Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Miles.
We're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by an award winning comedian and co host of the Good Muslim, Bad Muslim podcast feature on Oprah Magazine. She is the pop Culture Collaborative Senior Fellow on Comedy for Social Change. It's the brilliant, the talented Zara Normal.
I thanky goo god, hi, Hey my god.
Thanksgiving was delicious.
We had three wow to hear that.
I was curious what people eat on Thanksgiving and it is turkey.
It turns out I also had ham for the first time. Not for the first time in my life. Oh okay, I'm the pork eating Muslim, but ham for the first time at Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
That was like a side meat along with the turkey.
It was a side meat. Why do we eat turkey?
I think the turkey pair is better with the savory sides. So I do I do two plates. My first plate turkey stuffing mashy potatoes and some grave and then on the ham one I like to go with like the sweet potato casserole on the side there because that like has the I feel like ham goes well with the sweet. Ham's a little bit of a sweetie.
It was super sweet. It was all buttery and delicious and very salty. And I'm still puffy.
Are you?
Yeah?
I feel I'm going to be bloated for I don't know, a couple of months.
Staying wedding ring won't come off. That's why, because it's yeah, because I'm about to go to the club and ball out.
Thank you. I feel like for all the guff the turkey gets, and we give it a lot of guff on this podcast. I'll tell you the dryness, I feel like is the thing that made people come out of their comfort zone and invent gravy and stuffing and mashed potatoes and all those wonderful moist Yeah, it.
Sounds like you're talking about my vagina.
Come on, now, you gotta have that with potatoes.
Do you know what I want to talk about? Clear your calendar? Yeah, your agenda. I celebrated this year twenty years of marriage with.
My husbands, even realized alred together that long middle years.
Yeah, you're exactly twenty eight.
Yeah, canonically right, I mean canonically.
I don't know what that means because I don't do mental math.
But it's a long time, actual woman, this long monogamously.
Yeah, the monogues Patrick Monogue.
Dedicated to one dick. Yeah, wow, And that's what I'm gonna go around saying, yeah.
Just get a T shirt to celebrate your anniversary dedicated to one dick for twenty years in counting.
I'm not one of those people that need to like celebrate her husband's dick for everyone. Yeah, yeah, sure, I don't need to talk about like how big it is and how hard he goes and how I'm just orgasming all the time.
I don't need to do that.
Isn't like a consolation thing for the penis har to like always talk about it.
It's like, so, thank you so much for talking about how.
Hard my husband's dick is. Like, uh that.
You're doing you're doing.
His dick is so big it's split.
Wow, I get shockered.
It's been twenty.
Years by the one dick.
Wow.
That's pretty impressive and strange, but kind of.
It's also studied with like an STD from like two thousand and four that we never investigate.
Huh yeah, yeah, ruins the marriage to ask questions.
We had that for Thanksgiving.
That's just an added feature. Exactly, pretty great. What is something from your search history that is revealing about.
Who you are?
Okay? Dutch ovens.
I wanted to know what they were used for Jack he Scott, his mom one. It was really sweet and so not.
The one that I was picturing in my mind. Go ahead, nope, okay, no, yeah not.
Is that like a Kentucky woman? What that's a different one?
Okay, no, just Dutch Ovens.
I was like, what the hell?
Oh Crusette, Yeah, yeah, because aren't they like like lock Crousette. Well, Lockerusette is one of the brands you get other brands, but uh there's like so you can use it for so many different things and I didn't know and it's very specific.
Yeah, what's the specific?
I was just making big ass like soups and ship in the Dutch oven that I have.
I think it's I think it's good for like certain sauces and stuff, and like if it's porcelain and cast iron, like there's different like combinations. I'm not quite sure, but yeah, I was like carrying my.
Cat piss in there. Yeah. It's actually really good because nobody sees what you're carrying around in all the questions like.
Is that your pee Jack has been asking you Christmas?
You actually don't. You know, somebody tipped you off and that's why you're asking.
Movie you side carrying around your cat biss.
You're like, oh, I got my famous chili, Like get out of here, better put it over.
Here like sver is like, we can't have him in this movie. You're like, what about a wet Frosty? What about a wet yellow Frosty?
Yeah, a wet frost I mean Frosty would be wet if he was hot, like you know eventually anyway, melty Frosty.
That works.
So anyways, you did you guys get one those things.
And she was very happy.
Not the light cruise like a different brand or whatever, but he bought one for his mom and she was very happy.
You could just like put him in any yeah, you like throw him in the oven. You can put one oven in them.
Yeah, that's how I make a like a lot of meat pots. The meat like a bowling ace. You do that real slow cook, a real low in the oven.
Wait, what so what is a Kentucky woman? By the way, it's like a buttercup? Still, I was only familiar with what is.
Going on?
Do people still use urban dictionary?
I don't know. I think it's out there. I don't know.
I know he's out there, but like, I've only ever heard of millennials using it.
I feel like, do does gen z use urban dictionary?
They don't care because they're making everything up.
They don't care what.
We're talking about.
