Some More News - Putin Invades Ukraine, Texas Gets Even Crueler, and EVEN MORE Terrible Takes

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Hi. Taylor Moore (@taylordotbiz) joins Cody and Jonathan to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine and Texas' assault on trans youth. We also get into the expiration of the child tax cre...dit, Activision-Blizzard's union busting, and that cringey "Dear Mister President Vladimir Putin" poem. Support SOME MORE NEWS: http://www.patreon.com/SomeMoreNews 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 Imperfect Foods is offering our listeners 20% off your first 4 orders when you go to http://IMPERFECTFOODS.COM and use promo code MORENEWS. 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. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to http://MINTMOBILE.com/morenews. Right now, when you purchase a 3-month Babbel subscription, you'll get an additional 3 months for FREE. That's 6 months, for the price of 3! Just go to http://BABBEL.com and use promo code: MORENEWS Follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews    Support the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 hello and welcome to even more news the first and only news podcast i am not katie stole i am producer of even more news and today's guest host jonathan harris hello katie stole you sound weird i am cody johnston is the name of me hi no cody jonathan yeah you weren't listening it's just it's me today i caught up there was a lag i started talking as you were in the middle of talking and then it caught up and i caught the the point which is that you are not katie hi hi how are you i'm excellent well i'm fine yeah we're fine uh our guest today is a podcaster and producer at fortunate horse you might know him from rude tales Tales of Magic or Fun City.
Starting point is 00:00:45 Taylor Moore. Hi. Good evening. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm great. It's a great day to talk about current events. We can't wait.
Starting point is 00:00:54 We've been having fun all day. I have a couple of advanced degrees, and about half of them are specifically in foreign relations, international politics, and war on the Asian continent. So I'm a very good guest to have today. Perfect. Perfect. That's why we got you. That's good.
Starting point is 00:01:13 There are also, I don't know if you know this, about 5 million people with those same degrees today that I didn't know. Oh, yeah. Now, is there a place I could go and just see like short bites of like quick content from them about maybe what's going on some insight yeah i don't know i mean that might be a good that might be a good startup if you want to like pitch that so i like that idea quick bites of content quick like a like a like a but that's too long though you want to be able to make it snappy right like a bit like a bitey bitey bite like twitter like a chirpy okay yeah like this is how birds make birds
Starting point is 00:01:53 famous for giving quick bites of music yeah they're constantly like very very very very short little bits everyone i didn't like any of the Friday holidays, so I went with some February 24th holidays. It is both National Tortilla Chip Day and National Chili Day. Okay, those go together. We can both think about that. All right. I agree that those are good things. I tend to always disagree, I guess, with these days for existing and being necessary because what does this mean is
Starting point is 00:02:26 this is just like go buy the stuff i imagine that some trade group has decided i i'm sure tostitos decided it was national tortilla chip day and then hormel was like we're not gonna let you get away with a big your big tortilla chip day without including national chili day see because these are like these are like pretty universally loved foods and they're delicious so i don't think they even need a day like if this was like cincinnati chili day i would support it because i think they need it they need people to uh you know go out and support the idea of uh i guess it's like chili and marinara sauce kind of with spaghetti. Yeah, perfect pairing.
Starting point is 00:03:08 Yeah. I like to put a big scoop of marinara sauce as a topping on my chili. Exactly. I like to get chili and then put noodles in it. You know, I wish I'd have gone now with the Friday holidays because, at least in my research, Friday is both National Clam Chowder Day and New England Clam Chowder Day. But who, all right. Apologies if you've talked about this before.
Starting point is 00:03:31 How much do you think a trade organization has to pay a congressperson to get a day? Whoa, none of these are legal days. These are just days that the company or someone at one point on the internet in 2003 decided was a thing and now we talk about it every week on this show that's that's wow so taylor i want to get to know you a little bit cody maybe come in you and cody you and cody have uh uh chatted and engaged before um grad school together we we both got degrees in russia yeah
Starting point is 00:04:06 oh okay so you go way back so uh when cody went on your sorry everybody's not bringing this up ever but it's true 150 episodes into the podcast 182 today no you're fine um cody went on your uh patreon exclusive podcast rude talks of chatting and you asked him if he would ever want to give up talking about the news and host a narrative dnd podcast so now that you're here i want to ask you if you would ever consider giving up that work and hosting a youtube show with puppets about the most depressing news in america uh and no absolutely not i i think that like uh you know how like every it's it's mostly a dude thing i don't want to say every dude or just dudes but like there's the thing of like uh i think it was even in a book like um every until they're 30 everybody
Starting point is 00:04:59 thinks they can go spend two years at like a kung fu monastery and become the biggest badass on the planet i think the same is true of like everyone thinks that if they just had enough free time they could have the best politics chat show with their friends uh that's just like a late fantasy everyone post 2000 and you know like post obama presidency has this fantasy of doing it but But I am not the fool. I know that I would blow it and I wouldn't want to be forced into the position where I have to go do like a jokey podcast
Starting point is 00:05:31 on a day where like, I don't know, a school shooting happened or war broke out. Interesting. Well, luckily we haven't and we'll never run into that. Yeah. Those are two crazy things. Why would humanity do that to itself? Also, I feel like you just have more fun by not having to put yourself in this situation
Starting point is 00:05:51 daily or weekly. Oh, yeah. Timeless. Cody, are you saying that this job isn't fun? I'm not saying that Taylor just gave basically the exact opposite answer that I gave when I was asked the other question. But I will say sometimes it's not fun
Starting point is 00:06:08 not that all jobs have to be fun but just I guess what you give up in like pre and post production you win back in like the burden of having to contend publicly with the worst things that everything, everything,
Starting point is 00:06:26 everything surrounding it is just this oppressive bubble. And every week I'm like, maybe this is it. Maybe we'll fix it. And then next week there's just going to be nothing to talk about. It'll be the, it'll be the best week ever and never seems to happen. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:39 A sea of stories about children raising money with the lemonade stands. I am not for like, oh, my teacher got cancer. For like, yeah, then I got a bike. Yeah, like a whole, everybody at the gas station got together and we bought Nana a new leg. Yeah, exactly. And then look at how the community comes together. It's very positive. There's nothing to look into about like, well, why didn't she have a leg?
Starting point is 00:07:02 Why didn't like, why couldn't like insurance take care of that? Why is our health care system not supplying legs um we know who took the leg exactly no yeah it's all society is a lot better when there's like a local news article and it's like children raising money from lemonade stand just get to do that because everyone gets health care and yeah no and no one needs it for something horrific. Right, they raised money for the lemonade stand to put back into the lemonade stand. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:32 They're a snotter fundraiser. It's just like a straightforward business of these poor kids, you know, having to toil away. And now Nana can run out back, bring in the new chips. It's a national chip day.
