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00:00:01
the one where we argue about why trump won (ep. 2)
11 Plays1 year ago
that rand article
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/08/tiktok-is-a-threat-to-national-security-but-not-for.html
The AOC video we commented on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXeHZZaPeBs&ab_channel=AsmongoldClips
The Bondi hearing Schiff part
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ01ZA2pJws
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Overview
00:00:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Hey, welcome to episode two of O Brother News. I'm Gabe. He's James. And um we're going to talk shit about the shit that happened this week.
00:00:11
James
I feel that this week has been a whole bunch of disarray and
00:00:16
James
shit about
00:00:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um Up first. Well, this is like a general hot takes. you know like well how do you How do you feel about this past week?
00:00:26
James
i feel that this week has been a whole bunch of disarray And I'm just talking about my personal life. um So yeah, bear with me.
00:00:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I see. OK, great.
00:00:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um
00:00:41
James
No, I'm here on a backup monitor.
00:00:43
James
I monitor died an hour before we were supposed to record this. And yeah, so I'm using a ah really old setup here. My speakers got routed to my old TV and it's just ah my whole setup here is a little bit of a mess.
00:00:57
James
So
TikTok Shutdown and Elon Musk's Involvement
00:00:58
James
last second.
00:00:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Wonderful, but you but you made it.
00:01:01
James
Yeah. Yep.
00:01:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You made it so we can talk about things like the pie and Bondi and I don't know why I said it that way, but the PAM body and Pete Hegseth hearings, the LA fires and Johnson and Tuberville and I guess other Republicans politicizing aid and wanting to tie it up to conditions.
00:01:11
James
debacle.
00:01:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The Gaza ceasefire maybe we'll see the passing a trans bill so that trans people can't compete in sports to and then calling like dressing that up as protection for women, which is, it would be hilarious if it wasn't rage-inducing levels of offensive.
00:01:37
James
working
00:01:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then TikTok is maybe going to be shut down on Sunday.
00:01:52
James
Oh yeah, they're already closing up operations, I guess.
00:01:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Or maybe Elon will buy it and roll it into X.
00:01:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Could go either way. We'll see how it goes.
00:01:59
James
so
00:02:02
James
They would have to sell.
00:02:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Uh, I'm sure that's not everything, but that's what we got on the, on the list.
00:02:04
James
They would have to sell. Well, they would have to sell. They would have to sell, and i don't think they want to I don't think the Communist Party of China wants to give Elon Musk everybody's data. I think they want to keep it from going.
00:02:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, but it's not just, it's not just them. We'll know. See like ByteDance, I don't know. It's a, who owns which pieces of the app is like, is a thing that would be complicated. The U S government have just would have to ah approve it.
00:02:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's a salient thing that I want to say about TikTok, because I feel like no one says this. The thing with TikTok is it's it's it's rolled out as this like threat to national security because of data privacy, which is which is on its face fucking absurd.
00:02:41
James
Yup.
00:02:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like
00:02:45
James
No, it's not.
00:02:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm going to let you make that argument.
00:02:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But to me, I think that the fact that it's a data privacy thing is absurd, because our data is out there. If China wants our data, they can buy it from Facebook or Google or Microsoft or like hundreds of other data brokers, it's just like, it's so out there that, who cares? And if we wanted to protect it, we could start by protecting it, you know, in any of those other like holes in the leaky bucket that is our data. The thing that I think is really salient with TikTok and why I think that it is actually like a threat to national security is because it is like an absurdly like massive and specific propaganda tool.
00:02:49
James
Okay.
00:03:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like ah social media when you want it to be is an incredibly potent ah disinformation tool. And I think like case in point for that was actually ah the discourse around Biden being a ah war criminal and and stuff around the the conflict in Gaza. ah I think that they like they you know upped the viewership
00:03:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
in the algorithm and promoted the ah anti-Biden rhetoric, especially in relation to the war. And I feel like that became a big talking point and something a lot of people who were spending time on that platform were thinking about and believing. And I think that's exactly the kind of thing that you can do. You can kind of come in and and destabilize the government by shifting everyone's opinion on some issue or to some issue.
00:04:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I think that's the danger of TikTok. I mean, ultimately,
Debating TikTok's Threat Beyond Privacy
00:04:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that's the danger of all social media. But like it's not that we don't want to have ah propaganda. I mean, i it would be great, but we we are choosing to have homegrown American propaganda. We don't want foreign controlled propaganda coming in here and you know leading our youth to be pissed.
00:04:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's my thoughts. That's my thoughts on the TikTok thing. i don't I don't know if Elon's going to buy it or if he's going to get the funding or if the government would approve it or which half of the app would stay with ByteDance, you know, and which would go.
00:04:56
James
No.
00:05:04
James
Well, well, by dance already said but bye dance already said it's pure fiction, the idea of Elon Musk buying it or them selling it to him, it's complete, not even going to happen.
00:05:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and
00:05:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I see. Okay.
00:05:16
James
They are just like, yes.
00:05:18
James
But, uh, and there's actually a really good, uh, article as far as, as Uh, you know, Rand, you know, uh, R-A-N-D Rand. Uh, I'm pretty sure they're right-wing think tank.
00:05:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Ran, ran the company.
00:05:30
James
I think they're a right-wing think tank. Uh, you know, rand.org. Um, pretty sure Rand is a right-wing think tank, but they have a good article actually.
00:05:41
James
Uh, what is it? Yeah. Oh, they know that they're a non-profit.
00:05:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Says they're independent.
00:05:45
James
It's a research on for some issues. The. It's a global think tank. It's a think tank. And they do a lot of stuff for like, I hear this reading real fast. American nonprofit global think tank research, public sector consulting firm. further They started after World War Two, the United States Air Forces, Army Air Forces established project rain with the the objective of investigating long range planning of future weapons. Douglas Aircraft Company has granted a contract to research this stuff.
00:06:17
James
ah They later evolved into the Rand Corporation, expanded its research into civilian fields such as education and international affairs, think tank, public and private funding. ah The US government actually helps fund some of it. US local governments do, they give donations, whatever. So either way, it's just like a think tank. But they have a really good article in here about why TikTok is a threat to national security, but not for the reason you think. So so And this is actually a good article, I think you should
Political Critiques and Legislative Moves
00:06:46
James
read it too. It's not about them. Oh, yeah, they get people's name and address and birthday. You know, yeah, that's fine. And the good right. But the main thing is with deep fakes in AI stuff.
00:06:59
James
um China and Russia have been really gung-ho on taking Americans videos and likenesses and pictures and everything else and spitting up fake profiles and things like that with their names and and acting like and using AI to do deepfakes and like there's entire videos of people in America but all of a sudden they're speaking Russian man and there's videos out there doing disinformation for the Russian government you know I mean And, uh, it's just, they've been using AI and doing deepfakes and they take people's data, publicly available data, you know, their videos and streams and everything else. And they sped it up in their models and they make stuff out now in the United States. Um, we've made it so like AI, you know, AI generated content, but what's up it work you went up AI generated content, um, has to be labeled as such, but they don't require that ah everywhere else. They don't require that in China. They don't require that in Russia and things like that. And since.
00:07:56
James
china has all the data they get all everybody's videos they have everything about anybody you know and so yeah everything that's uploaded on there basically is going to the you know communist party of china and people who say otherwise are kind of i think and dumb and naive that think they don't you know i mean apple even changes everything about the iphone for china tesla changes everything for china everything they have if it's the version that's in china they make sure that the Chinese government is able to get everybody's data and get everybody's everything, full access, anything they want. People always think about how Apple phones are so secure. China has access to every bit of everybody's data, their conversations, everything and in China if they're using an iPhone. So with all the data going there, them being able to deep fake it to do whatever kind of disinformation things they have, you know they're not under any kind of laws. you know America is, it's people have more and more been seeing that
00:08:53
James
Themselves have been victim of deepfakes and not for like porn sites I mean just for a random stuff for selling products making commercials doing everything else. I mean it's it's everywhere so That's a bigger deal for the future Well a lot of it is proper targeted propaganda, but you know
00:09:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
bigger than targeted propaganda.
00:09:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You mean bigger than data privacy.
00:09:25
James
day bigger than data privacy is bigger than having somebody's name and address and birthday, but you can pretty much Google that stuff.
00:09:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, but there's, I mean, okay, but like the, you're not going to stop that by stopping TikTok. I mean, they're still going to be able to just go on to YouTube and scrape it or Instagram or you know, wherever people are, people are just uploading their images all over the place.
00:09:42
James
Well, there's there's other things that now there's there's there's other things in there that they were talking about the way you uploaded to TikTok, they make people do it in a certain like resolution format and everything else that's There's a big article.
00:09:54
James
if You can read the whole, I can post a link to the article or whatever, but ah there's there's things that TikTok does that makes it especially prone to being able to very be very easily manipulated by them and not just if you to download a video.
00:10:08
James
Because when you download the videos, it has watermarks and things like that on it. And and ah oh you could read the article. It's a little bit more technical than I'm making out to be, but.
00:10:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK, yeah, yeah put um put links in the Discord, because the the show notes get eaten once we stop recording in the session.
00:10:23
James
Yeah.
00:10:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's why last week didn't have the didn't have the video of the tank in the description, because I lost the link.
00:10:33
James
Yeah.
00:10:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But it was a good there' a good video.
00:10:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
All right, well, I guess we're just going backwards. so
00:10:42
James
so
00:10:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um The Republicans who have brought you hits like um voting down bills that would ah guarantee the right to IVF, voting down bills that would guarantee that women are allowed to do interstate travel to seek health care, voting down bills that would, I swear there was one about like assault.
00:11:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was like the defense of women or protecting women from assault. It had some like name that was like very, I just, I was looking for it on Google and I couldn't find it. So I swear there's one like that.
00:11:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Um, defense against women. Is that what it's called? Violence against women act. That's the one. Yes. That's totally the one I'm thinking of. Yeah. Voting down the violence against women act.
00:11:24
James
violence against women act the violence against women or yeah
00:11:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I guess we're pro violence against women. Um, you know, on top of putting in place a whole bunch of trigger laws, so that as soon as Roe v. Wade gets overturned, which they also worked for years to accomplish,
00:11:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah that you know women are trying to have babies and having pregnancy complications, and then they're having to be almost dead before the doctors are allowed to treat them. Otherwise, everyone's going to go to jail. And just like you know making this really ah hideously anti-woman set of policies. So from those guys, they decided that right now while LA is literally on fire, the worst fire ever, worst in the Chicago fire, like the biggest fire ever, 100 mile winds, fucking fire tornadoes. Um, they thought that now would be a great time not to deal with LA fires, but instead they were going to finally protect women from trans athletes. Uh,
00:12:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
of which last year at the top levels of the NCAA, there were five. So we've we've done it, guys. we we they They passed it through through the house um today.
