Robert Finally Watches Patriot And Other News

I thought, I thought the first season was good. I like, obviously, uh, I'm I'm a huge fan of a number of members of the cast, including the guy from Workaholics and the guy from The Big Lebowski, of whose names I have completely forgotten, even though legitimate love and divine or divine or whatever. And m John shit Goodman, John Goodman. Jesus, I saw a man that looks John Goodman my whole childhood.

How did I do? Yeah? I saw someone who looked so much like John Goodman yesterday and I walked up to him and I was gonna say, IM just grateful for your work. And I walked up and stopped because it was not John Goodman. And I thought, this man, this man must get this all the time. You he

knew he must have. I mean, you know the fun thing about that is, if real John Goodman, if I had a chance to walk up to him, I would just walk up Tim and I would extend my hand and I would ask him if he had any cocaine.

Do you remember that movie with Denzel where he placed Denzel's drug dealer and Denzel's like like the like Sully the Pilot, but a drug addict, and it's there's I don't know what the movie's name was, but there's a pretty cool scene where John Goodman walks into a room with a sack full of drugs to sympathy for the devil, and it's it kind of rules. That's the movie itself pretty forgettable. But John Goodman as like a coach dealer

was Let's watch it. I just rewatched movie just that scene. Okay, yeah, Cody, alright I did. I did rewatch The Big Lebowski recently. Yeah. Still an absolutely perfect film in everywey We'll never have notes um, John Goodman, it's a it's a an astonishing crime that John Goodman didn't receive an Oscar for his Jenny Oscars, because he is unbelievably talented. He's so good.

He's good in everything he does. Did you guys ever watch that show Alpha House where he's like one of a Republican senator with a bunch of other Republican senators living in like a rental house in d C. He's quite good in it. Yeah, it's very funny. It was a lot funnier before, um, but he was very good in it. Yeah. Yeah, was a real killer for anything in that arena. Um, Robert, we're talking about entertainment, and

I took your advice, Katie, which exposing a series of penises. So, okay, this is not my fault, right, this is not my fault. It's a little it's a little bit your fa This is your fault because I've been saying this for motherfucking years. It was your choice to watch it and then pause it on that scene when so mother were over, let me explain to you. I was watching Patriot as you've been, as you've been harassing me to do for weeks, and of course after the first from the first episode, I

was hooked. It's very good, it's incredible, it's very very h So I watched through like season. I literally stay up the first night I start watching it, I stay U until like eight in the morning, watching all of season one, and then like I'm kind of I'm kind of like fucked. I got pretty drunk too, and so the next day I was kind of hungover, get a late start, have to pull a bunch of stumps out, so I only make it through like an episode and a half that night before I'm like, I'm just gonna

pass out. So I do the thing that I normally do when I'm alone in my house, but I want to go to sleep, where I leave the TV on as I get up to brush my teeth and get out my cont do all the all the all the stuff so that I have some comforting sounds going on in the next room, but I'm not watching it. And so like when I'm done and ready for bed, I just walk in and I closed the laptop that's attached to my TV. Don't think about what's on the screen.

I'll restart the episode when I come to watch again. So the next day, so Be and her mom come in from out of town. We're hanging out, show them the farm. Everything's good, everything's nice, and then we sit down and as we're sitting down, you know we're gonna eat some Thai food together, hang out with you know, all my my my friends, uh and chat. I decide what do we do when we have our friends over

and we want to talk. Obviously, we turn the audience the sound off on our TV and we put on the movie Roar, which is a film from the nineteen seventies where Tippy Hedron and her family get repeatedly mauled by actual lions. None of it's fake. They're horribly injured. Her leg is broken by an elephant. A quick sidebar, because this we'll talk about. Let me finish the Patriot story and we'll talk about Roar. So i'm i'm I turn on my laptop and the TV to put on Roar.

And of course, when you are like me and you're lazy about everything media, if you just like put your laptop into sleep while it's playing something, when it comes out of sleep, it's going to immediately start playing whatever you had on. Now in the show Patriot, this won't

be revealing much. A big chunk of it takes place at this like piping company in the Midwest, and they're regularly taking trips over to Europe um and so they'll have these scenes right before they go to the airport where all of the main cast are like lined up at a series of urinals talking and it's just like a thing that they do. It's kind of a fun bit. A lot of stuff, like you know, important plot points

happen when they're chatting at the urinals. And in season two they decided to do this scene from the perspective of everybody's dick, so you actually like see the penises of everybody in the scene. I was unaware this had started happening because again I had been away from the TV when this part had been playing, and I hadn't looked at the screen. My contacts were out. So it comes back on and as I'm explaining what the movie Roar is to Sophie and her mom, they immediately see

on screen just a bunch of strangers hogs. So that's thank you, thank you for that. And Robert's texting, they were our text thread this week about what we're going to talk about today, just just laying into me about how I traumaized Sophie's mother when I bear no responsibility for this. Although that's just so funny because then my first thought was like, oh gosh, what dicks were they were they corporate dicks, where they Brazilian jiu jitsu dicks.

Where they was the corporate dicks. Yeah, it was like, I'm not gonna make comments about circumcision. Yeah, your nay, but there's a lot of interesting circumcision related things that you get to see in that um this is amazing. I apologize to Sophie's mother and Sophie's mother alone. But but Robert, again, I reiterate years I've been telling you years.