They're too busy silken, yeah.
Exactly, pound in dirty sods. Uh No, it's a that's It's like it's like when you cup a fart and you put it to someone's face.
Oh, is that that's a buttercup?
Wait?
Is that a Kentucky woman or a buttercup?
Two hands or what?
Interchangeably with some of the what's.
Your problem with women?
Man? Some of the I don't know.
It was just so weird that you're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
You know.
It?
It's like you're like, it's soda and pop.
Yeah, this is what happens when you the like the most technology you had at your fingertips at sixteen years old was like a Nokia thirty three ninety phone.
Yeah, yeah, I was.
Although my eleven year old nephew I did hear giving one of my sons a Dutch oven recently. He was like they were referring to the Dutch oven and it made me feel like I was not.
Like, this country isn't lost.
This country has a damn future after all, Blair, what is something you think is underrated?
What is Oh my god, thank you for asking me, because I gotta say, aliens? Aliens?
Are you kidding me?
I'm obsessed with the aliens. I can't stop thinking about the aliens. I spent all my time on alien TikTok, and you know I have to say, uh for being such a whack a doodle. I never thought about aliens once in my life until twenty twenty two when the government said, like they're real, and now everyone is just so uninterested and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm amazed and obsessed.
I mean, everyone thought yesterday or the third was supposed to be alien invasion day. I kept reading that on the internet.
Was like or just a fucking time.
But then there are all those drones flying over like New Jersey and all over the US where people like, what are these car sized drones that are like hovering around? And I'm like, right, I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, well I.
Was always checking out my window on the hour every day, on the hour last yesterday, because.
I was wating that big shadow to come over and you to like kind of look up like that, Oh.
Take me, babe, I'm ready that alien walk me like a dog. I'm exhausted.
Would you be like, you know, an Independence Day.
They're like those people in downtown LA on the top of the at the time was like the first Interstate base building and they're like with their signs are like yes, you're like, oh my god, you guys.
Are eating.
Slagitch.
No, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have like homemade cookies ready for them. You got do you like these are alien cookies? You like any study alien?
It look like when I thought aliens were gonna look like, they actually don't look like you. Sorry, you guys are real fucked up looking.
But I am worried about that, genuine genuinely because you know, well, I have been perusing all the theories on TikTok, and people are like, well, what if the aliens are actually mermaids? And then and then I started worrying about that because I was like, oh, I don't think they're gonna be like the mermaids from Peter Pan. I think I'm worried they're gonna look like a goddamn or a eel.
That's just like yeah, yeah fish, yeah something have like the little light and the big nasty jaws.
Yeah I don't want yeah, yeah, we don't want gross faces aliens.
Uh, we do like your face gross face killer. But yeah, it's it is something that like when we start talking about it, I sometimes I'm like, why do we ever talk about anything else? But I yeah, it is so interesting that like the more disclosure there's been, or the more seriously the government takes it, the more people are just like, I don't know, man, you guys are saying yeah, yeah.
To this all leads truly back to my childhood, the Warped Tour, because Tom DeLong is responsible for all of it.
Yeah, definitely, he definitely put yeah man, he put his money where his mouth is.
Yeah, he was able to infiltrate the one and convince it for disclosure.
Do you think there are messages hidden him blink one ay two lyrics that like slowly just like wormed their way through the minds of Yeah.
I would love to talk to Tom DeLong sometime and be like, so, were you visited or how did this all come about for you? How did you know? How did this all happen?
You want to know why they need to be reminded of what their age is again because they've had their memory wiped after an alien encounter. Is that right? Yeah?
Yes, such an age again?
What is something that you think is overrated?
Okay, I'm gonna say this. People aren't gonna like it. Nobody's going to agree with me.
It's fine.
I think that Spotify Wrapped is overrated.
I don't care about Spotify rapped.
I know what songs I listened to, right, and and then I look at people's page and they're posting their Spotify rapped and it's just everyone's like I listened to Espresso and I'm like, I bet you did.
Like I'm a pink pony.
I'm a pink pony, Prince Pilates girl or whatever, and I'm like, cool, it seems like everyone I know it is a pink pony pilates girl.
My Spotify rap is actually broken this year for some reason.
You know what I'm gonna say, at least well, yeah, so okay last year, Okayty.
Did reveal that I had Meghan Trainer on my Spotify rap, which was that why she don't like.
Spotify rap because she had Megan Trainer on her Spotify and rapped.
Yeah, it does feel like it's the equivalent of dreams, like somebody else's Spotify rap is always like kind of uninteresting to me, but like sometimes I learned something I don't want to know about myself in the Spotify rap. For I'm like, oh really damn damn Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I.
Don't want to unpacked that check or you want to.
Just move on, Well what Megan Trainer for.
Instance, Megan was last year and I've come to terms with that and I've owned that. But in finding in my Spotify raps being broken this year and me feeling like no motivation to fix it or figure it out, I realized that, like, it just doesn't have a ton of meaning for me. Yeah, but if it does for you, that's fine, But it is, it's it's overrated for me, Yeah.