Starting point is 00:07:47 Get out there, Nana. Get the chips. Yeah, get the chips. Get the lemons. I assume they all have lemon trees. Where else are they getting this stuff? Not the store. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:07:56 It's a cool store. Yeah. I want to work at Nana's store. We're going to take a quick break, and'll be right back with more, even more news. Ooh, news. Hello, close friends. Are you tired of getting in your car every week to go get groceries? Perhaps there's a shifty squirrel always outside of the store that you have trouble passing on your way in.
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Starting point is 00:10:55 visit athleticgreens.com slash more news today. That's athleticgreens.com slash more news to take control of your health and give AG1 a try. let's get into it we need to talk about russia and ukraine uh on thursday morning in europe russia launched an offensive against ukraine explosions went off across the country including in the in the capital kiev a city of three million people it's the seventh largest city in europe and kharkiv a city of 1. people. It's the seventh largest city in Europe. And Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million people. Russia has launched a full-scale attack. They've taken airports. They've reportedly taken Chernobyl as of a couple hours ago. When we're recording this, there have been a series of cyber attacks that have hit ukrainian government websites there are warnings about cyber attacks against uh the u.s pending uh the u.s response joe biden has announced even stronger
Starting point is 00:11:51 sanctions than the ones that were announced a few days ago um and biden has apparently been presented with options for our own cyber attacks against russian infrastructure and its military things are really in flux there's a lot of misinformation on social media. You may have noticed a lot of it's tough to trust what's out there. Things may very well be different by the time you're listening to this. Yeah. So I wanted to kick this off by asking a question that no one's probably prepared to answer. by asking a question that no one's probably prepared to answer.
Starting point is 00:12:28 I was reading a lot of opinions in recent weeks about how Vladimir Putin is largely a rational actor, that he was not going to do anything that was going to, you know, severely impact him and his status as leader and his country's economic viability. But what he's doing now is going to be horrible for the Ukrainian people, but it's also going to have a significant impact on the Russian military and the Russian economy. For weeks, we thought this might just be a bluff,
Starting point is 00:12:58 that he was trying to get some concessions. So to what extent do you guys think that this was inevitable, that this was always his plan and there's nothing that anyone could have done to dissuade him from invading Ukraine? I have no idea. But I mean, this does seem like what he wanted to do. Right. Like from the beginning and uh he also likes fucking with people and like making uh people squirm and not necessarily know like what to do or like what the real situation is um he's got this sort of like non-linear warfare approach to uh to like uh the global stage and like um he's a liar i don't know um it's just it does seem like this was always sort of where
Starting point is 00:13:54 he was going with this and just wanted to uh like weirdly have fun like it seems like part of it is fun for him um to like push people and like see how they react and, like, trigger the libs almost. Except trigger the West, I guess, is what he's doing. But it does seem like there's an element of that to his approach. But also, I have no idea. So you're saying essentially that he's just kind of getting funky with it? A little bit, yeah. He's just sort of playing around?
Starting point is 00:14:24 Yeah. I think that is the historical term. I think, like, you see him in these press conferences and stuff. It does seem like he's having a good time holding cards close to his chest and also revealing stuff in
Starting point is 00:14:39 ways where it's like, wait, what? Fuck? It does seem like he is getting funky with it well because he's he's super rich one of the richest people ever that's ever lived um he there's he has a like a complete iron grip on power there's no threat to him no one's gonna usurp like he's he's in there probably for the rest of his life. You know, no one's going to get out of there. So, like, he has no accountability.
Starting point is 00:15:11 Like, yeah, why not? Why not have some fun? If you're a complete sociopath, it's like a video game. It's a video game. Only instead of menus, you have to have meetings with people. Right. Yeah. And like, why not? It's like playing Stellaris.
Starting point is 00:15:22 Only instead of clicking, I have to call, you know, Ivan up and get him to like, oh, we'll tell this guy to do that. I mean, that makes sense to me. I mean, I'm that like that level of sociopathy at like the top echelon of global rule is not a surprise. Right. And he doesn't seem to have any like coherent ideology beyond power, as most people at the top i mean right it's not like he's taking ukraine for food or you know i mean right yeah right can i be honest with you guys for a second i was lying about the advanced degrees uh oh no oh what the truth is i know i'm on national tortilla day you're gonna lie to us on National fucking Tortilla Day. I'm so sorry. Tortilla Chip Day, Cody. Every Tortilla Chip Day was now sullied because of this.
Starting point is 00:16:14 Yeah, like I'm just going to think about this now. This is like my dad would dress up like a big tortilla chip, and then we found him in the chimney. The first time I ever saw him cry, he was stuck in there. Now I can't eat a chip. The truth is, is that I feel complete cosmic ignorance about the causes and long-term effects of things that happen at this scale. As if I am a single bacteria in the gut of an unknowable beast. Yeah, I mean, like, even the experts don't know what's going to happen or what is 10 to 20 years down the line.
Starting point is 00:16:55 Like, I agree to an extent that, because, like, he's having fun. He likes going on TV and explaining his narrative of Russian history. He likes saying things like uh you will have consequences that you never have had before in history wink wink like he likes doing that stuff but i i i mean this invasion is not for fun though he is trying to oh no that's not what i meant no i'm not yeah like he is just really trying to like rectify these historic grievances that he has based on the the countries that he thinks should be part of russia that are part of some vision for a for a russian empire it is it is imperialist in nature yeah
Starting point is 00:17:40 it's like this hyper nationalist approach to um yeah and uh he doesn't seem to care well i mean i think that brings me to the next like facet of this is what what the united states is doing what they can do should they do anything like our economies are very intertwined we obviously aren't gonna send troops into ukraine that would be disastrous and and biden has said multiple times we're not doing that we are bolstering the defenses of the nato uh country so you know we're gonna get more troops in germany and maybe poland everyone will feel a little better about that more missiles in the caucusus right i mean like the balkans yeah yeah like so estonia it's also estonian independence day today by the way um and i'm not sure how the estonians are
Starting point is 00:18:32 feeling uh today but you know the risks here are pretty huge just in terms economically russia is going to be very hurt the europe with the they they rely on russian oil and gas a lot i think russia is one of the second biggest providers of fertilizer to the rest of the world and you know this keeps going a month or two from now we're gonna have yeah it's gonna be non-stop cn CNBC articles about the prices of food going up. Yeah. And. I. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:09 No, I'm just like a shared helplessness right now. Right. And I haven't seen I haven't been watching much of like the CNNs or MSNBCs or like, you know, because as soon as any sort of inkling of like, what if we do a war? They're like, oh, yeah, let's do it um and i haven't seen much of that yet but again i haven't like watched a whole lot since this invasion happened and i assume that will get sort of ramped up more and more like we have to send our troops there i don't know like i i know there's just like this this sentiment that i think um you know with like with like with all these wars that we always do uh that they're actually bad um and even when we uh left afghanistan there seemed to be a slight shift of like knowing like this was a good choice to stop doing and i don't
Starting point is 00:19:58 know how much that translates uh for them to like maybe war is just bad um and maybe we can help with you know medicine and food and like taking refugees and like the un was technically created to be like anti-war right like we're it's we're done we're done with it it's like we're a global we're a globe we're the planet earth and we're not doing this anymore obviously that was not the case and america played a huge part in that and pushing back on that. And like, we're actually going to we're going to do a little bit of war. We're going to keep doing a little bit of this and here and here and here. And they kept doing and kept doing it.