I years you've been telling me to watch Patriot avoid all. Yes, I've been for the entire for just about the entire time I've been I've been laying it and laying it on thick recently because I have shown give, I've gifted this show to so many people, They've all been touched by it. And there have been several times over the course of um our time here in the worst year ever,

where I've wanted to talk about things like jellyfish. There's things that are in the show and stuff that happens that I I the difficulties of arriving getting from point A to point be different things that Yeah, the mechanics of fluid dynamics. It's a very good show. People should watch it. Um, it's definitely. When you start watching it or when you read the descriptions, it seems like it's going to be like twenty four, Like it's a show about an American secret agent who's got to stop around

from getting a nuclear weapon. Um. But uh he it's it's not what you would expect from that description. So it's a good show. You should watch it. It's like a deconstruction of shows like twenty four of all that kind of like yeah stuff. I thought it. It was very enjoyable. I really like the male lead. Everybody. Everybody is. It's filled with actors who are like initially kind of off putting and then surprisingly charming very quickly. Um, which

is just about every character. The casting is so impeccable for every character. It's great. The guy from a seventies show, Yeah, the guy from that seventies show. He apparently has a podcast that's set in the world of the show with the creator of the show. Um, where he's just talking about his career in piping and his cocaine addiction, him doing those piping monologues. I'm sorry everybody wanted to appreciate every time they watch it. Die even I was the

one people. I showed it to my parents over Christmas and I was like, I don't know, I don't know that they're the gamble. My mom was had tears from laughing at that. Anyway, we've talked about this show what else is Good? The classic comedy Roar by Tippy Hedrid and her husband some guy and also her entire family because nobody else would act in that. Okay, so yeah, we have to actually clarify what Roy is because it's a midazizing. What you said is true. But Tip was

obsessed with with uh tigers lions. Wait a minute, yeah, yeah, they were in Africa and they like saw tigers and lions doing something. There's some story about this that they were like inspired that they wanted to save them and help people. They brought them into their home with animals. An important, an important part of the story, Katie, is that Tippy Hedren was traumatized by Alfred Hitchcock to a

terrifying extent. She was a monster and you can under you can tell the degree of trauma that he inflicted on her by the fact that basically the next thing she decided to do was by a large plot of land in southern California with her husband and start adopting abandoned full grown lions and tigers, eventually two hundred and thirty of them, and they lived in the house. They're protecting her from the birds, not that I mean there there. It had been years like songbirds. I guarantee you did

not come close to nothing. There was nothing there. They also adopted like elephants and ship. They almost went bankrupt. I mean they had to like sell everything else they owned because eventually feeding all these animals was four thousand dollars a week and seventies money. I can't even imagine the medical bills to make a movie the whole time, So her and her husband and her kids, who were all actors and actors is because Hollywood, we're all living

on this house. They built on this wildlife sanctuary where dozens of fully grown lions and tigers and pumas and ship had physical access to them at all times. And they spent five years shooting a movie. Now it is

a movie. You can watch it, but the plot makes no sense and it's it's really not a movie because they had a script and they had a plot, and what the movie that you've seen is is that two characters will meet in the house where there's dozens of lions and tigers and will attempt to start a dialogue to move the plot forward, and thirty five seconds into this dialogue, one of them will be attacked by one or multiple big cats, and the scene becomes about everyone

dealing with the fact that one of them is being horribly mauled. You see there, like the male lead gets scalp ripped off, Tippy Hedron gets her legs shattered by an elephant um more than a hundred people. Yeah, she gets grown by an elephant and breaks her leg um. There's there's a couple of scenes where her husband is just has cats biting through his hand and he's bleeding everywhere. Like this is not none of this is like hidden, like it's you're you are just watching people get very

badly mauled by large cats. And the fun thing is these are as domesticated as big cats can be. One of them was Anton LaVey's pet tiger lion are beautiful. They're beautiful animals. They're not like trying to kill them. They are behaving. They look exactly like your house cat does, but they weigh like six hundred pounds, and there's again dozens of them. There are some scenes where like Tippy Hedron's husband is being piled on by like twenty cats at a time. It's fucking amazing. So it took them

five years, a hundred plus injuries and multiple hospitalizations. Her husband nearly lost his hand, like or his whole arm

from Gang Green. Five years just to film it, and six years to edit it because what they actually had was just fucking nonsense, and the resulting movie is again the way I like to watch it with my friends as I'll just turn the sound off and put it on the TV while we're like talking and drinking in the background, because there will be like ten minutes of like boring dialogue and then like every people will start getting attacked in a boat by lions, and you're like, yeah,

let's watch this. That's fucking cool. That's sound of it. It It just bleeding all over the place, Robert, Robert Evans, Yes, you come here. You try to tell me that I'm to blame for scaring Sophie's mom with the penises, when what your plan was was to show her tigers mauling children in Tippy hundred's house. I'm sorry. There are all are all adults. They're all adults. They know that. You don't have to feel bad about it because everybody knew

what they were getting into. Nobody made that entire family live with dozens of big cats in a house. Sure, but what what's what's what's more traumatic? Tophe's mom, Well, I don't know. Every everyone enjoys watching people get mauled by large cats. That's just a good time. Well boy, oh boy, we've sure spent fifteen minutes talking about this stuff. I found a new thing to watch. Oh yeah, what is it? Yeah? Um, it's uh tree cutting, it's tree

cutting fails. So it's it's people trying to and it's usually what's amazing if you've never cut down a tree. Small trees you can just pull out with a winch sometimes like not a big deal, saw him down, cut out the stump whatever. Fine, Um, big trees like the ones we have all over the Northwest, the ones that are like four stories tall, that's like a team of

people in specialized tools. And there's a lot of videos online that are just compilations of like some dude and like one of his kids with a chainsaw they bought at the store and like a ladder or just trying to cut and they sometimes they die probably like it looks like a lot of the injuries look really grievous. People like being flung around the tree on a strap they were hanging from with a chainsaw and try to down that tree. Yeah, it's exactly. All of the videos

are just like outrageous hubris. Like me, a guy who does not know much about cutting down trees looks at these guys and it's like, well, you shouldn't be doing this. You don't have the proper equipment of this. Actually this is gonna sound watching them now, it's like it's amazing, like like amidst power lines and he's like, no, don't do no, no, don't don't do it. Don't do that.

