Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay EFPI Daily with
Speaker 1: Me your Girl. Danielle Moody, recording from the Brooklyn Bunker.
Speaker 1: I want to start off a Today's show on this Friday,
Speaker 1: which will mark day sixteen, day sixteen into the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, and I think that one of the things
Speaker 1: that I find most troubling about what is unfolding, what
Speaker 1: we're all watching, is we're watching real live footage right
Speaker 1: war as it's unfolding for the first time on our phones,
Speaker 1: on our computers, on our televisions. There is a initial
Speaker 1: outrage and shock that comes with the kinds of footage
Speaker 1: that we're seeing. This week, a maternity hospital, a hospital
Speaker 1: for pregnant people and children in northern Ukraine was bombed.
Speaker 1: I watched on MSNBC a woman, a pregnant woman, visibly pregnant,
Speaker 1: being brought out on a structure, and you see old
Speaker 1: people getting bandaged on their heads. You're seeing craters the
Speaker 1: size of I don't know, multiple car lengths now in
Speaker 1: front of apartment buildings where once there were trees and gardens.
Speaker 1: And we're watching this. In my fear, as we're watching
Speaker 1: all of this unfold is a desensitization, right, that we're
Speaker 1: going to become desensitized because we can watch these things,
Speaker 1: these atrocities unfold from the comforts of our homes here
Speaker 1: in the United States, where we are watching war play
Speaker 1: out like some type of video game or the latest
Speaker 1: action movie out of Hollywood. Realizing that the people that
Speaker 1: we are seeing crammed at train stations and bus stations,
Speaker 1: people that are walking for half of a day, twelve
Speaker 1: hours or more in order to make it to a
Speaker 1: bordering country for safe haven. That now in week three,
Speaker 1: as we head into week three of Putin's aggression, Putin's
Speaker 1: war in the Ukraine, that two million people, two million people,
Speaker 1: three weeks, in three weeks time, have fled their homes,
Speaker 1: their lives, their country, their jobs, their family, and their friends,
Speaker 1: many leaving their husbands, their brothers, their colleagues, their uncles
Speaker 1: behind to hold down the country and fight right and
Speaker 1: fight against this aggression. And folks, I am, just as
Speaker 1: all of you are, find myself some days, so incredibly
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by the images, so incredibly overwhelmed by the despair.
Speaker 1: Even as our Vice President Kamala Harris is in Poland
Speaker 1: trying to negotiate with the polls what they are going
Speaker 1: to do to help the Ukraine Zelenski. President Zelenski has asked,
Speaker 1: we need fighter jets. We need the same fighter jets
Speaker 1: that our pilots in the Ukraine can fly, and we
Speaker 1: need them and we need them now. And the polls
Speaker 1: made a fucking I don't even know what kind of
Speaker 1: move you would call it. If you were playing spades,
Speaker 1: you would say that they were trying to run the
Speaker 1: table but didn't really have a good hand. The polls
Speaker 1: were like, so, we have the fighter jets that you need,
Speaker 1: but we don't want to let Putin know that we're
Speaker 1: the ones that are going to give it to you
Speaker 1: and that we're authorizing. So instead, we're going to do
Speaker 1: some underhanded shit, which is we're going to give the polls.
Speaker 1: We're going to give our fighter jets to the United
Speaker 1: States for the United States to decide however they want
Speaker 1: to use. Right those fighter jets, the United States then
Speaker 1: will give us they're used fighter jets to replace the
Speaker 1: ones that we are giving to them. Who then they
Speaker 1: will be the ones the United States will be the
Speaker 1: ones that putencies as responsible for giving the Ukraine the
Speaker 1: fighter jets that they need and then the United States
Speaker 1: turned around. It was just like, ah, so not it.