00:12:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
AOC was throwing a fit about it because it's offensive that you're going to call that protecting women. And just it just means that trans athletes can't compete in sports that isn't their birth gender version of the sport. So that one girl who's really good at swimming isn't going to lose lose to that trans woman who's better than at swimming. And I mean, who fucking cares? like it's We hurt five people, which isn't enough to like to to be worth the political points we lose.
00:13:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know throwing them in front of the bus of the culture war and having them draw fire. I mean, there are a tiny number of people who are already a vulnerable, ah really vulnerable population because they're all just different from everyone around them. And it's like it's a difficult enough thing to like to live with and navigate on your own without having it be politicized and like whipping everybody up into like being pissed about it. So pissed. They're like, oh, in the middle of a literal little, literal women's homes burning. And we're going to protect the women by stopping five athletes from competing.
00:14:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's fucking infuriating. What are your thoughts on this?
00:14:14
James
My thoughts, my only real thought is this, it made me think back to West Wing, right? The the show of the West Wing, right? And they were always talking back then, back in the day when there was Republicans and Democrats, right? They're philosophy, the whole Republican philosophy on laws, right? And they know they always would say like, ah their whole their whole philosophy, right? Is basically, it always used to be,
00:14:44
James
that people are more free when there are less laws. right If you need a law for everything, then you are not a free society. right you know And and they always you in Republicans always used to blast Democrats for passing crazy laws, regulations, and laws. And why do you need to make a law that says X, Y, and Z? That's that's <unk> an assault on liberty.
00:15:13
James
right So the fact that they're going out of the way to pass a law for something that's not even a real issue. I mean, first of all, there's a very small number of trans athletes, incredibly small. A lot of the trans athletes do compete with their assigned gender. You know what I mean? It's a really small number of trans athletes that compete in the sport for which the sex that they identify with right so it's ah it's a very very small thing so the fact that they're going out of their way to pass a law for something that it's such a small thing that's going to affect virtually nobody is kind of funny to me the fact that and I don't see that they blocked anything with a bouncy women act by the way I saw that it was reauthorized in 2022 so it's it's up for every it's up for renewal every five years so so I don't know what
00:16:09
James
which one that was but they've always been against it because you know it protects lgbtq people it tries to put limits on gun purchases for people who've you know beaten the shit out of their you know their their girlfriend or wife or something you know so whatever that's why they've always been against that but um yeah I just think this it's interesting to me that Republicans is just another example of Republicans abandoning all their principles and just
00:16:38
James
just doing what they do now
00:16:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
fascist gonna fascist. Indeed. Okay, so let's talk.
LA Fires and Disaster Management
00:16:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What do you want to do? You want to do Gaza ceasefire? LA fire.
00:16:54
James
fire you can buy some no FX t-shirts they've ah taken their their album art for the album you know their song the decline and they've morphed it into having a
00:17:05
James
thing to raise money for firefighters so going no effects even though they quit whatever neither here nor there but yeah la fire is good level of and the reason I brought up no effects is because I went to LA I went to l LA to see no effects his final three shows as a band I
00:17:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Let's retired. That's nice. Dude, yeah, it's horrible. It's ah absolutely horrific, the the the devastation and like the you know the fear. And it's still going. like the and The winds die down, but the winds are picking back up. So it's like
00:17:35
James
And the house that I had rented while I was there for Airbnb is gone, but the whole entire community, but the entire, the entire, entire community is gone.
00:17:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
God.
00:17:47
James
There's not a building left there. Um, so that's what was making me think about it. Um, yeah, kudos to president Biden for going out of his way to do above and beyond what Newsom and them were asking for, for as far as FEMA assistance, you know?
00:18:02
James
I mean, they were asking for federal government to help with their emergency staff paying 75% of costs. And Biden said, no. And told me they're covering everything. And yeah, and they got the people out there, the FEMA people out there giving people the debit cards for initial payments. And that's not everything. That's just you know their initial payments and getting people on their feet. And they have thousands and thousands of people out there. And meanwhile, Republicans are acting like you know it was caused by the Democrats or something. I don't know. I can't get in their mindset.
00:18:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, I mean, I think it's really easy to get into their mindset, actually. I mean, their mindset is to to think we talked about this last week, actually, it's a strategy of flooding where you're going to come up with some new, outrageous thing.
00:18:47
James
Yeah.
00:18:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know You're basically creating clickbait news stories by saying clickbaity bullshit. um That is disingenuous. It doesn't agree with like your platforms or your goals. That is vindictive. I feel like this is like and another piece in addition to the flooding is this is sort of like you know ah the other people who aren't on Team Trump are actually our enemies and not our fellow citizens. So we need to attack them and harass them. and you know, brow beat them into submissions, I guess. I mean, the beatings will continue until morale improves, I guess.
00:19:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah But no, that's exactly the strategy. It's, you know, like, do I think that they believe most of the the horrific shit that they say? No. I think that they say it because it becomes a clickbaity thing to get people talking about it. And so then they're talking about that. They're not talking about, you know,
00:19:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
is all of the confirmation hearings or they're not talking about, you know, like, you know, what we're not talking about anymore. We're not talking about Greenland. We're not talking about the Panama Canal anymore.
00:20:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We've moved on to so the new, there's always something new.
00:20:02
James
yeah
00:20:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, it used to be like you get a scandal, like once a presidency or once every few presidencies, and now it's like you get like four scandals a week. It's just noise now.
00:20:14
James
no And also, it's kind of funny, I just linked, I put out another link to a new as article here, or a little article anyway, LAIST.com news, whatever, and just talk about the conspiracy theories. And one of the funny things is, and actually this ties into last week,
00:20:28
James
because remember meta last week, they decided they're going to get away with they're going to get rid of their fact checkers. So just in time for a whole bunch of more AI generated, you know, misinformation here too with the LA fires.
00:20:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, there's more with the meta getting rid of their fact checkers. So I didn't know this at like last week, but um I was listening to like the bulwark or raging moderates is one of those.
00:20:41
James
talk about
00:20:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um And they were talking about how Zuckerberg is, he's being sued by the FTC.
00:21:01
James
Yeah.
00:21:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like he wants to have that lawsuit go away and it's easier to, you know, like cozy up to Trump and give him a couple million bucks and be like, do you want to not take my company?
00:21:09
James
Cozy up.
00:21:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Or like, you know, I think they're like calling them a monopoly and trying to break them up over having like Instagram, Facebook and threads and whatever else.
00:21:16
James
Yeah, I was.
00:21:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So.
00:21:23
James
And everything else too. Yeah. But I think it's kind of funny that they got rid of all that stuff just in time for all the AI generated images and videos of stuff in LA and combining it with you know stories that they're not getting anything and that they ran out of water and everything else.
00:21:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
in the smelt.
00:21:40
James
Yeah. okay ah Yeah.
00:21:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They were protecting the smelt by taking the water away from the smelt. The smelt is a fish that they were protecting by taking the water away from it with a bill. And that's why they didn't have water to fight the fires, except see and this is what this is what Donald Trump was claiming, except the entire thing is bullshit.
00:21:56
James
so
00:22:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There was no fucking smelt bill. It's just like a lie for the sake of telling a lie because the truth takes longer to get around.
00:22:09
James
yeah Why didn't he sign the water restoration declaration?
00:22:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
because there was no such thing.
00:22:15
James
ah But what why didn't he sign it? There could have been.
00:22:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Why didn't he make it?
00:22:21
James
Why didn't he invent a water restoration declaration to put water everywhere there where there is a drought?
00:22:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Another thing that like there's I find really annoying is like you hear people talking about like the forest management. and it's like ah I don't remember the percentage, but somewhere between 50% and 70% of the forests in California are managed by the federal government.
00:22:39
James
Yeah. Yeah, I know.
00:22:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and every time what's the what why oh yeah so okay but have you seen like okay for me for one that they use their prisoners as I think we talked about last week they use their prisoners to to do a lot of their fireworks with the clear cutting and stuff but um
00:22:44
James
You know what the real problem was?
00:22:46
James
You know what the real problem is? You know why they haven't gotten rid of the fires yet? It's all those DEI, DEI hires and they're volunteer firefighters and stuff. You know, that's what it was.
00:23:01
James
I know. Well,
00:23:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like talk about being like overqualified. It's like, she's like cartoonishly overqualified. She uses overqualified to be the fire chief of LA as Donald Trump is under qualified to run a fucking KFC.
Political Loyalty and Opportunism
00:23:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, uh, no.
00:23:22
James
oh my god he's gonna run the IRS I'm sorry but Jesus Christ do you see he's gonna run the IRS oh my god ah Rachel Maddow did a thing I think I think you did see it I think I saw that you liked the video oh my god yeah you he's a poker player remember poker player
00:23:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, maybe I just don't remember. Who, who is it? What's his deal? Oh shit, I did see that. I was supposed to build something or...
00:23:45
James
ah ah but butda
00:23:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Google will tell us momentarily.
00:23:49
James
I know it's, um, Jesus, Billy Long, Billy, Billy, Billy Long.
00:23:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Billy Long. Oh, he does like, what's this thing?
00:23:57
James
Yep.
00:23:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He's like the...
00:23:59
James
He was a nobody man. He, he was a real estate guy.
00:24:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Real estate.
00:24:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Some of those are like, it's like a scam.
00:24:02
James
He's an auctioneer.
00:24:03
James
He was an auctioneer.
00:24:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's like a scammy real estate thing though, isn't it?
00:24:06
James
Yeah. He's a skim real estate. He's an auctioneer and, uh, yeah, he gave himself some award, some poker site, he's play poker he's just whatever, he's a right wing, he's a fundraiser, he i mean he's not a lawyer, he's not a tax person, he's not he's just a poker player, he's somebody who plays.
00:24:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, he's like, he's a tax master. Right. And he's like, but where he took, he took the, tell he took the task master, the tax master.com, tax master tests, whatever it was called.
00:24:32
James
Oh yeah, yeah, that's exactly, yeah, but they went to the website and it's ah it's a poker site out of Thailand.
00:24:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Yeah. Well, you know, they got, they got a different the tax game. Only, they only got the one sucker to come to the stupid seminar.
00:24:45
James
Yeah. Oh my god.
00:24:50
James
Oh, yes. That guy. Sorry. You can continue. Sorry, just people who are not fit for things and people who are fit for things.
00:24:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, I mean, like if he's going to.
00:24:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Yeah.
00:24:59
James
Such a good contrast.
00:25:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, yeah, I was trying, I was trying to throw back to you about the, what the, I was, i dont I was saying, I was saying that the, um, like whenever these Republicans have something happen in their state, they're out there like, Hey, we got to put aside our differences and just help the people. Cause we're all Americans guys. And, um, you know, no one talks about how like, uh,
00:25:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
California actually contributes the most money to the federal government.