There's also some incredible ones of like competent people who are just like it's their job and so they like there's this one amazing one where this guy cutting down a tree that's a top like some um like power lines or something, and he's clearly like a professional arborist, he's all the right kit and because of some sort of error, his chainsaw catches on fire, which catches the tree below him on fire, and it's just like him, he deals with it like you just like watch, Yeah,

it's amazing, right, it isn't that an amazing video? Cody Trees. He is handling this. He knows what he's doing. He's very very capable. It's like he's at war with the tree. But I look at these big old trees and I just feel like we have no business trying to remove them. They are they were there before us, and they'll be

there after unless we cut them down. I mean, I totally agree with you, which is why I don't feel bad when like father afore very clearly gets permanently injured trying to take with the trees fifty year old elm tree in his backyard. I've been watching, and I doubt anybody's when watching them. Yeah, some of them are pretty bad. Well it's just like like this, it goes fine and then just a chunk of the tree just like slams

into them. Yeah, or this one where they're uh, they're pretty great, you know, some of them, like it's not a person gets injured that they're they're cutting on a tree and then it topples over onto their pool and the pool breaks and just like, uh huh, this is great for an audio format. We're gonna take a quick break. I think it's time for that. I think we have to for advertisements. Break like the trees from the break break like some trees and yours an ade everything. So

don't don't don't. Oh yeah, if you what's up? Okay? Should we talk about actual news? And I don't know what to talk about? Um, but I will react uh vibrantly and with viver oh, vim and vigor. What do you guys want to talk about? Yeah? So many things I actually wanna. So when we've got uh many things to talk about, if we would like to, we can talk about Elon Markin and his adventures on Twitter dot com, um unions and Starbucks and Howard Schultz his big announcement

to save unions. We could talk about that I p c C report where they're like, we've got three years to avoid absolutely catastrophic climate change. But it's like the rest of the world and not. I just can't stand it, right, It's hard to talk about. I feel I think about it all the day. I think about all the time that report as horrifying. I tweeted about this. I truly had seen maybe three people talking about it on Twitter. Um, I guess now we're talking about it. Yeah, what do

you what do you like? I get everyone being like why aren't people talking about this? But also I guess because what are we supposed to say? Nothing's nothing. We We've said everything that can be said, which is that

we're staring down the barrel of a nightmarish problem. None of the people in power are doing anything, and it is going to make the world less inhabitable and all of the already utterly devastating problems we are dealing with, including like violent authoritarianism and inequality and even worse, and and no one in power is going to do a goddamn thing about it, or is meaningfully doing a goddamn

thing about I'm sorry. This is one of those things when we talk about, like the failures of electoralism, people are always like, well, what about this or what about this? And it's like, no one is taking any meaningful action in the US government that is going to stop this.

There are some people who are making some like attempts, like to to their credit, people like Alexandria Accacio Cortez keep talking about like a thing that might do something like the Green New Deal has a chance to make some meaningful impacts on this, but it doesn't have a chance to pass um which is not you know, attacking her for trying, but no one else is. It's not going to happen, I know. And that's what's so fresh. Like, well, the point of what I was saying, I mean, I

agree with everything you're saying, um my tweet. Basically, it's like they're saying, we have three years to turn this ship around, otherwise we will not have the worst case disaster, and not many people are talking about it. And I'm not criticizing people because I get it, because what are we supposed to say when I'm like, this doesn't this isn't good, this is and I'm we are all carrying this anxiety, this watching this, this train plowing into the

depot and not slowing down. Meanwhile, okay, we should probably talk about Ukraine. What's happening all these trains heading towards well, but like specifically we're talking about climate change and the

effects of climate change on crops. Well right now, Ukraine and Russia they are a huge exporter of grain, especially for the Middle East and to other places that are already uh, suffering from famine to the Middle East to Yemen, and so what we're dealing with right now is there's a lack of supplies leaving the current harvest may or may not be harvested, and how that affects next season's harvest.

Not to mention, Okay, well, just the infrastructure being destroyed, their long term sanctions that we have, and how that's going to affect. So sorry, I'm just going off on a tangent here, but it's all connected. When we're seeing this happen and we're like, Okay, we've got three fucking years. Now is the time we put off talking about the news for twenty minutes and here we are, you know, like the most reasonable thing in the world right now

is to put off talking about the news. Um, I'm not There's a lot we need to figure out as a species, and none of it is going to be figured out through people yelling at other people on Twitter for not tweeting about the I p c C Report.

