Some More News - "American Hero" Mike Pence, The Right's Drag Queen Obsession, and EVEN MORE Musk Minutes

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

 Hi. Christopher Rivas (@LifeStyleDezine) joins Katy and Cody to talk about his new memoir "Brown Enough," the silliness of praising people like Mike Pence and Liz Cheney, and the dangerous escalation of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the right. Plus, about 112 Elon Musk-related things happened in the 6 hours before we recorded, so we just went ahead and created a new segment called the "Musk Minute." Check out Christopher Rivas book "Brown Enough"  Get our new BILLIONAIRES ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS merch here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949 Please fill out our SURVEY: HTTP://kastmedia.com/survey/ We now have a MERCH STORE! Check it out here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news Check out Raycon's wireless earbuds. Go to HTTP://BUYRAYCON.com/somenews TODAY to get 15% off your Raycon order! Stop wasting time and start saving money when you use HTTP://Stamps.com to mail and ship. Sign up with promo code MORENEWS for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune-supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit HTTP://athleticgreens.com/morenews today.Support the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, Attractive Podcast Listener. My goodness, you look great today. Very sheen, very hip. You know what you should do? You should try Stamps.com, a service that lets you create your own postage with just a computer and a home printer. Skip the post office entirely and get discounts while you do it. Discounts like 30% off at USPS and 86% off at UPS. It's beautiful, just like you. We should get coffee sometime. Go to stamps.com and use promo code MORENEWS for a special offer that includes a four-week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. I love you. You beautiful, beautiful, beautiful person, you. Hello, and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. Ah, prove it. Just kidding. Ha ha. We know each other's names.

What's mine? I'm not sure. Ah, it's Cody. Hi. It's Cody. Johnston. The last name. I got a name too. You do have a name too and you shared it real good thank you joining us today again is my friend author actor storyteller Christopher Rivas hitting all the hyphenates hi everyone there's so many more that I could share about you. You're a little bit of everything. Well, I haven't found the thing I don't do. I don't bowl. You don't bowl? I'm a poor bowler. Yeah, that one's hard.

Well, I guess for some people, some people are obviously very good at it. I can't. Every so often I'll get a strike and I'll be like, there it is. I found my rhythm and you can't. It never happens again. Consistency. That's the truth. You just got to do it that way over and over. Yeah. You I found my rhythm. And you can't. It never happens again. Consistency. That's the truth. You just got to do it that way over and over.

Yeah. You got to do it the same way you did it. You got to learn your groove, learn your technique. You got to take the three steps. You pull back. You got to time it right. You're a pretty good bowler. Cody's a good bowler.

I was in a bowling league for like a year when I was 10. I actually forgot because it's been so long since there's been bowling in my life, but that you actually are a pretty good bowler. All right. I like it. I like bowling from the Midwest. So, of course, I like bowling. Of course, you like bowling. Yeah. You do on a winter night, probably on a summer night. I don't know. I'm not from there. Any night. OK, up top. First things first. Order of importance. We have got to commemorate the holidays and there are some holidays to commemorate today the day we're recording june 16th is national dump the pump day i don't think we need a national pump dump the pump day it's every day right now yes what are we dumping the the gas we're dumping the pump we're're getting rid of it. It's a day to encourage people to not drive, I suppose, not buy gas.

And I think that we're kind of, I support this holiday, but it is hard to buy gas. I'm dreading it. I'm running on empty right now. I don't think it's changed behaviors either. I think people are still just like driving as much as they did and just like having to pay way, way, way more. You don't? They're not even dumping the pump, I don't think think i think they're just like rightfully grumbling about the

pump that's what you think's happening right now i think it's hard to change behaviors exactly yeah you got it you got to go where you got to go um and our infrastructure is built for cars so i i think that that's probably true it's in some for people. I think that a lot of people are just choosing to drive less as well because they don't. I think they're trying to. Yeah. No, I just I just saw some data about how like it has generally behavior hasn't really changed because of it. Yeah. Which is like we know what the government will be like.

You just got to like do ride shares, do like public transportation and stuff like. Yeah, it's very helpful. Thank you. Yes. Thank you thank you very much yeah and for most of the cities with horrible public transportation exactly yeah use the bad just use the bad systems that we have for you okay take the hyperloop guys earth day there was something and it was like signs around la over the freeways of earth day bike to work fuck I was like, fuck you. Wait, they had that on the highway? Yeah, it was something like that. That's not where you put that. I could be completely misquoting.

I shared it on the show. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's 100% accurate. I shared it on the show. Okay, okay. June 17th, the day of this release. National Mascot Day. Oh, that's awesome.