Speaker 1: We're not touching your ship, which is why the Vice
Speaker 1: President was deployed to Poland to come to some type
Speaker 1: of agreement as to how NATO allies continue to aid
Speaker 1: Zelenski in more than just upstanding ovation, right then, more
Speaker 1: than just you know, aid at the border. But what
Speaker 1: are we going to do? Because now reports are coming out, folks,
Speaker 1: where based on United States intel, the intelligence community, reports
Speaker 1: are coming out that Vladimir Putin is seeking to put
Speaker 1: together some type of chemical attack. And we already know
Speaker 1: right that at some point in time Putin is going
Speaker 1: to be investigated for war crimes. But does that really
Speaker 1: matter at this stage where we are? And one of
Speaker 1: the questions that I thought I wanted to post to
Speaker 1: all of you today that I heard was how long
Speaker 1: is NATO? Is the United States going to allow this
Speaker 1: war to continue? Knowing that if Putin releases chemical warfare,
Speaker 1: that this is escalation bigger than we have ever seen
Speaker 1: since World War Two? And so are we going to
Speaker 1: sit around and wait for millions of people like we
Speaker 1: did in World War Two, where we waited for millions
Speaker 1: of Jewish people to be slaughtered or are we going
Speaker 1: to preempt what we know could be possibly genocide and
Speaker 1: take action now? Now folks will say, well, we can't
Speaker 1: take action now right. If we do anything, we are
Speaker 1: certainly headed into World War three. None of the choices
Speaker 1: that are at hand right now are good ones. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if we all understand the gravity of
Speaker 1: the situation that is at hand. Like again, we are
Speaker 1: watching this safely from our living rooms, our cars, our homes,
Speaker 1: on a walk or what have you, safely removed by
Speaker 1: an ocean right of what is happening. But the fact
Speaker 1: is is that if you are putin and you are
Speaker 1: somebody with nothing to lose, right and all the things
Speaker 1: to gain, that if I just go completely ham meaning
Speaker 1: I put on the most egregious attack right on civilians,
Speaker 1: and I continue to escalate that, and those people that
Speaker 1: are supposed to hold me accountable are only cutting off
Speaker 1: my financial resources. But because I've already strategized ahead, knowing
Speaker 1: that yes, sanctions were going to come and they were
Speaker 1: going to be bad, and I will frame in my media,
Speaker 1: which only dispenses bullshit, how this is an attack on
Speaker 1: the Russian people, and this is an attack you know
Speaker 1: from the West on Russia and all of these things.
Speaker 1: Then I've already planned for these sanctions, right and I
Speaker 1: am playing a different three dimensional chess right like, I'm
Speaker 1: in a different space. So if you know that the
Speaker 1: person that you're dealing with is ready to leave it
Speaker 1: all on the fucking table with nothing to lose, then
Speaker 1: you need to figure out what your response is going
Speaker 1: to be, because it's not going to be diplomatic. I
Speaker 1: personally believe it. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I am wrong,
Speaker 1: and that there is still an opportunity for a diplomatic
Speaker 1: resolution to where we are right now with Ukraine and Putin.
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear that I say Ukraine
Speaker 1: and Putin because the Russian people have no idea what
Speaker 1: the fuck he's doing. Right. Russia, in the way that
Speaker 1: their television is set up and their government is set
Speaker 1: up and social media is set up, is that you
Speaker 1: are force fed alternative facts and lies, so much so
Speaker 1: that even people Russian people who are in the Ukraine
Speaker 1: calling home to their Russian families and are telling them,
Speaker 1: do you hear that sound that is behind me? We
Speaker 1: are under attack are being told no, you're not. Russia's
Speaker 1: only going Our military would never do that. We're only
Speaker 1: going after military places and barracks and all of these
Speaker 1: things this way, would never attack civilians, And there's no
Speaker 1: factual evidence to say. So they are saying that to
Speaker 1: their family members who are on the phone in a
Speaker 1: fucking burning building, and they're saying, you're lying to me,
Speaker 1: because that's how brainwashed they have been by Russian television propaganda.
Speaker 1: So much so, folks, that Tucker Carl's sin and Fox
Speaker 1: News and Republican members of Congress are doing the fucking
Speaker 1: heavy lifting for Vladimir Putin even as he is in
Speaker 1: the midst of being investigated for war crimes. This week,
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson said the most egregious things about the United
Speaker 1: States working in cahoots with the Ukrainians and like force
Speaker 1: feeding them with weapons and just lying providing Russian talking
Speaker 1: points to Americans. And I keep saying, and I've said
Speaker 1: it on social media, and I'm saying it again here,
Speaker 1: like where the fuck is the FCC? When is enough enough?
Speaker 1: We have, of course, certainly right freedom of speech, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you in point too many moments in
Speaker 1: our time and in our history where that has been
Speaker 1: curtailed because it has been deemed as a national threat, right.