The stuff I learned, I feel like because I'm so used to seeing the Spotify rap like through the year, I'm like, oh, this shit's about to be my number one song, like I can like not even in a way that's celebratory, or I'm like I already know, like I'm playing the shit out of this one album or song that sometimes I don't even look because I'm just like I already know, I already know I fucking nerd it out on like this one song for three straight days on a loop, and that's usually how my whole
thing gets thrown off.
But yeah, and it was.
Made You Look by Megan Trainer is what you're saying.
It was made you Look by Megan Trainer, followed by made You Look by nos.
Yeah you like that title anything?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Your genre is weirdly songs called made you Look.
Like and put in a random word in Spotify and then see all the songs that like roses is a good one or crazy or something, and then like seeing
all the songs that like have that. I also say a lot of people at least were hating on Spotify rap this year because Spotify laid off all their creatives so like the fucking Spotify rap this year was like AI and like Whack and Corny were like usually it's like here's are your horoscopes or here's Spotify like everyone who like the top listeners in your city, or this is what people like? Your vibe is like Silverla, can you live in like Chicago or something? But because of
what they laid everyone off. The Spotify Spotify rapped was people's mom's dry ass turkey.
You like Taylor Swift, You're welcome.
I will say.
The only person who posted a Spotify raps that intrigued me in any way, shape or form is I would say that the Prince of New York.
Posted his, but he blacked.
Out one of them. And so now I am intrigued. How I want to know what was I thought?
He said it was Rue Paul.
He was embursed.
He was embarrassed about liking Rue Paul because as is like a city councilman in Bettsty who is like twenty six and he's like democratic socialist and yeah, the.
Same broker fee thing removed.
He rocks.
That's great if that's why the mystery look him on the right side.
But like the Rue Paul thing, like Oh, so you were fracking And he's like, well.
Yeah, that's that might be it.
This is pre fracking, ru Paul. You know, I try to separate the artists from the fracking.
Separate the art from the fracking.
Well, can't be done.
Okay, can't be done.
How about you, MELI, is there something that you think is overrated?
Yes?
As a black woman, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I think Andrew Schultz is overrated. I think Chris Corny, I don't think he's funny at all. First of all, like this, and I'm saying this topically because he did this like five minute crash out because Kendrick Lamar. First of all, Kendrick Lamari said in a song like no
white comedians make fun of black women. He didn't say Andrew Schultz, but Andrew Schaltz has since been panicking for like the past week and then went on like this whole diatribe and did like two minutes about how he would he could rape Kendrick Lamar. It was really fucking weird. We'll probably talk about in the podcast release.
But I was like, what, I didn't just went there.
Well, I'm taller than him, so I could you know I could physically have sex with him and even if he wants to or not, because and it's just like and then all his little lackeys are like laughing, and I'm.
Just like this, this this guy's.
Corny and it's not He's never been that funny guy. Code is like corny. I don't know, it's just all like it's all dark, and it's like you have Donald Trump, Like also automatically you had Donald Trump on your pod, Like you can't be claiming hip hop or whatever. I don't know, so that's just that. And then he's like, oh, rappers don't respect women either, and it's like, okay, sure, but like shut the fuck up.
I don't know, so, yeah, you're not of yeah exactly. He he definitely immediately made that about himself in a way or I just saw a clip of that and I go, I don't need to see anymore of this shit, right, And it's weird to see like all the flagrant pod fans be like.
People don't understand his This is just jokes, bro.
This is like what he does because he's trying to get a rise at everybody, and he clearly succeeding. I'm like, what a way to describe you being so unfunny and just offensive. They're like it's so funny that y'all are offended, okay, and so he has won the argument and yeah, and if Kendrick claps back like Andrew's just gonna win, that's just like there's no way Kendrick wins this one. And you're like, this isn't even about that, this is about if anything was about Drake.
So yeah, just like brain rotted, I'm like, like it's not funny, Like what is funny about this? And then you're clap back to someone being like, don't talk about black women because it's just that like you, it's actually yeah, like that's just not I'm just trying to find where it's funny and it's not. And it's just like half of these and I'm just waiting now that Trump's in president, I'm just like, let us be the canceled Like I
want to be the canceled comedy whatever. Yeah, and get all those like reactionary fucking money that these people are so rich. It's like all the like the Top ten podcast us like stress me Out. It's all these like rich white people who are just talking bullshit and I'm just like shut up.
Yeah, So anyway, that was yeah, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that.
Like that's the worst part of every Andrew Schultz clip is that he says the most racist crazy ship on his podcast and then there's like no less than five men of color like laughing at.
And signing, and then it's funny too, well, who are those like two black dudes from England who like came back like well.
Pod on the pod they got the ships and gigs pod, which we know, yeah, like they're fucking they they completely fucked their ship up because their their audience was primarily women. So yeah, we those guys are they're like, oh, we had what did they say, fight or flight? Andrew Schultz said that racist thing and we just laughed along because we had fight in our flight. Like we didn't know like that this was gonna happen. We thought it was
just gonna be like fun talking. It's like, you didn't google Andrew Schultz like once, right, I guess they don't have Google. They probably uses something else in England dot co dot UK, dot co dot UK. That's how they got you.
