Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Georgia voters have broken early voting
Speaker 1: records in the Senate runoff. We have one hell of
Speaker 1: a show for you today. Emily Atkin, who writes the
Speaker 1: climate change newsletter Heated, talks to us about the latest
Speaker 1: news in climate. Then we'll talk to Dennis Barron, author
Speaker 1: of You Can't Always Say what you want about the
Speaker 1: free speech absolutists like one Elon Mush. But first we
Speaker 1: have the host of the Enemies List the Lincoln Projects,
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson. Welcome back to UH Fast Politics fan favorite.
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson. Good afternoon, Molly, Good afternoon, Jessin. How are
Speaker 1: you guys? Sunday? Well, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: only three topics there are in American life. Ellen Trump,
Speaker 1: Kanye go E, three men tied together, my face, drawn
Speaker 1: into a drawn into a matrix of narcissism, money, ego violence,
Speaker 1: and anti Semitic craziness this spring. It's personally what I
Speaker 1: think is interesting about the three of them is so
Speaker 1: this weekend we learned that Twitter removed tweets of Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's penis well, I've been told if you don't post
Speaker 1: Dick pics from Hunter Biden's ledged laptop for the arousal
Speaker 1: of the Maga Horde, that you're that you're violating the
Speaker 1: Constitution and the election should be rebooted, because obviously, because
Speaker 1: you violated the First Amendment, by the way, that's punishable
Speaker 1: by death. In case you're wondering a violation of the
Speaker 1: First Amendment, treason, treason I've been told has bought seven
Speaker 1: six forty You told me, well, I've been told by
Speaker 1: a bot who appears to either be a Japanese anime
Speaker 1: character or a Russian supermodel, and in her or it's
Speaker 1: or his profile, it definitely says that they are one
Speaker 1: a to a maga Constitution patriot back the Blue. Jesus
Speaker 1: is my Lord and Savior. That anyone who believes that
Speaker 1: the election did not swing on the single issue of
Speaker 1: whether Hunter Biden's Dick pics would appear on Twitter is
Speaker 1: a littard cut shill, Soros, World Economic Forum rifter pedophile.
Speaker 1: Because you know, obviously there were so many millions of
Speaker 1: Americans who were looking and saying, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess we have a half a million dead people from
Speaker 1: COVID and a maniac for president who has been lavishly
Speaker 1: corrupt personally cruel is surrounded by Q and On conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories and insane people. But the real question is whether
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's dick pics appear on Twitter. I don't know, listen.
Speaker 1: I have not sorted out individuals are actually around Elon
Speaker 1: at all times now. But we know it's Jason, and
Speaker 1: we know it's David Sachs, and we know it's a
Speaker 1: few of these others. But there's got to be somebody, Molly,
Speaker 1: who is in the middle of this matrix, who has
Speaker 1: become like the Gateway pundit whisperer, right, there must be no, No,
Speaker 1: there's got of ache bag in this mix somewhere. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's Andy. No, Andy, Antifa isn't real. Repeat, Antifa
Speaker 1: is not real, right, Or maybe it's Pizza Jack or
Speaker 1: could be Mikey C. And I also smell a certain
Speaker 1: funk of Greenwold about him. What I call the funk
Speaker 1: of Greenwold. It's a kind of it's a kind of
Speaker 1: dusky jungle scent from the Brazilian rainforest with poison. I
Speaker 1: think I think it's so interesting about this crew is
Speaker 1: they really think that the Hunter Biden laptop thing, which
Speaker 1: has by the way, no has not delivered for Republicans
Speaker 1: in nor in two So let's give it another shot
Speaker 1: in this will be the thing, this thing that no
Speaker 1: one gives a funk about, it is going to finally
Speaker 1: be the thing that brings down the Biden administration. I
Speaker 1: just want to read to you from the brilliant Tim
Speaker 1: Miller piece in The Bulwark. It was fantastic. I just
Speaker 1: want to read the title first. Uh no, you do
Speaker 1: not have a constitutional right to post Hunter Biden's dick
Speaker 1: pics on Twitter. But my favorite was this comment from
Speaker 1: here we Go. Right wing commentator Buck Sexton again real name,
Speaker 1: said this was a bright red line, bright red line violation,
Speaker 1: whatever that means, and Biden should be impeached for it.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that all of these links
Speaker 1: that were taken down were taken down well Biden was
Speaker 1: a candidate and Donald Trump was president. So technically, as
Speaker 1: I as I posted to Buck Sexton before he deleted
Speaker 1: that tweet, I wrote, calendars, how do they work? Because
Speaker 1: I really wanted to know, I mean, is there some
Speaker 1: sort of Biden time machine we don't know about. Is
Speaker 1: there some sort of portal that he had with a
Speaker 1: wormhole to lead to the past or something. The thing
Speaker 1: that offends me the most about it, that I will
Speaker 1: never get tired of, is I actually am a constitutional
Speaker 1: conservative and believes the Constitution is the operating system of
Speaker 1: the United States, as flawed as it is. But these
Speaker 1: fuckers they don't believe in anything. It's like a constitutional
Speaker 1: constitutional rugs being valid, but a company. Wait a second,
Speaker 1: hold on, what could you read that for me? Could
Speaker 1: you read that for me from the actual Constitution? Will know?
