Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Caitlin. We
Speaker 1: are thrilled to be joined by one of the hosts
Speaker 1: of popular Cradle podcast, a podcast about Palestine. Also co
Speaker 1: hosts five to four, a podcast about all the ways
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is a fucking disaster. She's a supervising
Speaker 1: attorney at Texas Law, has worked as a public defender
Speaker 1: in Rio Grande City, Texas, and an activist who got
Speaker 1: arrested for protesting Israel's ongoing atrocities against Palestine. Please welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Rihann and Hmo me.
Speaker 2: I didn't prepare any eight, but yeah, I guess that
Speaker 2: Rhiann and Hammam aka jail Bird. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right. You've since we last spoke.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, great to be back.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Thank you for being here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got arrested protesting on the campus of the University
Speaker 1: of Texas, do you. I'm sure you've talked about it.
Speaker 1: I know you've talked about it on five four. I
Speaker 1: heard you talked about it on five four. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: can you talk about kind of what what that experience
Speaker 1: was like has been like.
Speaker 2: You know, it was, it was. It was super crazy.
Speaker 2: It was super crazy. It was really quite random, you know,
Speaker 2: if people kind of followed this of course, you know,
Speaker 2: like things like the student encampment movement and that kind
Speaker 2: of like tactic of protests on campuses was really intense
Speaker 2: and widespread over the spring. At UT. On the day
Speaker 2: that I was arrested, there wasn't even a student encampment.
Speaker 2: It was just students gathering for like you know, a
Speaker 2: teaching and some art activities and talking about the genocide.
Speaker 2: And yes, State of Texas through UT basically just called
Speaker 2: the cops on this crowd, called the cops on a
Speaker 2: bunch of kids standing on standing on the lawn at
Speaker 2: their school. So yeah, I got arrested there. It was
Speaker 2: really it was. It was so wild. You know, it's
Speaker 2: hard to like derive really like any like strong lessons
Speaker 2: out of it, like about the law or something like that,
Speaker 2: because it's just like, no, the lesson is like the
Speaker 2: state will call in cops to beat up some kids
Speaker 2: if they don't like what you're saying, right, Like, that's
Speaker 2: that's kind of.
Speaker 1: It, and we'll rescue and do and do violence regardless
Speaker 1: of whether you respond, you know, do respond to what
Speaker 1: they're telling you to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all for exercise your first Amendment.
Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly, Yeah, kind of like I guess I learned
Speaker 2: the wrong first Amendment in law school, but something different
Speaker 2: than what the U than what state troopers in Texas learned,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. They weren't ready on the
Speaker 1: day of the actual protests, so they were like, that's
Speaker 1: not going to work for us. But there are people here,
Speaker 1: so can we just like kind of go through with this.
Speaker 1: I already have like the shit on me, Like I
Speaker 1: have all the got on. I brought a huge but comfortable.
Speaker 2: And I also brought thirty massive horses. So can I
Speaker 2: just let loose on these nineteen year olds or what?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: That's right? All right, Well, I'm sorry you went through that,
Speaker 1: but thank you for your courage in the face of
Speaker 1: state violence and you know, just fucking the ongoing horrors
Speaker 1: of this civilization we live in. What is something from
Speaker 1: your search history that's revealing about who you are.
Speaker 3: I googled this phrase dating apps that don't suck shit?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and.
Speaker 3: I didn't yield the results I was up for.
Speaker 4: Didn't yield results about.
Speaker 3: It was just like, here are some dating apps that
Speaker 3: you already use and that do traumatize you in real time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so didn't really find what I was looking for, but
Speaker 3: I think I made a valiant effort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a good search. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they got around that search that seems pretty air tight.
Speaker 5: Well, what is the name of the like when someone's
Speaker 5: attracted to somebody's intelligence, sabio sexual? They had an app
Speaker 5: that was like that, and it was all the dumbest people, right,
Speaker 5: it's like people who just found out what the word
Speaker 5: sabio sexual means.
Speaker 1: Sure, people, and I'm sure it attracts a lot of
Speaker 1: people who do their own research, which are not always
Speaker 1: actually the smartest people I have found. And that's just
Speaker 1: a personal opinion, but it's what I have found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like a like there's probably a
Speaker 1: dating app that like their log line, their pitch is
Speaker 1: like We're the dating app that doesn't suck shit, and
Speaker 1: it's just the worst dating app, probably because like, that's
Speaker 1: just how capitalism, this modern version of capitalism works, is like,
Speaker 1: so we'll claim that we don't do the thing that
Speaker 1: we actually do, and then we do that thing harder
Speaker 1: than any anybody.
Speaker 3: Else, anyone else. Yeah. Yeah, they all seem to be
Speaker 3: competing with each other for the suck shittiest.
Speaker 1: The shit suckingest app. How is the.
Speaker 4: Meeting people in real life situation right now?
Speaker 5: Given that the app sucks so bad, I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm people might be going back to that.
Speaker 4: Is that true? I think?
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 3: I keep hearing about people joining like running clubs to
Speaker 3: meet people, and here's the thing. I don't want to
Speaker 3: be in running club. But I did join a co
Speaker 3: ed soccer team.
Speaker 5: That's There's like, so there was a moment where meetups
Speaker 5: were a thing where they would do like Peyton wine
Speaker 5: nights and it was just like strangers, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, or people who were trying to make friends
Speaker 5: and stuff. And I feel like that's kind of coming
Speaker 5: back in. Maybe not in that format, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I did like a speed dating
Speaker 3: like my first ever speed dating event, I don't know,
Speaker 3: like a while ago now, is like probably six fish
Speaker 3: months ago. But it was kind of as it was
Speaker 3: pretty suck shit as well. Yeah, it's just it's the
Speaker 3: quality of the people is the big problem. I think.
Speaker 3: So I don't have anything against it's the people who
Speaker 3: suck shit.
Speaker 5: And that's the whole thing with dating is you have
Speaker 5: to interact with people, and if they suck shit, the
Speaker 5: whole experience shit.
Speaker 3: That's right, And it just so happens that most people
Speaker 3: suck shit.
Speaker 5: So you got to get through the ship suckers to
Speaker 5: find a real diamond sucker.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean exactly.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of ship around diamonds.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: The diamond in the rock more like the diamond in
Speaker 3: the ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the diamond in the heavily compacted ship. You know.
Speaker 5: Okay, car Pie, all right, Daily's sikes, No, no, I
Speaker 5: wasn't getting you on track at all.
Speaker 1: Trust me.
Speaker 4: I would never do.
Speaker 5: That, Daily zyke eves people. If you know a single
Speaker 5: person who doesn't suck shit, damn me. So that it
Speaker 5: doesn't go to Caitlin's inbox, I can send all of
Speaker 5: you filled all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: Kaitlyn deserves the best, and then maybe we'll get one
Speaker 5: person who is perfect for you.