All right, let's uh, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and we'll get into some news. We'll be right back, and we're back, We're back. And yeah, So the biggest healthcare insurance provider CEO, was killed in front of the hotel that I stayed at like a month and a half ago, and that is really part of the store.
It's immediately made about that that you stayed at that hot that Hilton.
Yeah, I noticed that. You didn't write it in the headline.
Look, I'm just glad you narrowly escaped this.
Okay, Jack, Yeah, very narrowly. How do we know the bullet wasn't meant for me?
We don't. We don't yet know that.
We know very little.
I was there two months prior.
But this is a company, United Healthcare, that had already been getting a little bit of attention. Yeah, because I mean people, because they don't pay people's healthcare costs.
They're the biggest insurance provider, you know what I mean. The basically what happened was, I'm sure people know, like a gunman just pulled up right behind this guy in front of the hotel and shot him down with like a silenced gun and yeah, and then hopped on a city bike and went off into Central Park. And vanished, and I think that right now the manhunt is on as of the time we were recording this, since it is.
Later on Wednesday.
So then basically he was later pronounced dead and the cops did say that they this was like a targeted shooting. So if was targeted, what could the motive possibly be is what immediately I think launched a thousand takes on the internet.
But I think that's what kind of.
Makes this story very interesting and feels like we're on the I don't know, were in the edge of something very different. But United again biggest healthcare provider. Most people would describe their practices as evil, which I think is pretty standard across most health insurance providers. They bring in almost six billion dollars a quarter in profits. That's two billion a month in profits. Okay, yes, this guy, Brian Thompson. His pay was around reported to be around ten million
a year. So again, this is not a small business person as someone who's like at the front of like a gigantic behemoth company that again preys on people's need for health insurance to extract profits. So the most recent headlines just surrounding United in general have to do with obviously like they're constant denial of insurance claims, Like they by far deny the most insurance claims out of any provider they've been using.
That's what he was about to get on stage and say, we're putting up numbers. We are denying so many claims.
Yeah, they're playing ballingay the diplomats, they were using AI to deny claims they have. They are like anti trust investigations by the Department of Justice and like seriously shady shit, like they let their clearinghouse and claims processing system go down, which essentially stopped money flowing to the physicians and hospitals that are providing the care that they're like, okay, now pay me for for dividing the care, you're the insurance company.
And so that lack of money moving through the system has led to a lot of cash strapped practices that are being bought up by fucking United Healthcare.
Well you know what, it's you know who has a lot of money now that we're no longer paying you U. Yeah, so we're, uh, you need to need to buy you exactly.
Really that So, I mean there's a lot like the one thing that I was really reading about, like because Thompson was in charge of like Medicare and government programs, and that side of United's business is pretty fucked up. So for like they're they right now, they're enrollees in their Medicare advantage program. They account for like almost thirty percent of like the people who are on like on Medicare.
And again they're doing this whole thing where they lean on doctors to put these diagnosis codes into the patient's medical records. And then those codes again, those give you a score that are like how healthy or sick is this person? And if you are more sick, then you are able to get more money from the government. So they they're telling doctors like you need to put you We want these people. It's beneficial for us as a company if these people look as sick as possible.
Can you do this?
And again this is from this report quote Medicare advantage insurers have gained the system by excessively coding their members, resulting in massive over payments to the companies. Over payments based on coding alone are expected to total fifty billion dollars this year, more than the Department of Justice's entire budget.
Dozens of former doctors and employees at United Health Medical Practices told stat how they became enmeshed in United Health strategy to make their patients seem as sick as possible. Doctors said the company had a fixation with medical coding to generate more revenue, encouraging clinicians through bonuses and performance reviews to identify more health problems in patients, even if those conditions seemed dubious. I mean, I think most people know that our healthcare system is not like on the
up and up. But that's where like you'd hope that this event would maybe kick off some kind of reckoning with our healthcare system. But I feel like in the age we're in, we're more likely to probably see headlines saying that it's like it's actually immigrants that are the ones that are causing skyrocketing health care costs, and not the fact that these insurance companies are basically controlling the game from both ends. His wife did say that he
had been receiving threats prior to this. Uh, this is what she told NBC News quote, there had been some threats. Basically, I don't know, A lack of coverage was how she described, like people's.
Yeah, yeah, well this Honestly, this story sounds like the opening scene of a Batman movie.
I'm not even kidding.
Yeah, And these are the most unre This is the most unregulated predatory industry in our country and profiting like and you know, the the suicides and things that happened that go into medical debt and like I'm going through this thing. I'm about to have surgery on my head to remove a mass in a couple of weeks, and it's been a two year long process. I have, Like I pay one of my biggest expenses is like private health insurance, and it increases dramatically every single year.
I was having so many, so much trouble getting these scans that I almost just gave up.