Speaker 1: What is that in the older the New Testament? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't see it. You know, these fucking people they
Speaker 1: believe whatever convenience of the moment, whatever instantaneous thing arouses
Speaker 1: their ire or their or their dander, as my grandmother
Speaker 1: would say, for for the thirty seconds of attention they
Speaker 1: give it. That's the thing that's treason and it's unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: And why are you not in get now? The storm
Speaker 1: is coming TMT dot org every fucking time you see
Speaker 1: these people like how dare you treat the life January
Speaker 1: six protesters so cruelly by putting people who can get
Speaker 1: in crimes in prison, weather Away. It's so awful, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I think that you you you hang
Speaker 1: out with Hollywood liberals. Therefore you're a pedophile. You should
Speaker 1: be burned alive right now in a cage. Okay? Cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well you gotta have it one way or the other. Right.
Speaker 1: I understand your system of jurisprudence is random and arbitrary,
Speaker 1: but does that really sounded the country want to live in? Okay? Now? Um,
Speaker 1: I just want to say that the thing that I'm
Speaker 1: baffled by is okay. So there's a large percentage of
Speaker 1: people slash bots, slash people, ish right something between people
Speaker 1: and bots that believe right that you should get the
Speaker 1: den right the death penalty, violating the First Amendment by
Speaker 1: not letting Hunter Biden's dick pick be posted on Twitter.
Speaker 1: But here's my question for you. Elon Musk is not
Speaker 1: a human body he or not yet anyway. He is
Speaker 1: actually like a real, fully grown billionaire who's made zillions
Speaker 1: of dollars and is the CEO of two companies. What
Speaker 1: the fuck? Like? I get, like what happened to Matt Taibi?
Speaker 1: I get what happened to Glenn Greenwald, whoa hold the funk?
Speaker 1: Up and hold the funk up. Yes, I don't get
Speaker 1: what happened to Matt Taibian clean Greenwald. Even if I
Speaker 1: got it, I wouldn't excuse it, Okay Taibi as apparently
Speaker 1: he's angling to be like head of calms for alt right, inc.
Speaker 1: Whatever the funk that whole business was, which was very selective,
Speaker 1: as we noted a lot more attention to the please
Speaker 1: remove the dick pics of Hunter Biden from the Biden
Speaker 1: campaign versus the incumbent president's campaign complaining about you know,
Speaker 1: why are you removing these people talking about I've mecton
Speaker 1: or whatever the fucking was. But but let me look
Speaker 1: back on this for one second. The idea that this
Speaker 1: clack of people now surrounds Elon Musk, the wealthiest man
Speaker 1: in the world, for now that they have basically given
Speaker 1: him the right mind virus, that they're trying to use
Speaker 1: their their like broship with him to convert Twitter into
Speaker 1: a a weaponized element of the right wing media machine
Speaker 1: and to kill it off for everybody else. It's becoming
Speaker 1: incredibly obvious how committed they are to this, and that
Speaker 1: how much of a sucker he is. I want to
Speaker 1: play cards with this fucking guy, because okay, dude, you're
Speaker 1: great at selling your rockets or your or your cars
Speaker 1: or whatever, and maybe you're pretty smart about some things,
Speaker 1: but they are playing him. I've come to believe that
Speaker 1: this guy is one of these people who's incredibly narrowly talented.
Speaker 1: And some people one time told me, like, the most
Speaker 1: weirdly talented people in the world are like opera singers.
Speaker 1: They have a specific skill that is a most unique
Speaker 1: in the world. There are a dozen great opera singers
Speaker 1: in any given time, and most of them can't wipe
Speaker 1: their own ass. Most of them cannot like call a
Speaker 1: fucking cab. And the weird thing about Elon, I mean
Speaker 1: increasingly coming to believe is that there's a group of
Speaker 1: people around him who has decided to and somehow they
Speaker 1: got the vector into him, and now he believes, like
Speaker 1: he used to believe, that humanity needed to become a
Speaker 1: space faring civilization. We need to build a complicated engineering
Speaker 1: structure of rockets that can do heavy lift to orbits
Speaker 1: so we can escape the Earth in case there's a
Speaker 1: giant tragedy. And okay, he was getting pretty good at that,
Speaker 1: but now they've convinced him that the world is run
Speaker 1: by shape shifting lizard alien pedophiles, and only Twitter posting
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's dick pits can can save us because free speech.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you the
Speaker 1: the the idea that the apotheosis of free speech is
Speaker 1: putting fucking Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer back on the platform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. You know, I'm sorry, maybe there will be
Speaker 1: consequence to that, because every advertiser I and think of
Speaker 1: right now, they've been carefully monitoring the Twitter situation and
Speaker 1: they're like, man, I hope that Daily Stormer comes back
Speaker 1: on the platform, because that's going to really really convince
Speaker 1: us to put our brand dollars behind the same place
Speaker 1: we can get Richard Spencer and Andrew England content. My god,
Speaker 1: can we just rename it chan. That'd be fantastic. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to not spend my brand's advertising dollars on
Speaker 1: that platform, right, I mean, think about all the money
Speaker 1: that goes into four chan and eight chan for advertising.
Speaker 1: People love Nazi content the best. Here's the thing, not
Speaker 1: even the fucking my pillow guy advertises on the chance, right,
Speaker 1: good point. And if you've lost if you've lost Mike Lindell.