Speaker 3: Oh, let's hope. So they have to like Paddington and
Speaker 3: that's about it.
Speaker 4: Does anybody know Paddington? Does anybody know Paddington?
Speaker 3: Do you know him personally? I just want to date
Speaker 3: you to get to Paddington. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what
Speaker 3: this is. All all comes down to the people on
Speaker 3: the dating apps suck ship because they don't know Paddington.
Speaker 4: I met this person on a dating app. They were
Speaker 4: a real Paddington fucker.
Speaker 1: And that was that was like a story of a
Speaker 1: great experience, right, that was the beginning of a tail
Speaker 1: that ends with wedding bells.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's me meeting Caitlin on a dating appy, just
Speaker 5: asking about Paddington.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my cousin. Yeah, have you tried AI? I've been
Speaker 1: told by the creator of Bumble that we're all just
Speaker 1: going to be on dating apps using AI as our
Speaker 1: personal our ais will date each other to figure out
Speaker 1: if we're compatible.
Speaker 3: I'd rather walk into the ocean.
Speaker 1: Muttering to yourself with fish. Yeah. I think that's a
Speaker 1: better plan actually than the their plan. What Jody is
Speaker 1: something you think is under I.
Speaker 6: Don't know if this is underrated. This might be more
Speaker 6: what I've been listening to lately, but I was, but
Speaker 6: I've been personally riding the rated and overrated and underrated
Speaker 6: roller coaster with Charles Mingus lately. And that's because, in
Speaker 6: part because of the Kamala stuff and all those pictures
Speaker 6: of her holding up all those records and one of
Speaker 6: them was a Mingus record, and do you know what
Speaker 6: I'm talking about, those those.
Speaker 1: Memes of her.
Speaker 6: So there was there was this video of Kamala Harris,
Speaker 6: like from a couple of years ago, and it started
Speaker 6: flying around when she was when she captured the nomination,
Speaker 6: and it was like her coming out of a record
Speaker 6: store and she had like some you know, a lot
Speaker 6: of great albums, and one of them was a Mingus album.
Speaker 6: And then someone made a little thing you could where
Speaker 6: you could like insert have her had like a photoshop
Speaker 6: automatically photoshop her holding up any album you wanted, and
Speaker 6: it was very clever. But anyway, so it just Mingus
Speaker 6: has been one of my favorite hours for a long
Speaker 6: time and and seems weirdly criminally underrated, and it was
Speaker 6: nice to see Kamala buying a Mingus album and it's
Speaker 6: put me back on a very big Mingus kick over
Speaker 6: the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Is a jazz musician.
Speaker 6: Oh yes, sorry, jazz musician who also trained his cats
Speaker 6: how to use the toilet. But that's another story.
Speaker 4: Really, that's why I'm a fan of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually wasn't aware of his jazz work.
Speaker 6: I just yeah, you're a fan of the Charles MGAs
Speaker 6: a catalog for toilet training your cats. He used to
Speaker 6: be able to write Charles Mingus a letter to a
Speaker 6: peel box in downtown Manhattan and then if you and
Speaker 6: enclosed two dollars and then he would mail you back
Speaker 6: a photo come method with his.
Speaker 1: The Mingas method.
Speaker 6: It's incredible. Yeah, wow, do.
Speaker 1: We have access to that method? Yeah? We did.
Speaker 6: I did a whole radio piece for it one time,
Speaker 6: and then tried to train a kitten using the Mingus
Speaker 6: method and it didn't work that way.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I talked to a cat.
Speaker 6: I talked to a vet and like sort of cat
Speaker 6: psychologist who who validated that Mingus really had sort of
Speaker 6: tapped into something about cat psychology in terms of the
Speaker 6: method he was using to coax cats into using the toilet.
Speaker 1: Was one of the steps like play just the smoothest
Speaker 1: jazz for them, like so that they get super relexzz.
Speaker 5: There's some joke about scatting in here is there.
Speaker 1: Is It's in there.
Speaker 5: I saw Kamala won some Italian pasta making contests, like
Speaker 5: all of these things from when she was like from
Speaker 5: twenty twelve or something. All of these random facts are
Speaker 5: coming out about her, and it's just very surprising. Like,
Speaker 5: what's what's being unearthed?
Speaker 1: That's cool? What is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 7: S'mores? Okay, shit, dessert everything shit. I don't know if
Speaker 7: this is just me or if other people are experiencing
Speaker 7: this in the world, because like we obviously did a
Speaker 7: ZEITGEISTI in turn where now it's dark chocolate out paced
Speaker 7: milk chocolate, which when I was younger, it was milk
Speaker 7: chocolate everywhere. Yeah, s'mores are everywhere now that I'm seeing
Speaker 7: there's smores flavored. So yeah, things trying to taste like smores.
Speaker 7: It's a stupid word, has needless apostrophe. Some moores? You
Speaker 7: want some morees? Fuck you get out of here, dry cracker, Like,
Speaker 7: I don't understand why other better things like a fine
Speaker 7: chocolate at a chocolate tears are trying to taste like s'mores.
Speaker 1: Yeah you already better.
Speaker 5: Really a thing that's like a nostalgia thing of like
Speaker 5: being around a bonfire or being like at a like
Speaker 5: going camping, and they're trying to take that and change
Speaker 5: the ethos of it to make it like fancier or
Speaker 5: different or whatever. And it's like the reason this is
Speaker 5: good is for the memories. You know, if I'm sitting
Speaker 5: at home, like eating a s'more, I'm like, this is
Speaker 5: not this is sad.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, my argument is, just eat chocolate and throw glow
Speaker 7: sticks into the fire because they explode and then you
Speaker 7: glow and it's awesome. Yeah, I probably carcinogenic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably not good for you. And then the
Speaker 1: glowing gas.
Speaker 4: You have a different than I do. You're so sick.
Speaker 7: We did do that, that was one of our And
Speaker 7: then because they get hot and boil and pop and
Speaker 7: then you have dots of glowing ship all over you
Speaker 7: and you play hide and seek and there. Well, that
Speaker 7: sounds really super fun.
Speaker 1: Psychedelic and fun. It would make a.
Speaker 7: Good nostalgic like J. J. Abrams movie scene, Yeah, kids
Speaker 7: playing Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think you zeroed in on it with the dry crackers.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the dry crackers of the s'mores, and I
Speaker 1: think that it's always the thing that when I crackers.
Speaker 7: And marshmallows are mid they're not They're not bad.