I feel like so bad for people who It made me realize so much about health insurance in the health industry and people who have real cancer and all this stuff, what they go through. It is just so sad and like, don't I also don't like when people celebrate like bad people's deaths, Like I find it barbaric no matter who they are, Like I'll never be excited that someone was murdered, because then you become just like them.
But like, this is a true, true issue and it.
Does mark and maybe I'm wrong and chronically online, but it also just feels a general escalation worldwide of things like that are happening right now, just just like an intensity and escalation of energy that's happening.
Yeah, a lot of I feel like a lot of the stuff we've been talking about in the aftermath the election with regards like people being fed up the system and like voting the way they did because they just wanted to like go with the side that wasn't like the current system is working great, We're killing it over here.
I think the industry, the version of the current system as it currently exists that people that is affecting the most people's lives and the most transparently evil and malfunctioning way is the healthcare and like health insurance industry, And so it makes sense that this would be like a place where we would see like something irrupt on this front.
But well, they have like some demonic practices Like I remember when I was like tweeting through I had this biopsy denied and the someone wrote me and was like, I work in the billing at the health insurance company, and just so you know, they make us deny the first to requests automatically Yeah. I was like, how is that even possible? You try to make people give up and then they still.
It's like sick, yeah, it's come back, come back wing, you're really automatically deny, Like how is that even how.
Is that legal?
Right?
And that's why United has like a lot of healthcare or a lot of turnover with people that are dealing with claims because they're like what is that Like you're telling me like this this person needs care and you're like.
No, no, no.
Our apolicies like just to fucking deny it first and then if they really want it, then they'll come back.
Anyone who's ever had to deal with insurance companies, whether you have like good insurance or like bad insurance or you know, health insurance in the United States, like their ultimate goal is to not pay for the thing that
you need them to pay for. And it's like it's obvious, and they do a lot like a lot of the we've talked about like people's suspicion around the Democratic parties, like you know, having these really complicated programs that people that are supposed to like solve the problems that I think people are suspicious of that because the you know, corporations and like the current system hides behind complexity, and like the things that are always hiding behind complexity and
long contracts or like long bureaucratic processes is always like fucking you over and like funneling money upward towards the corporations, and like they are the version of that that most people are going to you know, theft hiding behind complexity is like theirm O and you know, I just feel like it makes sense to me that this is going to be a place where people are feeling a ton of rage and like that there's a big we've talked
before about this book, The Ministry for the Future. That's it's a sci fi novel, but it's about like the near future and like how things will start to like
break apart and could fix themselves. And like one of the things that they predict we're going to start seeing are these like more class based terror attacks, where like the thing that they talk about is like private jets start getting like taken down by drones like out of the sky, and like that's the only way they can get like the wealthy to stop flying in private jets and then the wealthy to get on board with like a carbon based economy because they're like kidnapped and held
hostage at Davos. Some like I do feel like we're probably going to start seeing something like that at some point in the in the coming years.
It's a it's an it's an inevitability when you have such gaps in wealth that people do understand that you can harm someone or kidnap someone to get money, like it happens everywhere there's massive wealth inequality. I think it's just like looking at you know, the whole picture, it is. Yeah, Like I'm like, this feels like an for sure an escalation. But again, like there's gonna like to your point, Blair, there'll be a lot of hand ringing over whether or
not this person's death was justified. But I think that's completely misses the point when the real discussion needs to be around whether or not like our greed based system of care is justified. That's really like if it's just all about who's who's the guy? What were they thinking?
Why did they use a city bike? It's like the real, the real fucking issue is that we have completely normalized and we celebrate this system of like squeezing profits out of people to the point of financial and emotional bankruptcy, and like we that that that is immoral, and I know that it'll be much easier to sort of get into the minutia of things to avoid those kinds of discussions.
But that's all of this, Like when you see, like to your point, Jack, like the rage and lack of sympathy or empathy for this guy, it's all born out of the fact that many people have felt They're like, well, this guy is profiting off of an industry that quite literally puts people to their premature death in the name of profits, and that's there's a lot of just that
anger not being addressed. Yeah, is only I think going to increase, especially as people's financial situations get dire and like people get like you read all these horses like I had, I had a procedure done and they've discovered I had cancer, but then they said they were going to deny my coverage because there was a pre existing condition.
Like then what are.
They Like, you're telling people, Yeah, you're fucked. That's the message you're giving people, and that I can manifest in a number of ways. And I think it's still early right to know what may or may not have happened, but the police are definitely like it feels targeted.
The reason is, yeah, I feel like the story is people's reaction and the fact that people are like kind of celebratory. It's like, you know that that's a dark place we're in, but I feel like that will be
that that's going to get people's attention. And you know what, whether the person is like some assassin who's doing this for class based reasons or for like retro or it's just you know, like I don't know, but my touch point for crimes like this that always like seem like they're going to have one you know, story, one like shape to them, like a lot of time, like the anthrax attacks immediately after nine to eleven, where it just seemed like, Okay, this is this is our new reality.