Speaker 1: I do feel like there's a world in which Michael
Speaker 1: and Dell and you know, Ellen end up as comrades
Speaker 1: and arms right, you know, I think that. I think
Speaker 1: the charming buddy picture that's going to emerge from this planes,
Speaker 1: trans and automobiles with the two of them, Mike and
Speaker 1: Ellen's big adventure, it would be like like platforms, rockets
Speaker 1: and brain chips, I mean misadventure. Well, yes, he's now
Speaker 1: across country people by rage and conspiracy theories. It's Lindell,
Speaker 1: you think Elon stays on the course here, or you
Speaker 1: think something crazy happens mad Toheebi te B Taibi continues
Speaker 1: to release more Hunter Biden Dick picks. I mean, where
Speaker 1: does this go? Well, look, I think this is a
Speaker 1: guy who is so far in it now. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the old Hunter s. Thompson thing. Once you're into
Speaker 1: a serious drug drug habit, it's hard to you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know when to stop or whatever the phrases.
Speaker 1: I think he's so dug in on this now, and
Speaker 1: I think these people surrounding him have found just like
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon has some sort of weird like scab covered
Speaker 1: charm for exotic four billionaires. These guys have figured out
Speaker 1: some way to play Elon's vanities or whatever I mean.
Speaker 1: For fox sake, Bro, you're in your fifties, stop being
Speaker 1: like the Peppie the Frog meme reply guy and starts
Speaker 1: acting like a serious person. He's not right now in
Speaker 1: a position I think where he can stop. Right, It
Speaker 1: does seem like he's not able to stop whatever it
Speaker 1: is he's doing. Yeah, right, there's either a mental framework
Speaker 1: he's in where he can't stop, or these people have
Speaker 1: suckered him so thoroughly where he keeps thinking, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just pull the lever another time and hope that
Speaker 1: this time the food pellet comes out instead of the
Speaker 1: electro shock around my dick, because they've obviously conditioned him
Speaker 1: in some way to believe that. You know, if you
Speaker 1: just do enough ship with the alt right, you'll somehow
Speaker 1: find a mysterious audience of people who are out there
Speaker 1: waiting to just surge into the platform with a billions
Speaker 1: of dollars and be an audience profile that becomes valuable
Speaker 1: to people who would advertise for billions of dollars. Right now,
Speaker 1: it's increasingly like, well, you know is four chan not
Speaker 1: racy enough for you? Will come on over to the bird.
Speaker 1: All right, we have to stop talking about Elon Moscos
Speaker 1: who cares? We have to talk about the Constitution being paused?
Speaker 1: Who or taking it suspended? I'm sorry every fucking Republican
Speaker 1: in the country. And and by the way, let me
Speaker 1: give you reporters, because I'm not a reporter. I'm not
Speaker 1: a journalist. I'm just an asshole who makes TVs for
Speaker 1: a living and writes a couple of books here and there.
Speaker 1: Let's just help you guys out here. Let me give
Speaker 1: you the thirty second brief on how to do this.
Speaker 1: You go up to Congressman so and so or Senator
Speaker 1: so and so or Governor Ron De Santis, and you say,
Speaker 1: do you agree with Donald J. Trump, former President of
Speaker 1: the United States, that the Constitution should be suspended? And
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. And they'll say, we'll let
Speaker 1: haven't seen the twee eats. I'm not not truth social.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that seems like I don't know
Speaker 1: the whole context of that. And what you do then
Speaker 1: is you pull your arm back across your chest. You
Speaker 1: take your right arm and pull it across your chest
Speaker 1: so your your right hand rest on your left shoulder.
Speaker 1: You flatten your hand down, and you slap the shift
Speaker 1: out of them across the face with the back of
Speaker 1: the hand archie, because that's what that's what it hurts
Speaker 1: the most. And you say, do you agree with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump the Constitution to be suspended because of because no
Speaker 1: one got to see Hunter Biden's dick picks, and reporters
Speaker 1: won't do it. They won't fucking do it, And then
Speaker 1: they'll ask themselves someday like I don't understand what we're
Speaker 1: being put on this fucking real car. What I just
Speaker 1: both sides are a point to make. No, they are
Speaker 1: not both sides of a fucking lie. There are not
Speaker 1: both sides of a sucking outrage. This is a moment
Speaker 1: where the leader of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 1: who is the leader of the election field, who is
Speaker 1: the leader of the conservative for whatever that word means
Speaker 1: now movement in this country, right, they will not in
Speaker 1: the end say the magic words and hear the magic words.
Speaker 1: And I'll repeat these for Republicans if you're listening. I
Speaker 1: will not vote for Donald Trump in the primary or
Speaker 1: general election. I will not vote for Donald Trump in
Speaker 1: the primary or general election. I Senator John bumble Fuck
Speaker 1: will not vote for Donald Trump in the primary or
Speaker 1: general election. If they did that, they would somehow crack
Speaker 1: open the tiniest little window of possibility that history will
Speaker 1: not view all of them as complete fucking dip shits. Really,
Speaker 1: I think it's too late, hasn't that chip sailed? As
Speaker 1: I said, It's the tiniest possibility if they go out
Speaker 1: after they do that in like cure various childhood cancers,
Speaker 1: or to work amongst the poor and deserving for three decades.
Speaker 1: But most of them are doing what they always do.
Speaker 1: And this is a gigantic, colossal, ongoing failure of our
Speaker 1: national media. You that they've built a sort of behavioral
Speaker 1: pattern where they say like, well, I'm not untruth social
Speaker 1: I didn't see that, or or if he did that,
Speaker 1: that would be these like triple nested conditional phrases. If
Speaker 1: he did that, and that was the full context of it,
Speaker 1: And I couldn't imagine what the situation would be where
Speaker 1: I could see anywhere but issuing a sternly awarded and
Speaker 1: deeply knitted brow criticism of him. I mean, come on, people,
Speaker 1: but It's a failure of America's media that they let
Speaker 1: them get away with it time and time and time
Speaker 1: and time and time again. They don't ask them the
Speaker 1: critical question because you know what, for all, I'll do
Speaker 1: the mitch here. I'm gonna do the mitch for you already, Donna,
Speaker 1: We're gonna enter a somewhat what Colinria it's how rageous.