Speaker 1: But this administration doesn't want to do that because we
Speaker 1: don't want to seem quote unquote political, even as you
Speaker 1: have an entire network that is feeding the American people
Speaker 1: Russian propaganda. So we can't even be united as we
Speaker 1: were in the past, united as a country against the
Speaker 1: common enemy, because according to Fox News and Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 1: Putin is their friend and it is Biden who is
Speaker 1: the enemy. Tucker Carlson has one of the highest rated
Speaker 1: shows in his fucking time slot and he's going unopposed. Also,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something else that is and again,
Speaker 1: we are paying so much attention to what is happening abroad,
Speaker 1: whether it is with empathy or with sympathy, and we
Speaker 1: are saying saying, oh my god, these poor people, and
Speaker 1: again negating, ignoring, and I don't even know if now
Speaker 1: I can just say that what we are ignoring the fascism,
Speaker 1: the authoritarianism that right wing Republicans are spitting every single
Speaker 1: place inside the halls of Congress, on Fox News and
Speaker 1: in other places. And if we are not going to
Speaker 1: actively curtail this and actively call it out and actively
Speaker 1: frankly call it fucking treason, then what are we doing
Speaker 1: we as I said two weeks ago, the Ukraine and
Speaker 1: what Putin is doing there should be foreshadowing to what
Speaker 1: Republicans and white evangelical Christians want to do in the
Speaker 1: United States. They want to create this closed loop circuit
Speaker 1: where the only information that you are given is what
Speaker 1: it is that they want you to know, and that
Speaker 1: all other avenues to actual facts right are going to
Speaker 1: be negated. Republicans take control. It isn't just this boogeyman
Speaker 1: of CRT that's going to come out of your kid's curriculum.
Speaker 1: It's literally everything. Right. How are we teaching science these days?
Speaker 1: If we're not talking about climate change? Right? How are
Speaker 1: we talking about history and not putting not contextualizing it
Speaker 1: with what is unfolding right now? What Republicans want is
Speaker 1: what Russia has and what Putin has been able to do.
Speaker 1: And our own members of Congress and our own media
Speaker 1: are aiding him in his messaging war that he is
Speaker 1: doing with his own people, and they are doing it
Speaker 1: with our citizens here. So listen to this. This is
Speaker 1: some wild fucking shit. So this is according to The
Speaker 1: Daily Beast, Representative Madison Cawthorne, Republican from North Carolina has
Speaker 1: diverged from his party's stance on Ukraine in ugly fashion
Speaker 1: take a list in calling President Zelenski quote a thug
Speaker 1: and the country quote incredibly evil in a bizarre rant
Speaker 1: caught on camera. It's not clear when the clip obtained
Speaker 1: by w r a L was filmed, but former Bush
Speaker 1: Chief of staff Carl Rove, who first mentioned the comments
Speaker 1: in a Wall Street Journal piece, said it was filmed
Speaker 1: at a town hall in Asheville last Saturday. At the
Speaker 1: start of the clip, Cawthorne mentioned sending Stinger missiles to
Speaker 1: the Ukraine for self defense, providing further evidence that the
Speaker 1: clip was filmed after Russia's invasion began. Quote Remember that
Speaker 1: Zelensky is a thug, Cawthorne said in his rant. Quote
Speaker 1: Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it
Speaker 1: is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Cawthorne is battling right on his own three court cases
Speaker 1: for driving offenses and is in the process of divorcing
Speaker 1: a woman he says he met at a fake CrossFit
Speaker 1: competition staged by a man he met in a casino
Speaker 1: in Russia, where casinos are banned. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: something like, you may want to laugh off this news
Speaker 1: story and say, oh my god, look at this crackpot,
Speaker 1: because this is the same way that we wanted to
Speaker 1: laugh off Donald Trump and not pay attention to how
Speaker 1: he had stuck his talents right into the foundation of
Speaker 1: our democracy, and we wanted to laugh it off and said,
Speaker 1: oh no, he could never become president. And oh no,
Speaker 1: these Marjorie Taylor Greens, these Laura Beaubert's, this Madison Cawthorne,
Speaker 1: They're just crazy. No, they are are not. They are
Speaker 1: the mainstream of the Republican Party, which is no longer
Speaker 1: aligned with democracy, not in this country and certainly not
Speaker 1: around the fucking world. So when you're getting up on television,
Speaker 1: when you're getting up at a donor event, right, and
Speaker 1: you're saying Russian talking points that Vladimir Zelinski, who is
Speaker 1: parted from his children and his family, is staying in
Speaker 1: his country that is literally on fire to fight, is
Speaker 1: being applauded by other democratic world leaders and their governments