Starting point is 00:20:32 And so now it's like a useless organization in terms of that goal, it seems. And it would just be nice if most nations just sort of came together and uh in an act of like being anti-war um helped with the all of the negative effects of war like if you're anti-war what do you want what are you you're pro-peace you're pro like life uh so help uh take care of uh anything like in terms of like all those negative effects but don't contribute to them um i just don't think that's going to happen it would be nice um a global uh you know push for like being actually anti-war it is bizarre having been american my whole life to suddenly see like a confusion and like a lack of hawkishness because usually someone's being super hawkish usually someone's like we got to go there right now we're the you know uh right and
Starting point is 00:21:31 yeah i i don't want to say like refreshing because i don't think what like tucker carlson's doing is refreshing oh my god but i do think that like it is like like cracking open a can, putting it to your lips and realizing it's still hot piss. Right. Yeah. Bubbling hot piss. But like to see that there is a like, well, we don't want this to be happening where we wish it wasn't happening. Maybe there's something else we can do other than blow some stuff up for once. Yeah, you're right. It is really unusual.
Starting point is 00:22:06 It is a really unusual vibe to watch what happens when the American political elites run into a situation where they're not allowed to engage in the usual bluster because the other country is actually at war and has nuclear missiles uh and isn't like a pushover you know uh formally well currently colonized state like um like afghanistan i mean it's it's uh it's you know that that the the tail goes between the legs pretty quickly not saying that's a bad thing you know uh right but yeah mutually assured is insane, but you can't argue with the results.
Starting point is 00:22:47 Yeah. And I, that right. And like, there's like this element of like, Oh, maybe, maybe not this time.
Starting point is 00:22:53 And I also wonder like, it's the presence of like a superpower, I think definitely helps facilitate that. But I also wonder if it's like, okay, but if they were doing this in the middle, if it was like any, any involvement, like the middle east or like oh man we'd be tying yellow ribbons around the old oak tree but you know yeah like there's something something about
Starting point is 00:23:14 these people that maybe like we're not like jumping to to war about it i don't know you know it's just tough we we in our history have only had a few ways of like trying to dissuade other people from going to war and of course it's hard for us to talk much because of all the imperializing we did for so long um and maybe just stopped a few months ago and maybe not you know the the an emboldened uh putin who can do this and then really not suffer any repercussions things you know if he starts right exactly like once like oh i like because he's also used to like yeah like getting away with it so they can discontinue like okay i did this seemed like right that's what i'm scared of is that he does look at latvia and then all
Starting point is 00:24:06 of a sudden because of you know the treaty because of nato were like you know obligated to launching horrendous was it nato obligated to help ukraine out as well ukraine's not a nato country but didn't they didn't they i know they're not i know i know the whole thing i've heard the word nato more times in the last 30 days than ever in my life uh but like wasn't the promise that they would give up some weapons and nato would be friendly from what i understand like right after the end of the cold war uh ukraine was like okay well we've got these leftover nukes here and then the deal deal was with Russia and the U.S. and a few other countries.
Starting point is 00:24:47 I'm like, okay, your borders will be secure. We'll, you know, look after you and everything if you give up those nukes. And Putin's, you know, just like, well, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do? Well, they requested to be, like, in NATO, and then that was, like, rejected. But then, like, the offer was, like, technically still on the table, which is why this, like like got pushed even further i don't i don't know i i'm not i'm not the degree man yeah no i think i think it's very good of us to admit that we're not going to solve this uh i don't fucking know i'm gut bacteria you know it's just like
Starting point is 00:25:21 i don't know i it's almost it's lovecraftian i feel like these nation states are just like giant thousand foot tall cthulhu's walking around stomping in the ocean like it's a kiddie pool and i'm down here being like oh there's they put you know the mcgribbs back i want to talk briefly about before we move on some of the takes that the dizzying takes now here i just like just a non-stop they won't stop coming and it won't stop coming and they won't stop coming and they won't stop coming and they won't stop coming and i'm home baby we're home now this i understand right right oh yes ah yes my degree finally coming yes the horror of the american poster that is what i can talk about yeah i don't even know
Starting point is 00:26:04 where to start with this how about how about senator tommy tuberville we could start my home state alabama oh really yeah yeah yeah senator tuberville is uh says uh russia is a communist country he can't feed his people so they need more farmland that's what this is all about you know by birth taylor you have to agree right you have to agree with this guy. That's the law. That's the law. Well, me and Senator Tuberville have always been at odds.
Starting point is 00:26:35 I tried to make it with his daughter in the hayloft of his barn. And we've never seen each other. You know, never seen eye to eye. I bet he sent you running. Yeah. He shot the gun up in the air, but the message was clear. Exactly. And I voted for him. Oh, good. Okay. So, okay. the air, but the message was clear. Exactly. And I voted for him. Oh, good.