Speaker 1: But when he's the nominally of my party, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to overlook that. That's because that's that's that's the
Speaker 1: underpinning of all this bullshit. They will still not say
Speaker 1: that there's a line that Trump can cross that they
Speaker 1: won't bend and break for they cannot say it. They
Speaker 1: will not say it. They refuse to say it over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over again. And it's the
Speaker 1: easiest goddamn thing in the world. Emily Atkin is the
Speaker 1: author of the newsletter Heated. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Emily,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me, glad to be here. Should we
Speaker 1: talk first about Elon Musk? I feel like that's what
Speaker 1: we have to talk about. We have to Okay, sure,
Speaker 1: let's do it. I'm sorry you write a newsletter called Heated,
Speaker 1: which focuses on climate um and is incredibly brilliant and amazing.
Speaker 1: And you have a piece in it called the Climate
Speaker 1: Case against Elon Musk. What is the climate case against
Speaker 1: Elon Musk? Apparently it's just a piece to rile up
Speaker 1: all the Elon Musk fanboys again to personally bring myself
Speaker 1: of pain and suffering. That is, how dare you criticize?
Speaker 1: I too have been told that I am too stupid
Speaker 1: to understand the genius. And I'm used to this because
Speaker 1: a big part of what I consider my job as
Speaker 1: a climate reporter is to try and talk about the
Speaker 1: role that billionaires play in fueling the climate crisis. And
Speaker 1: a lot of billionaires also happened to be the philanthropic
Speaker 1: in the climate change space, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: But Elon Musk, he's a whole in a whole different
Speaker 1: category because of Tesla, and because Tesla was really the
Speaker 1: first electric car company in the United States really take off,
Speaker 1: really like in the world, to to take off and
Speaker 1: prove that there is a viable market for electric cars.
Speaker 1: There's an argument that many people make that he can
Speaker 1: do no wrong for the climate, and that he is
Speaker 1: the most important human being for the climate that he's
Speaker 1: done the most individually to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And
Speaker 1: I felt that one job as a climate reporter was
Speaker 1: to say, like, hold up, I don't know that that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course you're wrong, because Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: the greatest genius ever. Well, and that's what I've learned
Speaker 1: that just in case those Internet people aren't right, explained
Speaker 1: to us what you found. I do want to preface
Speaker 1: this by saying that I don't discount the positive climate
Speaker 1: impact of having a successful electric vehicle company like Tesla, right,
Speaker 1: Like that is hugely important to be developing these vehicles, right,
Speaker 1: But that's only one part of a large climate puzzle
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with. And the way that we assess countries,
Speaker 1: the way that we assess corporations, is not in the
Speaker 1: one good thing they did, the one great thing they did,
Speaker 1: even I'm willing to entertain that idea, right, it is cumulatively.
Speaker 1: I try to make this point in my piece that
Speaker 1: if the United States shuts down coal plants, that's amazing,
Speaker 1: But if we also add twenty million cars to the road,
Speaker 1: that's nothing. You've done nothing, right, So you can look
Speaker 1: at the impact of Tesla and perhaps subjectively come out
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that this is an incredible company for
Speaker 1: the climate. But Elon Musk is a human. How do
Speaker 1: we assess Elon Musk as a human? I think it's
Speaker 1: really tough to objectively make an assessment of one person
Speaker 1: because emissions are so complicated and they happen. There's emissions now,
Speaker 1: and then there's emissions in the future. Are you mad
Speaker 1: at him about his jed, Well, Elon must have. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk lives on his JED. Okay, he takes it very
Speaker 1: short distances all the time. To be fair, I wasn't
Speaker 1: even considering his jet because among blie he actually has
Speaker 1: one of the lower climate footprints, which is still a
Speaker 1: much more massive footprint than say you or I have,
Speaker 1: or any like normal person has, But it's like less
Speaker 1: than like Bill Gates's climate footprint. But anyway, so Tesla
Speaker 1: as a whole, sure it's good for the climate, But
Speaker 1: Elon Musk as a whole, I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 1: the case. Let's just take for one, his public advocacy
Speaker 1: of putting Republicans in power. It doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: that you could be the biggest climate hero of all
Speaker 1: time and advocate putting literal climate deniers whose only energy
Speaker 1: policy is more fossil fuels, and whose policy is to
Speaker 1: revoke the energy credits, the renewable energy credits that made
Speaker 1: Tesla successful in the first place. It doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense number one, and number two, If what Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is advocating for happens, if Republicans do take power, then
Speaker 1: all of the climate gains are going to be reversed. Right,
Speaker 1: And Elon Musk is hugely influential in American politics. He
Speaker 1: has a massive fan base, he has a lot of money.
Speaker 1: He can literally change the stock market with one tweet.
Speaker 1: His public advocacy of Rondis Santis of a Republican House
Speaker 1: and Senate. That matters, and it's going to continue to matter.
Speaker 1: His whole siding with the political right, which is the
Speaker 1: party of climate denial and the party of fossil fuels,
Speaker 1: has the potential to completely wipe out his record with
Speaker 1: Tesla any positive emissions gains. And that's just one aspect
Speaker 1: of it. There's so many more aspects to Elon Musk's
Speaker 1: legacy that have the potential to be hugely problematic. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about bitcoin, because that seems like an important thing.