There's just gonna be widening like anthrax attacks and like that's how the terror attacks are going to be happening
from now on. And then it turned out it was like probably a guy who worked in the government anthrax labs who investigated the anthrax attacks and was like doing it to try and get more funding for his anthrax labs because they were like just like, like I get the equivalent of that would be like this person, this killer is like doing it because he is in the industry of like security for wealthy people, and he's like trying to get like drum get business for rich people, which,
by the way, that is going to happen. Then like the wealthy are this is boom times for private security companies. I have to assume after this.
Yeah, yeah, but they just need someone I mean, I know this has been said forever, but like they need to completely overhaul that industry, like someone hardcore passed, put the hammer down, make some hardcore laws, like revamp the whole thing.
But I mean, well, I think this is the gridlock that we experience right because to most people, you're like, this can't keep going. And then to the people on the other side of that equation who are reaping the profits, like this.
Shit is never gonna fucking stop. Are you kidding me?
And we'll put as much money as possible into making sure the laws don't change, and even if it is Obamacare, we'll find a way to start making money on other ways. Even if Obamacare will cap the profits we can make on healthcare, then we'll find other like other avenues to profit off of which they did.
Yeah, Obamacare was written by private like people from the private insurance healthcare, health insurance come uh industry Like that's yeah, yeah.
Because that's what before it is like, well, we pay the insurance. And then they're like, so there's a cap on what you make from insurance. But then then they must have known this in writing it. They're like, but there's no cap to what we can make off of providing medical care. And that's when things started changing and
this consolidation began. But yeah, I think that's what like that sort of frustration is because a lot of times you're like, with climate change and things like this, you're like, these people are fucking killing us, and you're like, how
the fuck is there no recourse? And you always talk about like these people aren't afraid of like the proletarians basically, yeah, and that's that like, and people always wondering like is that what they need they need to be scared or whatever, And this is kind of like I think feeding into that because that's you see so many people. I think, even Jack if it comes out and this the motive
had nothing to do with like health insurance practices. I feel like people because they are so enraged by the system, it'll completely memory hole that because it feels like a clean cause and effect, Like these people are fucking monsters and that's just what fucking happens. I think so many people are truly just feel that rage in their bones because whether.
It's a crisis, it's a real crisis. Like and you hear those horrific stories that are just so heartbreaking where someone will take their own life because they don't want to burden their family with the debt or stuff like that. It's just so devastating and dystopian.
Yeah, or get like divorced so then their spouse won't have to incur any of like the debt. There's like you're like, what kind of maneuvering is this?
Yeah, that we don't Again, this was.
Interest because like when shinzo Abe was assassinated and that guy shot him with a homemade shotgun. The it's it was interesting people and like the news the way the country sort of handled that was.
Sort of like, well why.
And then it became this larger thing about how political parties were entrenched with different organizations and there was like a reckoning there. I just don't with something like this. I don't will this actually, Like I'm curious how the mainstream media covers this. Is it just going to be like this is out of control. People have like homemade suppressors and are walking around on the streets of New York.
We need police.
That's probably the way to go, because that makes existing industries more you know, profitable, rather than why and what is the big problem here? But I feel like then you start getting into universal healthcare, and that seems to be, you know, a third rail.
It's a non starter. Miles, that's a yeah, so you understand, YEAHOX.
News is going to be like, oh, poor person was mad?
Yea yeah, right, yeah, well yeah, probably both sides want that to be the shape of the story enough that like that will become somehow or another of the story until they like actually catch the person and they're like it was actually numerology, I just picked them at random. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about a new Mickey Mouse slasher film.
Come on, and we're back. And as mentioned, you might be hearing helicopters diving and swooping in the background, and you might be thicking Those aren't l A p. D helicopters that we normally hear diving and swooping in the background of Miles and Jack's recordings. Those helicopters sound like they're looking for somebody in New York City. You know, it's totally it's a different vibe.
Those helicopters sound like they answer to Eric Adams.
That's right.
They seem is someone drunk driving those helicopters yew York.
That's a really good Eric Adams.
When he talked about.
Twins hours, you talk about what is great about New York City. The great thing about New York City. You could have planes crash into your twin towers or somebody open a business. That's what's great. Wait nine eleven is why.
Great things? Is that?
Did that bring you guys to New York City? The possibility of another.
You know, one of the beautiful things about New York is, Yeah, anything could happen. You could one day, you could start a podcast. The next day you could see that a healthcare executive has.
Been gunned down in the streets.
Anything can happen anything.
Yeah. It's been interesting to see the different reactions because the mainstream media is like this is not good, and we're you know, like talking about it as like, uh, you know, how how our company is going to react to this, and you know, just covering it as a straightforward, terrible thing that has happened, right the way that I guess we've always reacted to murders. But then there's a real upswell of internet sentiment that's just like very celebratory.
They had to shut down through out the entire r medicine thread about the case because doctors were cracking too many jokes about this person's murder. But yeah, what are we hearing from the New York Times.