Starting point is 00:26:47 Okay. So that relationship is still intact. Good. Well, you know. It's personal and politics. You got to keep those things separate. Keep them separate. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:26:54 It's very, very mature of you. No, he's a football coach. This guy. This guy was a football coach. Was this Jesse Waters or someone else who said that uh u.s should send ukraine night vision that was mr jesse waters oh jesse waters yeah yeah russians can fight at night it's wild okay so he's like it doesn't look like they can fight at night because they went in during the day which is like a that doesn't mean they can't like they don't
Starting point is 00:27:27 have like night vision but also like doesn't that just mean he doesn't give a fuck it's like yeah we're doing it during the day like fuck it i don't like what it like what is he even saying yeah i i don't know what i don't know what that one is but if we do want to help ukraine we got to send a night vision because russia doesn't have that capability apparently they don't know what that one is. But if we do want to help Ukraine, we've got to send a night vision, because Russia doesn't have that capability, apparently. They don't know what to say. That's the thing. This is so confusing, it's because they don't know what to say. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:56 Even the imperialist war, this goes back to what you said and why this moment is so strange in the media here, This is what goes up, goes back to what you said and why this moment is so strange in the media here is because like, even as strong as American imperialism is, it's not quite strong enough to say we ought to go to like a hot war with the nuclear power yet. Yeah, we'll get,
Starting point is 00:28:16 we'll get there. Maybe we'll get there. Um, but yeah, and so they're just like, we got to do night vision for the commies or whatever. Um, because like, as we've discussed
Starting point is 00:28:25 we don't necessarily know what's going on and that's okay um and you know like when you have to talk for a living um especially especially when it's every single day and you're like on tv and you're like i gotta talk every single day about something you just like uh and you start talking and it's like that that michael scott thing right where you're just like yeah sometimes i start a sentence and i just keep going and i'll find the thought eventually it'll come and sometimes it's we got to send night vision goggles to ukraine because russia can't fight at night because they invaded during the day real airtight logic uh i i i'm gonna play a little i'm gonna play the beginning of the anna lynn mccord thing yes yes before we move on dear president vladimir putin weak start i'm so
Starting point is 00:29:15 sorry that i was not your mother if i was your mother you would have been so loved held in the arms of joyous light never with the stories plight the world unfurled before our eyes a pure demise of nations sitting peaceful under a night sky if i was your mother the world would have been warm so much laughter and joy and nothing would harm i can't imagine the stain the soul-stealing pain that the little boy used to see in the room. Pull out, pull out. Oh my God, I can't do it. That goes on for two more minutes.
Starting point is 00:29:52 I can't. This can't be good for people to hear too much of. I mean, I'll just say, dear President Vladimir Putin, it's a weak start. I think there's a weak start. I think like it's not, there's nothing poetic there. Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin. A dear president.
Starting point is 00:30:13 No, it's called dear president. No. What is it? Is it called that? Is it like, I think it's dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin.
Starting point is 00:30:22 And it's a refrain. It is a, it is a repeated phrase in the further stanzas. Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin. It's so awkward. It's again, it's like that fucking, isn't it? I'm not like a huge Office fan. I don't know why I keep bringing this goddamn show up. But didn't Andy write a song in his band called Dear Mr. President?
Starting point is 00:30:46 Why is there war and he sings it like in like falsetto because it's like a little girl to the president oh and like that's the idea of the song the lyrics are like a young girl writing i don't remember a letter to the president it's you don't need to it's fine this is just nonsense look everybody deals with things in different ways and some people need to do this some people need to uh be seen and make it about them um uh make it about what a great mother they would be i guess um you just can't stop you can't stop the posting you can't because the posting a posting represents a fundamental a fundamental human desire to offer your identity out into the world and fingers crossed have it reflected back to you with love. And any, but people can't say that because if you just say I want that, that comes across as insecure and weak.
Starting point is 00:31:40 So you have to wait for something to happen and then react to it and then hope that your reaction is loved and so every single event in the world that occurs is like twitter comes and hands you a canvas and says react you know like just put you know this canvas is called the invasion of ukraine 2022 just paint whatever you want on it and right and we'll send you that your serotonin in the mail. Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes it's painted by numbers. Sometimes it's more freeform. And when it's more freeform, you get shit like this.
Starting point is 00:32:11 And we should send them night vision. So I found, sorry, I lied. I didn't found it. I wrote it. I wrote a transcription of that poem that she made. And there is a line. Later on, here it is. I wrote a transcription of that poem that she made. There is a line later on. Here it is.
Starting point is 00:32:29 Oh, dear. And she says it like this. I swear to God. Oh, dear. Mr. President Putin. If only I'd have been your mother. Perhaps the torture of unreached youth would not within your heart imbue a description to such fealty against the world that you thought was so cruel that's um you know what that's just art that's just art baby you know you gotta you gotta express
Starting point is 00:32:56 yourself uh you gotta express yourself and then hope that those quote tweets do not outweigh the likes uh which i'm pretty sure they did in this case um i would posit that maybe this woman being putin's mother wouldn't have solved war well we you know yeah i guess so i don't know maybe like maybe like maybe if uh like best case scenario, she's his mother. And then he like gets in a different job and doesn't like had the KGP for years. And then somebody else is the president of Russia. And they're also a monster because like most leaders are fucking monsters. Yeah. I think that like you,
Starting point is 00:33:37 you're, you're, your mother has to have a very specific kind of relationship to you to get you into the KGB later in life i don't think a person like her can raise a future kgb agent yeah yeah i think it's there's a softness to to her and the environment she is uh put behind her uh her little little display for but who knows you know k like butterfly effect chaos theory put her back there maybe we get more wars bigger wars oh interesting oh interesting oh if dear mr president vladimir putin if i were your mother there'd be more wars
Starting point is 00:34:11 you fucking pussy do more wars we wouldn't have lost ukraine to begin with you coward yeah um this is wild i do want to say so like i do want to point out where I feel like we have to move on to another topic. But the first of all, there are a lot of people marching in Russia. Incredible. Like against war. And that is amazing. That is like very brave of them. Even like people posting videos and stuff like those people are in danger by doing that um that is the situation there uh that is like you know when we go out and like we do our
Starting point is 00:34:50 little our little protests not to like diminish them because they're important but like and there's obviously like much there's a lot of violence uh at these places and they turn into police riots but um it's like really uh incredible uh the people that are out there um to oppose what is going on right now um yeah it's incredible very brave because there is a heavy police presence already and it's only going to get worse yeah keep it up and i think we have to we have to hope that they do there is a part of me me that wonders if that's not propaganda from the intelligence blob, from that world, or if they're being propped up
Starting point is 00:35:32 by American or Western intelligence and interest in things like that. But that's a small part of me. I feel like, especially I saw a story about people doing solo protests, going out alone. We were not even protected by the herd.
