a matter of finding out how to pay for it. And even if it were a matter of finding out how to pay for it again, why can we always find money for war and bailouts for oligarchs, tax cuts for the rich, but we can't find money to bail out people who desperately need it the most. It's because we live in a socialist country where we have socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. Now, it's funny, he also threw in there that the Democratic Party is radical for even considering this, considering canceling $10,000 of student debt. Now, that to me is honestly infuriating. We go from me just laughing at how stupid he is to being mad, because when you have a party who is plotting bomb attacks on vote counting facilities, who's becoming increasingly white supremacist, you don't get to talk about the so-called radicalization of the Democratic Party until your team comes back to reality. Republicans aren't just doing voter suppression anymore, they're literally trying to find ways to invalidate as many ballots as possible to win. Your party is extremely fucking radical, authoritarian, fascistic. So to talk about, you know, the far left or the radicalization at all of Democrats is just insane. It shows how skewed your perception is. But these aren't serious people. Like, of course, it's a good thing to cancel student debt. If you want to stimulate the economy and want to actually give people a fighting chance, want to give an entire generation of people a fighting chance, you have to increase their purchasing power. Because when you give tax breaks to the rich, that money sits in their bank accounts, but when you give more money to people, put it in their hands, who are just ordinary working class Americans, they stimulate the economy. They purchase houses and cars, they spend more money, they buy Xboxes. We want that if you care about a thriving economy. But they don't. These people are just against anything that would help normal Americans. And it's just extremely elitist and insufferable. I hate them. Usually the hosts on the view say the stupidest things imaginable. But yet they have a lot of influence when it comes to political discourse because this is a very popular television show. You know, the last Thanksgiving, I think maybe that was 2018, I'm not sure, but they were lying to people about Medicare for All saying that it's a bad policy. So, you know, when I saw them put out the segment where they ask whether or not Joe Biden owes progressives any concessions after they just helped him get elected, I kind of braced myself for a disaster of a segment expecting them to shit on progressives and the left. But to my surprise, this segment wasn't actually the disaster that I was expecting. They kind of shockingly came to really rational and sound conclusions about this election. Take a look. Now that Joe Biden is our president-elect, some progressive activists and politicians who supported him want to make sure he includes people in his administration who represent their interests. So what does this mean? Should we trust him to put folks in and see what he does? Should we just give him a list of stuff we want done and go from there? Sarah, I'll start with you. What do you think? Well, Biden's at the top of the ticket, so it is up to him. That's what he was voted to do. And I think a lot of people who voted for him wouldn't have necessarily voted for a Bernie Sanders. So it was his more moderate views that I think secured a lot of that victory. Now, the progressives make up a huge part of the Democratic Party. So I definitely think they have a place at the table. They just shouldn't be hosting the whole dinner party. I like the idea of them polling some of his ideas. I think there's a place for them to contribute. One of them is working wages. We saw in Florida that the state went Republican. But on that same ballot, they voted through a fifteen dollar minimum wage by 2026, I think it was. So it shows that the party of the working class needs to speak to those working class people that are sometimes voting Republican. I also think student loan forgiveness is an area where we can all get on the same page, but I think there's always a place for people. Biden and Harris are showing right now that they're appointing people with diversity and I think that there's a space for ideological diversity as well. They spoke a little bit about even having maybe Republicans in the cabinet. So I think we're going to see a pretty vast array of people and ideas coming forth to lead the Biden administration. Well, the progressives have very good ideas and the American people agree with the progressive ideas. They want health care to be affordable and readily available. They want somebody to take care of the fact that the climate is changing and to have respect for science. They want allocation of funds. I would think if it presented correctly and not that you defund the police, but that you reallocate funds so that you have social workers and other important people dealing with with with problems like that. And by the way, I just think that Jill Biden should be the secretary of education. She has a PhD in education and she's going back to the classroom. But I think she would be much more effective to take over for Betsy DeVos, who basically should be a bit an eraser monitor at this point, just be an eraser monitor. That's that qualifications you have, darling. I would like to see Pete Buttigieg, the ambassador to the United Nations, so give him any job, really. The man is so competent and so