Speaker 1: around the world. But a member of our Congress is
Speaker 1: referring to him as a thug and celebrating Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: on network television in the United States, and we don't
Speaker 1: do anything about that because we want to say, oh,
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. It is not freedom of speech when
Speaker 1: it threatens their national security. It is not freedom of
Speaker 1: speech when it is talking points straight out of a
Speaker 1: dictator that is committing war crimes across the pond. That
Speaker 1: is not freedom of speech. That is dangerous. And the
Speaker 1: fact that we as a party do not call this
Speaker 1: out everywhere in anywhere that a mic is put in
Speaker 1: front of your face, the fact that we cannot tie
Speaker 1: how fragile the Ukraine is right now, how fragile democracy
Speaker 1: is around the world, with the fragility that we are
Speaker 1: experiencing here at home, goes to tell me and you
Speaker 1: that folks are not making the connections, and if they are,
Speaker 1: they're too afraid to say so out loud. And if
Speaker 1: we're too afraid to tell the truth in the face
Speaker 1: of alternative facts, lies and aggression, then when are we
Speaker 1: going to tell the truth? If it's not going to
Speaker 1: be now, then when is the right time? If we
Speaker 1: are not going to say that not only is Fox
Speaker 1: News evil, but that they are a threat and a
Speaker 1: significant threat to our country, to our democracy At a
Speaker 1: time when the world is on the brink of World
Speaker 1: War three? When is the right time if you don't
Speaker 1: have the backbone in the fortitude as a democrat that
Speaker 1: is in power to say the buck is going to
Speaker 1: fucking stop here. We as a country need to unite
Speaker 1: because democracy around the world and in this country is
Speaker 1: under threat, and we are not willing to do that,
Speaker 1: then what are we willing to stand for? Because frankly,
Speaker 1: it is not going to be enough to continue to
Speaker 1: talk tough and not follow it up with any action
Speaker 1: here at home. The same way that Merrick Garland would
Speaker 1: find himself. Merrick Garland found himself this week on MPR,
Speaker 1: and on MPR he wanted to offer up the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, once again, nobody is above the law
Speaker 1: and that those that were criminally responsible for the outcomes
Speaker 1: of January sixth will be held accountable and get this
Speaker 1: in due time. We are eight fucking months away from
Speaker 1: midterm elections, and I'm going to continue to say that
Speaker 1: as we count down on woke af daily, we are
Speaker 1: eight months away from midterm elections. What the fuck does
Speaker 1: due time look like for a Department of Justice that
Speaker 1: has been in control and in power for over a
Speaker 1: year in a matter of a couple of days, the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice put together a task force to attack
Speaker 1: Russian oligarchs and to seize finances of those that they
Speaker 1: believe are financing Vladimir Putin. They did that in a
Speaker 1: matter of days of war breaking out in the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Where is the energy for the American oligarchs? Where is
Speaker 1: the task force that was put together on day one
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration and on day one of the
Speaker 1: Garland Apartment of Justice to ensure that every single person
Speaker 1: that was involved, whether they were the foot soldiers that
Speaker 1: entered the Capitol Building on January sixth, or the ones
Speaker 1: at the top that funded the insurrection or wrote the
Speaker 1: memos for said insurrection, or then rally the troops on
Speaker 1: the Ellipses and sent them to the Capitol Building on
Speaker 1: January sixth. If you are not going after and creating
Speaker 1: a task force to go after everyone from the foot
Speaker 1: soldiers to the architects, and you haven't done so in
Speaker 1: well over a year at this point, why should I
Speaker 1: believe you? When you are going on NPR and other
Speaker 1: channels and again wanting to talk tough, but then not
Speaker 1: offering the American people any insight into your investigation into
Speaker 1: the corrupt previous administration, all of their allies and I
Speaker 1: don't know the fucking documents over five hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: interviews that came out of the commission, all of the
Speaker 1: documents that they have gathered, and then also the recommendation
Speaker 1: that they've provided. What the fuck is Merrick Garland doing?
Speaker 1: What is he doing? Because it is the same bullshit
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden is doing, which is We're going to
Speaker 1: pound our chest and puff it out right and direct
Speaker 1: all of that hot energy towards putin But you don't
Speaker 1: have the same fire in your belly to hold the
Speaker 1: people in this country accountable for trying to undermine democracy.