00:25:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, like, um, the amount of money, like the amount of money that they give to the federal government compared to the amount of money that the federal government gives back to them. Uh, California owes the federal government negative $83 billion, dollars which means they give 83 billion more dollars than the government gives to them.
00:25:28
James
Oh, yeah.
00:25:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's 83 more billion dollars that's for all these other, you know,
00:25:45
James
Yeah.
00:25:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
fuck boy states that don't contribute or anything like Alabama, which was 43rd. I don't remember how much they contributed, but they were in the negative. They were, there were only seven states that were, I remember it was six states that were worse than them, six or seven states that contributed less. And they were not even at breakeven. They were, they were way under breakeven. It's just like, it's so offensive for these states that like, like a lot of those states are kind of like fucked by the people like by their leadership.
00:26:20
James
Hmm.
00:26:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's very much this like, um, we're going to accuse everyone else of the thing that we do. It's the same thing with like the petals. Like all the, all the petal politicians are always Republicans.
00:26:30
James
Yeah.
00:26:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, it's always like the guy from, where was he from? Was it the guy from Mississippi?
00:26:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The Senator William Moore.
00:26:35
James
Well, Roy Moore, or which one?
00:26:37
James
There's a lot of them, but you have to be Roy Moore.
00:26:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think that's right. Yeah. Cause he like, he was like, oh, Roy Moore.
00:26:41
James
Here's the, yeah.
00:26:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. With like the 14 year old girls and all that stage. You can sit in Mississippi, Georgia.
00:26:45
James
Yeah. Yeah, the ones the one who got, that's Georgia, I believe. It is Georgia.
00:26:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay.
00:26:49
James
That's how ah John Ossoff, I believe, got it. It was a John Ossoff or Raphael Wardock who got it.
00:26:55
James
I Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. It was Alabama and it was Doug Jones who got in going up against Roy Moore.
00:27:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. Okay.
00:27:02
James
Right, sorry, sorry. But yeah, he was the one going after the 14-year-olds. He's the guy who was banned from the local mall for trying to pick up the 14-year-olds, yes.
00:27:13
James
He was an adult. Yes. And he got banned in the mall.
00:27:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's like, you know, and then like the, um, these are the same people who like, like every time there's a Republican national convention, it's like the grinder super bowl.
00:27:20
James
but
00:27:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like your grinder like publishes articles about how.
00:27:27
James
yeah
00:27:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Uh, they get like the most traffic that they ever see is always at the Republican National Convention.
00:27:32
James
two
00:27:35
James
man yeah
00:27:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's like there could not be a group of people who are more dedicated to the concept of like, whatever I accuse someone else of is the thing that I'm doing. Like they're just confessing to everything by way of accusing their political opponents of doing the thing that they do.
00:27:51
James
Trump has mastered that one know that It was the Jewish space lasers remember it was the Jews it was George Soros George Soros was doing that
00:27:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like I wouldn't be surprised if they were like, you know, using Using space lasers to start wildfires in canada and like What else what other crazy shit is margery taylor green, you know sharks with with face lasers?
00:28:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's dr. Evil The jewish space lasers Well, she's on twitter saying something about which I i like to call twitter just to Yeah, I just like to like not give it the name he wants is like a minor insult but like uh
00:28:21
James
It is Twitter, it'll always be Twitter.
00:28:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
She was on Twitter saying something like, um like why don't you guys use the ah use the weather control things to like seed some rain?
00:28:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And it's like, are you like how does that make sense? like The people who have control over the weather have decided to burn down their own town? like Make it make sense for me.
00:28:51
James
but It must have been Black Lives Matter. There you go. That's what they were saying.
00:28:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's Antifa.
00:28:56
James
Black Lives Matter? They burned down their own towns.
00:29:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, it's just, it's just like such a menagerie of bullshit. It's just, it's very creative.
00:29:06
James
Yeah.
00:29:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, points for creativity.
00:29:13
James
I don't know, man. It doesn't take any creativity just to do an about-face and lose all of your principles and morals and convictions and just parrot whatever the person in charge wants you to say oh well there's plenty of people who have lost them okay so here though there's a few people who at one point seems to have principles and dignity right uh let's just ah throw a couple names out there man nancy mace probably one of them i think uh
00:29:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You think Marjorie Taylor Greene ever had principles? or Trump ever had principles or who, who, who's who lost them. Cause like, I feel like the people who like the Adam Kissinger's and the Liz Cheney's, they got all got kicked out.
00:29:50
James
Although he's kind of a snake, I still think, um, you know, Lindsey Graham at one point a long time ago in his career, I think he kind of had some maybe, or he seemed to.
00:30:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i think I think his principles were um power is better than not power.
00:30:07
James
Maybe, maybe, maybe at that time it was, you know, having some principles was a ah political asset, but either way at some point, one point, you know, I mean,
00:30:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yes, totally.
00:30:19
James
Nancy Mace, man, I mean, she's a good example of one, you know? I mean, at once upon a time, she was in the military, you know, she was a, you know, I don't know, she was all right, you know what I mean?
00:30:32
James
um
00:30:35
James
I don't know, man, i mean let's see like here, like when they had the, let's just go a little bit backward, like January 6th, right? You know, ah condemning Donald Trump for it, Now, of course, he went on to not impeach him for the same reasons. I guess they said that ah like Mitch McConnell didn't impeach. Oh, what are you going to do? Impeach somebody who's not even president anymore. That's for removing of office, even though it's kind of a cop out anyway, whatever. Right. But now she's like the most up his ass psycho, you know, there is, you know, plenty of people in Republicans are like that. You know, I find it like, like here, Pete Hegseth,
00:31:14
James
and p hexf and and just the whole pam body all the people you none of them should have any chance in there because all they need is three freaking republicans to have a spine right and the beginning like when when this administration was starting we're all everybody was kind of thinking well there's a there's a couple of them i mean granted susan collins isn't exactly you know she you know she's
00:31:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, I mean, like Vance is like that.
00:31:38
James
yeah I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is not going to overturn Roe v. Wade. I believe what he said, and I believe this, and I'm concerned about whatever, but you had the Susan Collins, you had Lisa Murkowski, who was definitely like, no, no way, no way, you know?
00:31:52
James
And you had a handful, you had a couple of people, Mitt Romney's out now. They have the other guy from Utah.
00:31:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Dude, you cannot.
00:31:57
James
You need three, but you need to three.
00:31:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Don't tell me. No, no. Mitt Romney is the like King Snake of Snakeville.
00:32:01
James
He's gone. I mean, not really. Honestly, I don't i disagree strongly with that.
00:32:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mitch McConnell is Voldemort.
00:32:07
James
Mitch McConnell's name.
00:32:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mitch McConnell stood there with a straight face and said, the American people have to choose who's going to be on the Supreme Court a year before the election and then two, like not even, it was like eight days, eight fucking days from the, from the election.
00:32:09
James
It's McConnell.
00:32:13
James
I know that's Mitch McConnell.
00:32:17
James
Mitch McConnell is. Yeah.
00:32:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He decided, no, no, no, we're going to rush in our fucking guy.
00:32:22
James
Yeah.
00:32:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Cause we have no fucking principles. We just want power.
00:32:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Power is our only principle.
00:32:26
James
True.
00:32:28
James
Yes. That is their own principle. The only principle now. I mean, it's very rare that like, I would not put Mitt Romney in that same category of them. I mean, yes, he's a politician.
00:32:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, you submit Romney.
00:32:35
James
Yes. he's going
00:32:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, um I misheard you. I see.
00:32:38
James
No, but I was saying, yeah, I mean, he voted to impeach. There's a very few, you know, people who voted to impeach. And I think they're all gone now, aren't they? Everybody who, all the Republicans who said that you voted for Pete, I think they're all out.
00:32:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, that's what I was saying. Like, they're all they're all gone.
00:32:49
James
Yeah, but there's a few, but they had people who had some principles, not enough. But now it's like, why is, why are these people even, no one thought Pete Hexeth would even have a chance, you know, about a month ago, right?
00:33:03
James
Because they're all like, okay, there's going to be three Republicans with a brain.
00:33:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, Trump didn't think he, he would have a chance.
00:33:12
James
I know. That's just like every election too. But either way, I just, it's crazy how these people will lose all convictions and. and
00:33:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't think it's crazy. I like, I look for the, I look for the, the guiding truthful logic. Like what is the uniting principle behind all of these decisions? And it's really simple. It's just.
00:33:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Whatever gets us power, whatever looks good in the moment right now, that is the ticket. There's no like, there's no like principles or morals or long-term goals, which is why they don't have a fucking party platform. They don't have long-term goals and they sure as fuck aren't going to tell you about the long-term goals that they have. Like their long-term goals seem to be like giving more money to, to their rich donors in whatever industry they're in.
00:34:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So that those guys can funnel more money into their campaigns so they can have more power, so they can give them more money so they can have more power. That is the, that is the whole, that's it. It's very simple. It's not, it's not complicated. It's not, it's not like you don't need a psychology degree. It's very simple. It's just, we're going to control the power. We're going to give you the money. You're going to give us some of the money and help us get the power. And then we're going to give you some of the money and we're just going to rinse and repeat.
00:34:34
James
oh mean anyway
00:34:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. So, yeah so and so's let's say more about the Pam Bonnie and the, and the Pete Hegseth hearing. So one of the things I haven't heard someone else talk about yet is I think that there is, um, a subtle, devious brilliance in choosing TV personalities to be in charge of things because like, that's how Trump picks all of his people.
00:34:57
James
Hmm,
00:35:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's like, you know, were you.
00:35:03
James
yeah.
00:35:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Have you had at least three spouses?
00:35:04
James
Anyway.
00:35:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Have you abused a woman or been accused of abusing a woman or better yet, have you paid off a woman who accused you of abusing her? um
00:35:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And do are you on television? Are you good on TV? You're hired. That's that's his list of qualifications. And there is something really brilliant about that, because I feel like that's how he's won. You know, he learned how to be good on television. You don't you know, you don't you don't need to be making great policy or telling the truth about the state of the world, you need to be good at selling whatever it is you're selling on TV.
00:35:35
James
see you see I disagree a little bit that might be that might be why they got picked go he looks TV or whatever right you might pick I don't think that's why he picks these people he's picking this term this he is there's only one one thing one litmus test for him to pick anybody it is will they swear absolute allegiance to anything i want to do no pushback whatsoever right if the answer is yes that's it they're in and he'll find a job for him whatever it may be you know cool uh oh i like them he loves me that's it let's find a job for him hey okay he can run the irs this poker player yeah he can run the irs sure why not you know i mean
00:36:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's true. Yeah.