capable. I think he could run the country if he had the chance. So there are wonderful people in the Democratic Party and I'm so happy that they're going to be in there pretty soon so that we can all relax. Well, you know, I certainly think that it should reflect not only the composition of our country in terms of diversity, but it also has to reflect the voters values. And I agree with with joy in that, you know, if you look at this election, progressive incumbents in swing districts overwhelmingly won re-election. Every incumbent that supported Medicare for All and cosponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. And also these progressive people that are calling them progressive ideas or socialist ideas, those ideas won convincing victories across the country, including in purple and red states. Voters in Florida, as Sarah mentioned, passed a $15 an hour minimum wage for states legalized marijuana. There was a poll that a majority of Americans support progressive policies which are higher minimum wage, free college, paid maternity leave, government funding for child care, tuition free college. And so really, I think that this administration needs to reflect those views because America has spoken. Those are the views that America supports, not this sort of conservative right wing agenda. That's just not true. That was shockingly, shockingly reasonable. It wasn't perfect, but it was reasonable. And that's the best that you can hope for, honestly, when it comes to the view. And Sonny Hostin's point, I would argue that her saying that was really important, because what they say, their words hold weight in DC. Politicians go on the show and watch this program. So we need them to say things that are common sense because you don't hear this on mainstream media. Sony said progressive incumbents in swing districts, overwhelmingly one reelection, every incumbent that supported Medicare for All and co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. For her to say that is shocking. I mean, we know that this is the case factually speaking, but I expected them to find some way to rationalize this, that, oh, well, it was some other factor. It wasn't Medicare for All. It couldn't possibly be Medicare for All. But she she came to the right conclusion. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but good job hosts on the view. That felt dirty to say that. Now, Sarah Haynes, she suggested that people who voted for Joe Biden, they must support more moderate views since they voted for the more moderate candidate. But the problem with that is that's not necessarily the case, because everyone in mainstream media, including you, pushed this electability narrative. You have to vote for Joe Biden, even if you may not like him because he's the most electable. Even his wife, Jill Biden said, look, I know that you may not be in love with my husband's policies, but if you want to be Trump, you've got to go with Joe Biden. Now, I don't agree with that. I think that Joe Biden probably would have lost this election had it not been for Trump's bungling of COVID-19. And I think that Bernie Sanders would have won by a larger margin than Joe Biden. And when you look at exit polls from the Democratic Party's primaries, you see that people, even if they voted for Joe Biden, supported Medicare for All overwhelmingly. So the base wants Medicare for All. Most Americans want Medicare for All. So because they vote for a moderate candidate, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense, that doesn't mean that they support moderate policy views, because people want progressive policies. And they made this point. Joe Bayhar said that progressives have good ideas. And not only that, Americans agreed with said good ideas. She says Americans want affordable health care. She was super close. We want health care. You can take out that affordable qualifier because we just want health care period. But nonetheless, I mean, the point she was making, you know, I see what she was trying to do. She even said we should defund the police. Now she didn't say that. She said, well, maybe we can reallocate resources away from police departments into social health programs. I mean, that's functionally still defund the police. But you can call it whatever the fuck you want so long as we reach the conclusion of defunding the police. I can't believe she said that. Also, she she did advocate for Dr. Joe Biden to be Education Secretary and people to judge to be in Biden's administration. Hard to disagree there. I don't think that someone related to Joe Biden should be in government because then all of the criticisms that, you know, the left and Democrats lobbed against Trump for putting his family in positions of power would be moot and you'd be viewed as hypocrites. But nonetheless, you know, most of what she said there was pretty reasonable. So the reason why I'm playing you this clip is because, one, I think it's important that we give credit where credit is due. I don't want to be the guy who always posts YouTube videos shitting on everyone who I don't like at all moments of time. Like I want to show you that we we are allowing people to grow, right? We're objective. And if they say something that is reasonable and correct, then I want to I want to highlight it. But what I also want to do is I want to hold them accountable. So in the event, two, four years from now, Democrats fail to deliver after they know their cognizant of the fact that progressive policy ideas aren't just winning ideas, but they're very