Speaker 1: It is mind boggling to me. And again, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: we are eight months away right by the time that
Speaker 1: folks cast their ballot, right for those that still actually
Speaker 1: have early voting, For those folks that are able to
Speaker 1: cast their ballot either a couple of weeks before or
Speaker 1: on the day of midterm elections, what are they going
Speaker 1: into that booth thinking? Are they going to go into
Speaker 1: that booth thinking that, Oh my god, thank god Democrats
Speaker 1: have been in charge for all of this time because
Speaker 1: we got voting rights, we have a handle and have
Speaker 1: some legislation moving around climate change, that we are holding
Speaker 1: those responsible for undermining our democracy and we're going after them.
Speaker 1: What are you going into the voting booth and thinking
Speaker 1: in November, Because I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking that Democrats don't have anything to fucking run on.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that running on the fact that you are
Speaker 1: not Donald Trump is not going to be enough. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about the fact that when Republicans do seize power
Speaker 1: that Merritt Garland's whole fucking oh, I don't know backwards
Speaker 1: momentum in terms of going after those responsible for our insurrection. Well,
Speaker 1: his time is going to be up. But then he's
Speaker 1: going to be able to get in front of the
Speaker 1: cameras and give a bunch of lip service as to
Speaker 1: how Republicans are coming up the works. And what I'm
Speaker 1: going to remind everybody of when that happens, because it will,
Speaker 1: is that you had well over a year of unobstructed
Speaker 1: influence from Republicans because you had control over the Senate
Speaker 1: and the House and the executive branch. So what were
Speaker 1: you doing during that time? It is every day is
Speaker 1: just another day that I'm like, this is not great.
Speaker 1: We are not headed in the rest the best direction.
Speaker 1: We are not doing the things that are necessary in
Speaker 1: order to preserve what little democracy that we have here.
Speaker 1: And as we are watching the Ukraine play out, and
Speaker 1: we're watching two million people fleet, We're watching hospitals and
Speaker 1: homes and fucking office buildings and everything be bombed, what
Speaker 1: would happen you think if it was Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: Republicans that were in charge of the presidency right now.
Speaker 1: One of the questions that was asked to on cable
Speaker 1: news this week was, you know, you have Putin. Many
Speaker 1: believe he's a sociopath. I mean, they call the man
Speaker 1: a whole host of things. What we do know to
Speaker 1: be true is that he's not dumb, right, He's evil,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing worse than evil but smart evil. Right.
Speaker 1: So the question was asked, well, why do you think
Speaker 1: that Putin didn't invade Ukraine when Donald Trump was president
Speaker 1: of the United States, And the response of one of
Speaker 1: the former diplomats from the Ukraine said this, Well, if
Speaker 1: you're getting everything that you want from the current sitting
Speaker 1: American president, then why would you want to upset the
Speaker 1: apple cart? But Vladimir Putin was betting on the fact
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump was going to win a second term,
Speaker 1: and so he was going to get what it was
Speaker 1: that he wanted from Donald Trump. Then once he saw
Speaker 1: that Trump was no longer going to be in power,
Speaker 1: Democrats were going to take over, and people who actually
Speaker 1: understand foreign affairs who were going to be in charge,
Speaker 1: he was like, well, then I don't have any other
Speaker 1: fucking choice. And while I think it's absolutely crazy that
Speaker 1: apparently we have laws around war and justifiable murder and
Speaker 1: not right, what weapons can be used and what can't,
Speaker 1: the fact remains that you have Republicans in this country
Speaker 1: that are on the side of Putin, and folks, we
Speaker 1: have never seen that before. We have never seen a
Speaker 1: divided America in the face of a global war. And
Speaker 1: I say global because everybody, whether they want to or not,
Speaker 1: is slowly but surely going to be pulled into this
Speaker 1: fucking invasion of Ukraine. We have power off at Chernobyl, right,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote defunct nuclear power plant. We got another one,
Speaker 1: the largest in Europe, which was seized by Putin. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here and I'm thinking to myself and I'm
Speaker 1: just like everyone is trying to avoid escalation in the
Speaker 1: face of Putin actually escalating daily if he stages a
Speaker 1: fucking chemical attack against civilians, what options does the United
Speaker 1: States and NATO have left if not to get involved.
