Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. Uh. 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.
Well, we're thrilled to have you.
Thanks. Fun to be here. It's been a while.
Coming from undisclosed locations.
Yeah, I'm at a crazy location.
I'm at my new job break and I worked for one of the evil empires, one of the famous ones, like I'm.
Not actually so many America. Yeah, this one is, I mean, just for our own conscious we wouldn't rather you not just that much, Chris, I think sleep that part out.
I'm in the back of an.
Old Navy There you go. It is. That's even funny where you are. I'm in the back of old navy. Don't worry, dude. We're switching out seasons right now, so nobody's gonna miss me. But you are in.
The heart of capitalist empire. And the vibes are good. I have to imagine good. They're like they're taking all the money right.
I'm on like a camp a campus type thing, you know, where it's like the the you know, like it looks like it'd be a lot of fun.
You know.
I also know nobody at this place is going to listen to this podcast.
These people don't know anything about anything except for like what's wrong with the copy machine? And they don't know that's not that's something they don't know, but they want to ask every you know, like that's one of the main topics, like what is up with.
A copying back read the copy machine?
Yeah, anyway, it's just like fun benefits, whimsical benefits being it's just.
Like it looks like it's gonna be fun, you know, and then like it's just I don't know, it's like, uh no matter how much soft ice cream you give to.
Of like gulog, like you know, like yeah, it's what ifs had soft serve or fun orange couches glog had like yeah.
Like had like you know something so like said like living your best life or something on the side. I mean, it's like fucking it's not you know, And goolog actually would be a funny comedic device if it wasn't like at the.
Front of our actual news.
But yeah, this is not a gulog, but it's it's just it is interesting that I've been trying to figure out what's weird about it. It's just like a really fun looking building, but the but there's no no laughs, and it's.
Everyone just kind of like eyes straight ahead, like just getting the work done, or like the socializing is very superficial because everyone's I mean, I get it, everyone's toilt the threat of being unhoused and uninsured. So it's just like.
I think it's mostly work.
Yeah, I think they have huge amounts of work, like a real ton of like closely monitored work, like.
The love that you're sneaking up to recording podcasts. Right, this is your I guess, and if I got.
Fired, If I got fired, I'd be fine with it, Like I mean, I don't care, like I I'm.
Doing my job the best I can.
And I did find out in the last couple of years that like being freelance as a you know, I don't even know how to discuss this without like sounding like a like I would consider meet myself to be sort of a success at what I do. But but this kind of whatever this is, like you know, is
not doesn't pay, you know, it doesn't pay enough. It pays like you know, I'm so grateful for my Patreon I have from my podcast, and and I'm grateful for the occasional thing I'll get like a tour or something like that, but it's not something that you can count on. I had a tour that was supposed to happen last fall that was gonna be a lot of money, you know, a lot.
But once again, like what I think of is a lot of money, but isn't a lot of money.
You know.
It's like sure less than I don't want to say how much it is, but let's just say it's like, yeah, it's not it's it's it's not enough, you know. And it's like that fell through and then I was fucked.
So it was like an emergency, like because I had that lined up and I was like, oh my god, the universe is like providing, you know what I mean, like like, oh, it's true what they say, just manifest your you know, just getting a good mood and and and you know, and and that happened at a time where I was like, oh my god, this isn't going to work out. And then it was like in the mail, like an offer from some people I like saying, come out and do this thing, and it just didn't And
I'm not mad at them. It just got canceled and that's that. But that was the end of Then all of a sudden, it was like, oh, I can't manifest my way out of the fact that I have like two hundred dollars, you know what I mean. So it's like, so I had to get a job. So I'm at a job, and I'm very grateful to have it. But I will say that there's not a lot of room to move up anymore for anybody. You're sort of in your job, and that's that's what it like. There's not
I don't feel like there's much excitement. You kind of know, you have a basic idea of where you're gonna go, and it's not gonna be too far vertically, it's gonna be maybe, you.
Know, I don't think the spirit.
I don't know.
I'm sure, like there have been a million jobs like this, but but they don't present themselves.
As fun usually. I think that's the difference. Like if he worked at like you know, I don't know, there's.
Something word yeah at like the Ford Factory in the seventies or eighties or nineties, Yes, and like this will be fun.
Henry Ford like also like even though he was probably a horrible employer, and I think he was like and everything, yeah yeah, okay, so but you know, he still didn't like he didn't like he didn't like wear a speedo, he didn't like have a Henry Ford.
Like action calendar nineteen thirty eight where it showed him on his boats and stuff.
I mean, they didn't rub it in like I mean they did, but it was just like you can see these these guys that are running your company now in bathing suits, like just being like fuck you know what I mean.
I mean, you know, it's like that is not.
Like a lot of the jobs that this company require a lot of like ability. But you're serving people who are like, you know, you know, they're not good. They don't even pretend, you know, they don't even pretend that this is this is just a transactional You're just working for something that has no goal other than money.
There's no other thing they're even talking about.
They're not even trying to disguise it, you know, except for with the living your best life neon.
But even that, it's like, now.