Speaker 5: The marshmallows are really good marshmallows. Marshmallows think you're better
Speaker 5: than regular markers. And I'm but like when I was vegetarian,
Speaker 5: like my meat eating friends, they would do that thing
Speaker 5: where they're like, this is actually better than the original.
Speaker 4: I actually believe you.
Speaker 7: You ever hear people say vagan and go what vegan? Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm encountering vegan lately to vegan?
Speaker 1: Is that? Are they saying vagan like instead of vegan?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, instead of I'm hearing vegan pronounced vegan.
Speaker 1: But are they doing it as a bit like I'm
Speaker 1: vaguely vegan? No, actually vegan. They're doing it like more
Speaker 1: acutely vegan.
Speaker 7: And yeah, I think it's like they're implying that it's
Speaker 7: the proper pronunciation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so vegan that this.
Speaker 5: Against it, Like this is like meat eaters saying, like, what,
Speaker 5: how can we make them more fucking annoying?
Speaker 1: Have you ever had? I mean, I guess if you
Speaker 1: don't like two of the three ingredients, you're probably off.
Speaker 1: But if you replace the dry crackers with some moist cookies.
Speaker 1: It's actually pretty good.
Speaker 7: And like, oh yeah, squishy chocolate chip cookie sandwich with marshmallow.
Speaker 1: And chocolate, marshmallow and chocolate. Yeah, the chocolate. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: Okay, now you guys sound like you're trying to elevate
Speaker 5: this Moore again. It sounds like you're doing.
Speaker 1: We're doing a bit of an elevated some more concept.
Speaker 4: A deconstructed construction.
Speaker 1: And also like the dry crackers just like crumble too much.
Speaker 1: They're just you take a bite into them and it's
Speaker 1: now in forty five pieces.
Speaker 4: You know, that's the beauty of it. That's why we
Speaker 4: can't escape the nature Valley Granola Bar. We love the mess.
Speaker 4: We're just messy bitches.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is myk I just need that
Speaker 1: ship to be like crumbs in the crumbling on my chest,
Speaker 1: ba baby, yeah.
Speaker 7: Bums in the streets, crumbs in the sheets.
Speaker 1: I also, you mentioned that we went from milk chocolate
Speaker 1: to dark chocolate, and I'm I want to go back
Speaker 1: me too.
Speaker 5: I love chocolate it always, but like dark chocolate people
Speaker 5: were like very pretentious because they made.
Speaker 4: Me feel bad about it.
Speaker 7: They're like thirty percent just a treat sometime when you
Speaker 7: want to feel extra adult and you have that acquired
Speaker 7: taste fifty percent, sixty percent, seventy percent dark chocolate, and
Speaker 7: it's all you can get at the grocery store.
Speaker 5: Well, control over the percent of dark chocolate. Everything in
Speaker 5: the rest of your life is crumbling. But if you
Speaker 5: were able to take this bitterness, just like you are
Speaker 5: your coffee and your beer.
Speaker 4: Then you can take the fact that your wife, Susan
Speaker 4: left you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just eat baking cocoa actually, and that's my
Speaker 1: preferred form of chocolate intake.
Speaker 4: I new trend raw dog and cocoa audience coco.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like it's for people who take pride
Speaker 1: in the wrong things about being an adult. You know,
Speaker 1: they're just like suffering. I've had people say to it
Speaker 1: be like you like chocolate, Oh, you you like like
Speaker 1: dark chocolate? Like how dark? You know? They like, I
Speaker 1: want to get into like a dark chocolate darkness off
Speaker 1: And I'm saying that I don't.
Speaker 5: It feels very Silicon Valley tech bro. I'm having like flashbacks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, leave me out of your sick fucking game man. Anyways,
Speaker 1: milk chocolate for life. Let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back and we're back, and we're back,
Speaker 1: and we're back and Trump v. United States? Is that
Speaker 1: how we pronounce that. We pronounced the verses as v.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the realm of Supreme the Supremes, you got it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people have talked about how scary
Speaker 1: the prospect of trump next Trump presidency is in the
Speaker 1: context of Project twenty twenty five, and they are right. Yes, However,
Speaker 1: this ruling is just straight up feels like the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court intervening on behalf of Donald Trump to say he
Speaker 1: can do whatever he wants, like including I feel like
Speaker 1: everything he did in the first in his first presidents, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like they're just like, yeah, he's the president. He can
Speaker 1: do all of that shit. Like if Juary sixth happened
Speaker 1: with this being the law, the only thing he did
Speaker 1: wrong really was not make it a military coup. If
Speaker 1: he had used the military, then that would have been okay,
Speaker 1: in line with this ruling, because then that's part that's
Speaker 1: him using his official capacity as president.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So, Like the question here is like, okay,
Speaker 2: when do presidents get immunity, and like, well, you have
Speaker 2: to step back and think like why why is there
Speaker 2: such a concept in the law of presidential immunity, And
Speaker 2: it's because you want the president, you want certain government
Speaker 2: officials to like be able to do some stuff that
Speaker 2: the normal person wouldn't be able to do. You already
Speaker 2: talked about like leading the military, the president's commander in chief, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you order the military to do some stuff,
Speaker 2: there's going to be consequences that for me to order
Speaker 2: somebody to do that, that would be a crime, right,
Speaker 2: But we want the president to be able to do it.
Speaker 2: That's why there's presidential immunity. And so the way courts
Speaker 2: in the past have like decided, like what does where
Speaker 2: does presidential immunity lie is if basically is if the
Speaker 2: president is doing an official act, right, if it's an
Speaker 2: act that the president is doing, because the president is
Speaker 2: the president, right, so you know you could you can
Speaker 2: hold them legally accountable for doing something. Yes, they're the president,
Speaker 2: but they're not doing an official act. So you know,
Speaker 2: the president the president, and I get an offender bender,
Speaker 2: you know, six blocks from my house, Yeah, I would
Speaker 2: be able to sue the president he's not doing his
Speaker 2: presidential duties in rear ending my car.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, but especially he kind of fucked up
Speaker 1: your twenty fourteen right, yes he should be, he must pay.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so in this case, the Supreme Court, this
Speaker 2: is a majority decision written by John Roberts, basically says,
Speaker 2: if you're the president, almost anything you do is going
Speaker 2: to be an official.
Speaker 3: Act, including for treason.
Speaker 2: Basically, yes, yes, yeah. What's so so wild is what
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court says is or what the majority the majority.
Speaker 2: Let's be real, the hyper conservative six maniacs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but John Roberts is the middle of the road
Speaker 1: guy who was gonna save us all I thought, let.
Speaker 2: This past Supreme Court term be the dead of that idea.