Speaker 1: Explain into our listeners why the problem with bitcoin besides
Speaker 1: the fact that their evaluation that they have no value
Speaker 1: right now, yes right, bitcoins, besides being worthless, are are
Speaker 1: massively consequential to the environment because of the because of
Speaker 1: the greenhouse gas emissions. It takes the energy it takes
Speaker 1: to run the servers that do the mathematical equations that
Speaker 1: mine a bitcoin. So as more and more bitcoins are mind,
Speaker 1: it takes more and more computers, more and more servers
Speaker 1: to run these equations to be able to get a bitcoin.
Speaker 1: And so you have warehouses full of these servers that
Speaker 1: are constantly on, constantly running these equations in mind bitcoin
Speaker 1: that are powered by coal powered electricity sources because people
Speaker 1: will buy these warehouses in countries where it's cheap to
Speaker 1: do it, and all of their power is coal fired power.
Speaker 1: The energy cost of bitcoin is is enormous. It is
Speaker 1: comparable to trees, and it is continuing to rise. And
Speaker 1: one of the very passing points that I made in
Speaker 1: the piece was that Tesla, under Elon Musk decision making,
Speaker 1: bought wanting to have billion dollars in bitcoins without even
Speaker 1: thinking about the environmental consequences. It wasn't even until later
Speaker 1: when people were like, what are you doing? This is
Speaker 1: completely antithetical to your mission with Tesla that he said, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna accept bitcoins for payments anymore. But we
Speaker 1: all know that Elon Musk is still a bitcoin bro right.
Speaker 1: This is in no way advocating against bitcoin. Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: a much bigger climate threat than people realize, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: because of the energy it uses, right. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess bitcoin wouldn't be a huge problem if say all
Speaker 1: of it were mined using renewable energy sources. But number one,
Speaker 1: that's not the case. And number two, we have a
Speaker 1: finite amount of space in the world to put renewable
Speaker 1: energy resources, and it's we're having enough problems as it
Speaker 1: is right now to you know, power our society with
Speaker 1: renewable energy. It's like taking renewable energy and using it
Speaker 1: to power more fossil fuel operations. It's like, why can
Speaker 1: we use it for the stuff we need to use
Speaker 1: it for. This is a literal climate crisis that we're
Speaker 1: in right now. We actually have to be really thoughtful
Speaker 1: about all of our energy use. An Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: not thoughtful about this kind of stuff. What he's really
Speaker 1: thoughtful about is crafting his own image to be portrayed
Speaker 1: as somebody who is doing only good things for the planet,
Speaker 1: that his act of somehow enriching himself to be the
Speaker 1: literal richest person on earth is somehow a completely philanthropic endeavor.
Speaker 1: I have a really hard time believing that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what else you're seeing in
Speaker 1: the climate world. This is such a complicated and depressing beat.
Speaker 1: What else are you seeing? Well, I think probably the
Speaker 1: most important thing right now that I think is happening
Speaker 1: is a hijacking of the overall climate conversation by the
Speaker 1: right and by fossil fuel interests to say that natural
Speaker 1: gas is clean energy, to say that carbon capture is
Speaker 1: a great solution that is going to save us all,
Speaker 1: and that we don't need to transition to on represent
Speaker 1: renewable energy, that we need this clean quote unquote clean
Speaker 1: natural gas bridge fuel, which is completely scientific bologny, but
Speaker 1: it's very attractive and very pervasive because it seems really moderate,
Speaker 1: and I think people are in real need of some
Speaker 1: kind of sense of moderation, some kind of sense of calm,
Speaker 1: and the idea like Okay, we're tackling climate change, but
Speaker 1: we're doing it in this really moderate and reserved way
Speaker 1: where we can still have fossil fuels and still and
Speaker 1: go really slow and just and everything is going to
Speaker 1: be fine, And I get the need for that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: natural gas isn't a clean fuel. It's a fossil fuel
Speaker 1: that leaks a ton of methane. Scientists overwhelmingly say that
Speaker 1: there can't be any new fossil fuel development by and
Speaker 1: that's in order for us to meet the threshold of
Speaker 1: warming that will keep it to safe levels. And natural
Speaker 1: gas is a fossil fuel, and so there's an overwhelming
Speaker 1: effort to try and after years of denial, right after
Speaker 1: years are saying this isn't a problem. Well, okay, it
Speaker 1: is a problem, but we've got it under control, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna use natural gas and we're going to create
Speaker 1: new technologies that capture carbon out of the sky and
Speaker 1: bury it underground and everything is to be Okay. That
Speaker 1: sounds great, but it's not true, and it's just go
Speaker 1: And I think it's one of the most pervasive forms
Speaker 1: of disinformation happening right now. That the reason that I
Speaker 1: bring it up is because I think it's something that
Speaker 1: all political reporters and people interested in politics need to
Speaker 1: be armed with that kind of knowledge, that that is
Speaker 1: disinformation and it is to try to make you feel better,
Speaker 1: right when it actually makes the situation much much worth
Speaker 1: I mean, are you seeing it seems like one of
Speaker 1: the pieces you've written is about this sort of that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of these climate newsletters that are
Speaker 1: sponsored by X or Chevron, and that that is a
Speaker 1: real conflict. We talked about that a little bit, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, having a climate change news outlet of any
Speaker 1: kind sponsored by Chevron or Axon is like having a
Speaker 1: newsletter on gun violence and crime and match you to
Speaker 1: sponsored by the gun industry. It doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: and it's also insulting to the victims of the crisis
Speaker 1: that you're covering. Again, I think this is something that
Speaker 1: news editors will do because they believe it makes them
Speaker 1: seem objective. But it's it's not biased to say that
Speaker 1: fossil fuels cause the climate crisis. It is objective to
Speaker 1: say that they do, and we probably shouldn't be advertising
Speaker 1: for fossil fuels in our climate change newsletter. And that's
Speaker 1: besides the fact that these ads from fossil fuel companies
Speaker 1: tend to contain misinformation about climate change. They say things
Speaker 1: like we're working towards climate solutions and everything is cool.