00:36:27
James
this guy, Pete Hegseth. Oh, oh, oh, he was in the military? Oh, he was in the military at one point. Okay, cool. Secretary of Defense. Why not? He'll do whatever I want. If he wants me to, if I want to put you know troops in there and go into Chicago and round up people, he won't fight me on that. And if they suck at it, you know, he'll just blame them. They're disposable. So it doesn't really matter if something happens and they get, you know, they flame out and they fuck up. Well, well,
00:36:54
James
you know It was all his fault, man. He sucked. um so you know He was horrible. He lied. He did whatever. you know He was supposed to be good. and whatever Whatever. He just always blames whoever. you know He always hires the best people until they don't do what he wants, and then they're horrible. and He always gets a pass somehow. you know they he always you know He's immune to the criticism. But yeah, that's to all he wants. He just wants people who will do anything. And the people on TV, they're the first ones to be like that. because if they're going out of their way to carry Waterfirm on like Fox and OAN and all these old news outlets or whatever you know or he's already had dealings with them like Pam Bondi and he already knows they're corrupt to the core and will do whatever for him that's all he needs to know he's got a track card with these people you know he wants people who will do whatever the hell he wants plain and simple that's what I think
00:37:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
two Two, I totally agree with that. And to that point, as there was, um so I put this in the Discord, but I was gonna try to read through this. So there was a ah video, it was like a seven minute clip of Adam Schiff um questioning Pam Bondi at her hearing. And I'll post a link to that in the show notes. um But I wrote this comment and it was,
00:38:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
These are easy questions she is squirming out of to avoid saying something unpopular or rather to make a point of ah being defiant um ah publicly because of the way that it plays as defiant to government and dedicated to Trump. you know So she had this question, do you know of a factual basis to investigate Jack Smith right now today? And the obvious answer she's unwilling to say is, no, I do not. But again, I have not reviewed any materials, documents, or evidence related to a potential investigation of Jack Smith. Run this back and insert Liz Cheney. Same thing. Then this other question was, will you commit to protecting evidence related to January 6th? I'm paraphrasing. This is like the you know the heart of the question, that that word for word. The obvious answer she's unwilling to say, yes, I will protect all evidence as is required by the law. Because she just kept repeating, like I'll follow the law. I'll follow the law. But she wouldn't say, like I will protect the evidence.
00:39:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
is like, it's that little like act of defiance. That's the thing that Trump is looking for that you're squirming and you're, you know, always then like question. Are you aware of massive fraud in the 2020 election? And the obvious answer she's unwilling to say that all of the Trump sycophants to your point are are not allowed to say if they want to be in his orbit is no, I am not aware of massive fraud. And she could have continued and said, however, I am aware of public case records and I am aware of what I saw in Pennsylvania.
00:39:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
She did like keep coming back to like, well, ah I know what I saw in Pennsylvania. and And he's like, okay, but I'm not asking you about what you saw in Pennsylvania. I'm asking you about was there massive fraud? She said, well, I only want to talk about Pennsylvania. And he's like, that's not what I'm asking you answer the question.
00:39:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He's like, it's not a hard question. There's another question. Um, it's not possible to review hundreds of cases in a single day. Therefore, will it be your advice to the president to not issue blank pardons on day one, because you'll need time to review them.
00:39:49
James
Well,
00:40:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
obvious answer she's unwilling to say. I do not agree with your assessment. I will have a robust and capable staff and my recommendation will be made once I have more information.
00:40:11
James
hu
00:40:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We all know that the president has promised and I will be serving or what the president has promised. I will be serving at the pleasure of the president and his administration. We will pursue his agenda in full accordance with the law.
00:40:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like she doesn't say that because she has to say, um, you know she She has to like disagree with the spirit of the question to just never give a straight answer.
00:40:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like Even when there is like a straight answer that communicates what she wants to say, but isn't defiant. like you
00:40:35
James
Well, the other funny thing, well,
00:40:41
James
that's That's a good segue into something else I was actually saying and I think you watched Brian Tyler Cohen, right?
Pam Bondi's Hearings and Legal Implications
00:40:47
James
And he was doing an interview with Glenn Kirchner and Glenn Kirchner is great. It's legal mind and the funny thing what they were talking about is was Was she committing perjury the entire time? If so, is there any chance she would ever pay the price for it, right? Because the whole thing is basically it was a everything she said what you said yes she was squirming she's trying to find a way to say something else she was trying to find a way to not answer because she couldn't say the truth she was lying her ass off every answer she may gave basically but well sometimes it's straight-up lying man she hasn't it's interesting I didn't even see all of the questions you know I didn't see the part with shift like you talked about there you know where she okay
00:41:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i so Well, at least when I said I it was more avoiding than then lying.
00:41:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like I only saw the part where Schiff. I didn't see anything else.
00:41:36
James
I saw other parts of it. And yes, apparently whatever happened that she wouldn't talk about in Pennsylvania was the only thing she has heard about at all in the last couple of years, because she didn't know anything about Trump's call to Raffensperger, you know, Raffensperger, you know, in in Georgia about finding me the 11,780 votes, you know.
00:41:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
oh Convenient.
00:42:01
James
She never heard that. She never heard that. Nope. And she did not hear about them doing any of the other and stuff. She did not hear about Trump ever talking about deploying, you know, the National Guard, you know, and or the the military and in cities. She hasn't heard any of that stuff. She, she just assumes that they're just mischaracterizing everything.
00:42:25
James
but she's never heard any of it. She's never heard anything like that. She's never heard the tape. She never heard the tape that everybody heard round the clock for fricking two years about finding me the notes. She never heard that. She just assumed they must have been mischaracterizing the nature of Paul.
00:42:42
James
I mean, it's kind of hard to prove somebody's outright lying, which is why they're talking about how perjury never gets charged.
00:42:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, you know.
00:42:51
James
You know, they never charge people for perjury. even It happens all the time, but they don't want to have the resources just to go around everybody who says, oh, come on, you lied. Well, prove to me that she never, ever, ever heard that clip, even though it's played around the world.
00:43:06
James
every day everywhere you would have to so have somebody says i was in the room watching the news with pam bondi hears us on tape as she's listening to it you know i mean and then she would have to prove that she didn't just forget that she heard it i mean that's why you can't prove it but she was lying her ass off every single way she couldn't give a straight answer on any of it because the answer the real truthful answer is I am going to do whatever the fuck Donald Trump says.
00:43:31
James
I will probably suck his dick to get the job if I haven't already done so and to keep the job. And whatever he wants to do, however illegal it is, I'm going to make sure it happens because he's bring he's given me a really big ah promotion to be AG.
00:43:47
James
So yeah, I'll do whatever it's illegal like I have to do. That's the real answer.
00:43:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that is and is the That is the real answer, and you can't say that.
00:43:53
James
Can't say that.
00:43:57
James
Yeah. So...
00:43:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know I will say, though, on the topic of the like the of the Georgia call,
Trump's Georgia Call: Criminal or Manipulation?
00:44:03
James
you
00:44:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think ah you know when you see like the way in the face of of like every piece of evidence just kept saying over and over again that it was rigged and stolen, including like Fox News having to firetuckle Carlson and pay like
00:44:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
whatever, was $1.5 billion dollars ah you know to to Dominion, or it was the 60-plus court cases, many of which in front of ah republican Republican judges, or if it was like the states that it did their own investigations, and it was like Republicans who were in charge of it, um like the guy in Georgia,
00:44:35
James
They're about to taste Martmatic too.
00:44:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
in all of those cases, like he just, you know, just refuse to face the facts. Like he just actually lost that time. Uh, but in that call, um, when he's saying like, dude, come on, like I just need 15,000 votes.
00:45:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Can you, can you find 15,000 votes?
00:45:05
James
If.
00:45:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, like, can you find 15,000 votes? Like I get it. Like you can, like, you can spend that into, falsely create 15 000 votes for me figure out a way to make it look this way i'm not going to tell you to like cheat but i want you to cheat i can see it i can see the argument but there is like but he didn't step over the line whether it was clever or inept or he just like got fucking lucky as he seems to do all the time like in my opinion in that specific instance like the insinuation is there but the like
00:45:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Specifically, no, like here's what you do, bro. You take eight thousand away from from him and you give eight thousand to me and bam. Now I win. Like go do it. Like call up which precinct is it that we can go and and run this fucking scam on? Like let's go do it. Like we got a we got I got paper right now, bro. Like we got paper. We got pens. Let's just fill out some extra fucking ballots. And oh, look, we found them. Like, you know, you say something like that. OK, you gotcha.
00:46:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But you say, find me 15,000 votes as they're counting and recounting the votes. I don't feel like that's the gotcha we made it out to be.
00:46:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's the other thing.
00:46:21
James
Well, it really was though.
00:46:22
James
It really was because that was after they already had done a recount and then a recount and then another recount. It was months long, right? He kept trying to tell them, you know, to like uncertify their, their totals, throw out ballots, replacing the electors.
00:46:41
James
It was, this is all after the phone call finally took place after They had been going through this over and over and over again, and they already were exhausting all of their options. And they kept getting kicked out of court. And I mean, it wasn't just one phone call taken in and in a vacuum.
00:47:04
James
It was one phone call after a whole bunch of others, after he had Mark Meadows going there in person to the place when they were going to count where they're counting the votes to have meetings with them.
00:47:15
James
It was after they sent their people there. They kept having recounts, recounts and trying to do everything after they're trying to throw out other ballots and going to court to try to throw out ballots in the city.
00:47:26
James
It wasn't just one phone call. It was like the final straw, you know?
00:47:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Hmm, I see.
00:47:32
James
it was a it was a campaign that's why there's still rico charges in georgia going on against them and marking those no that's the rico that's the rico uh thing in georgia that's the uh uh fanny willis i think it's fanny willis doing that one right uh say they they
00:47:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So that's what the that's what the Jack Smith thing is, right? And that's.
00:47:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Didn't she get kicked? I thought Fannie Willis got like disqualified from that.
00:47:55
James
They found a way to get her off the case. and Let's see, the RICO case stands and everything else stands. They you just tried to get her moved off.
00:48:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because I thought that there was something with, like, is that the one with Judge Cannon, or is that the other one?
00:48:08
James
They lost the first time. they ah They appealed it to like the appellate court, which is, I mean, no, george Judge Cannon is a it's a federal district court in Florida.
00:48:20
James
Nothing to do, that's just federal federal court.
00:48:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, OK.
00:48:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That was the other thing.
00:48:23
James
now Georgia, this is Georgia state court.
00:48:26
James
And yeah, it was kind of retook. Sorry, I was gonna use that word that I'm not supposed to, you know, say the ridiculous I'll say it was a ridiculous thing how they got her bounced from the case.