That Trump's in office, all that rings completely hollow because all of these oligarchs just lined up, all these guys who put up the you know, all these like we're inclusive of and all this bullshit is it's completely was all just just whatever they read the room at the time and said, we have to put up this kind of shit.
Because this is what's happening because you got a democratic president. Now, oh fuck fuck all that. Yeah, and that's disheartening.
I mean, I don't know, you know, I mean, you can be in here and make money at this you know, this old Navy store that I work at in the hall or you know, but I mean just because there's a foosball table in the break room with this old Navy, they're not going to trick me into living here or you know, being here forever.
Yeah.
And I am not really at an old Navy, but somewhere in between an old Navy and and what a World bank basically somewhere in between old Navy and raytheon.
Yeah, yeah, right right right? What is some things are that you think is underrated?
Okay?
Hell, okay, interesting because most people would say that's the baion.
Okay, here we are. I'm intrigued.
Do you remember when we all were like, I don't believe in hell and I don't think Hell's real, and everybody calmed down.
Right now.
I realized, like, okay, not only do I need help to be real, I don't know why I ever thought I was going there. You know, there is so much evil that I am so far away from.
So do you think that I'm going to Hell? No? No, no, no, no, no no no, let me speak.
I'm such a good person all this time, I thought, oh, man, because I like drank sometimes and I eat pork and I like pepperoni. No no, no, no, no no no. We're talking Hell is for a scale we did not imagine, folks.
We've gotten bad out there.
I do wonder, and I think this is like what a lot of religion comes down to, is like does it great on a curve? Like if everybody got bad, which is like Old Testament, they don't grade on a curve. They're like, this city got bad, and we're turning everyone to salt in the whole city. It's not like this guy was like top ten percent and not everybody's getting touched. Everybody's getting touched.
This city.
Was that we're gonna let one person survive in a boat with uh with the animals. Everybody else is gone. So that's yeah, I think that would be My contention is we're all going to hell.
Maybe here's what I think. I think Sodom and Gomora, I think what we got there was a disinformation campaign. Sure, I think they all know grizzles and they were anti vacks, and that's actually what happened, you know what I mean? Like, I think it was like probably more of a hygiene issue.
I think it could have been an experimental art piece. Right, this is skul. We don't salt and meant to be like will I don't know, they don't turn to salt.
I think we don't know. We have to we have to always be aware of disinformation campaigns. Now we can't. We can't look back on history without that lens.
I remember when I asked my dad about that, maybe like when I was twelve or something, when I really kind of started thinking, like, wait, is this little bullshit? I remember him saying, goes, how do we know this isn't hell? That's the question? Twelve man? And that ship fucked with me? What do you mean that's like a Buddhist like purgatory. Yeah, that this could be purgatory that like,
who's to say whatever this existence is is not? And I just remember, like, but he just said that ship to fuck with me though too, and I was just like, Yo, what the dam so that school? And I freaked all my friends out.
I find myself daily, hourly just going I hope hell is real. I hope it's real.
It is because it's it's something. Is how vivid are the depictions of like hell for Muslims versus like Christians?
Oh yeah, fire brimstone?
Oh yeah, you got a little fire and brim.
Yeah we got some fire and brim all.
Right, yeah hey? And in that way there's more in common then there there are differences. And that's what is.
What I'm saying. We can all get behind.
Hell, but it ain't for us. The hell they're actually going to is the same hell that I think they're going to. And then is there like working class hell? And then like the people who control capital, like, is it is there? As a worker? Are you capable of doing evil that arises to Hell?
I realized? Is that hell is a collective formulation of what we as the working class manifest. Mmmm, go on, what do you mean we like like an awesome improv herald. We build the experience of hell collectively for these fools, you know, like where's Waldo landscape?
And we are hell for them, I mean our vision of it. I see, I see, I see, I see.
You know what we put through see mm hmmm.
Some people might put Nickelback in there.
No, no, no, now you lost me. No, I'm not doing that, Not today, Satan. I saw you tried, you tried, Satan. Nope, not today.
Nickelbacks saved rock and roll music from those devil worshiping Motley Crewe, hair Metal E.
C d C.
Nickelbacker descent, decent folk by the way, buckle buddies. I wonder if we could just give Elon Musk a couple of buckle buddies. Did you see him with those full those spoons and ship, Yeah, I wonder if we could just get him stemming on like some buckle buddies.
And this is what I'm saying. I think we need to just.
Out one of those one of those steering wheel things with the with the scrolling streetscape. I feel like we might be able to save some jobs here. I don't know, Alex, what's some of these things overrated Jake Tapper. Come on, man, now you're talking about my favorite news guys. Now, what do you mean this guy fucking rules? He tells it like it isn't all well, why.
Why is Jake Tapper to hear you out? Judas he's kissing me? Have both cheeks?
Now?
Well? All right? Yeah.
I So there's a website called one nine hundred Hot Dog that I write a column for once a month, and I did one recently about Jake Tapper because it turns out he wrote like the single worst blog post.
I've ever read.
Oh no, it's a blog post called gang Banging in media Land that he wrote for Salon dot com like twenty years ago.
It was like, he's like, hot shit, young reporter kind of guy.