This is the day we commemorate the mascots. Chris. I like it. You're a basketball awesome. This is the day we commemorate the mascots. Chris. I like it. You're a basketball guy. Who's your favorite mascot? Oof. Ooh, are you stoked for tonight? I'm stoked for tonight.

I like a mascot. It's really what's inside the mascot that matters. You know? Like the person? Like the person. Like the specific person they hired or that they have a person? The specific person that, you know, know like they all develop a personality is somewhere a little more a little more mess with the audience than others and that that uh that bear in memphis or that grizzly in memphis that guy's hilarious i don't know you know or a lady whomever is in there it

could be a lady that's true whoever's in there really just they're just full antagonists you know they love to antagonize and i'm into it you like a a shit stir you like yeah okay yeah yeah yeah that's fair like what else are they gonna do just jump around wave their arms yeah when the mascots like getting to scuffles with each other stuff like that also enjoy that um I can't think of one specifically, but I like a mascot that'll do a bunch of backflips. So you like the acrobats? The skills versus the personality. Well, I think that's astounding in an animal suit.

Yeah, it's true. The sheer athleticism to be able to do that. It's called furry power. Those things are heavy and hot. Yeah. Yeah. Did you mention a fursuit, Cody? Oh do that. It's called furry power. Those things are heavy and hot. Yeah. Yeah. Did you mention a fursuit, Cody? Oh, I said it's called furry power.

It doesn't matter what I said. Ignore me. Ignoring you. Furry power. Chris, as we speak, you are in a recording studio because we have caught you as you are recording the audio book for your new book, Brown Enough, True Stories About Love, Violence, The Student Loan Crisis, Hollywood, Race, Familia, and Making It in America.

I remember when you were titling this. Did you get that in one breath? I did, man. I did. And I remember you going back and forth about like, hey, did I put all of these things in here? But it's good. It's a good thesis statement for what it is that you cover.

And it's interesting because you navigate all of these topics very poetically because that's how you, I mean, that's how I know you. You're a storyteller. Your writing is poetic. And it's also an autobiography, really. It's, or a memoir, not maybe autobiography is the wrong word. There, it's weaving your own stories of growing up around in America and intersplicing it with these really, really big topics that we are

all talking about right now. And I'm just going to start by throwing it to you, talking to me about what this experience has been like, you know, navigating this. And I mean, the emotional journey probably was pretty intense of writing the book yeah I mean like there's just so many topics these topics feel very heavy and then relating finding the narrative in your own life and and trying to find clarity about your experience I mean it's it's very it's a lot the editing process was the real sort of emotional process. You know, I, I, fortunately for me as an artist, I'm good at like regurgitation, you know, when the moment arrived that someone was like, I will, I will give you money to do this. You know, I had so much already there. I was

always kind of writing in general as an artist writing to me is his medicine. There's a lot to process in this world. And that's how I choose to process it. And storytelling, as you as you of this. And that was the work that became really emotional because that's what made this epic amount of writing I had. It revealed what wasn't there. And what wasn't there is really what makes the pieces pop. And I'm really grateful for Row House, like for the publisher and my editors and this woman, Nirmala Nataraj, who's this incredible editor, for asking me questions that I didn't even ask of myself. And I hope that's what this book does. Like what kind of questions? Questions like, you know,

why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you speak up? And I think that means in multiple circumstances in my life, when it came to relationships, when it came to getting away with my own moments of passing, you know, as a man of color and, and the moments when I didn't get away with it and why I do what I do, really investigating it, not being sugarcoating it and not being.

Yeah. You're very honest. Yeah. Very honest. You know, like not to interject, but you're reminding me of like the chapter. I can't think of the title of this chapter right now right. Yes. You know, the title of your chapters. Talk to us a little bit about that. I mean, it really stuck with me. I thought that was beautiful. I've been thinking about it all day. We all wear masks, whether you are a body of culture or not. We have masks for the office. We have masks for our lovers.

We have masks for our friends. We have masks in the grocery store. Some of us have less. Some of us have more. My dad was the king of masks he was the super of 164 unit building in Queens New York and early on I saw how he could become anything he wanted to be he spoke some Russian he spoke Spanish he spoke street he spoke white you know he spoke to everybody, young, old, senile doctors, clientele, drug dealers,

hood rats, you know, and I watched him prepare his mask. And I studied this and I would ask him about it. And he didn't even know it, you know, but I think later on, and even now we've had conversations about what he was doing and preparing me for, you know, in this life, you have to know how to move. You have to know when people want something from you and when you need something from someone else. Now, I think that's an honest truth about the world. Bodies of culture have to deal with that relationship

more often than white bodies. But I also think being honest, you talked about these questions, right? Like call your radical responsibility. If you're going to call someone out for all the shit, you got to blame them for all the joy as well. You know, and so calling myself out on all my shit, when I have been wearing a mask, and how hard it was to remove that mask and to keep it off my body. It's beautiful. I mean, it's also really painful.