So number one, calm down, Like, don't calm down about climate change because it's it's it's absolutely a serious problems as the report presents it, But like, calm down about the fact that people like joking, that people prefer to like joke about whatever bullshit is happening with Amy Schumer than they do to talk about the doom that like we people like folks are like, what am I supposed

to do? And the answer is like, nobody knows. Because it's particularly like a lot of folks on the far left will be like, well, we should be people should be attacking fossil fuel infrastructure, and I think that would be rad But what would actually happen is that like one person would carry out an attack that would not actually do any material damage to fossil fuel infrastructure, and then their life and the lives of all their friends

would be destroyed. So that's not going to fix the problem either, And voting sure as ship has not yet done anything to fix the problem, So like what what do you? People like people are gonna laugh about a thing that's funny that happened online because they feel as if they have no agency to deal with this problem,

and so far no one has. I I don't know what they're supposed to do other than the kind of stuff we talk about on It could happen here where community resiliency trying to prepare the people around you, the people that you live with and yourself, and the people that are in your community. For the consequences of climate change. That is actionable, that is a thing you can do

something about it. But you, you as an individual or we as a bunch of people on Twitter who are vaguely left wing, are not going to destroy the global fossil fuel system. And if you have a theory for how, let me know, Well, I don't have a theory for how. And all of your points are I think they're all really important and well taken, because I think that if we are to move this is the new reality. This isn't changing, this is our reality. It's only going to

get worse and first reformed. Roberts Um. I think it's really important for us to have outlets and to maintain our mental health and to be realistic about what we can and can't do, and yes, bond together and prepare for your yourself, you know, and your community. I also think it's important for us to talk about it. I think it's important to keep it, but I just mean in general, But like, I think the point is well taken. Like take a breath and and focus on the things

that you can control. But I do think it's important for us to acknowledge what's happening and continue to talk about it, because that's truly the unfortunate only way that it moves a needle in terms of electoral apology, and be aware of who like can't actually do things, who

aren't right. It's not that I'm blaming people. I think that I get it, and I almost I didn't want to talk about it or tweet about it because I'd rather I'd rather focus on the things that are right in here in front of me that I can control. That brings me happiness, because this brings me dread. But what brings me even more dread personally is feeling that no one else is seeing what's happening, you know, or that we're get we're allowing politicians to take a pass.

We need to, we need we need them to to listen to us. I don't know what that looks like. We haven't. We certainly didn't sustain mass protests during Black Lives Matter, you know, and and people were dying in front of us, I mean people they kept going like

they did. The problem is that like the same people who are fighting viciously to stop any kind of positive movement on climate change, And the same people who are fighting to turn back the tide of gay rights to the point where now there's a popular discussion about like whether or not we should reverse course on the existence of gay marriage. Are the same people who were like advocating vociferously to fund and and remove any chance of

accountability for the cops as they beat and murder people. Um. Whereas it's like, if you were out in the street protesting the cops, that's kind of all you were able to do. And if you're trying to force positive change on climate change, that's kind of a full time gig. And like it's very frustrating because it's really easy to

be um a civilizational arsonist. All you have to do is get on TV and yell at whatever we'll make conservatives angry, or get on TV if you're liberal and talk about how any of the suggestions for how to make change aren't realistic and we need to move forward with fossil fuel companies to find a solution together or whatever. Um. And in either case, it's way easier to just kind of punt the problem than it is to deal with it.

And if you're like it's if you're dealing if you're trying to deal with the problem of creeping authoritarianism, which

is tied into climate change. But it's also kind of a full time job to keep track of, like what militia leaders are hanging out with, what Republican congressional candidates are at rull congressman um And it's kind of a full time gig to again deal try attempt to force movement on climate change and all of these issues, these problems are so complicated that like, if you're trying to this is a problem we run into on it could happen here that I still feel mixed about, Like we

have multiple members of full time staff, and I still don't feel like we're giving good, full time coverage to each of those things because they're so complicated. And the question even of like how realistic what can be done about climate change at this point, what changes can be made um is really complicated, and you'll find experts who disagree. There are people who are ecological experts that say any window is already closed and like we're effectively fucked, and

there's experts that say, no, that's crazy. And there's a whole bunch of things that can be done. We could start doing them today. Um and even just trying to parse out that single debate is a lot. There's a lot happening. There's a lot happening. But also like you don't know what are the unintended ramifications of a potential solution. How does it impact ex community? How does it do that?

You know, jellyfish if you will, for those of us who watch Patriot, that's right, No good, Cody, I don't know, Cody, this is your showdy. I just want to say Showty again. I know you did. I always thought that was one of the cuter things you'll developed for your Showty official name almost Cody. You remember you remember that fun time back when we were both young and and you you made that video about an app called chat Roulette where people were That's how we most Penis. That's how Cody

and I met. Yeah that's true. I didn't know that. Yeah we met, but like, yeah, they were emailing first and our first video for Cracked, and then Dan O'Brien I believe was like, hey introduced us to UH so that I could make a video, a little clip for his chat Roulette. That's when I became acquainted with because it was like I was working as I just moved on from intern to like part time employee, and Dan sent me this video and was like, this guy, Cody, I think is going to be a big part of

the site moving forward, still exists? Should you tell people that? Probably not? Probably? Yeah, like many of the things we create, would we be canceled? Um, I don't know the Cracked players broken, so I don't even think it's still available anymore. It's just about how if you go on chat Roulette, you're bound to see constantly. Much like the show Patriot, chat Roulette was an app where you were randomly matched