Speaker 1: And that is how well documented pr attempt to convince
Speaker 1: you that everything is fine when it's not. We call
Speaker 1: it in this space delayism. Right, there's denialism and then
Speaker 1: there's delayism. And that's what I think is like the
Speaker 1: biggest story moving forward is this coordinated to delay solutions
Speaker 1: to climate change, to placate people into not wanting to
Speaker 1: call for the solutions that scientists say are necessary. Right,
Speaker 1: They want you to call for the solutions that fossil
Speaker 1: fuel companies say are necessary, and that is always going
Speaker 1: to be the solution that makes the most money for
Speaker 1: fossil fuel companies. Thank you so much, Emily, This was great.
Speaker 1: Please come back. Thank you for having man. I always
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Dennis Barron is the author of You
Speaker 1: Can't Always Say What You Want and a professor of
Speaker 1: English a University of Illinois. Urbana Champagne, Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Danni's I I'm glad to be here, Molly, So I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about your book Free Speeches
Speaker 1: like the Hot topic right now, explain to me your thesis, Um,
Speaker 1: this book? Okay. Basically, what I try to do in
Speaker 1: a lot of my work is to take something that's
Speaker 1: the current issue or problem and look at the history
Speaker 1: behind it, because usually it doesn't come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: There's usually some something we could learn from the past
Speaker 1: that will help us maybe understand the present a little bit,
Speaker 1: or at least that's my that's my hope. And so
Speaker 1: what I am looking at are the various attempts in
Speaker 1: our past in the US, with some examples from other
Speaker 1: countries as well, of the legal attempts to regulate, control, limit,
Speaker 1: and in some cases support freedom of speech, freedom of expression,
Speaker 1: How the legal system has interpreted the First Amendment in
Speaker 1: the past, and how that applies to the present, what
Speaker 1: kinds of issues there are in the present. It's it's
Speaker 1: obviously become very explosive in the last few months, the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, with all sorts of ideas about
Speaker 1: what free speech is or isn't and my speech is
Speaker 1: free and your speech needs to be shut down kind
Speaker 1: of stuff going on? Is this new? Not really? Not really?
Speaker 1: Of free speech has always been used as a way
Speaker 1: to kind of steer people in approve directions and keep
Speaker 1: them quiet if they stray from from those kinds of
Speaker 1: more kosher ways of communicating. You may have heard of
Speaker 1: this man, Elon Musk. I have heard of Mr Musk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he considers himself to be the first person to ever
Speaker 1: have fought for free speech. He is a free speech absolutist.
Speaker 1: Help me out here. Explain to me do you think
Speaker 1: that that is a reasonable supposition? And do you think
Speaker 1: that there is a place for free speech absolutist? Do you?
Speaker 1: I mean, where do you fall in this world? I'm
Speaker 1: taking a linguistic approach regardless of what I think about
Speaker 1: Mr Musk. If we have to take the New York
Speaker 1: Times way of referring to people with these honorifics, you
Speaker 1: scratch your free speech absolutist. You find somebody who wants
Speaker 1: to protect their own speech and limit yours. That is
Speaker 1: a pretty incredible line. Can you say more on that? Sure,
Speaker 1: people have been in the last few years and certainly
Speaker 1: last few months, people on the on the extreme right
Speaker 1: and maybe even the not so extreme right in the US,
Speaker 1: probably in other places as well, have been wrapping themselves
Speaker 1: in the notion of free speech. Whether it's the First
Speaker 1: Amendment or just a sort of general feel good free
Speaker 1: speech thing. You can say what you want, you can't
Speaker 1: stop me from talking in order and that they're wrapping
Speaker 1: themselves in the First Amendment free speech protection in order
Speaker 1: to silence everybody who disagrees with them, And that is
Speaker 1: like totally bizarre, but maybe not so surprising because speech
Speaker 1: is a given take between people who don't necessarily agree
Speaker 1: with one another, and so they weaponizing free speech should
Speaker 1: not be particularly surprising. Uh in the past. Uh well, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to the present for a second. What
Speaker 1: we're seeing is a combination of individual free speech in
Speaker 1: terms of organizations like Twitter or Facebook or or social
Speaker 1: media in general, or the media in general having limits
Speaker 1: of what can be said on their platforms and whether
Speaker 1: those limits should be, how they should be defined, how
Speaker 1: they should be enforced. And on the other hand, you
Speaker 1: have the sort of legal limits on speech. What what
Speaker 1: speech is actually lawful? What speech is not protected by
Speaker 1: the First Amendment. So, in terms of our legal history,
Speaker 1: currently hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. What
Speaker 1: is not protected are things like obscene speech or threats
Speaker 1: or incitement to riot or defamation. All of those are
Speaker 1: considered to be outside the protections that governmental protections of speech,
Speaker 1: but only in terms of what the government can and
Speaker 1: cannot do what private groups like companies, social groups, schools, clubs,
Speaker 1: families in terms of encouraging and limiting the speech of
Speaker 1: people who speak in those groups. That's a whole separate issue.