Speaker 2: This we we've got Roberts on decisions all over the
Speaker 2: place where he is like articulating a frankly psychotic conservative
Speaker 2: vision of the law and of the constitution. This guy
Speaker 2: is not a moderate. Please stop saying that.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, in in this case, they're saying, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: basically everything is a presidential official act because you know,
Speaker 2: we can't decide whether something is official conduct or unofficial
Speaker 2: conduct by looking at by inquiring into like the president's motives. Right,
Speaker 2: So that means like it doesn't matter for what purpose
Speaker 2: the president does something. It doesn't matter how self interested,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how violent. As long as it's like
Speaker 2: draped in the shroud of the presidential office, then the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court says the president is insulated from prosecution. Right.
Speaker 2: So it's like kind of like I think Peter said
Speaker 2: this on the on the on the episode that we
Speaker 2: did about this, but he's like, Okay, if if basically
Speaker 2: like if the office of the presidency is like a gun,
Speaker 2: what the court said here is that when you become
Speaker 2: the president, you gain the completely unfettered right to use
Speaker 2: that gun however you want. It doesn't matter who you
Speaker 2: shoot at, it doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter you
Speaker 2: know how you abuse that access to the gun, right right,
Speaker 2: The only thing that matters is it's your gun. It's
Speaker 2: an official act, and so you you are immune from
Speaker 2: prosecution for any criminal acts that you do with that gun. Right. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's it's really really really it's really wild. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: like you said at the beginning, like we have we're
Speaker 2: doing monarchy now.
Speaker 1: And if Trump gets back in the White House, it
Speaker 1: feels like he's going, I mean, he's going to really
Speaker 1: explore the studio space with this like this, this is
Speaker 1: like it feels like it's like a like a request,
Speaker 1: like a band that's doing a request for some like
Speaker 1: he's like, could you play this one?
Speaker 3: Like it's really a dare, Like I dare you just
Speaker 3: to test the limits of this limitless power question mark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are limitations, like I think you guys brought up,
Speaker 1: like the president doesn't have the right to regulate emissions
Speaker 1: or force federal employees to be vaccinated. Those are executive
Speaker 1: powers like a Democrat might use, but he has the
Speaker 1: green light to orchestrate a coup and subvert an election.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's it's a little bit different,
Speaker 2: but it is related. Like it's a good point, but
Speaker 2: like it's a little bit different because this is about
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution, right so right, but yeah, it's like saying like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there are other areas of the law that are going
Speaker 2: to like rein in executive power, rein in the administrative state.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you can't do that, No, you can't, you can't.
Speaker 2: You know, the EPA can't say as part of a
Speaker 2: presidential administration that EPA can't you know, regulate waterways in
Speaker 2: this way because all of our waterways are polluted and uh,
Speaker 2: water is poisoned in the US. No no, no, no no,
Speaker 2: that's like a that's too much power, right, but all
Speaker 2: these crimes, you can definitely do that. And what's crazy?
Speaker 2: You know you brought up like okay, like the next
Speaker 2: a next Trump term, he's gonna really be trying this
Speaker 2: stuff out and really empowered by this crazy decision. And
Speaker 2: that's true. I mean, like the decision itself is not
Speaker 2: just saying like, oh yeah, in general, you're getting carte blanche,
Speaker 2: although it does say that, but it is about specific
Speaker 2: acts that Trump took leading up to and are on
Speaker 2: January sixth, right, And so you know that, you know,
Speaker 2: the accusation that Trump like leveraged the Department of Justice
Speaker 2: right to like open sham investigations or to threaten sham
Speaker 2: investigations into voter fraud so that states would be like
Speaker 2: coerced into changing their electors. He also threatened to fire
Speaker 2: the acting Attorney General for not cooperating with that. Like
Speaker 2: that's those are the specific accusations that Trump or anybody
Speaker 2: else could be criminally prosecuted for. And you know, the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court John Roberts in this decision says, well, no,
Speaker 2: that's like part of being that's just part of the office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the president. Yeah, of course he's going to fire.
Speaker 1: Like remember how big a deal it was when he
Speaker 1: fired Comy. We were like, holy shit, we have entered
Speaker 1: and then he like went on that Lesser Wholt interview
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, I didn't really like that
Speaker 1: he was looking into me, so I you know, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, we've like entered a new
Speaker 1: world where he's just going to try and get away
Speaker 1: with it. And now the Supreme Court's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's like totally fine. What yeah, like shut the fuck
Speaker 1: up straight, complaining.
Speaker 2: Everybody, right, And so if you can like misuse abuse
Speaker 2: your power with like ordering the DOJ to do illegal
Speaker 2: sham shit, right, then yeah, in this second term, like
Speaker 2: that you there's really no telling. And the court said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not just this stuff for which he's immune, it's
Speaker 2: also like, here's how you think about these cases in
Speaker 2: the future. And again that's just like if it's connected
Speaker 2: to the office of the presidency, if it's you know,
Speaker 2: just kind of draped in this, if he can say
Speaker 2: I did this in my capacity as the president, then yeah,
Speaker 2: he's immune from criminal prosecution for anything that comes out
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: And it really felt like a broad and unapologetic collusion
Speaker 1: between like the Supreme Court and Trump, like they delayed
Speaker 1: the ruling for him and then found even more strongly
Speaker 1: for him than what he was seeking. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like now, in retrospect, I think we're having a hard
Speaker 1: time getting our mind around just like how off the
Speaker 1: rails this has gone? No, yeah, yeah, just listening back
Speaker 1: to earlier episodes of your show, of like any show
Speaker 1: like from before this, you know, like when I I
Speaker 1: remember being like, oh, I'm coming back from a trip
Speaker 1: with my family on July eleventh, so that'll be like
Speaker 1: when Trump is sentenced, so we'll find that out then,
Speaker 1: Like that's just gone. It's like the worst case scenario
Speaker 1: was like him not seeing jail time, and now we're
Speaker 1: just like, oh no, actually, maybe what he did is legal.
Speaker 1: Maybe like he's not a felon because because the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is like, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Speaker 2: Everybody absolutely, yeah, No, it's super crazy, like the yeah,
Speaker 2: like the discourse was about like you know, I never
Speaker 2: thought Trump was going to see prison time, right, but
Speaker 2: it was like okay, like maybe he would be like
Speaker 2: on house arrest for like a couple of weeks or something,
Speaker 2: and then he's just like on probation and like that
Speaker 2: would be crazy and ha ha.
Speaker 1: Ha clean Highway.
Speaker 2: Service has to go win him on community service days,
Speaker 2: you know, right, you know.
Speaker 3: Like erase all that, and he is king, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: He's going to be king yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and he's like he's like explicitly saying this. He's
Speaker 2: saying like, if you vote for me, you're never gonna
Speaker 2: have to vote again. Yeah, Like like he's ready to
Speaker 2: just post up and be like I can't commit a crime.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we're good here, he's done donezo Yeah yeah, Cuckoo.