with another person around the world. You had no way of knowing who that would still here, And the basic idea behind chat Roulette was wouldn't it be neat if um, you could just get connected to someone else in the world, uh, and then maybe that would spawn interesting conversations. And what actually happened is that fifty of the people on chat Roulette would immediately show their penis to the other. That's

what happened. In retrospect, there were a lot of lessons about what the Internet was going to be in the future from chat Roulette. In retrospect, everything still works the same way. Um, It's just it was pretty good. It was pretty good. Video Cody, How do I play this for everybody? How do I play this for you guys? I know the world wasn't actually simpler back then. Obviously. The invasion of Iraq was still fairly fresh at that point,

just really four or five years old. Uh yeah, A couple of different horrible wars were raging a lot of the building. The tea party was kind of like in its offering a lot of them. Play this song for you, guys. Social trends that would be disasters where people were ignoring climate change and mocking Al Gore for making a very mild movie warning people about it. Um and in retrospect, all of the problems that are now catastrophes were just

building in that period. But everything felt simple because we were young and dumb and able to make funny chat that was silly videos about whatever. Yeah, a little tune to listen to this three minute song, but let's put it on at the end for the people, most of whom do not remember that chat roulette was ever a thing. It's like, yeah, pre omegel, Yeah, definitely pre way pre Omegel. Yeah by like close to a decade, right, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,

Michael still around. Yeah, I really don't think absolutely not. I refuse to accept that it might still be alive, although every now and then I'm reminded that DIG still exists, and I'm just livid, but that I had any issue with DIG. But it's no way. Uh yeah baby was even uh speaking of chat Roulette, We'll be right back.

Unlike chat Roulette, which disappeared, did disappeared, but you know what it lives on whenever you accidentally show your producer and her mom a bunch of dudes penises from the show Patriot because you fell asleep. The spirit way to bring it back together everything we're back. We're talking about good times, bad times, the fact that what are we

what are we gonna do here about this? About this climate stuff, because it feels like an intractable kind of problem alongside the people fighting vigorous doing stuff like there's effectively a full abortion band just got pasted in Oklahoma. Um. You are increasingly seeing conservatives rally around the idea of criminalizing any contact between trans people or gay people and and like kids. Particularly, It's starting in schools and with

with the banning of books. You're got this horrible war unfolding in Ukraine with an act of probable genocide in the suburb of Buka. Um, you've got uh, the authoritarian realignment, with authoritarians on absolutely on both sides of this growing kind of international block of of conflicting nations. UM. And uh, yes, some ship's not great with with the climate. The Arctic was seventy degrees hotter than it's ever been at this time of year. Um, which also is bad. How much?

How many degrees? That's a lot of degree. It's a real problem, Katie. It shouldn't be that much hotter than it normally is or has ever been before. Um. So like recycle is that kind of goal we're gonna get knock out composts. Don't forget to call post planted tree compost Republican legislators. That actually would make some progress. Um. That that that might help stop cutting down trees, stop depart dating down Republican. Okay, Yeah, Elon Musk is about

to help run Twitter. So that's gonna that's gonna be good. You know, we can do actually think and I think it's President Biden is doing a really good job with this, Joseph Robinette Biden. Well, yeah, you just so. He just announced today. I'll just read his tweet verbatim. I love I love verbating. Yeah, so I'm gonna verbate right now. Verbath verbatim. We're all over bath batim, bit umpctimating. Uh, I don't know. I don't know what I was trying

to go for that. Um. I just signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to continue doing everything in their power to expand the quality and affordability of health coverage. Knocked it out of the park. Good work, Joe, So does that do? What's that gonna second? It's it's gonna help direct them to continue to do everything in their power to expand the quality and affordability of health coverage. That's good. So health care has gotten cheaper over the

last few years, right, sure, why not? Yeah, that's what they're They're gonna continue to do that. They're gonna so he signed, he signed an executive order. Uh two, stays the course. I guess right to to keep it. I can't. Oh no, how spending in the US increased by four point six percent in would you say? Okay, no, healthcare it's it's it's still it's increasing at the rate it's been increasing, so that's good. It's not increasing on an

unusual basis. Although the latest numbers I've got here are from two thousand nineteen, so they who's to say pre pandemic. There's that in culin co pay cap that just got that is true. That is true, and that is true. Yeah, I just think it is co pays, which is well, exactly everything. Everything always comes down to like blah blah blah. If you got yeah, like it's it's one of those things.

There's a there's an article I found on it that describes it as like a path to affordability, which again I'm not not to shoot like obviously when it comes to things that like legislators are doing. This is one of those things where I'm like, okay, so there are some people who are making material like this, this, this will have an impact on some people that is positive, and that's that's good. I'm not gonna I'm not going

to shoot on it. But it is also worth noting, like these are co pay caps, this is not stopping the broader fundamental problem, which is that insulin, which should be effectively free because of how cheap it is to produce. UM is in instead expensive enough that people are dying because they cannot afford it. And um, that's a fundamental problem with how we view healthcare and we view like the way capitalism should work. Um. On a moral level, it's a problem with like the amount of suffering that

we are happy to allow to happen for for modest profitability. Um, yeah, how much can we tolerate? Yeah, which again I'm not again not shipping on the legislators who fought that this was like a real slug match, but that that's part of what as as good as it is that like they made some progress on making insulin more affordable. The fact that it was or is still because it hasn't passed the Senate yet. Um, it was a fucking battle in the house. Um, and now we're we're going to