And just the honesty. I mean, there's this one story where you talk about an interaction with a police officer where you just asked for some space like that he was harassing you admitted that you were looking at your phone while you were driving and then he still made you get out of the car i've never been made get out of car not once you know i've been called over for that you know and then he harassed you. And then you said, can I can I just have a minute? And he was like, for what? For some space.

You know, I just I'm nervous and escalated and how you regretted talking back or whatever. But you shouldn't have had to regret talking back. And I don't know why I started sharing this story right now. What my point I was building to something you said made me think of it. I would imagine it's the navigating yeah it's yeah every person of color in my community said to me just shut up you know better yeah just shut up you brought that on yourself like i was the one who was an idiot not the cop i was the one you didn't even ask for anything unreasonable you know and and and they all said you you know better and it's that navigating i think and that's

stuff too right you have to put on the mask of yes sir be quiet yes sir yes sir and i took off the mask for a second i I said, no, but I can't, I need a sec. You know? Yeah. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to have to talk about the news soon, but I'm going to give you another question while I have you here. You talk in the book about labels and how our system of simplistic labels like white, black, Hispanic aren't particularly helpful. How do you think that people can celebrate the real spectrum of who they actually are and what they represent? Yeah.

So I think this is the thesis of the book in a way. Yeah. So forever ago, Dubois talks about the color line, right? And he says, as long as there's a line between black and white, we will have issues. And so I was having that conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates. And I say, where am I in this black and white conversation? He says, not in it. And so I go on this journey of writing this book and figure out what that means.

Like, what's it look like to get my line? And then what is that line? I have to ask myself, is that line Latin, Latino, Latine, Latinx? Is that line Dominican? Is that line Colombian? Right there, I've already made seven lines. Yeah. You know, Latin America alone has, what, 13 different countries and regions and play you know and people and cultures and ideas and foods so the way I imagine vastly vastly vastly different different sounds and flavors and textures as does whiteness in America as does blackness as does and so my I guess my thesis is like is it one line two line lines, or is it like thousands? More lines than you can even imagine.

More shades, more hues, more tones. And then I think I talked about this recently. This isn't in the book, but the image I've been seeing is, you know, that game we used to play as kids where you draw a bunch of dots and then you can each person connects a line. And if you complete it, you get to write your name in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That image to me is what I think I imagine I want the world to be. We all get at these dots and we all have these lines, right?

So many, so many lines, but simultaneously all the lines are connected. So after we sort of find our place, our home, our brown self, our whatever self, our peach self, our black self, you know, our dark brown, our light brown, our 30-year-old self, we then find the lines that begin to connect us. I think that's beautiful. I think that's the image that's been giving me some medicine lately. Yeah, I love that. I mean, it's such a good point. It's true about all, everybody. I was thinking about how we classify Asian Americans. Again, another example of that's such, that's such a bummer.

That's such a loss of so many specific and unique and beautiful cultures. Oh, yeah. You know, it's such a shame that we have to label and diminish and we don't, and we just overlook all of the intricate parts that make up the thing.

And I mean, I think we do that in general. But really, when you start to break down and talk about whitewashing and America and what it means to be a different color here, that's what we've done. And we put the lid on the conversation. And you know, and just say everybody's equal, but you don't actually poke under and see what's happening. Anyway, I'm just rambling now. But part of it is we love, we love a box. As kids, you know, I think even as adults, we love a label name, we love being able to claim something, I know what something is, it fits in this box, I can hold it in my hands. Those are Asian people. Those are Indian people. We love a box. And we can't comprehend,

or we probably can't even hold comfortably, what a census would look like with a million different boxes. It would freak us out. We want to be able to hold everything in one place. And I think that's what's happening in the world. When you think about binary, non-binary fluidness, gender, we're starting to break boxes. We're starting to break containers and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but it also frees a lot of people. And I hope that we continue to move towards the freeing versus the uncomfortable. We do have to take an ad break. But you just remind me of something else that was really beautiful in your book that you said is that you choose love. It's not that I'm not you're not going to push back against the system,

but changing your imagery and how you think about it is like i choose to you know come at things from a different perspective and i thought that that was really beautiful as well very representative of your general outlook and and um yeah let's go to ads on that yeah perfect perfect now we're gonna go to ads guys oh boy and you know what get ready because when we come back from those ads we're gonna we're gonna talk about some news and that's always a really good time you know boy there's just so much tv out there it's hard to keep up that's why i like to convert every tv show to audio only and then listen at three times the speed. I can get through an entire season in just three hours. And that's all thanks to my Raycon earbuds, which go wherever I do so I can stay hip and cool with the times by listening to all of the popular TV shows on television.