00:48:39
James
But yeah, um it's a state one because she had a relationship
00:48:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, is sort it you know it's like, you can't call it ridiculous because then you then you present the idea that we're losing to a buffoon, but we're not. like it is ah It's a smart tactical move. like I mean, wouldn't you as a defendant love to have the conversation be about how the the the prosecutor is is like promoting they're subordinate who they're also sleeping with and taking vacations with, with the money that they like use to give them a raise and maybe they don't deserve it and they're sleeping with them.
00:49:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
isn And then is that fair? Wouldn't you love for that to be the conversation instead of like, did you do the thing that you did? Like that is like, ah so would I like, so would everyone like that is, that is like tactical.
00:49:31
James
Sure. Sure.
00:49:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's good lawyering.
00:49:41
James
Sure. Except the only thing the fight thing the thing I think is funny about it is that when they had ah ah the hearing on the merits, right, they lost like no, it might look bad, but there's nothing in here that takes away from the case or anything else. And nothing that's in violation of Georgia law, nothing is in violation of their ethics, everything they had, they're like, yeah, there's no reason to take her off the case. There's nothing like that. you know And then they just found a friendly court. I mean, they found a super right wing court, you know the appellate level. and
00:50:15
James
And then they said, okay, well, all right, we'll take her off the case. But the case stands, but you know, it's still, it's just, sure, good lawyering, I guess, you know, but it's still nonsense.
00:50:26
James
I mean, it still has nothing to do with, it has nothing to do with Trump.
00:50:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, it's not justice. It's not justice.
00:50:30
James
It has nothing to do with Trump or any of the cronies or anything they did or any of the evidence. It was just, oh yeah, it's it's more what about-ism. Oh yeah, well, what about her? She did this. She, this looks bad.
00:50:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:50:41
James
Look at that. She, they were having an affair. Oh yeah. Hey look, this lawyer did this has nothing to do with the case. so Nothing at all. Nothing whatsoever to do with about anything other than it makes her look bad.
00:50:53
James
And Hey, look, she was doing this stuff here during the what while they were investigating us. They did this. Okay.
Appeasement in Politics and Judicial Responses
00:50:59
James
This still has nothing to do with any of the evidence I got. Nothing to do with any of your actions, just the way to tarnish the person and make them look bad and whatever.
00:51:07
James
But yeah, distraction.
00:51:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and distract and do flooding.
00:51:10
James
Yeah.
00:51:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's the thing that I, here's the thing. Like this is my takeaway. Looking back on four years of like constantly being edged by Bill Maher and MSNBC and like CNN and the edging was this, it was like, Oh, Donald Trump is such a criminal.
00:51:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, even though he's like rich and a former president, he's like so totally a crook.
00:51:32
James
He is.
00:51:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And we're definitely going to get him this time. Like, don't worry, guys.
00:51:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, we're just he's totally going to like all he did. We got him real good on this one. We're just totally going to go to jail for this one.
00:51:41
James
yeah
00:51:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We're going to get him.
00:51:46
James
And should.
00:51:48
James
It's so funny. The funny thing is breaking shut down.
00:51:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then here's the thing. Here's the real truth that like I have never heard anyone say. OK. And like, like, no, you're not. No, you're not. He is a former president. He's a billionaire. And if there are if there are are any groups of people that like get to fucking dodge justice, it is presidents and billionaires.
00:52:05
James
Yeah.
00:52:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like the man is fucking bulletproof as fuck.
00:52:09
James
Both.
00:52:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There was never, there was never like, like, let's play it out. Okay.
00:52:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Let's say that we get him. We nail him to the wall. And then what he goes to jail where the secret service goes to jail with him.
00:52:13
James
Yeah.
00:52:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He goes on house arrest. Does he just decide to like, does he decide, fuck this? I don't want to be like on house arrest or in this.
00:52:20
James
What's the whole reason?
00:52:24
James
What's the whole reason?
00:52:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And he just runs off to China with the fucking nuclear secrets.
00:52:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, are you shitting me? There was never going to be a fucking consequence.
00:52:28
James
i
00:52:31
James
And the funny thing about the meron the funny thing about the Judge Marchant thing, you know right the ruling, because you know the whole principle under the United States, man, the one principle is equal justice under the law.
00:52:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Never.
00:52:42
James
and know No one's above the law. You got found guilty by 34 felony counts. Anybody else in the country
00:52:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Dude, that just sounds good when you're talking to the pores.
00:52:53
James
Anybody else in the country would have done a few years in prison. Anybody. Anybody else. Any other human being in the country would have gone to prison for a few years, right?
00:53:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Wait for which 34 counts?
00:53:03
James
and Yeah. Yeah, for the thirties.
00:53:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no.
00:53:07
James
Yes, anybody else would have. Anybody else would have.
00:53:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, it's like it's it's a first time offense.
00:53:09
James
But.
00:53:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like Nobody does jail time for something like that.
00:53:14
James
Mmm.
00:53:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i heard of i I wish I remember where I heard it, but I listened to somebody who who knew their shit.
00:53:15
James
they
00:53:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And they were like, well, it's a first time offense. And ah they had blah, blah, blah. They're like, legalese, people aren't going to jail for this kind of thing. They usually don't even prosecute it even when they catch you for like this sort of white collar crime.
00:53:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like It's usually like a fine and like probation. like
00:53:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
so like
00:53:33
James
either way.
00:53:35
James
Okay, why didn't they give him a fine or probation? And know why?
00:53:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
because
00:53:39
James
Because they said it. The judge himself said it in the sentencing, right? He said, out of respect to the presidency, not going to give him any punishment.
00:53:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Bro, yeah, like because like you're about to be the president and I'm going to have to still exist in the world.
00:53:52
James
The only
00:53:53
James
yeah
00:53:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm not going to shit where I live. Like obviously.
00:54:02
James
Yeah, so out of respect to the presidency, we are going to allow you to get off scot-free without even paying a fine. If I didn't think probation, I mean, i'm and who's going to get arrested? hes who's How would he not be able to do probation for a year?
00:54:16
James
You know what I mean? They could have done that. They could have said a deferred sentence. sake
00:54:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But dude, like what is it? What does it matter? Like it doesn't matter. and Like he's not going to do probation. Like what's he going to go to his probation officer and be inconvenienced and like, you know what I mean?
00:54:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, and like, Oh, he's going to not drink alcohol. And they're, Oh, what if he does? Oh, they're going to get him for G drinks, some alcohol.
00:54:35
James
That, you know what?
00:54:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So you always know you got to go to jail, like fuck off.
00:54:38
James
Just because you're on probation doesn't mean you can't drink alcohol. Doesn't mean you can't do any of those things. It means you can't commit a crime. That's all it means. You can't commit a crime. That's all probation means. And you can sit, you can sit.
00:54:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. But he, but he, the Supreme court already said he literally can commit a crime if he wants to.
00:54:52
James
Yeah. Well, it has to be an official act.
00:54:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what I'm saying. Like it would have been, it would have been like a symbolic thing that meant nothing.
00:54:55
James
Yeah.
00:54:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It would have amounted to no real consequences.
00:54:59
James
Yeah.
00:55:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And this is the guy who's talking about like Jack Smith should go to jail.
00:55:01
James
yeah
00:55:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Liz Cheney should go to jail. And like the people who are like in his orbit, who are like hiking, hyping him up or like, yeah, we should fucking hang these people in the streets.
00:55:05
James
yeah
00:55:10
James
Yeah.
00:55:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There should be blood in the fucking streets.
00:55:13
James
yeah
00:55:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, You're the judge in this situation. Do you know this guy is elected? Like having the sentencing be after the election is, is just smart. It's just like, I would like to continue being alive, sir.
00:55:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Thank you.
00:55:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I would like to not be investigated by Billy Bong's fucking IRS.
00:55:28
James
It's called...
00:55:31
James
It's called... It is called...
00:55:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, I would like to not be.
00:55:34
James
It is what Republicans always, it's what Republicans always accused Democrats of anytime a Democrat tries to use diplomacy in the world. It's called appeasement. It's called hell shit.
00:55:44
James
Hitler's going to take office. I better give him this area. I better give him this area.
00:55:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yes, it is appeasement.
00:55:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Absolutely.
00:55:48
James
It is a piece straight up.
00:55:50
James
piecesement It's everything everybody's doing.
00:55:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And it's smart appeasement because like he is a, he is a, he is, okay, but you can't say that it never works because he's given out, he's given Tulsi Gabbard and who's the other Democrat turncoat that's now like on team Trump and ah RFK.
00:55:54
James
It's not smart. It's never smart. It never works. It never works.
00:56:00
James
It doesn't.
00:56:07
James
RFK.
00:56:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. He's like, he's handing out, you know, he's
Controversial Appointments and Competence Questions
00:56:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
handing out cabinet seats just for, for showing up.
00:56:11
James
Yeah, but those guys, those guys, I don't think those guys will get a point if we'll get it confirmed. You know why?
00:56:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think Tulsa Gabbard is the one that they want the most.
00:56:22
James
yeah I think Tulsi Gabbard is the one that Putin wants the most.
00:56:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yes. That's what I mean when I say that.
00:56:28
James
yeah But either way, um they but here's the thing though. They were Democrats. Republicans don't like that. Just like Matt Gaetz. The reason why Matt Gaetz didn't go through is because they didn't like him.
00:56:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Now Matt Case was a smarmy bitch and he took out who was the speaker before Johnson.
00:56:45
James
Yeah, but they're all smarmy bitches. They're all smarmy bitches. They just didn't like him.
00:56:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but like he was like too smarmy.
00:56:52
James
I don't think they're such a thing. They're okay with Roy Miller. They're okay with smarmy. they're okay with uh... they're okay with the little dude guy from louisiana who used to uh... fuck the underage pages uh... oh god he was fucking the underage boys in louisiana what was his name i can't remember they were okay with him he kept his seat and everything they never got rid of him because he was nice to them it's just Matt Gaetz was not nice to the others they didn't like him they didn't like him
00:57:23
James
He wasn't on their team, you know, just like the Democrats aren't on their team. They want somebody who's ah on their team. Doesn't matter what they do. Uh, God, was it Romer?
00:57:36
James
I can't remember who it was. Uh, I can't remember who it was.
00:57:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but I know. like i know i know that I know the sentiment that you're describing, if not the details of the the specific names of these people in this one instance.
00:57:43
James
Yeah.
00:57:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like Yes, it's it is, again, like theyre their principle, which is power begets wealth, begets power begets wealth.
00:57:56
James
Yeah.
00:58:00
James
Yeah. I mean, Pete Hegseth. Pretty smarmy. You read all the stuff he was accused of by, you know, everybody.