see if it can pass the Senate. The fact that like that's the level of fight that we're getting, or like the level of fight we're getting to confirm. Um. The current Supreme Court justice whose name I've spaced on, um Jackson, Like we were talking about the like when you when you look at what a level of fight these things are which are both I think worth doing within the context of the system we have. Capping insulin

cope is worth doing. Based on what I can tell of this justice's record, seems like it will be a positive having her on the Supreme Court. Not saying these are not worth doing. But when you look at the degree to which both of these things, which are in the broad scheme of the problems facing us on a global scale, pretty minor, right um, When you look at what a fight that is, it makes me feel like, Okay, well, how are we going to, for example, dramatically and very

quickly put an end to two carbon emissions. Well, we're not. It's going to take people having their lives destroyed to like literally destroyed. And meanwhile, we're looking at housing prices everywhere, and it's not affordable to live and if you're living in the mountains, you have to pay twelve thousand dollars

a year for fire insurance. Well, and and if you if you as people's lives are just jroid by climate change, their ability to agitate for action on climate change will be hampered by the fact that they are homeless or in severe desperation. And we are also in the process

of criminalizing houselessness to an increasing extent. And like where I live in Portland, which has been seeing a surgeon houselessness, the liberal local government is now pushing the idea of forcing people into camps run by the National Guard, which you're going to see more of all over the place. Like the the solutions to this are not going to come for voting, with voting for people, um, the solutions to this are only going to come by massive collective action.

And that's a titanic struggle. I I I don't think it's something that will be accomplished in three years, if it ever is. Because now that said, I didn't think the ship that happened in was going to happen. But also we have to look at the reactions, like the results of which was in the best case scenarios, some cities had reforms and mild parts of their of their justice system or or their policing system, and most places did nothing. And now a lot of that is getting

pushed back. So uh yeah, that's kind of what I mean with big pro to anyway. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we're gonna need some stuff's gonna need to get damaged in a very a scale. And to a degree of I don't think it's I think organizing is a necessary part of the solution. I don't think that um uh, voting is going to solve these big problems. Which is not to say that, like, you know, to the extent that it allows you to do things like cap insulin copas.

If that happens, that's good. And I'm not gonna I'm not one of those folks on the left who's gonna say, like, don't bother voting, because there's things it does it can help with. But it's like it's like I'm not going to say that band aids aren't useful, but if you're bleeding out from a cut in your femoral artery, a band aid isn't going to solve the problem. Yeah, it's just we're like, it's beneficial to keep putting like filling the bucket with water, tossing that water overboard. Um, but

that's not going to do it. But like if you can take, you know, take thirty minutes out of your day to be like, yeah, let's get more of those buckets out of here. Um but acknowledging that that's not actually going to save the sinking ship. Yeah, m hmmm, um yeah, but you know, uh, the agencies are going to continue to uh do what they were doing right in their power. It's like it's just like clearly like it's one of those like mid it's mid term season,

like we're getting we're getting there. So like even now I'm seeing like a few Congress people start to be like, by the way, we should have medicare for all right, Yeah, it's that time of year where they trod out the slogans, Um, it's hard because you're right, I mean, just both of them. All politicians suck. These people aren't in there for the right reasons. So the people that are can't do anything because most of them are run by corporations blah blah blah.

But our window of opportunity is fast thinking, like we know, we see that this they couldn't get shipped done and and there's a big disillusionment like, um, what's the point? And now Republicans are I mean, that's what it feels like for people. They're all the same. I don't say that there isn't a point. I'm saying that that's the sentiment and that's what it feels like, and that's why we're gonna lose in a few months. I mean, it's

we'll see what happens with with that ship. Uh, we'll see what happens with with that That's it's a dark way of saying it. I I down there's a lot of mobilization on the right for a lot of these like culture war issues and things like that. But I do I mean, I don't know, but I have you have some sort of hope and uh, yeah, like there are a lot there are a lot of people I think, on the right now who are slowly realizing the things that like we've been sort of pointing out, like especially

with like the rampant homophobia that has been amped up recently. Um, I've seen I have seen people be like, wait, I thought we were talking about this, Why are you Why are we being like you're being like openly homophobic and like patriolic now. Um. And I think that some people are sort of realizing like, oh, this was always the here. I do think that the true that sooner or later

things will be bad. We're talking about climate anyway, or healthcare or gas prices there there there will hopefully be a point where some of this division or we realize that we need each other. Do you know what I mean?

Like where you start like saying falling down the pitfall falls of like ways things have been distorted and you see the common ground, like if we need each other, they're to save this country from But also that has to go along with the corollary that are not insignificant chunk of this country would happily kill the entire world in order to avoid admitting that they have been wrong about some important things, and they are they are willing to burn the country and plant down in order to

ensure that they never have to reevaluate the things that they have been, that they have been that they believe. I'm hopeful that there are fewer of those people then yeah, we'll see. I mean, it's gonna be fun. I don't My feeling is that the Democratic Party has not done a great job of anticipating the things that are going to help them in the mid terms. Um, but it's also like I don't know, uh, I don't know what's

going to happen here. A lot of folks are saying that the polling looks like ship did in when the Tea Party had a will blowout win. Um, oh yeah, it's I mean, it's it could very well be a complete disaster. It could be a real real cock up. Yeah, I mean we there could you know, get some more, some more Taylor Green's up in there, uh and the cruises in there for the rest of our lives. Um. But I do I don't know. It is still early.