Speaker 1: And these social groups all said sometimes very precise limits
Speaker 1: of what you can and cannot say. If you swear
Speaker 1: and you're a child, you might have to put a
Speaker 1: nickel in the swear jar. Okay, there's an example of
Speaker 1: how families try to control speech. It seems not to
Speaker 1: have worked, because there are still people who swear. That's
Speaker 1: maybe not the best way of social group trying to
Speaker 1: place it. The thing I'm noticed is like I come
Speaker 1: from this family where I have these you know, my
Speaker 1: mother was Eric Jong, is Erica Jong. My grandfather was
Speaker 1: Howard Fast. Both were censored, right, My grandfather was blacklisted.
Speaker 1: My mother's work wasn't published in places like you know
Speaker 1: that she had. You know, there were different countries that
Speaker 1: even parts of Italy, southern Italy, they censored her work.
Speaker 1: But largely I have had almost no censorship in my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly there are times when you can't get
Speaker 1: something published or whatever. But that's not censorship. So is
Speaker 1: Elon Musk actually being censored? Is he being censored? No,
Speaker 1: these free speech absolutists are not actually being censored. No, No,
Speaker 1: they're not being censored. He likes speech so much he
Speaker 1: bought the company. That's maybe not the best slogan to use.
Speaker 1: But what he's doing with the company is not clear
Speaker 1: to anybody. It's kind of chaotic at the moment. But
Speaker 1: what seems to be going on is letting people who
Speaker 1: have previously violated the Twitter terms of service back onto
Speaker 1: the platform and kicking other people off the platform who
Speaker 1: maybe are not violating the terms of service but have
Speaker 1: simply said, oh, I don't like what Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: doing or who for a variety of reasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are charges the other day that he's kicking off
Speaker 1: pro Jewish accounts and supporting anti Semitic accounts. I I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, to what extent is accurate, but
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that you're reading in the
Speaker 1: Washington Post in the New York Times. So the idea
Speaker 1: is he seems to be stacking Twitter in terms of
Speaker 1: support of right wing speech and speech of people that
Speaker 1: he probably agrees with, and away from kinds of speech
Speaker 1: that he disagrees with. So how that's absolute is is not.
Speaker 1: He's putting a thumb on the scale of speech. That's
Speaker 1: not free speech. That's not the marketplace of ideas. Of course,
Speaker 1: the marketplace of ideas was always rigged because those who
Speaker 1: are in power control the market. I just want to uh,
Speaker 1: sort of dive into this a little more. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing any places where people are not able to have
Speaker 1: free speech? I mean, I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: it's a solution without a problem. Okay. Yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you're talking about the US, not really, there's this cancel
Speaker 1: culture screaming on on the part of the right. Is
Speaker 1: all a kind of moral panic that it is pretty fictionalized.
Speaker 1: Nobody has the constitutional right to give a speech to
Speaker 1: the college. Nobody has the constitutional right to publish an
Speaker 1: opinion essay in the Times of the Post. No one
Speaker 1: has a constitutional right to have a Twitter or a
Speaker 1: Facebook account. These are things that get negotiated in in
Speaker 1: the marketplace of ideas, if you will. Twitter can decide
Speaker 1: who to suspend and who to let on the platform.
Speaker 1: Facebook can, Instagram can the new York Times decides who
Speaker 1: it publishes. Traditional publishers decide whose book gets published, whose
Speaker 1: book never sees print. There's nothing unusual about that. What's
Speaker 1: nice about the Internet is that pretty much anybody who
Speaker 1: wants a voice can have a voice on it. You
Speaker 1: can you can find people to read your words, even
Speaker 1: if you don't have a Twitter account. Just put something
Speaker 1: online and somebody someone or is going to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I like your picture of a cat, or or I
Speaker 1: agree that minorities are trying to replace all of us.
Speaker 1: But doesn't mean you're right. Right? Do you think that
Speaker 1: cancel culture really exists? And if so, why does it
Speaker 1: not and why editorial writers keep writing about it. They
Speaker 1: want eye bowls on their site, they want clicks. It's
Speaker 1: like that again, another stupid solution for a non problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly there are people who innocent people get
Speaker 1: charged with crimes and things like that. But I don't
Speaker 1: think that cancel culture is the greatest danger facing your
Speaker 1: everyday American. It is absolutely not a danger at all.