Starting point is 00:35:48 Because the herds are being shot at and hit and, you know, horrible violence against the protesters. But even the solo people have been seen to be picked up and just disappeared. Yeah. And that, you know, I want to believe that's true. I mean, not that the horrible thing is happening to them, but my uh my god the guts the absolute guts it takes to do something like that yeah knowing full yeah knowing full well like uh where they are and what they're and what they're doing um and yappoon has been known to like uh again that non-linear warfare thing uh where like oh like there's this uh protest organized and like i'm gonna fund the people who are for it
Starting point is 00:36:25 and against it and now you don't know like what's going on uh like that's a thing he does but it does seem like this is just like an incredible uh swelling of just like people just like no this is bad and um we don't want to be a part of it and even if that's going to put ourselves in danger which it is all right we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back in just a minute with even more even more news news what's up buttercup you want to text me sometime i'm a real good texter i use all the emojis every single one including the variations in every text I send, takes forever. Pretty weird we're talking about texting and phones right now.
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Starting point is 00:39:47 commercial here's a weak segue uh to our next topic uh so one other of the fucking takes about this whole situation is just a just a huge just a punch uh one two three four so many people doing the thing that you love to do again taylor's kind of like what you were saying it's like an event happened i gotta make it not just about me but about my thing that I care about and so there's all these fucking tweets about like wow like Russia's doing this and like we're so
Starting point is 00:40:16 unprepared I guess we shouldn't have spent so much time worrying about pronouns and like all this like gender stuff it's so many and just like yeah if we weren't obsessed with like pronouns maybe we could do something maybe a military wouldn't be weak and like all this stuff just about pronouns and gender it's nonsensical um and ridiculous and also i think it's interesting because about two or so months ago uh putin gave a big speech and it was basically
Starting point is 00:40:43 this this anti-woke creed about political correctness and like transgenderism and like oh was it on the new york times op ed page like seriously i know yeah uh byline putin thank you new york times but like uh fucking brett stevens i mean yeah like here's here's my here's putin's article about like college campuses in the u.s um but like like it was this whole thing like wokeness and political correctness and like the the gender is only two like this all this thing and i remember just various people uh being like wow putin's a monster but he's right about wokeness and like uh like jordan peterson uh did a whole vlog about it and like all these little weirdos and twerps and like now they're doing this other thing about pronouns well he's like invading
Starting point is 00:41:34 another country and it's just like you're you're the same you have the same ideology but you can't like talk about it you can't um admit it Clearly you're the one who's obsessed with this stuff. Right. Like, right. Like the, the, the former president's idiot son,
Starting point is 00:41:51 the, the oldest one, I think the, the, the one Donald Trump wrote. Yeah. The one who's always complains about his algorithms getting crushed. He,
Starting point is 00:41:59 he was like, what if we didn't like blah, blah, blah. If we didn't care so much about pronouns, like, no, you care. You care. That's the whole point is that you care so much. You're so angry about it.
Starting point is 00:42:14 And it's just I don't know. It's very frustrating to see because like, you know, again, like the sort of like the imperialist approach and like the nativ and like the the nationalism that he's bring uh talking about in relation to this and like you know you saw trump and he was like yeah uh it was good uh what a smart thing for him to do uh he's got all those tanks and stuff maybe we could do something like that at our border and it's like you're all the same um and they can't they just can't grasp it they can't face that yet. I hope they do one day. And we can all be anti-woke together. Those tweets do, unfortunately, lead us into our next story,
Starting point is 00:42:54 which is that earlier this week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in an opinion that gender-affirming care for trans or non-binary youth should be considered child abuse under state law. And now the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has ordered the Texas department of family and protective services to enforce the ruling and even refer parents for prosecution. If they've allowed their child to do things like access puberty blockers or hormone therapy or gender affirming surgeries.
Starting point is 00:43:21 This is disgusting. All, all major us medical groups support gender affirming care for trans or non-binary youth it literally saves lives it they're medically necessary it like it works it and so that not only is i guess the way I want to start this conversation is that maybe this is why we don't want to, like, give concessions on culture war issues, which has been, like, suggested a lot. Because if you, well, one, who gets to choose whose, like, freedoms get conceded? Right, which group are you going to throw under the bus is the real question there. Throwing her under the bus is the real question there.
Starting point is 00:44:13 Yeah, I mean, like, if you want to talk about people in power, like, pitting everybody else against each other so they can't look at bigger problems, this is a really good example. I don't think that – first of all, I have not been reading a lot about this story because it makes me so – it is so horrible to look at. I find it easier to – I know that this is irrational. I find it easier to watch I know that this is irrational I find it easier to watch footage from the invasion than to read an article about this hate bill that they're passing in Texas I don't think the governor gives a shit
Starting point is 00:44:34 about this right he's willing to just shove these kids to him it's a culture war to the kids it's not you take people's actual material, physical autonomy over their bodies and then just shove it in the coal-burning furnace of your wedge issues so you can be governor for four more years and get how many more hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Starting point is 00:44:59 You know, like just so he can have another 500K on a lobbyist payroll after he's done being governor? What are these people? I can't say this on the podcast. I'm an honorable man. I'll say that. Oh, okay. We'll bleep you saying you're an honorable man. Yeah, okay.
Starting point is 00:45:19 Yeah, it's infuriating. yeah it's uh it's infuriating um and and trying to trying to get leverage by like punishing parents who are trying to do the right thing and help their children is is cruel yeah can you imagine and like yeah you're a kid and like you're going through this process and the state comes and takes your parents away and sends them to jail realizing you want to transition like any any sort of uh thing about that or like it applies to like gay kids and stuff too or like part of it is they out them to their parents some kids have parents who like will hate them because of who they are um and to include this like yeah like alert the parents if you suspect that like you might have a trans kid in your class like that is like really fucked up and cruel.
Starting point is 00:46:06 And like it again, it's like this extension of we've talked about this before. Like, OK, sorry, Republicans, I guess you lost you lost gay marriage. You lost they can it you lost the issue. And now they had to sort of pretend like I actually I'm not against gay marriage. I'm against any any the government, the government being involved in marriage. I'm a libertarian about it now. They've shifted that. But they've also shifted to like, well, now we have to attack the trans community because they know that they lost this. And now so they're they've been doing this for a long time. And there's so many. I think there were like more anti trans bills in in the past like two months than all of last year uh introduced not passed um but it is definitely this this huge movement um that is in place of all this other stuff and um yeah like when you talk about like okay well like should we concede some culture war stuff what culture war stuff literally what pit like say out yeah what would you be okay with?