And I do think that the the sort of endgame that like with like the dog whistling and the sort of like the rhetorical games that have been played about all these sort of issues. The UH mask is like by design like being broadcast, and I think some people

really preferred the mask being on. Um. Yeah, And I think we're gonna because some of the polling I'm seeing suggests that like things are heading in the Republicans directions for the mid terms, but not to an extent that's out of line with what tends to happen in the mid terms after a residential election for the opposition party. And if that's the case, that could actually be kind of bad news because if they you know, take back one of the one of the houses or one of

the chambers of Congress. Um. But they don't. Um, it's not really a blowout. It's just kind of a normal, Like they're showing like a two percent lead overall something

like that, which is pretty in line. If that's accurate, if they're not, if kind of the Republican support is not being underestimated, which is always possible, Um, then that that would be interesting that that might look really bad for them actually, because that would show that like they actually have absolutely hit their cap, that going so extreme has hurt them. That like it doesn't do, it doesn't create. They always talk about what kind of the thing that

we're looking to see. Is this going to be a pretty normal thing for a mid term after an election where the party that one the big election is tired because you know, the kind of campaign promises have intersected with reality. People are less motivated. Um, they don't get their base out, but the party in opposition is all riled up because they're the party in opposition and they've lost control of the presidency, and so they make some gains.

If that's what we get out of the mid term as opposed to like a two thousand ten tea party blowout, Um, then that might suggest they have some real problems when comes along, because that might suggest, oh, you guys have you guys have peaked with this rhetoric can get you and win. It's a presidential election, and there's more activation

of the base. Um. Of course that also assumes that, like the hope would be the best case scenario than would be that like Republicans have a win that's in line with what tends to happen in mid terms after an election. Um, that's not exceptional or crazy, big uh. And then but it's spooks Democrats in power enough that they actually start doing some more of the things that are going to pick up actual support with their with with the left and and with with regressives and stuff.

And you know if that proves to be a wise elector Yeah, I don't have a ton of confidence with that. It's just like the thing, like the one thing that Democrats can't get enough of, like more than losing, it's like not learning lessons. Yes, they just fucking they just gobble up not learning very obvious lessons. So I don't know if that's what happened. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna need to where I guess we'll see some ship. Um,

I guess we'll see some ship. Like I have no idea how to tell, uh what's going to happen other than that, like it's probably gonna overall be a win for Republicans, but the question is like how how big a deal is it going to be, um long term or how it will effect us going forward? And yeah, I mean yeah, it's going to be your window here, babies, Like that ship doesn't seem possible. Yeah yeah, um, I mean yeah, it could just be like I don't know,

like Sarah Palin is gonna run again? Right, Well, that was that not a was not that not a yuck? Was that not? It started out as a yuck? And then I think follow up like a few days later it was like yeah, um yeah probably, but like but like that's the kind of thing where it's like yeah, um, I don't I just don't think that, uh that is gonna fly. Yeah this this new this new new wave. Um,

we'll see. There's also there's some reasons for like there's some dire ship happening, including the fact that, like according to Gallup, at the end of Democrats led Republicans and party identification by nine points um by the in the beginning of it. By the end of the year, Republicans were head by five, which is like the biggest swing

Gallop has ever recorded, and that UM, so that's bad. UM. But also, what do you mean by party identification of people identifying as people identifying to Gallop in a poll as Democratic right? UM? And I found a good well, I don't know how, I'm not an expert on any of this, but I found an analysis, UM that's pointing out that, like, there's a couple of reasons to maybe think that it will not go quite as well for

the Republicans as some people are suggesting. One of them is just the fact that, like, UM, in the election, House Democrats lost a bunch of seats to Republicans UM that were the most vulnerable seats UM, which means that, like, of the seats currently being battled, Democrats aren't defending nearly as many seats in vulnerable districts, whereas House Republicans actually have a lot of seats and districts where things are

more split that they have to defend. UM. Redistricting has gone reasonably well for Democrats compared to like what people were worried about. UM. And you know, in the Senate, they're not defending a whole lot of seats that are particularly vulnerable compared to what they were. So it's it's it's possible, and it's one of those things. If this actually is kind of like a slug match and it's kind of hard to tell at the end of it who's come out on top, that's a disaster for Republicans. UM,

so we'll see what happens. I'm not I don't know again, like we've been talking about, there's so much that's like catastrophic these days that I'm just like trying not to there's not there's like the I don't know. Uh, it doesn't seem like obsessing over the mid terms is any better than obsessing over anything else we're in. We're in pretty like if the mid terms go great, I'm still not convinced that the primary catastrophic problems facing us as

a civilization we'll get fixed. But like, if the midterms go real good for the Democrats, it's certainly means that it's less likely things will be catastrophic, uh for almost here on planet Earth, but not necessarily by enough to really matter for most people, because I mean what will matter is you know, the concept of the end of democracy.

But also if we do not take massive action on climate change, UM, democracy will not survive the coming decades of refugee influxes and in natural disasters, as we've seen in a number of parts of the world already, which is why the percentage of human beings living in authoritarian regimes has like shot up by very like something thirty or in the last um decade and change like it's we're we're watching the dissolution of democracy on a global

scale in favor of authoritarianism. And there's positive signs and that generally speaking, the fact that Ukraine has done so much better than Russia in this war is potentially very significant because whatever, there's a number of serious issues with the Ukrainian government, as there's with any government, but it

is a democracy. It is a functioning democracy um with a with a rule of law, which is why like the former president Portushenko got lost his election to Zelinsky and had to flee the country because he had been he was very extremely Ukraine is a function of Russia.