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I guess for some news because we haven't talked news that much yet. But we're gonna. Oh, baby, we're gonna. Do you get the manic edge in my voice as i try to get my energy up to talk about the news okay okay jonathan why don't you cue us up what are we talking about first today sure uh what about the january 6th hearings have you all been watching those have you heard about these yeah we got some revelations some hot revelations that are like hot deep well they were all known but now we know them more

so there have been plenty of stuff that's come out over the last week details from former attorney general bill barr who said that trump had become detached from reality when it came to his bizarre election theories so wait he didn't become detached from reality until like late 2020 yeah bill barr says that only after the 2020 election okay the election really went to his head or whatever and all of a sudden he couldn't be reasoned with yeah i love yeah bill gets it i love a person who just didn't like he hired like didn't he like appoint bill barr to like cover up his weird crimes yeah yeah and he did that happily until it got to this weird crime and then all of a sudden too much that's when he broke from reality when it got too weird

well because the the reality that bill barr was a part of was like oh i'll help you with your crimes he didn't agree to this new crime so then it was yes i said i'd help you with those old crimes not new crimes you fool it makes sense A bunch of the witnesses were all about like pushing back how they weren't going to go along with this plan to keep Trump in office. So aides Bill Stepien and Jason Miller said that, you know, that they they told Trump that he didn't actually win, but that Rudy Giuliani appeared intoxicated when he encouraged Trump to declare victory on November 4th. To be fair, I feel like Rudy Giuliani frequently seems a little intoxicated. As a New Yorker, what happened to this man? I don't know. You tell me. You're the New Yorker. He saved New York City.

People loved him. He was loved. I mean, he greatly benefited, weird to say say from just like the 9-11 effect right like he was like yeah because he represented new york and america in that time i think a lot of the stuff that he like who he was was sort of masked from the nation and then slowly you get farther and farther away and then he's in this orbit with all these weirdos like oh there you are that's who you are yeah there's rudy yeah it's also this thing of like he wasn't in the news as much and it seems like he was still desperate to be really just involved i do think it's a combo of both of these things yeah yeah like just more and more desperate

attempts to get attention even if it's negative attention but also like this like i i vaguely was aware of this like rudy was drunk on this night news item i guess you'd put it in quotes the news item but like okay i like you kind of assume that anyway like i saw like all these like republicans and like a lot of like resistance lives like oh the memes for drunk rudy are gonna be flow i was like what well right as if that somehow makes it worse that like like it's as if it makes it worse or new or like anything other than like yeah look at his melting hair that's what i mean when i was like isn't he always kind of like there's always something a little off about rudy giuliani you wouldn't i don't know what's going on in his home life but i wouldn't be surprised if he was drinking

in any way yeah it's a sensationalist point of this like almost like a distraction where of course the details are shocking enough without a like new york post and he was drunk yeah right it's like um it's like that cawthorn stuff where it's like look at this picture of him on a cruise with a lady outfit on for a contest it's like he's like said like nazi stuff before and it's like rudy's drunk what who cares so silly talk about the thing he was doing a few more details came out this morning. They did another hearing this morning. There were witnesses who highlighted Trump's plan to have Mike Pence throw out the electors of swing states and how several advisors told lawyer John Eastman that the plan was not feasible and would cause riots in the streets.

And my favorite part of this story is that Eastman apparently emailed Giuliani after January 6th and said, I've decided I should be on the pardon list. Powerful. Powerful, powerful word. Did he get on the list? Yeah, did he? Did he make it? Presumably Trump still has a list somewhere.

Yeah. As soon as he gets back in there. I think he's on it. I think Trump's got a lot of lists. I think like something big that's happened this week that i'm wondering how you both feel about that or how you all feel about this there's been this like glorification of people like mike pence and liz cheney who have really done the bare minimum in terms of like american democracy so the atlantic

pence is like even lower than like the bottom of the barrel. It's unbelievable. The Atlantic had an article called Mike Pence is an American hero. It's insane. Here's a quote from that. Here's another idea the committee might consider.