Is that?
Is that the idea?
The it's like a comedy piece. But the premise is he's gonna come up with like rap nicknames for everyone at the New York Times and the New Republic in order to do like humor about those magazines arguing about the rationale for the war in Iraq. And it's like if you just google gang banging and media like he says, like, oh, the New York Times is hoeing out on the New Republic and like a bunch of terrible.
Like doesn't know how to even wow, he's he's yeah. His like opening paragraph is comparing it to the beef between The Source and Double xl Magazine for people who don't know, those are like semal hop magazines, yes, from the from the nineties and the Double X in the late nineties, but like that's rival hip hop magazines. The Source of Doubles are locked in an increasingly ugly feud
that has reared its head in advertising. Boycott's rap records and nasty over the top gangst editorial slams against one another and then goes on to editorial slams. Okay, what up, shorty ass snoop kitty her b hatch I can't Yeah, yeah you're right, Alex, we should. Yeah this dude, And he did this.
Like a couple months before he was ABC News's talking hat at the White House, and like, like I think he's just basically some kind of actor or something like he's not I don't know what journalistic help he's ever given U anyone in his entire life, but people just like trust his face on TV.
Yeah, yeah, he's just got a bland blandly handsome face.
Yeah, and a lot of those people are like that, so way overrated that that seat should go to somebody who'll like do anything for anyone else.
Yeah, yeah, Oh.
My god, I've seen the episode of Celebrity Jeopardy where Wolf Blitzer goes up against Andy Rick Richard. Yeah, wolf Blitzer ends up in negative territory, and it just becomes increasingly clear like he is just a completely empty brand, like empty headed dipsh Yeah, and Andy Richter is smart as hell.
I cannot stop reading this fucking book. It's like he should go. I look, well, I'm not for prisons at all, but if but this is what prisons is for. It's for dumb shit like this. Jake Tapper, true dad, affirmed Executive editor Snoop Kitty or kicking it old school in DuPont Circle. Uh right, right, Collinsio been acting JANKI one day. It's all inspectors. You went disarmament then buss a c K and disarmament is just an option. Dizam h. He's
reading the blog. Yeah no, I couldn't. I couldn't. It's impossible. He uses the word n I z z A at one point.
Oh where's Yeah, okay, And people do like weird stuff online when they're young, but he was. I did the googling. He's thirty three years old when he wrote that and had been in professional media for like several years. He is just a dartmouth legacy who fell into a seat like that's it. Oh, it's not good love that don't need the respect.
Yeah, keep that on the d L you dartmouth legacy.
What's something that is really incredibly fascinating that you've been covering a researching of late.
But this is a special category just just for you.
We like to ask you when you come on. I appreciate the one. The one that just came out is about salt. It's me and me and Katie Golden, of course, and then we had Jason bart And join us too, But it's the entire story of salt. And I grew up next to the former estate of the founder of Morton Salt. Like the rich guy, he turned it into an arboretum so you could like go look at the trees and stuff. But it turns out he revolutionized the
salt business. If he waits in a row and like salt grains, look the fancy way where they're all different until the late eighteen hundreds, and then he made people really happy by making the uniform tiny white grains of salt. People people got enough of it.
People were like, fak fuck, it's all little dust now rather than flakes I have to contend with in my hands. Wow, it's funny.
Tired of all these look at me, look at me, little wanna be salt flakes that think they're so unique. I think they might be communists and they.
Shouldn't give blood salt exactly, bad for you, too much salt, And thanks for asking.
Yeah, I love topics like that where it seems like it'll be ordinary, but there's just a bunch of amazing stuff, that's all.
So.
I was actually just listening to the Blind Boy podcast. You ever heard that show? No, I haven't.
He was just talking about salt potentially being one of the first drivers of civilization. So maybe you guys covered that similar stuff. Yeah, the idea that it could preserve meat and therefore you didn't have to like follow the animals around because you could just kill and have it preserved for a couple of seasons nearby.
A couple of seasons. That's how long did you get that shit going.
Man, that dry aid, dry aged salted beer.
I don't think they were thinking about it like that. They're like, ooh, just hangish could snap into a slim gym maybe right right. It's a fun concept. That Jerky built similis, Like, I know it's really solid, but like that episode, Yeah, yeah, our god slim Jim.
All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and check out a couple cool videos.
We'll be right back, and we're back. We're fucking back, man, and we're bad and better than ever. We're so fucking back.
It's going to be increasingly interesting to watch as things, you know, fuck ups happen in this administration that have anything to do with technology. Give him what we've learned about Donald Trump? Donald Trump's relationship to technology. Andrew, did you see the clip of him talking about how Barren is a computer with.
Because he turned it back on? Yeah, he turned it back on one more time. We got it. I just made the whole quote. I'm trying to turn it off.
As I turn it off, I turn off his laptop. I said, oh good, and I go back five minutes later he's got his laptop.
I said, how you.
Did it, none of dad.
No, he's got an unbelievable aptitude in.
Yeah, seems so old. He's got an unbelievable aptitude.