popular. What's going to be their response? Well, they actually hold Democrats accountable because when AOC was elected, they were shitting on AOC saying, you can't criticize leadership. You can't criticize Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein. So are they actually going to grow from this new information that they have? Well, they criticize Democrats for not proposing leftist policy ideas rather than just criticizing the left for speaking out and advocating for said ideas. That's yet to be determined. I will say that if I had to make a guess, I'd say that they're going to get back into their old habits and be propagandists effectively for the Democratic Party. But look, at least when it comes to this segment, credit words do everything that they said or I shouldn't say everything. Most of what they said was was pretty spot on and accurate. And really important for them to say, given how large their platform is. So I don't think that anything I'm about to tell you is super surprising. In fact, it shouldn't surprise you at all if you're paying attention. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is any less infuriating because it is. I mean, of course, Joe Biden is rewarding corporate America with top positions in his administration and transition team after they helped get him elected specifically with very large campaign contributions. So in these times, reports one third of Biden's Pentagon transition team hails from organizations financed by the weapons industry. The president-elect is drawing from hawkish think tanks funded by arms companies. And as Sludge reports, Biden to tap fossil fuel friendly representative for White House job, top Democratic oil and gas pack money recipient representative Cedric Richmond will be hired for an advisory role, according to reports. And Sludge writer, Donald Shaffer, the Rexplains Richmond, who was Biden's campaign co-chair and transition co-chair, has one of the most oil and gas friendly voting records among all Democrats in Congress, Richmond was one of 28 House Democrats to vote in favor of approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2015, which would connect Canadian oil fields to existing pipeline systems that terminate near the Gulf Coast. As Sludge previously reported, Richmond has made a habit over the years of breaking with Democrats to vote in favor of Republican energy bills. Richmond, a member of the Moderate New Democratic Coalition, has voted in favor of many Republican bills opposed by environmentalists over the years, including Representative Mark Wayne Mullen's bill to exempt cross-border pipelines from environmental review, Representative Joe Barton's bill to reverse the crude oil export ban, Representative Doc Hastings bill to expand offshore drilling, and Representative David McKinley's bill to block the environmental protection agency from regulating the disposal of toxic coal ash. Richmond is not just a big oil and gas booster. He's also a top Democratic recipient of the industry's money. Richmond has received three hundred forty thousand seven hundred fifty dollars from the industry over the course of his house career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Only four other current Democratic members of the House have taken more oil and gas money than Richmond. So he is appointing a fossil fuel shill to his team. And of course, the Sunrise Movement, who he met with surprisingly, is now speaking out because they feel as if this is a betrayal. Now, it may not be a shocking betrayal, but it still is a betrayal, nonetheless, because Joe Biden did make an improvement, right? When he was running in the Democratic Party primaries, his bill, when it comes to climate change, was trash. I mean, he acknowledges climate change. The bar is really low. It's better than Donald Trump. But he did make an improvement after, you know, he won the primary when they did these committees between him and Bernie Sanders. So the Sunrise Movement is speaking out now as the Daily Poster reports. Varshini Prakash, the Sunrise Movement's executive director, who served on Biden's policy task force, said in a statement, today feels like a betrayal because of one of President-elect Biden's very first hires for his new administration has taken more donations from the fossil fuel industry during his career than nearly any other Democrat. Prakash called Richmond Selection an affront to young people who made President-elect Biden's victory possible. Yeah, and she is absolutely correct. This is what we all expected. I mean, it's always the case that whatever Joe Biden does, nine times out of ten is going to be better than what Donald Trump would do or would have done, but still, that doesn't make what he's doing acceptable. Just because he's better than Trump doesn't mean that we give him a pass for everything. Now that he now that he won, we have to hold his feet to the fire. And pushing him left is going to be almost impossible, I think. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't exert pressure. That doesn't necessarily mean that we don't try to stop him from doing the most harmful thing. So now, before this is official, I think it is important to speak out and relentlessly criticize him because we can't have these types of shills in his industry. Because guess what? If you have these folks in his administration, they're going to be influencing him at every step of the way. So if we actually took his climate change policy elements of which he took from Bernie's policy, not all, but some, do you honestly think he would put that forward? Of course not. It would be watered down if they even talked about legislation assuming Democrats were able to take back the Senate, depending on the outcome of two runoff races in Georgia. So it's disgusting. But I mean, it's not like the defense industry shills on the transition team and Richmond in his administration are outliers because he has a lot of shills in his administration and to recap Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times kind of lays it out. So far, the White House staff we know of includes Ronald Klain, a venture capital executive. Great. Thank you. I mean, he was tapped likely because of his handling of the Ebola crisis. But I don't think that a venture capital executive is someone who should be in a position of power. We have a former pharmaceutical insurance lobbyist, a fossil fuel industry shill, as we recently learned learned about, and the co-founder of a firm that represents big pharma and private equity. Yeah, so not great. And that's not to say that every single one of his picks will be terrible. He could choose Deb Haaland to be interior secretary. She's not the worst option. She's not my favorite. But I mean, she would be fine. But these are the people who are going to be influencing him. So even if he puts any progressives in his administration, that's yet to be determined, there's still already enough people that will influencing to do bad things. So to the people who thought that Biden would somehow be a breath of fresh air, you were wrong. He was going to be terrible. And the left knew that he was going to be terrible, hence why we were sounding the alarm. And Biden is already proving leftists who are skeptical, skeptical, correct. So here's the thing. I mean, regardless if we are dissatisfied with Biden or you're satisfied with Biden, that doesn't matter because like it or not, if Biden and Democrats don't use this time in office to deliver and materially improve Americans lives, there's going to be another turnover in government, Republicans will take back control of government. So either you actually make some changes or people will not turn out again. And that's that's what we're dealing with. And it's not something that only affects Biden. If he loses, he's going to be OK. But when Democrats are incompetent, that affects everyone, Republicans policies are harmful to everyone. So you're hurting people if you don't actually deliver. Because when Americans stay home, Republicans win. So, you know, this is a really bad sign. And I hope that the folks who were, you know, anticipating that they'd use this time with Biden as president to return to brunch acknowledge that if you truly care about the country and don't want Republicans to take control and an even more insidious fascist to come to power after Donald Trump, you have to fight Biden at every step of the way. Because if we don't, Republicans will win. Republican success is going to hinge on how successful Biden is as presidents and we're not off to a great start. Even though Donald Trump lost this election, I think it's pretty obvious that had he not bungled this pandemic, he probably would have won. Now there's no way to prove this. This is basically just a speculation that's really difficult to quantify. But nonetheless, when you see that Democrats underperformed the polls and Trump somehow grew his vote share, I mean, it's a really bad sign for Democrats. And so basically, regardless, if you agree with that analysis or not, I think that it's clear Democrats have to make some substantial changes if they want to prevent a full GOP takeover of our government in 2024, actually improve people's lives, change leadership, take action to prove to people that you're fighting for them. Otherwise, you might not win. I mean, the pandemic really was the key factor here in this election. But we're already off to a pretty bad start because Democrats predictably are proving that they haven't learned a single thing because after losing seats in the House of Representatives, the same members of House leadership will remain in House leadership. Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, and of course, Nancy Pelosi, she will remain House Speaker once again, but don't worry because we're supposed to be relieved that this is probably going to be her last term. I'm not necessarily banking on that. But still, when you lose an election or you do worse than election under your leadership, the thing to do if you care about the party is to resign. But the only individual in Democratic Party leadership that actually resigned is Sherry Bustos, who was the chairwoman of the DCCC. But we all know that that's probably because she's going to get a job in Biden's administration. So after they performed worse than everyone was expecting, then the polls indicated we see zero change in leadership. That's insane. It tells me that this party is not serious about winning. But let's hear from House Democrats, because they spoke after they were victorious and remaining in leadership. And everything they said was completely wrong and idiotic. Nancy Pelosi. A voice for the voiceless, a defender of the disenfranchise, a legendary legislator, a notorious negotiator and a powerful, profound, prophetic, principled public servant. Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for your kind words. I always accept any compliments on behalf of the House Democratic Caucus because they enable any of what we do to be possible by their courage, their integrity, and they're just beautiful vision for a better America. I am pleased to look to the 117th Congress. But I'm focused on the 116th Congress. We need to get work done for the American people they need right now. We must, in this Congress, respond to the dreams and aspirations of the children and their families. And I am hopeful that we can work together within our caucus and reaching out across the aisle to get done what needs to be done. So in other words, there's not going to be a strategy change because there is not going to be a change in leadership. And it's just it almost made my head explode when Jeffrey said that Nancy Pelosi is a voice for the voiceless. Someone who has millions and millions of dollars and two twelve thousand dollar refrigerators, who looks the other way when more than 50,000 Americans die every single year because they don't have health care. That's not necessarily someone who I describe as a voice for the voiceless. So in two years, if Democrats lose even more ground in the House and lose the House altogether, I wouldn't be surprised if we see no leadership changes again, because Democrats in the House have proven that they care more about self aggrandizement and their own personal power ambitions than they care about the party and delivering for people. But that's only the House. Let's check in on the Senate. Maybe Democrats in the Senate have a little bit better, you know, of a grasp of what they need to do to stop Republicans from taking back power. So who controls the Senate is going to come down to two runoff races in Georgia. Let's check in on one of those races to see what one of the candidates, John Ossoff, stands for. Do you support the Green New Deal? No. Do you support Medicare for all? No. Do you support D.C. statehood? Yes. Do you support Puerto Rican statehood? Yes. Do you support defunding the police? No. Do you support abolishing ICE? No. Do you support expanding the Supreme Court? No. Do you support ending the filibuster? Maybe. So he's going to blow it. Now he is neck and neck with David Perdue and I hope that he wins because to have Democrats in control of the Senate, that allows us to exert a lot of pressure on them. I don't want them using a will Republicans control the Senate as an excuse. I don't want them using Mitch McConnell as an excuse for their failures. If they don't deliver, I want them to be blamed for it. I want them to be accountable. So I want him to win. But when you run a campaign where you stand for nothing, I mean, who's going to come out to vote for you? I hope he pulls it off, but it shouldn't be this close. It shouldn't be neck and neck. You have to stand for something, stand for anything. And after seeing that incumbent Democrats who supported Medicare for all won even in red and swing districts, you should at least adopt one progressive policy. But John Ossoff is a corporate clown. So if he wins, it'll be by the skin of his teeth. And I hope he pulls it off. Now, there's another area of opportunity for Democrats. So Donald Trump just announced that he's withdrawing some troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, Democrats can use this opportunity to attack Donald Trump from the left and say, Mr. President, you should be bringing all of the troops home. So what are they doing? Let's look to Tammy Duckworth, who is a veteran who speaks out about foreign policy issues pretty frequently. What is she saying? How is she holding Donald Trump accountable? All of the military commanders have spoken up and said, this is the wrong thing to do. We want our troops home, but let's not bring them home in body bags. And that's potentially what's going to happen if this president gets his way and puts his own political timeline ahead of our national security. We've been there for 20 years, Tammy. How much longer do we have to stay there to ensure that we bring our troops home safely? I mean, the argument that she's using doesn't even make sense. And understand how ridiculous this is. You are to the right of a president on foreign policy who just last week wanted to bomber on when it comes to foreign policy, you should never ever lose the moral ground to that psychopath. But here we are, you are lambasting him for not staying in Iraq and Afghanistan when you should be criticizing him for not bringing home 100% of the troops. So congressional Democrats are just clueless. But maybe Joe Biden is going to do a little bit better. Maybe there's some things that he's going to do. We've seen pressure from Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer on Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 of student debt for each student via executive action. So when he was asked about this, what did he say? The student loan forgiveness figure in your plan, would you take executive action to achieve it? It does figure in my plan. I've laid out in detail, for example, the the legislation passed by the Democratic House calls for immediate $10,000 forgiveness of student loans. It's holding people up. They're in real trouble. They're having to make choices between paying the student loan and paying the rent, those kinds of decisions. It should be done immediately. In addition to that, if you know, I think that everything from community college straight through doing doubling Pell grants to making sure that we have access free education for anyone making under $125,000 for four years of college. And there is a program that exists now under the law that forgives student loans for being able to engage in their engaging in public