Speaker 1: Really feels like we'll never get him out of office
Speaker 1: the if he wins this time. And yeah, in the
Speaker 1: next act, I want to talk about how I like
Speaker 1: it feels like he's specifically signaling that this is his plan.
Speaker 1: Is like his ace in the hole is that he
Speaker 1: has like the Supreme Court on his side, or at
Speaker 1: least a lot of judges and election officials. But the
Speaker 1: day that this came down, he was like, we should
Speaker 1: be thinking about prosecuting Liz Cheney for treason, Like he knows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's ready to use this power. Yeah, Like the the
Speaker 1: DJ is like is his gun now he is going
Speaker 1: to be able to do the thing that he was
Speaker 1: joking about, joking in quotes, but like clearly you know
Speaker 1: has always wanted to do, which is like shoot someone
Speaker 1: in the middle of Fifth Avenue and like get away
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. He's like it's like not that far off
Speaker 2: from what he's been talking about right for for years now,
Speaker 2: and it's just about like him. That's that's what's so
Speaker 2: dangerous about a Trump administration in terms of things like
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five all all of that that comes
Speaker 2: with it is we've already seen it in a first
Speaker 2: Trump term that he installs the people who allow him
Speaker 2: to do this, right, who build up, who changed laws,
Speaker 2: who interpret laws, so that when he has power, he
Speaker 2: can do exactly what he's saying he wants to do
Speaker 2: with it, you know. And so like you know, from
Speaker 2: our from from my perspective, like watching the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: you know, you always have to go back to Trump
Speaker 2: had three nominations to the Supreme Court, got him, you know,
Speaker 2: got all three confirmed, and you know, you just have
Speaker 2: to be real. I think, you know, like legal analysts,
Speaker 2: political analysts, all of that kind of thing. You have
Speaker 2: to be real that Trump installed those three people for
Speaker 2: very specific reasons. Right, One, which they've been super upfront
Speaker 2: about and which they already achieved, was overturning Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade.
Speaker 2: He put those three conservatives because he knew those three
Speaker 2: conservatives would vote that way. Right, and now with that
Speaker 2: like kind of it's very direct, like a quid pro quo,
Speaker 2: like I put you on the court to do X
Speaker 2: Y Z, and here we go this like crazy conservative
Speaker 2: super majority. They're ready to do it. They're they're yeah.
Speaker 1: They're doing it more than really Yeah, they're x Y
Speaker 1: and zing it exactly do we it does? You're right,
Speaker 1: it does feel like this has been a plan all along.
Speaker 1: I was wondering, like because John Roberts had been more
Speaker 1: like he hadn't been this out and out like right
Speaker 1: wing crazy, had he? Or am I was I just
Speaker 1: like not paying attention. It's entirely possible. I wasn't paying attention,
Speaker 1: But like it feels like I don't know that like
Speaker 1: Brett Cavanaugh got in there and he's just like a
Speaker 1: bad influence on everyone or something like it just feels
Speaker 1: like it's like a total it's taken a real turn.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. Like John Roberts has always been
Speaker 2: a conservative, Like he's always hated things like voting rights,
Speaker 2: you know, like they're his legal career before he was
Speaker 2: ever a judge, Like shows a lot of his a
Speaker 2: lot of super conservative positions on a lot of things.
Speaker 2: I think this past term might show us the past
Speaker 2: couple of terms at the Supreme Court might show us
Speaker 2: maybe two things. One is that John Roberts now is
Speaker 2: the chief Justice presiding over cases at the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: where the Overton window has shifted dramatically. Like the cases
Speaker 2: now being decided are not like, Okay, what's this little
Speaker 2: tiny what's this little tiny tweak that we could make
Speaker 2: in the conservative direction on Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade?
Speaker 2: Right, But it's like literally like is the president immune
Speaker 2: from criminal prosecution when the president does crimes?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: And so it's like the conservative, the hyper conservative inside
Speaker 2: of John Roberts can totally jump out because because the
Speaker 2: cases in front of the Supreme Court right now are
Speaker 2: on issues that are just wildly wildly conservative, right, So
Speaker 2: there doesn't have to be the appearance of like the
Speaker 2: questions they're answering within those questions. There doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be this kind of like sham appearance of like moderation, right,
Speaker 2: or sort of institutional legitimacy from the Court that John
Speaker 2: Roberts was like kind of using as a tactic in
Speaker 2: in years prior. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think another thing too, is that John Roberts
Speaker 2: and the rest of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: and everybody on the Supreme Court is a human being
Speaker 2: who is influenced by the political moment and media and
Speaker 2: you know, shifts in popular opinion and shifts and development
Speaker 2: and conservative thought just like everybody else's. And so you
Speaker 2: know Fox News is writing is rotting their brains too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there, you can absolutely tell that they're just mainlining
Speaker 1: fucking Jesse Waters and yeah, oh yeah, I mean in
Speaker 1: the case of Alito As we'll get to fucking like
Speaker 1: Q conspiracies. But yeah, it's it's so wild. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is how fascism happens, right, Like the rule of
Speaker 1: law is not like it's not like fascists come in
Speaker 1: and just like say no more, Supreme Court. It's exactly
Speaker 1: the rule of law. I think it was said on
Speaker 1: five to four by Peter like the rule of law
Speaker 1: is whatever fascists need it to be in a given moment, inconsistent,
Speaker 1: but it is. You know, they will use it like
Speaker 1: the cudgel, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly, yeah, exactly, we're talking I mean, and there's
Speaker 2: so many cases from this past term that show that,
Speaker 2: you know, I think when we were talking about like
Speaker 2: fascism and the rule of law and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: That was probably on our episode about Snyder, which is
Speaker 2: the case about like bribery, like bribing elected officials, where
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court said like, hmm, well, actually you know this,
Speaker 2: this check that a trucking company gave to the mayor
Speaker 2: of this organ city for thirteen thousand dollars for awarding
Speaker 2: that trucking company trucking contracts. That's not bribery. And that's
Speaker 2: exactly like you know, all of these cases like on
Speaker 2: their own, you're like, oh that's fucked up. Oh that's
Speaker 2: another fucked up decision. But when you see them all
Speaker 2: together and you realize, like what the Supreme Court is doing,
Speaker 2: like that is the overarching goal is about ushering in
Speaker 2: right a legal order where these conservatives are in charge.
Speaker 2: These conservatives are the ones saying what the law is
Speaker 2: and they will always use that to They will always
Speaker 2: use that to like reach the results that they want
Speaker 2: for their policy preferences, for that vision they have for
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And whoever has the most money becomes the most powerful exactly.