I feel like Trump is one of those people that you know, he obviously is kind of dumb in a lot of ways, but he's like one of those dumb people who learns five smart words and just like runs.
Them into the ground.
And aptitude is one of those words many times, and it's not a word most people use, and it's a word that kind of makes me sound a little bit smart.
Yeah, you use it too much, right, Everything.
That's like used when trying to make average people see an incredible great aptitude at this he's basically a C student in technology.
Yeah, wonderful. Aude. I don't know about that. Jasmine Crockett though, she's got a bad app ude dude, yes what But yeah, this this whole fucking controversy scandal that now the media has I guessed they had so much trouble with all the other scandals, but this one, this is like old school scandals that they're used to, So now they're like, yep, that's bad, disappearing like foreign students for speaking out about and supporting Palestine. Yeah, yeah, I don't know about that.
I don't know about just arresting people who are here legally. But because they have a tattoo and you're like they're in a gang, send them out. Salvador got got But this one it's also funny too. So The Atlantic has now published the full chat because the whole time the White House was kind of they were they were counting on the fact that they weren't because they felt like they're going to be responsible and not like.
Show the chat they were saying like it was taken out of context essentially.
Yeah, and also to be so adamant that nothing classified was discussed, No attack plans were discussed. There's not even so now we see the whole thing we've got they're talking about like when planes are in the air, what they're attacking, blah blah blah. There's one part too, where they're like, we got the target, we saw him under his girlfriend's building, and now the building is collapsed, and JD.
Vance's responds excellent, like mister burns or some shit, and you're like, hold on, you guys flattened a fucking building to get one person, And I mean, this should be part for the course, because America is not about efficiency when it comes to going after targets about of any kind. But like, that was just one thing I read like that was a little bit like that details like the whole building's gone, so we're good, and yeah, that very
burns the in response. But now because the transcripts are out, they can't just do the same thing where they're like, nah, they didn't talk about it, and then it sort of turned into well, actually, signal signal is actually really secure, so it doesn't even matter, and now they're just like the fuck am I gonna say? So for starters? Right, Trump is so fucking old and senile that he basically
has no clue what any of this is. And it shows when he was asked directly like hey, what do you think about this whole signal thing, and he just sounds like an old guy where a bunch of young people were telling him it's not a big deal, and that's just kind of his energy.
Do you think that Mike Waltz made a mistake and doesn't need to apologize.
No, I don't think he should apologize. I think he's doing his best. It's equipment and technology that's not perfect, and probably he won't be using it again, at least not in the very near future.
What do you have the sort I agree with you. Let's get everybody in the room.
Whenever possible.
That was Michael Walt's chief fuck up, the guy who did it, and that's why we looked there. Yeah, he was basically like, and we probably won't be microwaving any glowsticks anymore while wearing a beautiful shirt, and he's like, no, daddy, no, I will not be microwaving glow sticks in the microwave. I know that's bad, and then just kind of dismissing it is like it's a technology and a thing and equipment.
No they don't. This is a fuck you guys. We're talking about classified shit and unsecured channels, which normally lands people in prison. This is his great genius.
Sometimes you find out defects by exactly things like that. But I don't think it's something we're looking forward to using again. We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, But generally speaking, I think we probably won't be using it very much.
Dude, gross safety, man, that's safety is nasty.
This is like gross safety that you're trying to have like operational security for national security whatever.
But so when he's talking about like using it versus like he does, he just mean like group the group chat, the technology of like having a group chat.
Yeah, I think so, because that's Mike. Well, it's like, yeah, we'll definitely like get together in person. That's probably better than like in a skiff or something good.
But also is there I mean obviously so I guess signal is not as secure as you would want for government war secrets, right, But isn't more important the fact that they invited a journalist to the chat. Isn't that also part of it? But they're not really addressing that part of it at all, right.
No, because they have to kind of tack onto whatever they feel gives them the best chance of defending something that is completely they're defending.
On the technology instead of being like, oh, he pushed the wrong button and like the RST button you could possibly push in that scenario.
I mean, I mean, this is it's probably good that obviously we just played how do you do that clip where yeah, Trump is so like this is so far out of his depth. He does not have an aptitude for technology that these people can just basically give the excuses to Daddy and he has no clue. So he's like, I see, I see. So they're just they're tripping. Huh.
Yeah, he's gonna he There's almost no chance that he hasn't at least asked if he can get Barren across this. He's not, you know, he's like, let me.
Check with We're close. So we're close to this. So Michael Waltz, right, he's doing He went on Laura Ingram show to and just was doing, like just contradicting himself all over. Remember it was him that created the group and added people to it, and in most realities that would mean the buck stops with him. But his defense is very nonsensical. This is him trying to explain exactly what happened to Laura Ingram.
Have you ever had somebody's contact that shows their name and then you have an and then you have somebody else's Right, you've got somebody else's number on someone.
Else having loser in the group. It looked like someone else.
Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical means something we're trying to figure out.
This guy just said, so of course I didn't notice this loser that you added. This is the guy who added who added him, So of course I didn't see his lose. He tricked me into doing that.
I also have to say, I've never had somebody's number on somebody else's name in my contacts on my phone, just just the base level of that. That's never happened to me. How is that happened? How is that comment?