Speaker 1: Because if every single person who is getting on cable news,
Speaker 1: who has intimate knowledge of Russia, of Putin and of
Speaker 1: the Ukraine, and they are telling you that this man
Speaker 1: is not going to back down, that this is an
Speaker 1: all in type of situation, you have diplomats in both
Speaker 1: the Ukraine and Russia that we're meeting in turn, and
Speaker 1: guess what they came to. No fucking agreement, Because I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, Putin is leaving it all on the fucking
Speaker 1: field right now. He is not going This is a man,
Speaker 1: right this, This is a man that embodies think about this,
Speaker 1: that embodies toxic masculinity. Right. Everything that he does, from
Speaker 1: riding bare chested on the back of a horse from
Speaker 1: it is his machismo, right, it is his bravado. This
Speaker 1: is what Trump and Republicans are attracted to because they
Speaker 1: are so frail, right, so spineless, so feeble as men,
Speaker 1: that they are attracted right to the presence, just the
Speaker 1: sheer presence of toxic masculinity gets them going. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you are a man former KGB like Putin, who
Speaker 1: believes that all of your power as a man comes
Speaker 1: from force, do you think that given that psychology, right,
Speaker 1: given this armchair psychology that I just get that I
Speaker 1: just gave all of those things being true? Do you
Speaker 1: think that this is the type of man that, when
Speaker 1: met with all of the eyes of the world on him,
Speaker 1: that he's going to back down and show any sign
Speaker 1: of weakness, that like he couldn't handle it, even if,
Speaker 1: even if things start to go in the wrong direction
Speaker 1: for Russia. I believe that Vladimir Putin, at the stage
Speaker 1: that he is in right now, will double and triple
Speaker 1: the fuck down, and that should scare everyone. This is
Speaker 1: not a man that is wanting to or able to flinch.
Speaker 1: And so if we don't understand the psychology that is
Speaker 1: at play here and how toxic masculinity is a part
Speaker 1: of the play and is a part of what has
Speaker 1: taken over the Republican Party and has spread like a cancer,
Speaker 1: then how are we to get to the bottom with
Speaker 1: how we're actually going to deal with this. Because here's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, I don't think that the world comes
Speaker 1: out of this unscathed. So what does that mean when
Speaker 1: you're talking about people, right, whether it's Russia, the United States,
Speaker 1: it's China, you're talking about like over a thousand and
Speaker 1: in the case of the United States, over five thousand
Speaker 1: activated nuclear weapons. World War three has been said on movies,
Speaker 1: in politics everywhere will be the end because everyone will
Speaker 1: set off their fucking nukes. So right now we are
Speaker 1: literally playing chicken as the world with a crazy man
Speaker 1: that doesn't give a fuck about driving right off the cliff.
Speaker 1: He's just not going to blink. And so given this
Speaker 1: situation out hand, how are you moving? What is the
Speaker 1: next move here? You're not going to give Ukraine a
Speaker 1: no fly zone, right, which would be certain escalation. The
Speaker 1: polls are not gonna do their fucking bait and switch,
Speaker 1: which is, oh, we're gonna give these planes, but then
Speaker 1: we're not going to really give these planes. We're gonna
Speaker 1: give them to the United States, and the United States
Speaker 1: is gonna give us our planes, and then the United
Speaker 1: States is gonna do what they will with the Ukraine,
Speaker 1: which is then going to signal a putin. Oh so
Speaker 1: you chose a side side? Okay? Bet? Right? Like Oh,
Speaker 1: when you think about all of the machination, the things
Speaker 1: that are fucking play here, your head begins to spin.