service. I'm going to institute that fundamental change in that. So it is able to be available to everyone that in fact is engaged. It's not being very well managed right now. So I'm going to do all of those things. So I mean, I guess I can get behind a means tested version of free college. That's better than nothing. But when it comes to canceling just $10,000 of student debt, that is not going to do much. It's not going to have that big of an impact in the grand scheme of things at the macro level and furthermore, if you truly expect to only make that happen through Congress, well, if Republicans retain control of the Senate, that's not going to happen. So I mean, why even be hopeful? I mean, I was never hopeful that Joe Biden would do this. I was just shocked that Chuck Schumer said he should do this. But I mean, Democrats, they just they can't not disappoint. They are fundamentally incapable of not fucking up. Now, people have told me that, look, even if we will be disappointed in Democrats and Joe Biden in particular, at least we can, you know, take comfort knowing that we're going to see Donald Trump in handcuffs behind bars. And to that my response always was now, why am I so skeptical that Donald Trump will be held accountable for any of his crimes? Well, quote, Biden hopes to avoid device of Trump investigations, preferring unity. Shocker, Biden has told aides that he's concerned that investigations would divide the country, but that he would leave decisions up to an independent justice department. Look, don't get your hopes up. Trump is probably going to get away scot-free, and he probably will most likely run for president again in 2024. And he's probably going to be the Republican Party's nominee. And I wouldn't be surprised if he beat whoever the Democratic Party nominee was. I mean, he's already leading in 2024 polls. These are early polls, but nonetheless, you know, Republicans still really like him, even though he just lost an election. And Democrats have a really, really short window to act. And if they don't take meaningful action to address the concerns that Americans have, we are going to find ourselves in the exact same situation that we're in currently, where Donald Trump could literally become the president again because Democrats fail to act. And when Democrats fail to act, voters do not come out for them. And when voters don't come out for Democrats, Republicans win. So they have to take action. And the early signs that we're seeing show us that they're they're not going to do jack fucking shit, they're not going to change a single fucking thing. After their strategy time and again has been proven a failure when Democrats do not control most state legislatures after losing more than 1200 seats inside legislatures across the country under, you know, Obama's watch. They've changed nothing. And they're still possibly not going to change nothing. And if anything, they're going to be worse because they're going to use Biden's victory as evidence that their central strategy is more beneficial, more, more electorally viable. OK, well, once again, if they don't change, they're going to lose. And after they lose, they will then argue why they shouldn't change anything in centrism is the way to go and not actually taking care of people, materially speaking, is the way to go. Let's just do some incremental things. It's like a never ending cycle that constantly repeats itself. And there's just no hope of escaping the cycle. It's frustrating, not surprising, albeit still frustrating. Well, it's official. Thanksgiving is canceled. Thanks, liberals. I mean, not really. But if we're being honest with ourselves, it should be you should cancel Thanksgiving. Just do a small thing with the people you live with, because it is looking more and more likely that Thanksgiving and the coming holiday season is going to contribute to a massive spike in COVID-19 cases. And I say this because as the Hill reports, 38 percent of Americans are planning on having Thanksgiving dinner with 10 or more people. Now, this comes from a survey conducted by Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. And additionally, nearly 33 percent of respondents said they would not require friends or family to wear masks at Thanksgiving gatherings. And 25 percent said they would not practice social distancing according to the poll. The survey comes just before Thanksgiving amid an alarming surge of coronavirus cases across the United States. State leaders and health experts, including the nation's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, warned against congregating indoors with large groups of people amid the coronavirus. In addition, individuals 65 and older should exercise greater caution when attending gatherings as COVID-19 symptoms are statistically more fatal among older adults. When you're gathered together around the table, engaged in conversation, sitting less than six feet apart with your masks down, even in a small group, that's when the spread of this virus can really happen. Said Ian Ganshauser, Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at OSU Wexner Medical Center, though a considerable percentage of respondents said they would flout safety recommendations for Thanksgiving dinner. A majority, 73 percent of respondents said they would practice social distancing during the holidays. Additionally, 79 percent said they would only gather with people with whom they live. So on one hand, it's good news that most people, the overwhelming majority of people are not going