But he's like a loser, you know what I mean? And then did you see at the end he's like, Oh, I don't know if you probably snuck into the group or something. What do you fucking fucking smeegel ass Lodge and the Tricksie Hobbits is group chat? Dude, you fucking added him.
So this reminds me of like early podcast ads. We talked about this when we hosted the podcast words, but like when they were like the post office fucking sucks?
Am I right?
And everyone had to be like yeah, like they almost brainwashed me into being like, god, the post office is the worst place in the world. We all agree on that, right, Like they're just trying.
They're just trying.
To like make it seem like we're all constantly sending groups and like adding people who we don't know.
Oh, like this happens all the time to all of us.
It's like, no, this is you can keep trying, but like, this is not a problem that anyone has really run into.
The dude, the excuses get worse. So then he's trying to be like, I don't know, like we gotta we gotta get to the bottom, like they're doing the hot dog car sketch right now, and he's like, well, what the fuck happened? So this is him going on about no, we got we're gonna really look into this. You've got some smart people looking into this. We're going to get to the bottom of it.
We have I just talked to Elon on the way here.
We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.
But I can tell you added to him.
I don't know this guy.
I know him by his horrible reputation and he really is the bottom scum of journalists, and I know him in the sense that he hates the president.
But I don't text him. He went on my phone. He wasn't on my phone. He was just having to diet coke man and he was just bothering me. Like this guy, he goes this guy from the by the way, technical, I don't know, you fill Baltimore, Like we need the technical minds looking into this your fucking fingers. Well, why do you think this guy was invited?
How?
How what do you think happened? He's from Boynton Beach, Florida.
Jack, Yeah, wanting on I don't know because he want on his phone. So it's kind of crazy how you get in the group chat when he wanted there?
Like I think I think the most the easy response here is that he is so bumbling and in nept that he doesn't even have the wherewithal to double check who's on a fucking group thread when you're talking about, yeah, like a military attack in Yemen. That sounds like the easiest. Other people like maybe he was trying to leak it to the Atlantic or something leak what yeah for d Chess of completely called the classic to the press as that one guy did his mulleny bit the other.
Day, although now it sounds like the joker. It's a it's hard to do a good mulleny.
I feel yeah, without crossing it over into Keith Ledger's joker.
John John Mullaney does a great Millennie, one of my favorite mulleniey.
John. But yeah, so right now, I think Trump said it again. He announced that Michael Waltz will be leading the investigation, and what happened with his own fucking hands.
I mean it does like maybe somebody else added him, thinking they were adding somebody else. I don't like that is a question. Does he have a name that is similar to somebody who would like plausibly have been there, or like a number.
Jeffrey Goldberg I think in the article said it may have been this other person with the same initials, but they don't have the same name.
Maybe maybe he was like, maybe he's like, okay, these are the people to add, these are people to definitely not add, and then he accidentally added, yeah.
Yeah, it's it's very very very very sad and dumb, and it says and I think that's the thing at this point, it's just so clear that these people don't know what they're doing at all, like to the point where they can't even they're just using signal for their for all this shit, like they work at some techn copy.
Has anyone in the military commented on this, because I feel like people who are like putting their lives on the line, you know, in the line of duty, It's like they're the people I feel the should be the most mad about this, because it's like you're looking at our lives essentially as like a game that you're playing on this group chat and you're inviting journals. It just feels very disrespectful to like people who are taking this seriously and are actually like out there fighting for our
country or something. I don't know, it's out like a hardcore military supporter, but it feels a little bit like disrespectful to that.
And that's what I mean. That is the take of everybody who's just like, are these people like serious? Right right, You're already asking poor people to enlist in the army to do lence on behalf of the American empire, and then time that you're not even a fucking try and keep them safe. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, but he's he's come back to Michael Watson, like Hexath and Night. We're veterans, we get we very much understand
what here. We just don't know how to fucking text or none of that.
I mean, military people are also some of the best at not talking about superior.
People outside like it's all retired people who are Like some person said that the details that were like in the in that like that signal thread were like rise to like being court martialed in any normal instance.
Well, that's has a person as high up as the vice president ever like openly, like that's against international law, isn't it to be like he just walked into his girlfriend's house and then we leveled the house?
Excellent?
Like that feels jazz, feels like a killing of an innocent person.
Jack, what are you talking about? This is America, man, We don't I know, you know what I mean, But like watch collapse on innocent people and the media can't be fucking bothered one, I know, I know.
Have we technically ever had them, Like yes, we've seen like the wiki leak stuff where like people like entire wedding party parties are bombed and they're like Roger, but you don't have like Biden on the on Wax being like excell yeah, brother, yeah, like say excellent as a response to like he just walked into his girlfriend's place.
Now it's leveled and excellent. Just feels like a new level of like you just did you just did it.
That's yea, you're the that's not a slow down, slow down, you're turning me on.
Yeah, he's easy, easy, don't touch, just don't move, don't move, don't move, don't move. Okay, all right, just give me like twenty minutes.
Oh shit, all right, so we'll see see where they he gets to the bottom of.