Take a moment to praise Mike Pence. Congress can name a building in his honor. The House and Senate could propose nonpartisan resolutions recognizing Pence for his service to democracy.

And then Joe Biden could give Pence the presidential medal of freedom. Because while Pence may not be the hero you or I might have wanted, he was the hero America needed. It's unbelievable. I mean, he didn't concede. He didn't do anything good. Like, he didn't concede that they lost. He didn't. Okay, I'm just sorry.

It's just so frustrating. It's been a year, you guys. Do you already forget? Like what Cody said, there's no bar. Yeah. There's no. The fact that we sell. I mean, the fact that that article came.

Like those words from a reputable organization should not exist. The Atlantic. It sounds more like an Onion article. It really does. It does, doesn't it? It makes my skin crawl. And this Robert Reich, Liz Cheney for president tweet. Article.

Article, yeah. I mean, I saw it in the tweet, but I'll read this. I hope she declares herself a candidate for president and runs in the Republican primary against Trump. GOP desperately needs her moral clarity and authority. She would give voice to Republicans who have been voiceless and allow the Republican Party to redeem itself, to reclaim the status it needs to ever again be a governing party. If she runs, many currently independent voters who outnumber registered Republicans could register as Republicans and vote for her,

registered to republicans could register as republicans and vote for her possibly delivering trump a sharp repudiation of his own party and making it safe for other republican lawmakers to declare the truth about the 2020 thanks robert i would posit that that's an embarrassing thing that he wrote and maybe shouldn't have and maybe uh it's just so silly like what republican party do you want to redeem here what What's what's the redemption path? What what are you trying to get back to the days of her father? It's so weird. And like that's not going to do anything other than like make some never Trump Republicans feel good about themselves.

Right. Like they'll get to vote for Liz Cheney in the primary and then trump will win and become the president again it's part of this like obsession with like we have to find the the good republican party the respectable republican party and bring them back and like a lot of centrists seem to have this like fantasy that it's there somewhere and that there will be a mass repudiation every alternate reality that that some people are listening to it. You're like, there, there's different worlds and they're in one world and then there's another

world and there's probably, there's probably more, but you're just like, how do you, how can you live in that world or how do I even touch it? Or they're so disconnected from the reality of what people are living through and the dire direly needed things that we have all the important things and what people want and how people feel and people are thrown and locked up for marijuana and there's all these injustices everywhere and these guys what if we saved one of the two parties that did all those things but it's like and it's like do you guys what are you fighting for right you're not fighting for us you're fighting so that you

guys can have good dinner parties after work and like not yell at each other on twitter the civility and like the quote-unquote validity of these institutions right yeah they're all crumbling and trust in them not like not high but i don't know if liz cheney running as a republican is gonna do that no it's not it's not gonna do that that isn't the people that love trump hate liz cheney by the way oh yeah that's not that's just not gonna happen but also like what a waste of time i don't know what a waste of time then again where the people who did an episodes called Joe Biden run for president as a Republican.

So I maintain that was still a great idea and you should have done that. I do too. Well, I like, I've said this on here before, but like, I've talked to this kind of old man, conservative guy recently.

Mike Pence? Mike Pence. No. The American hero? The American hero, Mike Pence. Yeah. The American hero? The American hero, Mike Pence. The one and only. He was like, yeah, I'm a Republican, I guess. I don't know. I guess I'm not anymore. I'm like, you're honestly probably a Democrat because the Democrats don't represent me. And I think that a lot of Republicans probably like the ones a lot of them

maybe are if they actually look at what the democratic party stands for and does the the committee hasn't brought this up but there was a document revealed this week called 1776 returns which was apparently distributed among some proud boys as a plan for how to occupy the capitol building or how to occupy some buildings on january 6th and force a new election i love sorry it's just like first of all these absolute fucking dorks but also like 70 like 1776 returns like democracy in action like no man you're like 20 people who were trying to like overthrow like an election where the majority voted against you that's not that's not the thing that's not the freedom thing

you're talking about it's just silly like just imagine them in their mom's basement invoking like like ah america democracy we're gonna overturn the election this is so funny the irony is i think these people watched hamilton and got really like excited motivated and inspired and they just they're like listening to it over and over yeah and they just were like we're gonna recreate a scene from hamilton yeah yeah yeah for sure like we'll be the new founding fathers this is gonna be us we're gonna wrap our way to the white house there's so much dumb stuff boy the term was is from a um aladdin right it's from aladdin the music not the or it was a peter pan i think it's either aladdin or or peter pan the cartoon musical a song was cut from it called proud of your boy and it's from aladdin it's aladdin okay thank you yeah there's a song

called proud of your boy from aladdin it was pretty dorky guys and uh that's what it's named after it is i want to hear about 1776 returns there's a bunch of silly stuff in this document well first of all hey now get out the like the last page says that all this stuff is necessary because quote the evidence of election fraud is overwhelming end quote that's it there's no other mention of like there's no evidence that would be this is where you support your thesis, guys. It lists a bunch of buildings in DC that they wanted to target and occupy. And the last one on the list says, CNN, at least egg doorway. I love that so much.