Speaker 1: If somebody has a controversial opinion and they're saying it
Speaker 1: in public, they are opening themselves up to critics who
Speaker 1: disagree with them. That's the given take of speech. The
Speaker 1: First Amendment. Free speech never immunizes you against the impact
Speaker 1: of what you say. The law is pretty broad allowing
Speaker 1: First Amendment rights. I mean, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about the idea of like, is there a place
Speaker 1: for sort of like you know, in illegality, for crying
Speaker 1: fire in in a crowded theater. Is there a place
Speaker 1: for that? Is there a sort of way around the
Speaker 1: First Amendment there? I mean, it doesn't seem like there is,
Speaker 1: but there certainly is some anxiety about that. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the issue with crying fire, it's falsely crying fire in
Speaker 1: a crowded theater. If you cried fire and there is
Speaker 1: a fire, of course, then your speeches. Okay, people will
Speaker 1: still get trampled on their way out. That still doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the exit doors haven't been barred shut and
Speaker 1: things like that. But in the past, of course, there
Speaker 1: were a number of very well known examples of audience
Speaker 1: panics in theaters and people getting crushed. And it turns
Speaker 1: out that there was no actual fire and and it's
Speaker 1: a legal hypothetical that was established by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: in its decision in the United States Fishink in nine
Speaker 1: that there are certain kinds of speech that no one
Speaker 1: would argue that the First Amendment protects that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Other kinds of speech that are not protected. I mentioned
Speaker 1: before obscenity, threats, incitement, fighting words, anything that brings imminent
Speaker 1: lawless action in terms of the most recent characterization by
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, which is why you know, the whole
Speaker 1: issue of you know, to what extent is Trump responsible
Speaker 1: for inciting January six rioting? Is that protected political speech
Speaker 1: or is that incitement to riot which is not protected
Speaker 1: at all? And of course I'm leaning towards thinking of
Speaker 1: that as incitement. So let's just get back to this idea.
Speaker 1: So where does this go, this sort of free speech
Speaker 1: war and all of this anxiety that's harder to predict.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to engage in futurology because
Speaker 1: it's a full scame. But right now there are lots
Speaker 1: of attempts by conservative legislatures, by conservative politicians in other
Speaker 1: countries to limit speech under the guise of protecting speech.
Speaker 1: And then that seems to me just basically wrong. And
Speaker 1: if that's what we have to look forward to in
Speaker 1: the near term, that's what we have to resist. That's
Speaker 1: what we have to fight against because the voices of
Speaker 1: those who have been traditionally less powerful, who have traditionally
Speaker 1: had less of a platform, those are the voices that
Speaker 1: need protection, that need inclusion. At The founders who drafted
Speaker 1: something like the First Amendment would want to protect against
Speaker 1: the kind of tyranny of the majority, as they framed it.
Speaker 1: These rules are there to protect the little people, to
Speaker 1: protect those who whose voices have historically been limited. So interesting.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us, Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Molly Rick Wilson. Yes, you are a
Speaker 1: special guest star for the moment of gray. You'll remember
Speaker 1: it from another podcast that shall not be named that
Speaker 1: neither of us work on anymore where we used to college.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start a new podcast called Podcasts of
Speaker 1: the Damned. I mean, that's really real. Real, Invite me on, man,
Speaker 1: I will instead. We now have stolen that idea, and
Speaker 1: now we have our moment of gray, which is suspicious,
Speaker 1: like it's been a long weekend, Rip Wilson, who gets
Speaker 1: your ire today? Oh my infinite ire is as as
Speaker 1: always reserved from Mr Constitution Shredder. It is this mysterious
Speaker 1: clack of people around musk and I think this is
Speaker 1: a reporting failure so far, and maybe it's out there
Speaker 1: more than I found, but I haven't really found it.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kara Swisher has kind of touched on some
Speaker 1: of these people who they are. But I think it
Speaker 1: is really important that the behavior of Musk at Twitter
Speaker 1: is not just Elon Musk sitting in a room with
Speaker 1: an anime WIFEO pillow, you know, and caffeine free diet
Speaker 1: coke and a sex toy. This is something going on
Speaker 1: broader than this. There are more people involved in this
Speaker 1: that r Steve Bennet says a great Tuesday night, But
Speaker 1: there are more people involved in shaping his behavior and
Speaker 1: what's going on than have been reported. And I think
Speaker 1: that is the biggest story underpinning all of this. This
Speaker 1: isn't coming out of nowhere. This isn't something random. They
Speaker 1: got around the sky and they sucked up to him
Speaker 1: and they made him feel like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: be the hero of the of the right, Elon, you
Speaker 1: can be a free speech liptard are killing Cuxlayan bro
Speaker 1: you know, hello friend, as they say, And I think
Speaker 1: that is a story that is being missed. I think
Speaker 1: that that's what I'm really pissed at is that this
Speaker 1: is not being this is being reported on the static
Speaker 1: and the spectacle and not on the signal and the substance.
Speaker 1: I agree heartily. I also, so you want to hear
Speaker 1: who my I would love to since we can't call
Speaker 1: it that. Oh my moment of fuckery because trademarked right
Speaker 1: exactly and every time we say we have to pay
Speaker 1: the Beatles four. Today my moment of fuckory is watching
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green. You may remember her as being the
Speaker 1: you mean, the speaker, Speaker designate, Marjore Taylor Green, the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House, Marjorie Taylor Green, margin of Christmas
Speaker 1: Day parade to confusion, and I mean they certainly know
Speaker 1: who she is. There's a little video for marching behind
Speaker 1: her suv down at Christmas Parade. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's good that she's around her constituents for constituents. She's
Speaker 1: absolutely waving, wearing a little red coat, marching behind an
Speaker 1: suv that says Marjorie Taylor Green and has a little
Speaker 1: reef on it. She looks very emphatic. The crowd looks
Speaker 1: very confused. None of them are waving back at her. Actually,
Speaker 1: I see one woman waving back at her. So for
Speaker 1: that the leader of the Internet, intellectual dark web. That
Speaker 1: is my moment. Effect Ray. You know when the Shapiro
Speaker 1: Green Institute of the eventually it will truly transform the
Speaker 1: American character and frankly universities will establish in hire departments
Speaker 1: for green studies. It's going to be Thank you, Rick Wilson,
Speaker 1: please come back. You are very welcome. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.