00:58:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but I think, Pete, ah I think Pete is very is a very good communicator. Like you watch him in his thing and like he sounds reasonable. He sounds measured. He does not seem flustered. He he he comes back to like the things that he actually knows about. And he, you know, has like the same simple
00:58:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
uh, deny, avoid, you know, response to like, to all of the things that he wants to go into the deny, avoid bucket. Like he's very, he's very good on TV. He was good in his hearing. I mean, I think it's, I think it's obvious and spineless that, you know, he's not going to be but an ally to, uh, women.
00:59:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
or to jag or you know what I mean? Like I think, dude, it just, it really scares me this idea that we're going to have Tulsi Gabbard who loves Assad, who we know Russia wants to be the DNI as DNI.
00:59:11
James
or incompetent at his job in understanding of our defense treaties, which is one thing I'm glad Tammy Duckworth got him on.
00:59:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We're going to have Heg Seth as the head of the department of defense. And like we're going to have Trump at the helm of the good ship. What, who the fuck thought this would be okay. And all of this at the time when like Putin is like, what if I just decided to try to conquer Europe? Would that be cool? You know, like we're going to like just put the most like unqualified, untrustworthy batch of like ship of fools in charge of like the whole fucking military.
01:00:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
right as it becomes like mission critical. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like imagine from like imagine, okay. Imagine you're China and you want to like create a perfect storm of like American incompetence to make them easy to like to undermine, you know, you don't need to invade them.
01:00:21
James
Mark Folio.
01:00:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You just need to undermine them so that they just slip into a slow decline and you can just like slowly rise. Like what better way than to just use your TikTok app to just like,
01:00:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, turn all the people who should be voting for a Democrat against the idea of Democrats wholesale.
01:00:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Cause you notice what's happened. You know what we don't hear about anymore. I don't hear about how Biden is a war criminal anymore. Do you hear about it? Do people still care? Is it still a big, so a big, big thing on tech talk?
01:00:54
James
oh yeah
01:00:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It isn't, it sure isn't.
01:01:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's almost like you could just put your thumb on the scale of the algorithm and say, promote this idea because this idea will result in in a in a and then an electorate that does what we would rather have them do.
01:01:17
James
but I mean, either way, they already said that the voting data afterwards, it really was never from the Gaza stuff that he lost. It wasn't that. It was, it was the white people. It was the middle-aged white people, the people who flipped to go to Biden, flipped back from Harris to go to Trump. That's who really cost it. The algorithms. Yes. We're talking about the, the amount of attention that was paid to these other groups. Yeah, that was a lot. I mean, he landed on bus dot Twitter for a reason, but Yeah.
01:01:52
James
There's a good old saying, can't fix stupid. you know Sometimes you just can't fix stupid.
Democrats' Strategic Failures
01:01:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, man, it's OK. So we've gone rounds on this in our, I guess we call them, our alpha episodes are before we were publishing them episodes.
01:01:57
James
People are stupid.
01:02:01
James
but ah
01:02:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But to redress it here, where people may eventually find this episode.
01:02:07
James
Yeah.
01:02:11
James
right
01:02:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't think we have any listens yet, by the way. But I don't think it has anything to do with stupid. And I think this idea that you can blame the electorate is just um is just giving your ass cancer or an injection of more ass cancer. Like it's just, it's just bad after bad. Like you cannot come in and blame the electorate because here's, here's the thing. Let's assume that all of the people are so dumb and that all it takes is like a clever salesman with just the right snake oil willing to say the right things, and dance the right dance.
01:02:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, are Democrats just incapable of lying and dancing? No, fuck off. No, they're not. No, they're not.
01:02:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And they and if the people are so if the people are so stupid and they know this, like, no.
01:02:55
James
principle.
01:02:56
James
It goes back to principles.
01:03:01
James
It goes back to principles. It goes back to principles. Democrats have more principles.
01:03:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, it doesn't.
01:03:07
James
It's yes, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like, no, well, here it's, it's a, it's, you know, the guy Allen Lichtman,
01:03:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Principles are fucking stupid. Like, what ah what good are your principles when when King Dipshit is ah is sitting on the Iron Throne? Like, it doesn't it does you no good.
01:03:17
James
The guy, Alan Lichtman, he's been saying this for decades and it's so true. And he got a lot of attention because he predicted so many elections, right? You know, he always said, and he said the same thing for decades now. He goes, Democrat, he says Republicans have no principles.
01:03:31
James
Democrats have no spines. That holds true. Democrats have a lot of principles, you know, a lot of times, you know, they'll all this is why they throw out Al Franken right off the bat. Like, Oh my God. Oh my God. He's accused us.
01:03:41
James
We got to get rid of Al Franken. He's Al Franken was great.
01:03:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't think that that's, I don't think that that's principles.
01:03:44
James
You know what I mean? The no spine.
01:03:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think that that's, I think it's pandering.
01:03:46
James
They have no spine.
01:03:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think it's like, I don't think that that's principled.
01:03:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's a bad strategy.
01:03:52
James
and um I think we'll hear.
01:03:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If you're principled.
01:03:57
James
We're talking generalizations. We're talking generalizations. Generally speaking, Democrats, if you have a member of your own party who's accused of something awful, the majority of Democrats will not support that person.
01:04:10
James
They'll be like, oh wow, I can't believe that guy did that. Oh my God, I used to like him so much. I can't believe he did that. He's got to go on principle. It could be, they could be very effective at their job, right?
01:04:23
James
But they were willing to get rid of them on principle because we can't have a Democrat who's like that. Oh my God. We can't have a Democrat. Democrats have more principles. Now they don't have a spine.
01:04:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. ah Let me, let let me, let me counter.
01:04:31
James
They won't stick up for their people.
01:04:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I got no, because this is the same party, uh, who did not turn on Clinton when he came on the woman's dress.
01:04:34
James
Yeah.
01:04:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay.
01:04:43
James
You didn't do it.
01:04:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
This is, and, and, and and Al Franken.
01:04:44
James
I mean, honestly, I, didn't in my mind, he didn't do anything wrong. Why? move on
01:04:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. I mean, who care who cares? I honestly, I don't think it, I don't think it mattered, but, but like, it wasn't about the principles then because it's not about the principles like.
01:04:56
James
And a lot of Democrats did. That's why Al Gore lost the next election, because he wouldn't allow Clinton to campaign with him on principle. Everybody told him, you want to win Al Gore? Take Bill.
01:05:07
James
He's super popular. He's got like 69% approval.
01:05:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I do not think that Al Gore lost that election. I think that the Supreme Court decided to not count those votes this one time.
01:05:15
James
Well, I don't see either. Well, it's true. He didn't lose. But still, he could have won bigger. He could have won Tennessee. He could have won Arkansas with Bill Clinton out there. If he would have won one of those states, he would have been the president.
01:05:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, that's stupid. like
01:05:29
James
If he would have had Arkansas, which Bill carried twice, or Tennessee, which they carried, if he had Bill out there, he could have picked up one more little southern state that they had before.
01:05:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like sure but Dude, like imagine it's imagine it's World War II.
01:05:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And we're sitting over here and we haven't joined the war yet. And we're going like, OK, yeah, it looks really bad over there, guys. And like I really want to help you, Europe. But like my principles are that we like don't kill people and we don't invade other countries.
01:05:40
James
Yeah.
01:05:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So we're just going to sit this one out, right because that's our principles.
01:05:57
James
Yeah.
01:05:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's the way you're arguing in favor of the democratic principles. Like, their principles are are more important than, like, ever doing anything, ever having any result that would align with their principles.
01:06:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That is bullshit.
01:06:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, I don't...
01:06:12
James
I'm not, I'm not following the analogy here because like, wait.
01:06:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, because, like, what what good are your principles if you don't ever get to enact them? Like, if you you delete Al Franken, if you...
01:06:23
James
Now the problem with Democrats is they think everybody else, they think the American public, the American people, they think they're smarter than they are.
01:06:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah
01:06:30
James
And they think people recognize this.
01:06:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They don't, they don't.
01:06:33
James
They will recognize bad behavior. They'll recognize corruption. They'll recognize this. We the stick virus principles. And then Americans will see that we are the better party.
01:06:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's no, there's no reason to believe that that's stupid.
01:06:42
James
but ah the me It might be stupid.
01:06:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's no reason to believe that they don't believe it. Do you believe it?
01:06:46
James
It might be stupid, but that's they you think that they think
01:06:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no one, no one believes it. No one thinks that.
01:06:52
James
That's plenty of people believe it. Plenty of people believe it. That's a whole democratic strategy on this last few, so many elections. It's Michelle Obama's when they go low, we'll go high. Democrats think that way.
01:07:03
James
They think people are better and smarter than they are. That's why they lose.
01:07:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no, man, that's branding.
01:07:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's branding. They they they think that they can sell hope and change and ship our billionaires get a little bit more, get ah get a lot richer and our pores get a little bit less poor.
01:07:10
James
me
01:07:11
James
yeah
01:07:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They think that they can say hope and change and then, you know, give a like a ah Swiss cheese version of Mitt Romney's ah a healthcare care plan, uh, instead of just doing Medicare for all, they think that they can, you know, run on hope and change and give us like, like, how much did he raise the minimum a minimum wage? Cause I tell you what, it doesn't fucking matter because the, whatever it was before it landed on seven 50. So it wasn't an $8 fucking raise. So it was complete and utter fucking bullshit then and insulting. Now it still hasn't changed. Like,
01:08:02
James
Huh, reach about.
01:08:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The minimum wage, Obama raised the minimum wage to like 750 from like five 25 or something like something like insultingly low, uh, tiny minuscule minimum wage.
01:08:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And he raised it like a tiny bit. Like that's, that's not hope and change, bro. That's business as usual.
01:08:19
James
Hmm.
01:08:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like this is the, this is the reason that the Donald Trump one that I think, okay. I think that the only real divide here is rich V poor.
01:08:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and the rich are winning by a lot. Like if you go look at a graph of like wealth distribution, it's like, yeah there's like, I gotta find this thing, but there's like a great clip where it's like, this is the the way people think that wealth distribution is. And this is what it actually is. And you look at the graph and like it goes off the graph and they have to like put it next to it again. And it goes off the graph again because it's like so insanely skewed ah in favor of the wealthy and If you look and you look at it over time and you you see the way that it is just like switched when we, when we switched everything around Reagan, uh, it's gone all to the rich and the, and this is the only divide and the poor people are struggling and all you, and what they want is not like business as usual.
01:09:04
James
after the 1876 explosion.
01:09:11
James
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
01:09:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They don't want to hear about how the stock market, which 70% of the stock market market is owned by the top 1%. So who the fuck cares about the stock market? You're working for McDonald's, you're not worried about the fucking stock market. You're working for McDonald's, you don't give a shit about the unemployment rate. And the reason the unemployment rate is so good because you have to have a job at McDonald's and DoorDash and Lyft. You got to have five fucking jobs so you can live with two roommates. like it's it is It is offensively farcical to to to present the idea that like the economy is good for most people when like fucking eggs and milk have like tripled in price.