I laughed when I read that. CNN, at least egg doorway. It's just weird going through like a document cloud thing with like all this like, oh, this got maps and it's got like places on the Washington, D.C. map circled and all this stuff. And then at the end, it says CNN, at least egg doorway. At least egg doorway. They have both fantastical goals and very realistic ones. It's one of those things where, because the ideology behind this and like a lot of the stuff driving this movement, like it's violence and there's like there are communities that they want to not exist anymore. They are like their end goal is violence in a lot of ways, not just them, but like, you know, Patriot Front, like all these little fashy weirdo groups. And at the same time time they're clowns it's like this

it's hard to hold them in your head at the same time sometimes because like well this is like dangerous stuff going on and like they really want like terrible things and but also like they're they're clowns but they're clowns but they're but yeah but clowns are still dangerous yeah exactly we're afraid of clowns for a reason. Yeah, the early fascist groups and Nazis and stuff, they're clowns. Yes. But guess what? Seeing stuff like CNN, at least at Doorways, it reminds me of that weird contradiction going on with them.

It's got like part one, infiltrate. Part two, execution. All this stuff. Part five is sit in and says, we have the ability to go into office target specific senator's office then underneath that and that's like kind of the end of it is what's the ending point for this does everyone just leave at a certain time who does gov respond to so it's really like a work it's a working document here it's not a forum question mark it's like it's like fill in later that's so funny it does like it does read like a 4chan post or something and then people are like oh yeah like answering questions and quoting and trying to

like edit it in real time it's a google doc things are highlighted there's like notes in the margin exactly couple plus ones like too many things are bold. There's like comments on the side. Yeah, notes on the margin. Exactly. Couple plus ones. Like too many things are bolded. So like all these words are in the outline. I want to read this final funny message at the end of the demands list. Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, and Bill Gates. We the people are watching you.

Rand Paul and Ron DeSantis. We the people are watching you ran paul and ron desantis we the people love you what dildos on top of the absurdity which is obviously absurd this idea of it as a working document is the only thing that makes me nervous because i was listening to something and i can't tell you who said this but uh it was like on the media and the person said this was practice yeah yeah this is a trial yeah yeah because it's a trial run it doesn't mean it's the end and what they're doing i mean proud boys specifically are changing like people are running for office there's been articles and stuff written about this but like it's like a changing of tactics like it's not far off from you know what the kkk and nazis did like hide your robe in your closet and uh go put a suit on well and name and name your positions like grand wizard and dragon master and people think you're silly and not

yeah they do like like i'm highlighting this document because it's the silly version of this but the scare the much scarier version is like people getting elected in republican primaries who could be the secretaries of state of crazy swing states soon it's within control like it's probably going to happen they're gonna do this silly thing the like legal and awful way and yeah get like a like a local stuff like positions where you don't even think like have some sort of like say or like exactly ability but it's a long game yeah and i've i said this right after the inauguration on one of these shows but i think about it a lot in fraudulation i feel tense like they're not gone

mike tense i'm feeling quite yeah quite tense mike there's something i think american hero mike tense yeah there it was it's like i know that it's not done i know that this was practice i know that there's organizing, I know that it's not done. I know that this was practice. I know that there's organizing happening. I know that there's things happening that we're not aware of. And the farther away from it we get, the more your guard goes down, the more people go back to daily life or what have you, and they forget. And then it starts, this sneaky shit happens, and then somebody wins an election. Then they're there. Then next time, I mean, they're organized. They're organizing. We love the post office. We're deeply attracted to the post office. But sometimes you just don't have time to go to one.

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at the top of the page and enter code more news. Please the forest gods with stamps.com click the microphone at the top of the page and enter code more news please the forest gods with stamps.com oh forest gods you are the only gods stamps.com that's fun i guess that leads us maybe patriot front and pride. Sure. I mean, that's related. If we're already in that kind of an area. Yeah, we're already in Proud Boys world. So tell us about that. Well, as you all know, the GOP has gone all in on this anti-LGBTQ movement, culture war.