His own fuck up, my own ascinating. Yeah. I mean they have. I mean they have started to be like it's it must have been a low level official like there they've there's been mentioned of some other person either way.
At the end of the day, there's people who have an aptitude for computers and there's people who don't.
Yep, And if Baron's not in charge of it, I can't be blamed. You know, you're playing with fire if you're not running everything back Baron even an.
I message, you know, it'll be like Jack added Andrew to the group chat at eight thirty nine, people be like, Okay, you know I'm talking about that sort of thing. Yeah, my parents, Yeah exactly.
I mean I've definitely had friends who have like been talking shit about someone and they accidentally texted to that person, you know, to that person.
Yeah, the thing I always hear about that thing.
I always hear about someone saying thing about someone and there's like a weird like wiring in the brain where you just like send it to that person. I heard multiple people, but I've never heard somebody just randomly adding the wrong number to a massive thing. But except for on Fox News over the past three days, where they're.
All like, I do this all the time.
Yeah, Like Jesse Waters is like hypothetical of like we've all added grandma to the bachelor party thing and suddenly she's getting twelve consecutive dick pics because that's what we do with our bachelor party.
Bros.
Just watched the movie from like ten years ago with that exact plot point of texting the wrong person.
When you're talking about them.
It was The Intern, the movie.
With Vince Waugh.
No, no, yeah, the Intern is Robert de Niro and Anne Hathaway and Hathaway.
So Anne Hathaway is talking about her mom and she accidentally emails it to her mom, and then Robert de Niro has to break into her mom's house and get into her computer and delete the email. So this is something we covered fifteen years ago. And in the de Niro movie, Yeah, you can't be inviting the wrong person to.
The group check. Yeah. Yeah, and that's probably their favorite movie her mind.
Hathaway's mom does come back from Robert de Niro has to kill her.
Yeah, it turned into a different kind of movie. Get kind of fucked up.
The deleted scenes from both that movie and uh, Meet the Parents, just the bodies that he's leaving in his way.
Am Adam Devine has to help Robert.
Process the corpse.
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back.
And we're back.
We're back, and Chris, as we do about this time in every episode, would we like to ask our guests something that you think is overrated?
Well overrated? And I'll make this I really will make this quick.
For everyone.
What made me think of this was what made me think of this whole Republican thing. And Pepperoni is like deep knowledge of music is also like pepperoni to them, like it's like too exotic, Like we.
Just need the normal bands.
I don't need to know about a million bands. I need to know about Pearl Jam I need to know about the Allman Brothers and government mule. I need to know about quality, good bands. I just need about four bands to get me through. Four standard bands that go with my goal. Yeah, to go with my pants and my general attitude. Bands to be hacked, right long music bands.
That are too cool to be hacked.
So anyway that this, I had this radio show on college radio and a Republican kid who went to Vanderbilt, Kate, had a show after ours and it was called the Cocktail Hour and it was mad, but they put it on at eleven am. Our show was on like eight to ten or something. Best of Bread got it and yeah, it was on from two thousand and five to two
thousand and nine. At some point in there, most of the students at Vanderbilt, you know, don't aren't aren't interested in college radio, so the whole schedule was wide open. So we had a whole the whole schedule was like locals and this. But this kid was for Vanderbilt and he was a preppy kid.
You know.
Look he dressed like a golfer or whatever, and he and he and he came in and he was like and he played. First of all, he's like man I wanted the show is called Cocktailer. I was hoping they put it on at five, but he didn't understand, like you don't get to choose. Like he's like, they put me on at eleven am. Kind of ruins the concept. And we were like, yeah, it's a great concept, but yeah it's ruined.
Cool, it's a crazy.
And it used to be called happy Hour.
So anyway, here's the thing about Republicans.
It's like very much like choosing a commercially available app to transmit war plan or not having pepperoni on your pizza because you think it's communist. These guys, this guy played normal music on college radio. He played like we listened to his set as we were driving away in the car. He played like honky Tonk women Wow, And then he played Pink by Aerosmith.
It is my favorite rick color.
And then that's like Sander that was in two thousand and five to two thousand and nine. That is what is on most radio stations.
I mean, yeah, Republicans are idiots.
Yeah, and they don't see it.
Because they convinced themselves like, yeah, I don't need I don't need to go crazy and find out about every band when there's a perfectly good band called the Rolling Stone and ladies and gentlemen anyway, So he played, he played fucking honky talk women on goddamn college radio.
That's what Republicans do.
Yeah, that's right, I'm playing. Yeah. I don't know if you guys heard this little banger from Ario Speedwagon, but we're playing Can't Fight This fea. I think it's the first time anyone's heard this one.
Yeah, and you're not gonna believe this.
It's a live version off Ario Live from nineteen ninety seven.
But he doesn't even know. It's like with all the wrong all the.
Wrong band members the original Ario.
So that's it. That's it.
I don't know, Yeah, that's I don't know if I proved my case, but I think Republicans are so stupid.
Yeah, it is the Cocktail Hour that it is Republican DJs.
That guy probably has the number one podcast in America right now.