Starting point is 00:47:07 But also, like, they just they'll keep pushing. They'll be like, oh, thank you for that concession. Exactly. And now we're gonna outlaw this. Now we're gonna, like, you know, like, it's... Yeah. That's the difference, right? It's like, they're fighting to win, not to be loved by the other side. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, they're not looking for compromises for
Starting point is 00:47:23 any reason other than if if we get them to compromise then we get a little closer we push it a little closer we push a little closer um and it's just uh it's just abhorrent and um it's the same thing with that um i don't know if we've even talked about it on this show yet but that the don't say gay thing in um bill in florida which is another situation was like, man, DeSantis, you do not give a fuck about this.
Starting point is 00:47:49 You actually don't care. You just know, you just know that it works. And so you're like, it's all, I don't know. It's all fucked up. And I don't even know if these things will like get a lot of traction because.
Starting point is 00:48:04 Yeah. It doesn't matter even if it's an election year or not anymore it's just like we need to consistently like go back to that well and like we need to whip our voters into a frenzy every three months about something and then when that peaks and goes away then we'll critical race theory again and then the this you know like yeah move on from that for a little while uh it's black history month so we're gonna move away from crt for a little while and then uh yeah now this uh anti-trans stuff and like the even just like it's wild that the the brazenness of the don't say gay thing because it's not like like i was saying like they kind of triangulated to be like okay it's actually it's
Starting point is 00:48:39 just it's just like trans kids that's what we care about it's not it's not anything else it's just this um but they're they're already letting uh the mask lift up uh to show like what it is really all about you know i often wonder what would be the state of being like uh trans and gay and queer in america today if the if uh those absolute demons in the Bush administration had not developed gay marriage as their defining wedge issue um and you know because like if you look if you go back and look at the polls of like the 80s the 90s the aughts the tens of like how 80s, the 90s, the aughts, the tens, of like how queerness is perceived by the American populace at large. There's a dramatic shift to the, like dramatic shift.
Starting point is 00:49:32 But then it goes, but then it starts moving back. And like, it's these weird pendulum, it's like this crazy burst of like, almost, I want to say, I don't listen. I'm a podcast boy eating McRibs. I don't know. But in American history, has the entire population of the country changed their mind on any civil issue that quickly? Maybe prohibition. But to go from majority saying no gay marriage to a vast majority thumbs up gay marriage, and then to have that result in policy pretty
Starting point is 00:50:05 quickly and the and the so it's it's clear to me that like our our social progress fingers crossed uh like was very clear about like the direction we were going to this stuff and then the bush administration comes in and kohl rove and chene Frum and Gerst and all the speech writers and the think tank demons decide that gay marriage is going to be the cultural wedge issue they are going to use to destroy the last of like the third way
Starting point is 00:50:35 democrat you know to peel off the like you know economically liberal and socially conservative people to sort of build the new coalition. If they hadn't have done that, where we'd be right now? Because I still see arguments and vibes. I get big time first Bush term.
Starting point is 00:50:53 No, it was it was his reelection campaign that they did it right. It was 2004 that they made gay marriages like that was the they tried to make the election about gay marriage. And the echoes of that are now resulting in gay kids' parents being put in prison in Texas. And yet, we still allow them to walk around in the world and publish things. They're still writing about whether or not to go to war. Oh, yeah. They are on TV constantly. What's the Lincoln Project up to these days?
Starting point is 00:51:21 Oh, my God. I legit don't know the answer to that. I have not seen them in a long time. And we can only be. Yeah, we can only be happy that we don't know what they're up to. I'm sure they're working on a Netflix show or something. Oh, yeah. They're probably helping Obama produces.
Starting point is 00:51:38 Exactly. Yeah. I want to get to a couple more stories before we wrap up. I want to talk briefly about the uh child the expanded child tax credit um which was allowed to expire at the end of uh december because um mostly because uh joe mansion thought it discouraged parents from working and that he thought parents would buy drugs with the money that's what he thought why does he keep saying these thoughts like we know
Starting point is 00:52:05 what happens when these things are implemented we know why is he just i mean i know why he does but it's like frustrating like i think that they just use it for like drugs and stuff like fuck off that's not what happens it helps feed families well if he's looking for any evidence there was a study released last week uh by the center on poverty and social policy at columbia it found that 3.7 million children were plunged back into poverty at the beginning of this year after they expired um those payments had lifted those people out of poverty more than 61 million children and roughly 36 million households got the payment in december there was a 24 drop in hunger um that sounds like a good thing yeah no it sounds good just like a good thing it costs the whole program costs 120 billion dollars a year
Starting point is 00:52:59 which means that's probably the cost of the planes we just sent over to Germany today or something. Or the planes that we built that don't work, that are fucking garbage. And they, this is not, and you know, so much is important, so much is going on in the world. So I guess it's a bit of an easy target to be like, why isn't this getting more coverage? But there's been very little coverage of the fact that 3.7 million children were plunged back into poverty and the the reason i wanted to um well the extra thing i wanted to talk about in relation to this was a column this week by adam johnson and he pointed out the lack of energy being devoted to this by america's liberal op-ed columnists who are much more focused on kids wearing masks in school and how that's like
Starting point is 00:53:45 the worst thing ever. He wrote that the Atlantic published 10 times as many articles over the last year about how COVID restrictions like mask mandates and remote learning are hurting children than they did articles about the child tax credit, how it was helping children and why removing it would hurt children. So if these, if you're so concerned about children and their welfare and well-being, maybe you should focus a little bit on just the, that giving, and it's not much money, by the way. It's $250 per month for children six to 17 and $300 per month for those under six. Like, doing a little bit can go such a long way. And also, there's no evidence that kids wearing masks at school is hurting them developmentally or behaviorally. Sorry, that's a lot.