That's what they're doing right now. They're not alone in this, but the Libs of TikTok account has been really prominent in highlighting drag queen events, including kids as somehow unwholesome. And then these events have been getting harassed or threatened. Earlier this week, Marjorie Taylor Greene said, I'm introducing a bill to make it illegal for children to be exposed to drag queen performances.

Wow. People are going gonna get hurt from this yes yeah so what happened this last weekend is 31 members of the group patriot front were arrested in idaho uh while on their way in the back of a u-haul to a local pride event they had gear they had riot gear they had a smoke grenade with them they were booked on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot. There was an event, a children's story time at a library in San Lorenzo, California. And they showed up there.

Yeah. Proud Boys burst into the event and were shouting slurs and accused Bay Area drag queen Panda Dulce of being a rapist. Nobody was arrested there. They just ran in and threatened her and scared everyone. I don't even have the right words to describe what's happening it's alarming it's uh dangerous it's alarming and the lack of denunciation more of an embracing of this from the gop conservative side at large oh they're like they're thrilled about it this is i mean

they had to pretend to be cool with gay people for the past 10 years and they haven't enjoyed having to do that and now they don't have to anymore right they don't have to even be the one saying it so much because other people are all they have to and you know change the tide and like give air to the conversation and like oh they're just asking these questions and stuff like that and they just sort of give it room to breathe but it's a fire so you don't want to give it room to breathe because then it'll spread yeah fireworks i like that you included jonathan you that joe biden signed this executive order on wednesday to direct federal health and education agencies to expand access to gender affirming care and

advance LGBTQ inclusive learning environments in American schools. And it also asks that federal agencies guarantee that federal funds don't go towards conversion therapy, but I'm fucking shocked that conversion therapy still even is a conversation.

It's still a thing that this is a conversation we have it's 2022 and you're telling me you're gonna tell them what what the fuck and this executive order is one thing but i think democrats in general have to be a lot louder about this because they are not countering what's happening on the right nearly as loud as they need to because this has escalated very quickly recently and so you know an executive order is good say like hey maybe audit maybe audit the agencies and make sure you're not funding conversion therapy but like that's in culture and in the media that's very

soft that wasn't a top news story yesterday but in right wing land this these like a drag queen show is a top news story i think it's true that the right versus the left volume knob like they're not afraid of volume like in any press is good press and they have used this to their advantage and like you said democrats need to find a way to be louder but i don't know that they want to be louder no yeah because well i think maybe yeah i don't know that they want to be louder i think that it's well they they think that i mean you know a lot of people in the democratic party were against gay marriage and things before it happened uh it was not it's not like not everybody in the democratic party is like gonna be as vocal against this kind of stuff because they just don't feel

that passionate about it um and they know that like well politically we're the party we got to do this and this and this and there's that disconnect that we already talked about uh you know of being so separate from the reality of what people's lives are when these things happen that it's very easy for them to be like well that's not a political win right now or some cynical outlook yeah you'll see a lot of like um popularists or like you know a lot of like centrist like old like lib bloggers and stuff talk about how like you know maybe dems in order to win they need to like give way on cultural war issues and things like that and what they're really saying is stuff like this they need to like let this happen or like not fight back on

this kind of stuff because real people care about the deficit or whatever the fuck they're trying to sell so there's a lot of just going into it just like they don't care or they think it's like politically like dangerous for them to to address it um so they're they're consciously quiet about it i agree with you i also think it's very scary let's see if i can unpack this concisely libs of tiktok patriot front all of these these things that are gaining popularity are very very terrifying to me and how they are you know affecting public policy we see that in florida ron desantis don't say gay bill directly linked to libs of tiktok and this influence and all these i think about admittedly so once donald trump starts running or Ron DeSantis, whomever.

Like, because who was it that just made that point? I can't remember about, you know, it wasn't popular that, you know, gay rights. It wasn't a popular thing to be against for a little while. The last time Donald Trump ran, you know, he couldn't. I mean, not that he was good for gay people, but it's going to be so much worse now that the winds have changed in such a way. And you bring that hateful populist energy to your TV screen. Yeah, more people feel like they have permission. The hot-button issues that he is going to talk about.