Speaker 1: And again, have no idea, have no idea where this heads.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to tell you it's not great. It's
Speaker 1: not great for Ukraine. It's not great for Russia. Right
Speaker 1: for the Russian people who have now literally been blacked
Speaker 1: out and cut off of everything from their money to
Speaker 1: their fucking entertainment. Right thousands have been arrested. God knows
Speaker 1: what will happen to those people. To say that, I'm
Speaker 1: worried to say that. I sometimes just lay in bed,
Speaker 1: like just staring up at the ceiling, waiting for a
Speaker 1: blinking alarm to come on my phone to tell me
Speaker 1: some other hotshit like this isn't great, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how else to deliver it to you. Where we
Speaker 1: are is not great. Right now, the Vice President is
Speaker 1: in Poland trying to figure out how do we give
Speaker 1: fighter planes to Ukraine to give these people, to give
Speaker 1: their military a fighting chance without that signaling that we're
Speaker 1: ready for World War three. No idea, but I do
Speaker 1: know there is only so much sitting on the sidelines
Speaker 1: that can be done when the entire world is watching
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin kill Ukrainian citizens. There is only so much
Speaker 1: that folks are going to be able to stomach before
Speaker 1: they get on the phone. So they're elected officials before
Speaker 1: marches are taking place, before people are like what the
Speaker 1: fuck right, what are are you doing? Because we need
Speaker 1: to do something switching gears now, folks. To round out
Speaker 1: where we are with Russia is that, as I have
Speaker 1: been reporting, w NBA player Britney Griner is in Russian
Speaker 1: custody and has been for over a month. News of
Speaker 1: that broke over the weekend last weekend, after she had
Speaker 1: already been detained for weeks for possible marijuana cartridges for
Speaker 1: vape in her luggage. Now, I saw a really interesting
Speaker 1: story that I thought was worth diving into, and I
Speaker 1: want to dive more into it next week. So you
Speaker 1: guys all hold me to account. Interesting article about why
Speaker 1: Britney Griner was in Russia to begin with, and so
Speaker 1: let me describe it like this. The w NBA players
Speaker 1: don't even make a quarter of what NBA players make.
Speaker 1: Now we know, right because we reported here on woke
Speaker 1: af that the women's soccer team won a multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: lawsuit against the Soccer Association for failure to pay them
Speaker 1: equally in comparison to the men's teams. And this has
Speaker 1: been something that we have seen play out in tennis,
Speaker 1: play out in soccer, play out in the w NBA,
Speaker 1: in the NBA, and play out in the workforce. We
Speaker 1: don't have an Equal Pay Act, right because we have
Speaker 1: Republicans and some Democrats that refuse to vote that vote
Speaker 1: for it, that believe that, you know, women should not
Speaker 1: be paid as much as men are, which is crazy
Speaker 1: given the fact that we just came out a fucking
Speaker 1: not just came out of because it's still existing, but
Speaker 1: that we just in twenty twenty watched over two million
Speaker 1: women leave the workforce because they needed to be tending
Speaker 1: to their small children at home and turn themselves into
Speaker 1: homeschool teachers. Right, so we got to see in real
Speaker 1: lifetime the balance that working parents, working mothers in particular,
Speaker 1: the burden that is on them, and they still are
Speaker 1: not paid equally to men. So one story that I
Speaker 1: saw about the case with Britney Griner is that Britney
Speaker 1: Griner is in Russia playing in the WNBA's offseason because
Speaker 1: the WNBA doesn't fucking play pay right, they're paying these
Speaker 1: players like the top players in the leagues are making
Speaker 1: like six figures and I mean like low six figures,
Speaker 1: right that. I remember reading reports when the WNBA was
Speaker 1: started where these players were making as much as teachers,
Speaker 1: like fifty thousand dollars a year, sixty thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year in comparison, just think about the worst and again
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge sports person, but the worst player
Speaker 1: on the NBA, the one that is just riding the bench,
Speaker 1: is making five times more than the best player on
Speaker 1: the WNBA. So why was Britney Griner in Russia? Because
Speaker 1: she has to make a living for herself and her family,
Speaker 1: and in order to do that, she plays on European
Speaker 1: teams in the fucking off season. Because if the w
Speaker 1: NBA played like the NBA, she wouldn't need it. So
Speaker 1: the argument that the article was making was the fact
Speaker 1: that this is a not There are so many different
Speaker 1: things that are at play right now, which is a
Speaker 1: Britney Grinder is one of the most talented and well
Speaker 1: known w NBA players. Right if this were Tom Brady again,
Speaker 1: somebody had said there would be collective outrage, right, picket
Speaker 1: signs and all of these things. But it is a
Speaker 1: black woman in a skill and underrepresented and underpaid professional
Speaker 1: athletic field, and nobody's really blinking an eye. We're not
Speaker 1: concerned about the fact that not only is she black
Speaker 1: in Russia, but she's also queer in a country right
Speaker 1: that is still trying to beat the gay out of
Speaker 1: people and or jail them for it. So there is
Speaker 1: so this story about Britney Grinder is so layered and
Speaker 1: so dense and so troublesome at the sheer fact that
Speaker 1: if she were a man, if she were a white
Speaker 1: man at that on any other type of professional team,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't have had to be in fucking Russia to
Speaker 1: begin with. And even still if she had been there,
Speaker 1: the outrage that has taking place, that isn't taking place
Speaker 1: only but Sheila Jackson Lee so far the sole member
Speaker 1: of Congress, not even members from her own fucking state
Speaker 1: of Arizona have come out for her release. So I
Speaker 1: remained worried and concerned about Brittany Griner and if she's
Speaker 1: ever going to see her family or the United States.