Starting point is 00:54:32 Do we pay a courier to take like a printout of this research to his yacht? Like, is there a sea courier? How do you send a letter to a man on a yacht? I don't think he does email. I know. i think you gotta bother him and then he can say that he's being canceled and ignore you have to attach it to a you gotta you gotta easy al you gotta you gotta uh you can bleep this if you want you gotta give him a viking funeral a pre-funeral because he's fine you just want him to read the fucking
Starting point is 00:55:03 research yeah but you get his attention you get his attention by lighting his yacht on fire it's the most obvious non-threat threat you could say I'm not threatening you it's a pre-funeral it's gonna give you a pre-funeral I was feeling you do like a Boromir funeral
Starting point is 00:55:19 and put the research on it and then push it out to his yacht and then he'll be like what's this flaming body in the water and it's then push it out to his yacht. And then he'll be like, what's this flaming body in the water? And it's Boromir, but it's also... Obviously, it's Boromir. It's Boromir. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:32 But it is also the study from Columbia saying it's just, you could just help, just you. Just give money. Just give money to kids, yeah. Just give money to kids. Joe Manchin's on his yacht just like housing handfuls of little tomatoes you know just smashing them dripping down his face and he's got like a starving appalachian
Starting point is 00:55:52 kid singing a folk song to him while he just really goes to town on these tomatoes and then we send off like a son he likes on fire right yeah the person you like the one person you like that you would support giving money to he's got some research for you uh wipe your face off you're covered in tomato juice yeah god this has been such a pet peeve of mine lately like not just that this thing the the child tax credit the expanded credit is gone it's not coming back and no one's talking about it but also every day there's another article of like why if we if i don't have to wear a mask in a bar why do kids still have to wear it in a school and like i get it that masks are annoying like i i'm sure like it's annoying to wear a mask all day
Starting point is 00:56:41 like yeah i hate seat belts but like some people some people don't have to give their ids at bars kids would yeah i bet i bet a kid would have to give their id like i can even see a couple of op-eds but so many the outrage over this for months now when they've won every everything's open everything everything's because they don't care like joe manchin is as much, like, he is one of the best creations of the Democratic Party. If he died and was replaced with another senator who supported all the things we like,
Starting point is 00:57:13 they would just find two more senators to vote no. Oh, absolutely. Like, he is a total cover. He's a, it's theater. Like, it's not him. The party doesn't want it. If they wanted it, they'd find a way to he's the guy doesn't want it if they wanted it they get they'd find a way to get it well right because if they wanted it and like this
Starting point is 00:57:28 is we've talked about this before just like in terms of like the current president of the united states um he he could talk about this um he could tweet about it regularly he could like use the bully pulpit in some way like he could it it's just there's always a sense of like an indication of like oh you don't care if you cared about any of this stuff you talk about it more um at the very least because you know obviously like president does a lot of things but one of the main things as a leader is like communicating like communication is a huge part in leadership and being able to communicate like not only uh what things are bad or like oh the republicans are doing blah blah but like what's good what's a good idea uh what would help people what's good
Starting point is 00:58:09 why is it good how can we do it um but i you just don't get a lot of that um but you're also right to it like there's even like reports of like uh people talking about like yeah mansion isn't the only one there are a lot of people who are grateful for him to be the guy because they don't want to be the ones to say, actually, we should do that. I mean, look at look at the Obama Congress. It did the exact same thing. And they had more of a majority. It was it was Lieberman and those guys, you know, they just it's always the rotating reason. We can't do the thing that we claim we want to do, but never actually get around to doing.
Starting point is 00:58:43 You, too, can be the mansion one day if you want to be 2040's Joe mansion run for office it can be you okay well one last story before we head out and let you go Taylor Activision Blizzard which is a major
Starting point is 00:59:00 video game company Microsoft is planning to buy it for 68.7 billion dollars what yeah that's so much fucking money yeah that's a lot of money i'm sure that's what it's worth and they're gonna make it all back obviously but like that's so much fucking money i like put that i like wrote all that down yesterday and reading that made me want to go back and make sure it wasn't like no it's a we will acquire activision blizzard for 95 a share in an all cash transaction valued at 68.7 billion dollars i want that in cash which
Starting point is 00:59:35 yeah um i mean there's a lot of consolidation going on in this uh industry um so there were they they're involved in some union busting as well. Quality assurance testers at Raven Software, which Activision owns, formed a union, the Game Workers Alliance. Activision has done a couple things. I've got a list here, and Taylor, interrupt me and correct me on this if I'm wrong about it.
Starting point is 00:59:58 Oh, sure. Well, the only thing I saw was the deck that leaked. Oh, okay. I'll get there. Union busting stories just hit me like raindrops. They're all the same. But yeah, I don't want to spoil it, please. No, no, no. So we'll get to the deck. The first thing is they refuse to recognize
Starting point is 01:00:13 the union, which means that employees have to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board and hold a vote. They pushed for all the employees. They were like, well, we think if you're going to form a union, that's fine. But then all the employees at Raven Software should vote in it, which they pretend it was real magnanimous.
Starting point is 01:00:32 But like the QA tester specifically, that group had a majority. And they're like, well, if we open it up to everyone, they're going to be like, we're not going to be able to pass this vote. Then they split up the QA staff and embedded them in other teams across the company which again would would be considered often a good thing but the timing of it in this instance makes it seem like they're just trying to split up all the members and keep them from organizing yeah so then finally it doesn't really seem like that yeah so this is all leading up to uh that the law firm representing activision blizzard Reed Smith, distributed a presentation called Union Avoidance Tips and Strategies, Do's and Don'ts.
Starting point is 01:01:10 And there's some pretty funny stuff in this presentation. You know, we got the types of supervisors who inspire unionization, bossy, pushy, or on ego trip. Demands instead of requests. You do attitude versus let's do uh weaker insecure does not take a stand oh by the way anyone who's ever like had a job knows that let's do means you do so they're like you should say let's do instead of you do but literally every boss ever said let's do this and that that means you do this um yeah this their their notes for managers of like this is how you should manage if by the way i i should tell you that like i uh i am a
Starting point is 01:01:53 union organizer i i uh i was uh one of you i was on the organizing committee of the kickstarter union uh which i'm very happy to say became the first all company tech union still negotiating their contract. Go get them, Taggers. So I've been through this process and it's very funny what it elucidates about like our culture of work and everything. So if you look at that, what they're telling the managers there, what they're essentially saying is that the way you avoid a union as a manager is you try to help your employees forget that they are at work. Like, you gotta convince them you're not their boss.
Starting point is 01:02:30 That you're just a buddy. There's a lot of that. We got meals, we got Red Bulls in the fridge, we're gonna get ping pong. It's life is what it is. This is your family. Why would you leave at night? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:49 Just don't. Just try to keep the cover on the actual nature of your relationship um just like say like yeah work sucks um here's more money uh it'll make your life better and you'll work harder like this um this this presentation also has a checklist of early signs of a union organizing attempt and it's got stuff like like graffiti if you see anti-company graffiti all over the company that's a sign of a unionization effort but also uh discussions of informal employee get-togethers after hours employees seem uncommonly busy during breaks no they're literally describing the office in here noticeable increase in casual employee gatherings um uh just like yeah go ahead no no i'm just reading this the you know what all these dumb employees seem uncommonly busy during breaks before or after work and during lunch hour formation of new clicks with
Starting point is 01:03:52 new leaders so if they're just like hey sandra didn't used to be popular and now everyone likes sandra i gotta i gotta hand it to them They know what they're talking about. Like these first, these first two slides, I would agree with, like, this is true. Like if the managers are nicer, it will discourage a union organizing. And that is a way to tell if people are organized because you have to,
Starting point is 01:04:16 you, cause you can't do it in the office. You got to take people out for coffee and do it at lunch, have drinks after. And it's, it's really hard to hide that. And so that's true. You know,
Starting point is 01:04:24 it's true. But also again, notice that like, it's, it's really hard to hide that. And so that's true. You know, it's true. But also again, notice that like, it's like everything warm and human and joyful about being alive with other people, they want to stop. And it's a warning sign, it's a red flag. What they want is like perfect mechanical cogs that do exactly as they're told and don't need anything other than 10 less on their paycheck than the other guy right and like and and it's like they're just it's discouraging that warmth in everybody but like the manager or boss yes like but it's fake so it's like the manager replaces the family with a simulacrum of community.