Speaker 3: Totally because you know, if Trump becomes president again, uh,
Speaker 3: and he exercises this ability to commit crimes with right
Speaker 3: is God given king, right, Yeah, the Supreme Court will
Speaker 3: just be like, Yep, we ruled that that was the choice,
Speaker 3: and that's great and good, do whatever you need to do, buddy.
Speaker 3: Versus if not Trump is elected and then that person
Speaker 3: tries to commit crimes, I feel like the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: would be like, well, in this case, actually no, and
Speaker 3: I own blub blah, like there's no objectivity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no. And you see the tools that they use, right, So,
Speaker 2: like they put like the appearance of legal analysis, and
Speaker 2: they say, well, like, well, you got to decide first
Speaker 2: if something is an official act or an unofficial act, right,
Speaker 2: And so you see that they're like building in the
Speaker 2: tools that they're going to use to reach the completely
Speaker 2: opposite result when they don't like the president who's doing
Speaker 2: the acts. Right, So in the future, what they can
Speaker 2: say as well, no, that wasn't you know, if let's
Speaker 2: say Kamala wins, right, Well, no, Kamala wasn't doing an
Speaker 2: official act as part of the office of the presidency.
Speaker 2: That was an unofficial act, and you don't get presidential
Speaker 2: immunity for unofficial acts. Right, So it's all about just
Speaker 2: like recognizing like the law isn't like a mathematical equation
Speaker 2: where you go two plus two and you know what
Speaker 2: the result is going to be. Like, the law is
Speaker 2: a tool. It's a political tool, and that's what these
Speaker 2: conservatives on the Supreme Court are using it as.
Speaker 3: Right, They're like deliberately building in loopholes that they can
Speaker 3: exploit for whatever agenda they want under carry out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Biden can't actually do Supreme Court reform right, right,
Speaker 1: is how do you think about the Supreme Court reform
Speaker 1: that Biden has very just very cautiously hinted at wanting
Speaker 1: to explore like it is obviously he probably doesn't have
Speaker 1: the time to do it. Left, but is he at
Speaker 1: least like looking in the right direction, Is he at
Speaker 1: least starting the right conversations.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely in it's absolutely looking in the right direction
Speaker 2: and starting the right conversations. You know it was looking
Speaker 2: in the right direction and starting the right conversations. You know,
Speaker 2: four years ago when he ran on a platform of
Speaker 2: court reform, and when he took the presidency and struck,
Speaker 2: the Biden Commission on Supreme Court Reform had people, lawyers, judges,
Speaker 2: law professors from quote unquote both sides of the aisle
Speaker 2: come together and talk about where necessary court reform could
Speaker 2: take place, how it could take place, what it would entail.
Speaker 2: Biden and the Democrats I think are speaking to that
Speaker 2: at least, at the very least giving lip service if
Speaker 2: you're kind of cynical like I am, because they know
Speaker 2: that actually it's publicly quite popular, Like people know right
Speaker 2: now that the Supreme Court is super fucked up and
Speaker 2: that there needs to be court reform, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party will kind of throw that out that
Speaker 2: they're willing and able to look at it, and you know,
Speaker 2: want to get the conversation started and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the conversation, yeah, to be started and should
Speaker 2: have been started. And I think it's about like demanding
Speaker 2: that like the reforms actually happened.
Speaker 3: There was just a really intense earthquake in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: Oh, my god, are you okay? Ye, justin Victor, everybody okay,
Speaker 1: shook my house?
Speaker 2: Still pretty hard?
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Oh it's still going.
Speaker 1: Still feeling like Victor died. Was reported that he died.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Victor, Oh my god. Well hope everybody listening also, okay,
Speaker 1: listening a day in the future. All right, let's uh
Speaker 1: take a quick break to gather ourselves to just steady,
Speaker 1: steady our our quakings and quaking hearts, and we'll come
Speaker 1: back to talk about how the Supreme Court might We've
Speaker 1: already talked about how if Trump gets elected, were fucked.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how the Supreme Court can help get
Speaker 1: him elected. We'll be right back, and we're back. And
Speaker 1: so we talked yesterday about how Apple announced last week
Speaker 1: they're reigning in they're spending on streaming after launching a
Speaker 1: bunch of shows and keeping them a secret, like like
Speaker 1: it was a trade secret, like there was no supposed
Speaker 1: to know about that. This is what I mean, just
Speaker 1: for me, that's right now. Paramount announced within the past
Speaker 1: couple of days that they're shuttering their TV studios. But
Speaker 1: these are just examples of how economically depressed the American
Speaker 1: entertainment industry seems to have been for the past year.
Speaker 5: Not just economically, buddy, have you seen my bank account?
Speaker 1: It's it's bad out there. Like everybody I talked to
Speaker 1: who works in the entertainment industry is like, this is
Speaker 1: the worst I've ever seen it. Like that seems to
Speaker 1: be the and I've talked to I'm old as fuck you, guys.
Speaker 1: I've talked to some very old people who say it's
Speaker 1: the worst they've ever seen it well, like over thirty
Speaker 1: like even thirty five.
Speaker 4: Oh, disgusting.
Speaker 1: I try not to hang out with them, but you know, weird.
Speaker 4: They take your life for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they need their putting fed to them.
Speaker 3: So but I feel like this is all because of
Speaker 3: and I don't know enough about it. So I'm kind
Speaker 3: of speculating here, but the that's what That's how this
Speaker 3: show should be, right, just like making wild guesses and yeah, all.
Speaker 4: Weird caveat it, you can say anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think I don't know enough about it.
Speaker 3: There's like too much supply and not enough demand. There's
Speaker 3: just like too much content and they're spending money on
Speaker 3: all these shows and like all these things and every
Speaker 3: platform has like a bazillion original series and original movies
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and it's like there's no conceivable
Speaker 3: way that any person who even like even people who
Speaker 3: consume a lot of media, such as myself. I'm constantly
Speaker 3: watching flims, but.
Speaker 1: Like whim, I don't know. Yeah, Flims.
Speaker 5: Okay, they're about three hours long with no breaks. Now
Speaker 5: you know flim Do you go to the movie Nicole
Speaker 5: Kidman talks at you at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, will come to this place for Flims. So it's
Speaker 3: just like there's too much. And that's why I'm guessing
Speaker 3: that's why there's such a because back in the day
Speaker 3: when Hollywood was thriving is because there were like I
Speaker 3: don't know, like Wayludes three. There's kludes and.
Speaker 1: That salutes and cocaine. At the same time, we thought
Speaker 1: both of them were healthy and they're only like.
Speaker 3: You know, five new movies coming out every month, and
Speaker 3: there was like just not that much content, and now
Speaker 3: there's there's too much. And if I know anything about
Speaker 3: the economics, which I don't, but I know, I know
Speaker 3: that it's like supply and demand, and there's too much
Speaker 3: supply and not.