I Mean, there's just different things, right because you know, when this thing happened, I was like, this is not.
Going to spur some conversation about our healthcare system. It's not.
They're going to focus everything like on the crime itself, which I get that's what they're doing as journalists, but like to completely miss that dimension of it, I think is a little odd if that's the you know, because they're still like, what could be the motive, even though they just found that on some of the shells or the casings and bullets that were at the scene, said denied, defend, depose, and you know, some some of some some outlets are
doing some head scratching, and you're like, this might be tied to a phrase used in the insurance industry.
Some sort of police based batman villain.
I don't know.
And then others did blatantly point out, like there is a book called Delayed, Deny Defend whose subtitle is why insurance companies don't pay play or pay claims and what you can do about it? The New York Times, there's just one sentence that's really just glossed over something kind of important. This is just one sentence said quote chief executive officers of healthcare companies often receive threats because of
the nature of their work. Moving along, go on, what is the nature of that work and how could that potentially radicalize someone? So again, a few articles then pointed out that United has quote relatively high instances of denying coverage when it is in fact like an outlier in terms of denying coverage and making massive profits. Then there are more articles in paragraph pointing to like what companies
can and should do to protect their leadership. Another thing that like we found out in the last day was apparently he was also this guy, the CEO is being investigated for insider training because there was a doj Anti trust investigation happening that wasn't public yet, but he just offloaded a ton of shares like to the tune of fifteen million dollars before the before the news became public.
So again they're still kind of doing the thing where they're like, we still we're not sure what is going on, but kind of around the margins, pointing at things that again may have affected somebody to the point that they
were motivated to kill this guy. And I don't know it just it's a very interesting moment because this is like, like you're saying at the top, Jack, like, the the sentiment around this guy who killed Brian Thompson is like, this guy's fucking bay, you know what I mean, Like, we love this dude, he's hot, this is the this is the dopest shit we've ever seen. And I think
that definitely feels different, you know what I mean. We're like unanimously people were like, yeah, I don't care that this guy got gunned down because I think because this CEO happened to be just represent like a physical manifestation of all the wrongs that the insurance industry enacts on just regular people, and I think for that reason, like all, it's like a lightning rod for all of this I or that people have for the insurance as a whole is just turning into like memes about like.
This one guy.
Yeah, I feel like, okay, well number one, I just want to say, as we always say on Go Touch Grass, that Go Touch Grass is an anti murder podcast.
Ultimately, I have again.
That always like it's not cool, but.
We actually had to say more than you would.
Think about the woman who was harassing Gypsy Rose. There was a girl that was like, you know, making fun of Gypsy Rose a lot and harassing her. Uh you know, and it's like, okay, well what Gypsy Rose did, it wasn't cool, but you know.
It's not cool, and then then you know the Trump assass it.
Comes up again Anti murder podcast. But I will say for my personal self, my hope for my life is that I live my life in such a way that if someone guns me down in the streets of New York, the reaction isn't.
Oh yeah, we know why he did.
That, right, Oh yeah, no, that's for sure for sure.
Well, and I'm also just Like, it's interesting because in the post election kind of post mortem conversations that people are having, you know, the reasons why Democrats fared so poorly was because of there wasn't any good solid anti popular like our populist policy and all that stuff, and people are like, oh, people are you know, are voting for Trump because they wanted to say fuck you and like they want cheaper eggs and shit like that and like that has you know, and there's been pushback on
you know, by the establishment of like well that's not true. It's like basically and all this stuff.
But like the.
Reaction to you know, somebody their blood there, like people do want to do something and they're doing it. Like it's kind of escalating in this way where you know, is voting for Trump the solution, No, I don't think so. Is gutting someone down in midtown the solution probably not. But like people, but there aren't other solutions being presented.
No one is stopping these healthcare companies, no one is making any you know, so people are feeling it and everyone's acting like everything's okay and yeah, so I could totally see someone being like, yeah, fuck it, like I
don't give a fuck about. You know, they've denied like thousands and thousands of claims and thousands of people have to die for this guy's like to afford his fourth yacht or something, and for you know, like I could kind of understand like the sentiment of like, well, I don't give a fuck.
Yeah, I mean, like when you think when like in that thread on Reddit that got taken down because doctors were just sort of being very you know, clear on how they felt about insurance companies. One person posted quote, I cannot even guess how many person years United Healthcare has taken from patients and their families through denials. It
has to be on the order of millions. His death won't make that better, But it's hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company. And yeah, like you, I think to your point too, really like it's not even that like they're not offering solutions, they're not even acknowledging this is a fucking problem.
Yeah, you know what I mean. I think that's where we're at.
It's like before it's like, yeah, we should maybe we can get like prescription drug costs, Like that's the closest they get to say, yeah, let's have a reckoning with our insurance, because that's like very small potatoes in terms of like the profit margins for the companies that they're
ultimately beholden too. It's like, what if like, okay, we weren't selling like insulin at like six sex markups and instead like around two or three x kind of thing, rather than zooming out and saying we actually don't take care of people. And the culture in the United States is you have to be able to afford to stay alive, and if you cannot, then you know that just you know, the American natural selection will do its thing.