Speaker 1: Again and again folks will say, oh, well, we have
Speaker 1: bigger fish to fry, and I'm like, you know, with
Speaker 1: all of these compounded crises, we need to be able
Speaker 1: to fry walk and shoot gum at the same time.
Speaker 1: Which leads me to the last story that once again,
Speaker 1: America's racism just out in the Open. Award winning director
Speaker 1: Ryan Coogler is in Atlanta, Georgia. Ryan Coogler is a
Speaker 1: director of Black Panther, Fruitvale Station, among others. He went
Speaker 1: into a bank in Atlanta to take out his own
Speaker 1: money with his own pen at his own bank and
Speaker 1: had the police called on him believing that he was
Speaker 1: a bank robber. Now reports have come out that the
Speaker 1: teller at the bank was also black, and so people
Speaker 1: wanted to say, well, it can't be racism because the
Speaker 1: bank teller was black, so it must be something else.
Speaker 1: And so let me provide this lesson white supremacy and
Speaker 1: the matrix that it lives in is breathed in and
Speaker 1: beaten into every single person that is a part of
Speaker 1: the white supremacy matrix, which is all of us. Black
Speaker 1: people are not absolved from anti blackness because they have
Speaker 1: melanin in their skin. They have been educated and indoctrinated
Speaker 1: into the same system of anti blackness and white supremacy
Speaker 1: as everyone else. Which is to see even themselves and
Speaker 1: people who look like them as a threat and as
Speaker 1: criminals first and people second once they have been able
Speaker 1: to prove their humanity. So it does not shock me
Speaker 1: that this took place, and sadly took place at the
Speaker 1: hands of a black employee. It just goes to show
Speaker 1: you once again that having money, having fame does not
Speaker 1: make you immune from racism and white supremacy. There is
Speaker 1: no way to buy your way out of it. We
Speaker 1: are living, folks, lord In, as Nicole Wallace always says
Speaker 1: an MSNBC when she closes out, we are living in
Speaker 1: extraordinary times, extraordinary times. Every day that we make it
Speaker 1: to a Friday, I just thank God and the universe
Speaker 1: that we made it through the end of another week,
Speaker 1: because by the time that we make it to Friday's
Speaker 1: I feel like my body has been a battering ram.
Speaker 1: And this is why, you know, as I transition into
Speaker 1: the woke moment of wellness, that my mother says that
Speaker 1: we take on fear, anger, anxiety, depression on a cellular level,
Speaker 1: that if we do not find the right ways to
Speaker 1: deal with our stress, our anxiety, our the toxins that
Speaker 1: are building up in our own bodies, they will metastasize
Speaker 1: and show up in other ways, and they will show
Speaker 1: up as dis ease right, because we are not at ease.
Speaker 1: So when you are in dis ease, your body becomes
Speaker 1: more vulnerable because your immune system is down. And so, folks,
Speaker 1: I continue to say that health is actual wealth, that
Speaker 1: it is not just as saying right, because you know,
Speaker 1: if we are not taking care of this one vessel,
Speaker 1: this one body that we get, if we're not doing
Speaker 1: and I have, and I will say this out loud
Speaker 1: to all of you, I haven't been to the doctors
Speaker 1: since before the pandemic, since twenty twenty. I need to
Speaker 1: go to the doctors. I need to make time for
Speaker 1: my regular check ins right, because it's not just enough
Speaker 1: that I walk and I eat right, like I also
Speaker 1: need to make time. We all need to make the
Speaker 1: time because our health is our wealth. I don't want
Speaker 1: to age in a way that has me unable to move,
Speaker 1: that lacks immobility or cognition. So the things that we
Speaker 1: can control, because so much is out of control, we
Speaker 1: need to take responsibility over, and that is our health
Speaker 1: and well being. So please, dear friends, let's make a
Speaker 1: pack together right to get our checkups as spring is approaching,
Speaker 1: to do our internal spring cleaning so that we are
Speaker 1: rested and able to continue the fight because it is
Speaker 1: unrelenting and so our vigilance must be over ourselves and
Speaker 1: our well being. That is it for me today. Friends
Speaker 1: on this woke af as always, Power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck until next week. Be well and stay woke.