01:09:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like it is It is offensively, obviously bullshit. And the only thing you have to do to win the votes of people is you have to go to them and tell them it is time for not like change, not established and not business as usual. Things are not great right now. Things are a shit show. The rich are way too rich and they're doing dumb shit with their money. That's ruining the economy. We need to take a bunch of that money back and put it back into the middle class because that's what made this country great in the first place. That's it. That's the whole thing. And Democrats are out there trying to say,
01:10:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Let's, let's ship, uh, hope and change things are so great. Right. No, no, that does not sell in a market where everyone is struggling.
01:10:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Has nothing to do with people being, being stupid. That's to do with people being unwilling to accept an incremental change. They want a massive difference.
01:10:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And Donald Trump, Trump, if nothing else comes in and says, yeah, it's all corrupt.
01:10:48
James
well
01:10:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Let's burn it down together. I'll bring the gasoline, you bring the matches.
01:11:00
James
um
01:11:05
James
I got a phone call in the middle of that if you heard the phone ring, but we've had this to talk so many times now.
01:11:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um
01:11:10
James
It doesn't even matter. In fact, it doesn't even matter because Donald Trump, it doesn't really matter what he said because people who voted for him People who voted for him said he's they don't always spell it out. They didn't believe he's going to do the things he says he's going to do. And the things he said he was going to do would not have a good effect on anything. and But they didn't believe he's going to do it anyway. They just voted for something different. Just to vote for something different. They had no idea what they were voting for, which just reinforces the fact that they were idiots.
American Voters and Education Critique
01:11:42
James
That's all I say. And I think it is perfectly acceptable to blame the American public, the voting public,
01:11:49
James
when they're the ones voting for the people and they are the ones responsible for it just because they may look at certain algorithms or may look at something like that and they're too dumb to actually look at real sites or anything else, you know, that's on them, man.
01:12:04
James
I mean, yes, Democrats.
01:12:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but they're not They're not any dumber than they used to be. What they are is less educated. And the reason they're less educated is the money has been taken out of education by people who are incentivized to do it so that they can lie to them and not have them know the difference.
01:12:10
James
I think they are. Well, but
01:12:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're not dumb, right?
01:12:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like this They're just in a system that is against them. And the system being against them is is too much for them to overcome.
01:12:19
James
yeah
01:12:28
James
Yeah. Sorry, I had to mute again. Julian came in here.
01:12:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But that's not their fault. It's not their fault that like that
01:12:33
James
I think it's their fault. I think it's completely their fault.
01:12:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That media is completely captured by billionaires and like algorithms are incentivized to like you know put us in a bubble of disagreement. like
01:12:45
James
Well.
01:12:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but That's not their fault, man. that's they just They just showed up. They're as smart as the people before them. They're not any dumber. They're they're in a different situation, and the situation is rigged against them.
01:13:03
James
Hmm. I don't know. I mean, here, before there was TV, before there was the internet, you know, you had newspapers that were only owned by a few people, right?
01:13:17
James
Granted, a lot of it wasn't owned by corporate billionaires, it was owned by local people. But even before that, there was word of mouth ah for a long time.
01:13:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, but those things had those things had way less reach.
01:13:28
James
Word of
01:13:31
James
Yeah, I'm saying, think about what it's just word of mouth, right? People would actually go out there and they would, and i blame I blame people. With the invention of the internet, with the availability of information to people, there is really no excuse to just watch your little siloed bit of something on Fox News or whatever, you know, or Democrats to look at their little thing on MSNBC, you know?
01:13:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's no reason. There's absolutely a reason. There's the reason is that like the people around you all have the same opinion and you don't want to be the only person who disagrees with everyone in your family, in your friend group, at your workplace.
01:14:12
James
And then that is laziness and that is shirking your, your, your responsibilities as a voter.
01:14:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. But see, but you begin with, that's not a reason and like, let's go back. Let's just, let's look at this from the other way around. Okay. Let's assume that you're right. Let's assume that it is just like that the people are all dumb.
01:14:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're dumb and they're lazy and they don't want to do a good job. And so they're not doing a good job of advocating for themselves by electing people who would do things that would benefit them.
01:14:36
James
okay
01:14:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Let's assume that that is completely true. Okay.
01:14:39
James
Okay.
01:14:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Now that's the situation. What can the Democrats do about it? Fuck nothing, nothing. They can just lose and lose and lose. And that's fucking it. That's the only option. That's all they can do. So that assumption is unhelpful.
01:14:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It gets us nowhere. If we assume that the problem is that Democrats policies, they're, uh, they're, their perception of the current situation and and their idea of what is important to the people who are voting is wrong. If they assume that they're selling the wrong thing, they can change that. You can't make the people smart. You can sell something different.
01:15:14
James
that may be true but but that's the thing by it's not it's not what you are selling it's how you are a salesman good example I was a so car salesman okay and and most car salesmen all have the same general belief it doesn't matter what car somebody wants it doesn't matter what car you have to sell them all right What you're advocating for is, hey, you know what? That Chevy Cavalier, Chevy Cobalt, whatever, Chevy Malibu is is shit. And it ain't working. You're not selling as many of them. You need to go out there and start giving them a Cadillac. They want something different, right? And a good salesman says, fuck that. I'm going to sell you that Chevy Cavalier, and I'm going to make you think it's a Cadillac. And that's what Republicans do.
01:16:10
James
they give that's what Republicans do that's what the Democrats need to do better at they're not going to say whoa whoa whoa this car is just not selling like it used to we they don't want this cavalier they want a conversion ban with a tv and a game system and a and a bunch of 20 inch speakers in the back of it and tinted windows that's what they want but what i'm saying is
01:16:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, that's true.
01:16:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Bro, you're making that you're making the same, you're making the you're making my case for me. Because you're not you're not saying that the customer is dumb, you're saying that the salesman is selling the the wrong way.
01:16:36
James
Well, but but the people are dumb, but the but the people are dumb. And if you're gonna go there, but here's the thing though, if you're gonna go buy a car, but when you're gonna go to buy a car, your job is to buy of the car for the least money if possible, and your job is to make sure you get whatever you want, right?
01:16:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, well, if the people are dumb, then it should be easy to mislead them.
01:16:54
James
If you walk in there, who hey, I'm just looking for a good car for, I don't know, um can you get me something for under $800 a month?
01:17:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You don't gotta make him a smothern.
01:17:04
James
Okay. Whatever. Well, the Southern people are the biggest dumbasses who keep voting for Republicans when they're all the ones on welfare sucking up all the money from the taxes from the government.
01:17:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm just giving you shit.
01:17:13
James
So I'm gonna go with the Southern people.
01:17:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Now I know an interesting theory for why- I'll tell you- I'll do it later, keep going.
01:17:16
James
Anyway, but um but either either way, if you just walk in there and and I don't care who you are, you go to buy a car, right? I want this and this and this.
01:17:27
James
A smart buyer will kind of look at something. Okay. Well, they didn't have this car. Let me look at it. I'm not going to buy right off the bat because I like this salesman. That's a smarter shopper, right?
01:17:38
James
I hated smart shoppers when I was selling cars, right? Because it's really hard to make a big profit and sell whatever you crap you got in your lot to a smart shopper, right?
01:17:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Yeah, the guy started selling me that car, had that problem.
01:17:49
James
Voting. Voting is the same thing. You can see a salesman out there smiling and telling you they're not gonna tax your tips and they're gonna solve everything and make it world peace and they're gonna end the threat of World War III and man, everything's gonna be great and I'm gonna fix everything and I'm gonna lower prices across the board on everything. Okay, wow, sounds really great.
01:18:11
James
a smart person will look it up and say, how is it going to do that? How would this do that? you know And they would spend any amount of time to try to see if any of that stuff could happen or what they were talking about or how they're going to do it.
01:18:24
James
So it comes back to the people being dumb. Yes, Democrats and need to get better at selling it, but it's not like they need to say, we need to stop doing incremental change. We need to stop doing this. And we need to go completely in this other direction of policy because it's not the policy.
01:18:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK, but dude, we do. We do, though.
01:18:39
James
It's not the policy. oh on some things on some things do yes and some things no on some things you try to go too far too fast or you try to disrupt things a little bit too much and it causes big problems it causes pain points I don't think so I think that's just an example of
01:18:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We do, though.
01:18:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, if you try to disrupt things not enough, then you get trumped twice, so.
01:19:01
James
Yeah, bad salesman and and dumb people, man.
01:19:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no, I don't think so.
01:19:06
James
And it's a coccyx combination. Because honestly, it was close enough they could have gone either way again. it could of And honestly, I agree with Biden. I think if Biden had ran, I think if he wouldn't have dropped out. And first of all, if the Democratic Party wouldn't have been spineless and pushed him out, I bet you he could have won.
01:19:23
James
Because there are so many white people who just would have checked the box and not really paid attention to anything. And I bet you he would have squeaked in with a reelection.
01:19:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Nope. I think he would have, I think there's no chance that he would have done anything of this sort. Like he looked like he was drooling in his suit, man.
01:19:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He looked so incompetent.
01:19:43
James
He did on one debate at that one debate he did at one debate.
01:19:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, not that one debate. It was every time he was on television or giving a speech for like a month, it was every time.
01:19:47
James
Yes, when he had COVID.
01:19:49
James
Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't.
01:19:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And he had, there weren't many times.
01:19:54
James
it Wasn't that you're listening to hear the algorithm that you're talking about where things are getting amplified were one tiny little second Yeah Those are those were those were the Democrats eating their own and being fucktards.
01:19:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, I saw the things I i read the George Clooney, the the George Clooney ah op ed. I read the I read the other one, but I can't remember who the other person was at the time.
01:20:13
James
That's what that was. That was a bunch of people jumping on the paper
01:20:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, they weren't because everybody else saw the same thing and we were all watching that debate where he got obliterated.
01:20:20
James
debate Yes, he should have not done the debate. They should have said, hey, I got COVID. I'm going to reschedule this debate. That's what he should have done. That's what he should have done.
01:20:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, what he should have done is is said, uh, at the end of 2022 that I'm going to do the thing that I said it was going to do when I set out to run.
01:20:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I'm going to be an interim president because I'm too fucking old to run this country, even though I would do a great fucking job at it. I've had my time and it's time for somebody else. and They need to be younger than me. Go have a fucking primary.
01:20:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what he could have done.
01:20:50
James
I disagree.
01:20:51
James
I disagree. The thing is, I know it though. That though once again, and now you said I was selling your point, you're selling my point. It's not that he couldn't do the job. It's that he couldn't sell it looking old.
01:21:06
James
You can sell it looking old.