Starting point is 01:05:08 Just by using words where the actual structure of the relationship never changes. Now I've got to shut the fuck up because I will talk about this for two hours. But yeah, it's wild. It's like, remember those experiments they did on the monkey babies? they did on like the monkey babies. They put like the wire, the chicken wire mother monkeys in the cage to see if the monkeys would like hug the robot mommies. No.
Starting point is 01:05:32 What? What a thing to bring up. They did these experiments to see if the monkey babies would imprint on these like horrible fence mothers of wire. I love that. We're 63, whatever minutes into this and I'll,
Starting point is 01:05:50 and I'm Googling mother monkey baby robot to try and find out what this is. It's just like, they want the manager to be the horrible fence mother, you know? And yeah, you cover, you cover the horrible fence mother with straw.
Starting point is 01:06:04 So it seems oh it's like a little softer than metal wow yeah but don't look directly don't look directly at the fence mother right because yeah the eyes like okay they're like they move a little bit but if you look closer they're not they're moving very deliberately like a machine maybe uh that's so i've never heard of that but that is like the perfect analogy just like be like just like admit that it's a fucking job i don't know uh this is so all these slides are amazing i like uh some of the language like types of employees that unions exploit this rules so i'm going to first read the final slide
Starting point is 01:06:49 and then there's the original slide is even funnier so this is types of employees unions exploit lazy non-productive or inefficient footloose and fancy free no major obligations or commitments financial or otherwise then why do they have a job all right uh rebel anti-establishment opposes society structure management then why do they have that job all right uh malingerer perfect word yes you're right amazing word uh something like tag yourself a malingerer that's me uh me me uh whiner and complainer uh and then just activist like there's this long list and there's activists uh overqualified for current job position well if they're qualified isn't that a sign you should give them a raise
Starting point is 01:07:43 or so yeah it's like no don't give them a raise they're joining a union right like oh there's overqualified employees we should fire them because like but it was updated from this slide types of employees unions exploit bums malingerers ne'er-do-wells layabouts slug a bed this has to be fake i'm sorry it's gotta be fucking away there's no fucking way i'm sorry slug i love how the fake one captain malingerers but yeah the real slide maling footloose and fancy free malingerers who hate society footloose and fancy free it's incredible slash activist
Starting point is 01:08:29 that's going in my bio on all the fuck apps I'm a footloose fancy free malingerer who hates society occasional whiner and complainer but I'm also overqualified for my job what the fuck is a malingerer? Oh, it's so good.
Starting point is 01:08:48 I'll tell you what it is. It's a person that employees and unions exploit, right? You know, have you noticed that a lot of our employees have changed their social structure recently? I've noticed the malingerers are getting a lot of respect at the happy hour drinks after work. It's unusual. All those people who are exaggerating that COVID they got. I think they're malingering a little too much. And have you noticed, yeah, Clarice has been really, I don't know how to describe her, fancy free?
Starting point is 01:09:22 I'd even say footloose recently. Footloose, I was going to say footloose. She's been so footloose lately. We should probably lock them in a dance hall and set it on fire. Which is what they did to the coal miners. Call the Pinkertons. Okay.
Starting point is 01:09:40 Wow. Hold on. I should say I was making a joke about calling the Pinkertons. What the fuck? Amazon did that. There was a Christian Smalls, a badass union organizer who's trying to organize the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, was with some union organizers delivering food to people on their lunch break, and Amazon called the cops on him and had them carted away by the nypd
Starting point is 01:10:06 amazon thought they were gonna get out of this episode with uh no criticism not this time no bezzy nope not any week ever um that's uh that's wild. Yeah. Two workers. And, okay. So Christian and two other workers. That's, God. Yep. Imagine, like, having a friend, like, bring you some free food at work, and your boss calls the police and has them arrested. Like, it's, again, it's, like, that, like, warmth that they're trying to squash, like, amongst, like, their employees.
Starting point is 01:10:44 And, like, no, no, you're going to go to jail. But I have a meal for you. Look at our free tender greens Friday. All right. Great. It's such union stuff is so funny because if you get like if you just take the first layer off, you discover that it's just fundamentally about like everything that's good about being a human with other people versus everything horrible the world wants to do to you and it really is like a manichean like fundamental battle between the good and evil in the human
Starting point is 01:11:15 spirit yeah and like there's like yeah human beings against like this like weird like rhetoric tone monster this is like hey we're here and we're together and we appreciate you but not that much no you're not not enough yeah but Taylor thank you so much
Starting point is 01:11:38 for joining us today why don't you tell us and our audience where they can find you online talk about some of your podcasts and other projects? Oh, well, my goodness. Thank you so much for having me. You can follow me online at taylor.biz, T-A-Y-L-O-R-D-O-T-B-I-Z. And I strongly recommend you listen to the wonderful world of podcasts that I produce.
Starting point is 01:12:03 Just podcasts. You know, podcasts. Have you heard about this? You seen this? of podcasts that I that I produce in you know podcasts have you heard about this you seen this no you can find me producing and appearing on a rude tales of magic fun city and oh these those stars of space highly recommend it's apparently
Starting point is 01:12:17 a new episode of retails today which I found out right before recording this and maybe mad because I couldn't listen to it right away you're gonna love it. Well, also, but Cody, let me recommend just podcasts in general. The world of podcasts. You should check those out. Will I learn anything?
Starting point is 01:12:37 No, no, you won't learn anything. Oh, then absolutely. I will check out podcasts. Taylor, thank you so much for being here on a tough day of news thank you for going through it all with us thank you everyone for listening Katie will be back next week remember we love you very much
Starting point is 01:12:55 bye

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