Speaker 5: The investing or like mentoring or allowing things to grow
Speaker 5: which I think is tied into that problem. They're not
Speaker 5: allowing good content. That's like kind of the As an
Speaker 5: avid reality TV show fan, I have to call out
Speaker 5: that the reason that they do that is because it's
Speaker 5: a lot cheaper to do that and pump out a
Speaker 5: ton of seasons of the same show rather than invest
Speaker 5: in like the development of characters and plot and getting
Speaker 5: like the actors that you really want to get. That's
Speaker 5: like great, you know what I mean, They're not just
Speaker 5: not as invested in the quality of the content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so they invest they overinvested in streaming.
Speaker 1: They like went too hard on streaming, and now they
Speaker 1: have stopped developing like anything, like they just cut it off.
Speaker 1: And that's why like all these streaming companies are like
Speaker 1: you know, you're starting to see the headlines that they're
Speaker 1: like pulling it back after overinvesting without really any business
Speaker 1: plan of like how to make money off of that.
Speaker 1: It was just so I think there's like one of
Speaker 1: the big things that happened is like there's no it's
Speaker 1: now controlled by like five big companies. Like in the past,
Speaker 1: Hollywood had been had enough regulations in place to prevent
Speaker 1: just massive consolidation like we have now and then slowly
Speaker 1: by slowly, like starting with Reagan and into like the
Speaker 1: Clinton reministration.
Speaker 3: Reygun yeah, well famous breakdancer Reygun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, she was the president of the US from
Speaker 1: eighty to eighty eight, and she came through and just deregulated,
Speaker 1: Like it's just deregulation over and over until now there's
Speaker 1: like only a handful of companies and and they're all
Speaker 1: chasing each other, and you know, so like one of
Speaker 1: them has like decides to invest in streaming, and so
Speaker 1: they all like over invest in streaming, and then there's
Speaker 1: just not the small companies anymore, who like when the
Speaker 1: big companies all do the same stupid thing, are there
Speaker 1: to like zag and like do the smart thing that
Speaker 1: then the big companies like impersonate and like copy off
Speaker 1: of you know. So now it's just like big guys
Speaker 1: making terrible decisions and making the same terrible decision all
Speaker 1: at the same time, and nobody there to do the
Speaker 1: smart thing that like creates the market correction. That and
Speaker 1: then the other really big problem is that private equity
Speaker 1: has gotten like in two thousand and eight, you know,
Speaker 1: when they were just basically printing money for free. Private
Speaker 1: equity got involved in Hollywood, and so now we have
Speaker 1: a hand full of like massive companies and they private
Speaker 1: equity money is involved, so their instincts are like private
Speaker 1: equity are these like massive companies and their model is
Speaker 1: like trying to make money as quickly as possible. They're
Speaker 1: just like extracting capital from these companies that they're investing
Speaker 1: in or taking over.
Speaker 4: And so it's private equity equity. They're just like.
Speaker 1: Us, yes, yeah, And so I just feel like we
Speaker 1: have fewer people calling the shots, and the people calling
Speaker 1: the shots have just way worse instincts. And this is
Speaker 1: how you get to the entertainment dark ages that we
Speaker 1: might be about to live through, which.
Speaker 3: Is a bummart because so many good movie I feel
Speaker 3: like there was a period of like the content that
Speaker 3: was coming out and yet and like I'm speaking from
Speaker 3: a place of like my personal taste, yes, but but
Speaker 3: so so many of the movies that came out have
Speaker 3: come out within the past like and I'm speaking again
Speaker 3: also specifically about movies more so than TV. But I
Speaker 3: guess what I'm saying is no more TV, more movies.
Speaker 3: That's the platform that I'm running.
Speaker 2: Slambs on Flims We've.
Speaker 3: Entered this period in the past couple of years where
Speaker 3: like some really good not like major studio pictures, things
Speaker 3: that are like lower budget, not based on you know,
Speaker 3: comic books or any existing you know, huge properties, just
Speaker 3: like independent, low budget, but like really well done movies
Speaker 3: are coming out. Because there was like I don't know,
Speaker 3: there was like five years where I'm like, every movie
Speaker 3: I've seen this year sucks. But within the past couple
Speaker 3: of years there's so much new good stuff, and I
Speaker 3: would hate to see that all go away because Hollywood
Speaker 3: doesn't understand what people want.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Everyone should see DD, Everyone should see mee Cap, everyone
Speaker 3: should see other movies that have come out recently, the end.
Speaker 1: Thelma, Okay, is that good? Thelma?
Speaker 3: I loved Selma. I thought it was so fun. And
Speaker 3: then like last year, there were all these great movies
Speaker 3: Theater Camp Dix The Musical, and also others. Unless I
Speaker 3: have a list in front of me, I never know
Speaker 3: what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: But obviously The Beekeeper is on that list.
Speaker 1: I know for sure, The bee Keeper fully Inkeeper, Jason Statham,
Speaker 1: Indie actor Darling.
Speaker 4: Yes, I just watched Trap. That sure doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, but I'm a.
Speaker 5: Huge advocate of Indian mediocrity. So I'm going to always
Speaker 5: support m Night Shyamalan.
Speaker 1: And his kids and.
Speaker 5: Taylor he said, yeah, he said that she was his
Speaker 5: niece in the movie. But it sounds but it might
Speaker 5: be as kids. It was fully just an album roll
Speaker 5: out for her.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I will say intrigued. I want to see that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had such it's a trap itself because I
Speaker 5: had really high hopes and will be.
Speaker 1: There anyone in your theater like trying to kill kill people?
Speaker 5: Because I feel like no, well kind of because we
Speaker 5: went and Jackie's and I went and saw it, and
Speaker 5: Ryan from The Boys, the kid Homelander son in The Boys,
Speaker 5: was there with all of his friends, like the actor
Speaker 5: who played Oh wow, that kid, but he wasn't trying
Speaker 5: to kill anyone.
Speaker 1: That's disappointing.
Speaker 5: It was a trap in that I thought it would
Speaker 5: be fun and then it was fun, but also very confusing.
Speaker 5: One thing that I was going to say is like
Speaker 5: this is all like on a high studio. Oh, there
Speaker 5: are these conglomerates, deregulations, regularization level, but for how that
Speaker 5: affects like us individually, the fact that we can't pitch
Speaker 5: new shows.
Speaker 4: But even beyond that, I'm seeing more and more huge
Speaker 4: celebrities in commercials that just nobody's like us should be in,
Speaker 4: you know. So the day to day it used.