Russia is not I thought you were saying Russia. I was like, no, you know, but I want to see and one of the I mean part of why they've been doing so well, I mean they've routed It was not a retreat around Kiev, the level of documented Russian armored armored losses outside of him alone, it's not not a retreat, it's a route. It was a that is a disaster militarily. UM. And you know, we'll see what actually happens in the east now that that both sides

are able to kind of redeploy some forces. I think that might benefit Ukraine more than it does Russia, because the Russian forces that pulled away from Kiev suffered Titanic losses, whereas the Ukrainian military seems to still be in pretty good order. But part of why you're seeing Ukraine outperformed

Russia's so much. Obviously there's the factor of like Western weapons, but Western weapons, as we have seen in a number of conflicts so far, are only useful insofar as you have functional battle doctrine and functional military leadership in order to um enable functional resistance. We've been training them. There's a yeah that that has not been a non factor the US and NATO, but I think that is less

we have been. I think that is less of a factor than the fact that Ukrainians developed through eight years of experience fighting a peer force. UM. Really significant and and uh auto cathonic, you know, having arisen from within the society battle doctrine that had not really had not been tested before. I think, uh so that's I think a major factor in what we're saying. And Mocker's yeah, and that doesn't you know, that'll that'll to get you so far. It's better to be smart than than it

is to be tough. UM. And what the Ukrainian military did after was except number one, the reality of their situation, which is they had just gotten a fucking pantst by the Russian Army, some disastrous armored losses on behalf of the Ukrainian military that looked like the ship you're seeing the Russian supper right now. And it was because Ukraine was a tremendously corrupt country, UM, with all of these oligarchs who had terrible influence within not just the civil

society but within the military. UM. You had very corrupt military leadership. You had very like a lot of you know, military units whose parts had been sold off wholesale that weren't actually ready to fight. UM. And Ukrainians, after kind of fighting to retain a democracy, UM, voted in a series of people who, for all of their flaws, made some major reforms to the way the military functions and who commanded it um that were extremely effective. And so

I don't know, I try not to. I'm really trying not to be too much of a duomer. There is there are signs that, like, it's not an insurmountable fight, because one of the good things about authoritarians is that they're bad at a lot of stuff. They're really good at fucking up a bunch of different things at the same time, UM, in a way that makes it hard to deal with because you have to be a lot more competent to fix the things they're fucking up, right, UM.

But they also when you when you're able to engage them kind of directly, when you can stop sort of fuxing around the edges of the fight and throw down with them face to face, UM, they're not often nearly as competent UH in a straight up fight as they are in kind of this sort of insurgent arson cultural

ship that they that they've are very good at. UM. And so I think that's kind of the struggle for the left UH and for the center in the coming years, is to force these guys with like climate change is to force them to stare the reality of it in the face and then hit them in the face repeatedly, like not not not battle around the edges of this ship, but actually organize and get together to an extent that we can, that we can that they that they're forced to deal with this face to face um and there

are like signs for optimism. They're one of the things that this is not specifically climate change related, but it speaks to the potential of organization to solve these problems. Is like when we had when Trump was like threatening and we had that budget shut down and ship of the government, the longest one in history. It got put down because like the airline stewardess Is union was like, well, we'll do a strike, We'll go on strike and then you can't have planes, and like what are you gonna

do then? And they caved immediately. And if you actually do get you know, that was one small example, but it points to the potential of like if you actually can get enough people and most people are broadly in support of things like not having the climate collapse, if you can actually manage to weld folks together long enough

to take some of these issues on head on. Um. Right wing resistance tends to not be able to actually deal with it their best when everybody's distracted and unfocused in dealing with a million things, which is why they try to funk up a million things at once. Right. Um, that's that's the that's the genius in their tack, because if they can funk up enough things at once that everybody's focusing on a bunch of separate stuff, it's really hard to kind of get them to grips and actually

get them locked into a fucking fist fight. If you can get them locked into a fist fight, they're probably going to lose the fist fight. It's just a matter of actually forcing that fight before they are able to crumble everything around you and you have nowhere to stand? Does that make sense? That's where that's actually very well for that. Yeah, anyway, that's probably a podcast, right. It certainly felt like a past um I would if I

didn't mention that. In response to increased unionization, Howard Schultz says he's going to try to win back by doing Starbucks n f T S. Yes, you could have saved it for Thursday, and we can still we can talk about it a link on Thursday, but I feel like because I'm waiting, lou have you have you found more info on like what they're actually trying to do? Because I am desperate to learn what the real I don't

know what. Uh it's just that Speechie gave but just Starbucks n f t s. So don't unionize for for all the good boys and girls, you do not. All right, that's it for us. We podcasted, We did it, We went on a journey. Thank you to Robert and Robert only for watching Patriot. Cody, you're no longer my friend. You are welcome. That is extreme. That's too fair. It's too far. It's too far with HR that I now have to have thanks to my experience with the show Patriot.

How about the guy who plays the HR manager of Patriot. Oh he's so good, Oh my god. The episode in season two where they're all out drinking, very funny, really quite an ensemble show. I've I've I enjoyed a lot, well we're going to sell a Patriot camaraderie. Yeah, and enjoyed the show Patriot, which ended like three years ago. Yea, all right, we'll be back next week. Bye. Everything Everything I tried, worst year ever is a production of I

heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.