And obviously both parties are horseshit. But I mean, like, in general, like being a Republican has always been like bragging about knowing nothing and thinking everything was going to work out just because you fucking you know, use the right because you use ivory soap and it drives your fucking skin out right.
I don't need moist skin it, I don't need moist skin.
You liberal fucking don't even know their skins right up right, it's just flakey. Let's talk. Let's talk about a news story, shall we. Yeah, over the past couple of weeks, we've seen a bunch of legal residents of the United States and students being disappeared because they either looked like gang members or they had the decency to speak up against a genocide. Yeah, and they're getting like in some cases, they're just like people in masks are coming up to them, and.
Yeah, I'd say almost all cases, these people are hiding their faces and like the tattoo. And I was just reading about a guy who had an autism awareness tattoo for their little brother, and they use that as grounds for being gang tattoo. Another added soccer ball. Anyway, and now we're seeing more students, you know, they're than like even students who weren't like necessarily like as if as if organizing a protest is worth having any kind of
attention on you from authorities. But like, there's another student at Columbia named Ra Johnny Srinavasan who left to Canada because they were just like, oh they found out that she found out her visa was being revoked and had ICE agents knocking on her door, and she was just like, I wasn't even participating in the Hamilton Hall protest. I mean I have, like I have openly supported the Palestinian cause, but I wasn't necessarily at the rallies or where's your
problem there speaking at them? But yeah, she left because she was just like this is fucked up. Then, like, there's so many stories like this. Another we also touched on Unsea O Chung, who's like another student from South Korea who's been here in the US since she was seven, but again deigned to have any kind of opinion on genocide.
We've seen this with lectures at universities, and one of the most recent ones was like this disappearing of this PhD student, Romesa oz Turk, who was at Tufts University.
And again she's getting a lot of attention because of her brazen daylight kidnapping that was caught on fucking video and it looks like some shit out of a movie, like she's walking on the sidewalk She's on her way to a friend's house to break her fast, and one, one by one, massed agents pull up, start pulling badges out, start clawing at her, taking her backpack off, putting their masks on, and throw her in the back of an suv.
And you know, like we see all these things, we see what's happening with the government, and I think a lot. I'm definitely all the time just sort of like internally and outwardly saying shit like, oh my god, me like what is this? Like Nazi Germany, and a lot of people do say this kind of thing. But I was just reading this piece by Daniel Besner, who's like a historian and he's been on Zeitgeist before. He wrote a piece in Jackman that kind of gave a little bit
like some perspective that I really needed. He sort of points out that while this is all very disturbing and terrible and not normal by sort of like what we believe to be the everyday comings and goings of you know, America, it isn't some kind of like freaky fascism that is happening here that comes from like European history. This is all actually very American, and the laws being used are
not coming out of thin air. They are American laws, and that just sort of gives a lot of these examples to sort of help recenter like what we're fighting against, cause I think it's it's very easy to be like, this is some foreign malady that's landed on our shores, and what do we do about this, rather than giving ourselves a little bit of historical perspective and understanding that the way out of this is truly like through reckoning with how we actually how our own laws are constructed,
how our own systems of oppression are constructed. Like talking about presidents that act you unilaterate laterally without Congressional oversight, you know, you point to the fact that while typically Congress was the body that was empowered to officially declare war, the last time Congress did that was nineteen forty two, and since then we've threatened or used direct force over two hundred times at the behest of the president.
Or a These weren't officially wars, you know, so we didn't officially lose them either.
That's the undefeated. And like illegally detaining and deporting people, I mean, look, we've seen it in World War two, with what we've done to Japanese American people. This is also happening during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, and it goes on and on and on, and I just think, again, his point isn't that we just need to sort of chill out, because this is all just very par for the course
of the United States. But again, like to frame it as this thing that isn't uniquely American, is not is counter to like effective resistance when this is truly also about reckoning with what has been constructed in the United States and actually figure out how to dismantle those things as well.
Yeah, I think it's hard for Americans to like the Israeli quote unquote settlers who attacked the Oscar winning filmmaker and like they had masks on as they did it, and it was like people were like, oh, that's like the clan again. But right then, when there's these asked police officers or whatever, these mask ice agents who are kidnapping people off of American streets for having the wrong opinion, they like, I feel like people aren't as quick to
make that connection. Even though the klu klux Klan is the origin of American police thing, you know, it's.
Definitely entrenched in it. And also thinking about the people who were of high status, which is why they even covered their faces when they did that, because they couldn't they knew this was something they couldn't they couldn't reconcile
that with their outward personas or identities. But yeah, it's just a I mean, I think the point being too is like, because I think a lot of people are like, oh, we just got to get rid of Trump, but if we don't get rid of the rule set that we just have in the United States, Democrats use these same laws to justify these same kinds of actions as well, So it's not I think that's like a larger point that we really need to think about and also really take a second to really sort of settle with that,
because right now it's students who are who have visas who aren't technically United States citizens that they're you know, mistreating with impunity. The logic in history only suggests that this will then extend to actual citizens of the United
States too. And to think that maybe this is like, well, it's gonna it'll certainly stop there and it won't come to us, I think is really really dangerous and we really need to look at what's happened, like especially with this student at Toughs like I think the only again charged without any without a crime, at no crime, that she wasn't charge with any crime. They're just like material support for Hamas. And I think the only thing they can point to is that she was in a byline
in the university paper that doesn't even mention Hamas. It just asks the the administration at the school to recognize what is happening. That the International Court called this place the situation of Gozit for a high risk of genocide, acknowledging that and divesting as appropriate, and this is what's happening. And I think that's very fucking scary. It's very frightening and sadly very American.