Speaker 1: To be just everyday actors.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it used to be just every I went into
Speaker 5: audition and I saw somebody who have seen for I
Speaker 5: don't remember. He's one of those people you see him
Speaker 5: in everything. You don't know his name. He was also auditioning.
Speaker 5: I'm like, what are you doing here? You're like a
Speaker 5: TV movie star. Let me sell my soul for this?
Speaker 4: Like why?
Speaker 5: And you see that with also like what they're willing
Speaker 5: to take risks on. And then the second thing I
Speaker 5: wanted to say was I saw a clip that Jackie
Speaker 5: supposted today of like Matt Damon explaining why you can't
Speaker 5: make the same movies that you did in the nineties,
Speaker 5: and it's because of streaming and how like they had
Speaker 5: the DVD release and so they were able to get
Speaker 5: their income both from the box office and then the
Speaker 5: later DVD release. But now it's it's only it's very
Speaker 5: it's a lot less in theaters because people have the
Speaker 5: option of streaming, which I think is great and accessible,
Speaker 5: but it just means that less money is invested into
Speaker 5: different types of films, and there's fewer risks that are
Speaker 5: being taken or fewer incentives for people to bet on
Speaker 5: these movies that might not have big box office summer
Speaker 5: action film Fast and the Furious thirty two Faster assert release.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they because they've been taken over by corporations. Corporations
Speaker 1: always want to like eliminate risk as much as possible,
Speaker 1: which is impossible with art. But up to this point,
Speaker 1: we've had a bunch of federal regulations protecting it from
Speaker 1: being the way it is. Like right now, four companies
Speaker 1: controlled more than seventy five percent of WGA writers earnings,
Speaker 1: Like there's four companies that control the whole thing like that.
Speaker 1: There were so many laws in place to keep that
Speaker 1: from happening, and now it's just these four companies who
Speaker 1: all when like one of them said we're going to
Speaker 1: do our launch our own streaming platform, like double down
Speaker 1: on content, they all did that. They created this like
Speaker 1: bloated thing that wasn't well thought through and like where
Speaker 1: they didn't know how they were going to get people
Speaker 1: to actually fucking watch the stuff that they were making.
Speaker 1: And then when that failed, predictably. Now they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that they're responding to that is
Speaker 1: like writers are no longer like they took away development pay.
Speaker 1: It used to be a thing where like they would
Speaker 1: sign on a writer to develop a pitch that they
Speaker 1: had approved or that they were interested in, and like
Speaker 1: that writer would be on the payroll for however long
Speaker 1: it took to develop it. And now they've just like
Speaker 1: changed it so that writers have to do that all
Speaker 1: by themselves, Like they don't get paid during the development process.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine a people to judge, like McKinley consultant
Speaker 5: coming in and being like you have to play Moms
Speaker 5: now you're too old? Yeah down, yeah, business person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I know writers who've like spent years developing projects
Speaker 1: that like are you know, have actors attached and like
Speaker 1: seem like they're gonna go and then never go. And
Speaker 1: that person just like worked for a year and didn't
Speaker 1: see like a single cent and it's just like that's
Speaker 1: the way it's set up now. It's like a really
Speaker 1: anti worker situation. It fucking sucks. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a friend who has been working for
Speaker 3: a couple of years on a script that's like a
Speaker 3: studio backed Superhero movie and like has not been paid
Speaker 3: to like frequently enough or enough like amount of money
Speaker 3: for all the work he has put in. And I
Speaker 3: keep being like like can you can you like, how
Speaker 3: do you advocate for yourself? Can you ask for money
Speaker 3: for the labor you're tirelessly doing? And he's just like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm trying, but they don't want to pay. And I'm
Speaker 3: just like, what is this? What is this world?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: That's wild because also everybody is desperate and so there's
Speaker 5: always someone to replace you, and that just that feeling sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Or like how during the writers' strike, I forget which
Speaker 5: executive said that they were essentially like trying to threaten
Speaker 5: us with homelessness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, which guy was that? Which horrible monster?
Speaker 1: It was either a Disney guy or Zazz the Zazz.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So the thing that they're going to because
Speaker 1: the development process has too much quote unquote like risk
Speaker 1: for these now like purely corporate entities that run seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of Hollywood, they're going to be even more
Speaker 1: reliant on IP, which is going to make movies shittier.
Speaker 1: Like we're already seeing people be like god like Shazam
Speaker 1: two came out last year, Like I like that. I
Speaker 1: can't believe speaking of Libertarian last year, right, the same
Speaker 1: actor just drop what's his name, zach Levia.
Speaker 3: Zackly, Zachary Levi and Harold in The Purple Crown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another another ip grab from like a nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: children's book. But because you don't have to like pay
Speaker 1: anyone whose idea that was, they're just like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's just grab fucking everything on our shelves and green
Speaker 1: light it. The Rubik's Cube, the movie like whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, it's only okay when it's patented, right.
Speaker 1: It's fine when it's pa and sometimes it works out.
Speaker 5: It wasn't for those reasons, if it wasn't to avoid
Speaker 5: paying people, because then they could actually make a good movie.
Speaker 2: Heard of.
Speaker 1: The Purple Crown cost forty million dollars on production, probably
Speaker 1: another forty in you know, marketing it, and it made
Speaker 1: nine million globally like in its first week. Like it's
Speaker 1: just a complete And I could have told them if
Speaker 1: they had they had just asked me, I could have
Speaker 1: told them that was going.
Speaker 5: To happen, and that money, that forty million is not
Speaker 5: going to Caitlin's friend who needs to get paid for
Speaker 5: them No going to other people's.
Speaker 3: Going to this already rich studio execs and shit like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I mean the there's a good article
Speaker 1: on Harper's about this. Author basically argues that some kind
Speaker 1: of radical intervention, either from the government or the workers,
Speaker 1: will be necessary to fix the problem. But I think everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody just lived through a really scary and
Speaker 1: difficult strike and now it's like worse than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: Daniel Bessner is the name of the person who were
Speaker 1: at the Harper's article. So yeah, but that's like I think,
Speaker 1: I don't think people are quite aware of what's going
Speaker 1: on outside of Hollywood, But like inside of Hollywood, it's
Speaker 1: like no, no new ideas are being like, they're not
Speaker 1: even like responding to pitches anymore. They're just like that, Yeah.
Speaker 1: We there are a handful of massive companies and they
Speaker 1: have absolutely no appetite for risk aka like creativity or art.
Speaker 5: Whatever you do, do not let this episode get back
Speaker 5: to my parents. Do not let them know that we're
Speaker 5: doing fine. Everything we're doing, we have health insurance. We're
Speaker 5: going to my house any day now.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, all right, that's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show
Speaker 1: if you like. The show means the world to Miles.
Speaker 1: He he needs your validation.
Speaker 5: Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you Monday. Bye.