to be irresponsible and they will follow proper safety protocols. I think that just having a small ceremony or celebration with the people who you live with, that really is, you know, the best course of action. And if you live alone, that's really, really unfortunate. You know, hopefully you can hook up via Zoom and celebrate that way. I mean, it's tough. We all have to make sacrifices, you know, because of this pandemic. But I mean, even though most people will not be holding a traditional Thanksgiving ceremony, the problem is that the proportion of the population who will be flouting social distance and safety concerns and not wearing masks, that's large enough to contribute to a very large aggregate spread of this virus. And, you know, it's tough, right? Because when you are with people who you know, your friends, your family, it's probably awkward to enforce these rules, right? It gets weird to, you know, tell your aunt and your uncle to wear a mask if they show up without one. So I mean, it's best to just if you're not assertive and blunt enough to enforce these rules, to just not celebrate it at all. Like, don't put yourself in danger because this is literally life and death. Even if you catch COVID-19 and you survive it, that is a life worth of health problems that are going to follow you. And that's a pre-existing condition now. So I mean, like we can't take a risk. Like we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have two vaccines now that are more than 90 percent effective. We're so close. We just have to hang on a little bit longer and, you know, we can get through this. Now, following these surveys, you know, there were subsequent warnings issued because obviously this is a really bad sign. We can't have this many people not taking this seriously, you know, congregating indoors, spreading the virus because that affects everyone else. It's not just individuals within their social circles because you catch it from one of these Thanksgiving dinners. You then go to the store, contaminate someone else, your grocery store clerk. It just continues to spread. So there were warnings, please do not do this. Don't celebrate Thanksgiving as you usually would. And of course, the right reacted in a predictable manner. By encouraging people to defy these warnings about, you know, Thanksgiving and defy any social distancing or mask enforcements that you may have basically saying, um, this is just an attack on Thanksgiving. That's literally what Charlie Kirk said. The left has always hated Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Can be interpreted as a religious holiday if you believe in giving thanks to a creator. But they hate Thanksgiving because they believe there is nothing you should be thankful for in America. This is an awful place. It is cancerous, rotten to the core. Tear it all down, burn it from within. Why would you be thankful? Instead, we need a revolution. Remember, as the students for a Democratic Society radicals once wrote in the 1960s, they said, conflict is the origin of everything. What happens when you're thankful? By definition, you're less likely to be involved and engaged in conflict. Thanksgiving is supposed to de-escalate any sort of pre-existing issues in our country. And now they're using the virus as an excuse for you not to be thankful. Checkmate, libtards. We know that this isn't about COVID-19. This has nothing to do with the virus that killed almost a quarter million Americans. This has everything to do with your hatred of Thanksgiving. OK, except what if I told you that this wasn't actually some grand conspiracy by the left to destroy Thanksgiving? We like Thanksgiving, too, dumb fuck. I like to eat. I like to over-indulge myself until I'm almost nauseous, drink too much. It's fun. Like, I like hanging out with my friends and family. I like Thanksgiving. I like the holiday season. So this isn't about us trying to destroy Thanksgiving. That's fucking stupid. It's about a pandemic that's very real. And by you using your platform to encourage people to defy social distancing and all the proper protocols to protect themselves, that makes you a dangerous individual, a danger to society, because you're telling people, don't worry about your own health and safety. Just do it. Just go to Thanksgiving. Don't listen to the left. They hate Thanksgiving. I mean, this is this is so dangerous and irresponsible, and it's also a childish response. I mean, to respond to people warning about the dangers of congregating indoors during a pandemic by saying, oh, well, this isn't about the pandemic. This is about the left wanting to destroy Thanksgiving, as if the left also doesn't like Thanksgiving. I mean, you're fucking stupid if you genuinely believe this, Charlie Kirk. You are fucking stupid. And it's embarrassing that you have a platform that large, that many people are duped by what you're espousing. Now, he's not the only one because a supposed doctor, who's actually a real doctor, so I guess I can't put his doctor's title in quotes, Scott Atlas went on Fox News and did the same thing. Basically encouraged people to ignore these warnings. When you lock down and because we had states that were restricting businesses, restricting activities, we forced cases to be building up in this season. When you cannot social distance, it's exactly this reason why it's more dangerous now that we slowed cases from coming up into the winter. You can't social distance from your elderly family member when you can't go outside. So yes, I agree. We should have