Yeah.
I think it's so interesting to Milly's point about like the election contributing to it, Like we are just coming off an election where healthcare wasn't like part of it.
At all, No one was really talk.
You know, it's so interesting when we compare it to like the twenty twenty primaries or even twenty sixteen, where like both of those, like healthcare plans were a big part of the Democrat the Democrat like policies and stuff like what people were putting forward in the primary, and this time, I mean, yeah, we didn't have a primary and stuff, but it's like no one was talking about it, so you can't trust this administration to do anything about it.
The next innistration is obviously not going to do anything about it. People feel, People feel helpless and hopeless, and when that happens, they make desperate decisions. That also, you know, a company like our entire health insurance system in the US contributes to this devaluing of human life at the end of the day, Like they're putting dollar amounts on what it's worth for you to like survive cancer or
not survive cancer or whatever. And at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, you kind of have contributed to an environment in which people see human life in terms of dollar signs and like little marginal dividends and shit like that. Yeah, like you you helped to create that by putting a system in place where you can tell somebody, Oh, actually you don't really need insulin, do you? Blue Cross Blue Shield, just announce it. Oh, they're only
going to cover antithes. Yeah, like only up to a certain like numb like time limit and then they're not going to cover your ants anymore. Like that contributes to a world where people feel more comfortable shooting somebody in the end of.
The end of the day.
There's a lot of hand ringing about like they have completely dehumanized the CEO and again broadening, broadening out the conversation is every person who has to interact with private healthcare and anyone who has to interact with the healthcare system in this country already feels dehumanized.
There's already humanized.
A spreadsheet, but the empathy can is only going one way in a lot of the coverage rather than again like because I felt like any any anything constructive that would come out of this is some kind of reckoning with our for profit healthcare system. But again we have more stuff of like why didn't he have a private security detail, and like this company is like the one that is protecting CEOs in like this part of the world, and maybe they can learn something from them.
Yeah, yeah, I do think that it It's really a good point that you make about the election, because the solutions that the Democratic Party put forward that I think a lot of the people who are like how could they have lost point to are really like technocratic, complicated solutions that are tied to companies like this or would have to go through companies like this and they end up like people are just tired of getting fucked over by these super complex systems, and so yeah, I just
think this is like a perfect vortex of like all the things that are frustrating to people and make people feel like there's no solution, there's no path forward for things to get better.
I will also say, if you were a doctor on the Reddit ur medicine that got your thing deleted and your single hit me up like slide in the DMS, let's talk about our path for especially if you like large Areola is like, let's talk.
Come through.
I do wonder like true where like where the mainstream media goes from here, there's gonna be like so many Pearl clashing articles where they're like looking at people's response to this and being if they're not there already, like it's gonna be like.
How could they are?
There's already criticism, They're like, look at it, look at the tolerant left celebrating the death of this person, Like you're there's already I'm already seeing takes like that.
Yeah, Well, what I was worried.
What I'm more like kind of worried about is like you know, Eric Adams was investigated for corruption, he did all this fucked up shit. Now he's like kind of you know, sucking up to Trump and kissing Trump's ass.
Now I'm worried that like Eric Adams is going to take this as an opportunity and try to make it his little nine to eleven where he like brings New York together and like ups the cop even more and shit like that shit hot for everybody, so that he could like try to you know, take the heat off him going to Turkey seven times and getting his girlfriend a job that like is mad money.
New York is just sta Bull of America exactly exactly.
We ignore Armenia and Jesus side too.
Yeah, we love looking away from a genocide. Okay, Yeah, I mean like that it is interesting because like I feel like what potentially could happen to I mean, I don't know, like making that is nine to eleven, I think is kind of difficult because so many regular people were affected by nine to eleven, whereas this one, everybody's like all right, but that's just kind of that's sort of the like the sort of response I think of American people, because I also see people from like Europe
asking online they're like, why is everyone celebrating this? And they're like, oh, you don't understand how difficult it is to exist in this country where we have no recourse
to get to be treated like people. So these are these moments that pop up that act as these like stress release valves where they're like, well, I I guess that happened, but I do I think, Like, I feel like the other way this could start going is like people start saying that it's like their human right to profit off of suffering and therefore should.
Be able to be anonymous. You know what I mean?
Because yea, United Healthcare took down their entire leadership page not to like not put again maybe in their minds to make people targets or something like that, and you can and like this was happening at an investor's day that I don't know, Like I can also see some weird version where they're like, if they know who we are, we're in danger, and like we shouldn't.
People shouldn't be able to.
Know who we are, even though we are the people profiting and are the architects of things like a terrible cruel healthcare system or earth death through climate change.
Yeah, they just start the billionaire bunkers process early and just all move to New Zealand colonize New Viland and then they're like, you guys have the rest of the world go fuck yourself.
Look good luck.
Yeah, but that it's going to be late.
All right.
That's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world demiles he he needs your validation.
Folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.