01:21:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, I, I struggle with that because on the one hand, I think he did a phenomenal job. On the other hand, I think that like, again, like I, like I wanted Bernie. I want someone who's going to be like, yeah, the minimum wage shouldn't go from seven 50 to $20. The minimum wage should be, if you make less than $400,000 a year, your wage should be times fucking two. It should be times two.
01:21:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It shouldn't be the minimum. It should be times two.
Economic Inequality and Historical Tax Policies
01:21:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. And like the, the way that that should be funded is that the people who have too much money and not enough to do with it should have that money taken away from them and distributed, or you should incentivize them to use it in a way that's beneficial to other people. If you like the reason like the middle-class work before was because businesses would either, you either had to pay a 90% tax rate after some amount.
01:22:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Or you had to invest in research and development, or you had to pay your rank and file people more money. You couldn't just do a stock buyback and pay the shareholders and give your CEO, you know, 30,000 times the pay of your lowest paid worker. You had to like put the money back into the people.
01:22:24
James
Yeah, yeah, actually here 1979 by the way, I got the tax brackets for federal taxes the rate for income 1979 right with tax year 1978 right April 79 1979 for the tax year 1978
01:22:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
hu Okay. Hit me.
01:22:39
James
If you made, ah of course now wages were a lot lower than, right?
01:22:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Right, right, of course.
01:22:44
James
So if you made $2,300 a year, You got taxed 14%. If you made $3,400 a year, you got paid taxed 16%. $4,400 a year, 18%. $6,500 a year, 19%. $8,500 a year, 21%. $10,800 a year, 24%. It went all the way up to the top tax rate, which was $108,300 a year. If you were at that dollar amount, you got taxed 70%.
01:23:10
James
81,068% 55,063%. It was a big jumping off point from 55 is because everything else was like, every four or $5,000 you go up every couple thousand into low end, about every four or $5,000 3000, you know, $15,000, you have 30% 18,034 23.
01:23:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And the difference, the other difference there is that the difference between the bottom and the top is 50 is 50 X multiplier.
01:23:28
James
It went up. hu Yeah.
01:23:35
James
yeah $108,000 for the top, $0 to $2,000 at the bottom.
01:23:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
All right. And the top people today are not making 50 times what the bottom people make.
01:23:41
James
That's it. No, exactly.
01:23:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're making, they're making 50,000 times what the bottom people make.
01:23:48
James
Exactly. If you went in, if you had jointly, if married, married, you had the bottom rate of $3,400, you know, right? um Below that, you got that 0%.
01:23:58
James
But 3400 is first one at 14% for the lowest side, right? And the highest side for married is 215.4. That's at 70%. 70%.
01:24:09
James
You know, and again, yes, it sticks out the same ratio, basically, about 50, a little bit over 50, 50 to one.
01:24:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:24:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and's fiftyex And the other things like that we didn't have back then is we didn't have this idea that you were going to, you were going to buy a massive index fund, know that it's going to go up by 9% every year, take out a loan against your stock positions at like one and a half, 2%, uh, or, you know, or half a percent.
01:24:17
James
Yeah,
01:24:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then. uh, pay no fees or taxes on it and spend that money that was loaned to you, you know, and then, and then pay with some, you know, some larger amount of your stock position, which is now worth more. So you just give them an extra percentage of it and take out another loan and do the same thing again. That's how they don't pay any taxes. Now they just keep taking out like super tiny interest loans, uh,
01:25:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
against their stock positions, knowing that if they just play the market, they're going to make 9% a year. And if the interest rate is less than 9%, it's just free money. And then you don't have to get, you don't have to ever have to pay any taxes until you ever cash it out. And you don't cash it out because you put it into a trust and then the the control of the trust goes to your kids. So you don't even pay fucking taxes when you die. So you just have it forever. And the problem is that like,
01:25:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
the the the well like The idea of trickle down is like, okay, sure. Maybe well, maybe some stuff can trickle down because somebody's going to buy ah a $15,000 Gucci bag and that's going to pay for a bunch of labor. Sure. But one person
Incremental vs. Radical Policy Changes
01:25:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
can only eat one dinner every day, but 200 million people eat 200 million dinners every day.
01:25:51
James
ye Yeah.
01:25:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, so like there's, there are limits on, on the the way that the trickling can happen.
01:26:04
James
yeah Yeah, but either way, I still think, though, that as much as you're talking about, I still think incrementally changing things back is the way to go.
01:26:20
James
I mean, think about this way. You can't just immediately go to a 70% tax rate anymore. You know what I mean? It is like.
01:26:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know what you can do? You know what we did? like do we inc Do we incrementally um remove the Nazis from power?
01:26:30
James
Lower it.
01:26:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but Did we incrementally leave ah like like enter the war and get out of the Great Depression?
01:26:37
James
Yes. Yes, we did actually.
01:26:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but you know like Incrementally over like four years. That's not incremental.
01:26:42
James
No, no, incrementally, incrementally over more than that, because first of all,
01:26:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Did we went from, we went from 2000 planes. Okay. We, like there were 2,536 planes, something like that.
01:26:50
James
That is a little different though.
01:26:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Some like less than 3000 planes in America. Okay. And we made more than a hundred thousand planes a year by the end.
01:26:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like.
01:26:59
James
Here's the other thing though, right?
01:27:00
James
Here's the other thing. We were not going to get into that war unless Japan bombed us. If Japan hadn't bombed the United States, the United States would have kept on incrementally assisting the allies for a lot longer.
01:27:12
James
The only reason they got into it is because we were bombed. if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened we wouldn't have jumped in the war when we we did it would have been delayed maybe
01:27:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah I'm not, I'm not talking about the, I'm not talking about the reasoning of it or like the why, what I'm talking about is like the, like we, we accomplished the thing, not by doing incremental change. We accomplished the large change from like the depression to the post world war two economic boom by doing radical change. It wasn't like, it wasn't like, Oh, we're slowly going to do this thing.
Biden's Foreign Policy and NATO Strategy
01:27:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was no, we're going to immediately do this thing.
01:27:53
James
Well.
01:27:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, we're at the point now where like, like, think of it like a rubber band. Like, you know, if these two things should have been aligned, the further apart they get, the more tension there is on the rubber band. So the more like corrective disruption is necessary just to put things back into a similar alignment or like a symbiosis of like money flowing up and down.
01:28:16
James
I don't know, man. I just think you try and do things. It was a lot easier to have this big effect when, you know, when you have a foreign power come and bomb you, a foreign country where we come in there and start bombing you and killing you, right? And then the whole country goes into wartime mode.
01:28:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, so why didn't Biden go?
01:28:37
James
It's really easy to make big, sweeping changes with, you know, big, huge changes like that because, oh my God, we're at war.
01:28:43
James
It's probably politicians' popularity skyrocket when they go to war. Look at George W. Bush, right? Granted,
01:28:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Why didn't Biden, why didn't Biden give Ukraine bigger?
01:28:53
James
take us into a big war because he has principles. Well, that's, well.
01:28:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Why didn't Ukraine, why didn't Biden give Ukraine more weapons and support and boots on the ground and planes in the air? and tanks, you know, why didn't Biden show up with a show of force and say, um, would you like to be fucked or would you like to start a world war three? Maybe go back home, huh?
01:29:17
James
Well, cause Biden was doing another thing too. He had to do, right?
01:29:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Which was what?
01:29:20
James
Which was, Hey, we just spent, you know, Donald Trump in here practically making NATO a thing of the past and everybody hated America and everything else. And we gave up on our other allies.
01:29:32
James
We gave up on Syria. We gave up on all these other in the Kurds. We were, we just finished with Donald Trump. After Donald Trump, Donald Trump made the whole world say, whoa, fucking America, man. America sucks, man. You can't trust anything America says and what we did is Biden did do is he strengthened NATO He got all these other countries. So it wasn't just America doing whatever the fuck we wanted to do It was hey guys, we're one big united front. Let's get everybody involved and then which made it I mean granted
01:30:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You could do both.
01:30:04
James
Everybody else it's hurting cats is hard getting everybody to agree to whole things and they were always Proking and prodding and hey, how can we hurt Russia the most? How can we not rock?
01:30:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. Here's how you hurt Russia the most is you make them fucking lose.
01:30:16
James
but True true Hey,
01:30:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You make them nut up or shut up. Like that's how you hurt them the most. Like roll the fucking jets out and roll the the aircraft carriers in and watch them shrink back into their fucking country and shut the fuck up.
01:30:23
James
I would have That probably yeah, no
01:30:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's, that's how you do it.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
01:30:33
James
um I would have handled things differently, but at the same time, he was also trying to make sure that the whole world, you know, the whole Western world, you know, we we had to, we had to, we had to, we had to do our, we had to do our, you know, our, what do you call it?
01:30:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Through what through appeasement.
01:30:48
James
The apology tour, if you want to say it, you know, after Trump, we had to get the, all of our allies on board with us again.
01:30:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know what it seems like, actually, it seems like he tried to do like an incremental change, like maybe if we just slowly like raise the temperature of the of the of the water, the Russian frog will will jump out.
01:30:56
James
You know?
01:31:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But no, the Russian frog did not jump out because the temperature didn't go up enough for it to for it to matter.
01:31:18
James
Okay. Well, yeah.
01:31:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like it was like It was just another example of incremental change being insufficient.
01:31:30
James
Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think we've worked with it before.
01:31:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and know I know you don't agree. I just wanted to have this on the on the on one of the published ones. But I do enjoy this this topic.
01:31:42
James
Yeah. I don't know if you're looking for.
01:31:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But we are beating it to death.
01:31:45
James
Yeah.
01:31:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK.
01:31:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You want to do like a like a sign off kind of deal here?
01:31:55
James
Sure.
01:31:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Do you want me to sign off, or you want to? ah
01:31:59
James
Now you go for it. You can, you can do the sign off, but I'll just say thank you for listening. If to whoever is the first listener to listens to this. Thank you for listening.
01:32:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, yes. thank you Thank you for listening. yes we're Leave us some feedback, because like we would love to know your thoughts on these discussions.
01:32:16
James
There is some. Give us some feedback because so far we've had none.
01:32:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Sorry, we've had none. It's just us yelling into the wind.
01:32:23
James
ah funny and luck And I do apologize for some of this. If it's a little disjointed, um I've had to hit the mute button and actually run away from the computer to go do a household poll with my son and then run back to the computer and see if Gabe's still talking on a couple of points towards the end.
01:32:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I see. yeah
01:32:40
James
Yeah.
01:32:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, luckily, I am predictably long-winded.
01:32:45
James
So, anyway. Alright, have a nice night. Thank you for listening. And Gabe?
01:32:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK, yes, this has been Oh Brother News, episode two. And we talked about a lot of things. We'll be back next week, every Friday, talking about the news of the week. Have a good one.