activities outside. Yes, I agree. We need ventilation. Yes, we should reduce large group indoor activities, use social distancing. We need to protect our vulnerable, high risk senior family members. All these things I completely agree with. There's nothing there that isn't agreeable. But what the problem is, I don't agree you should you should close schools. I don't agree you should not have in person learning. I don't want to see the figure that one in four American college students, one in four age 18 to 24, thought of killing themselves in June because of the lockdown. I have children that age myself. We know what they're suffering from with isolation. And this kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly. Who are now being told, don't see your family at Thanksgiving. For many people, this is their final Thanksgiving, believe it or not. And it will be their final Thanksgiving if they listen to you. Because this is going to kill people. If that many people, according to that survey, actually does Thanksgiving with more than 10 people indoors, with no social distancing or masks, people will die because of this. You know, so this is irresponsible, but it's not surprising because they're right. They are taking what shouldn't be a political issue. And they're making it a partisan issue. It's a pandemic. It doesn't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. It affects everyone. So, you know, it's disturbing. But understand how what he's saying here, it's extremely contradictory. Because on one hand, he says, look, we should be doing social distancing. But on another hand, he says, oh, but we shouldn't close schools. But you can't have it both ways. Should we or should we not follow the proper actions that will lead to, you know, containing the spread of this virus? And he feigns, you know, a concern over people experiencing mental health issues because of the lockdown. And sure, I'll grant you that. The lockdown is unquestionably causing people to suffer from depression and anxiety and other mental health issues. But do you want to know what part of that stems from? The economic anxiety that they are facing, because some people have anxiety because they've lost their jobs or they can't work or maybe they are working, but they're not receiving hazard pay and they're exposing themselves to the virus potentially. If you truly cared about people's mental health, you would go on Fox News, use that platform to recommend a cancellation of all rants, another stimulus package or, you know, a monthly basic income for the duration of this pandemic. If you truly cared about people's mental health, but you don't, you're just using mental health to hide your agenda, to make it seem as if you're actually a good person. When you're not a good person, you don't actually care about individuals because if you did, you would recommend shutting down schools. You would recommend us taking these extreme but necessary precautions to mitigate the spread of this virus, but you're not doing that. So you don't actually care because what you actually care about, what the people of Fox News care about is the economy, capitalism, the business class making money. That's always been their motivation here. So, you know, they continue to downplay the severity of COVID-19 and encourage people to defy protocols. And, you know, I want to say that they do this at their own peril, but unfortunately, their stupidity isn't contained to just them. What they say and encourage people to do impacts everyone because when it comes to something like a virus, we're only as strong as our weakest link. So if people continue to not take it seriously and it still spreads, that affects everyone, not just the people who aren't taking it seriously. So I mean, this is extremely frustrating, but look, all that we can do is control ourselves and take action by not taking action, by staying home on Thanksgiving, doing a small ceremony. Just with the people you live with. That's that's what you have to do because, I mean, it's one year. It's a sacrifice and it sucks. It really does suck. I want to celebrate Thanksgiving. I love having these big celebrations with my family and extended family and what now, but we can't do that this year. It's a pandemic and I want to make sure that myself and the people I love are protected and I hope that you will do the same thing. All right, folks, that is all that I have for you. Thank you so much for tuning in. As usual, we're not going to close the show without thanking all of the people who make it possible. Our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, thank you all so much. Regardless, if you donate monthly, a small amount, or you send us a one time contribution, honestly, it's all much appreciated. I really appreciate everything that you've done to help us grow. Even if you just watch and share the content. Thank you so much. That's all I could ever hope or ask for. Yeah, that's everything. Just a little bit of some some house notes here or cleaning notes. What's the phrase I'm going to use? I don't remember. Bookkeeping, I don't know. Anyways, next week will be a shorter episode since it's a holiday. So yeah, not going to be as much content that we're putting out. Nonetheless, we will have content every single day. So hopefully you will bear with us as we try to fill in some gaps because I need a little bit of a break, a little bit. So yeah, I'll see you all next week. Take care, everyone. My name is Mike Ferriero. This has been the Humanist Report. Have a great week.