It's going to be disgusting and it will amplify all of this because it goes hand in hand with what's going on at Supreme Court. And what we see the writing that we see on the wall yeah his whole his i mean his whole deal a lot of well a lot of his whole deal part of it is that he's a clownish buffoonie kind of man um but a lot of his deal was right that like oh he's saying he's saying the quiet part loud now he's saying a lot he's saying what the real folks think he's saying all these things and now everyone's kind of saying them yeah so like what's he gonna do with that right yeah what's how much he's gonna like you know you have i mean the bench appears of the world again for like eight or so years they had to be like actually i think that the

government shouldn't be involved in marriage at all so i think gay marriage is acceptable like great it's acceptable to you but it wasn't and now you're like you know getting mad that there's a fucking lesbian couple who have like share like a little peck during a fucking light year movie and that's they're up in arms about it because they have to explain to their kids that these two women are allowed to like love each other and they're complaining about this stuff now. They wouldn't have five years ago because then they would have rightfully been like been told like you're being a bigot right now. Actually, it's fine. Calm down.

But now they feel like they can say it with no repercussions and they can and they do. And so then, you know, some someone like Trump is just like, I'll say whatever whatever as long as I know that it'll get me where I want to go. Where's he going to take that ball, I guess, is the question. It's dangerous. Not looking forward to it. And you see, like, I don't know, for years, people pointed out, like, the sort of, like, with all the fashy, like, stuff bubbling up is very, like, similar to, like, in some ways, like, Weimar germany like pre the pre-nazi era and now you have people on like literally tucker carlson a professional liar started a segment recently like just enough it was i think it's about drag queens it was just another day in weimar germany

and when he says it when like people on there you see people on the right say it when they say it what they're saying is i can't wait for the crackdown on this stuff right it's getting out of hand and it and they're talking about justified they're saying it was justified yeah and and all these things we're seeing today are going to justify it again and that's what they're talking about it's not like a fear of like nazis it's like kind of like oh we get to finally take him to like it's just very unsettling i agree with you completely man i want to lighten this up for the end and just full disclosure we have so many topics that we prepped news stories to go through and then within the last hour of this recording like four elon musk news stories broke and it like, can we just go through one day not talking about Elon Musk?

No. And we've said this many times on this show. It feels Trumpy. Anyway, here we are. Here's the Musk Minute. And Jonathan's going to tell you what happened today with Musk. Oh, God, what didn't happen today? A group of SpaceX employees have sent an open letter to the company's executives

asking for condemnation of some of Musk's crass tweets and clarification on the company's no assholes and zero tolerance policies when it comes to sexual harassment.

What a policy. That's so fucking funny. What else? It's amazing. I just can't. Oh. Reminder that he was just

very publicly accused of soliciting the masseuse for sex and offering her a horse. He was going to expose himself then offered a horse to keep her quiet. But also to...

Hey, what if I gave you a horse? Oh, yeah. Was he going to pay for the horses? It's hard to keep a horse. I mean mean so many questions to think about after the horse yeah that's like a burden you're right you want financial crap who's gonna care for the horse she's a flight attendant he's not a guy who thinks about what it's gonna take to purchase something before making the purchase no he's too busy being hard at work. He claims he's long-term in terms of like, we've got to get humanity to Mars,

but he actually does not think long-term, as evidenced by this horse scenario. And by the Twitter scenario, by all the scenarios. Exactly, yeah. It reminds me of that Kanye tweet, when you're on an airplane and someone goes to the bathroom and leaves their water bottle, and you're like, wow, now I'm in charge of this water bottle.

Paraphrasing. One of his best. That's very funny that SpaceX employees are like, I thought we said no assholes, and yet here we go. Okay, give us another Musk Minute news. Sure.

Musk also today held a virtual Q&A session with Twitter employees. employees apparently didn't go so great he was late and he phoned in right on his phone he was on like a handheld you know he was on his phone well he's a busy man he's got to get back to elden ring yeah yeah twitter employees on an internal slack channel afterwards said they still feared layoffs and poor content moderation in the future should he take over elon reportedly took a few minutes out of the q a to muse on aliens and human consciousness is a freshman in a dorm room god it's yeah he's like he's reddit personified i want all my workers to stop working so that i can sit here and talk about aliens and consciousness that feels right

for him that feels appropriate okay least surprising thing about this got more got even more uh a dogecoin investor is suing him uh and tesla and spacex for racketeering alleging that he artificially inflated the price of dogecoin to profit off of it as a pyramid scheme which he absolutely did and that's like how much is he suing him for it's a lot of money 258 billion dollars that's wild he's suing him for the entire value of what dogecoin like the value the decline in dogecoin's market value 86 billion dollars and then once that tripled and then I guess added some more because it's 286 billion. That's probably not going to go anywhere.

Sorry, 258. I'm just going to pause it. I would dream that if this person is a good person and with that money he would do wonderful things. He won't win that money but he'll get a little something. At least a horse.

At least a horse. Oh, that's fun. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. I know you've had a long day. Share your stuff. Plug yourself. Share my stuff.

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