This this this, this is the moment we have to move beyond the two party system or we have to abandon both these parties. At this moment, I don't know how we're going to do it, but I think most people, well not most people, but a lot of people realize that we're appealing to the Democratic Party at this point is is pointless and and all you have to do is look at the history of the Democratic Party for the even the last like twenty years or fifteen years.
You know, Obama. I cried and Obama got elected. That's how invested I was in party politics back then.
And that wasn't that long ago. And I and I and I and I really thought something good was going to happen.
And then they told us something was going to happen.
Yes, I mean, no, Isaiah, I got you know, transparency. Maybe I'm going to prosecute the bankers. Maybe I'm going to prosecute the war criminals from the administration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, and anyway, and that was like quite the opposite with Obama. I don't know the stats, but I know he was doing tons and tons of drone attacks, you know, accidental weddings, and deporting and going after whistleblowers.
So this is the thing.
Whistleblowers haven't been deported because they're American citizens. And maybe maybe that's like a bridge too far, or it was then, but they did everything short of deport They ruined their lives. Like the people that broke the story that the CIA was still collecting Americans phone data or you know, like illegally the NSA, CIA.
Those guys are like.
Hey, there's a whole room in this building where they just have this thing that's copying the whole Internet, and they said they stopped doing that.
Those people all were ruined.
Like I mean, I forget the name of the guy I whish I had on the tip of my tongue, but that was a American citizen guy well snowed and had to leave. I mean, reality winner, anybody who tries to do the right thing generally, yeah, gets fucked like hard, not just Democrats by Democrats, just as hard as Republicans.
So that if we really want that to change, you know that there has to be and we may be able to pull out like an AOC or a Bernie out of the We might be able to pull some like greatest hits out of the Democratic Party to start a new party, but I'm suspicious of even that. But I mean, we really need a third party or just I mean those parties are done in my opinion. Yeah, we have seen the absolute failure appealing to Democrats now is just like anyway, so.
Well, I think because we still look at like America as like this house that like we still want to live in, and it's like we're nostalgic for it without
really realizing how dilapidated, rotten and violent it is. And we're like insisting that it can be fixed, and we're but we're all we're all living under this same sort of oppressive cage and trying to think that like, well, maybe if we can just refer form this, it'll work, rather than like what activists have been saying foring like you can't, we can't reform our way out of this, like this has to be left behind because we're seeing what the status quo for both of these, both sides
of this political spectrum, how that plays out, and it's not beneficial to normal people at all. It's basically two flavors of oligarchy. Yeah, and one one has like better marketing and the other is just more in your face with how fucking just brazen it is. So I think, yeah, to your point, it's every time people are like, I mean, like so many people are like god, what the fuck are they doing? Like we can't even fuck, like these
people don't even want to have a fight. We have that energy has to kind of extend to also realizing we cannot let these people, you know, continue to try and convince the rest of America that like they are the solution to this problem that they are also the cause of.
That.
I'm saying, like, dude, you running is amazing. Kat Abu Gazle running in Illinois ninth District to against Jan Schakowski, that's great. The homie that is running for mayor in New York, Zorn Mamdani, who is just again talking that real shit about like we are leaving normal people behind and we are emphasizing the well being of corporations over really simple shit like being able to afford to get around the city or pay your bills or eat food.
And whatever free speech we have left, we've got to use it. I mean, like right now, you can still run for office. It's not even hard, and you might not get elected, but you will get to speak to people. That was for me, like just getting invited to events where they gave me a microphone, right, you know, that's huge. Like being on a podcast is also huge. The fact that you guys are talking about this stuff fearlessly is huge.
I'm so excited every time I hear someone telling the truth because it's dangerous right now, but it's a risk that has to be taken. You know it has to be and and you know I I anyway, Yeah, what you're saying is correct.
I mean it's like, uh.
I'm just as I mean, I'm still wishing the Democrats would would do something because I grew up in this country. Yeah, so I'm like, God, Chuck Schumer really dropped the ball, Whereas there's a lot of people are like, he's a profisient.
Yeah, yeah, that's his job is to drop the ball. You know, did you forget what you said yesterday?
You know, because you keep wanting to go back to because everyone just wants to have some fun and like raise their kids.
They don't want to deal with all this fucking bullshit.
He's like the Washington generals. The Democrats more and more just seem like they are intentionally there to have their pants pulled down as the Harlem Globe trotters like put spin the ball on top of their Yeah, either confetti on their head. Yeah. It's literally called controlled opposition exactly.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's Weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review this show if you like, the show means the world de Miles.
He he needs your validation, folks.
I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.